Marques Cancelled His Roadster

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

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Andrew Manganelli?

  This episode is brought to you by On Investing, an original podcast from Charles Schwab. Each week, host Lizanne Saunders, Schwab's Chief Investment Strategist, and Colin Martin, Head of Fixed Income Research and Strategy for the Schwab Center for Financial Research, bring your fresh insights on what's happening in the markets and why, and what the implications might be for your portfolio. Join Colin and Lizanne as they explore questions like, how do you evaluate corporate bonds that look interesting? And what sectors are on the move right now? Download the latest episodes and subscribe at schwab.com/oninvesting or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 0:33Speaker 01

  Support for the show comes from Jira by Atlassian. AI is only as useful as the context it has to work from. But when that context is scattered across tools, threads, and DMs, that means your team and your AI agents end up flying blind. That's the problem that Jira solves. What's the goal tied to your project? What got decided last week in Slack? Atlassian's teamwork graph pulls all these pieces together, from Jira, Confluence, Slack, GitHub, and more. So, nothing falls through the cracks. With Jira, you can actually share that context with the AI agents you already use, like Claude, Cursor, and GitHub Copilot, assign them work directly, or connect your agents through MCP. Spend less time digging through endless links and DMs, less time chasing down what got decided and by who, and more time actually shipping. Learn more at jira.com.

• 1:18Speaker 01

  That's J-I-R-A dot com.

• 1:21Andrew Manganelli?

  For the first time in my memory, you're using two regular-sized phones. You're not using the XL or the Max?

• 1:26Speaker 01

  That's true.

• 1:27Andrew Manganelli?

  I just saw that on the table.

• 1:29Speaker 01

  I had used, yeah, for those wondering, my current dailies are the Pixel 10 Pro, not the XL, and the iPhone 17 Pro, not the XL.

• 1:39Andrew Manganelli?

  Who are you and what have you done with the Macs?

• 1:41Speaker 01

  You know, it's nice having smaller phones that actually last all day. It's really nice.

• 1:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, what is up, people of the internet? Welcome back to another episode of The Waveform Podcast. We're your hosts. I'm Marquez.

• 1:55Andrew Manganelli?

  And I'm Andrew.

• 1:56Speaker 01

  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 Techtember, after all. So, we have iPhone Air, review is... 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.

• 2:20Andrew Manganelli?

  I think we're gonna do our kind of like preliminary smartphone award conversation.

• 2:24Speaker 01

  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. And then October is right after this.

• 2:36Andrew Manganelli?

  We talked about the whole event, but you got an interview with James Cameron and there was a couple of clips we might play at the end of the episode.

• 2:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, it had a good time. I mean, I 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.

• 3:00Andrew Manganelli?

  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 that how it could seem that good when the event was so bad. But it's because you guys got to try it beforehand.

• 3:21Speaker 01

  Did we talk last week about why the event was so trash? What happened?

• 3:25Andrew Manganelli?

  Oh, because we didn't find out till after.

• 3:27Speaker 01

  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 of hours later, Boz got on his social media and explained what happened, which was fairly, I mean, you know, again, props to 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.

• 3:55Andrew Manganelli?

  So apparently the first cooking demo, they they say, and someone can correct me on the exact terms of this, but that the Meta 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 DDoSed themselves.

• 4:20Speaker 01

  Which turned out to overload that.

• 4:21Andrew Manganelli?

  Apparently. Yeah. 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.

• 4:28Speaker 01

  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.

• 4:35Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah. 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.

• 4:53Speaker 01

  And it was just a montage of him running with Diplo for some reason, which I don't know why we were watching that, but it happened. So anyway, yeah, that, 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, tech timber and tech tober 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 they'll be right on time when they do drop later this week and the next week. But thank

• 5:37Speaker 01

  you guys for, for watching them and for staying up to date with us.

• 5:40Speaker 02

  It's a marathon, not a sprint. We're going.

• 5:43Andrew Manganelli?

  The crazy thing about the air being a week and a half late, right?

• 5:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:49Andrew Manganelli?

  Something 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 six out of 10 out of our last 10 videos.

• 5:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:59Andrew Manganelli?

  Which is crazy.

• 6:01Speaker 01

  That's insane. I mean, I, 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 10 is a six out of 10, which is insane.

• 6:15Speaker 03

  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.

• 6:23Speaker 01

  So you know what'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. Dbrand 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 orders do you think are for the Air?

• 7:08Andrew Manganelli?

  So is this the percentage of the iPhone sales or total sales on?

• 7:13Speaker 01

  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, 17 Pro and the 17 Pro Max.

• 7:24Andrew Manganelli?

  I'm going 30%.

• 7:26Speaker 01

  30% Air.

• 7:26Speaker 03

  I think it's single digits, but only because I think if you're buying an iPhone Air, you are going caseless, skinless, like you are leaning into the fashion.

• 7:37Speaker 01

  Interesting.

• 7:39Andrew Manganelli?

  Well, I was gonna say even, I'm assuming you're gonna 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 there, I don't know how Dbrand 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 like that.

• 8:01Speaker 01

  That's my plan. Yeah.

• 8:02Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah. Um, yeah, I don't, how much Air?

• 8:05Speaker 01

  How much Air?

• 8:06Andrew Manganelli?

  Percentage? 13%?

• 8:08Speaker 01

  5% are Air.

• 8:10Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah.

• 8:11Speaker 01

  7% is base iPhone 17. 31% is Pro and 56% is Pro Max.

• 8:18Andrew Manganelli?

  Oh my god.

• 8:19Speaker 01

  More than half of the orders are Pro Max and almost 90% are Pro and Pro Max.

• 8:25Speaker 03

  Correct me if I'm wrong, but, because we have this discussion most years where like, why the Pro Max is outselling everything, this is crazy.

• 8:31Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 8:31Speaker 03

  We think it's because in the US, so many people get their phones through carrier deals where you're sort of incentivized to get the most expensive phone.

• 8:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:41Speaker 03

  Right?

• 8:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think, I think a lot of people walk in the store and just go, alright, 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.

• 8:55Andrew Manganelli?

  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

• 9:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:08Andrew Manganelli?

  not when you look at it that way, it's like car sales.

• 9:10Speaker 01

  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. Alright, so, 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 ProRes 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 it's also the most mainstream iPhone ever.

• 9:41Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah.

• 9:41Speaker 01

  At the same time. That's hard to review, but that is also what's happening. So, that's fun.

• 9:46Andrew Manganelli?

  We're talking about carriers and you mentioned Gen Lock, I would love if there was some guy at a carrier store who when he's pitching, he's just like, it's got Gen Lock, and want to see if a single person, if there's a, if there's someone working at like a Verizon store out there, just pepper in Gen Lock every time you talk about the new iPhone and see if anyone reacts.

• 10:03Speaker 03

  That's only when James Cameron walks in.

• 10:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, he walks in, he's like, dude, this phone has Gen Lock. You're gonna love it. Yeah. So yeah, that review, that's all coming out soon. Um, but what else? We want to talk about

• 10:14Andrew Manganelli?

  I wanted to talk about that. Did you watch the iFixit video on the air?

• 10:18Speaker 01

  It just came out, what, yesterday or today? So I haven't watched the video yet.

• 10:21Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah.

• 10:22Speaker 01

  Um, I watched, I read the article where they gave it a preliminary seven out of 10 for repairability. Uh, 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.

• 10:45Andrew Manganelli?

  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

• 10:57Speaker 01

  They

• 10:57Andrew Manganelli?

  solid. I'll say, not great.

• 11:00Speaker 01

  They're not tens. They're not fair phones, but they're not twos like they have been in the past.

• 11:04Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah. Um, but yeah, like what you mentioned, um, iFixit 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.

• 11:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:16Andrew Manganelli?

  Um, by itself, it still has that. Um, everything is pushed up to the top. The iFixit 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, um, the phone. And the components up top, they, I guess they were doing it before the release day somehow, because they said there was a couple of 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 they were pretty impressed by that.

• 11:57Andrew Manganelli?

  Um, I think it's just, we've seen all the renders 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.

• 12:18Speaker 01

  And it's funny seeing the things they 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 the 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, but 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

• 12:38Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah, the battery's pretty

• 12:39Speaker 01

  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.

• 12:46Andrew Manganelli?

  I can say, I feel like we kind of confirmed that the USB-C 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 USB-C cables, I guess the tolerances are a bit off, fit in either of the phones.

• 13:07Andrew Manganelli?

  Just a little bit tighter, I guess, but even in the iFixa 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 there's, 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.

• 13:33Speaker 01

  Which is very in line with a lot of previous iPhones. Like, if you go all the way back to when the 6 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.

• 13:48Andrew Manganelli?

  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.

• 14:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:03Andrew Manganelli?

  Which I thought was really cool.

• 14:04Speaker 01

  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.

• 14:14Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah, that's a cool

• 14:15Speaker 01

  It doesn't actually charge the phone fully.

• 14:16Andrew Manganelli?

  No, it's 60%, right?

• 14:18Speaker 01

  60-ish percent, yeah. Which is kind of a bummer.

• 14:20Andrew Manganelli?

  That's just cool seeing the number of what you lose, but also, it 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.

• 14:34Speaker 01

  That's so interesting.

• 14:35Speaker 03

  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. And I don't know, I think this is a good bonus.

• 14:54Andrew Manganelli?

  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.

• 15:18Speaker 03

  Dynamic island in Jamaica.

• 15:20Andrew Manganelli?

  Yes.

• 15:21Speaker 01

  Is that a banger video? Top 10 weirdest Apple patents?

• 15:25Andrew Manganelli?

  Possibly.

• 15:25Speaker 03

  It might be.

• 15:26Speaker 01

  Craziest thing was they patented. I remember when Vision Pro was like, in the works and still a secret. There was all these weird patents that started making rumors get a little crazy.

• 15:34Speaker 03

  I love Hacker News. I don't know if you spend any time there, but there's so many weird forums in Hacker News that end in someone being like, would people be 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.

• 15:51Speaker 01

  Sick.

• 15:52Speaker 02

  The one thing YC gave us that was

• 15:57Speaker 01

  Nice air. Nice timing.

• 16:03Speaker 01

  But yeah, that, 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.

• 16:18Andrew Manganelli?

  Sure. Oh, hinting.

• 16:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:21Andrew Manganelli?

  I agree. I was going to bring it up later, too.

