24:02
Okay, I have some bad news, everybody. Your smartphone is going to be more expensive. There's pretty much no denying it now. We are going to see price jumps across the board for the rest of the phones that we can expect in 2026 and probably into 2027. So, there's a lot to discuss here. So, let's just start with the history and what we've seen up until this point so you get a basic idea of where I'm coming from. Uh so, back in March, uh we saw the new price changes for the PlayStation 5, the PlayStation 5 Pro, and the PlayStation Portal remote player. All of them went up across the board in pretty much every country that the PlayStation products are available in. At the time, this was seen as a bad
idea, but it was seen as something that made sense because we knew that RAM prices were going up, storage prices were going up, and this seemed like a basic response to that. But, at the time, we didn't see how far this was going to go. So, after we saw this, we eventually saw that Steam hardware was going to go up in price. And so, that included the Steam Deck, uh which went up significantly. I think the top-of-the-line Steam Deck approaches $1,000 now. When it first launched, the lowest-tier product in the Steam Deck lineup, I think, was only like $350. So, huge jump there for a product that pretty much made its name on being super inexpensive. One of the things that you
can buy and just start playing, and it didn't cost you a gazillion dollars to do so. Um and then, very recently, we saw that Microsoft is updating its Xbox console prices. So, that brings up the uh the uh price by $100 and $150 for the uh 1 TB models. So, uh that's big huge jump. And then recently, this past week, we also saw the launch of the Steam Machines price, which we had been expecting to be at around $700 to $800 based on the hardware and the rest of the PC gaming market. But it didn't, it starts at $1049. And if you get a specked out version, I think it approaches $1500, making it no longer a console uh an Xbox or PlayStation or Nintendo Switch, no longer a console competitor, but a competitor against,
you know, big customized PC gaming rigs that can go, you know, $2000, $3000. So, it's cheaper, yeah, but not going to be the thing that convinces someone not to buy a PlayStation or an Xbox or anything like that. So, that was also a big surprise. And then today, we had some big news that happened uh which is that Apple has announced it is raising prices across the board on many of its products. Now, it is not raising the price of the iPhone, and that might seem like something that you say, "Well, Scott, they're probably not going to raise the price of the phone." But let me get to that. But first, look at just look at all these products that uh Apple is increasing the price for.
So, I mean, we've we've got hundreds of dollars going up. Look, the MacBook Pro uh went up to uh to $1999, a $300 increase. The Mac Studio with the M4 Max jumps up by $500. And the Mac Studio with the M3 Ultra goes up by $1300. Now, obviously, the you know, the Mac Studio with M3 Ultra was already very expensive at $4000, but still, that is a huge jump. And then the Vision Pro, already one of the most overpriced things that Apple has ever launched, is is up by $200 as well, making it even harder to convince people to buy a Vision Pro. So, yeah, we're seeing price increases across numerous companies, across the biggest names in tech, and across all sorts of different types of
tech categories, from gaming to, you know, productivity to VR, XR, all sorts of different stuff. And then, a little while ago, we heard from Nothing saying that because of these price increases for RAM and storage, uh they are not going to release the brand new CMF phone that they were going to release. So, CMF is a sub-brand of Nothing. It launches budget-minded phones that kind of have the Nothing aesthetic, uh and they're really popular. They're a real great way to get a cheap Android device that is not doesn't feel cheap. It doesn't look cheap, doesn't feel cheap, but it is cheap. Uh but Nothing has already confirmed they are not going to do that this year.
Uh Akis said this in a tweet, uh talked about how great, you know, it's been running the CMF phones, but unfortunately because of the problems that the supply chains are facing, no CMF phone this year. So, if you combine all this together, it paints a very clear picture. The phones that are coming out in 2026 are going to be more expensive. And just as a quick refresher, that includes the brand new foldables from Samsung. We're expecting a new flip-style phone. We're expecting a new book-style phone. And then, a new wide one that'll be more passport looking, uh which will compete with, of course, the iPhone 18 series, which is supposed to have a foldable phone this year. Uh those will also probably be
more expensive. The Pixel 11 series, probably coming in August, also probably going to be more expensive. Uh yeah, and all the way into 2027, I can only imagine that the Galaxy S27 series is also going to be more expensive. And remember, the Galaxy S26 series got a price increase this year already. And I expect that next year it'll go even higher. So, yeah, if you are planning on buying a phone in 2026 or into 2027 and you're expecting the pricing to be the same as it has been, it's probably not going to be. In fact, I would not be surprised if other companies start doing what Apple did here. So, Apple took a bunch of the products that it's already created, it's already launched, and raised the prices.
And this is actually a good move by Apple because what they're doing is they're increasing the revenue from the products that already exist to kind of, you know, make it so that they probably have to do less of a price increase for the iPhone. And I wouldn't I seriously wouldn't would expect other companies to start doing the same thing. I mean, we saw it from PlayStation, we saw it from Microsoft with the Xbox, we saw it we're seeing it from Steam, we're seeing it from Apple. I mean, it's only a matter of time before we start seeing it from Samsung, from Google, and from all the other companies that make Android phones that you and I use every single day. So, yeah, I just wanted to make a quick
video to talk about this and make sure that everyone understands that there's nothing we can do to stop this. If you are planning on buying a smartphone in the next year, it's going to be more expensive. And the only way to stop it, the only way to not spend that extra money is to buy a phone that has already come out, that has not had the price raised, to get a used phone, to get a refurbished phone, whatever. Something that is not buying a brand new phone or even a phone that came out in the past year. Yeah, it's it's going to be a wild ride over the next year because who knows when this RAM crisis is going to end and what it's going to look like. What is
the tech world going to look like when it's over? Yeah, interesting food for thought. So, yeah, if you were planning on buying an Android smartphone this year and are very terrified about these price increases, jump down in the comments and tell us about what phone you were thinking about buying and why you wouldn't buy it if it increased in price, or tell me about how you think that if a price if the price of the phone goes up that you'll still buy it. What phone will you still buy even if it goes up by a hundred or even two hundred dollars? Let me know in the comments and yeah, I'll see you guys later. Hopefully with better news next time.
