EFTM - Tech, Cars and Lifestyle Apr 7, 2026

Upgrading to an OLED TV and Curious about Security Cameras

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Term

budget mobile phone

They’re trying to find a cheaper phone that still does the basics. That usually means email and normal calling, not fancy extras.

Term

Android

Android is the software that runs on many phones. It’s one of the main choices people make when buying a smartphone.

Term

iPhone

An iPhone is Apple’s phone. It uses Apple’s own software, and it’s a common choice for people who want things to be simple and consistent.

Term

software updates

Updates are the fixes and improvements a phone gets from the manufacturer. They also help keep the phone safer over time.

Term

battery degrade

Phone batteries don’t last forever. Over time they hold less charge, so the phone may need charging more often.

Company

Boost Mobile

Boost Mobile is a phone service provider. They also sell refurbished phones, which can be cheaper than buying new.

Term

iCloud

iCloud is Apple’s online storage. It can keep your photos and contacts synced across your devices.

Term

Google Photos

Google Photos is an app that backs up your pictures. Once it’s set up, you can switch phones and still get your photos back easily.

Term

contacts

Contacts are your saved phone numbers. Exporting and importing them helps you move your address book to a new phone.

Term

Gmail

Gmail is Google’s email. But it can also store your contacts so they’re available when you sign in on a new phone.

Concept

electric vehicles

They’re talking about electric cars versus diesel cars. The key point is how much it costs to drive each one.

Term

diesel car

They’re using a diesel car as the comparison. Diesel is the fuel it burns, and they’re estimating what it costs to fill and drive.

Concept

range

Range means how far the car can go before it needs more fuel or charging. They use it to figure out what the cost per kilometre really is.

Car

Kia EV9

The Kia EV9 is an all-electric SUV. The point here is that charging it can be cheaper than buying diesel fuel, especially if you use solar.

Concept

charging on solar

Charging on solar means using your own solar panels to power your EV. If you’re making your own electricity, it can make driving much cheaper.

Concept

total cost of ownership / payback over time

They’re doing a “how long until it pays off” calculation. The speaker compares the extra upfront cost of an EV to the money you save on charging over the next few years.

Brand

Samsung

Samsung is a well-known electronics brand. Here, they’re talking about how Samsung devices make it easy to connect Bluetooth headphones without lots of setup.

Brand

JBL

JBL makes headphones and speakers. They’re saying JBL has a Bluetooth feature that makes connecting to your device quicker and easier.

Term

LiDAR

LiDAR is a sensor that uses lasers to measure how far away things are. It helps a system “see” the world in 3D, which is useful for things like driver-assistance and self-driving features.

Term

E-SIM

An eSIM is a SIM card built into the device. Instead of swapping a tiny card, you can set up your mobile service online, but you need carrier support where you live.

Term

battery drain

Battery drain just means your phone battery runs down faster. Here they’re talking about how the phone uses extra power when it’s trying to find a mobile signal.

Brand

LG

LG is a well-known TV brand. If it’s an “LG OLED,” it means the TV uses OLED screen technology from LG.

Concept

OLED

OLED is a type of TV screen where each tiny pixel can light up on its own. That usually makes the picture look more vibrant and the dark parts look really black, so colors can look extra intense.

Term

wider color gamut

Color gamut is basically the range of colors a TV can show. A wider gamut means more colors can look richer and more accurate.

Company

Arlo

Arlo makes home security cameras. It’s the kind of system you can watch from your phone, and it often stores videos either locally or with a paid service.

Company

Kogan is an Australian electronics brand. The story here is basically that they didn’t build the cameras or TVs themselves at first—they had them made by another factory and then sold them under their own name.

Company

Eufy

Eufy makes smart home security cameras that you control with an app. The host is saying that, a few years ago, there was a serious mix-up where one person could see another person’s camera feed after logging in.

Term

Wi-Fi camera

A Wi‑Fi camera is a security camera that connects to your home internet wirelessly. You can usually view it from your phone, and where the video is saved depends on the system.

Company

Ring

Ring is a brand of home security cameras and doorbells. It’s one of several companies that offer alerts to your phone.

LIVE

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Great every company. Thank you for listening. Thank you for downloading and welcome deep into April folks.

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Bunch of calls to get through today from everything from TVs to headphones to smartphones and travel sims and more.

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Tech, cars, lifestyle. This is the EFTM podcast with Trevor Long.

You can text Trev now thanks to Vodafone on 0477657657.

Looking forward to taking your calls. If you've got a tech question, you can get in touch.

Nice and easy and I'd love to hear from you. Greg is on the line today. Greg.

Hi Trevor, how are you?

I'm really good. What can I do for you?

I'm looking for a good budget mobile phone that does emails, phones, chase a match.

It doesn't be a gaming phone. I'm getting old and getting closer to retirement. I want something simple.

Yeah. And so are you an Android or an iPhone user today?

At the moment I'm iPhone. I've been iPhone since day one. They came out.

And is that something that you want to try and keep doing?

I don't really mind. It depends on what's available. It's the cost factor.

Well, these are a budget in mind then. That's a better question.

Yeah, there is a budget. Yeah.

What's the budget?

I don't really want to go much more than about eight.

Eight hundred.

Outright. Yeah.

Yep. And mate, that's such a great idea. Honestly, eight hundred bucks outright.

You're a happy man. You know, you'll get a lot out of it.

So look, we should be clear. There is a nine hundred and ninety nine dollar iPhone, the 17E.

That's brand new. So that's two hundred dollars over budget.