• 16:23Speaker 01

  I think it will.

• 16:24Andrew Manganelli?

  I also agree.

• 16:25Speaker 01

  It will come up.

• 16:25Andrew Manganelli?

  But you also did something this week.

• 16:30Speaker 03

  You know what else is late?

• 16:33Speaker 01

  Thank you. It can't be late if it never happens. Yeah. Probably. All right, what happened? It's perennially late. I posted in the Slack, I cancelled 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? No. Almost 2017, right? So it's been eight years. I've had two Tesla Roadsters in my Tesla account. One that I paid for, and the way that worked is you paid a $5,000 payment immediately for the reservation, and then within 10 days, you net $50,000 to Tesla.

• 17:13Speaker 01

  And then when they deliver the car, whenever that is, you will pay the rest of it, I think totaling $250,000. So 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 gonna be maxed out, it's gonna be one of the first 1,000, 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, eh, well, one Roadster, two Roadsters, I clearly don't need two.

• 17:55Speaker 01

  And there is no reason for why I'm doing it now, but I'm just like, how about I just do something else with this 50 grand? I'll get 45 grand 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 1,000 Roadsters, and I'm fine with that. I don't think you'll get it.

• 18:11Speaker 02

  Can I tell you a fun fact?

• 18:13Speaker 01

  What?

• 18:13Speaker 02

  That might make you sad.

• 18:14Speaker 01

  We were both looking up similar things, I think. Right.

• 18:17Speaker 02

  If you had taken that $50,000

• 18:19Speaker 01

  Oh, I know.

• 18:19Speaker 02

  Eight years ago.

• 18:20Speaker 01

  Oh, I know.

• 18:21Speaker 02

  And put it into a Tesla stock, how much do you think you would have right now?

• 18:24Speaker 01

  Just Tesla stock?

• 18:25Speaker 02

  Just Tesla stock.

• 18:26Speaker 01

  50K of Tesla stock eight years ago is probably 5X'd at least, probably more, it's probably worth half. 400 grand.

• 18:33Speaker 02

  According to finlow.io stock calculator, you would have 747 grand right now.

• 18:39Speaker 01

  See, that's the thing is Tesla's Tesla's just had that money the whole time.

• 18:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 18:44Speaker 01

  I could have done so much with that. Um, so yeah, I'll do something else with it now.

• 18:50Speaker 03

  Wait, so how much, how much of that will you get?

• 18:53Speaker 01

  I'll get 45K back. And I, the thing about this, it was kind of crazy. When you call Tesla and you go, hi, I'd like to cancel my Roadster reservation.

• 19:01Speaker 02

  This is my favorite part.

• 19:01Speaker 03

  You have to call?

• 19:02Speaker 01

  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 I actually did this for a couple of days and just got voicemail, which was great. And I finally got through to someone and it was a, somebody in basically vehicle sales. And I asked them if they could cancel my Roadster reservation and there was a really long pause.

• 19:45Speaker 01

  And they were like, oh, 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. Uh, and then they promised, the first person who did it promised that they would get it canceled and get my reserve or get my, uh, 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, uh, I get like a message in my Tesla account to put in the details of getting the, the money back or whatever. They're, they're going to mail me a check within like a month or something. So.

• 20:21Speaker 03

  What?

• 20:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:22Speaker 02

  That's still easier than trying to cancel my Planet Fitness account.

• 20:26Speaker 01

  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.

• 20:36Speaker 03

  This is the most valuable car company in the world.

• 20:40Speaker 01

  Yes, it is. And part of the reason why is they're not, yeah, for eight years.

• 20:44Speaker 02

  Think they got there by giving people their money back?

• 20:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:47Speaker 02

  So now you still have one in your account.

• 20:50Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 20:50Speaker 02

  If it were to come out, you still get a Roadster.

• 20:54Speaker 01

  Uh, if, 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.

• 21:04Speaker 02

  And that's the referral one.

• 21:05Speaker 01

  As that's the referral one.

• 21:07Andrew Manganelli?

  If I remember correctly, the reason you is because that's the founder's edition, right?

• 21:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:12Andrew Manganelli?

  And the you wanted one, but in the different color.

• 21:16Speaker 01

  The second one I was gonna get was like 52% discounted because of my additional.

• 21:20Andrew Manganelli?

  Oh.

• 21:21Speaker 01

  Points. So it was like I had earned one and a half free roadsters. And I just canceled the half free one to get my 50 grand back and I'll just go get a free roadster.

• 21:29Andrew Manganelli?

  Okay.

• 21:30Speaker 01

  So I'm instead of paying half price for two roadsters, I'll pay $0 for one, allegedly.

• 21:35Andrew Manganelli?

  Allegedly, yeah.

• 21:36Speaker 01

  This is.

• 21:36Andrew Manganelli?

  I honestly think you at best have a weird Tesla NFT.

• 21:41Speaker 01

  So, yeah, they're both still in my account as of this very moment. See?

• 21:45Speaker 02

  Nice.

• 21:45Andrew Manganelli?

  Two roadsters.

• 21:46Speaker 01

  Uh, but yeah, that's, that's it. No cancel button or anything. Just a, just a mystery. Yeah, this is.

• 21:52Andrew Manganelli?

  You can still reserve the roadster.

• 21:54Speaker 01

  When you click on it, this is what you get.

• 21:55Andrew Manganelli?

  Wait, really? I could go there and reserve it right now?

• 21:58Speaker 01

  You can still pay 50 grand if you'd like.

• 21:59Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah, 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.

• 22:08Speaker 01

  They took it off the top of the website. So it's just S3XY solar roof, solar panels, Cybertruck, power wall.

• 22:15Andrew Manganelli?

  I just had to in Google type Tesla Roadster and it brings you to the page. So.

• 22:19Speaker 01

  You can find it.

• 22:19Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah.

• 22:20Speaker 01

  And they'll take your money.

• 22:20Andrew Manganelli?

  Oh yeah, there's still a reserve page.

• 22:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:23Andrew Manganelli?

  There's also a get updates button, which must be the least used button in any website ever.

• 22:28Speaker 02

  I'm still very out of the loop with the roadster. Have there been updates that will make it still worth it?

• 22:34Andrew Manganelli?

  Oh, I don't know.

• 22:35Speaker 01

  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.

• 23:12Speaker 02

  Hard to believe?

• 23:12Speaker 01

  The range part, hard to believe?

• 23:14Speaker 02

  620 miles.

• 23:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, they they also say 200 kilowatt hour battery and 620 mile range, which I don't think that makes a lot of sense for a small sports car.

• 23:24Andrew Manganelli?

  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?

• 23:35Speaker 01

  Well, no, because they were going to do the SpaceX package with rocket thrusters, cold air.

• 23:40Andrew Manganelli?

  They invented new cold air thrusters.

• 23:42Speaker 01

  Cold gas thrusters on it. So I mean, at the event, they promised is 1.9 seconds 0 to 60, but now they'll they'll do one second flat with the SpaceX package. So.

• 23:50Andrew Manganelli?

  Oh, half.

• 23:51Speaker 01

  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 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.

• 24:22Speaker 02

  I I guess my question is, like, if it does come out, will it still be dope?

• 24:28Speaker 01

  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 Cybertruck, 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 Rimac's Navara. And there are EVs now that are genuinely in

• 25:13Speaker 01

  like, nine second quarter mile times, like 1000 horsepower, you know, two door or four door. The Taycan 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 $2 million Lucid Air Sapphire or Ramaz Navara. So it would be sick. It would probably be really fun. It would be cool. It would charge a Tesla Superchargers. 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.

• 25:45Speaker 02

  If it comes out.

• 25:47Speaker 01

  If it ever does come out.

• 25:50Speaker 01

  I think when it was first announced, it was like, these numbers have never been achieved ever by anyone.

• 25:54Speaker 02

  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.

• 26:05Speaker 01

  I remember that.

• 26:05Speaker 02

  But now it's been almost a decade. We have other super fast hypercars. Like, would it still be insane?

• 26:10Speaker 01

  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 0 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 Ramaz, which is $2 million, and nothing short of $1 million 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

• 26:54Speaker 01

  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. So.

• 27:03Speaker 03

  I can't believe I'm even giving the benefit of the doubt, but about a month and a half ago, Elon said there will be a Tesla demo by the end of the year.

• 27:12Speaker 01

  Right.

• 27:13Speaker 03

  He did not say it was for the Roadster.

• 27:14Speaker 01

  Oh, right.

• 27:15Speaker 03

  So it could be for another stupid robot or another fake self-driving thing.

• 27:18Speaker 01

  Right.

• 27:20Speaker 03

  But it could be for the Roadster.

• 27:21Speaker 01

  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

• 27:40Speaker 02

  It'll fly.

• 27:41Speaker 01

  It'll jump. It'll fly.

• 27:42Andrew Manganelli?

  They're on top of the car, downforce.

• 27:44Speaker 01

  This is, by the way, entirely Elon tweets. This is no Tesla communication. This is not like Tesla saying this is a promise they're gonna 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, uh, 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 gonna tease it again? And be like, keep waiting, but you can give us your money.

• 28:15Andrew Manganelli?

  The reserve button's still there.

• 28:16Speaker 01

  The reserve button.

• 28:17Speaker 03

  Have you seen those like, those Instagram reel or TikTok edits? That's like, like a bus about to crash into a wall. They just keep switching camera angles like right before it crashes. That's what this is like.

• 28:29Andrew Manganelli?

  All of those are like the, this is the pacing of One Piece. It just 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, as hard as possible.

• 28:43Speaker 01

  Is it a real keyboard?

• 28:44Andrew Manganelli?

  A real keyboard.

• 28:44Speaker 01

  Well, let's see the real keyboard.

• 28:45Andrew Manganelli?

  Well, okay, I don't have the real keyboard I'm gonna talk about, but I have an example to help us understand.

• 28:50Speaker 01

  Just as good.

• 28:50Andrew Manganelli?

  I think this is a pretty

• 28:52Speaker 03

  It's just like the Roadster.

• 28:54Speaker 01

  Let's get a demo of the technology.

• 28:59Andrew Manganelli?

  All right. So I've showed you guys plenty of artisan keyboards, ones that are way too expensive and crazy materials, like that 10-pound Geis 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 keycaps, 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

• 29:31Speaker 01

  Plastic.

• 29:32Andrew Manganelli?

