Samsung’s thin, big, boring AI phones

Samsung’s new phones will almost certainly be the most popular Android phones of 2025. They’ll probably also be among the best Android phones of 2025. And yet the Unpacked event this week felt like one of the most boring phone launches… ever. Are we entering a new phase of the smartphone industry, in which companies basically just launch the same thing over and over? Wait a second: have we been in that phase for a while now?

After that, we take a deep breath and wade into the first week of the new Trump administration. The Verge’s Lauren Feiner explains what’s going on with Stargate, and why a $500 billion AI data-center plan is being announced in the White House. We talk about The United States Digital Service going full DOGE, the controversy over Elon Musk’s salute, and the latest deeply confusing updates on the TikTok ban. TikTok is back! For now. Maybe not for long. But maybe for good? We’ve got 70 or so days to figure it out.

If you want to know more about everything we discuss in this episode, here are some links to get you started, beginning with Samsung:

And in the lightning round: