This year, Santa really let my kids down.
Way to go, Santa. Look, the point is that sometimes Santa gets busy,
but he always makes it up to them, right? And this year's special surprise is a new phone.
But while Santa has gone through his fair share of phones throughout the years,
the only thing he hates more than switching phones is deciding which phone to switch to,
which is why I, Santa, won't be picking their phones.
My kids will. Now, there are some restrictions.
They can have a golden iPhone, for instance, but I also didn't want to influence their choices.
So I hired a living wage elf to gather up
all the best options, then help my son and youngest daughter make a decision.
Then, because ultimately it is, after all, Santa's credit card on the line,
before they check out, I want to at least see what they settled on.
Just like I want you to see this message from our sponsor.
There are only two real rules for my elf.
One, I love my kids, enough to get them a phone,
but not enough to buy them just any flagship they want. So 2,000 Canadian rubles is the max.
It's about 1,400 freedom bucks. And that ties in closely with number two.
Every option that our elf presents needs to support at least five years
of both operating system and security updates.
Unfortunately, that does rule out some admittedly pretty cool niche products,
but as you can see from my son's phone here, I don't like replacing my kids' devices
any more often than I absolutely have to. I view device costs on a yearly basis,
with my budget working out to a little under $300 a year.
And if they break it before then, then they can get a job and buy themself a new one.
That's the deal. That left us with these options.
They're allowed as much time as they want and can ask any questions they want, except for the cost.
I don't want them to pick the most expensive one just because it's more expensive.
I'd be really surprised if my son goes for an iPhone. Not because an iPhone is bad,
but because he's coming from Android, he's perfectly happy with it. And unlike the girls,
he doesn't use any i-devices in his daily life.
My daughter, on the other hand, regularly uses an iPad Pro for sketching,
and I wouldn't be surprised if she wanted to go for something like an iPhone Air
just because it's so handleable. I mean, she's got her dad's size hands.
Foldable screens are super cool, but I pretty much guarantee that my son takes the S25,
and my daughter, I'm between the Flip and the iPhone Air.
I don't think either of them even knows what a pixel is. Okay, Santa has decided to get you guys
a phone for Christmas, okay? Have you guys looked into any type of phone you want so far?
No. This'll be great then. You have a phone currently, right?
Holy cow, what did you do to that thing? He took the case out, and then he dropped it.
Yeah, like father-like son. It's a one plus six T.
Okay, so kind of old, so this is gonna be a very big upgrade for you,
and you don't have a phone, do you? That one's basically mine.
But this will be like your first phone then, basically. Yeah.
Obviously, your dad has tried many phones over the years. Has he ever talked to you?
A million of them. Yeah, he gets a new phone every week.
Has he talked to you at all about his choices? Nope.
How about we start with Google? How did it, being under a certain dollar amount
and receiving updates for five years, just leave us with seven options?
While there's a lot of phone companies out there, not a lot of them promise five years of updates.
Sometimes they promise two or three years, and then also some premium phones,
like your dad's foldable one, that is more than the dollar amount,
so you're not gonna get any super fancy phones. So this is like kind of fancy, but not?
Let's just say you guys will be some of the coolest kids in schools with these phones,
but you're not gonna be the coolest. I don't think phones to school, because we're not allowed.
I like that. That's good. We're gonna start with our Google phones though, okay?
There's two options. There's the Pixel 10, and there's the Pixel 10 Pro.
What makes this Pro is the screen is a little bit better quality,
so if you're watching like a movie or something, it'll look a little bit better.
It has less battery life, which maybe doesn't make it as pro.
It's like barely any. It is, you're right.
It is so close, you guys probably wouldn't notice it. The cameras though on this one are a lot better.
So basically this is just better. Yes, but the colors are different.
But that doesn't matter. How about you each get one? You can start with the Pixel 10.
Oh, I got the better one. Start poking around. Oh, it's so smooth.
That's because these have 120 Hertz screens. Your phone probably has a 60 Hertz screen.
So for gaming, this is gonna be a lot better. I don't know how much you game on your phone.
I won't do any gaming on my phone. I won't do any gaming on my phone.
Go right into the photos. What?
Look at how good this camera is. Mine doesn't even load.
There's no back button. Oh, yes. So because it's a newer version of Android,
you could add those buttons at the bottom, but Android has gestures.
So if you just like swipe to go back. Oh.
You can always go back. So you're like, I wanna go to the home screen or something. Okay, we're gonna switch then.
Are you gonna take the same photo? Being Santa's help is hard work.
Which camera looks better? Do you think this one looks better? Why do you think it looks better?
Like more detail. Oh yeah, there's the photo. Can you bring the photo back up?
Oh yeah, you're more zoomed in on this one too. Way more zoomed in.