  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 are still super expensive. But the last few years, people started making ceramic keycaps as kind of this like way of, you know, upscaling the materials on keycaps themselves to try and have this more premium feel. I do have a example of one here. This is keycaps from a company called Ponage. I just wanted to give you and Shiny. Try and test them out. Yeah, they are very glossy. And these are ceramic? These ones are ceramic keycaps on a metal body keyboard.

• 30:14Andrew Manganelli?

  They, they kind of give like a slightly deeper or in the keyboard world, thakier of sound. I'm sorry, what'd you call them?

• 30:25Andrew Manganelli?

  Marquez is typing on it right now. It's Wait, without Marquez saying anything, what do you think he's typing? Uh, Marquez is the best. This pod, you should subscribe to the waveform podcast right now. You should unsubscribe from the MKBHD channel and move your subscription to the waveform podcast. I'm actually typing, I am the best typist in the world. Mine's usually Andrew is the best. Enter when you finish that sentence.

• 30:50Andrew Manganelli?

  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 keycap. But Keychron just announced something a little more interesting. Okay. 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. It probably weighs 35 pounds. I'm not totally sure. It's, it's so glossy. I don't know how this is gonna go. So it's called this Q16HE. They're gonna be hall effects, which means you can't even change the switches really,

• 31:32Andrew Manganelli?

  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 is, when it's ceramic keycaps, you know, they're small. There's not a lot of breakpoints. 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.

• 31:54Speaker 01

  Uh, that's an interesting question.

• 31:56Andrew Manganelli?

  Like a crack straight down the middle.

• 31:57Speaker 01

  I think it should be pretty durable, right? Like ceramic, I guess it's a little bit more brittle, but

• 32:01Andrew Manganelli?

  It's definitely more brittle.

• 32:02Speaker 01

  Ceramic Shield is a totally different thing on the iPhone, but that's scratch resistant. But then also remember the enough, the Essential phone?

• 32:09Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah, but that's a lot of metal rail, right?

• 32:12Speaker 01

  That was a ceramic back.

• 32:13Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah.

• 32:14Speaker 01

  And that phone was like a little heavier.

• 32:16Andrew Manganelli?

  But imagine this is just straight ceramic. So like, I'm talking less of like, will it scratch? Or like, I'm talking like, because it is the support of the entire case.

• 32:26Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 32:27Andrew Manganelli?

  You think about like a toilet bowl cracking, right? Is I guess porcelain ceramic? How similar are those?

• 32:32Speaker 01

  Sounds similar.

• 32:33Speaker 03

  Ceramic is not a thing. It's like a, it's a collection of unrelated materials that you can all describe as ceramic.

• 32:39Andrew Manganelli?

  Oh.

• 32:40Speaker 03

  So.

• 32:40Andrew Manganelli?

  Cool.

• 32:41Speaker 03

  It's, it describes, uh, heat-treated inorganic

• 32:46Andrew Manganelli?

  Things.

• 32:46Speaker 03

  materials, I think. Oh no. I'm not a materials scientist.

• 32:51Andrew Manganelli?

  Inorganic.

• 32:52Speaker 03

  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.

• 33:05Andrew Manganelli?

  True. It does say they resist damage from acids, um, and general wear and tear. They can withstand extreme temperatures, but they are also known to be hard and brittle.

• 33:13Speaker 03

  They're.

• 33:13Andrew Manganelli?

  Which is not what I want my keyboard to be.

• 33:15Speaker 03

  But, but, but, but.

• 33:17Speaker 01

  You slamming on your keyboard that hard?

• 33:18Andrew Manganelli?

  Bro, you're not gaming hard enough.

• 33:20Speaker 03

  Ceramic materials are stronger under compression than other materials. They're weaker under tension and shearing. And I would argue that keycaps mostly face.

• 33:34Andrew Manganelli?

  Keycaps. Whole keyboard case?

• 33:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, tension. I see that.

• 33:39Speaker 03

  Is that tension?

• 33:40Andrew Manganelli?

  I don't know.

• 33:40Speaker 01

  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.

• 33:49Andrew Manganelli?

  Or you lose a one-on-one and just.

• 33:51Speaker 01

  Well, that's. That's gonna be bad no matter.

• 33:54Andrew Manganelli?

  No, it's not. This metal one would be totally fine.

• 33:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, but you're gonna break your desk if you do that with that.

• 33:58Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah, well, the desk is probably cheap. No, I'm just kidding. Um, 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 spacebar.

• 34:08Speaker 01

  GMK ABS is a.

• 34:09Andrew Manganelli?

  Like, this is like the normal cream of the crop, regular keycap. I feel like the best way to feel the difference or hear the difference is put your mic and tap these on the table.

• 34:19Andrew Manganelli?

  Classic.

• 34:22Andrew Manganelli?

  Porcelain.

• 34:25Andrew Manganelli?

  It's like, they're pretty solid, the difference of them. My biggest issue is they're super shiny and glossy. 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.

• 34:41Speaker 01

  That was very funky.

• 34:44Andrew Manganelli?

  Thocky. Thocky, thocky.

• 34:45Speaker 01

  Thocky sound.

• 34:46Andrew Manganelli?

  Idiot. Yeah, I don't know. I thought it was kind of cool. It's only $219, which is weird because the, some of the ceramic keycaps, I think Syracuse was the first ones doing it and like, I think they're almost 200 bucks by themselves. So we'll see what this is. I think there is, it's gonna be a bit lower quality. But we'll have to see one day.

• 35:05Speaker 01

  Keyboard's fine. Is it, also, this is maybe a noob question, but like, the fact that almost all keyboard, keycaps are plastic, is that because plastic is lightweight? You need them to be light so that you can move them around?

• 35:18Andrew Manganelli?

  It helps with like spring weight on a switch, but I really think it's just because it's these, like, I think it's way easier to do.

• 35:24Speaker 01

  Cause there's no like metal.

• 35:25Andrew Manganelli?

  There are metal ones.

• 35:27Speaker 01

  Cause we've done like artisan escape keys and stuff, but those are.

• 35:30Andrew Manganelli?

  There are some companies that do full metal keycaps. I think the main thing is, is also when you're. Full metal Alchemist?

• 35:38Speaker 01

  That's a movie reference, right?

• 35:39Andrew Manganelli?

  Uh, show reference? Close. Um, I think it's honestly, a lot of times when, how the keycaps 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 um, I'm sure everyone's bored of this conversation by now, so.

• 36:04Speaker 01

  There's some fraction of people who are like, I want to hear more typing from this keyboard.

• 36:07Andrew Manganelli?

  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.

• 36:15Speaker 01

  There's a 17 hour U log of just typing, isn't there?

• 36:18Andrew Manganelli?

  I have a five hour video of typing. I have, I do have a, I think a 10 hour U log of, um, fire, fiery crackling noises and me typing on a red and green keyboard.

• 36:28Speaker 01

  Do you remember when you were typing when you were making that?

• 36:31Andrew Manganelli?

  I think I just pulled up a like infinite monkey type or something like.

• 36:35Speaker 01

  Oh, just random words?

• 36:36Andrew Manganelli?

  No, no, no. Actually, I, um, 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.

• 36:45Speaker 01

  Smart.

• 36:46Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah.

• 36:46Speaker 01

  Smart.

• 36:47Andrew Manganelli?

  But yeah, okay. One more thing we want to talk about, which is, we're gonna really quickly just mention people who are clipping waveform for shorts.

• 36:57Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 36:57Andrew Manganelli?

  And everything.

• 36:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:59Andrew Manganelli?

  We've been getting it more often.

• 37:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I think this is what happened. I watched, I clipped, 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 they like ran out of our own shorts to serve us, and it just started serving me all of the people who are just clipping waveform, so I'm just getting them recommended to me now.

• 37:21Speaker 01

  And they're fine, like it's cool that people like are entertained by clips of podcasts 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 to waveform or like tagged MKBHD in the title or something like that, because some of them, I've seen clips, I think I saw one with like 120 million views.

• 37:45Andrew Manganelli?

  Some are a lot, yeah.

• 37:46Speaker 01

  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 mic.

• 37:55Andrew Manganelli?

  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.

• 38:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:04Andrew Manganelli?

  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.

• 38:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:20Andrew Manganelli?

  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 or something. So don't sell stuff on our, with our faces on it.

• 38:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:43Andrew Manganelli?

  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?

• 38:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:57Andrew Manganelli?

  And then have an easy way to get there.

• 38:58Speaker 01

  The number one behavior that we, I think there's two possible behaviors from seeing a clip like that. One is, oh, I, 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, the waveform image is just out there, which is super cool. Um, but yeah, on the first front, it would be nice if they had a way to like.

• 39:34Andrew Manganelli?

  Tag us, please.

• 39:35Speaker 01

  Waveform.

• 39:36Andrew Manganelli?

  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.

• 39:42Speaker 02

  And even if you don't, just don't link to some sketch.

• 39:45Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah, don't, don't sell stuff on our behalf. That's just weird.

• 39:49Speaker 03

  Yeah. You should probably Google what fair use is.

• 39:53Andrew Manganelli?

  Just because you put what fair use is, doesn't mean it's fair use.

• 39:56Speaker 03

  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 DM.

• 40:12Andrew Manganelli?

  I declare bankruptcy.

• 40:14Speaker 03

  Yeah, it was like, it was like the equivalent of that. I declare fair use.

• 40:19Speaker 01

  You know, something that started happening recently and I, I've never said this out loud, but I think I can. Which is, no, it's not specific to a company, but there was many, many, many years of, um, 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 of this information is embargoed. Bleh, 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,

• 41:04Speaker 01

  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.

• 41:12Speaker 03

  Are they hoping it gets leaked?

• 41:14Speaker 01

  No, this is like companies who are not hoping for this.

• 41:17Speaker 03

  But I mean, on like a, on a Google tip, on a pixel wave.

• 41:21Speaker 01

  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. If they 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.

• 41:43Andrew Manganelli?

  Just send your next one back into the signature that says like, by responding to this email, you owe me $10,000 for my time and just like wait to see if anything happens.

• 41:51Speaker 01

  By viewing this email, you agreed to the embargo. I get, yeah.

• 41:54Andrew Manganelli?

  You agreed to get me one Tesla Roadster.

• 41:57Speaker 01

  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.

• 42:14Speaker 03

  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 trivia. Maybe we'll send him, maybe I'll call him.

