Waveform: The MKBHD Podcast - What’s Going with the Pixel 9A?

Episode Date: March 21, 2025

This week, Marques and Andrew discuss the return of the Pebble smartwatch, fast-charging EV's, and the Pixel 9a! They also talk about Google Assistant officially riding off into the sunset while Gemini takes center stage. We wrap it up with another eBay guessing game that Andrew cooked up with Ellis and Adam stepping in while David is away on vacation. Of course, we close it out with trivia. Enjoy! Links: New PebbleOS watches Atari 2600 Watch Verge - BYD charging tech MKBHD - Pixel 9A Impressions PhoneArena - Tensor G5 article 9to5Google - Gemini replacing Google Assistant Google Wallet for kids Music provided by Epidemic Sound Shop the merch: https://shop.mkbhd.com Socials: Waveform: https://www.threads.net/@waveformpodcast Marques: https://www.threads.net/@mkbhd Andrew: https://www.threads.net/@andrew_manganelli David Imel: 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

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I love this widgets. Would you pay a $1.49 a month for them? No. No. No. What is up people of the internet. Welcome back to another episode of the waveform podcast. We're your hosts.

I'm Marques. I'm Andrew. And this week, the two of us are missing David, but that's okay. He'll be back soon. And we're going to be talking about a whole bunch of stuff. There's some, some Google stories. There's the pixel watch and some, why did I say pixel watch again? The pixel nine a and tempspster G5 stuff,

that video is out if you wanna see it on the main channel. We also talk about Pebble Watch 2, that's what I meant to say. The end of Google Assistant is also a story we can hit on. And we're gonna wrap it up at the end with our keywords eBay game, which is a lot of fun. Yes, but first. Yeah, first we do have a-

Alice has a correction. Yeah, I've been waiting for this for a while. I know, probably the biggest correction we've ever done. Well, I just know it's been eating you up, Ellis. I just wanted to give you the floor to address. All right, I've made some mistakes in the past, right? I've gotten some mistranslations in here and there. Whoops. Stuff has happened.

This has been insane. I've gotten dozens, if not hundreds of emails, DMs, like every way people were able to reach out to me they could to let me know that in the 2005, in the 2005 Dynaco 400, which was the title race for the 2005 Piston Cup, which Lightning McQueen stuck out his tongue to finish, all facts facts I said that it was a tie. And Lightning McQueen did not win that Piston Cup.

Zero Piston Cups. This is, for those of you that don't know what I'm talking about, I'm talking about the Pixar movie Cars. Then I got one random thing. The man has seven Piston Cups. Random thing, it's the Piston Cup. He has seven.

That's huge. He has seven. It's like. All right it's the piston cup. He has seven. That's huge. He has seven. It's like. All right, look, I'm well aware this would have been Lightning McQueen's, it would have been the first rookie to win a piston cup. I'm well aware that in the makeup race or the points evening out race

at the Los Angeles Motor Speedway a few weeks later, Lightning McQueen chose to not race and make a stand. I don't care. Stop messaging me about cars. I checked, it was a joke. The correction's out there. It was not that serious. I was talking about car of the tongue.

I do remember like a Stephen A. Smith clip where someone asked him to compare like Lightning McQueen as one of the goats and he like went into his whole rant about like, he doesn't have enough piston cobs, he doesn't have enough championships andbs, he doesn't have enough championships and I thought that was pretty great. You know, the Cars fans, they know the movie well.

You know, and yeah, just thanks for letting me know guys, but like, we're cool. Don't let him forget. Yeah, gosh, yeah, seriously. Anyway. I have one more quick cool thing to show off. Do I get to call this fan art? We had somebody who is a keyboard creator

make us a custom waveform keyboard, which is pretty sweet. So it's mosaic. This is his, I should forget the name of the keyboard before I say it out loud, but he has like a cool little MKBHD slot here for everyone wondering. It's just black, but it has a red top,

kind of like greenish colors, and then WVFRM are a little more bold in the characters. I like that. That is so sick. I walked in and I was like, oh, Andrew made like a little custom keyboard. That's cool. It's so heavy.

I just want to figure out the name of it. The system 65, but pretty sick. I kind of think this has to be our typing alphabet typing test. Default keyboard now. Keyboard, the spacebar needs a little work, but that's my fault. What'd you type? Marquez is awesome. I typed this is the coolest keyboard twice. What'd you type? Marques is awesome. I typed, this is the coolest keyboard twice.

Sounds very slow. By the way, we're working on a keyboard video for the studio channel that is unhinged and I'm extremely excited for it. In fact, one of the parts that I bought for one of the keyboards is so absurd that I think I have to take it out of the video. So keep an eye out for that, but let's get into the news.

The first thing that's showed up on my timeline was a Pixel Watch coming back. Why do they keep saying- You keep calling it a Pixel Watch? That's the third time today. Pebble watch. It's not even called the Pebble Watch. It's like when you type the wrong word

and it's auto-corrected and you delete it and you type it again and it auto-corrects again. My brain keeps auto-correcting it to the wrong word. Stop fucking doing that. I think it's fair to to let everyone know that you and ls landed on a flight at like 7 a.m this morning yeah there might be some sleepy talk here it was it was two days ago get up you know 4 a.m to catch a 7 a.m flight land shoot three hour drive shoot hour drive to the hotel, wake up, hour drive, shoot all day, airport, land at seven a.m.,

sleep on the couch. Yeah, I was just sleeping on the couch and I got in this morning. But okay, Pebble, we're calling it the Pebble Watch announcement because it is a company from the creator, what's Eric, I'm gonna, do you know how to pronounce his last name? Mieczkowski.

No, but I'm gonna try it, yeah, Mieczkowski. Mieczkowski. Mieczkowski, thank you. So he created a new company called Core Devices. I think you all talked about this a few weeks ago. We did. And I missed that conversation. So I don't know what you all said about it.

We knew that this was coming, we didn't know exactly what it would look like or how it would manifest, but the idea of bringing a simple smartwatch back that pairs to your phone appealed to basically all of us. We thought that was a cool idea. We had a lot of nostalgic thoughts about our old Pebbles and how much we liked them

and how E Ink seems to be a great idea and a long, long battery life on a smartwatch could be awesome. So now we actually can see what it looks like, which is about what we expected, I would say, same shape. It's a new company called Core Devices and they announced two watches that they plan on bringing out this year.

And same shape, you're very right, because while this isn't actually Pebble, it is still very along the same lines of what Pebble was when they were eight years ago, I think. So open source operating system, it's like E Ink, display, great battery life. And in fact, they're using some old Pebble parts in some of the watches.

So yes, it does look similar because the Core Duo 2, not a confusing name at all, considering that's an old Intel processor. Core 2 Duo. Yeah. It Intel processor. Core two duo. It's called the core two duo. It's called the core core two duo. The same name as the Intel core two duo. Yeah. And they said this is basically the pebble to redone.

Sure. So it's coming in at $149. It is the same frame as the pebble time too, because they found someone with a bunch of extra parts that were never used. So they're literally using the same watch face exterior for it. Black and white e-paper display, 30 days of battery life. It now has a speaker in the device

to chat with AI assistants. And this one should be coming out in July. So that's the cheaper of the two. Then they also have the Core Time 2, or Core 2 Time. I don't know. This is Core Time 2. Time 2, that's probably why I the two. Then they also have the core time to, or core to time. Now I don't know. This is core time to time to that's probably why I got it. This is the more updated device, $225. Uh, it's going to have a touch screen. They don't want it to have super complicated apps, but they just still

want the ability to navigate through touch operation versus only buttons. There still will be buttons. Um, it's still 30 day. There still will be buttons. It's still 30 day battery life, still has a speaker. It has an upgraded chip that can do step and sleep tracking. And there's no official date on this, but they still said 2025. Yeah, and I like the way it looks a lot.

I remember reviewing and having, I had a red Pebble with a black band and the super long battery life, like week plus battery life was already awesome about it. And getting used to testing all these other smartwatches like Moto 360 and Galaxy Watch long battery life, like week plus battery life was already awesome about it and getting used to testing all these other smartwatches like Moto 360 and Galaxy Watch at the time, which had like a day and a half battery, just made me wish I could have a week long battery life

on a smartwatch. So that was the number one thing I really liked. Obviously the screen is not gonna be nearly as bright or beautiful and won't show as much stuff, but if you don't care about that, if you just want time, temperature, basic status stuff, notifications, that's kind of all you need.

And I am excited for these. Yeah, me too. I kind of think I like the cheaper one better because I've been realizing, you know, I'm now like two years into wearing this all the time and just- What is it? My Phoenix 9.

I forget exactly which one it was because they switched from the Epics brand, but Garmin. Yeah, the Garmin. I'm convinced this like circle is just like engraved into my wrist at this point. Every time I take it off, I go, that can't be good for me. I took off my watch the other day and just was like, oh my God, what is that on your wrist?

