Waveform: The MKBHD Podcast - Marques FINALLY Cancelled His Tesla Roadster

Episode Date: September 26, 2025

This week, David is out on vacation so Marques and Andrew hold down the fort talking about ceramic keyboards, iPhones, smartphone awards, horses vs F1 cars, and everything in between! Of course, we wrap it all up with trivia. Links: iFixit - iPhone Air Keychron - ceramic keyboard Music provided by Epidemic Sound Shop the merch: https://shop.mkbhd.com Social: Waveform Threads: https://www.threads.net/@waveformpodcast Waveform Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/waveformpodcast/?hl=en Hosts: Marques: https://www.threads.net/@mkbhd Andrew: https://www.threads.net/@andrew_manganelli David: https://www.threads.net/@davidimel Adam: https://www.threads.net/@parmesanpapi17 Ellis: https://twitter.com/EllisRovin TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@waveformpodcast Join the Discord: https://discord.gg/mkbhd Music by 20syl: https://bit.ly/2S53xlC Waveform is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Support for Wayform comes from Warp. Most AI coding tools generate sloppy code that doesn't understand your setup. Warp is different. Warp understands your machine, stack, and codebase. It's built for the entire software lifecycle from prompt to production with the powers of a terminal and interactivity of an IDE. Warp gives you tight feedback loops with agents so you can prompt, review, and edit, and shipped production-ready code. Trusted by over 600,000 developers, including 56% of the Fortune 500. So try warp free or unlock pro for just $5 at warp.dev slash waitform.

Rinse takes your laundry and hand delivers it to your door, expertly cleaned and folded. So you could take the time once spent folding and sorting and waiting to finally pursue a whole new version of you. Like tea time you. Mmm. Or this tea time you. Or even this tea time you. Said you hear about Dave? Or even tea time, tea time, tea time you.

Mmm. So update on Dave. It's up to you. We'll take the laundry. Rinse. It's time to be great. For the first time in my memory, you're using two regular-sized phones. You're not using the X-L or the Max. That's true. Yeah. I just saw that on the table. I'd used, yeah, for those wondering, my current dailies are the Pixel 10 Pro, not the XL, and the iPhone 17 Pro, not the XL. Who are you and what have you done with the markets? You know, it's nice having smaller phones.

that actually last all day. It's really nice. Yeah, what is up? People of the Internet. Welcome back to another episode of the Wayform podcast. We're your host. I'm Marquez.

And I'm Andrew. And I'm David. Yep, David's not here this week. He will be back with us shortly. But we do still have plenty to get into it's September after all. So we have iPhone Air review is out. iPhone Pro review will probably be out

around the time this podcast goes out. probably later today. And then, of course, some end-of-the-year stuff. We might want to talk a little bit about smartphone awards coming up. I think we're going to do our kind of preliminary smartphone award conversation. Yeah, our way too early starting to hash out our idea, smartphone awards, which should be fun. And then, of course, we have the meta event we also got to go to. It's a lot.

It's a lot. I mean, October is right after this. We talked about the whole event, but you got an interview with James Cameron, and there was a couple clips we might play at the end of the episode. Yeah, it had a good time. I mean, I made that whole video on the smart glasses just based on how fast they've been evolving. And I put out that video kind of wondering if anyone else would appreciate it as much as I was trying to convey in the video. And it turns out a lot of people have, like, watched that and gone, oh, yeah, this is rapidly approaching. Yeah, I think what was also interesting is a lot of the articles got written, but I don't think people know you guys got to try everything and do your stuff before the event.

That was totally brutal. And so, like, a lot of articles and stuff were really positive because the actual device is good. But people were confused at how it could seem that good when the event was so bad. But it's because you guys got to try it beforehand. Did we talk last week about why the event was so trash? What happened? Oh, because we didn't find out until after. Yeah.

So I guess maybe if we didn't mention it, last time we were talking about the event and how all the demos failed so poorly. And I think literally a couple hours later, Baz got on his social media and explained what happened, which was fair. I mean, you know, again, props of them for doing a live demo and trying it. But they were trying to, like, isolate Mark's glasses on their own Wi-Fi network. But apparently they had just accidentally isolated all meta-glasses. So apparently the first cooking demo, they say, and someone can correct me on the exact terms of this, but that the metal live AI was supposed to be routed to a dev server for that. but I guess all of them were routed to it

and when he in the video said meta turn on live AI it turned on everyone's glasses to that same server in the audience and DDoS itself apparently. That's still an excuse from meta so take it as you will on if it just worked good or bad but it is a kind of funny thing

yeah it makes me believe that they did that demo many times flawlessly and nothing went wrong until everyone showed up to the event with their own glasses and then of course it went wrong the other one was a different he said there was a bug where the glasses went to sleep right as the call was coming in or that seems a little worse.

I also think when he was out running I think there was supposed to be a third live demo because he said we're going to do one more live demo and they just completely didn't say anything about that and they're pretending it didn't happen. And it was just a montage of him with running with Diplo for some reason, which I don't know why we were watching that

but it happened. So anyway, yeah, that was interesting to see and there's been some like reactions to my video too which are really interesting. So that's out there. And like I said, TechTember and Tectober always a blast just wanted to thank you guys for following along we've dropped like bonus episodes

we've had lots of really well received episodes here and lots more coming up this is why we do this this is like the playoffs of our workflow and like just putting together as much good stuff for you guys to stay up to date as possible so even though it kind of feels in my head like i'm behind like i wish my iPhone reviews were all up last week and there'll be right on time when they do drop later this week and the next week um but thank you guys for for watching them and for staying up to date with that. It's a marathon, not a sprint. Exactly.

The crazy thing about the air being a week and a half late, right? Yeah. Some of the thing, we were discussing what we thought it would be view-wise in 24 hours. It was around 3 million views, which was higher than we thought. And that video was a 6 out of 10 out of our last 10 videos. Yeah, kind of crazy. That's insane. I mean, the air is very popular, and we know people are watching videos about it.

But yeah, the fact that an extremely well-viewed video, in like another month, that would be like a one out of ten is a six out of ten, which is insane. Can I say no one has asked me any questions about the pro? I've gotten so many people texting me and messaging me and asking me about the air specifically. So you know it's funny, and maybe the video is not up by the time the pod goes up, but my opening thesis with the pro review, it's like the other iPhones are all getting all the attention. Like, the air gets the most views on YouTube, and the 17 is the one most people should get. It's the best deal. But the one that most people buy is the pro and the pro max. By far, D Brand shared with me some numbers because I wanted to give some concrete evidence of this,

because I've seen this many, many times, but I just wanted a real breakdown. What percent of orders do you think are the air from Dbrand's own website? So they offer the same accessory for Air, base 17, 17 Pro, and 17 Pro Max. Which, what fraction of EPP orders do you think are for the air? So is this the percentage of the iPhone sales or total sales on their thing? On iPhone sales. So they offer one accessory for like iPhone skins, for example. And they offer the skin for the 17, the 17 air, the 17 Pro, and the 17 Pro Max.

I'm going 30%. 30% error. I think it's single digits, but only because I think if you're buying an iPhone error, you're going caseless, skinless, like, you are leaning into the fashion, like, a part of it. Interesting. Yeah. Well, I was going to say even, I'm assuming you're going to tell me pro is, like, winning by a landslide, but I also kind of assumed people bought the pro because

of the orange, which is you probably don't want to put a skin on it. Although they're, I don't know how DeBren is exactly doing the slots now, but you can really do some cool mixing and matching. I'm assuming with, like, orange carbon or orange, like, robot camo or something. That's my plan. Yeah. Yeah, I don't... How much air?

How much air? Percentage? 13%. 5% are air. Yeah. 7% is base iPhone 17. 31% is pro and 56% is ProMax. Oh my God.

More than half of the orders are Pro Max and almost 90% are pro and Pro Max. Correct me if I'm wrong, but... Because we have this discussion most years where like, why the Pro Max is out selling everything. This is crazy. We think it's because... in the U.S., so many people get their phones through carrier deals where you're sort of incentivized to get the most expensive phone. Yeah.

Right? Yeah, I think a lot of people walk in the store and just go, all right, here's all the new iPhones. What's the best one? And they'll probably look at the air because it's thin. And then they'll also look at the pro and they'll go, oh, yeah, the pro, the pro max is the best one every year, best battery, best cameras. I think on top of that is the way carrier like deals are is they're not really telling you the price.

They're saying, like, the difference between these two phones is like $3. a month on your bill, which is obviously leads up to being pretty expensive, but not when you look at it that way. It's like car sales. Exactly. So I think a lot of people look at the payment and they go, yep, give me the big screen, big camera, big battery. So the pro max, yeah, 56% over half.

So when I'm reviewing the pros, there's this interesting balancing act of, okay, these are the most pro iPhones ever. And they're doing things like pro res raw and gen lock and things that I only really expect people who are actually doing serious work with the iPhone to take advantage of, and then it's also the most mainstream iPhone ever at the same time. That's hard to review, but that is also what's happening. So that's fun. We're talking about carriers and you mentioned Genlock. I would love if there was some guy at a carrier store who when he's just like, it's got Genlock and want to see if a single person, if there's someone working at like a Verizon

store out there, just pepper and Jenlock every time you talk about the new iPhone and see if anyone reacts. That's only one of James Cameron walks in. Yeah, he walks in. He's like, dude, this phone has Genlock. You're going to love it. Yeah. So, yeah, that review, that's all coming out soon.

But what else? We want to talk about the air's I fix it, right? Did you watch the I Fix It video on the air? It just came out, what, yesterday or today, so I haven't watched the video yet. I watched, I read the article where they gave it a preliminary seven out of 10 for a pairability and had a lot of nice things to say about being able to take off the front glass independently from the back glass when you take off the glass the parts are rearranged inside but seem relatively easy to access just the battery or just things you want to replace so good news

on repairability for a very thin complex device oh i'm eating my words totally because every time i talked about this phone i was like this will be the least repairable phone ever and it is equally as repairable as all of the other iPhones which apparently in the last few years have gotten solid they've gotten better not great they're not ten and They're not fair phones, but they're not twos like they have been in the past. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, like you mentioned, IFix, it was really worried about the dual entry where you can

either just go take the back glass off and get straight to the battery and components or take the screen off. Yeah. And by itself, it still has that. Everything is pushed up to the top. The IFix that people said they think the battery actually really helps with the structure and helping it not bend as much by just like being extra support throughout the rest of the phone. the components up top they I guess they were doing it before the release day somehow because they said there's a couple

screws that were a little tricky and a couple of the ways all the ribbon cables because everything's so crammed up right next to the camera were tough but they got it out and then on day one of release all the disassembly guides were posted by Apple and it explains how to get all those screws and order of everything so yeah they were pretty impressed by that um I think it's just we've seen all the rent of inside the phones, but seeing inside that phone is really cool because of what they did. I mean, it is like USB C-Port Taptic Engine takes up like 3% of the bottom. There's just like battery for 80% and then just like everything really crammed into the last 10 or 15. And it's funny seeing the things I chose to get rid of because obviously there's no SIM card tray at the bottom. Obviously there's no speakers at the bottom. But there is still a Taptic Engine, which is very important and it is still at the bottom. And I also, I didn't have this thought until after I published my review.