• 42:27Speaker 03

  He's in Europe.

• 42:29Speaker 01

  Is he on a time zone that it's, oh, he's awake? You could just ping him on, like just text him or something and be like, do you want a trivia question right now? Yeah, you up? Just send him, you up? And if he replies, you could call him and get a trivia.

• 42:44Speaker 03

  Today's question's 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.

• 42:53Speaker 01

  Perfect.

• 42:54Speaker 03

  We also love silly words and in every iFixit kit is a tool that has a very silly word. So today's trivia question.

• 43:01Speaker 01

  Oh, I know this.

• 43:02Speaker 03

  Been taken forever to get here.

• 43:03Andrew Manganelli?

  There's only one I know and it's definitely not gonna ask that one.

• 43:06Speaker 01

  Really?

• 43:06Speaker 03

  I feel like. What is the name of the tool included in many iFixit kits that is used to pry the screen?

• 43:13Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 43:13Speaker 03

  Off of smartphones?

• 43:16Andrew Manganelli?

  I know what Marquez is writing, but I'm not, I don't think that's it.

• 43:20Speaker 01

  Am I wrong?

• 43:21Andrew Manganelli?

  Can I draw it?

• 43:23Speaker 03

  Can you draw it?

• 43:24Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah.

• 43:25Speaker 01

  I mean, it won't be the name.

• 43:26Andrew Manganelli?

  Wait, wait, used to pry open?

• 43:28Speaker 03

  Yes, it's a wedge tool that is used to pry open.

• 43:31Andrew Manganelli?

  Screens.

• 43:32Speaker 03

  Screens.

• 43:34Andrew Manganelli?

  Okay.

• 43:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think, I think we're thinking of the same thing.

• 43:37Andrew Manganelli?

  Yes, but I think that's wrong.

• 43:39Speaker 01

  Oh, interesting. I guess we'll find out.

• 43:41Speaker 03

  I don't think it's wrong.

• 43:43Andrew Manganelli?

  Okay.

• 43:44Speaker 01

  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 and we'll be right back.

• 43:59Speaker 01

  Support for the show comes from Shopify. Starting a business requires you to be resourceful and the more you flex that muscle, the more you see opportunities for growth. For example, launching your business with Black Friday approaching means you can take advantage of the extra online traffic. Shopify is there to help you make it all happen. Shopify is a platform for a record-breaking, reliable, holiday-selling season for businesses at every stage. Their pre-built website themes and AI site builder make it easy to launch a beautiful, professional-looking store and you don't even need to touch a line of code to do it. They also have a mobile app that lets you run your store from anywhere, so their e-commerce expert sidekick can help you manage almost any business task with a single prompt, including holiday discounts. With Shopify, you can easily sell everywhere people shop: online, in person, across social

• 44:44Speaker 01

  media, and even in AI chats. If you're ready to launch your business before Black Friday, go to Shopify.com/waveform to start your free trial. That's Shopify.com/waveform. Go to Shopify.com/waveform today to hear your first.

• 44:59Speaker 04

  This episode is brought to you by On Investing, an original podcast from Charles Schwab. Each week, hosts Lizanne Saunders, Schwab's Chief Investment Strategist, and Colin Martin, Head of Fixed Income Research and Strategy for the Schwab Center for Financial Research, bring you fresh insights on what's happening in the markets and why, and what the implications might be for your portfolio. Join Colin and Lizanne as they explore questions like, how do you evaluate corporate bonds that look interesting? And what sectors are on the move right now? Download the latest episode and subscribe at schwab.com/oninvesting or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 45:45Speaker 05

  Company spending is complex. Managing it should be simple. This is AMEX Corporate, a single platform connecting cards, expenses, and payments to streamline the way you work. Flexible controls for when priorities shift, support around the clock, all backed by American Express, so you can stay focused on what matters most. Built to simplify, designed to scale. This is AMEX Corporate. Get started at go.amex slash AMEX corporate. Terms apply.

• 46:18Speaker 01

  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.

• 46:28Andrew Manganelli?

  Whoa, wait, really?

• 46:29Speaker 01

  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.

• 46:41Andrew Manganelli?

  Yep.

• 46:42Speaker 01

  And so we can start thinking about, start considering the Smartphone Awards for 2025. It's still too early. There are still more phones coming out. Notably, we still think that maybe a Trifold is coming out. We still have maybe another month of like phones coming out that aren't necessarily dependent on the US holiday shopping season.

• 46:59Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah.

• 46:59Speaker 01

  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 Smartphone Awards and think about, discuss what has come out this year and maybe some how it takes about what could win.

• 47:13Andrew Manganelli?

  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 because he obviously would have a lot of good insight.

• 47:23Speaker 01

  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.

• 47:51Andrew Manganelli?

  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.

• 48:00Speaker 02

  I would say, yeah.

• 48:01Andrew Manganelli?

  Um, 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.

• 48:10Speaker 01

  So these are last years. So how about, I'm going to pull up even what were the winners from the last year?

• 48:14Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah.

• 48:14Speaker 02

  I really like this new category, Best Orange Phone. Who put that there?

• 48:19Speaker 01

  I don't know if I can see the chart.

• 48:20Andrew Manganelli?

  CMF phone.

• 48:22Speaker 01

  Nice. So, okay. Smartphone Awards 2024.

• 48:25Andrew Manganelli?

  I just want to say, we are very on brand with our thumbnails. Because when you just type in Smartphone Awards on 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.

• 48:42Speaker 01

  Black clockwork, baby.

• 48:43Andrew Manganelli?

  6,6,354, 5,46,97. We're

• 48:48Speaker 01

  Also, a lot of comments every time because people, people love talking about it.

• 48:51Andrew Manganelli?

  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.

• 49:00Speaker 02

  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 that came out.

• 49:07Speaker 01

  And we're still going to do that.

• 49:08Speaker 02

  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, this is your chance to yell it into comments.

• 49:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, I agree, actually. It was perfect. All right. First category, Best Big Phone. Last year's winner, Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra.

• 49:24Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah.

• 49:24Speaker 01

  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 gotta 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.

• 49:57Andrew Manganelli?

  Maybe not massive, but I do think we also saw the iPhone Pros really starting to take advantage of being like, we are thicker, the Pro Max, but like, let's throw some stuff up higher, bigger battery, get rid of the SIM card tray, like, 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 moved 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.

• 50:29Speaker 01

  Right. And I also will, I will say about the iPhones, because people always talk a lot about the iPhones in the awards. The iPhones kind of live in their own like 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 they've ever made. But it is very clearly still not as crazy as the huge like 200 megapixel main camera, 6,000 milliamp hour silicon carbon battery, 100 watt charging, massive front-facing speakers, like they don't do any of that stuff.

• 51:08Speaker 01

  So as good as it is for an iPhone, it's tougher to give that an award when phones like that exist.

• 51:15Andrew Manganelli?

  Super true.

• 51:16Speaker 01

  So I'm looking at like, Yeah, the the ROG phone, usually the S25 Ultra will obviously come up. There's going to be phones like the OnePlus 13 even, which are still like 6.7 inch screens, 6,000mAh silicon carbon battery. Yeah, phones like that, Ultra phones.

• 51:34Andrew Manganelli?

  OnePlus 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 in. That was the beginning of this year.

• 51:43Speaker 01

  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.

• 51:50Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah.

• 51:50Speaker 01

  Like the the iPhone Pro Max is a supercar, but the like crazy Oppo or the Xiaomi 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.

• 52:07Speaker 02

  You don't think like Pixel Pro XL or like the, was it the Xiaomi 15 Ultra?

• 52:12Speaker 01

  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.

• 52:37Andrew Manganelli?

  It's always my favorite category.

• 52:39Speaker 01

  There's usually, there's usually not a lot of good small.

• 52:41Andrew Manganelli?

  Well, it's gotten harder for sure. Um, but I guess we keep thinking of different ways of saying small, like.

• 52:48Speaker 02

  I was gonna say, at what point do we just drop this category? Cause there are no small phones.

• 52:52Andrew Manganelli?

  That's a good point.

• 52:53Speaker 01

  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?

• 53:08Andrew Manganelli?

  Wasn't last year 6.3?

• 53:10Speaker 01

  I think it's 6.3. 6.3? So this best small phone, because the stat was.

• 53:15Speaker 02

  Regular 16 was 6.1.

• 53:17Speaker 01

  But the stat was the best small phone with a 6.1 inch display was bigger than the best big phone.

• 53:24Andrew Manganelli?

  Of like the first smartphone.

• 53:25Speaker 01

  The first year. So yes, it is harder and harder to find a good small phone. That said, there are folding phones, flipping phones, there are.

• 53:36Speaker 03

  Hot take?

• 53:37Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah.

• 53:38Speaker 03

  A folding phone is not a small phone, but a flipping phone.

• 53:41Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah, yeah, no.

• 53:41Speaker 03

  I think like the Razr, the Flip, I think these qualify.

• 53:45Andrew Manganelli?

  It's my argument every, every year I try and convince him.

• 53:48Speaker 03

  Oh, wait, you think that?

• 53:49Andrew Manganelli?

  Flip is also, is like the small phone.

• 53:52Speaker 03

  I take it back.

• 53:53Andrew Manganelli?

  Well, it is funny though. Claire used to flip for a year and her first thing is, she's like, oh, this is nice. And then she opened it. She's like, this phone's so big because it's so tall and like reachability is.

• 54:03Speaker 01

  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.

• 54:19Andrew Manganelli?

  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.

• 54:28Speaker 01

  And also phones like the, the Razr and the Z Fold, you can use them a little when they're closed. And that is like a small phone experience. It'd be like a four inch diagonal. And you don't like do much on it, but you could like check notifications and play, pause music and do little things like that. So.

• 54:44Andrew Manganelli?

  I just want to say, I, 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. I, I, 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 Xperia available in the U S? Is Sony releasing a new phone in 2025? What is the downfall of Sony?

• 55:09Speaker 01

  Oof, I made that video.

• 55:12Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah. What is the most recent?

• 55:14Speaker 03

  There are

• 55:17Speaker 03

  a few phones released in 2025 that have sub six inch.

• 55:23Speaker 01

  Really?

• 55:23Speaker 03

  Displays.

• 55:24Speaker 01

  Are any of them? Okay. Are any of them in the U S is the first question.

• 55:29Speaker 03

  One of them is.