Yeah. It's the mark of having used a smartwatch for a long time. It is. So I'm assuming the cheaper one though, because it doesn't have the chip for sleep tracking and stuff. I'm assuming it doesn't have, it's just flat on the bottom.

And I mostly just at this point want to tell time and get basic notifications. So that seems kind of awesome. It seems also like this will be probably better for Android than for iPhone. It says it in, yeah, in a lot of these articles, it specifically says it's still having some. The idea behind that is Apple,

when they make a first party accessory to the iPhone, gives themselves more access to the iPhone than they give anyone else. So when they make headphones like AirPods or whatever, they don't give other Bluetooth headphone manufacturers the same access and so inherently there will be features in Apple's accessory that aren't in others. That's true about, go down the accessory list

about everything and so smartwatches, they give lots of things like lots of plugs to the Apple Watch that they will not give to any other smartwatch. Android on the other hand is Android. This lets you flip the switches, turn on notifications for certain things, turn them off for certain things.

And as a Android user, I mean, I use both phones, but Apple Watch over here for the iPhone, I'm happy to drop a pebble on this wrist. And I think I'm gonna be the dual watch guy. I will not allow it. Two watches? There's something about having like the super simple Pebble watch on one hand

and the Apple watch Ultra 2 on the other. Which is kind of awesome. I gotta put it, because a lot of the comments are echoing the same thing. Like once you have an Apple watch, it's hard to give it up. You kind of get addicted to the notifications, the closing your rings, the things that it's good at.

And I don't wanna stop using the Apple watch, but I also feel like I would flip it to theater mode and just kind of ignore it on my left wrist while I use the pebble on the the main. Yeah I'm at the point where I still love this Garmin watch and I love the battery life but at this point I just don't have the time to go out and hike like I used to so like this thing looks brand new where my epics 2 looked like it went through a war. That thing was used. It was used. Yeah and like But I can't I like the just quick time and the quick like text message checking. Um,

Yep, so I think I just want but if you were on ios, you would also run into the same problems with your garmin Similar ones. Yeah, they're saying specifically like not being able to uh reply to notifications inside Uh with an iphone or connected to an iPhone with Pebble. Yeah, like Garmin has like the auto replies. You know, you can like reply like, okay, yeah. Like just the basic ones. You can't even do that on iOS. It's so funny.

Like I've been, like Lane's been asleep on me. Like I've been in her rocking chair and Claire's texted me and I only have my watch to reply. And I have to be like, which of these seven replies best like explains what is happening now. It's just like, okay, period. Let her decipher that one. Good enough, yeah.

That is funny. I do have one other smartwatch. Yeah, what is this? Maybe we shouldn't call it a smartwatch, but since we're talking about watches, I saw this. And we're talking about simple watches. This is the Atari 2600 MyPlay watch that just got announced. It is $80.

Like Pebble, it feels extremely basic, maybe more simplistic in some ways. There's no Bluetooth or WiFi on this, so there are no notifications, but it's a watch styled after old Atari systems that can do some very basic fitness tracking, like step count, heart rate, and calories, except you can't send it to your phone, it's just on watch.

But there are three, so there are four Atari games you can play on it. Centipede, Missile Command, Pong, and Super Breakout. On the watch? On the watch, and it also has just like watch bands and watch faces that are very Atari like, and all Atari sound effects for your alarms and notifications alarms and timers.

I'm developing a hot take in my head. I don't think it will be that hot. I just feel like nostalgia gets used to mask how bad products are sometimes. And if you build an entire product around one nostalgic thing, red flags just start going off in my head and if I am part of the generation that cares about this thing I'll probably just ignore it and just buy it because I love it but I why would I want to play Brickbreaker on my watch you know?

First of all Brickbreaker is not one of them. Oh, snake. Which one is the furry ones? Centipede, Missile Command, Pong and Super Breakout. Do I want to play Pong on my watch? That one seems, Missile Command, Pong, and Super Breakout. Do I wanna play Pong on my watch? That one seems like you could play Pong on your watch. So I have a question for Adam

that I think might answer your question on this. Is like, it's 80 bucks, this is not the most expensive watch. Because this, you know, I think we like watches like Garmin and Apple because they connect to our phone and therefore it feels like we have to wear them all of the time, right? We're always tracking our

health metrics, we're wearing them all the time. Since this doesn't do this, is this now just a watch that is part of your watch collection, Adam, that you wear at certain times? 100%. I was gonna say this looks like a watch that David would like because David wears like an old Casio that he had like someone rebuilds into some custom thing. This is that for him. This feels like a watch that's part of your watch collection and depending on the day, yeah.

There are people that will just have- We'll see when you break this one out. Yeah, like quirky watches, you know? What day do you- Airplane. To the wedding? Airplane with no wifi. You wanna play some Pong on the tarmac. Cause you know you have a phone, right?

Yeah. So I just showed a picture. Okay, today is the day I wear the Atari watch cause I'm for sure gonna play. But do you have Pong downloaded on your phone? No. So? There you go.

Fair. Okay, I forgot to download it on my phone but I will spend $80 to have a watch that does that. It looks pretty cool. It does. I'm not gonna lie. It's got these nice colors, the watch band, it's got the retro color scheme on the watch band too.

It's pretty cool. I'm okay with like, I mean, this obviously is like, we're 100% nostalgia. That's all we're going after for. And not saying $80 is the cheapest, but $80 is probably the, you know, if this was $25, I would just assume it's a piece of e-waste. Like that dies.

And watches, that's a splurge. You can like easily convince yourself to spend $80 on a cool little digital watch. That's a splurge you can like easily convince yourself to spend $80 on a cool little digital watch. Yeah, would you spend? $80 on a an Emulator app on your phone to do the exact same things No, absolutely, but you would spend $80 on because $80 in an app world is a lot and it will probably better But it's world. It's a lot in the app world $80 in the watch world is a little so you would spend it in the watch world Yeah, it's hardware interesting. There's a piece of like having it and being able to see it on you

That's different than an emulator app. It's still jewelry at the end of the day Like it's just hmm trying to tell people something about yourself. Like I'm an Atari nerd. Yeah, there's something I like fun watches physical The physical watch for sure. If I spend $80 on a Pong app, no one knows I bought that app. Yeah. Until you break it out on the plane, the guy next to you is like, whoa.

Oh my God, is that the $80 Pong app? God, you're cool. I wish I had that. I have one more quick thing here. BYD announced charging tech that is twice as fast as Tesla's. Did you see this? This one I also saw the headline,

so I'm gonna read it right now. Okay, I can just summarize it for you real quick if you'd rather, okay. Yeah, I thought you just did. No, BYD announced their Super E platform that can charge at peak speeds of 1000 kilowatts or two times as fast as a Tesla V4 supercharger. I mean, obviously this is a good headline

because they're gonna directly compare it to Tesla, which is always hot in the news. But I think aside from that, this is still pretty impressive. I think, so they're claiming it can add 250 miles of range on a five minute charge. Sick. Obviously, I feel like at what point do we, are we allowed to stop saying that like,

it depends on charging curves and battery percentage, because this just feels like the metric we talk about. Miles per like minute of charging charging peak miles per. Yeah. Yeah. But still 250 miles of range, five minute charge. They said their, you know, their goal is to get as close to petrol refueling as possible. That feels pretty close now. Maybe to like a low mile per gallon sports car. Like a fill up could be three minutes and you could get 250 miles of range out of that. Yeah, I'd probably have like almost 400 miles in my tank

and it's definitely less than five minutes. If you had an empty tank and filled it to full, could be like two, three, three. In New Jersey, it's only taking more than five minutes because you don't pump our gas and the guy's possibly got like 20 other people. But yeah. So that's an impressive number.

The reason I say I wanna read this is because I see these types of announcements with like smartphones before and it'll be like Oppo announces 250 watt charging. And I'm like, are you announcing that you've got the ability to do it? Or are you like shipping things that are going to do this tomorrow?

So, so far there's only two of BYD's vehicles that can take advantage of this. And so it's the vehicle that can do it and it's also chargers in the real world that are actually doing it. I Don't know if they just announced it or but there is in here talking about how they're They're building 4,000 of these new chargers across China. They're probably starting to build. Yeah, I believe it's starting to build. Okay Yeah, that's gonna be sick. Yeah, they've promised a major investment in the infrastructure. So with no timetable on it. Just to be totally fair here.

Yeah. I think what made me the most interested in this is I just got this clip of Doug DeMuro on, is his podcast, the Cars and Bids podcast, or is it just a Doug DeMuro podcast? I don't know the name of it, but it is the Cars and Bids team. Did you see his clip the other day?

He was talking to whoever his co-host is this car pod this car pod exclamation point Um, so he he like had this great clip where he's just saying like I drive these chinese cars and i'm astonished They shouldn't have sent them to us because now we know how good they are and we're like crap. We have to catch up I watched that. Yeah, it was a really interesting conversation. Yeah that went super viral. Yeah. But like we've been super impressed with the Chinese cars that we've got. When we did the Liot Omega.