Here's what's interesting though. The last year's version of that, the 16E is now eight hundred and ninety nine bucks.

Now, today it's eight ninety nine. I just wouldn't mind guessing that over the course of the month or so ahead,

you might find some good deals on that.

And the iPhone 16E, the good thing about it, right, is that it's got a reasonably recent chip in it.

So it's going to get software updates for the next, you know, five years plus.

The only thing that's going to go wrong with it is, you know, the battery over time will degrade.

You could easily get that replaced over, you know, in five years from now.

It'll become a brand new chip again.

So, you know, my eyes would be straight on the iPhone 16E.

Second to that is looking at, you know, whether or not you might buy a refurbished iPhone from somewhere.

So Boost Mobile is a great place to look for those.

So Boost Mobile, they have a shop where they sell refurbished phones.

Maybe there's a iPhone 14 or 15 that is within your price range.

And then in reality, mate, your other option is to go, well, hang on a minute.

I could actually spend less than 800 and get myself an Android phone and, you know,

really start to see, you know, a bit of a saving there, which you're not here to save,

but it'll certainly, you know, it will save you money given your price point.

And, mate, it'll do everything that you want it to do because that's the thing is you're in an ecosystem now.

But, mate, the Android phones, so for example, at $800, and you could have a little squeeze at this.

What I do is I got a JB Hi-Fi. I search up Android phones and I put a maximum budget of $800.

And then you see the Motorola Edge 50.

Mate, this is a beautiful phone.

Now, it's a big screen. It's got like a triple lens camera.

Remember, the iPhone 16 brand new is only a single lens camera.

The Google Pixel 9a is $800.

Now, that's a year old, but it's got the same guts as the one that just came out, the 10a.

I absolutely love the Nothing phone.

There's a couple of those in the sub $800 price point.

So, mate, if you walk in a JB Hi-Fi or Harvies and you just feel a couple of these phones in the handy,

okay, this Nothing, this Google, this Motorola, I think you'll be quite surprised by how nice,

how premium they feel and what their capabilities are.

And look, I wouldn't spend, given what you want out of this phone,

this is essentially a retirement phone, you know, I wouldn't spend less than $600

because I want you to have something that is going to last you five years, right?

So, if you look at all the phones between basically $550, $600 and $800,

there is really just Google Nothing, Motorola.

There is a Samsung there. I'm not a massive fan of it compared to those other ones I've mentioned.

But the Nothing, the Motorola, the Google, they're really good.

And all you need is to give yourself two weeks of transitioning from iPhone to Android

and you'll be across it in no time, mate.

Because messaging is the same, email is the same, photos is the same,

it's just about finding what the app is called or how it works and navigating, you know,

sometimes you've got to swipe right from the edge of the screen to go back

instead of hitting a back arrow, whatever, but it'll do everything you want it to do.

Where are all your photos and contacts saved, you know?

At the moment on the iPhone and the iPad.

And they're locally or are they in the iCloud?

Locally.

So what I would investigate again, so don't look at this as a one-day challenge,

this is going to take you some time.

What I would investigate is I would firstly install on your iPad and iPhone Google Photos

and synchronize Google Photos with your photo library of your current phone and iPad.

And so that'll upload all your photos into the Google Cloud and whatever phone you buy,

brand new iPhone or Google phone or Motorola,

the Google Photos app will synchronize all your photos and you're done, that's awesome.

Your contacts, what you want to do is you want to research exporting all your contacts

so you want to export them into a file so you can then import them into Gmail.

And mate, once your photos are in Google Photos and your contacts are in Gmail,

trust me, it doesn't matter what phone you buy, you'll be sweet.

Right, cool.

What about robust sort of phone?

Is one of those a better take sort of heavier iPhone?

Look, you know, I don't think any of the ones I've mentioned to you are any worse off than an iPhone.

The only difference is an iPhone, there are a million options for cases,

whereas the number of options for a Motorola will be less than a Google.

But for example, the nothing phone and the Motorola phone come with a case in the box.

Now, it's just a clear kind of plastic thing,

but I've been using the nothing phone for the last two weeks

and the case just makes me feel like I've got some protection.

It's not going to survive a drop from a two-story building,

but it'll survive a drop out of my pocket, no dramas at all.

That's cool, that sounds reasonable.

Yeah, I mean, it's basic protection.

And the other thing you do is get a screen protector.

So use the case, use a screen protector

so that in a year and a half when the screen protector is cracked

and the case is chipping, get a new case, get a new screen protector,

and you've got yourself a new phone.

Yeah, I haven't noticed.

I used to do that with the iPhone all the time.

Exactly.

So you've got options, mate.

You've got options.

That sounds all reasonable.

It sounds all believable.

It sounds all affordable.

And mate, you just need to give it time.

Don't be frustrated by it.

If you switch to Android, don't be frustrated.

Just take your time.

Learn something new every day about the phone

and you might end up going,

mate, this is better than an iPhone.

A lot of people do.

Oh, cool.

Well, I think it's a good advice.

I appreciate it.

Good luck, Greg.

Safe travels, mate.

Take care. See you, mate.

Cheers, mate.

Good on you.

Great to hear from him.

And yeah, I mean, that's the thing.

It's tough.

Change is hard.

No, no one loves change,

but it's when it comes to money,

I get really frustrated by people

who will set a budget or complain about costs

and then not be willing.

And I've been talking about this

on the radio in the last week.

Telstra's prices have gone up four bucks a month.

And if you're not willing to change,

then you're not allowed to complain about the price.