I bet there was a lot of thought about how top-heavy it could have been with that strategy, because if most of the heavier components are at the top, I guess the battery's pretty... But just, like, how would it feel balance-wise in the hand? But that obviously worked out just fine. Yeah, it just worked out really well. I can say, I feel like we kind of confirmed that the USBC housing is different and tighter because we have these metal-milled stands that we use for the robot shots to put the iPhone on, and none of those, because they're not normal USBC cables,

I guess the tolerances are a bit off, fit in either of the phones. Just a little bit tighter, I guess. But even in the IFix a video, there's some cool stuff about how they're doing the 3D printing on whatever it is. They think it's from a patent from a few years ago that Apple has. And I highly suggest going to watch the video

because it's pretty cool. And at the end, they wind up taking just the frame and bending it. And it actually, it only breaks at the antenna. That's like the weak point of the frame with it. Which is very in line with a lot of previous iPhones. Like if you go all the way back to when the six plus bent, it was mostly at the antenna lines too. But then obviously future iPhones have had to think a lot about that.

So yeah, it turns out the interior of the phone is helpful for structure. One more fun fact from it. The battery in the MagSafe battery pack they're selling is not just similar. it is the exact same battery to the point where they battery swapped them into the iPhone Air and it booted up. Yeah. Which I thought was really cool.

Yeah. So they're, it's not a lazy accessory, but it's like, the fact that it's the same exact battery, but then you lose like 40% to wireless charging heat. Yeah, that's a cool. It doesn't actually charge the phone fully.

No, it's 60% right? 60-ish percent, yeah, which is kind of a bummer. That's just cool seeing the number of what you lose. But also, you know, some of Apple's problems sometimes are selling parts. I don't know how hard it is to get a battery, but you can buy a battery. It just comes in a really expensive case to buy it to replace it down the line. That's so interesting. I just want to

leave this idea here. One day we need to do a bonus episode that's just all the weird patents Apple holds across so many different industries because they're all out there. You know, we can read them. And in so many other research projects, we found so many weird ones like in their audio systems. I don't know. I think this is a good bonus. I think a good bonus episode would be grabbing one of those people whose whole job is to like keep an eye on patents to find things in the future because not only could they then talk about those better than we could but also like I want to know what the job is of just like I wake up in the morning where do I check all these patents in different

countries and like find the random Apple battery tech in Ireland that's like groundbreaking dynamic island in Jamaica yes is that a banger video top 10 weirdest Apple patents possibly just crazy thing was they patented. I remember when Vision Pro is like in the works and still a secret, there's all these weird patents that started making rumors get a little crazy. I love hacker news. I don't know if you spend any time there, but there's so many weird forums and hacker news that end in someone being like with people being like, how does this work? How does this feature in an Apple device work? And then someone goes, oh, I found the patent. They reverse engineered

a thermometer out of a resistance sensor. And here's the patent for it. Sick. nice air here nice timing but yeah that there's a lot of interesting stuff going on with these phones stay tuned for the pro review if it's not out yet and of course the 17 review it's going to be

quote late because the phones are out but I think it's still a really interesting phone and it'll come up later in this episode again sure oh hinting yeah I agree I was going to bring it up later too I think it will I also agree come up but you also did something this week you know what else is late it can't be late if it never happens

yeah probably all right what happened perennially late uh i posted in the slack i i canceled my tesla roadster reservation the one that i paid for the one you paid for yeah now that's so that's a distinction because in my account i've for has it been a decade yet 27 almost 27 right so it's been eight years uh i've had two tesla roadsters in my tesla account one that i paid for and the way that worked is you paid a five thousand dollar payment immediately for the reservation and then within 10 days you you net $50,000 to Tesla and then when they deliver the car whenever that is you will pay the rest of it i think totaling $250,000 so allegedly Tesla has been sitting with my 50 grand for eight years and

hasn't done anything with it, obviously. Meanwhile, the other one in my account is a referral reward. So it's a founder series, and all that really means, it's going to be maxed out. It's going to be one of the first thousand, and I guess that's it. And I obviously didn't pay for that because that's a referral award. So I've been sitting with these both in my account for so long, and I'm just like, yeah, well, one roadster, two roosters. I clearly don't need two.

and there was no reason for why I'm doing it now. I'm just like, how about I just do something else with this $50 grand? I'll get $45,000 back. The first $5K, I don't get back. Oh, you don't get that back? But I do, I did cancel the second roadster in my account, and I will still allegedly get one of the first thousand roadsters, and I'm fine with that.

I don't think you'll get it. Can I tell you a fun fact? What? That might make you sound. We were both looking up similar things, I think. Right. If you had taken that $50,000 dollars eight years ago. Oh, I know.

And put it into a Tesla stock. How much do you think you would have right now? Just Tesla stock. Just Tesla stock. 50K of Tesla stock eight years ago is probably 5xed at least, probably more. It's probably worth 400 grand. According to finloid.io stock calculator, you would have 747 grand right now. See, that's the thing is Tesla's just had that money the whole time.

I could have done so much with that. So yeah, I'll do something else with it now. Wait, so how much of that will you get? I'll get 45K back. And the thing about this, it was kind of crazy. When you call Tesla and you go, I'd like to cancel my roadster reservation. You have to call?

Well, if you log into your account and you have a reservation, typically, if you don't want to go through with it, there's a cancel button. But with the Roadster, which, by the way, is still in my account, because I only did this like a day or two ago, you go to manage your reservation,

and there is no cancel button next to the Roadster. You have to go in and hit manage, and when you hit manage it goes here's a phone number here's an email address and you call that phone number and actually did this for a couple days and just got voicemail

which was great and I finally got through to someone and it was somebody in basically vehicle sales and I asked them if they could cancel my roadster reservation and there was a really long pause and they were like a roadster

and then they put me on hold and then they came back and they were like trying to figure out who to direct the call to and then they promised, the first person who did it promised that they would get it canceled and get my deposit back but just to like wait a little while

and then I waited like two weeks and nothing happened. So I called again this week and it was the same guy and he then figured out how to I get like a message in my Tesla account to put in the details of getting the money back or whatever. They're going to mail me a check within like a month or something.

So, yeah. That's still easier than trying to cancel my Planet Fitness account. I was going to say, somewhere in between, like, canceling your prime account, canceling your, you know, gym membership. Like, there are, there are harder things to do, but this was pretty hilariously fun. This is the most valuable car company in the world. Yes, it is. And part of the reason why is because they're not for eight years. I think they got there by giving people their money back.

Yeah. So now you still have one in your account. Correct. If it were to come out, you still get a roadstick. If everything that they're saying is still true, and I actually take Tesla's word for it, I will still be getting, for free, one of the first thousand. And that's the referral one. If I remember correctly, the reason you, is because that's the Founders Edition, right?

Yeah. And the, you wanted one, but in the different color. The second one I was going to get was like 52% discounted because of my, additional points. So it was like I had earned one and a half free roadsters and I just cancelled the half free one to get my 50 grand back and I'll just still get a free roadster. So instead of paying half price for two roadsters, I'll pay $0 for one. Allegedly. All of this is alleged. I honestly think you at best have a weird Tesla NFT. So yeah, they're both still in my account as of this very moment. See? Nice. Two roosters. But yeah, that's that's it. No cancel button or anything. Just

just a mystery. Yeah, this is... You can still reserve the roadster. When you click on it, this is what you get. Wait, really? I can go there and reserve it right now. You can still pay 50 grand if you'd like to get in mind. I would love to know those numbers.

How many people are still reserving roadsters today? It can't be any. It's been seven years, eight years since it got released. They took it off the top of the website. So it's just S3XY, solar roof, solar panel, cybertruck, power wall. I just had to in Google type Tesla Roadster, and it brings you to the page. You can find it. Yeah.

And they'll take your money. Oh, yeah. There's still a reserve page. Yeah. There's also a Get Updates button, which must be the least used button in any website ever. I'm still very out of the loop with the Rodester. Mm-hmm. Have there been updates that will make it still worth it?

Oh, I don't know. Okay, so here's what happens. Every year or two, Franz or Elon will go on a Tesla-related podcast, and the Tesla fan running the podcast will save it for the very end and go, hey any roadster updates and every single time this happens franz or elon will very politely give no information but they will tease that they have been continuing development on it and that it has gotten better since the original announcement so i think franz has said stuff like oh yeah no every single spec is better than what we originally promised which i find the range part hard to It's 620 miles.

Yeah, they also 200 kilowatt hour battery and 620 mile range, which I don't think that makes a lot of sense for a small sports car. When it came out, they also were saying the 0 to 60 was basically only limited by like rubber, like the rubber of the tires. So if they're saying that's different, have they developed new tires? Well, no, because they were going to do the SpaceX package with rocket thrusters, cold air. They invented new cold air thrusters. Cold gas thrusters on it. So, I mean, at the event, they promised is 1.9 seconds or 60, but now they'll do one second flat with the SpaceX package. Oh, half.

Yeah. So they keep promising that. But then also, they will say, but it's just dessert. Like, we have other things that we talked about for this whole other podcast. Cybertruck is very important. We want to ramp up production of Model Y, which is brand new. And then we'll probably refresh Model 3. And also we've got the cyber, the semi-truck, and also these other things.

And they'll say everything about the robo taxi and the robo event. Van, Oliver van, Roadster. So Roadster is like the icing on the cake, the cherry on top. And they've said that every year for eight years straight. I guess my question is like if it does come out, will it still be dope? I think if you were to be as generous as possible, which I think lots of Tesla fans are. And you give them all the benefit of the doubt, which is like, okay, they set deadlines, but they never hit them, but they eventually deliver what they promised. you know if that's the history of the cyber truck even though they didn't exactly deliver

what they promised they still delivered the truck they didn't exactly hit the price but they delivered the item if you give them all of that benefit of the doubt this would be an incredible price to performance monster like there are other EVs out now there are things like even Tesla's own plaid model S but also lucid air sapphire and then you go all the way up to rematz Nevera and there are EVs now that are genuinely in like nine second quarter mile times like thousand horsepower you know two door or four door the tycan turbo gt is a monster so these cars exist now but this would be the cheapest one this would be 200 grand with the same performance as the well i guess 250,000 or two million dollar lucid air sapphire or ramats

nevara so it would be sick it would probably be really fun it would be cool it would charge a tesla supercharger it would have a ton of range and it would have great software and it would be still a compelling vehicle for some tiny fraction of people who can afford it if it comes out if it ever does come out I think when it was first announced it was like these numbers have never been achieved ever by yeah it was way cooler back then that's why I was asked because I remember when this came out it was like a huge deal or came out quote unquote when they were an announcement it was like dope it was like oh this car is going to be insane I remember it's been almost a decade we have other super fast hypercars like what

it still be insane. Yeah, I mean, they rolled it off the truck and they gave, I think the, if you go through the numbers one by one, it was like the zero to 60 number, we'd never seen sub two seconds ever. Today, we've seen like two or three cars achieve it on a prep service, all electric. Okay, awesome. They'd never seen 600 miles of range on an electric car. We still have not seen that. I don't think we will, but we have not seen that yet.