We've had a couple. Half the comments were like, this isn't even the coolest thing we have over here. Yeah that is very true. There are lots of, I mean the world of EVs is getting way more competitive and way more like everyone's catching up and making cool innovative things. And this is one of those innovative things, super fast charging,

love that. You saw the Liotta Mega, you saw we had the L9 here as well, which was in the Mega video, but that was the three-year SUV. We've got BYD making, I want to say, didn't we see a, maybe we didn't know it wasn't a BYD bus it was a bus with a BYD badge on it but i don't know if that's the same BYD or like how that bus got there i've seen other BYD vehicles in the US so i wouldn't have been shocked by it what size bus are we talking it was like a pretty young dang yeah what that was a michael it was in San Francisco, somewhere in between San Francisco and Sacramento

as we were driving. Wait, hold on, none of you answered how big the bus was. It was a bus, it was a bus. It was a transit bus. Yeah, okay. It was a coach bus. Okay, thank you. Anyway, I do see BYD vehicles in the US today,

which is already pretty cool, but there is that other quote we've talked about multiple times with the Ford CEO driving the Xiaomi SU7 or something, not wanting to give it back. Yeah, these cars are getting competitive. They're really good. So yes, faster charging, obviously awesome. Hopefully they build these quickly.

That'd be awesome. Random but related. Over the weekend I saw an ID Buzz just driving around in Long Island, not even like in the city. In the wild. Yeah, in the wild. Spotted in the wild. I was like, mid-county.

Yeah. Super discounted. Like you can get one used for 60. No way. Yeah. 60? That's so cheap. 60 bucks? Yeah.

No. A lot of these, there's the other thing Doug's like on his part is like, everything has depreciated. These EVs depreciate so fast that even if you're not into EVs at a certain price, it's a pretty great deal. Like the Taycan is obviously a very expensive EV when it's brand new, but a two-year-old Taycan

with 20,000 miles on it is 60% off. And so I didn't watch the whole clip of him talking about that, but is that because we don't know longevity of EVs yet or we don't have a used sales market or he was using a Nissan Leaf is basically free at this point. Yeah, it's because it's kind of like a piece of tech. Like when you think about a two year old Android phone that's been used and how it doesn't hold its value

because the tech is moving along so quickly that there's no reason for it to hold its value. The new tech is just that much better. Why would you buy the old one? But the old versions are still very capable. And for people who only buy a car every couple of years, the fact that you can get what was just $90,000 for 65 just feels like such a deal.

So depreciation is working for a lot of people who are getting secondhand EVs. Hmm. So that's that's a very it's a very trendy Thing that is just happening with lots of cars that are do one more question before I know Alice like audibly gasped looking at something over there. So before he tells us what prices I'm assuming he saw Do you think like a lot of people buying, they're becoming way more mainstream now, but a lot of people buying EV who would be buying new ones and selling them is like, they're more tech head-esque people and like updating that feels like,

more like you're upgrading your phone or your tech versus then like upgrading your car. Most people, I mean like every car I've ever bought is like, I've bought this, I'm going to take as much time not paying towards the financing as possible once I'm done until the wheels are falling off. Yeah, so I guess for people buying new EVs now, it's definitely still early adopters,

but it's creeping into the middle of the bell curve. So I think Teslas are everywhere and they feel pretty safe. Most people are cool buying a new, it's the most popular car in the world, obviously. Um, but in the Rivians and Lucids and a lot of other new EVs, it's still mostly early adopters, but. You know, they're proving out there. People are buying them, using them for hundreds of thousands of miles and they're becoming more trusted as time goes on. I will say there's like a, I have the R2 pre-order. I really believe

in Rivian, but every time there's that one article that pops up here and there of like, will Rivian make it to a bowl? I just go, man, am I like pulling a Fisker? Not that I think they're like Fisker, but like that's a scenario that's really scary of buying a car that's that expensive and then a year later, it being a brick pretty much. I've talked about this in the Auto Focus channel and with a lot of other tech reviews, when I review a piece of tech,

I generally pay no attention to the stock price of the company. I just don't care how the company is doing. I'm a very product focused person, but the one exception that I've had to make is reviewing electric vehicles where people are expected to own them for six, seven, eight, nine years. And it's possible that the company that makes and services it won't exist in that amount of time. And these aren't off the shelf parts that you're mechanic has. Yeah, even Rivian now, like I'm well aware

of very long lead times for replacement parts, repairs and things like that. I've got a little dent on my hood from like one of the first few drives where a little like rock dinged my hood. I'm never gonna get that replaced. It takes like three to five months to get a new hood. So that's just like one of those things

you have to think about with new EVs today. So that's why it's still mostly oil adopters. They hear that stuff. It's kind of like horror stories. Whatever, I'll just get the standard option and I'll not think too hard about it and I'll get an EV in a couple more years. But yeah, the bell curve is starting to get up there,

I think. I also think that people buying EVs, at least originally, were people that could, for the most part, afford it, and be able to have that, and if something goes wrong, they could potentially get another car. Not like a brand new $70,000 car, but if this thing craps out on me,

I could still afford to get a $5,000 beater. Where most people don't shop for cars that way. They will get a used car and run it into the ground. Yeah, like in the very, very earliest days of EVs, that's kind of how it was, where if you had bought a Model S or something, for a lot of people that was not their only car, and they could rely on, oh, I'm going on a road trip,

I'll take the gas car, but oh, I drive the Tesla for, you know, commuting and other stuff like that that that was true of like the earliest days of EVs when they're brand new and very expensive but speaking of commuting Ellis found his new commuter car yeah what are you gasping at over there okay so I found a listing at a dealership in Patterson New Jersey for a 2012 Nissan Leaf this is like I don't know if this is the first gen but this is like an early oh that's the earlier one yeah early generally talking like 80 miles of range or something. We're talking 73 miles of range. Okay charges in just under eight hours

It's blue Yeah, how much do we think this car cost how many miles does it have on it it has forty three thousand five hundred and sixty one miles How much do we think this car costs? How many miles does it have on it? It has 43,561 miles. That's a lot of miles for a Leaf. The funny thing is when Doug used this example, he was like, oh no, the old Leafs still have some value to it. It's the new ones that are like. The newer ones were less silly numbers.

The newer ones were like, actually like, seemed like a pretty normal used car price. I'm going in the teens. The teens. I'm going, gonna rate it one through teens. $16,900. You're saying silly. 16,000?

16,900. Okay, not even the newer Leafs were that much. I'm saying like. Oh my God. Like. $4,999. $4,999? $4,999?

What if I told you that if this was Price is Right rules, you'd both be disqualified? No way. This 2012 Nissan Leaf in Patterson, New Jersey is currently on sale for $3,499. And I'm not an expert in the used car biz. Maybe someone could explain what's going on here better But I I just looked up the VIN number just to make sure like is this a salvage title is there something like seriously wrong?

With this car. I found a previous dealer who listed this as sold with 22 fewer miles on it So I don't know if someone bought it drove it for 20 miles and said I'm done, or if that's just test drive mileage. It just went from one dealership to the other. I wonder if a dealer bought it off of someone. But if you live. Or like an auction. Maybe, I don't know.

But yeah, so if you live in the North Jersey, Patterson's in the North Jersey, right? Yeah. If you live in North Jersey, have 4,000 bucks to kill, and want a sh**, I should say that, and want a fine car just for Context that car knew was $35,000 roughly Wow new. Yeah, wow 12. Yep

Yeah, how much are used regular leaves going for actually at this point? I kind of want to make EVs the eBay game we play later that be the category, but I think eBay automatic is probably I see it at the eBay game we play later. That'd be the category. But I think eBay Automatic is probably a little bit. I see it. There's one in Newark, 2024 for 19. I see some 2017s for under 10. It's crazy because those cars, they're not bad. They just have no range. There's a 2020 for $9,000. And Americans just hate compact cars for no reason. Yeah

Yeah We so silly we can do it guys. I Like them. Yeah, we all like I mean we all like them It's one of those I I reviewed the ID for not that long ago. Mm-hmm, and I don't think it was a video I think it was just for top gear but I did like sort of put it in article form. And it is like the, I had the segment in the Top Gear articles where I would compare the EV to a household gadget

to sort of contextualize how to think about where this one sits in the market. And the ID4 was a toaster. It's just, it's an appliance. There's nothing exciting about it. It's whether it's new or used, you can't even really tell it's just it's an appliance. There's nothing exciting about it It's whether it's new or used you can't even really tell it's just a car And that was fine, and it got you from point A to point B. That's what the leaf is It's just you got a car you got someplace to charge at work great

successful mission accomplished That's that's how you really think about with those my friend Ian best friend of mine has this dream of converting a Subaru Baja into an EV? He does want to paint it cyan so that it can be a Baja blast But I really hope one day he accomplishes that dream and and has an electric Baja. Don't let your dreams be dreams Ian And with that we should take a break we'll go straight to trivia, of course Don't let your dreams be dreams. Ian. And with that, we should take a break. We'll go straight to trivia, of course.