Sorry, you're just not.

Now, that doesn't apply to EVs, obviously,

because you can complain about petrol

and there's not much choice

because you can't just go and get a new car.

That's not an every year thing for a lot of people.

But if you complain about petrol prices

and then within time you buy another petrol car,

stop your bloody whinging

because you've now learned that the savings are there.

And look, I'll give you an example.

I was mucking around with this last week

on the Today Show.

I was doing some numbers

and these are just rough numbers.

I'm going to talk electric vehicles for a minute,

but it's cost a diesel car with 110 litre tank

at $3.20 for diesel.

It's going to cost you 350 bucks to fill up.

If it has a range of 1300 kilometres,

that's 27 cents per kilometre.

If you have an electric car

and you charge it at a public charger

for 65 cents per kilowatt,

it's costing you 12 cents per kilometre

for 500 Ks of range.

So 12 cents per kilometre,

that's 44% less than a diesel car.

If you charge that same car at home,

plugged into power, off the grid,

at 29 cents per kilowatt,

it's 5.7 cents per kilometre.

That's 78% less than a diesel car.

I'm talking about like a Prado versus a Kia EV9 here.

And if you charge it on solar and at low cost,

it could be even less,

like 90% less than the cost of a diesel's fuel.

Now, at 18,000 kilometres a year,

that works out to be a saving of $3,800 a year.

So over four years,

you've paid the price of the premium of the electric car.

I just, yeah, I'm not seeing why people don't get it.

Anyway, we digress into cost of living pressures

and the fuel crisis.

But so be it, folks.

You've got to look around.

You've got to be willing.

This is the EFTM podcast.

Great to have you company

and help you out wherever I can.

Fernando's on the line.

Can I, Fernando?

Can I mine Hawaii up?

Yeah, really good.

What can I do for you?

Well, I was asking you about the earbuds.

I've been having problems with,

I tried a couple of different brands

and they kept busting like you can't hear

properly from one of them.

Wait, so they're not physically breaking.

They're just, the connection is failing

so that they're only going to the left or the right ear.

Yeah, the sound, the sound just drops.

What brands have you tried?

I tried Samsung and I tried JBL.

Samsung and JBL.

And what phone have you got?

Samsung.

Really?

And so you're doing this with like the Samsung buds?

Yeah.

It's kind of fascinating because it's the same thing

that happened to both?

To both of them.

Different earbuds though.

Different left and right or was it the left for both times?

Yeah, left and right.

The Samsung, I passed the left one

and then JBL was on the right one.

Right.

And then doing like a beeping noise, you know?

Like they do when they,

they lost a bit of battery

but it was fully charged and it still was doing like that.

I don't know how it's playing.

It was just like a beep, a long beep.

Hang on.

So you got the same long beep on both of them?

No, no.

No, just on the JBL was that problem with the beep.

The Samsung just, the volume was just low on it, you know?

Did you, have you tried, did you just give up on them

or did you try repairing them each?

No, I, on the Samsung, I give up.

So I got the JBLs and the JBLs, I got refunded.

You're right.

Interesting because I mean, look, I've had it happen.

So what happens a lot with headphones is

you're actually pair with one of the earphones

and then the other one kind of attaches to it.

Right.

Whereas I've noticed, what was the last pair I used?

It might have been a set of Sony's.

You pair to the case and it kind of then establishes

the connection for both the earbuds as one.

One.

I mean, it sounds, the thing is,

it does sound like it was two separate problems.

Sounds like in the Samsung it was very low audio,

whereas on the JBL you were getting a tone or a message.

So it doesn't actually sound like the same problem.

Do you think?

Yeah, I don't think it's the same problem because it was different.

Like you say, different characteristics on each of them.

And to be clear, you'd, you'd, you'd charge the headphones

for the JBLs and check that.

Had you used the JBL app?

Yeah, yeah, through the app, through the app.

And did it show good battery on both?

Yeah, yeah.

Interesting.

I mean, look, the only thing is to try another pair.

But you're going to, and that, that, look, I think here's the thing.

You need to try another pair.

And if another pair has the same problem, then we know that it's the phone.

Yeah, yeah, definitely.

But it's very strange.

There are some audio settings in a phone and they're like accessibility settings.

So under settings and accessibility, there can be hearing options.

So there might be a mono mode.

There could be a balance.

There's different things that might be in there, but it's unusual.

They would be turned on.

And also you can reset all the network settings to kind of, you know,

give it a, give it a clean slate.

So the question is, you know, what, what sort of headphones are you looking at?

Have you got a budget in mind?

Yeah, that's fine.

As long as I got good sound on it, I don't care, you know, really.

That's why I ask you what, what brand should I try or keep trying with this?

Or what, what, what do you think is, is it a brand thing or is it a, I don't know.

Look, I genuinely think that the brands you've chosen are excellent, right?

So there's no reason why the two that you've chosen shouldn't work,

especially the Samsung's, because they should pair really easily.

They should do that, that pop up pairing option.

You know, it should be, it shouldn't even need to go into the settings

for both those sets of headphones.

JBL now do the kind of Bluetooth pop up, top version.

What, how much were the, were the JBLs that you bought?

Which, which model were they, do you know?

Ah, no, I can't remember.

200 or something.

Yeah, okay.

And the 200s, yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, the only other brand I would probably suggest you look at is maybe Sony.

There are, yeah, I'm just trying to think out loud for you,

but I mean, it just feels like you need to try another brand to make sure

that it's not the phone.

Yeah.