They also gave the quarter mile time, I think, was going to be 8.8 seconds, which would be on par with the remots, which is $2 million, and nothing short of a million dollars will get under nine seconds. So that would still be pretty crazy. It's got two seats in the front and then like kind of two more small seats in the back and a removable roof and some other, I think it had a front trunk and a back trunk. So it would be kind of unique, but nothing else too crazy. I can't believe if I'm even giving them the benefit of a doubt, but about a month and a half ago

Elon said there will be a Tesla demo by the end of the year. Right. It did not say it was for the Roadster. So it could be for another stupid robot or another fake self-driving thing. Right. But it could be for the Roadster. So the thing that has been most consistent with this like roadster thing is the cold gas thrusters being placed all around the car. If they're on the back of the car, they'll make the car accelerate forward really quickly.

If they're on the front of the car, they can potentially act as extra stopping power. and if they're under the car then they could it'll fly it'll jump it'll fly briefly they're on top of the car downforce this is by the way entirely Elon tweets this is no Tesla official communication

this is not like Tesla saying this is a promise they're going to make this is just Elon probably peeking in the lab once in a while or like the drawings on the wall of the design room and being like hey this thing could fly right so yeah we don't know if that's what the demo is there this year but that is potentially

something that we get teased which would be hilarious because they've already announced the car eight years ago. Are they going to tease it again and be like, keep waiting? But you can give us your money. The reserve button is still there. The reserve button. Have you seen those like those Instagram reel or TikTok edits that's like a bus about to crash into a wall? They just keep switching camera angles right before it crashes.

That's what this is like. All of those are like the, this is the pacing of One Piece, which never actually gets to the point. yeah um okay what do you want to talk about uh i have a quick keyboard thing if we could um is it as hard as possible is it a real keyboard well let's see the real keyboard well okay i don't have the real keyboard i'm to talk about but i have an example to help us understand just as good i think this is a pretty it's just like the roadster let's get a demo of the technology um all right so i've showed you guys plenty of artists and keyboards ones that are way too expensive and crazy materials, like that 10-pound geist machine that I brought in the one time.

So one thing that's people have been trying to make more premium in the keyboard world lately is key caps because even in the big, you know, full copper, like weight, metal, crazy material, artisan keyboards, all the keycaps are basically the same. They're either made out of PBT or ABS. There's a company called GMK that has like the monopoly on the like really plastic. ABS and PBT are plastic, and then GMK is the company that makes caps out of ABS, and they're, like, pinnacle S-tier, they're the ones everyone wants. And they're still super expensive, but at the last few years, people started making ceramic key caps as kind of this, like, way of, you know, upscaling the materials on key caps themselves to try and have this more premium feel. I do have a example of one here. This is keycaps from a company called Pohnage.

I just wanted to give you and try and test them out. Yeah, they are very glossy. And these are ceramic key caps on a metal body keyboard. They kind of give like a slightly deeper or in the keyboard world, thawkier sound. I'm sorry, what'd you call me? Marquez is typing on it right now. Wait, without Marquez saying anything,

What do you think he's typing? Marquez is the best to this pod. You should subscribe to the Wayform podcast right now. You should unsubscribe from the MKBHT channel and move your subscription to the Wayform podcast. I'm actually typing I am the best typist in the world. Mine's usually Andrew is the best. Do you just hit Enter when you finish that sentence?

Of course I did. And I typed it again after the enter too. So yeah, this is like kind of the step some companies are trying to take in making a more premium key cap. But Kikron just announced something a little more interesting, possibly. They're making the world's first fully ceramic keyboard

where the keycaps and the base of it, the case, are actually all ceramic. There's a picture of it in our thing. It is the same glossy all around the entire keyboard. This thing probably weighs 35 pounds. I'm not totally sure. It's so glossy. I don't know how this is going to go.

So it's called this Q16 HG. cheese. There are going to be hall effects, which means you can't even change the switches really because they probably won't be compatible because of the magnetic way it attaches and sends signals. But my main concern with this is ceramic, when it's ceramic key caps, you know, they're small, there's not a lot of break points. When you have a whole wide keyboard now made out of ceramic, what is the opportunity of just like a little drop or a rage and this thing just snaps in half? That's an interesting question. Like a crack straight down the middle. I think it should be pretty durable, right?

Like, ceramic, I guess it's a little bit more brittle, but ceramic shield is a totally different thing on the iPhone, but that's scratch resistant. But then also, remember the essential phone? Yeah, but that's not a metal rail, right? That was a ceramic back. Yeah. And that phone was like a little heavier.

But imagine this is just straight ceramic. So like I'm not talking less of like, will it scratch or like, I'm talking like because it is the support of the entire case. you think about like a toilet bowl cracking right is I guess porcelain ceramic how similar are those ceramic is not a thing it's like a it's a collection of unrelated

materials that you can all describe as ceramic oh so cool it's it describes heat treated inorganic materials I think oh no I'm not a material scientist but I do know that the family of ceramic materials are all

extra resistant to acidic corrosion when compared to other inorganic materials like your sweaty, sweaty fingers when you're gaming. True. It does say they resist damage from acids and general wear and tear. They can withstand extreme temperatures, but they are also known to be hard and brittle,

which is not what I want my keyboard to be. But, but, but... You slamming on your keyboard that hard? But you're not gaming hard enough. Ceramic materials are stronger under compression than other materials. weaker under tension and shearing and i would argue that key caps mostly face key caps

whole keyboard case yeah tension i see that is that tension i don't know like if you hit the left side really hard and then the right side really hard and you put like some amount of torsional force through the whole board maybe that's bad or you lose a one-on-one and just well that's gonna be bad no matter. No, it's not this metal one would be totally fine. Yeah, but you're going to break your desk if you do that with that. Yeah, well, the desk is probably cheap now. I'm just kidding. Anyways, I thought it was kind of interesting. Also, I have, if you want

to hold, this is a GMK-ABS, and this is the ceramic space bar. GMK-ABS is a classic. This is like the normal cream of the crop regular key cap. I feel like the best way to feel the difference or hear the difference is put your mic and tap these on the table. Classic. Porcelain.

it's like they're pretty solid the difference of them my biggest issue is they're super shiny and glossy um wait this is better here's a plastic drop watch it just here's a ceramic drop they're quite a bit different yeah so i was very thunky thawkey thawkey sound um yeah i don't know i thought it was kind of cool it's only $219 which is weird because some of the ceramic key caps

I think Syracuse the first one was doing it and like I think they're almost 200 bucks by themselves so we'll see what this is I think it's gonna be a bit lower quality

but we'll have to see one day Keyboard's fine is it also this is maybe a new question but like the fact that almost all keyboard key caps are plastic is that because plastic is lightweight you need them to be light

so that you can move them around it helps with like spring weight on a switch, but I really think it's just because it's the easy, like, I think it's way easier to do. Because there's no, like, metal. There are metal ones. Because we've done like artists and escape keys and stuff, but those are, yeah, yeah. There are some companies that do full metal key caps. I think the main thing is, is also when you're full metal alchemist. That's a movie reference, right? Uh, show reference. Close. Um, I think it's honestly, a lot of times when

how the key caps sound on a keyboard, generally keyboard cases are either plastic or metal. And, they just don't sound as good it kind of the like plastic I don't know how to describe it the way yeah it makes there's a lot of weird noise names in the keyboard community but I'm sure everyone's bored of this conversation by now

so there's some fraction of people who are like I want to hear more typing from this keyboard well I'm sure there'll be plenty of you know the best part about the keyboard world is you can just listen to videos of people typing and it's a weird hobby but there's a 17 hour you log of just typing isn't there I have a five hour

video of typing. I do have a, I think, a 10-hour yule log of fire-firy crackling noises and me typing on a red-green keyboard. Do you remember when you were typing when you were making that? I think I just pulled up a, like, infinite monkey type or something like. Oh, just random words.

No, no, actually, I think for the Christmas one, I pulled up a Christmas song and typed the whole Christmas song and then just did it on repeat. Smart. Yeah. Smart. But yeah, okay. One more thing.

we want to talk about, which is, we're going to really quickly just mention people who are clipping waveform for shorts and everything. Yeah. We've been getting it more often. Yeah, and I think this is what happened. I clicked on one. I think it was on YouTube, and then YouTube's algorithm was like, oh, you like watching MKBHD waveform shorts, and it like ran out of our own shorts to serve us. And it just started serving me all of the people who are just clipping waveforms. So I'm just getting them recommended to me now. and they're fine like it's cool that people like are entertained by clips of the podcast

and like clip parts that they think are interesting but some people are like deep frying them and like really editing them and it's a little much sometimes i'll allow it i think it's okay i just would like if they gave credit two-way form or like tagged mkbhd in the title or something like that because some of them i've seen clips i think i saw them with like 120 million views some are a lot yeah which is like that's kind of a lot Just to be honest, which is all just from like clipping some of the things that I've said apparently in this microphone. And I don't even care about that like we're not getting those views. It was that that specific one had zero links or credit back to waveform at all.

Yeah. Put a watermark of their own channel straight across the middle as if it was like all their own stuff. And then has the like audacity to have this big thing in there about like this is fair use when it was just like straight rip from ours with subtitles and a couple. B-roll stuff. Yeah. So like don't put your watermark over our faces for your channel. That was bad. The only,

the other issue I have with one is they don't really give credit, maybe a little bit. But then like the main thing on their channel is selling some, like the link in their channel is selling some crappy like Instagram pack something. So don't sell stuff on our, with our faces on it. Yeah. We've had other people though that it was great.

They linked, they like have our tag on all of the titles. in their channel, it links to the waveform. Like, if I just want people to be able to watch a clip and then be like, where can I go find this? Yeah, that's like the, that's like the number one behavior that we, I think there's two possible behaviors from seeing a clip like that. One is, oh, I kind of enjoyed that clip.

I want to see more from that episode or more of this conversation. Where do I go to find it? Well, if it's just a random link farm or just like a person just clipping thousands of things and just blasting it all over, like they'll never find it. The other is, oh, that was kind of fun conversation. Next time I see, you know, this face or these people, I'll probably watch it again because I enjoyed it, which is kind of a net positive. Like the waveform image is just out there, which is super cool. But yeah, on the first front, it would be nice if they had a way to like find waveform.

The easiest way to do that is tag waveform in the title. So when someone sees it and likes it, they can just clip it. And we will be very happy with that. And even if you don't, just don't link to some sketchy. Yeah, don't sell stuff on our behalf. That's just weird. And you should probably Google what fair use is. Just because you put what fair use is doesn't mean it's fair uses.

It's like, do you remember, oh, I really hope I got this right off my memory. I think it was Google when a bunch of Google stuff came out in the FTC trial, how Google employees would just say, attorney-client privilege in their DMs thinking that that somehow made the DMs. It's like the equivalent of that. I declare fair use. You know, it was something I started happening recently, and I've never said this out loud, but I think I can. Uh-oh. Which is, no, it's not specific to a company, but there was many, many, many years of me doing, covering embargoed products where I would get an email from a company saying, hey, we have something to share with you.

Would you like more information? If so, here's an NDA to sign. I sign the NDA, I return it, and then they send me the information that is bound to that NDA. but at least in the last like two or three years I've gotten a lot of emails even from massive companies that are like hey all this information is embargoed here's all the information

and it's like I didn't sign anything I did read your email that said the information was embargoed but I didn't sign it and you're just kind of like telling me that the information is embargoed but like is that how this works now I don't know I guess are they hoping it gets leaked no this is like companies who are not hoping

but I mean on like a on a Google tip, on a pixel wave. No, I know. I think this is just like a new faster way to just get stuff in front of the press. Who might, honestly, maybe there are people who don't sign it quickly and are just like missing out

and they wish they could just get the cycle going faster. They'd just send it out, hey, this is embargoed to this date and time. Here's the information. But it kind of has the same vibe of like, I declare this secret. So, you know, you can't tell people. Just send your next one back into the signature.