Trivia. Okay, first question. The term leaf from the Nissan Leaf is actually a backronym for what? Like. Ke. Ke, no, not. No, I'm just saying, like, is it you get all four words and you're right?

Is it whoever gets the most words inside it? Is one point for each word? It seems really hard. But it's not that hard. Leaf. It's four words. It's definitely four words. It might not be four words. It's it's four words. One of them has a hyphen, but it's four words. It's definitely four words. It might not be four words. It's four words. One of them has a hyphen, but it's four words.

Alright, alright. One point for word. I'll propose one. There's only one point at stake. Whoever gets the most words wins. If we both get all four, then we both get a point. Okay. That's fair. We'll see. Okay. Yeah. I didn't know it was back-grooming. Well, we'll think about that. Answers will be at the end, like usual. We'll be right back.

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Date your way on Bumble. All right, welcome back. Let's talk a whole bunch of the Google stuff of this week. First of all, publish the Pixel 9a impressions video. Just wanna say, the embargo, big red flag. And I got to use the phone behind the scenes, obviously, and I shot my video, but the embargo specifically said, in this impressions video, which is funny,

I shot it in the exact same room as the Pixel 8a impressions video, in this impressions video, you are only allowed to show the phone in hand, back of the phone, or the front of the phone, home screen only. I'm not going to call out any other channels for possibly not adhering to that embargo, but I adhered to that embargo. It is a massive red flag though, because what have we said?

Anytime a company separates out software from the normal impressions process, you're like, okay, so what's wrong with the software? Remember the Surface Duo, which was kind of a soft spot. Well, we all found out why that happened. Yeah, that one became very obvious. But anyway, the phone itself is about what we expected. We've been talking about leaks of this phone, Well, we all found out why that happened. Yeah, that's separate embargoes. That one became very obvious. But anyway, the phone itself is about what we expected.

We've been talking about leaks of this phone for a while. So it's 499, it is their mid-range slash budget end of the lineup for Pixel 9. It removes the camera bar, but it has dual cameras still. They're basically flush with the back of the phone, 48 megapixel regular camera, 13 megapixel ultra wide and a 5100 million power battery which makes it the largest ever in any pixel and I suspect that using it It will have a great battery life a lot of the other features of the phone are very similar to pixel 9

It's got a plastic pack instead of glass, but it's got like pretty flat sides I see these comments online about the bezels being enormous, and maybe I'm just used to testing relatively cheap phones, but it didn't strike me as horrible. It was worse than a regular flagship, but it's not terrible. But it has bigger bezels and slower charging and regular cheap wireless charging, but in general it's about what we expected. It's a Pixel 9a. So if you want to watch the impressions video, that's there.

Update on that is the phone is actually delayed. We thought it would be coming out like sort of right after our videos were. It is actually not coming out now until apparently April. We don't know exactly when, but they're saying April. We also don't know why. There's some speculation as to why, but that phone is slightly delayed.

They just said, we're checking on a component quality issue that's affecting a small number of Pixel 9a devices. It happens. Yeah. Unfortunately. It's always a small number, but it's always the small number that completely delays an entire launch,

which makes me think, maybe that number ain't so small. Well, you know, you can't ship, I mean, anytime, it's either like somebody writes an article and the phone's out already and you have to take it back or you just address it now and you delay the phone a little bit. I want to give some credit and I want to make some speculation.

The credit I will give is you still can't pre-order it yet, which I think is good because I'm sure there are plenty of other companies that would let a red flagged impression go out, have issues, delay it, but still let people send them money. So I'm glad you cannot do that yet. The speculation, you have to immediately think, is part of the reason this one, like,

they enforce harder rules on the original embargo and then immediately have something that's a big enough issue that it delays. It's very hard for me not to put those together and be like, was there something they knew about at this briefing? And then they decide not to talk about it later. Maybe, maybe not.

I like to speculate a little bit. The coincidence, I think not. Sprinkle a little drama in there somewhat sometimes. But yeah. So do you think it is something specific? I guess I don't know what, because the thing is, Sprinkle a little drama in there somewhat sometimes, but yeah. Do you think it is something specific? I guess I don't know what, because the thing is, is they still let you all use the phone, right? And you still used it and everything felt totally fine. And also they're very clearly checking all of those phones to make sure it

doesn't have the problem before they're going to let a bunch of people like review it. So we wouldn't have seen that issue in our review impressions devices because those are all curated and handpicked. Yeah. And they've even gone so far as to they're saying they're not sending them out to reviewers yet. Right. Yeah. So it seems like there's quite a bit of it because they could send them out ones

that they check to not have the problems and still send them out and there still could be reviews done on them. I'm glad they're not doing that yet and letting it, but like this whole launch has, like you said, big old red flag on it. Yeah, a little damper. I think everyone should be a little more careful ordering it and going through the proper research before, I guess, spending money on it. I guess the question is, I mean,

they're never gonna tell us what the problem was, right? They're not gonna go, all right, we fixed it. Turns out there was just a vibration motor issue where some of them were shorting out. Oh, they're all fine now. Like, they're never gonna tell us what the problem was, right? They're not gonna go, all right, we fixed it. Turns out there was just a vibration motor issue where some of them were shorting out. They're all fine now. They're not gonna tell us. So it's just gonna go- Unless it's something stupid.

Well, it depends on the severity. Yeah, I mean, if it's enough for them to delay the phone, it's probably kind of significant. So I just feel like they're gonna just sell the phone in April and that'll be that. And we're never gonna find out exactly what it was unless it leaks, which it's Google, so it might. But I imagine they're just gonna put it on sale

and it's gonna be what we expected all over again just a month later. That's all I can sort of picture happening. Yeah, I wanna try and guess what the issue is, but I have no idea. I have no idea. And I think like it would expose a lot of potentially more stuff down the pipeline of why an issue is probably,

maybe they have multiple factories working on it and something for it. Remember when the Steam Deck, didn't they have two different factories working on it where one installed the fan backwards so magnetic cases were causing the fan issue to stop? Or I guess that was a dbrand issue, but because there were two separately manufactured

Steam Decks. Yeah, you're probably right. We'll probably never find out. I did say something though at the end of the Pixel 8 or Pixel 9a video, which is, because I mean that was a very short impressions. Like, all right, here's the phone. I can't show you anything, but here it is. You know the specs now.

But at the end I'm like, I also am curious about Pixel 10. And the reason I'm curious about Pixel 10 is the same as it's been for the last couple of months, Tensor G5, possibly having a big performance jump and being at the level of the Qualcomm chips and maybe finally being like a full flagship through and through from the outside hardware

to the inside, the specs and the software and competing on every level. And yet to be honest, I like the Pixel phones, but they are not the highest performers at that max level. So I'm very curious if Pixel 10 is finally gonna do it, if it's finally gonna be the one that reaches that flagship through and through level. And then after the video goes out,

we get a nice article that seems to pour water on that. And I actually said in the video, I feel like I'm jinxing it by saying this out loud. So here we are. The headline says, tensor G5 processor might drag down the performance of the Pixel 10 line. It might not be all that we were hoping for it to be. Do you think it's because they're not calling it the Pixel X?

Yeah, they should call it Pixel X. Feels like a big opportunity. We somehow haven't seen the actual retail packaging yet. It could still do it. We'll know by next week. Yeah. So the Pixel 9a feels like it's good because it has the same chip as the flagships,

but that chip is just not a very good flagship chip. So it's like, great, you're on the same level of performance of the flagships, but the flagships are a step behind the Snapdragon 8 elites of the world. Got it. So we're hoping for this next tensor chip, whatever the next generation is, G5, to really step up efficiency. Obviously, this is going to have some AI compute stuff on board. They all are doing that too. But just in general, higher clock speeds, more memory bandwidth, just more processing performance in general. And it seems like maybe we shouldn't get our hopes

up that high. And that's sad. Yeah. Did you read through this article? I read through it and understand very little of it. It's a bad week for David to not be here because, but I, I have a general gist of it. I also wrote down some quotes. If you just like me to read them off, you can read the quotes. I can, I can sort of translate. Maybe you can help translate. And then I do have an analogy to, and you can tell me if it's right or wrong.

Sure. Okay. So, uh, Google is designing its processor without Samsung's help and is going to TSMC to handle manufacturing. Um, here are some of the quotes that I don't fully understand at all, but I think I have an idea of what's going on. Google's tend to be blending its proprietary designs. The brains and bronze of the chip, the GPU and CPU are reportedly coming from ARM

and Imagination Technologies. Video codec ditches Google's custom big wave and Samsung's MFC in favor of chips and medias off the shelf solution. Display controller is also switching from Samsung's DPU to VeriSilicon's DC9000. Fully custom ISP design entirely by Google, replacing Samsung customized ISP found in Tensor G4.

Those seem to be the biggest changes we're expecting with G5. Yeah, Tensor G4 is designed by Samsung, if you didn't know. Which is funny, because a lot of people don't know that these internal components are made by each other's competitors, like Samsung makes displays for the iPhone, it's all hilarious. So when we first switched to tensor in pixels, it became interesting because we assumed Google would be doing lots of optimizations for their own thing.