Weirdly.

I think that's what you need to do.

There's some really nice, nothing as a brand, nothing.

Make some really nice headphones as well, about 250.

There might be some cheaper ones as well.

But mate, honestly, I think that's probably the best bet is to go right.

I'm going to buy these and see how they go.

And if that same problem occurs, then we know that it's something on the phone

and you're going to need to do like a network reset or a factory reset,

or it's got a failure in the Bluetooth module.

And then it's a matter of, are you happy with the ones you bought?

Or do you try and get a refund again?

So Matt, I'd probably look at the Sony's or the nothing's

and, and see if you have the same problem.

All right.

Yeah, I'll give it a go.

All right.

Good luck for Nando.

Thanks a lot, Dreb.

Cheers mate, no worries at all.

Thanks for listening.

Bye-bye.

Cheers, buddy.

That's a strange one because I've definitely had it happen with headphones,

but I haven't had it happen with multiple sets of headphones.

So that's the, that's the challenging part of that one.

Helping Australians with tech questions for over 15 years,

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Trev.

Anthony's on the line.

Good day, Anthony.

Hi, Trevor.

How are you?

Really good mate.

What can I do for you?

Excellent.

I've got a question regarding eSIMs and before,

and you recently been talking about the new iPhones

and, and that maybe the next version will only have eSIMs.

Yep.

Now I've got a question when you travel with eSIMs.

I do have it.

I have an iPhone 12 at the moment.

Yep.

eSIM compatible.

Yes.

And a physical eSIM.

And I have my physical eSIM in it all the time.

Yes.

And when I travel, I put in an,

I activate an eSIM in the country that I'm in.

Yep.

And so I effectively have two phone numbers.

Yep.

But when you have a phone which only has an eSIM,

does that mean you only have one phone number?

Oh, great question.

So the simple answer is no,

but I want to caveat that it will vary phone by phone

because there may be some, I mean,

there may be some lower cheaper brands

that one eSIM at a time can be active.

But on an iPhone, for example,

now, again, a caveat is it may have changed over time,

but I think on the most recent iPhones anyway,

and I'm pretty sure it's been the way the whole time.

You can have eight eSIMs.

You can have, like I could download an eSIM

for every country in the world.

Eight different countries, right?

And then you can only have two active at a time.

So yes, you can have two numbers.

So when I land in, let's say I,

on the phone that I'm talking to you on now,

which I call my content phone, right?

It's got a local Boost Mobile SIM here for Australia.

It's also got a fully prepaid AT&T SIM for America,

which, you know, I get debited every month.

It's like it's a normal mobile number over there.

And it's deactivated right now

because it doesn't roam, there's no point, right?

Let's say I also had a Vodafone eSIM on this device.

I could have in Australia, as you mentioned,

I could have the Boost physical SIM

and the Vodafone eSIM active at the same time,

and no dramas at all.

Both numbers will work and one of them is used for data.

When I land in America, I could choose,

do I want Boost and AT&T,

or do I want Vodafone and AT&T, or do I just want AT&T?

So just like you do now,

you choose what's on and what's in the slot,

but you do it in the settings

and it's so damn easy to do.

Okay, that was, yeah, because I was really worried.

That's one of the reasons I didn't want to get rid of my iPhone 12

with the concept of just eSIMs

because I really rely on the two SIMs.

Traveling is fantastic.

I'm just searching and the iPhone 12

appears to only allow one eSIM active at any time.

Yeah, but that's all right because I have my physical sleep.

That's why you've got your physical sleep.

So all I'm saying is don't go thinking you can have multiple.

Again, you can download multiple eSIMs,

but you can only have one active.

Whereas iPhone 13 onwards,

whether they have a SIM slot or not,

will operate with two eSIMs if you want.

Yeah, because I was actually...

Two lines.

Have you ever been to America and you see the ads for their mobile?

It's a two-line option that they call a phone number or a SIM a line.

And so essentially on an iPhone 13 onwards,

any of them can have two lines active at any time.

If the phone has a physical SIM tray,

it can be the physical SIM and an eSIM or it can be two eSIMs.

So on the iPhone Air, which is our first iPhone with eSIM only,

then I can download...

I can't look at mine.

I've got multiple SIMs on it,

but I can only turn two of them on, which is all you need.

Yeah, well, that's right.

That's right because it's fantastic for traveling.

It's a great option.

Because I was thinking of changing carriers here in Australia.

Right.

So if I do change carriers,

make sure I get a physical SIM for the new carrier.

No?

Well, I mean, if you're going to keep the iPhone 12,

but are you talking about upgrading the phone though?

Well, when I convinced the Minister of Finance and War, yeah.

I love that term so much.

Very apt.

Well, mate, get her one.

What are you talking about, mate?

Well, yeah, it's the other way.

Yeah, no, I'm struggling.

I'm really struggling.

I love my iPhone 12 Pro.

Oh, it's a pro.

I was going to say, because if it's an iPhone 12 mini,

that's why I'd be still there,

because I love the size of that phone.

Yeah.

No, it's the Pro and I just don't know.

And you see these new...

I definitely say, I always stay iPhone,

but I don't know whether I need to get the Pro,

but I love features of the Pro,

and then is the Pro overkill, so I'm just stuck.

The jump from the 12 to the 17 is remarkable, mate.

It's a vastly better phone.

There's no question.

To the which one?

To the 17, to the most recent, for example, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

There's just no question.

But, you know, that said, I don't know whether you're...

Did you get the Pro for photography,

or why did you get the Pro?