Is that like enhanced by anything? Well, it looks like. All of these phones have some sort of
post-processing on their photos. Whether it's Google's magic, Samsung's magic, or Apple's.
In terms of the colors, which colors do you like? I don't even care.
It's the color. It doesn't matter. That's a big selling feature for people though.
How? It has a G on the back. Sorry, you don't like it?
Cause it has a G on the back? I unfortunately will not be able to remove that for you.
Okay, we're gonna put these ones to the side. How about we look at Apple phones next?
Ew. These are the iPhones that you can choose from.
There's the base iPhone 17. And then there's the iPhone Air.
Which, the selling point of the Air, is it is crazy, crazy thin.
But that doesn't matter. I don't care about style. You're gonna put a case on it,
which is gonna make it thicker. I can see why Linus didn't want to do this now.
He just wants me to do this. Dad was supposed to be here?
Whoa, this just got really awkward. No, no, he's busy.
He's at the North Pole. No, he's not. Yeah, he's probably driving home right now.
It's apps are weird. It's apps are weird. Why do you say they're weird?
What's weird about them? No, I wanna know. They look weird.
I'll show you. Yeah, I wanna see. Look. They look weird compared to-
I couldn't even tell what this is without reading it. This is actually a really good camera.
It is a very good camera. I think that the iPhone cameras, that's definitely one of the selling features for them.
I actually don't even use my camera though, so.
What do you use your phone for then? You don't game on it, you don't use your camera.
What do you use your phone for? Messaging people. Messaging people.
Discord. Discord. That's what he uses it for.
Now I'm starting to get upset. Why is your dad buying you a phone if he'll use it for his Discord?
I don't know. Business expense? Okay, what do you use your phone for?
Do you take lots of photos? Do you like how thin it is?
No. No, why not? Cause it's weird.
It's weird. And I'm used to holding a really thick phone.
That's fair. It also has a really big camera bump. But.
Also, this thingy is on the side instead of like all on one side.
Oh, you're talking about how the volume is on one side and then the power button's on the other.
Do you not like that? You like them all on one side. Yeah.
You wanna trade? I wanna see that one. All right, we'll trade. It's kind of nice that it's really thin.
It feels nice. It's light. It is very light. The downside of it being this thin
is you get one camera. You get less battery.
You get, you know, less phone.
The times you would notice the... What? So what you just did is you tapped two iPhones together
and if they were fully set up with all your information you would have just shared your contact information.
One of the benefits of having an Apple device is if your friends have Apple devices
you can kind of mingle together better. Whether that's through...
None of my friends have a phone. Well, so you can just get someone's phone number.
Yeah, but like, this is convenient. You're like, oh, you have an iPhone?
You both get your phone number now. But I already have all the phone numbers of all my friends.
Do you guys like these ones so far better than the Google ones we looked at?
Just because these are Apple, I like the other ones better. Why? Why do you hate Apple?
I don't know, I just didn't. The whole point of doing this experiment without your dad
was so that his vibes wouldn't rub off on you. Well, he's kind of my dad and I kind of live with him.
Oh, one really cool feature of the iPhone you guys might like is actually the selfie cam.
I don't get it, I don't know how many... I've like never taken a selfie.
Well, guess what? We're gonna do one today. If it's just you, if I step out of the frame,
you notice how it's kind of zoomed in on you? Yeah. If I was like, hey, I wanna take a picture with you,
you notice how it kind of crops and zooms better? It's kind of cool, right?
We're gonna go to our last batch, which is the Samsung phones. But this is like the worst direction it can fool
because if you fold it this way, you can multitask, yeah.
Sure, on the plus side, if you guys were just using the outer screen,
sometimes it's good to just check, oh, I got a quick notification, I can ignore that.
We gotta look at the other phones too. Okay, the other Samsung phones we have
is the S25 and the S25 Edge, okay? The difference between this one, bit bigger,
but it also kind of goes for that Apple Air look. It's really, really thin, so it means it's a lot lighter.
This one though will again have a bigger battery and it has more cameras,
even though this one has a better camera. So you guys can take a look at these ones.
I think this one's just better. It has a better resolution.
It does, it does have, I think this is our highest resolution out of all of the phones today.
So one of the things about the folding phone that you'll need to be a little concerned about
is it's not very good with dust or water. So if you're someone who pulls your phone out
when you're outside, maybe when it's raining a little bit, or if you put it in your pocket and has lint at all,
it could damage the phone. Ew! What?
A whole bunch of weird dots. You're right, actually. It does do some enhancing to his face
that the other cameras didn't and I would say it definitely doesn't actually do
just to that. It makes it almost look like he has goosebumps
all over his face, which the other phones doesn't and you definitely don't, you know, delete that photo.