It says, like, by responding to this email, you owe me $10,000. for my time and just like wait to see if anything happens. By viewing this email you agreed to the embargo. You agreed to get me one Tesla roadster. Yeah. Anyway, we got more to talk about this year,

especially we want to get into maybe some potential smartphone award winners, so we'll do that right after the break. But before we take a break, trivia. All right, waveform trivia time. Let's get it, boys. we'll have to think about how we want to handle David's absence for this

this tree around maybe we'll send him maybe I'll call him well it depends where he is I don't know where he's in the world he's in Europe is he in a time zone that it's oh he's awake you could just ping him on like to text him or something and be like do you want a trivia question right now yeah you up just send me you up and if he replies you could call him and get a trivia yeah yeah today's questions about I fix it because we love fixing things and letting them not end up in the trash. And I also love, oh, David's up.

Perfect. We also love silly words. And in every I Fix It kit is a tool that has a very silly word. So today's trivia question that I've taken forever to get here. There's only one I know and it's definitely not going to ask that one. Really? What is the name of the tool included in many I Fixit kits that is used to pry the screen off of smartphones. I know what Marquez is writing, but I'm not, I don't think that's it. Am I wrong?

Can I draw it? Can you draw it? Yeah. I mean, it won't be a name. You used to pry open? Yes. It's a wedge tool that is used to pry open. Screens.

Screens. Okay. Yeah, I think, I think we're thinking of the same thing. Yes, but I think that's wrong. Oh, interesting. I guess we'll find out. I don't think it's wrong. Okay.

Well, we'll think about that. The answers will be at the end, like usual. We'll also call David in at the end for podcast trivia. We'll be right back. From Pushkin Industries, I'm Jonathan Goldstein, and heavyweight is back. The new season is bigger than ever. Bigger hopes? I keep waiting for this moment when he says, Mom, I get it.

I'm sorry. Bigger dreams. Tom Hanks wants to meet with you. This is a real chance. And bigger heartbreaks. I thought it would be my movie moment. And maybe he would even whisper in my ear. I've always been in love with you.

Check out new episodes of heavyweight on Apple Podcasts. With Amex Platinum, access to exclusive Amex pre-sale tickets can score you a spot track. side. So being a fan for life turns into the trip of a lifetime. That's the powerful backing of Amex. Pre-sale tickets for future events subject to availability and varied by race. Turns and conditions apply. Learn more at Amex.ca.com slash Y-Mex. Hit pause on whatever you're listening to and hit play on your next adventure. This fall get double points on every qualified stay. Life's the trip. Make the most of it at Best Western. Visit bestwestern.com for complete terms and conditions.

All right, welcome back. So it's TechTember, as I've said many times. But you know what that also means? That also means it's September. Whoa. Wait, really? Yeah. Which means it's nine months into the year.

And there's only three months left for phones to come out. But we are kind of approaching the end of when phones do come out. And so we can start thinking about, start considering the Smart Phone Awards for 2020. 25. It's still too early. There are still more phones coming out. Notably, we still think maybe a trifold is coming out. We still have maybe another month of like phones coming out that aren't necessarily dependent on the U.S. holiday shopping season. But a lot of good stuff has come out already. And so we can go through our categories. We're going to go through each of the typical categories for a smartphone awards and think about, discuss what has come out this year and maybe

somehow it takes about what could win. Yeah, I think every year we do like a let's sit down and start just mentioning phones making sure we don't miss anything so doing it on the podcast sounds fun i'm sad david's not here to see i've got a lot of good insight yeah and also there are hardly any real rules to this like every year we re we look back at the previous years and we go all right we'll probably keep all the same awards we could add an award category we could subtract one we also don't just keep it to phones that i've reviewed or even necessarily phones that i've tested we look at as many of the phones that came out during the year as possible typically we have tested basically every phone we consider. But yeah, that is, it's all over the map. Yeah, we do have

Adam here, though, who seems to maybe at this point be the person who uses the second most phones in a calendar year. I think he may have surpassed David. I would say, yeah. But yeah, so I just listed all the categories. I feel like, let's go through them, maybe throw out some things we remember that seem notable. So these are last years. So how about, I'm going to pull up even what were the winners from the last year. Yeah. I don't really like this. category best orange phone who put that there i don't know if i can see the cmf phone nice so okay smartphone awards 2020 i just want to say we are very on brand with our thumbnails because when you just type in smartphone awards and youtube it's all our videos and you can tell

because it's we have a very specific style for this and boy do they get almost the exact same amount of views every single year lock clockwork baby six million six point three five four or five point four is six point nine seven we're also a lot of comments every time because people people love that's what I thought might be fun to talk about it on the podcast because then we you know discuss a little and then people in the comments can give some of their suggestions as well yeah typically when we do this we're like in the middle of the studio and we're all just sitting there for like an hour discussing all the phones we're still going to do that yeah we're still going to do that but then like the audience never has a chance to like voice their opinion so like if you have a strong opinion

and this is your chance to yell it in the comments. Yeah, I agree, actually. It was perfect. All right, first category, best big phone. Last year's winner, Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra. Yeah. So, I mean, obviously, S25 Ultra came out this year. I will say the phone that I used for the longest this year as my daily driver was the S25 Ultra.

That's something that usually comes up at some point in the awards. So that's got to be in the running. And then the question really is just like, what is a big? phone what counts as like best use of a ton of space the gaming phones usually come up because they're all huge and have a ton of features there's also going to be phones that have like massive silicon carbon batteries and and they're all pretty big maybe not massive but I do think we also saw the iPhone pros really starting to take advantage of being like we are thicker we the pro max but like let's throw some stuff up higher bigger battery get rid of the sim card tray

I guess getting rid of a SIM card tray isn't taking advantage of everything but they did for the first time in Apple history kind of feel like they move towards that push of like what we want as tech people of like cram everything we want in it that's probably only because they also had a phone that did the exact opposite.

Right. And I also will, I will say about the iPhones because people always talk a lot about the iPhones and the awards. The iPhones kind of live in their own like the world where when you talk about iPhones you usually compare it to other iPhones instead of like the entire rest of the tech world. I think iPhones, if you look at the Pro Max, for example,

it is the most maximalist, like ultra best big phone iPhone I've ever made, but it is very clearly still not as crazy as the huge like 200 megapixel main camera, 6,000 million power silicon carbon battery, 100 watt charging, massive front facing speakers. Like they don't do any of that stuff. so as good as it is for an iPhone it's it's tougher to give that an award when phones like that exist super true um so i'm looking at like yeah the the r og phone usually the s25 ultra will obviously come up there's going to be phones like the one plus 13 even which are still like 6.7 inch screens 6,000 mail-imp hours silicon carbon battery yeah phones like that ultra phones one plus was the first thing that kind of entered my mind but that was

like early on in the year but they did seem to like shove as much and that was the beginning of this year the 13 yeah it was January it's the first one I reviewed you know the conversation is kind of like when people compare supercar versus hypercar yeah like the the iPhone pro max is a supercar but the like crazy oppo or the shami 15 ultra or whatever that that's like a hypercar with all the specs that they give you. So that's what I think about when I think about Best Big Phone. You don't think like Pixel Pro XL or like the was it the Xiaomi 15 Ultra? Those are like good phones that are big. Like the Pixel 10 Pro XL is a good phone that is big. But I think when I think about the award for Best Big Phone, I think about

the phone that crammed so much into it that it's kind of impressive that it's all in one phone, if that makes sense. Yeah. But there's a lot of good big phones obviously. the other the next category is kind of the opposite best small phone there's always my favorite category there's usually not a lot of good small well it's gotten harder for sure um but i guess we keep thinking of different ways of saying small like i was going to say at what point do we just drop this category because there are no small phones that's a good point i thought about that a lot i do want to reward a good small phone because it feels like a unique thing to give a reward to Last year's winner was the iPhone 16, which is like a, what, 6.1 inch display?

Wasn't last year 6.3? I think it's 6.3. So the best small phone, because the stat was... Regular 16 was 6.1. But the stat was the best small phone with a 6.1 inch display was bigger than the best big phone. Of like the first smartphone. Yeah. So, yes, it is harder and hard to find a good small phone.

that said there are folding phones flipping phones there are other hot take yeah a folding phone is not a small phone but a flipping phone yeah yeah no i think uh like the razor the flip i think these qualify it's my argument every every year i try and convince him that i think a flip is also there's like the small phone i take it back well it is funny though Claire used a flip for a year and her first thing is she's like oh this is nice and then she's open and she's like This phone's so big because it's so tall and reachability. That's the counter argument is when you open the flip phone, it is bigger than the fold closed. So I guess it's, is it a small phone when you're using the phone or is it a small phone just like when you hold it and you're not using it?

I think it should be when you're using the phone. I think whole package should be part. But I do think using it when it's opened is part of it still. So it's like it's pro is also its con in that sense. And also, phones like the razor and the Z-fold, you can use them a little when they're closed. And that is like a small phone experience. It would be like a four-inch diagonal. I think you don't like do much on it, but you could like check notifications and play pause music and do little things like that.

I just want to say, I know Sony has made small phones in the past. So I decided to just look up Sony phones to try and figure out what the name of it is. It's not the Xperia, whatever. the people also ask section on google when you type sony phones is does sony make phones anymore is expiry available in the u.s is sony releasing a new phone in 2025 what is the downfall of sony oof i made that video uh yeah what is the most recent there are a few phones released in 2025 that have sub six inch displays are any of them Okay, are any of them in the U.S., is the first question?

One of them is. Okay, hit me with the list, because I would like to hear these. The list of them available in the U.S. or those of them, period? Of phones that came out this year with a sub-6-inch screen. Because the last one I remember was like Zen phone. Are you okay if one of them has an exactly six-inch screen? Sure, sure, sure, sure. Not available in the U.S.

Okay. The HTC Wildfire E6. Okay. Exactly six-inch display. This is according to GSM Arena, by the way. HTC has been dead for years, so I'm not sure how they released a phone this year. They're making phones outside the U.S., right? Are they still?

HTC? I thought they were again. Is HTC? I'm pretty sure they are. According to GSM Arena. I was just going to say, I just sort of GSM Arena by things under six inches and released in 2020. So we're looking at the same list. There's a lot of watches.

However, I thought they died. No, I think HTC's kind of like made somewhat of a comeback outside of the U.S. Okay. number two yeah the doogie fire three doji yeah doji still makes phones

not only does doji make still make phones but the dogy fire three has a 5.5 in screen meaning it is only 0.1 inches diagonally larger than the greatest phone ever made what's funny about this though is that screen size

and this is a a phone that is like rugged so obviously is adding a ton of exercise to that End still has top and bottom bezels. So, like, it is probably the footprint of a 6-inch phone.