For the photography and the LiDAR.

Okay.

Which I never came to fruition.

I had these grand ideas for LiDAR.

Grand ideas, we all do, yeah.

So, just the 17 Pro, the standard Pro, not the Max,

or the Max, they're exactly the same,

just different screen size.

The thing is, you're talking chipset improvement,

so speed of running apps, all the AI stuff is much faster,

camera is remarkable,

and you can go E-SIM only,

or mate, you can hold out for the 18

and see whether they go full E-SIM.

I still don't think we're ready in Australia to go full E-SIM.

I just think, I know they've done it in America

and it seems to have gone well,

but see Americans, weirdly,

there is a mobile phone store on every corner there.

So, I think they're very used to just going in

and getting it done.

Whereas in Australia, we kind of,

we just get it sent to us in the post

and all that kind of stuff,

and I think the E-SIM process is still a bit unknown to people.

So, I just don't know if we're ready to go full E-SIM yet.

But when we are ready, mate, you'll be ready,

because it doesn't matter where you go,

if you get a new phone,

you'll be right with the dual E-SIMs operating.

Yeah, because for travelling, that's just fantastic.

What I do is go to, if I'm staying long time in another country,

I actually just buy a local E-SIM

using the local as a native living MIS

and I find them really good value and better roaming and safe.

But if I'm short, I'll use like LA

or something like that if I'm just going for two weeks.

So, it's just so convenient.

It's so convenient.

It's so good and that's why I love the E-SIM concept

and you'll be fine when you are full E-SIM, mate.

The switching from one phone to another

is easy on the telcos here in Australia now.

Adding a local one, turning it off, disabling it in the settings,

it's all easy, mate, so you're good to go.

A question I have, and no one's been able to answer,

do you think it uses more power when you're running the E-SIMs?

No, no way.

Because every time I've been in Europe and I'm running on E-SIMs,

the phone absolutely cooks and overheats.

I think, look, my answer to that would be,

can you genuinely put hand on heart

and say you're using the phone exactly the same way as you normally are?

I'm using more photography.

Mind you, but also the flip side is,

every time I go on there, it's been a stinking hot summer.

But the battery, and it's an iPhone 12

and I think they run hot.

They do, there's no question, but I don't believe the E-SIMs

have any influence on that.

It doesn't use any more extra power.

I didn't know whether the two antennas

were like extra drain on the battery, heating the battery up.

I don't think so.

Well, I'll stop you, but we're talking about using both,

so your local SIM is still active?

My local SIM is active, waiting for any phone call from Australia perhaps.

I would say that is absolutely costing you battery then,

because you've got to remember what's happening with your phone

is your phone is going, oh, where's the mobile?

Where's the mobile?

It's like a dog looking for a bone, right?

Searching, yeah.

And you're doing it with two sets of antennas.

So yeah, it is doing double the work.

I've tried searching for that answer,

and to me it makes sense logically,

but I haven't been able to get definitive answers.

Well, you and I have definitively solved it.

It's definitely using more, not a lot,

but it's definitely using more power to have two SIMs running.

It doesn't matter where they are or how they work.

It's making two network connections.

So at the moment, until I change phone,

if I want to change carrier, I'm going for a physical SIM.

Stick with a physical SIM for sure.

Excellent.

All right, mate, good luck.

Solved another one.

That's what we're here for.

Thanks very much.

Thank you very much.

No worries at all.

Yeah, I hadn't thought about a lot of those things,

so it is good to kind of unpack it.

And yeah, get to the bottom of it.

There you go.

E-SIMs, folks.

Nice and easy.

Great, happy company.

Happy to help wherever I can.

David's on the line today, David.

We do.

Mate, what can I do for you?

Well, I think I messaged you the other day,

hoping you'd give me an answer on a TV

because we had a Samsung 82-inch TV,

which decided to blow the panel last week.

Oh, no.

How old was it?

We were seven and a half years.

Not a bad run, you've got to be honest.

Seven and a half years, mate.

She's the last one that did make.

Well, I don't know, did that?

I mean, yes, because I've got a 14-year-old TV in our bedroom,

so yes, they did, obviously.

But then again, I don't watch it, you know, much.

So that probably helps.

So 82-inch, that would have been enormous at the time.

Do you remember what you paid for that?

Yeah, about $5,900.

Really? That's not bad.

Well, I think it was on sale.

It was reduced.

It was a JB special.

So I was actually in the fortunate position

of having a wife who wanted a larger TV

because I was looking at the 65s and 75s.

Wow, can you get her to talk to the wife conglomerate

and spread the word?

So hang on, so your 82-inch goes fuzz.

The wife was supportive back then.

I need to know, what did you do?

What did you double down with?

Where have you landed for a replacement TV?

Well, to start with, we decided to try and see if we could get it repaired

because we didn't know how much it was going to be.

And the panel was about two and a half grand.

That doesn't include labor.

So I went one shop, when I rang them up and they said,

can you bring it in?

And I said, no, it won't fit in the car.

And they said, well, we don't come out.

We don't do house calls.

Anyway, we never ended up having anyone come out.

But we then started looking at high-sense and another Samsung.

And we ended up with an LG.

You went around, you went fully around the traps.

Nice.

Yeah, we've got an 83-inch LG OLED.

Oh, wow. Gorgeous.

And that's around about the same price we've paid for the 82-inch Samsung.

So just under six grand.

Yeah, right.

That's, I mean, look, that is, you know, that's a big TV.

When do you take delivery?

Oh, going through yesterday by the, by JB Hi-Fi.