And it turns out there wasn't that many. And now, when they can finally design from head to toe their own chip and get it done straight through TSMC, they can switch a lot of parts out from Samsung design parts that aren't necessarily optimized to specific other ones that could make it perform better. Samsung manufacturers, they didn't design them. Sorry, manufacturers, yes.

So there are lots of Samsung individual pieces on there that are not optimized. So ideally things get way better when they are able to control the entire vertical integration. That's essentially what that means. And from this article, it seems like, is Tensor G5 this big jump in tech? And like, is it the next big thing for Pixel?

It's like a yes and no where like performance we're not going to see immediately is going to be like this big jump. But the fact that Google has so much more of a say in all of the design process of it feels like a big step for the Pixel lineup and tensor because now we're getting closer to that like from the ground up ecosystem. I think so yeah and but I also just feel like and maybe this is short-sighted, but I just feel like you just need more raw horsepower in general, which is like what you get from the Snapdragon eight elite phones. Like they just have more power and more headroom and can do more with the higher

end applications and games and things that need more power. TensorFlow just doesn't have that type of power. Do you think it has the potential, you know, maybe this is like, they had to take the step back to take two steps this is like, they had to take this step back to take two steps forward where like, let's wrangle this more in closer to us, get us designing all the things for maximum efficiency and then next year, year after,

they can make more headway on that because it's less Samsung manufactured stuff. I think that could be the path. Yeah. So that's what we're all hoping for. Yeah, fingers crossed. I mean, it's not entirely damning this headline. It's just the headline says, might. So, I'm not gonna give up hope on Pixel 10 just yet.

Okay, can I make an analogy? Yes. That as a film student- This is such a bad take. I can't even believe this is about to be said. As a film student, people are either gonna hate me or love me for this or just not understand it at all. This feels like the movie Citizen Kane to me. How, Andrew? Citizen Kane, okay.

Yeah, do tell us, Andrew. As a film major, everyone always talks about Citizen Kane being the greatest movie ever. It's revolutionary and you need to all see it. And the movie sucks. I think it's super boring. Do you agree with him? I agree. But the movie itself revolutionized the film industry because of how we shoot things. They did a lot of stuff that has never been done before.

And just like movies and filmmakers and directors of photography going forward changed the way that they shoot movies. So is this is the tensor G five, the thing that in of itself isn't that amazing when we first see it, but is this step into completely changing the tensor lineup? That's not a terrible take. Maybe I would just say tensor G1 was the Citizen Kane. Okay.

Because it was their first step towards doing the whole vertical integration. I mean, they had other Qualcomm chips and Google phones in the past, and suddenly it's Tensor, so oh, they're gonna do their own optimization. And they have had to work on that, and now there's gonna be five generations in.

So I see where you're coming from. I feel like that has some legs. We could maybe perfect that. Ellis got me really worried now about saying that out loud, but I don't know. I don't think it's a very good movie. Okay, I just want to point out, on the Wikipedia page for Citizen Kane, the third sentence, the third sentence,

the first sentence, Citizen Kane is a movie. Second sentence, it was his, it was Wells' first feature film. The third sentence, Citizen Kane is frequently cited as the greatest film ever made. I know, that's his problem I think is, because as a film student, you go in hearing that a thousand times and then you watch it and you're like.

What was that? Oh my God, if you don't get a single DM about this, I swear to God, I got hundreds about cars. The only good, the only good thing about Citizen Kane is that the cheat code in The Sims was rosebud colon Cars. The only good thing about Citizen Kane is that the cheat code in The Sims was rosebud colon semicolon colon semicolon. Don't spoil it for anyone that hasn't seen it.

That's all I'm saying. I have not seen it. There's been enough time. Yeah, we might not. I mean, if this is a spoiler at this point, you weren't gonna see it, so that's fine. Listen, nevermind. I'll leave it there.

What do we always say? Expectations are the thief of joy. If you go into watching a movie and someone's already told you that this is the singular greatest film ever created, it cannot possibly live up to that. It's my dad's favorite film. Is it really?

Yeah, and I went into that class. Has he ever seen Cars? Oh, I'm so excited. Oh yeah. Jesus Christ. I was so excited. But how many Piston Cups has Charles Foster Kane won? I think it's my dad's favorite film is a good bar. That's a good bar that you can clear. I have a lot of-

Watch the movie, you'll be like, oh, I could see why this is your favorite. I've met Adam's dad, he has great taste, so I can't, I don't think that's true. But that's one bar, and then this is the greatest movie you will ever watch is a very different bar. No, that's Tenet. Inception was pretty good too.

Not to harp on this too much longer, but if people said it is the most important movie ever made to film it, like that's way different. Yeah. As a viewer, I didn't enjoy it. Yeah, you can say it's extremely important, but it might not be the best. I think I should have learned about it.

I didn't really like it that much though. Better than Dune. But. If the bar is Dune, we're good. That's funny. Okay, there's still more Google stuff though. So here's a, do we have the memoriam music ready for this? Oh.

We do indeed. I just made Alice Madden shut his laptop and kinda screwed that part up. Yeah, we will see how, do the lights still work? Nope. No. Dang it.

That's fine, we can still do this. I broke it. Is David the beast that holds this podcast together? Maybe, I think we're finding that out. Yeah. Well, anyway, killedbygoogle.com noted website that documents all of the projects killed by this massive company full of people

that don't talk to each other. They have one to add now. The grave is dug. It's just, it hasn't been lowered in yet. Yes. So we'll take this opportunity to say goodbye, officially, to Google Assistant. Lived a good life, was compared many times

to other assistants like Siri, Alexa, and others, but soon found itself passing the baton to the next generation of Google Assistant. Forcedfully passing the baton. It had no choice in the matter. So right before stepping into the grave, it taught everything it knew to this new kid named Gemini and then lowered itself peacefully, never to be heard from again.

We still have a little more time. It's still in all of our speakers. You bring that... Okay, that is a very... That's a question I have. I'm going to start by this place. So Google had an announcement on March 14th that Gemini will be taking over Google Assistant and Google Assistant will be replaced in 2025.

They said, over the coming months, we're upgrading more users on mobile devices from Google Assistant to Gemini, and later this year, the classic Google Assistant will no longer be accessible on most mobile devices or available for new download on mobile app stores. Additionally, we will be upgrading tablets, cars and devices that connect to your phone,

such as headphone and watches to Gemini. We're also bringing a new experience powered by Gemini to home devices like speakers, displays and TVs. We look forward to sharing more details with you in the next few months. Until then, Assistant will continue to operate on those devices. So I guess it does say it's going to speakers

Eventually. Yeah Yeah, that pretty much just says Sayonara Assistant it's funny because still to this day on Android phones, like if you hold down the power button You get the Google assistant thing. But if you have a widget on the home screen, it's still Google assistant Oh, and so I recently was going to go to a restaurant and I opened Gemini and I just said the name of the restaurant so I could navigate to it. And Gemini just started telling me the history of the restaurant.

Like just doesn't know what I want to do with that information. Google Assistant still knows like, oh, I say the name of the restaurant, pull up the listing. I'm going to navigate there. So, you know, when that goes away, I'm still a little bit worried about Gemini.

We'll see. But in general, it seems to have caught up and does mostly all the things that I want it to do from Google. So they did in the press release, they've updated to a lot of the most requested features in it. And they have this actually pretty awesome list that like Gemini now has weather updates. It has event reminders and lists maps can work with Google Drive, asking about a video, play music, flights and hotels, what's on your screen, messaging, alarms and timers, something I think we were all actually pretty, can control your smart home, which is something I was very worried about. You can call on it. What else is here? Messaging apps. The two things

that are on this list that are not available on Gemini that is available on your systems is routines things that are on this list that are not available on Gemini that is available on your systems is routines and finding out what song is playing. I'm very confused at why I can't figure that one out. It seems like multimodal, the most obvious. Yeah, that seems like the first thing it should be because it has access to your camera, your microphones. Routines is also a little weird. I think if you're someone who uses routines you it's really I mean it's in

the name it is part of your routine at that point I my routines kind of fell apart I kind of want to put those back together I had some routines maybe not anymore well yeah I guess I should wait for the transition but I had a routine where every morning I would say good morning to the speaker and it would do a whole bunch of things it would open the shades yeah I had to say like that to her it wouldn't respond it would open the shades it would do a whole bunch of things. It would open the shades. Yeah, I had to say it like that too, or it wouldn't respond. It would open the shades, it would start playing the news, tell me the weather, tell me the traffic to work,

things like that. And then slowly, one by one, they started breaking, and then I just stopped doing that routine, because it didn't work anymore. So I gotta build that one up again, maybe when Gemini is full of transition. Why do we put up with this? I love all my Google integration stuff.