8,000 milli-anper battery is crazy. Okay. This is interesting. Okay. All right. Noted. Finally. And I'm not sure that this is available in the U.S. or not, but the Nokia 150 music. That's screen size again, though, right? This has a full... Andrew, look at this phone. That is a small phone. That's a small phone. Oh, wait. You said the Nokia.

they also have an HMD 150 music because they're owned by this internet. I also would just like, well, actually it's funny, the Nokia 150 music picture on GSM Arena has the HMD logo on the back. Also, this phone has eight megabytes of RAM. Nice. This is a feature phone with a physical keyboard,

just so people know. This is a featureless phone. Wow. Yeah, so this is a hard category. I think I will have to include the flipping phones in this consideration and I will also have to consider probably phones with slightly larger

than six inch screens. I think you have to. Obviously because we just had one last year when. So, yeah. 6.1. I think the minimal phone belongs on the small phone list. The minimal phone? No, the light phone too, but... Oh, no, the minimal phone is small. Is it actually

small? I think the minimal phone and possibly, I mean, definitely the light phone, possibly minimal phone belongs on small phones list. They are definitely small, but are they the best small phones? Look, man, I'm just trying to give you a feel to competitors. No, I agree. This is good fodder. No one wants to watch an F1 race that has two drivers.

We've got to have way more field. Lately, it's basically just been Norris and Piastry. It's kind of like watching poker where all the rest of the players are trash, but once in a while they pull something crazy. But it's kind of the two main players. But you don't want to watch heads up poker. You want a bunch of people to maybe get crazy. hands. Anyway, I think light phone should be. Minimal phone still has the keyboard, so it's still

kind of big, but light phone is actually really, like look at this picture of this guy holding this. It looks like he's holding a keychain. Small little phone there. I like that idea. I like light in there. I want to know what's the biggest screen size of a phone that could win before people get mad? 6.3. Well, that's, I think there's, I think someone will get mad no matter what, no matter how much we preface it by saying there's only so many phones we can click but which might mean we have to kill a category i don't know i do agree with you maybe not yet but it's we added a category last year right we added foldable yeah maybe small phone is the one that has to get taken away or does it merge kind of into design as like yeah we've never we say design is really

good because they fit so much in a smaller category possibly yeah just feels like if i have best big phone I have to have best big small phone. Best small phone. They just go hand in hand. I don't know. We could get, do best perfectly average size phone. Best average size. I think as, as long as it's in the bottom half of typical phone size, it counts as a small

phone. What if you did most average phone? Just all around. The most phone. The most phone phone. It's just like a completely average price, a completely average size, completely average space. Like, this is the default phone of the year award. The iPhone, 14.

all right next one is best camera this one's always fun because it always gets the most comments yeah this is the one that gives me the most anxiety really day to day well the thing about camera is there's pictures and videos and there are always different weights to how much people think i should give to photos and videos like maybe most people take 80% photos 20% videos but then they have a kid and they start taking way more videos or way less videos i don't know i tend to value videos more because guess what i do lots of video stuff like i kind of a pro video person so i value video maybe 50 50 with photos and i mean i'm spoiler alert i've reviewed a lot of phones this year and then the iphone pros came out and you know the iphone one last year the pro iphone and

none of them have come out with anything shockingly better enough to make me think that they should unseat the iPhone as the best video. So the video award, if there was one, would go to the iPhone, clearly. So then it becomes, okay, should the others being better at photos way enough to matter over the iPhone-winning videos. And some of them are better than the iPhone with photos, and they have better zooms, and they have 200 megapixel sensors and way more detail and better low-light and better stabilization. But yeah, how much should photo versus video matter? I think for the trophy winner, I think you probably should go 50-50. That just seems like the most fair version.

But then we always do honorable mentions. So like an honorable mention of, but I think the phone that tastes just the best pictures is there like a runner-up. And that's a good way to differentiate and give people that knowledge. But even that's tough because what if one phone takes the way better pictures of just like wide main camera, but then another phone takes just like maybe 10% worse on that but also has a 50X telephoto ultra-wide macro. The Vyto X-200 Pro last year was this phone, yeah.

Yeah, it'll be tough. I'm very, you know, I'm thinking a lot about this award because of just obviously I care about video a lot and we go shoot videos on the autofocus channel with phones and we test a lot of these phones with video. And some of them are impressive when they watch it. Like people watch the footage and be like, wow, I didn't know the pixel 10 could shoot video this good.

So it's cool that we have that, you know, good output, but it's the quality of how easy it is to shoot, the experience, the pro, like, format, versatility, all that other stuff. It's like, okay, the iPhone's the best for video. How much, like, should we weigh that in? I feel like it's almost like becoming its own category almost. Oh. Because iPhone's going in a, in a, they're like, their video system is just in the world of its own right now.

Yeah. It's like the old pixel camera used to be. Yeah, exactly. The old pixel camera used to be the one, obviously. obviously. And now it's like for video, iPhone camera video is like the one, obviously. So it's kind of tough. Yeah. And it has Genlock. Just have Chenlock. Instant win. Prores Ross forge. I was going to say it's almost like Marquez, this is your smartphone awards and this is based on you. That's true. Some people forget that, I think, and are like, what this is. It's like,

I do remember. But this is what you like better. And that's totally fine. Yeah. I think I do preface that at some point in the first minute of every single awards. It's like, these are my awards. These are the ones I feel like giving out. That's the part I blink out. People usually just skip the first two minutes. Exactly. All right. Next category was best value. And last year's winner was the nothing phone 2A. Let me refresh my memory for what the MSRP was at launch for that phone.

Because every year the conversation is what is a value phone? Nothing phone to a launch price. Did we change this up? Did it used to be best budget phone? Yes. And I think we started doing best value. exactly 349 US so that's clearly

on the lower end of like you can buy a $2,000 phone today or you could buy a $200 phone today so budget value seems about right I have something I think you alluded to already so I think you agree with me

but I think because people still consider this the budget category will be mad at but the base iPhone 17 with 256 base storage with all the good like with almost all the good

cameras like it just with pro motion now it makes the 16 e look like such a joke it makes the 16 and the 16 look like a joke you know what else it makes look like a joke the pixel 10 base series because right before this launched pixel was like nah base can base can have almost or worse cameras than the pro thing than the pro model the same amount but worse cameras 1 28 base you have to pay an extra hundred dollars and the prices have gone up on old pixels like but 10 But Apple did the pixel thing from like three years ago where the base was such a good, it's really hard to jump up to the pro version. And Apple did that and I'm a little embarrassed for buying a pixel.

I still enjoy it, but now the question is, is it so good of a value that you can give a $799 phone the value award? That's a tough one. It's a really tough one. But it is that good. I mean, other phones, we had a lot of good cheap phones. And this is one where there's like a lot of phones that I didn't even test that I go back through the year. and I'm like, wow, these one or two poco phones and these one or two Xiaomi phones

that were specifically targeting, I think the S-25 FE came in and I use it for like one day, and I'm like, these are all, this is basically an S-25, but $200 cheaper. Like, there are a lot of really good value options to consider in this category. The Nothing Phone 2A won last year

because it felt like a flagship phone and I used it, I think, before I knew the price and would have guessed it was like twice the price, which is very impressive. really smooth software, really good experience. That's the type of thing I look for in Best Value Phone Award. But I don't think there is a clear frontrunner this year. What was the price of CMF Phone 2 Pro?

279. I'm on the page right now. I mean, it's pretty great. Dude, the CMF Phone Pro 2, when you look at that price and these numbers, feels like OG Pocophone. Like, oh man, I will always reminisce about OG Pocophone days of just watching anyone post any video for like four months.

and the top comment was always Pocoponos better specs than this and it's $300. Yeah. This one can't win this award though because it's already winning the best orange. Oh. Dude, this is, I mean,

some of the specs on this are pretty solid, 120 hertz, 6.7 inch screen, 50 megapixel, 2 50 megapixel megapixel cameras. I mean, it's doing 4K recording. It's IP 54. It's a 5,000 million-hour battery. 6.7 inch display. This thing, Amel-led, like, I don't know.

That's, it's pretty solid. Yeah. That's pretty good backlist. You got to use it, though. You know, you got to make sure it's actually a good phone without just having the numbers and the fluff. Yeah, I don't remember exactly you. Oh, wait, actually, your title for it is budget phone of the year.

I really like it. And that was, like, six months ago or whatever? Four months ago? Yeah. That's, it has a chance. I think that's got a solid. And there's still phones dropping that are qualifying for this award, but that one may be one of the favorites for this award. Yeah, that's one of those ones where you have to start balancing, like, maybe it's not as good as the more expensive one, but does it get so much extra points for being this, like, sub 500?

Yeah. But I feel like with this category, one of the things to take into consideration to is, like, longevity. And do I expect this phone to last longer than a base iPhone 17? Absolutely not. That low-key, that's like a sneaky important thing for value, which is lifetime value of the phone. If you get a really good deal on a phone that lasts you one year versus if you get a pretty solid value on a phone that lasts you six years, you could really argue for the value of the phone that lasts you way longer. I don't know that we have a software update timeline promise from CMF, but I do know that iPhone will last you a long time. So that's a really good point for that phone. Okay, next category

Best Battery And I think the The classic that I always say at the beginning of this is This is not just the phone with the longest battery life This is the phone with the best overall battery experience iPhone air Because the Because the dream is just like

Not thinking about your battery ever Like that when you, that dream of like I just got a brand new phone And I used it all day And I just ended the day with 55%. Oh my God that Ellis You've got to believe me, this is a really good feeling.

This is living. It's a really good feeling in the phone. So last year's winner was the Red Magic 10 Pro, which was a gaming phone, which, you know, they tend to throw massive batteries and gaming phones because you use a lot of power on gaming. But when you use that phone like regular, that phone had a 7,050 milli-empower battery and supported a 100 watt. 7,000? 7,000, a silicon carbon battery. I was right about that.

Wow. And 100-watt fast-charge. 80 watt charger in the box and you could do pass-through charging because with gaming you don't want too much heat so there was all these battery features and you could turn it down to 60 hertz and it would just last forever

and that was the winner that's a good benchmark even for this year 7,000 million empowers and 100 watt charging would win this year wait can it win? No I was just thinking that too it would be funny if you just gave it to it two years in a row yeah that's you know

if they re-released the same phone again this year it would have a chance there are some other really good phones with big batteries that came out but I talked about silicon carbon batteries at the beginning of 2025 thinking we'd see a lot of them and we saw some but not a ton I think we saw some of the more advanced riskier especially overseas flagships we didn't see them in the US as much like no Samsung Apple Motorola like the ones that are doing a lot of volume here didn't do a lot of silicon carbon I think to be fair you made the video the one plus video and we're like I think we're going to see this a lot and it was really only those couple phones off

the riff, and then we didn't really see much of it? Yeah, there's been some, like, Oppo and One Plus and Xiaomi, and they've done silicon carbon batteries, but then, like, the big flagships that we see in the U.S. a lot, like, Samsung didn't do it with the S-25 Ultra. The iPhones obviously don't have it. So it's going to be one of those, like, more daring phones again. I've never really went through the, the GSM already filter thing is pretty awesome. Like, I can just do sort by 2025 and battery. over 5,000 million powers. Okay.

What about over 6,000? Because I think there's a couple good ones. Oh, no, I was over 6,000. There's 201 results it says. Damn. Yeah. Anyway, the idea with it is going to be like, can you turn down, you know, to 60 hertz or maybe 90 hertz and just use a phone

like normal and just not even think about battery? Like, that's the ideal. Having wireless charging. You know, the one thing that dinged that phone is it had, like, I don't think it had wireless charging at all. The one plus or? The red magic that won't last year. I think that usually you want to just not even think about it.