So yeah, they sent someone around.

It got delivered on Saturday.

They said, leave it in the box.

Don't touch it.

Delivery guys will do it.

Anything goes wrong.

We cover it all and nothing went wrong.

And it's up on the wall on the same TV mount that the old one was on.

It was great.

You, I mean, let's be honest.

The Samsung was a beautiful TV, I'm sure.

I've got no doubt.

It was top of the line at the time.

But seven years later and pumping up to OLED,

you must now be going, wow.

What I'm wondering is if the colors are real

or they're just something I've never seen before.

Like the reds are so red.

I was watching the replay of, I haven't actually seen it.

So don't tell me the result,

but the formula on Grand Prix from Sunday I was watching

and the Ferrari red was really red.

Oh, it's just, it's just amazing.

It's almost exaggerated.

Is it too red though?

Like that's, you got to be careful with that sometimes.

Like, I often turn to, I've got a, like a stunning Samsung,

like an 8K TV here in the office.

And sometimes I turn it when I go, you know what?

I'm going to go to the picture modes and I'm going to find one

that feels more natural to me.

You know, like sometimes I feel like it's dull.

Sometimes I feel like it's too bright.

So, you know, sometimes a modern TV is actually trying

itself to find the right picture mode for you.

And you're actually better off finding a mode that you like.

So it's, it's worth,

it's worth opening up the picture settings and finding,

don't take it too much, but just go with their defaults,

like cinema, sport, et cetera, et cetera.

See whether there's, you know,

a setting that makes you feel better.

I was looking at the Samsung's and they said that the Samsung's

have a real true theater looking color,

not exaggerated, et cetera.

But I don't, I don't know why we went with LG.

I think LG got, had all the top ratings of,

in the, like, in choice.

Were you looking at a Samsung OLED or a Samsung Neo QLED?

Do you remember?

I started even before the QLED.

The, is it the Chrome?

No, the Chrome, lower than QLED.

Crystal, UHD.

Crystal, and that was dull.

Yeah, no, that's, that's not good.

I was fooled out of that straight away.

Mate, if you've come from a,

put it this way, if you ended an OLED,

you were never going to love a crystal UHD.

No, I didn't like it when I saw it,

but what I looked at was the price of a panel.

I thought, oh, crystal I can get

for less than the price of a panel.

Yeah, and that makes sense.

That's the way I started thinking.

It's logical, completely.

And what I love is that you ended up

just spending the same amount

as you spent seven and a half years ago,

which is kind of, that's a great thing

because what you've proven is in seven and a half years,

you can, you essentially get the same size TV,

but you've gone from getting what was probably

the premium LED technology

to the premium TV technology.

Like OLED is definitely the best picture you'll ever see, right?

There's nothing better.

And I've said this, and you know what?

Samsung, this year, had more OLED than ever before.

Both Samsung, Hisense, and a little bit of LG there,

they're pushing out this new thing called RGB,

which is the closest thing we're going to get

to OLED out of an LED panel.

And it has a wider color gamut,

so if you think the red you're seeing now are good,

then on an RGB, they're theoretically better.

But the point is that you only have one TV in your home.

And what I think is critical is to make it look

how you want it to look.

So you're like, what's the Formula One,

and find the picture mode that you like for the Formula One.

And then whack the news on a night and go,

well, that's too dull or whatever,

and find the picture mode that suits you.

So you find a balance, and you find the right picture for you.

Because it doesn't matter what the store thought,

or what the LG thought,

what matters is what you want from the TV.

And just getting used to the remote control is the hard part.

This is like the remote control.

There's no arrows to going left and right.

It's like you have to...

The magic mouse.

It's almost like a mouse in the air.

Yeah, mate. Once you get used to it,

you'll think, why isn't everyone doing this?

Because if you push the home button,

and you present it with all these options,

and then you jiggle the remote, and you go,

well, I can click on that, I can click on that,

it's made. It is so much faster.

Typing on the screen, all that kind of stuff.

I'm surprised no one else has done it.

But it's funny.

You feel weird doing it.

I was trying to get the mouse to move left yesterday,

but there's a control in the middle

that's up and down, but not left and right.

And eventually when I moved my hand,

oh, really?

And has it got everything you need in it?

It's got all the apps you need.

There's nothing if you felt...

Hang on a minute.

Most of the time I use my Apple TV.

Oh, wow.

Mate, load up a movie

that has solid dark scenes.

I know, weirdly, I remember this...

I don't know why I remember it,

but I remember it might have been halfway during COVID,

watching, I think it was called Greyhound.

It was a Tom Hanks warship movie,

and it was on Apple TV.

I think because it was meant to go to cinemas,

and they went, hang on a minute,

we'll just pump it out on Apple TV.

Now, watch that movie. It's a great movie,

but then at the end of the movie, I remember the titles.

I remember the kind of credit scenes,

but it was like a black screen

with the white text coming out the middle.

But in the left-hand bottom corner,

there'd be like a beautiful old photo of...

a black and white photo of someone

actually part of the Greyhound war boat.

And then that had fade to black,

and then the top left hand would...

So these pictures would fade in and out.

Now, what I noticed on my high-sensitivity

at the time was it didn't cope well with that

because it was struggling to have this deep black,

these white text,

and then these kind of low gray scale.

It was really struggling to light the screen specifically.

What you'll see

with an OLED is stunning

because it knows how to produce

a black picture, a gray picture,

a white picture side-by-side,

and you'll never look at the TV again differently.

It's so good.