It was so cool when it worked though. I know. It felt like magic. It's like, this is the smart home of the future. This is so great. And then it stopped. It really is. And then you just spend an entire day resetting

all of your Google devices to try and get it to work like it used to. And then you realize half of the things have just been killed off. Ever since moving in with my fiance now, she is very against home assistance and anything like that, home automation, so I have not had to live with it.

And can confirm, pretty fine. It's cool, just like press the button. Just press a few extra buttons in the morning. Yeah, honestly, that's how most people are, it's fine. But yeah, I assume Assistant will go out peacefully and Jem and I will pick up the slack, but yeah. I'm sure it will be a smooth transition and Gemini will definitely get none of the things wrong

that were really simple for Google Assistant. Doubt. All right, I've got one more Google headline for you. Google Wallet launches new feature for kids to securely pay and store passes. So tap to pay for your children's phone. Kids to securely pay and store passes. So tap to pay for your children's phone. Kids to securely pay and store passes. I just send your kid to the store with like a,

like a pass on it. A credit card on their phone for tap to pay. It like, okay, ultimately this makes sense because what if your kid's in like a bus pass or like if they're on a field trip and you need to, you don't have, no one really carries cash around with them. It's hard to give your kid 20 bucks to pay for lunch on like a field trip. So basically you can add credit cards onto their phones that you get an

email every time they use it. You can like immediately revoke the credit card off of the phone in case they're spending too much on, but like so much of this just reminds me of like. Whenever there's micro transactions in a game, reminds me of like, whenever there's microtransactions in a game, it's always like, Oh, did you use your parents credit card for these V bucks or whatever? And they're spending too much. And Google was like, let's do that in real life. Let's give these kids tap to pay so they can just go buy whatever they want with their phone until their parents get too many emails. And now the credit card companies.

This is bold of Google to assume that kids have androids. It's actually that's a super interesting part because I didn't even think of any kids are going to do this versus like if Apple Wallet or whatever. Yeah, I know that. But that's it could be a way to get young people like young people. Makes it sound like I'm a teenager. It's like the youngest possible demographic in Android as their first phone.

Like this might be how they disrupt the pipeline. There's a reason Samsung paid Mr. Beast so much money to do Samsung things because they're like, we've lost the younger generation. We need to now get the generation that hasn't even bought phones yet. And we want them to want Samsung phones. Yeah, I mean, it doesn't seem like the Galaxy Fortnite skins

really worked that well. For the awesome ads? The awesome, all the A series, awesome, awesome, awesome. You remember those? I don't know those. You didn't see those commercials? No. Apparently the A in A54 stands for awesome.

And they did these commercials where they would just call the phone awesome over and over again. And I, let me pull one up. Cause I'm not describing it very well. And I feel like you guys are going to appreciate how weird this is. It's for some reason it's reminding me of the Budweiser frogs.

What? Why? Now that's memorable. Kids would remember that. Awesome screen, awesome camera, long lasting battery life. Awesome screen, awesome camera, long lasting battery life. Awesome screen, awesome camera, long lasting battery life. This is a commercial. Wait, hold on.

Awesome camera, long lasting battery life. No, this rules. Are we gonna get copyright struck from this? Awesome screen, awesome camera, long lasting battery life. We can do a test upload first. Okay. Awesome camera, awesome street. How did this not work? Whoever loses in trivia this year has to set that

as their ringtone on their phone for the next month. That's a deal. Wait, that was kind of a banger. Yeah, I like that. It didn't convert any of the youth. It didn't, apparently. Yeah. So that's where we're at. Lots of Google news. Look at this, the Google podcast. We didn't, it didn't. Yeah. Yeah, so that's where we're at. Lots of Google news.

Look at this, the Google podcast. We didn't talk about Apple once. A whole Google segment in the middle. Wow, good for them. Well, our whole final segment is going to be a game. And we're gonna play our keywords eBay game, trying to find the most expensive thing sold on eBay in a particular category.

It's gonna be a good time. So before we get there, one more trivia question. I'm sorry. The lights did work. I broke the lights when Andrew made me mad about Dune and you made me mad about Tenet. Just dissing all the movies I like. Question number two. I wanted to do a question about microtransactions

because it does seem like that is what the Fortnite card is for and when, sorry, the- Google card. The Google CSGO skins card. I was looking around for the most absurd microtransactions in the history of games. Found some funny Fortnite skins. Found some funny Fortnite skins. Found some expensive Fortnite skins, $40.

I feel like there's more expensive than that. You have to weirdly buy them on eBay though. You have to buy an account. Yeah, or buy this Samsung Galaxy for $1,000. I played Fortnite when that came out and we got one of the phones and I put it on my account. That's why in our Fortnite office game, we're playing with the Samsung Galaxy skin

and everyone's like, that's a crazy rare skin. You had to buy the like Note 8, I think, or Note 9 to get it. But the silliest microtransaction I found was actually baked into a little game called Windows 10 Ever heard of it? No, I'm just kidding But I did find a funny little micro transaction in Windows 10 And so the question is what upon launch could Windows 10 users pay a dollar forty nine per month for?

That's the question that's the question question. That's all we get. What do you get for $1.49 at launch? I think I found discrepancies as far as what it would cost now because we're on Windows 11. It seems like they raised the price to $1.99, but I could. So it's still available. Still available. And it's a Microsoft product, I guess. Yeah, it's a Micros Transaxia Soft product.

I have a guess, but I feel like it's not. I feel like I would have known about it. Anyways. Windows 10. I'll think about that one. Windows 10. I'll brainstorm even more after the break. Do you think they brought back the Vista widgets?

I love Vista widgets. Would you pay $1.49 a month for them? No. But I did for them? No. But I did like them. I did like them. All right, welcome back. We have rearranged the seats. We've traded places.

Adam and Ellis are over here. Andrew is over there and that's because we're playing the, it doesn't have a name yet. So I'm just going to call it the keywords game. The keywords game. You have to say it and that cadence every time. The keywords game. The keywords game. Keywords.

Explain how it works. Break it down. Sure. So for those of you who don't remember, which we did this very fast last time, so you might not remember that much, essentially what's, I'm on eBay right now. We are going to have three rounds. I'm gonna give you a tech category, and you guys need to convince,

you need to tell me what words to type into the eBay search bar to find the most expensive product in that category. And it is, remind me, it's the top, who has the most expensive top item. So what's going to happen is each round has a number of keywords. The first round has three, three words. You're going to give me second round.

That's four words. You're going to give me third round has five words. You're going to give me none of those words can be repeated by anybody. And then once you tell me to search, like I think last time, did we do phones? Yeah. We did. So you gave me like, if you gave me Apple search, like I think last time, did we do phones? Yeah, we did. So you gave me like, if you gave me Apple iPhone 16, I'm gonna type in Apple iPhone 16, you're going to give me a number between one and 10.

I'm going to scroll to that piece, that listing in the sold categories of eBay and whatever that price is, that's the price you get. Whoever gets the most money at the end wins. All right. Cool. And then you wouldn't be able to use Apple iPhone or 16 anymore. Yeah. Okay All right So I have a tech category and I want you to ask some questions to see

To make sure we're all on the same page here I'm going to do it's an audio category. Let's make it fair for everybody The device has to be able to play sound. That's it? Play sound. Like it has to have a speaker? It has to be able to play sound. Yes, it has to have a speaker.

So, make a sound or play sound? Make a sound. Make a sound sounds like just like mechanically. Yeah, like I could pick a car. Like my HD would not. No, no, no, no, no. It needs to be able to have like a speaker. Okay, cars have a speaker.

I just sort of sold myself out. I mean, I think we should keep it as like an audio focused. Audio focused. It's purpose must be to play sound then maybe. Yeah, let's say that. It's a key, making sound is a key feature in it. I'm trying to think of like, how do we keep this? I know Ellis is gonna ask him a million questions. I'm trying to think of like, how do we keep this? I know Ellis is gonna ask him a million questions.

I'm trying to think, does an MP3 player count? Cause it- It would not. It doesn't. Cause it doesn't make- Like a scene has no speaker. Yeah, exactly. It just has a headphone jack.

Andrew's thinking. What do you guys want? Do you want that to count? An MP3 player to count? Do you want to just start going? Nah, let's make it a little more difficult. It won't count. It has to play sound. It won't count.

It has to play sound with the speaker. Something can hook up to it to play the sound, but it physically has to make the noise. That's two different. It physically has to make the noise. Alright, I got one. I tried to pick a category because Adam and Ellis were in this. Marques is obviously a phone person, but I think he knows a lot of sounds. I was going to do cameras, but doing that without David here

would be super mean. Who wants to go first? This is a test round, right? No. This is a real round? Let's just go into it. Okay, so first round is three keywords. Yes. Three keywords.

Okay. I need to find a quicker way to explain this next time. JBL, Orange, Original. Breaking out Original pretty early. Okay. I'm gonna go with the fourth item, please.

All right. 22.90. Damn. $22.90. It is the original JBL Flip 4 Charge speaker. Yeah, you played yourself. Yeah, you played, considering the one above this is a soccer card for $1,000.