Just pop it on a charger and it just charges fast and you're good. Fast charging is really important, but obviously having a really long life is the best. The 1 plus 13 this year is 6,000 million ap hours, 100 watt wired charging, 50 watt wireless charging and 10 watt reverse wireless charging. And I use that phone for a while and really like the battery on it. Yeah. So, yeah, that's got a shot as well. but yeah that's that's a that's a pretty straightforward one you can expect a phone with the best battery experience to win as it should as it should okay we got five more best design this one's totally

subjective totally subjective it used to be best build quality now it's just favorite design you know whatever i think deserves a design award for the year last year's winner wawa mate xt the triple fold duh that's the craziest most daring interesting design of a year of that year for phones. Now, we still are expecting maybe a Samsung trifold this year. So we got to stay tuned for that. We still have like the new super, super thin regular folds from a couple of companies this year, like the honor and the Samsung. And then there's just other interesting. The edge and the air are very different designs and very striking and feel good. I always get a design award. I low key really like, I sound like such an apple show as someone who's

literally never used an iPhone, but like I like the pro design this year. I like the unibody. I like how it looks. I like the plateau. I think it all is great. And I really enjoy how they pushed every, like they did a physical change inside the phone to reorganize the phone, yeah, which I thought was interesting. But over the air?

Because the air did all of that too. The air did all of it also. And it's like super durable. Yeah. Shockingly durable. Unibody is good and cool. Yeah. I'm a really big fan of the.

all metal jacket is what I'm calling it with just like glass cutouts. Instead of being a glass sandwich, it's just a metal phone with glass cutouts. Do you think the air can win over the edge because you said, and I know we're just talking about design, but it is slightly thinner than the edge,

but the edge still gives you more cameras. It seems to give you more phone. Yeah. I think the edge is a slightly better design in terms of what you get out of using the phone. It still has a... It's called Best Design Award. Well, so it has the 200 megapixel flagship main camera and an ultra-wide.

Now, yes, it is a millimeter thicker, but I also like the boxier design. It has stereo speakers. It has a bigger battery. It has like a 3,900-m-ampower battery. So it's got more to it for being one millimeter thicker. Yeah. How much does that one millimeter matter? I don't know.

Are we just going to ignore the elephant end of that? room, which is the nothing phone three that let you place bin the bottle on the back? Nothing phone three. They had that little screen on the back. Is that worth a design award? I think it got so much pushback that it can't possibly win the award.

Spoiler alert. It is, yeah. I mean, it is unique. That's for sure. Didn't we just see a bunch of other things that might have screens on the back? There were some rumors I just saw. Maybe that's not out yet. There was like two or three other Xiaomi phones maybe that were going to have big screens on the camera plateau on the back. I saw it. I saw,

I did one a while ago. I saw a couple of those that were renders and, like, rumors, but I wasn't sure if they were actual real or not. Okay. We did a video on one a few years ago, which was, like, the first, what I remember, the first big plateau on the back was because it had a screen on the back of that, like, plateau. Yeah, I think I saw some renders of, like,

new ones. Even bigger screens on the back. Oh, boy. So all of those are interesting. I also think, like, the design, like, should service the use, like, industrial design, I guess, should matter, which, you know, brings the, the pro. iPhones back into the equation, but even something like the most boring design is the S-25 Ultra.

Like, it's a gray rectangle with like no camera bump, but it has all of the room and does all of the things. It probably can't win an award, but that's like the starting point. Like you've got to be at least that good at design and probably better to win the award. So. Yeah, I don't know. I really think the two slim phones, when I think the easiest way to think about design is like if you handed this phone to just somebody without even really turning it on and they held it in their hands and they were like, whoa, this is cool. I think the edge in the air are the things this year that feel like that. Previously, a triple folding phone last year was like, you hand that to someone and they're like, oh my goodness. Yeah. What is this? Totally. I do think if you compare the two super

thin phones, the air, the iPhone, is more impressive to hold. Specifically because it's lighter. It's so light. Yes, it has less battery, but that's, like when you hold the phone and use it, it just feels like you're holding a screen. It's pretty sick. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I don't think there's a front runner for this one yet. It's a tough one. I think this is the toughest one. Yeah. All right. Then best foldable. This was the new category last year and the inaugural winner, or was it?

Real quick. The edge is two grams later than the air. Really? That's what this is saying real quick. Yeah, 163 grams versus 165. that's sick and it has like way bigger battery and dual cameras that's kind of shocking actually we yeah we need to hold both of them i'll put them on scale again but yeah it struck me each time i held them like these phones are really light i didn't realize they're about the same awesome okay

uh yeah best foldable so last year's winner inaugural winner pixel nine pro fold we have the uh the announcement of the 10 pro fold still waiting to get it here to review that will, of course, be in contention. But also, we got the ultra-thin ones now. We've got Samsung Z-Fold 7. We got Honor Magic 3, I think, is what it's called. We've got potential tri-fold. There's a lot still on the table.

I was just going to say, is the trifold in the running? It has to be, yeah. It's going to be a new style of trifold also, which I'm really interested in. It could either work really well or really poorly by opening, like, outwards from the middle screen. Yeah. that's so man you know we're like wrapping up our iPhone videos and part of me is like we're through we're kind of through and then we're talking about all these things that still haven't come out we haven't made videos on and we're like oh no we're right in the middle of it still there's literally like

two very important foldables coming in the next couple months at least yeah that one there's a lot on the table for foldables still and then also there's the flipping phones that sort of kind of get swept under the rug because we always look mostly at the big folds because they're more interesting, but you could look at, you know, the big outside screens on these new flips, the Huawei flip, the Samsung flip, the razor. And that they're folding phones that are like reasonable for people to get price-wise. These aren't two thousand plus dollar folding phones. Which never really affected this category or at least the most of the awards, but I think it maybe should matter a little bit. You can get it. There's rumors that there's another

unpacked on Monday. Wait, now it's on Monday? Everything I'm reading says it's on the 29th. And that's where they're supposedly going to make this announcement. So we might be right on the cusp. Okay. Of maybe the triple bow?

I've not seen that. Trifold. We're all waiting for that announcement to happen. Because they promised by the end of this year, right? So that's what we are pretty close to the end of September. Okay. Yeah. A lot on okay. A lot on the table for foldables. Three more. Maybe the most interesting ones right so most improved award we don't see very much drastic improvement from

year to year for smartphones but last year this was the pixel 9 pro fold because the first pixel fold was awesome in theory but you know not great open and then they just made an awesome foldable that won the award so that was a that was the most improved this year gosh the base iPhone is going to come up again right because that way yeah immediately i just think that got ProMotion, that got 256 base. I mean, the cameras aren't, I guess, phones don't get that different year to year. Like, there's not a lot that's actually different about it.

It's virtually visually identical to last year. Yeah, but you could make the argument that when we gave Razorphone 2, it was visually extremely similar, but Razorphone 2 was just, here's all the bad things about the Razorphone. Fixed it all. They fixed it all.

Not, like, the iPhone was still just an iPhone, nothing to get that excited about. but this year it really feels like they put in the things that people have complaining been complaining about with an $800 phone which is pro motion I mean no one was even really complaining that much about base storage but giving you 2506 base storage it's yeah it's definitely up there what were some bad phones of last year that's what I was just about yeah that I mean the one plus 13 S I was going to say I don't know if the one plus 12 was bad though but one plus 13 was really 13 was really good we don't we didn't even mention the 13 S for

small phone it's 6.37 inches is it actually Jesus okay it's a small phone to me but damn what else came out okay so pixels pixel let's see pixel 10 10 so we're hoping would be it's not an improvement if anything I would say it's the opposite no yeah is pixel 10 the biggest disappointment aren't the cameras in the pixel 9 better than the cameras in the pixel 10 I think one of them is because the pixel 9 had cameras then it went to pixel 9a and the 10's using the 9a cameras which i think are worse i thought the 10 pro fold uses the nine a cameras i think the pixel 10 uses the 9a cameras as well interesting okay yeah well that's not going to win any i may have bought bust of the year is opo find x8 ultra there's

shami 15 series not a lot of these are like dramatically better than last year it's bust has been getting harder to do because there aren't as many really bad phones there's not as many companies kind of coming out of nowhere with something like the red hydrogen or you're doing most improved but that's also true about bus that's a good way to go is like bust of the year can usually win a most approved a most approved uh c did it i feel like the the price might disqualify it but i think nothing phoned three might deserve most improved because it's better in literally every spec and i think it looks pretty cool oh yeah but the price and but it is two or three hundred dollars more expenditure and people didn't like the design they're pretty yeah well i don't like people yeah i think

the design was fine didn't blow me away but it's light phone three oh yeah light phone three was a pretty big improvement guys books palma two is this year not a phone i don't really know what the difference is from the palma one the palma one is definitely not a phone is the palma two also not a phone yeah it's not yes it's also not a phone but it's lit as hell it's pretty sick Pixel 9A. 9A. Are we going to, oh, 10A's next year. What about the new TCL paper phone?

Wasn't there a version in the past, and this new version is like really sick and can do the like paper to full screen? That's interesting. Yeah, the e-paper improvements year to year go super hard. So in that category of phones, that is a pretty big jump for the reason that you'd buy the phone.

Yeah. And we have it here. I haven't done any video stuff about it. I have the 50XL Next paper. We do. Did you not see it? No. Dude, some of the stuff on the screen it can do is really cool.

Yeah, I want to see that yesterday. What? It even has a button that you would love that just turns the ePaper mode on and makes everything black and white. You guys love that about like the fair phone or whatever it was. So that's interesting. It's not a switch. So we're out. You press the button and the like screen looks normal and then just like Harry Potter like turns into ePaper.

it's really cool yeah that might be in it that could be in there for design also but maybe that's more of a software design that's like a video on that phone it's it arrived right before chaos so it is sitting in this nice little leather book thing on my desk it's like nicely packaged and everything it's pretty cool that could be just realized this is completely off topic for the first time in my memory you're using two regular size phones you're not using the excel or the max that's true yeah i just saw that on the table i'd used uh yeah for those wondering my my current dailies are the pixel 10 pro not the xl and the iphone 17 pro not the excel who are you and what have you done with marcus you know it's nice having smaller phones that actually last all day

it's really nice damn you almost had alice on board with that yeah yeah um i like the excel phones i just they're huge six foot it's like a surfboard the six point nine inch both of the yeah excel version of these films are huge yeah um well i don't know bus of the year i don't know if we're gonna there are there are weird weird phones that came out this year um the sequel to the salana phone hit my inbox i'm sure i have that on my desk um the let's see what are there it's not that many bad bus bus is also all right bus is going to be super It's always tough to give, especially one because you don't really want to give it to anyone. But in the past, there were so many phones just begging for it.

So last year's winner for bust of the year was winner, was the Zenphone 9. Oh, yeah. Because the, that makes sense. Yeah. Because of what they did. Sorry, that was the best small phone. The Zen phone 10 Ultra or whatever. What do they call it?