• 55:31Speaker 01

  Okay. Hit me with the, with the list because I would like to hear these.

• 55:34Speaker 03

  The list.

• 55:36Speaker 03

  Of the list of them available in the US or the list of them period?

• 55:39Speaker 01

  Of phones that came out this year with a sub six inch screen. Cause the last one I remember was like Zen phone.

• 55:44Speaker 03

  Are you okay if one of them has an exactly six inch?

• 55:47Speaker 01

  Sure, sure, sure.

• 55:48Speaker 03

  Not available in the US.

• 55:49Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 55:50Speaker 03

  The HTC Wildfire E6.

• 55:52Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 55:53Speaker 03

  Exactly six inch display. This is according to GSM Arena, by the way.

• 55:56Speaker 01

  HTC has been dead for years, so I'm not sure how they released a phone this year.

• 56:00Andrew Manganelli?

  Uh, they're making phones outside the US, right?

• 56:03Speaker 01

  Are they still?

• 56:04Andrew Manganelli?

  HTC? I thought they, I thought they were again.

• 56:06Speaker 01

  Is HTC?

• 56:07Andrew Manganelli?

  I'm pretty sure they are.

• 56:08Speaker 03

  According to GSM Arena.

• 56:10Andrew Manganelli?

  I was just gonna say, I just saw the GSM Arena by things under six inches and released in 2025.

• 56:14Speaker 03

  So we're looking at the same list.

• 56:15Andrew Manganelli?

  There's a lot of watches.

• 56:16Speaker 03

  There's a lot of watches, however.

• 56:18Speaker 01

  I thought they died.

• 56:20Andrew Manganelli?

  No, I think HTC's kind of like made somewhat of a comeback outside of the US.

• 56:25Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 56:25Speaker 03

  But number two.

• 56:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:29Speaker 03

  The Doogie Fire 3.

• 56:31Speaker 01

  Doogie. Yeah. Doogie still makes phones?

• 56:34Speaker 03

  Not only does Doogie make, still make phones, but the Doogie Fire 3 has a 5.5 inch screen, meaning it is only 0.1 inches diagonally larger than the greatest phone ever made.

• 56:46Andrew Manganelli?

  What's funny about this though is that's screen size and this is a, a phone that is like rugged. So obviously is adding a ton of exercise to that and still has top and bottom bezels. So like, it is probably the footprint of a six inch phone.

• 57:04Speaker 01

  8,000 milliampere battery. It's crazy. Okay.

• 57:07Speaker 03

  Doogie rules.

• 57:08Speaker 01

  This is interesting. Okay. All right. Noted.

• 57:10Speaker 03

  Finally, and I, I'm not sure that this is available in the US or not, but the Nokia 150 Music.

• 57:17Andrew Manganelli?

  That's screen size again though, right? This has a full.

• 57:20Speaker 03

  Andrew, look at this phone. That is a small phone.

• 57:23Speaker 01

  That's a small phone.

• 57:24Andrew Manganelli?

  Oh wait, you said the Nokia, they also have an HMD 150 Music because they're owned by this.

• 57:29Speaker 03

  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.

• 57:41Speaker 01

  Nice. This is a feature phone with a physical keyboard, just so people know.

• 57:45Speaker 03

  This is a featureless phone.

• 57:46Speaker 01

  Wow. Yeah. So this is a hard category. I think.

• 57:52Speaker 01

  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.

• 58:03Andrew Manganelli?

  I think you have to.

• 58:04Speaker 01

  Obviously, because we just had one last year win, so.

• 58:06Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah.

• 58:07Speaker 01

  6.1.

• 58:08Speaker 03

  I think the minimal phone belongs in the small phone list.

• 58:12Andrew Manganelli?

  The minimal phone?

• 58:13Speaker 03

  No, the light phone too, but.

• 58:14Andrew Manganelli?

  Oh, no, the minimal phone is small.

• 58:16Speaker 01

  Is it actually small?

• 58:18Speaker 03

  I think the minimal phone and possibly, I mean, definitely the light phone, possibly minimal phone belongs on small phones list.

• 58:25Speaker 01

  They are definitely small, but are they the best small phones?

• 58:29Speaker 03

  Look, man, I'm just trying to, I'm just trying to give you a feel to competitors.

• 58:32Speaker 01

  No, I agree. This is, this is good fodder.

• 58:35Speaker 03

  No one wants to watch an F1 race that has two drivers.

• 58:38Speaker 01

  We gotta have way more field.

• 58:40Andrew Manganelli?

  Lately, it's basically just been Norris and Piastri.

• 58:43Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 58:43Speaker 01

  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 like, 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.

• 58:55Andrew Manganelli?

  I think light phone should be, minimal phone sells 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.

• 59:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, small little phone there.

• 59:08Andrew Manganelli?

  I like that idea. I like light in there.

• 59:10Speaker 01

  I want to know, what's the biggest screen size of a phone that could win before people get mad?

• 59:14Andrew Manganelli?

  6.3. Well, that's, I think there's, I don't, I think someone will get mad no matter what, no matter how much we preface it by saying there is only so many phones we can click, but.

• 59:24Speaker 01

  Which might mean we have to kill the category. I don't know.

• 59:27Andrew Manganelli?

  I do agree with you. Maybe not yet, but it's, we added a category last year, right? We added foldable.

• 59:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:32Andrew Manganelli?

  Maybe small phone is the one that has to get taken away, or does it merge kind of into design as like?

• 59:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, we've never.

• 59:40Andrew Manganelli?

  We, we say design is really good because they fit so much in a smaller category.

• 59:45Speaker 01

  Possibly, yeah. Just feels like if I have best big phone, I have to have best big small phone, best small phone. They, they just go hand in hand. I don't know.

• 59:53Andrew Manganelli?

  We could get, do best perfectly average size phone?

• 59:56Speaker 01

  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.

• 1:00:03Andrew Manganelli?

  What if you did most average phone? Just all around?

• 1:00:06Speaker 01

  The most phone.

• 1:00:07Andrew Manganelli?

  The most, 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.

• 1:00:16Speaker 01

  The iPhone 14.

• 1:00:20Speaker 01

  All right. Next one is best camera. This one's always fun because it always gets the most comments.

• 1:00:25Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:26Speaker 01

  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'm 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 won last year, the Pro iPhone.

• 1:01:09Speaker 01

  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 weigh 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?

• 1:01:43Andrew Manganelli?

  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 takes just the best pictures is 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.

• 1:02:15Speaker 01

  The Vito X200 Pro last year was this phone, yeah. Yeah, I it'll be tough. I'm very, you know, I'm thinking a lot about this award because of how like it's 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 will 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, 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?

• 1:02:55Speaker 02

  I feel like it's almost like becoming its own category almost.

• 1:03:00Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:03:00Speaker 02

  Because iPhones going in a, in a, they're like, their video system is just in a world of its own right now.

• 1:03:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:07Andrew Manganelli?

  It's like the old Pixel camera.

• 1:03:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly. The old Pixel camera used to be the one, obviously. And now it's like for video, iPhone camera video is like the one, obviously. So it's kind of tough.

• 1:03:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:18Andrew Manganelli?

  I had a Gen Lock. Instant win.

• 1:03:21Speaker 01

  Pro Res Ross Sports.

• 1:03:22Andrew Manganelli?

  I was gonna say, it's almost like, Marquez, this is your smartphone awards and this is based on

• 1:03:28Speaker 01

  That is true.

• 1:03:29Andrew Manganelli?

  you. Like, some people forget that, I think, and are like, what this is, it's like,

• 1:03:33Speaker 01

  I do have to remember.

• 1:03:34Andrew Manganelli?

  this is what you like better. And that's totally fine.

• 1:03:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think I do preface that at some point in the first minute of every single award. It's like, these are my awards. These are the ones I feel like giving out, so.

• 1:03:44Andrew Manganelli?

  That's the part I blink out.

• 1:03:46Speaker 01

  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, 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 2A.

• 1:04:07Andrew Manganelli?

  Did we change this up? Did it used to be best budget phone?

• 1:04:10Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:04:10Andrew Manganelli?

  And I think we started doing best value.

• 1:04:12Speaker 01

  Exactly. 349 US. So.

• 1:04:16Speaker 01

  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.

• 1:04:24Andrew Manganelli?

  I have something I think you alluded to already. Um, 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 promotion now.

• 1:04:45Speaker 01

  It makes the 16E look like such a joke.

• 1:04:48Andrew Manganelli?

  It makes the 16E and the 16 look like a joke. You know what else it makes look like a joke? The Pixel 10 base series, cause 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. Same amount, but worse cameras, 128 base, you have to pay an extra hundred dollars and the prices have gone up and old pixels like.

• 1:05:11Speaker 01

  But tensor.

• 1:05:12Andrew Manganelli?

  But Apple, like, yeah, 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 yeah, Apple did that and I'm a little embarrassed for buying a Pixel. Still, I still enjoy it, but.

• 1:05:25Speaker 01

  Now the question is, is it that, is it so good of a value that you can give a $799 phone the value award? That's a tough one.

• 1:05:32Andrew Manganelli?

  It's a really tough one.

• 1:05:33Speaker 01

  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, this, these one or two Poco phones and these one or two Xiaomi phones that were specifically targeting, I think the S25 FE came in and I use it for like one day. And I'm like, these are all, this is basically an S25, but $200 cheaper. Like there are a lot of really good value options to consider in this category. The Nothing Phone 2A1 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.

• 1:06:17Speaker 01

  Uh, but I don't think there is a clear front runner this year.

• 1:06:19Andrew Manganelli?

  What was the price of CMFone 2 Pro?

• 1:06:22Speaker 01

  279, I'm on the page right now.

• 1:06:24Andrew Manganelli?

  I mean, dude, the CMF Phone Pro 2, when you look at that price and these numbers feels like OG Pokophone. Like, oh man, I will always reminisce about OG Pokophone days of just watching anyone post any video for like four months and the top comment was always, "Pokophone has better specs than this and it's $300."

• 1:06:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, this one can't win this award though because it's already winning the best orange.

• 1:06:49Andrew Manganelli?

  Oh, dude, this is, I mean, some of the specs on this are pretty solid, 120 Hz, 6.7 inch screen,

• 1:07:00Andrew Manganelli?

  50 megapixel, 250 megapixel cameras, I mean, it's doing 4K recording, it's IP54, it's a 5000 milliampere battery.