I don't know what. What? Don't make sound though. That wouldn't qualify. What were you aiming for? The original like orange foam JBL, like standing speakers. Oh, well a lot of people are selling orange JBL cable, the USB cables.

So you actually got the better one out of all of this. I want to remember this brand name. Let me just write this down. Original. Maybe I can help you get the brand name. Adam. And this has to be tech. $12.90.

It has to. I think if it has a speaker, it essentially is tech in itself. So it might not have a speaker, but it makes sound. And it's primary purposes to make sound. It's primary purposes to make sound. Yeah. How about this? If both of you guys veto it, we'll send it.

Just send it. I'll veto it if I don't. I'm a fair player. Yeah, I'm curious now. Okay. Electric guitar. I don't want to use original right now. You can't.

Can't I use this? Oh, because you use original. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Can't use original right now. You can't. Can't I use this? Oh, because you use original. Yeah. Perfect. One through 10. One. Okay. I have a question to ask you guys.

If it, if in the list, the thing is not something that plays noise. Do you want me to just jump to the closest thing that does? That is an actual piece of text? That's fair. Yes. Okay. Number one is a guitar book. Oh. So I will go to the next one,

which is a DSP Nano Cortex Digital Amp pedal. Okay. Affects new perfect circuit, $425. Damn. That's a solid. All right. So here's the question, Andrew. Do I play it safe and get something that I know

costs more than $400? Or do I shoot for the moon and land on the stars? The winner last time hit the moon. Because I'll be real, with everything I have right now, I could just say MacBook Air, new, 2016. There's different ways of going about it. Cause if you also go ultra specific, super expensive, if not that many have sold, you're gonna get a crap.

I'm like, there's a bunch of vintage synthesizers we could do here, but I don't know if. Damn, why did I think of none of this? I'm gonna shh. Got gonna shoot. I'm gonna shoot. We've got two more rounds. You know what? You know what? 400, let's have some fun.

I'm not gonna shoot for the minute, but I think I could be 400. The first word is going to be studer. S-T-U-D-E-R, studer. Oh, wait, no, no, no. Fuck this. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. It has to have speakers.

It has to make noise. Yeah. Because electric guitar does not have a speaker. It has to have speakers, it has to make noise. Cause electric guitar does not have a speaker. It's primary function needs to be making noise. Great. Studer, first word, S-T-U-D-E-R. Second word, mint. Good word.

Third word. Chocolate color. The question is, do we wanna go for a mixer or a reel to reel? Put in- One of those is one one word one of those is three words, so put in put in Console con so le Cedar mint console and I want number Wait, I should just be thinking of two ones that I know. Number two? Oh, I feel like I've f***ed up. 70 bucks?

No! What? Between 385 and 630. Studer console input, one night. Is this someone's phone number? Wait, can I get a Studer console for 70? F***. Ha ha ha ha ha.

$20 delivery. For $90, you could get a Studer console. I thought this was about to be like five digits. I know. What is going on? But then why would you sell that on eBay? That's what I was thinking. That's true. Oh yeah, eBay.

I gotta think. Cause there are some like standalone speakers that I've seen that I don't think are on eBay. Well, yeah, I was gonna, not gonna give it up. Now I gotta be a competitive cause I thought I had that one in the bag. So headphones count? Yeah. Yeah.

They make sound. I would argue that's their main. Marques, I can't believe you won with $400. Me neither. On a vintage audio gear one. Me neither, me neither. Okay, we got two more rounds left. You gotta play the E there.

Anyone who knows vintage audio gear is just as disappointed as I am, by the way. Yeah. Yeah. Or finding that list, well, I guess it's sold already. And it's not what I was looking for. I was looking for a Studer mixing desk with the rainbow knobs. What kind of numbers were you hoping for, though?

I was looking for like eight grand. Yeah. OK. So now we have four keywords. Four keywords. Do you want me to repeat the ones that can't be used? Yes. Actually, no.

I don't think you're good. Yeah. And it's the same category. Same category for all of these guys. I'm hype. Teenage engineering. Oh wait, we're still, it's all audio? Yeah, because then we use more words.

Let's go, let's go, let's go, baby. Synthesizer. Gotta figure out how to spell that, got it? That's three. OP one. It is OP dash one. Yeah, OP dash one. I'll give that to you.

OP dash one. That's like, what? That's like. It's not that much, I'm playing it safe here, because I'm way and well if you pick the right number you get the feel that's not something. Yeah. Yeah Okay, I'm gonna go with The The seventh let's roll the dice Lucky number seven seven fifty seven dollars and fifty cents. No 750. Okay. Sorry. Okay, you miss there are some

$1,500 ones in here. That's what I was hoping for. All right, man. Wow 750. Mm-hmm. All right, let's try Well, I have like seven seventy two because my JBL is twenty two dollars. All right. Oh, it's cumulative. Yeah Oh, so oh, okay, so I'll shoot for this. You've got time. Yeah, let's try it So for my second round,, so, okay, so I'll shoot for this one. You've got time. Yeah. Let's try, so for my second round, I got four words. So I'm going, Sennheiser, is HD 800 S one word? Oh, I would say that's one word. I thought it was two.

I thought it was one word. But I, The model name? OP1 specifically is OP-1, where HD, Is it O? Oh, I know you're right. One unhyphenated modeling? Let me, I'm gonna, looks like on Sennheiser's website,

it's actually HD 800 S. Ooh, that's three. But you could just do Sennheiser. Yeah, no, that's one. That's four, no, that's a product name. That's four keywords. That's four HD-100 S, dang. No, Sennheiser, HD. Sennheiser, HD,

800, S. So there you go, that's all four. All right, they're gonna be used, but let's go HD 800S. Do it, do it, do it. And let's go with the second listing. Okay, you dodged the bullet.

Yeah. I did. 9.99. I mean, $999.99. Is it used, it sounds like? It is pre-owned. Before that were replacement ear pad cushions for the- Whoa, that's always the danger with headphones.

Yeah. Okay. That was lucky. That's good, that's good. All right. I'm a little nervous about this. Yeah, I feel like I might get an accessory. Oh no, it's not. Yeah, I was thinking but We're gonna go

Fender, okay first keyword Second word is Telecaster T e le classic Astor. That's one word Third word is American They didn't see that come in but okay fourth word is American. They didn't see that coming, but okay. Fourth word is rare. That's good. That's a good word. I wish I had used that.

Yeah, rare is a good one. For those of you, for you too, and Andrew, the Telecaster has been made in three countries, or probably more than three, but the three people talk about are America, Mexico, and I forget where in Asia they make them, like the Philippines or Japan or something like that, and the American ones are the popular ones.

What's the number? What's your number? I really don't want a guitar strap. That's nice. eBay, think about eBay. What would show up on, what are people listing on eBay? Is the first one like a, no, it's sold, so there's no sponsored.

It's only sold listings, yeah, so there's no sponsored. It's only sold listings. Yeah, so there's no sponsored. I want number one. $999.99. Is it a telly? It's an American telly for a thousand? Fender American Standard Telecaster, 1988, vintage rare E3 SS black guitar pre-owned.

Okay. Nice. What was number two? From a seller called Jump On It. So it sounds like it got pawned. That's good. Number two was just the neck for $250. Oh nice. Good pick. Good pick. I can do better. Okay this one we're going. All right here we go. Damn. Last round. I'm thinking about something that's probably too big of a risk. I don't think it's on your day. I'm going for something crazy risky on this next one.

Okay, ready? Five keywords out of it. Five keywords, okay. I'm gonna go with moog, M-O-O-G. Mm-hmm. Actually, mini-moog. Everyone send him lots of emails about that, do it. Don't put this down.

Is it mug? Am I pronouncing it wrong? It's mug, like the root about that. Do it. Don't let him look this down. Is it mug? Am I pronouncing it wrong? It's mug, like the root beer. You nailed it. Send him so many DMs. Oh, it is one word. Yeah, yeah. One word. It's mog. Mog? I've never heard it pronounced.

I use synthesizer already, right? Mm-hmm. Okay. So let me do... Have we used the word new? I don't believe so. Okay. so new So that's two words, right? Yes third word Or actually I do the New inbox, so that's three words. That's four now, right? Yes

For sure on eBay and then Military Maybe working And then military. Maybe working. But if it's new in box, I couldn't have tested it. Yeah, no. I'm gonna go with, I'm just trying to think of like a random fluff word that someone would put on

an eBay SEO thing like condition. Condition? Yeah. Oh. Hmm. Minimoog, that's a good one. What kind of numbersition. Condition? Yeah. Oh. Hmm. Minimoog, that's a good one. What kind of numbers are you thinking here? Oh.

Give me two. I'm gonna. Or one. There is a Remington Bikini Trimmer, a new in box Mary Kay repair cleanser, Gore-Tex men's size 11 boots. I think you guys hear it. A Jessica Rabbit doll.

A peanut Snoopy watch. Transformers. A Minimoog like new in box, like that would never turn up anywhere in the world. But it's sold. At some point it had to have been sold. Not in the box, not new in box. Too rare?