11 Ultra. 11 Ultra, yeah. Yeah. That one, best, worst phone. best worst phone but that's a good way of putting it yeah best worst phone most just worstest because it wasn't a bad phone it's just they got rid of all the things we like that's exactly right yeah and that's kind of how it'll probably go with this like there are phones like i don't know would you say the pixel 10 is a bust because tensor didn't get better would you say the pixel 10 is a bus

because it's 120 base store it the pixel base series used to be this like great deal and like Tenor was kind of the thing you were sacrificing. And I feel like they did this thing where they added the third camera to make it feel like you're getting a better deal, but you got a lot of worse things out of it. And now seeing iPhone, the people are supposed to be the expensive, bad deal ones, bringing in all these things that on their base, I'm really mad about the storage and having to pay an extra $100. No offense, but I do think that it's between like the A series and the pros with pixel.

I don't even look at the numbers. You know, the iPhone 16. I saw the color though the colors that's fair the colors the colors the iPhone 16e was kind of bad 16E was it was it was it or does the 16e just look really bad it's such it's 700 how much 600 dollars 600 dollars for an iPhone that only has one camera no mag safe no no pro motion I forgot about no no no barely any storage I was gonna make the case that iPhone Air has also one camera and could be compared to this, but it's a thousand.

Oh, it's so different. The iPhone Air is 900 to start, right? 999. It has a 6.5-inch, gorgeous 120-hertz OLED display. And the 16E is not. Then they both have different single cameras, but if you made me take one, I'd take the air. A decent size 3,100-million-amp battery versus, I don't even know what the iPhone is. When you search iPhone 16E, the first Reddit thread that comes up is the iPhone 16E isn't a bad phone.

It's a bad value. Yeah, that was my, that was my title, right? Or this is my, like, opening line or whatever. This is on the LTT subreddit. Well, it's true. It's true. So, uh, I don't know. 16E was disappointing in the feature set and in the value proposition.

And that could also be in contentioned for buses. Is the 16 not have magsave? Correct. that's what we were so mad about oh my goodness yeah that's got to be in theirs they put it in the air which is so much thinner yeah they got to take away something for then for the cheap phone yeah so you're telling me that the four magnets they use for magsafe is four hundred dollars is too much money to put in that phone somehow super weird and by the way the one they gave me was upgraded storage so I think they gave me a review unit that was a

$900, maybe $800, $800, 16E, which is just comedy. So anyway, yeah, Bust of the Year will be some interesting candidates for that one. And then a phone of the year, the MVP, phone of the year, the big award for 2025. So again, I'll mention again the phones that I used the most this year in chronological or I guess in terms of time, how much I use them. Number one by a landslide is the Galaxy S-25 Ultra. I use that for maybe six months, I think. Meaning, like, when I'd finish reviewing a phone,

I would go back to it as my main. Second place, I think, is the one plus 13. Which I think I used for, like, a month or two. And then there's a bunch of phones with, like, tiny slivers of the pie after that. And lately, I'm on Pixel 10 Pro for, I guess, It's been a month now. We still have two months before we actually record this thing.

Right. So it could get the second place if I don't switch back to whatever, but they're still reviewing other phones. So a lot of tiny slivers of that, but those are the phones that I personally liked the most to use for myself. That said, the award for MVP or phone of the year takes like the whole story into account. Maybe one landed that was just like an amazing value or like changed the story about phones this year. Or it was just shocking that it came out from the company that. it came out from last year the let me go to the end the phone of the year award samson galaxy s24 ultra and that one was like it came out in january and it was very boringly just like the best phone

you could buy all year there's the safest bet it's rock solid software if you want AI stuff it's got that if you want long time updates it's got that if you want good cameras and good zoom it's got that if you want good videos it's got that if you want good battery it's got that if you If you want good charging, it's got that. If you want a good screen, it's got that. If you want a good build, it's got that. S-Pen was there. Speakers were there.

Build quality. It was just everything you could, it was so safe. And I was like, yeah, this is the best phone of the year. And it's kind of shocking that we don't talk about it more. So that won last year. S-25 Ultra, similar in a lot of ways. And it has a Snapdragon 8 Elite and all these things are great about it. But it's still so boring.

Like, I feel like I'm looking around at the rest of the landscape of phones. and like iPhone era made an enormous splash. Pro iPhones are interesting. Pixel 10 is odd from Google. Like, we have a lot to say about it. S25FE is interesting. Base iPhone 17 is also interesting for phone of the year, just in how much of a leap they made,

possibly being most improved and having all the stuff that we were hoping to finally come to the iPhone, finally did. Yeah, there's a lot. Maybe if this trifold is sick, from Samsung. Maybe that's a candidate for phone of the year. So there's a lot that is in contention to sort of take the story, the mantle for like the phone that represents the year and phones. The triph-fold's going to be so interesting to see because that is such opportunity to be like

the coolest phone of the year or just the absolute dumbest phone of the year if it doesn't do, yeah, like, because we know that thing's going to, how much do you think it's going to cost? You think it's going to hit three grand? Well, I think we tried to guess last time where like Samsung makes phones at these prices. I think if you go one screen, you're going to spend $1,000. If you go two screens, you're going to spend $2,000. If you go trifold, you get $3,000. Yeah, I think that's probably what we're looking at.

$3,000 phone. But what if it's the sickest ever? What if it's just as thin as regular phone and has like a nine and a half inch screen inside? If it doesn't have decks, I'm going to be so bad. Get ready. Prepare yourself. Yeah, there's a couple interesting ways that this could go.

I'm so interested in with the comments, say, too. yeah interesting year in phones there's been so many foldables i feel like a foldable it's more likely than ever that a foldable could could finally win MVP because i don't think it ever has i don't think one or maybe it has i don't think that really depends on how the 10 pro fold comes out and a samsung tri fold like because right now it would be z fold seven right like that would be the winner for best fold of phone probably like if it's going to be like a foldable that wins that category like for the best phone of the year yeah because there's other foldables that did like small parts of the puzzle well like the honor magic is like so thin and impressive but also like

software is kind of a mess and other parts aren't as good Samsung's foldable is just like super thin and the rest is good too so that would probably check out but yeah that is that is something we'll be thinking a lot about between now and December 29th when I eventually shoot that video yeah yell at us in the comments tell us what you think we should win each category and we should take a quick break. But before we do that, one more trivia question. Trivia, dude. So, Marquez, you finally canceled your Tesla roadster. But you know who didn't cancel their roadster? SpaceX, when they launched one into space. So in that launch, there was a mannequin in the driver's seat. What was the mannequin's name?

It had a name? It had a name. Here's a hint. off of a David Bowie song oh wait I know there I hate when Marquez gets pop culture references over me do I notice hold on I need a yeah mm hmm no I don't know much about David Bowie I was really hoping you're about to put an old John reference it I'm gonna give you a hint it's probably a bad idea but I'll give you a hint that will hopefully help me remember it's definitely no I'm not going to say it. It's definitely based on a song name.

It's one of his song names, I'm pretty sure. Oh, it is. I remember it. I remember it. Okay. That helped me. You're welcome. Okay.

Well, yeah, maybe you know it. Maybe you don't. Well, think about it. Answers will be at the end, like usual. We'll be right back. The twisted tale of Amanda Knox is an eight episode. Hulu Original Limited series that blends gripping pacing with emotional complexity, offering a dramatized look as it revisits the wrongful conviction of Amanda Knox

for the tragic murder of Meredith Kircher and the relentless media storm that followed. The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox is now streaming only on Disney Plus. During the Volvo Fall Experience event, discover exceptional offers and thoughtful design that leaves plenty of room for autumn adventure. And see for yourself how Volvo's legendary safety brings peace of mind to every crisp morning commute. This September, leased a 2026 XC90 plug-in hybrid from $599 bi-weekly at 3.99% during the Volvo Fall Experience event. Conditions supply, visit your local Volvo retailer or go to explorevolvo.com. Hey, so what did you want to talk about?

Well, I want to tell you about Wagovi. Wagovi? Yeah, Wagovi. What about it? On second thought, I might not be the right person to tell you. Oh, you're not? No, just ask your doctor about Wagovi. Yeah, ask for it by name.

Okay, so why did you bring me to the circus? Oh, I'm really into lion tamers. You know, with the chair and everything. Ask your doctor for Wagovi by name. Visit Wagovi.combe.com for savings. Exclusions may apply. Welcome back. We were going to talk about Marquez's James Cameron Baugh's interview at he did a

meta a few days ago. But during the break, we got into a big argument about what is more dangerous for a newcomer, specifically Marquez Brownlee, elite horse racing, or Marquez getting dropped into the Red Bull F1 car. So if you're interested in that conversation, just keep this video rolling. And if you're interested in trivia, you can skip to the end. 20 minutes. It was a long conversation. But yeah, so if you're interested something that has nothing to do with tech, but we thought was so funny. Just a little bit of tech.

A little. We thought it was so good. We just had to include it. And if not, we'll see you at trivia. I was going to say, what makes you a good horseback rider? How do you... Ask Olivia. She actually does. Was it the trick one or the racing one? Equestrian. There's a bunch of different...

There's a couple. There's like different. One of the equestrians is like jumping. I think it's called Hunter. What's the one John Oliver calls, like, fancy prancing? It's like horse dancing. There's one of those also. But then there's racing, which... But that's the horse doing the stuff.

But you have to teach him to do it. It's the car doing the stuff in F1. If you're a steering wheel on a horse, there's a brain in there. There's a steering wheel. There's probably more of a brain in an F1 car than a horse at this point. That's a hilarious debate. How much skill... What takes more skill driving a car well or equestrian?

Olivia is a horseback rider. I'm going to throw that out there. I would like to ask her how much skill there is translating from the jockey to the horse. Like, could you throw an average jockey into the best horse and that horse is still going to win? Or is it the jockey that's doing the work? I think some of the jumps they do are crazy. And to be able to be an athlete on a horse of that caliber is also very hard. I guess, like, is there a number one jockey?

Is there a Tiger Woods of jockeys? Also, jockey is only racing, I believe. I think it's just like... Sure. But even if we just leave it in that, like, is there an argument to be made that the jockey matters so much that there is like... Ryan Moore from Great Britain is currently the number one jockey. I think jockeying a big thing of that is also just being as light as possible because you're shaving off time. That's also true by F1 drivers.

Fun fact, they're all like small. George Russell and Alex Albin are like over six feet tall That's why they never podium If you put Russell just podiumed while almost dying last week Uh oh not almost not he's just very sick and If you put uh Max Verstappen on a horse In the in the 10th best car

Yeah no no this is definitely a debate How much better? I think Marquez might have won Because I'm reading an article called horse racing's LeBron James Question Mark and they're talking about a horse But you guys are all talking about racing, though. Okay. Which this whole conversation started in equestrian, which is different. I think that's even more important in equestrian.

I hate horses. I think racing is the place where you could argue most for the jockey. I agree. Because I think in the others, it's like. That the jockey has skill or that the jockey doesn't matter as much. That the jockey has skill. Yeah. I'd argue the jockey has less weight.

In horse dancing, if you have an ugly horse, you're going to lose. Yeah. Isn't that how it works? We need to bring the Olivia on the podcast. This is a horse podcast now. Explain it in tech terms. I think we can all agree the most skill for horse sport based on the rider is polo. Because that the rider actually has to be not only controlling the horse based on different things live, but also hitting the ball.