• 1:07:08Speaker 01

  6.7 inch display.

• 1:07:10Andrew Manganelli?

  This thing, AMOLED, like, I don't know, that's, it's pretty solid.

• 1:07:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:17Speaker 02

  8 gigs of RAM.

• 1:07:19Speaker 01

  Pretty good spec list. You gotta use it though. I gotta, you know, you gotta make sure it's actually a good phone without just having the numbers and the fluff, so.

• 1:07:25Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah, I don't remember exactly, oh, wait, actually, your title for it is budget phone of the year.

• 1:07:32Speaker 01

  I really like it. And that was like, like six months ago or whatever?

• 1:07:35Andrew Manganelli?

  Four months ago?

• 1:07:36Speaker 01

  Four months ago, yeah. That's, it has a chance.

• 1:07:38Andrew Manganelli?

  I think that's got a solid chance.

• 1:07:41Speaker 01

  And there's still phones dropping that are qualifying for this award, but that one may be one of the favorites for this award.

• 1:07:47Andrew Manganelli?

  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?

• 1:07:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:56Speaker 02

  But I feel like with this category, one of the things to take into consideration too is like longevity. And do I expect this phone to last longer than a base iPhone 17? Absolutely not, you know?

• 1:08:07Speaker 01

  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 promised from CMF, but I do know that iPhone will last you a long time. So that's, 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.

• 1:08:48Andrew Manganelli?

  iPhone Air.

• 1:08:51Speaker 01

  Because the dream is just like not thinking about your battery ever. Like when you that dream of like, I just got a brand new phone and I use it all day and I just ended the day with 55%. Oh, my God, that Ellis, you gotta believe me, this is this is a really good feeling.

• 1:09:06Andrew Manganelli?

  This is living.

• 1:09:06Speaker 01

  It's a really good feeling.

• 1:09:08Andrew Manganelli?

  I know.

• 1:09:09Speaker 01

  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 in 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 milliamp hour battery and supported 100 watt.

• 1:09:27Andrew Manganelli?

  7,000?

• 1:09:28Speaker 01

  7,000, a silicon carbon battery.

• 1:09:30Andrew Manganelli?

  About that.

• 1:09:31Speaker 01

  And 100 watt fast charging, 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, that's a good benchmark even for this year, 7,000 million hours and 100 watt charging would win this year.

• 1:09:50Andrew Manganelli?

  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.

• 1:09:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's, you know, if, if they re-release the same phone again this year, it would have a chance. There are some other really good phones with big batteries that come 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 in some of the more advanced, riskier, especially overseas flagships. We didn't see them in the US as much, like

• 1:10:18Andrew Manganelli?

  No.

• 1:10:19Speaker 01

  Samsung, Apple, Motorola, like the ones that are, are doing a lot of volume here, didn't do a lot of silicon carbon.

• 1:10:24Andrew Manganelli?

  I think to be fair, you made the video, the OnePlus video and we're like, I think we're gonna see this a lot. And it was really only those couple of phones off the riff and then we didn't really see much of it.

• 1:10:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's been some like Oppo and OnePlus and Xiaomi, and they've done silicon carbon batteries. But then like the big flagships that we see in the US a lot, like Samsung didn't do it with the S25 Ultra, the iPhones obviously don't have it. So it's, it's gonna be one of those like more daring phones again.

• 1:10:52Andrew Manganelli?

  I've never really went through the, the GSM arena filter thing is pretty awesome. Like I can just do sort by 2025 and batteries over 5,000 million powers.

• 1:11:02Speaker 01

  Okay. What about over 6,000? Cause I think there's a, I think there's a couple of good ones.

• 1:11:06Andrew Manganelli?

  Oh, no, I was over 6,000. There's 201 results, it says.

• 1:11:09Speaker 01

  Damn. Yeah. Anyway, the idea with it is gonna be like, can you turn down, you know, to 60 Hz or maybe 90 Hz? 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.

• 1:11:28Andrew Manganelli?

  The OnePlus or?

• 1:11:29Speaker 01

  The, the Red Magic that won last year. I think that usually you wanna just like, 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.

• 1:11:42Andrew Manganelli?

  The OnePlus 13 this year is 6,000 milliamp hours, 100 watt wired charging, 50 watt wireless charging and 10 watt reverse wireless charging.

• 1:11:50Speaker 01

  And I used that phone for a while and really liked the battery on it. 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.

• 1:12:04Andrew Manganelli?

  As it should.

• 1:12:05Speaker 01

  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, Huawei 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 tri-fold this year, so we gotta 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.

• 1:12:44Andrew Manganelli?

  The Edge and the Air are very different designs and very striking and feel good. I.

• 1:12:50Speaker 01

  Those get a design award. Wow.

• 1:12:52Andrew Manganelli?

  I low key really like, I sound like such an Apple shill 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 make all this happen.

• 1:13:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:13:13Andrew Manganelli?

  Which I thought was interesting.

• 1:13:14Speaker 02

  But over the air? Cause the air did all of that too.

• 1:13:16Andrew Manganelli?

  The air did all of it also.

• 1:13:18Speaker 01

  And it's like super durable.

• 1:13:20Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:21Speaker 01

  Shockingly durable. Yeah, 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.

• 1:13:33Andrew Manganelli?

  Do you think the air can win over the edge? Because you said, and I know we're just talking about design, but

• 1:13:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:13:39Andrew Manganelli?

  It is slightly thinner than the edge, but the edge still gives you more cameras. It seems to give you more phone.

• 1:13:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think the edge is a slightly better design in terms of what you get out of using the phone.

• 1:13:56Andrew Manganelli?

  It's funny, this is called best design award.

• 1:13:58Speaker 01

  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 3900 milliamp hour battery. So it's got more to it for being one millimeter thicker.

• 1:14:19Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:21Speaker 01

  How much does that one millimeter matter? I don't know.

• 1:14:24Speaker 02

  Are we just gonna ignore the elephant in the room? Which is the nothing phone three that let you place bin the bottle on the back?

• 1:14:30Speaker 01

  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.

• 1:14:40Speaker 02

  Spoiler alert.

• 1:14:41Speaker 01

  It is, yeah, I mean, it is. It's unique, that's for sure. Um, 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 gonna have big screens on the camera plateau on the back.

• 1:14:55Andrew Manganelli?

  I feel that they did one a while ago.

• 1:14:57Speaker 02

  I saw a couple of those that were renders and like rumors, but I wasn't sure if they were actual real or not.

• 1:15:02Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:15:03Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah, I think that's 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

• 1:15:10Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:15:10Andrew Manganelli?

  That like plateau.

• 1:15:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think I saw some renders of like

• 1:15:14Andrew Manganelli?

  New ones.

• 1:15:14Speaker 01

  Even bigger screens on the back.

• 1:15:15Andrew Manganelli?

  Oh boy.

• 1:15:16Speaker 01

  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 S25 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.

• 1:15:47Andrew Manganelli?

  So, yeah, I don't know. I really think the two slim phones. When I, 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 and the air are the, the things of this year.

• 1:16:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:16:05Andrew Manganelli?

  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.

• 1:16:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:16:11Andrew Manganelli?

  What is this?

• 1:16:11Speaker 01

  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 like when you hold the phone and use it, it just feels like you're holding a screen. It's pretty sick.

• 1:16:29Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:30Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I don't think there's a frontrunner for this one yet.

• 1:16:34Andrew Manganelli?

  It's a tough one. I think this is always the toughest one.

• 1:16:37Speaker 01

  Yeah. All right. Then best foldable. This is the new category last year and the inaugural winner. Or was it?

• 1:16:45Andrew Manganelli?

  Real quick, the edge is two grams lighter than the air.

• 1:16:48Speaker 01

  Really?

• 1:16:49Andrew Manganelli?

  That's what this is saying real quick. Yeah, 163 grams versus 165 grams.

• 1:16:55Speaker 01

  That's sick. And it has like way bigger battery and dual cameras. That's kind of shocking, actually.

• 1:17:02Andrew Manganelli?

  We, yeah, we need to hold both of them.

• 1:17:05Speaker 01

  I'll put them on a 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 9 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 Trifold. There's a lot still on the table.

• 1:17:38Andrew Manganelli?

  I was just gonna say, is the Trifold in the running?

• 1:17:41Speaker 01

  It has to be, yeah.

• 1:17:42Andrew Manganelli?

  It's gonna 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.

• 1:17:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:17:53Andrew Manganelli?

  That's, 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 it. We're like, oh no, we're right in the middle of it.

• 1:18:06Speaker 01

  There's literally like two very important foldables coming in the next couple of 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 Razr.

• 1:18:31Andrew Manganelli?

  And that they're folding phones that are like reasonable for people to get price wise. These aren't 2,000 plus dollar folding phones.

• 1:18:39Speaker 01

  Which, which never really affected this category, or at least most of the awards, but I think it maybe should matter a little bit. You can get it.

• 1:18:48Speaker 03

  There's rumors that there's another unpacked on Monday.

• 1:18:53Andrew Manganelli?

  Wait, now it's on Monday?

• 1:18:54Speaker 03

  Everything I'm reading says it's on the 29th, and that's where they're supposedly gonna make this announcement. So we might be right on the cusp.

• 1:19:04Speaker 01

  Okay, of maybe the triple fold.

• 1:19:06Speaker 03

  A trifold.

• 1:19:07Andrew Manganelli?

  We're all waiting for that announcement to happen.

• 1:19:10Speaker 01

  Because they promised by the end of this year, right? So that's what we are.

• 1:19:12Andrew Manganelli?

  Pretty close to the end of this.

• 1:19:14Speaker 01

  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 there's been an awesome foldable that won the award. So that was a, that was the most improved. This year, gosh, the base iPhone is gonna come up again, right?

• 1:19:48Andrew Manganelli?

  Is that what you're, yeah.

• 1:19:49Speaker 01

  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.

• 1:20:02Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah, but you could make the argument that when we gave Razr Phone 2, it was visually extremely similar. But Razr Phone 2 was just, here's all the bad things about the Razr Phone.

• 1:20:13Speaker 01

  Fixed it all.

• 1:20:14Andrew Manganelli?

  They fixed it all. Not, like, 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 promotion. I mean, no one was even really complaining that much about base storage, but giving you 256 base storage, it's, it's definitely up there. What were some bad phones of last year?

• 1:20:36Speaker 01

  That's what I was just about to think about, yeah. That, I mean, the OnePlus 13S.