It's too rare. There are? Because even when that thing came out, there were, I don't wanna give an exact number, but like an exceptionally small number. And you don't think any of them got resold? Well, because I don't really think it was the kind of thing that you could, like you could probably go to a handful

of music stores around the country and buy one, but for the most part, they were selling them straight to studios and labels. And they were considered, you know, like. Professional. Yeah, like the musical equipment of like a backhoe, you know, like you could get one if you were doing serious work on your own, but for the most part.

I did search just Minimoog. Yeah. And there was one sold March 6th, 2005. One in 2005. 2025, sorry. Oh. Like two weeks ago. Oh, for how much?

$5,000. No, no, don't give that to him. Don't give that to him. How does that not count? Because it didn't come up with your keywords. I guess. The keywords are too fine. I think the condition screwed you.

Really? Really? I mean, one of these is like a conditioner, I think. What about if you get rid of condition and type in Minimoog new inbox? Oh yeah. How about this? I will give you the first tech piece that actually showed up. Okay.

Which is? A Garmin chronograph. Oh, but that doesn't make sounds. Well, I guess that's a speaker. Yeah, I guess that's a speaker. Do you want the Demon Slayer figure instead? Yes. How much is that?

I'm I wrong? Are there new inbox Minimoogs? I cannot imagine one of those exists. That one said brand new, so. But inbox. I wouldn't actually think Are there new inbox? Minimoogs? I cannot imagine one of those exists. That one said brand new, so. But inbox. I wouldn't actually think it's new inbox if I'm buying it from eBay. I'm just putting that out there.

No, I bought it from eBay. It's just what the listing would be. eBay new inbox was new inbox. How do you guys want it? Do you want to give Adam no points or? Always. All right. I leave this up to y'all.

What was the last thing you just said? Give him that. The demon slayer. Yeah, give him the demon slayer figure. What was the last thing you just said? Give him that. The demon slayer. Yeah, give him the demon slayer figure. What if that's like 10 grand? How much is the demon slayer, Andrew? It's 48 bucks. All right.

It makes noise, it makes noise. It doesn't make noise. Okay. I literally don't know what to ask. There's a lot of these that- Sorry, Adam. Like make noise, but I'm not convinced they're on eBay,

like the wallpaper TV or the rollable TV. Oh yeah, we're not getting really clever. Like specific products that I know have speakers associated with them, but that I don't know about. It does, like the insulator action thing. Do red cameras have speakers? No, technically yes. But.

But no. I don't even know if I can. Primary function sound? Yeah, I'm gonna narrow this down. Definitely primary function of sound. Let me get Yamaha Grand Piano. Oh. Wow. Wood. Wow.

Wood. Working. I can't wait till this is like a dollhouse replica. This is, pianos are notoriously either ludicrously cheap or ludicrously expensive. Yeah, I could get crushed on this listing, but let's go with the Fourth Listing here. All right

new in box I don't like that Yamaha portable grand piano. Ooh 719 $719. Yes, What's a portable grand piano? It's all that came up. There's no, I don't think anyone's selling full blown wood grand pianos on eBay. I guess that's more of a Facebook marketplace.

I was hoping for one. All right, I have a feeling that I'm gonna be in the same boat. This is not something they sell on eBay, but I am so tired that I literally can't think of anything else. So we're gonna to do it. First keyword is three letters.

PMC. Second word, mastering. Third word, stack. Fourth word, complete. Fifth word, sub. What? I feel like this is either going to be perfect or like an XLR cable.

Yeah. Like the more words, actually make it harder. Yeah, it does. Did you hit enter? I did. I don't like that face. It's not a good face. I have yet to see something that plays audio.

What? Okay, so I guess this is not something that people are selling on YouTube. What were you hoping it would be? A company called PMC that makes mastering, a set of mastering speakers which cost about 160 grand. Speaker, oh that's, yeah.

That's not gonna be on eBay. I think you could get mastering speakers upwards of 10 grand on eBay, but once you get that high, I don't think you'll find it. Yeah, that's so expensive. Yeah. Oh, it's 125 for the set, I'm wrong. Dude, even like trying to find this is very hard.

Really, is it too niche? I also just want you guys to know, no one used the word speaker. Oh my God. Once. So. Yeah, Ellis, you got a bunch of Pokemon cards. Oh wait, but those are expensive.

Yeah, oh, but they don't make sound. Is there literally a single thing there that makes Okay Probably the Beatles yellow submarine LP near mint copy make sound 162 dollars that's still better than my pick Sound I lost the sound guy lost this should have been my time to shine vintage audio gear here I am with a goodub. Let me calculate

I also if anyone in the comments wants to Tell us some categories to do though But it's hard to say it to everyone because I don't want you guys looking at ones beforehand, but I promise you we're not going to adam came in at first place 820 dollars at first place, $820. Rookie numbers. Marquez knows Marquez came at $2,143 and Ellis came in at. 3000, 4000, $1,231.

So Marques is the winner of today's Keywords game. Still need some polishing on that. Thank you for all sticking around. I think the basis of it is really fun. I think the host is really terrible. I want a rematch. I want a rematch too. I just want to give a shout out to Grand Pianos on eBay. A lot of Steinway ones I could have picked.

85 grand. These are a local pickup only, understandably, but. We got those. They're not gonna ship it? Yeah, no. Anyway, that was fun. I think the last thing we should do is swap everyone back. I'll just do it here.

I know my question. You know your trivia question? So Andrew should get his board. I'll just stay here, yeah. Wait, yeah, maybe this is too complicated. It would be way easier to just go back. Swap back? We should swap back.

Okay, we're gonna take a quick break. And when you come back, we will swap back for trivia. Okay, we're back. Time to finish it off with the trivia answers this week. Let's do it. Ba-ba-ba-da-ba. Trivia. the answers this week. Let's do it. Bap bap bada baa. Bacchronym. Bacchronym.

Bacchronym, question one, the term leaf from Nissan Leaf serves as a Bacchronym. What is that Bacchronym? Bum ba dum ba dum ba dum. Did we decide if we were doing one point per or what we're saying? Whoever gets the most. Oh, yes, that's what it was. Whoever gets the closest or the most gets one point. All right.

Flip them and read. What do we got? They're bad. Oh, okay. Oh, we got? They're bad. We both said fun for F. So I have my LEAF was like electric and fun. Like electric and fun. And fun. Oh, the A was A.

The A was A. I kinda like that actually. That is good, but you got zero points on that zero zero damn I said long electric abled fun also zero Does fleece and for leading environmentally friendly? affordable family car Hold on. I told you one of them was hyphenated. So it's way more than four words. No, leading.

Leading. In environmentally friendly. Oh, is it? Affordable family. Car. Car is not included in apparently. Nissan needs to learn what an acronym is. Bad stuff.

That's rough. Nissan gets negative one point for it. It's technically Leafq. Okay. Question number two, the CFM International Leap is a high bypass turbo fan. Just kidding. Just kidding.

I just assumed I wasn't paying attention. No, what in Windows 10 could users spend $1.49 per month on in the weirdest, not weirdest, just who puts out microtransactions in a computer? This is Windows 10, which came out in 1996. Just kidding, it came out. Windows 10's the one before this one, I think. Are we on 12 yet?

No, we're not on 12, we're on 11. I don't know how this one. David might get this one. Did you put the same thing? Oh, essentially. The assistant, co-pilot. I'm sorry. I put Clippy.

No, unfortunately. I'd pay $1.50 for Clippy. For Clippy? Yeah. I feel like. I'd pay $1.50 for Clippy. For Clippy? Yeah. I feel like most people pay $1.50 to get rid of Clippy. No, the correct answer was to disable ads in Solitaire. Oh my God. To disable, there's ads in Solitaire in Windows 10?

Because they hate you. I've played so much Solitaire in Windows and I never saw ads. I must not have played on Windows 10. It's probably been a while since. I definitely didn't have Windows. I definitely didn't pay $1.49, so interesting. Well, there you have it, folks.

Where is the ad in it? Like after or like before you start playing? You flip over a card and it's just the ace of Caribbean cruises. Like, what does it say? That's weird. I can't imagine how they would do that. I just assumed it was a banner ad.

Yeah, there's just ads like when it says game over and there's like the difficulty and stuff and your score, there's just like, this is just like a Zillow ad on the side. Wow. Okay. Well, yeah, we learned something new about Windows. Maybe you knew that answer already and you were down in the comments,

furiously typing away, or maybe you've already typed away at what we should be calling our eBay Keywords game, or what you would have typed in eBay to get the best, highest numbers, or maybe you're typing something else entirely. Whatever it is, we'll meet you in the comments section. Thanks for watching and listening this episode,

and we'll catch y'all next week. See you there. Peace. And stop messaging me about cars. You can keep going. Performers produced by Adam, Alina and Ella Serven. We're partners with Vox Media Podcast Network and Interterritorial Music, created by Vane Sill.

["Song of the Day"] If you're happy and you know it clap your hands.