Here's something to think about. In horse racing, you can win without actually crossing the line. The horse can cross the line without the rider, and you still win. Is that true? Mm-hmm. So, like, right at the end, could you just launch yourself off the horse and give it an extra propel? There's a YouTube clip of somebody, like, having a, like a collision falling off the horse, and the horse just goes, oh, fuck, I'm way less weight now, and winning the race.

And that was the winner. No way. That was the winner. So why is anyone riding these horses? Could you make the argument that that means the jockeys are important? Because then if they, everybody would just jump off the horse off the start to be lighter. Yeah. But then the horse, yeah.

Wouldn't know where to go. Do the horses know where to go? Or is it just that one horse? Yeah. Maybe that horse is so well trained. It's like, I got to win. I got to do this. Or maybe it's just a coincidence.

Maybe. Man, I hope Wayne doesn't ride horses. She likes them so much right now. I'm so scary. If I put you on the world's fastest LeBron James horse or in F1 car, which one would you be more scared? I have a much better chance on the horse. Really?

Much better chance on the horse. Oh, I hide disagree. I'd be way more scared on the horse. Way more scared on a horse. Have you ever seen someone. fall off a horse. It's terrifying. No, it's terrifying. At least in the F1 car, you could go your own pace

and not kill yourself. Like, the horse, that horse will end your life. I think if you put me on the horse and you put me in the F1 car and you say, which one do you have the best chance of, like, winning or podiuming? It's easily the horse.

No way. Easily. No way. I am never podiuming in an F1 race ever. You're never podiuming. I'm just hanging on. I don't think I'm, I think there is a sliver of a chance. How many times have you ridden a horse before? Five, I don't know.

All right. So you're not podiuming in either of these things. Yeah. But I think you have a better chance of coming out of this whole experience alive in the F1 car than the horse. I agree. If that's the case. That a roided up super horse? I'm just hanging on.

I don't think you're hanging on. Really? I don't know. Marquez, you're like six five. It is hard. But Marquez does have. really good quad strength. I think I'm like like strap me on in the back of the horse.

Dude, I think, well, you don't get strapped on. You still have to, you have to like hold yourself on. You're a, yeah, because you're a pretty good driver. I think you could handle, you could, you know, every lap go a little faster, get the feel of the car. You'd have people in your radio telling you what to do. You blowing the doors off. I think, I think in the F1 car, you, you might not even, you, you might finish.

I think if you got. I think I have a better chance of killing myself in the F1 car. I really don't, dude, especially on like a, on a, on a, on a, horse race track where it's an oval and the horse is going full speed the entire time you've no chance to adjust to calibrate yourself if it makes like a hard turn you're just flying on you're falling off that horse but there's way more hard turns in f1 but you're in a car but you're harnessed and you've you've done hard turns in a car before not like oh i think that's i think it's way different but he could do the the the turn at whatever pace he wanted to you

know what i mean marquez yeah well i think it's not fair to do well i guess in straight up not dying yes but i don't i don't think it's a fair comparison of like him on a horse and him just like in an f1 car like basically letting it like roll down okay which one do i have a better chance of not coming in last i think you're gonna die on the horse i think i don't i think that is the i think if the horse could come in second to last place pace and i'd be okay okay and in f1 i just don't see my unless there's dnfs i don't think i come in second to last place ever I still think you have a better chance in a car. I think the reason he has a better chance on a horse is based on the probability of like somehow he does just hang on the entire time.

I don't, I need to see how jockey's trained. I just need to know how jockeys train. I know what F1 drivers do and I know how hard what they do is. I have no idea how hard what a jockey does is. I'm not trying to disrespect F1 drivers. I totally get that that is like one of the most elite niche activities you can participate in. But I'm just saying, Marquez Brownlee right now, you're plucked out of the studio. and you are put either in an F-1 car on a starting grid right now,

or you are put on the back of a championship-quality horse. Yeah, I'm on the horse or I'm in the Red Bull F-1 car. Yeah. You're a smart guy. You're a careful guy. You would at the very least. I agree with you on this. You're on that horse.

The light goes. You are about to experience things that you can't believe. I would like to see Marquez because he is probably almost twice. the height of most jockeys yeah how much is jockey way 10 pounds for average jockey stand between 410 5 6 and way between 108 and 1 18 wow that's so specific i will figure this out later how jockey's trained yeah no i need we need to ask olivia i need to we need to just send her this last 20 minutes and see if she continues to work with us after this is the intro well that was a fun conversation i i'm very much looking forward to the comments

But I think we should probably get the trivia. Yeah. Let's do it. There's a lot for people to comment about. I think so. We did all the phones. We spoke about F1 and horses. I just want to say, there's a lot.

My disdain for horses are just because of how much my family's life revolved around horses as a kid and how much our family car smelled like horse poop all of the time. Oh. I don't actually hate horses that much. I will say shout out to my sister, Simone. She did have a brief obsession with horses. and luckily that did end eventually. It's an expensive hobby.

It is so expensive. I have somebody to say. It smells like horse poop. Because my attention was brought to a Reddit thread about me not being able to afford a phone. First of all, stop pocket watching. Second of all, that is not what I meant to say. What I meant to say was I did not feel that any of the upgrades I would get on my current phone justify $1,000. And you're also excited.

for the folding phone. And I'm excited for the fold. Yes, and I don't trust Apple trade in values enough to buy a phone for $1,000 now, only to buy a phone for $2,000 next year. $3,000, Adam whispered in my year. But these are all speculation. We don't know anything. But you know what? I know that they might know what is the name of the tool included in most I Fixit kits that is used to be wedged between the screen and the phone. and rip that bad boy off hit it i wrote what i think you also wrote i wrote what you definitely wrote but i kind of don't think that's it that's funny because that's what i wrote i can't think of anything else though i can't think of any other silly names except for this one

who says it has to be silly yeah that was part of the question right the way else asked the question implied that it is kind of a funny name i have to cover my bottom answer remember what it is sure all right let's flip those boys around and you're both correct it is called a spudger and now andrew tell me about how wrong I am I thought the little guitar picks were the thing that's the spudger no the spudger I thought was the long thing with the like flat piece at the end of it you're right so what's the I thought the little guitar picks where like you use the suction cup to kind of pop it enough and then the guitar picks go in and cut out the adhesive.

I don't know what those are called, but the long, the long, skinny thing that you stick in there and, that's, that right. So I thought that was for popping off all the ribbon cable. That also, you used to, like, push the display up, and then you also use the pick to, like, help cut the adhesive, but. I thought the pick, yeah. I thought you used the spudger to wedge it up, and then the picks just hold it in the wed, like, you stick those in there.

I thought the suction cup thing pulled the screen up enough, and then you jam the pick in, and then you would, like, pull one of the, or, like, you know, scrape it along to take all adhesive then leave it in like you said then do the other side and then maybe i guess you that's funny because i thought this was trivia yeah i thought this was a horse all right well we both got it right if my grandmother had wheels uh so one thing that we have to mention also andrew in the bonus episode last week two weeks ago whenever that was time is a lie to go watch um you asked a question that marquez got right and ellis and i thought you were joking and didn't give him a point but you really want to give him the point i think you should

get the point. All right. I posed it as a question for David or Marquez, do you get a point without me being eligible for it? So then there's a point for Marquez. So I should get a point for being generous. Charity of you. So nice of you.

So with that point, quick update on the score. Marquez now with six, Andrew with eight, and David, TBD, because we're going to call him later. All right. Question number two. What was the name of the mannequin in the driver's seat

of the roadster that got shot into space? This would be crazy if I got a pop culture reference. I know. It's so funny because it's not that far away from an era of music that I, I just don't listen to any David Bowie, like at all. So you hate horses and you don't listen to David Bowie. That's crazy. I don't even, I don't have an answer. You don't have any answer?

All right. Just write any David Bowie song. Here they are. I mean one David Bowie song. I can't name a single other David Bowie song. All right. I do think it's this one. Is it Rocket Man?

No. That's the joke that I said before, though, that Elton John reference. Is that an Elton John song? It's an Elton John song? I take it all back. What is the name? You said nothing? I said nothing.

All right, well, that's also wrong. The name was Starman. Stop. That's what it is. Close. You said Rocket Man. I was half right. Oh, man.

Yeah, you got the man part. Dang. I thought, yeah. Okay. I bet David gets that one. I'm very excited. to see if he gets that right or not. But anyway, lots of stuff that you guys could leave comments about how wrong we are,

about the budget phone of the year, the small phone of the year, how hard it is to ride horses or drive F1 cars, many things that I'm sure you guys will light us up about. I did not say driving F1 cars are easy. I just want to say that. So everyone's worried about how my mom's going to call me after this and say how mean I was to horses. I just think, you know, you still have the pedals and the steering wheel in an F1 car. the horse is going to do what it's going to do

if you're dropped it. Anyway. How hard it would it be. Please sign off. Thanks for watching. And hey, next episode is, correct me if I'm wrong. Techtober? Right? You're right. Next episode's Techtober.

It is. Well, we record on the first day of Techtober. All right. So see you guys in Techtober. Pace. Goodbye. Way from it was produced by Adam Alina and Ellis River. We're part of the Vox Media Podcast Network

and our trial to music was created by Vane Silk. David I didn't have the question yet Welcome to Waveform trivia David Where in the world are you I am in the French Alps She's rub it in, why don't you? Well, I'm in New Jersey

You ask me a question You ask me a question. Well, I'm going to ask you another question, specifically about I Fix It Toolkits, because on this episode of the Wayform podcast, we talked a little bit about I Fix It. I Fix It Toolkits typically come with a tool that has a very silly name. This tool is used to pry the screen off of phones. What is this tool called, David? Oh, is it called the prior tool? It is not called the prior tool.

tool. We can't cut the music, so we're just going to have to let you, let you stew in the wrong answer. The correct answer was the spudger. Oh, I wouldn't have that at all. I'm now going to turn it over to my co-host, Adam Alina. Hello, Adam Alina. Hello, David and Mel. Next question. I don't know if you saw it in the Slack, but Marquez canceled his roadster order. We were talking roadster this episode. When it was launched into space, there was a mannequin in the driver's seats. What was the name of that mannequin? There was a name?

Here's the hint that Marquez gave Andrew in the room. The name of the mannequin is the same as the name of a David Bowie song. This did not help either of them, but there is a David Bowie song. Yeah. Geez. I know this. Hold on. You need to flip that mental board, David.

Flip it, flip it. I'm trying to flip it, because I literally know this. Oh. Hold on. I didn't run out of time. I didn't run out of time. No, it's... You ran out of time.

Yeah, you guys ran out of time. It's... It's... Come on, David. Ziggy Stardust. Nope, that's a guy. Close. It's Starman.

Isn't Zingy Star Doste a David Bowie song? I think it's a nickname of David Bowies. We're an alter ego of sorts. Thanks for playing. Thanks for playing this episode of Wayport Trivia. I'm 100% sure. David, you scored zero points, keeping you in last place with three points. Enjoy France.

Epic. Enjoy France. We'll see you next week. We miss you dearly. It's not the same without you. Oh, that's cute. I'll bring back some panoramas for you guys. You know what happened while you're gone, David?

The entire third... The entire third segment of this week's episode is about horses. We cut an interview with James Cameron because the horse conversation was so extra. That's incredible. I love that. That deserves to happen. Enjoy your vacation. We miss you.

Enjoy. We'll see you soon. Peace. Peace. Thank you. See you soon. Bye.