You really didn't like it. Okay. This one, I think I'm taking this one over this one
cause it's bigger and the resolution's better.
Yep. You know, all that good stuff. Do you think this is your top pick so far
out of like all of the phones? Probably cause I put my phone in like water all the time.
But you've dropped the phone in water? Yeah.
What? We've got all of the phones back out here now.
So far you said your front runner is the S25 Edge.
Yeah. Give me your reasons as to why.
Bigger screen, better quality screen. Which out of these ones is maybe your favorite right now?
I like that one. It has a lot of battery. It has a lot of battery.
That's right. This one does have a pretty chunky battery. I think-
Their phone runs out a lot. You guys have to make a decision today. Otherwise Santa's gonna get really mad at me.
And then for you, are you leaning towards this one?
Kind of. Kind of. I prefer this one though. You prefer this one though too.
You want the same phone as me? You guys can both get the same one. I just have one for today.
But you guys, when your dad orders them or when Santa makes them.
When dad orders them. When Santa makes them. When dad orders them.
From Santa. When he orders them from Santa. He can order too.
When he orders them from whatever phone shop they're from. Okay.
Well. I don't know. Maybe. You keep going back to this one.
I don't know. Do you like how thin it is? Cause you, that was like the first thing you mentioned
when you picked it up, right? It's kind of thin. It's kind of thin. You keep picking up and playing with this one.
These are both the thinnest phones that we have. Cause the S25 edge was Samsung's attempt at
like a really, really thin phone. But then we have the same phone.
Like that's just weird. It's not. Yeah. Thankfully.
There's two different colors. I call white. Okay.
Sure. I don't care what color I have. Very interesting.
You guys both settled on the exact same phone.
Do you think your dad is going to be happy, disappointed?
He would be proud for not picking up. Okay.
Remind me. What was your predictions again? I thought my daughter could go for the iPhone Air
or the flip seven. There's no way that my son's going to go for a gimmick.
I think he would see it as a personal point of pride
to go for something that's a pretty normal phone. So I think there's no way that he went with anything
other than the S25. Okay. They both actually picked the same phone.
So you're going to have to go out and buy another one. What?
Yes. Hold on. Hold on. This throws me for a loop.
We had a 10 and a 10 pro. 10.
They actually didn't like it. Your daughter said, I don't like the G on the back.
And I was like, you can put a case on it.
So she ruled it out because of the G. They both didn't pick Google then.
Okay. Cause if your daughter didn't like the G, those are out.
Not a top G. Can't blame her.
Shoot, this is hard. You're like nervous cause there's like a 40% chance
they both just put the iPhone.
It wouldn't even surprise me that much if they had done any research going into this
because I use family link to manage their app access
and screen time. To my knowledge, it's not available on iPhone. That would have been crazy.
So if they were like super smart,
they might have both gone iPhones, but I'm going to say they didn't. Okay.
You are correct. But your boy was very close to picking the air.
Really? Yes. Yes. He had the other one that they ended up picking,
but he kept playing with the air. It really is sexy.
And I kept calling him out. I was like, you haven't put that one down yet. He's like, it's just really thin.
It like feels good. So that was a very close possibility.
That makes me wonder if maybe the S25 edge
also had his attention. But if we're being honest,
the edge is not as sexy as the air. It's a thin brick.
I'm going to say they didn't care about the gimmick of the flip.
They played with it. They thought it was cool. They did not pick it. I think they both went edge.
Correct. Really? They both picked the edge. That's funny.
It's not what I would pick. When I presented all the other gimmicks or the offers of the other phones,
they just couldn't care. It seemed that this one gave them the comfort in the hand,
the higher quality screen, and ultimately it was just a phone.
It didn't fold. It wasn't Apple. They just wanted a phone.
But I was very shocked at how close your boy was to picking the air.
Really? Yeah. Ultimately, the reason he didn't was he said,
my dad wouldn't want me to. What? Yes.
I wouldn't care. I tried to tell him that you weren't here
to make a decision, but then they tried to flip that on me as you abandoned them.
And I was like, whoa, what do you mean? They're like, why isn't daddy here?
And I was like, K, I don't like this conversation anymore.
Elijah's your new dad. Sorry to break it to you this way, kids.
Please, no. Well, you wanted kids so badly though.
That's why I had a vasectomy. Nice.
Okay, anyway. You know what else has no balls?
This segway to our sponsor. If you guys enjoyed this video,
you might enjoy the other entries in this series
where Elijah represents kind of a minimum wage employee
helping to guide people through the process of picking an Android or an iPhone.
And with follow-up episodes about a month to two months later,
talking about what people liked or didn't like about making the switch.