What I want to do is I want to watch something like...

I know it's an old movie, The Eagle has landed,

for instance, with Clint Eastwood and Richard Burton,

where at the end they have all the credits in red,

and they're so hard to read sometimes on some TVs.

I wonder how long... how it would look on an OLED.

Mate, and then fire up Top Gun Maverick.

Wow.

Something that's been overly produced.

The Formula One movie, the F1 movie, look at that.

That would look spectacular.

I can't wait for that one.

I've seen that one at the cinema, but...

Mate, you've now got a cinema at home. What are you talking about?

No, I mean, I've had it for...

I've had it on big TV, but when I made it,

I said, look, I've got free tickets to the movies.

You know what I'm talking about?

For sure, but you've now got an 83-inch OLED, mate.

Trust me, you'll opt for that most of the time.

Well, congratulations.

Mate, that's a good TV. Enjoy it.

Thank you.

I was actually hoping to get your advice on the other two,

but I ended up...

You've landed in the right spot. Absolutely.

What's your opinion, though, of HiSense?

Because a lot of people were saying,

they're great, but Chinese-branded.

They don't have really the same reliability.

I was reading reviews of people saying how...

That's insanity. It's insanity.

Mate, they've got a three-year warranty.

No other TV offers that.

That's how they back their products.

I've had a HiSense on the...

Like our lounge room wall now,

it's got to be three and a half years.

It's like stunning. Still love it. No issues.

I've never had...

Trust me, I don't get every customer service complaint,

but I get customer service complaints from companies,

people who have issues,

and no, I can't remember a complaint with HiSense at all.

My only issue is that you can never read...

You can never see a review online.

A good review.

Because everyone always puts on,

oh, this is so crappy. Customer service is crappy.

You don't see someone sending a review...

Oh, yeah, well...

So all you have to see is bad reviews.

From individuals, yeah.

I read a lot of reviews on HiSense.

Everyone was saying how the customer service

was terrible, blah, blah, blah.

I didn't read one that said, oh, I love the TV.

I mean, I'm going to do a good review of mine

once I've got used to it and happy with it.

I'm going to say how...

I wish everyone was like you and would leave those reviews

for all different brands.

I do the same with restaurants.

But most people are inclined

to say negative things online

about a company when they've had a bad experience,

but they're not inclined to just suddenly say

a positive thing, you see?

Yeah.

Well, I'm going to be bringing up another company

because I just got my garage door fixed yesterday

and the guy who came out to fix it,

he did such a good job on going to his company

and see how happy I am with it.

Mate, we should really make that the mentality.

You know, it just matters so much

because if you know what,

as an individual when someone says, hey,

we've got a call today, good job,

it just makes you feel great.

How good is it? And that should matter.

It should matter to their performance reviews

and all that kind of stuff.

I think it's more...

I think sometimes good reviews are more important

than bad reviews.

Potentially, yeah, but you've got to...

This is the challenges right if there's too many good ones.

People go, there's too many good ones.

There's something going on. It's been...

It's rigged.

One of my friends always says they're fake.

Fake reviews.

Hey, before I let you go, just quickly,

because you're on your AirPods, I want to just test something

because I've spoken to a lot of people about this.

Take your AirPods out and pick the phone up.

I want to hear the difference in the quality of the sound.

So taking them out and putting them in the charger

and we'll just answer the call.

You shouldn't hang up the phone. No, that's right.

Hang on.

We hope not anyway.

Are you there?

Yes, I'm there now.

Yeah, okay. I'm now not on the AirPods.

See, I would say to you,

it's very clear to me that you're on a better line.

Now, it's probably closer

for most people to detect,

but it's definitely a better quality.

If you tell me about your LG TV quickly,

people will hear the difference.

Okay, so you want me to tell you how good my LG TV is?

Because you just love it.

I love it. I love the colours.

I've got this...

I'm actually watching it now.

I've got one of the Apple TV screensavers

and I'm with the Green Bushland.

Oh, yes.

I'll tell you which one.

I always default to the LAX one.

The one that flies over LA.

I'm looking at the one along the island of Hawaii.

Beautiful.

And it's beautiful green.

But with the AirPods,

I've got the AirPods Pro,

the new...

Pro3s.

Yeah, the Pro3s.

The translation.

Well, they're the best ones I've heard,

but often people think I've got my AirPods in.

I'll be fine, but the quality's not as good.

And I've proven it here,

but they sound fine, mate.

You wouldn't stop using them for calls based on what you've heard here.

I've spoken on some aftermarket ones,

which I tried out,

and I could hear the person on the other end beautifully.

The speakers are great,

but when I spoke, they couldn't hear at

or it was crackle, crackle, crackle, crackle

coming through on their end.

So the microphones aren't terribly good.

Good, man. Thanks for helping us with the testing.

Good luck with the TV, mate.

Thank you.

There you go.

We have a lot, Stephen and I,

when we're taking calls as well.

They think they're doing the right thing by being on AirPods,

but actually, quality's not that great.

Now, the AirPods Pro3 are excellent,

because that was pretty discernible difference,

but not enough to be annoying.

So I think they pass with flying colours

as a call

set of headphones.

Mate, really good. What can I do for you?

I was just after a bit of advice,

looking at perimeter

security cameras for the house,

and I know you

I've had a look at Arlo

and those sort of cameras,

but I was just

looking at one that was

on one of the social media sites,

just to see

Kelco, have you heard of them?

I think I've seen ads for them.

Is it like a family that promote them?

Is their product they created?