• 1:20:40Speaker 03

  I was gonna say, I don't know if the OnePlus 12 was bad, though, but OnePlus 13 is really good.

• 1:20:45Speaker 01

  13 is really good. We didn't even mention the 13S for small phone.

• 1:20:49Speaker 03

  It's 6.37 inches.

• 1:20:52Speaker 01

  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. Tensor, we were hoping would be a big jump.

• 1:21:04Andrew Manganelli?

  It's not an improvement. If anything, I would say it's the opposite. No, yeah.

• 1:21:09Speaker 03

  Is Pixel 10 the biggest disappointment?

• 1:21:10Andrew Manganelli?

  Aren't the cameras in the Pixel 9 better than the cameras in the Pixel 10?

• 1:21:14Speaker 01

  I think one of them is.

• 1:21:16Andrew Manganelli?

  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.

• 1:21:22Speaker 01

  I thought the 10 Pro Fold uses the 9A cameras.

• 1:21:25Andrew Manganelli?

  I think the Pixel 10 uses the 9A cameras as well.

• 1:21:28Speaker 01

  Interesting, okay. Yeah, well, that's not gonna win any awards.

• 1:21:30Andrew Manganelli?

  I may have bought Bust of the Year.

• 1:21:33Speaker 01

  There's Oppo Find X8 Ultra, there's Xiaomi 15 Series. Not a lot of these are like dramatically better than last year.

• 1:21:41Andrew Manganelli?

  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.

• 1:21:53Speaker 01

  I was on most improved, but that's also true about Bust of the Year.

• 1:21:55Andrew Manganelli?

  That's a good way to go, is like Bust of the Year can usually win a most improved. HTC did it.

• 1:22:01Speaker 03

  I feel like the price might disqualify it, but I think Nothing Phone 3 might deserve most improved. Because it's better in literally every spec.

• 1:22:11Speaker 01

  And I think it looks pretty cool.

• 1:22:13Andrew Manganelli?

  Oh, yeah, but the price and

• 1:22:14Speaker 01

  But it is $200 or $300 more expensive.

• 1:22:16Andrew Manganelli?

  And people didn't like the design. They were pretty.

• 1:22:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, I don't like people. Yeah, I think the design was fine. Didn't blow me away, but it's

• 1:22:25Andrew Manganelli?

  Lightphone 3?

• 1:22:27Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, Lightphone 3 was a pretty big improvement. Guys, Books Palma 2. Books Palma 2 is this year.

• 1:22:35Speaker 01

  I don't really know what the difference is.

• 1:22:38Speaker 01

  The Palma 1 is definitely not a phone. Is the Palma 2 also not a phone? It's not?

• 1:22:42Andrew Manganelli?

  Yes, it's also not a phone.

• 1:22:43Speaker 01

  But it's lit as hell. It's pretty sick.

• 1:22:46Andrew Manganelli?

  It's barely lit.

• 1:22:48Speaker 01

  9A. Are we getting, oh, 10A is next year.

• 1:22:50Andrew Manganelli?

  What about the, 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 and like?

• 1:23:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, the ePaper 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.

• 1:23:10Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:11Speaker 01

  And we have it here. I haven't done any video stuff about it. We have the 50XL Next Paper? We do.

• 1:23:17Andrew Manganelli?

  Did you not see it?

• 1:23:18Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:23:18Andrew Manganelli?

  Dude, some of the stuff on the screen it can do is really cool.

• 1:23:23Speaker 01

  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 Fairphone or whatever it was.

• 1:23:33Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:33Speaker 01

  So that's interesting. It's not a switch, so we're out.

• 1:23:36Andrew Manganelli?

  You press the button and the like screen looks normal and then just like like Harry Potter like turns into ePaper. It's really cool.

• 1:23:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:23:46Andrew Manganelli?

  That might be, that could be in there for design also, but maybe that's more of a software design.

• 1:23:50Speaker 01

  Did it have video on that phone?

• 1:23:52Andrew Manganelli?

  We didn't.

• 1:23:52Speaker 01

  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, it's pretty cool. You know what I just realized? This is completely off topic. For the first time in my memory, you're using two regular sized phones. You're not using the XL 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 XL. 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.

• 1:24:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, um, I like the XL phones. I just, they're huge. Six, it's like a surfboard, the 6.9 inch. Both of the, yeah, XL versions of these phones are huge.

• 1:24:47Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:49Speaker 01

  Well, I don't know, bust of the year, I don't know if we're gonna, there are, there are weird, weird phones that came out this year. The sequel to the Solana phone hit my inbox.

• 1:24:59Andrew Manganelli?

  I'm sure.

• 1:25:00Speaker 01

  I have that on my desk. The, let's see, what are there, it's not that many bad.

• 1:25:07Andrew Manganelli?

  Bust, bust is also, alright, I think I said it already, but 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.

• 1:25:19Speaker 01

  So last year's winner for bust of the year was, winner, uh, was the Zenfone 9.

• 1:25:25Andrew Manganelli?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:25:26Speaker 01

  Because the, yeah.

• 1:25:28Andrew Manganelli?

  Because of what they did to our boy.

• 1:25:30Speaker 01

  Sorry, best small phone, the Zenfone 10 Ultra or whatever.

• 1:25:33Andrew Manganelli?

  11.

• 1:25:34Speaker 01

  What do they call it? 11 Ultra?

• 1:25:35Andrew Manganelli?

  11 Ultra, yeah.

• 1:25:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, that one, best, uh, worst phone.

• 1:25:39Andrew Manganelli?

  Best worst.

• 1:25:41Speaker 01

  But.

• 1:25:41Andrew Manganelli?

  That's a good way of putting it.

• 1:25:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, best worst phone, most just worstest.

• 1:25:45Andrew Manganelli?

  Because it wasn't a bad phone, it's just they got rid of all the things we like.

• 1:25:48Speaker 01

  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?

• 1:25:58Andrew Manganelli?

  I'd say the Pixel 10 is a bust because it's 128 base store, it, it, the Pixel base series used to be this like, great deal. And like tensor 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.

• 1:26:27Speaker 01

  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.

• 1:26:36Andrew Manganelli?

  The color though. The colors.

• 1:26:38Speaker 01

  That's fair.

• 1:26:38Andrew Manganelli?

  The colors.

• 1:26:40Speaker 02

  But the colors.

• 1:26:42Speaker 01

  The iPhone 16e was kinda bad.

• 1:26:45Speaker 02

  16e?

• 1:26:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:26:46Speaker 02

  Was it bad?

• 1:26:46Andrew Manganelli?

  Or does the 16e just look really bad?

• 1:26:48Speaker 01

  It's such, it's 700, how much? $600. $600?

• 1:26:55Speaker 02

  For an iPhone that only has one camera.

• 1:26:59Speaker 01

  No MagSafe.

• 1:27:00Speaker 02

  No Mag.

• 1:27:00Speaker 01

  No ProMotion.

• 1:27:01Speaker 02

  Oh, I forgot about no MagSafe.

• 1:27:02Speaker 01

  No, barely any storage.

• 1:27:04Speaker 02

  I was gonna make the case that iPhone Air has also one camera and could be compared to this, but it's a thousand dollars.

• 1:27:11Speaker 01

  Oh, it's so different. The iPhone Air is 900 to start, right?

• 1:27:15Speaker 02

  $999.

• 1:27:16Speaker 01

  Has a 6.5 inch gorgeous 120 Hz 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 sized 3100 milliampere battery versus, I don't even know what the iPhone 16e.

• 1:27:34Speaker 02

  When you search iPhone 16e, the first Reddit thread that comes up is the iPhone 16e isn't a bad phone, that's a bad, it's a bad value.

• 1:27:43Speaker 01

  That was my, that was my title, right? Or that was my like opening line or whatever?

• 1:27:47Speaker 02

  This is on the LTT subreddit?

• 1:27:48Speaker 01

  Well, it's true. It's true. So, uh, I don't know. The 16e was disappointing in the feature set and in the value proposition. And that could also be in contention for.

• 1:28:01Speaker 02

  Does the 16e not have MagSafe?

• 1:28:03Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 1:28:04Speaker 02

  No, that's what we were so mad about.

• 1:28:05Andrew Manganelli?

  Oh my goodness.

• 1:28:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:28:07Andrew Manganelli?

  That's gotta be in theirs.

• 1:28:08Speaker 02

  And they, they put it in the Air, which is so much thinner.

• 1:28:12Speaker 01

  Yeah. They gotta take away something for then, for the cheap phone. $600 that phone, yeah.

• 1:28:18Speaker 02

  So you're telling me that the four magnets they use for MagSafe is $400?

• 1:28:23Speaker 01

  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 16e. Which is just comedy.

• 1:28:39Speaker 02

  That's crazy.

• 1:28:40Speaker 01

  So, anyway, yeah, bust of the air 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 will mention again, the phones that I used the most this year. Uh, in chronological, or I guess in terms of time, how much I use them. Number one by a landslide is the Galaxy S25 Ultra. I used that for maybe six months, I think. Uh, meaning like when I'd finish reviewing a phone, I would go back to it as my main. Second place, I think, is the OnePlus 13. Which I think I used for like a month or two.

• 1:29:22Speaker 01

  Uh, 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.

• 1:29:32Speaker 02

  We still have two months before we actually record this thing.

• 1:29:34Speaker 01

  Right, so it could get to 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, 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.

• 1:30:03Speaker 01

  Last year, the, let me go to the end, the phone of the year. Award, Samsung 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. This is the safest bet, the 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 want good charging, it's got that. If you want a good screen, it's got that. If you want good build, it's got that.

• 1:30:34Speaker 02

  S Pen?

• 1:30:35Speaker 01

  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 one last year. S25 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. S25 FE is interesting. Base iPhone 17 is also interesting for Phone of the Year,

• 1:31:17Speaker 01

  just in how, how much of a leap they made, possibly being, yeah, like, 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 in phones.

• 1:31:42Andrew Manganelli?

  The trif- trifold's gonna 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 gonna, how much do you think it's gonna cost? You think it's gonna hit three grand?

• 1:31:57Speaker 01

  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 gonna spend a thousand. If you go two screens, you're gonna spend two thousand. If you go trifold, you get three thousand. Yeah, I think that's probably what we're looking at.

• 1:32:10Andrew Manganelli?