Is that how it comes across?

It seems to be coming through like that.

Look, I definitely

haven't tried them.

I've seen ads for them and others similar to them.

And I'd like great respect to someone

for doing their best to create a product

and bring it to market and sell it to Aussies

and all that kind of stuff.

But my challenge is

they're unlikely to be manufacturing cameras, right?

They're more likely to have found

a great factory in China

who are making lots of cameras

and they're white labelled.

So they've gone, we'll take six of those

and put this brand on it and here's the manual

and how Kogan started.

Look, let's be clear, that's how Kogan started.

He went to China, found a factory

that would make TVs, put his logo on it

and he said to them, because the manual

he's told me this story where the manual was

and this is trying not to be racist,

but he said the manual was in Chinglish.

Like it was half Chinese, half English

and it didn't make sense.

So he said to the factory, he said, listen,

because they wouldn't deal with him,

because he was new on a start-up

and they didn't want to order enough.

He said, if you take my order for X quantity,

I will rewrite your manual into plain English

so you can use it for anywhere in the world, right?

So he was helping them

and so the thing is there's factories

everywhere in China that can do these things from.

Why would I be somewhat worried about these?

Because security,

weirdly, it's not because they're not a great camera

and they don't offer a great app,

but what guarantee can they give

that these are hack-free,

risk-free on that kind of thing, right?

That's my only concern

and look, they may have heard from the factory

this, that and the other, but see,

if you look at Uniden, Swan,

Arlo, Google, Amazon,

these companies are selling

millions of units.

They have millions of units in the market

and they are constantly under attack.

So they know what the attack vectors are

and they know how to protect the cameras

and the one other example I would give is Eufy.

Now, Eufy,

you know, good brand,

but four or five years ago they had an issue

where when you logged into the app,

you saw someone else's cameras, not yours.

Okay, okay.

Now, that was just a stuff up.

Someone made a mistake, software error,

whatever you want to call it,

but it's planted that seed in my mind

and so I, you know, I struggle

to love the Eufy brand,

but I expect that they've

absolutely tightened everything about their products

to do that. I can't imagine

that this lovely family

have or are able to get

the absolute same guarantee

for their, the security

of their systems and their apps.

So if you, have you ever bought a smart home,

like a light or a smart home

product from like Kogan or Arby Normano

anywhere?

I haven't, but

no, I just

I've got a few smart products, but not

not the lighting, because I've got

seed us in my home.

Right, so when you buy

these things, so if you buy a Kogan smart

home or a Konect home,

Konect life home or whatever it is, the laser brand,

a bunch of different brands

and you download their app, it's

the same app. It's just called something

else and rebranded. It's a white label system, right?

And the app for that

is called Toya.

And I imagine this is the same. I imagine the app

is just the same as some other brand and

whatever. So look, if it's

amazing value, then

and price is really

critical to you, then, mate

do your best. And I'm looking at their

website. There's like a five, no,

five pack of these, what look like

pan and tilt cameras for 500

bucks. Like that is

that is the value.

Yeah, well that was the interest because

they

well, some of them are solar, they've already got

solar capabilities down.

There'd be change in batteries and things like that

but the fact that they

can pan and tilt was a bit of an interest

and they follow

like an object or something

and might be moving in the yard or something like

that. How many cameras do you need?

Need?

You're not looking at this going, they've got a 10 camera pack

I want them all. How many do you need?

Three. Right, so you need

three cameras. Have you looked at the price

of, say, UniDent

or RioLink?

Well, I suppose that was the reason for the call

just to see what else or what you

would recommend. I mean, because I've seen

Swan in the marketplace but I'm not

I don't really want to go back to

like a base station

sort of setup. I want to have them stand alone

as a Wi-Fi camera.

But also,

I mean, do all of them have

subscription services where you

keep everything in the cloud or some of them

do it? No, so UniDent

definitely don't have a subscription

service.

Swan also for their wireless cameras

don't require a subscription

service. I think RioLink also

don't require

a subscription service.

Obviously, ALO doesn't require it but it's a benefit

just for features. So it's

a balance. But the one

I think I would be

having a quick look at UniDent

and RioLink

would be the two that come to mind as

being

About this episode

Trevor Long fields tech calls covering budget phone upgrades, wireless audio glitches, eSIM travel realities, OLED TV replacement impressions, and home security camera choices. Greg weighs an ~$800 phone for email and calls, with Trev steering toward an iPhone 16e deal/refurb or Android options like Pixel/Nothing/Motorola plus Google Photos/contact export planning. Fernando troubleshoots earbuds dropping to one side, suggesting phone settings/network reset and trying another brand. Anthony clarifies dual-number eSIM limits by iPhone model. David celebrates an 83-inch LG OLED after a Samsung panel failure, praising OLED contrast and picture modes. Finally, Trev questions lesser-known camera brands’ long-term security versus established systems like Arlo/Uniden/Ring and discusses subscriptions, solar, and wired floodlight setups.

Android Arlo battery degrade battery drain Boost Mobile budget mobile phone charging on solar contacts diesel car E-SIM

Kia EV9

Original notes

This week, taking your calls on Tech Questions - be part of the show by sending a text or WhatsApp to 0477 657 657 and we'll get you on! Need a basic phone, to last a while - on a budget. Let's chat. Problems with earbuds, why is one cutting out? New TV - old one died, new one same price, but a big upgrade - how many eSIMS can you run at one time and a Security Camera Brand we've not heard of.

EFTM - Tech, Cars and Lifestyle

Trevor Long

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