  Three thousand dollar phone. That's gotta impress.

• 1:32:12Speaker 01

  What if it's the sickest ever? What if it's just as thin as a regular phone and has like, a nine and a half inch screen inside?

• 1:32:17Andrew Manganelli?

  If it doesn't have decks, I'm gonna be so mad.

• 1:32:21Speaker 01

  Get ready. Prepare yourself. Yeah, there is, there's a couple interesting ways that this could go. I'm so interested in what 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.

• 1:32:40Andrew Manganelli?

  I don't think one's ever really.

• 1:32:41Speaker 02

  I feel like that really depends on how the 10 Pro Fold comes out. And the Samsung Trifold, like, because right now it would be Z Fold 7, right? Like, that would be the winner.

• 1:32:49Andrew Manganelli?

  For best folding phone?

• 1:32:51Speaker 02

  Probably, yeah. If it's gonna be like a foldable that wins that category, like, for the best phone of the year.

• 1:32:56Speaker 01

  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's 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 will be thinking a lot about between now and December 29th.

• 1:33:19Speaker 02

  Please yell at us and tell us what we forgot.

• 1:33:21Speaker 01

  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.

• 1:33:34Speaker 02

  Trivia, dude, so.

• 1:33:35Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:36Speaker 02

  Marquez, you finally canceled your Tesla Roadster.

• 1:33:40Andrew Manganelli?

  I did.

• 1:33:40Speaker 02

  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?

• 1:33:53Andrew Manganelli?

  It had a name?

• 1:33:54Speaker 02

  It had a name. Here's a hint, based off of a David Bowie song.

• 1:33:58Andrew Manganelli?

  Oh, I do know. Oh, wait, I know that. I hate when Marquez gets pop culture references over me.

• 1:34:05Speaker 01

  Wait, do I know this? Hold on, I need to, yeah, mm.

• 1:34:10Speaker 01

  Hmm. No, I don't know.

• 1:34:13Andrew Manganelli?

  I don't know much about David Bowie. I was really hoping you were about to put an old John reference in.

• 1:34:18Speaker 01

  I'm gonna give you a hint. It was probably a bad idea, but I'm gonna give you a hint that will hopefully help me remember. It's definitely, no, I'm not gonna say it. It's definitely based on a song name. It's one of his song names, I'm pretty sure.

• 1:34:31Andrew Manganelli?

  Oh, it is, I remember it. Ah, I remember it. Okay, that helps me.

• 1:34:36Speaker 02

  You're welcome.

• 1:34:38Speaker 01

  Okay, well, yeah, maybe you know it, maybe you don't, we'll think about it. Answers will be at the end, like usual. We'll be right back.

• 1:34:52Speaker 01

  Support for the show comes from Jira by Atlassian. So AI is only as useful as the context it has to work from. But when that context is scattered across tools like threads and DMs, that means your team and your AI agents end up flying kind of blind. That's the problem Jira solves. What's the gold tied to your project? What got decided last week in Slack? Atlassian's teamwork graph pulls all of these pieces together from Jira, Confluence, Slack, GitHub, and more. So nothing falls through the cracks. With Jira, you can actually share that context with the AI agents you already use, like Claude, Cursor, and GitHub Copilot, assign them work directly, or connect your agents through MCP. Spend less time digging through endless links and DMs, less time chasing down what got decided and by who, and more time actually shipping. Learn more at jira.com.

• 1:35:37Speaker 01

  That's J-I-R-A dot com.

• 1:35:40Speaker 06

  Are you a pet owner? Every six seconds, a pet owner in the US gets hit with a vet bill over $1,000. Always an unwelcome surprise. That's where Fetch comes in. Fetch is the most complete pet insurance for dogs and cats, according to consumeradvocate.org. You get paid back up to 90% of vet bills at any vet in the US and Canada, with claims paid back in as little as two days. Go to fetchpet.com/save right now for your free quote. That's fetchpet.com/save.

• 1:36:20Speaker 05

  If you're looking to hire, you need Indeed. With Indeed sponsored jobs, you can spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes. Less stress, less time, more results. And listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit to help your job get the premium status it deserves at indeed.com/podcast. Just go to indeed.com/podcast right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? This is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs.

• 1:37:03Speaker 03

  Welcome back. We were going to talk about Marquez's James Cameron Bows interview at, he did at 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.

• 1:37:37Andrew Manganelli?

  20 minutes? It was a long conversation.

• 1:37:39Speaker 03

  It was a long conversation. But yeah, so if you're interested in something that has nothing to do with tech, but we thought was so funny.

• 1:37:44Speaker 01

  A little bit, just a little bit of tech.

• 1:37:45Speaker 03

  A little. We thought it was so good, we just had to include it. And if not, we'll see you at trivia.

• 1:37:52Speaker 01

  I was gonna say, what makes you a good horseback rider? How do you?

• 1:37:55Andrew Manganelli?

  There's a, ask Olivia, she actually does.

• 1:37:58Speaker 03

  Was it the trick one or the racing one?

• 1:38:01Speaker 01

  Equestrian? There's a bunch of different.

• 1:38:02Andrew Manganelli?

  There's a couple. There's like, 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.

• 1:38:16Speaker 01

  But that's the horse doing the stuff.

• 1:38:19Speaker 03

  But you have to teach it to do the ride. It's the car doing the stuff in F1.

• 1:38:23Andrew Manganelli?

  No, if you have a steering wheel on a horse, there's a brain in there. There is a steering wheel. I don't know. There's probably more of a brain in an F1 car than a horse at this point.

• 1:38:33Speaker 01

  That's a hilarious debate. How much skill? Who, what takes more skill, driving a car well or equestrian?

• 1:38:40Andrew Manganelli?

  Olivia is a horseback rider. I'm gonna.

• 1:38:42Speaker 01

  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 gonna win? Or is it the jockey that's doing the work?

• 1:38:55Andrew Manganelli?

  I think some of the jumps they do are crazy and like, to be able to be a. An athlete on a horse of that caliber is also very hard.

• 1:39:05Speaker 01

  I guess like, is there a number one jockey? Is there a Tiger Woods?

• 1:39:09Andrew Manganelli?

  Well, also jockey is only racing, I believe. I think it's just like.

• 1:39:12Speaker 01

  Sure. But what if, even if we just leave it in that, like, is there, is there an argument to be made that the jockey matters so much? That there is like.

• 1:39:20Speaker 02

  Ryan Moore from Great Britain is currently the number one.

• 1:39:23Andrew Manganelli?

  I think jockeying, a big thing of that is also just being as light as possible because you're shaving off time, whereas.

• 1:39:28Speaker 01

  That's also true about F1 drivers. Fun fact, they're all like, small.

• 1:39:33Andrew Manganelli?

  George Russell and Alex Albon are like over six feet tall.

• 1:39:35Speaker 01

  That's why they never podium.

• 1:39:37Andrew Manganelli?

  Uh. If you put, Russell just podiumed while almost dying last week. Not almost dying, he was just very sick and.

• 1:39:44Speaker 01

  If you put, uh, Max Verstappen.

• 1:39:46Andrew Manganelli?

  On a horse.

• 1:39:47Speaker 01

  In the, in the 10th best car.

• 1:39:51Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah. No, no, this is definitely a debate.

• 1:39:54Speaker 01

  How much better?

• 1:39:55Speaker 03

  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.

• 1:40:02Andrew Manganelli?

  But you guys are all talking, you guys are all talking about racing though.

• 1:40:06Speaker 01

  Uh, okay.

• 1:40:07Andrew Manganelli?

  Which this whole conversation started in Equestrian, which is different.

• 1:40:10Speaker 01

  I think that's even more important in Equestrian. I think racing is the, is the place where you could argue most for the jockey.

• 1:40:19Andrew Manganelli?

  I agree.

• 1:40:19Speaker 01

  Cause I think in the others, it's like.

• 1:40:22Andrew Manganelli?

  That the jockey has skill or that the jockey doesn't matter?

• 1:40:24Speaker 01

  That the jockey has skill.

• 1:40:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:40:26Andrew Manganelli?

  I'd argue the jockey has less weight.

• 1:40:28Speaker 03

  In horse dancing, if you have an ugly horse, you're gonna lose.

• 1:40:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:40:32Speaker 03

  Right?

• 1:40:32Andrew Manganelli?

  Like, how it works. We need to bring Olivia on the podcast. This is a horse podcast now.

• 1:40:37Speaker 01

  Explain it in tech terms.

• 1:40:38Andrew Manganelli?

  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.

• 1:40:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:40:47Andrew Manganelli?

  Not only controlling the horse based on different things live, but also hitting the ball.

• 1:40:51Speaker 01

  Okay, 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.

• 1:41:01Andrew Manganelli?

  Is that true?

• 1:41:02Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:41:02Speaker 02

  So like right at the end, could you just launch yourself off the horse?

• 1:41:06Speaker 01

  There is a clip. There's a YouTube clip of somebody like having a like a collision, falling off the horse and the horse just goes, "Well, I have way less weight now" and winning the race. And that was the winner.

• 1:41:18Speaker 02

  No way. So why is anyone riding these horses?

• 1:41:21Andrew Manganelli?

  Could you make the argument that that means the jockeys are important? Cause then if they, everybody would just jump off the horse off the start to be lighter.

• 1:41:29Speaker 01

  Yeah. But then the horse, yeah.

• 1:41:31Speaker 03

  Wouldn't know where to go.

• 1:41:32Speaker 01

  Do the horses know where to go?

• 1:41:33Andrew Manganelli?

  Where's your brain now, horse?

• 1:41:35Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:41:36Speaker 01

  Maybe that horse is so well trained. It's like, I gotta win. I gotta do this. Or maybe it's just a coincidence.

• 1:41:41Andrew Manganelli?

  Maybe.

• 1:41:42Speaker 02

  Man, I hope Wayne doesn't ride horses. She likes them so much right now and I'm so scared.

• 1:41:46Andrew Manganelli?

  If I put you on the world's fastest LeBron James horse or an F1 car, which one would you be more scared?

• 1:41:53Speaker 01

  I have a much better chance on the horse.

• 1:41:55Andrew Manganelli?

  Really?

• 1:41:55Speaker 01

  Much better chance.

• 1:41:56Andrew Manganelli?

  Oh, I disagree.

• 1:41:58Speaker 01

  I'd be way more scared on the horse.

• 1:42:00Andrew Manganelli?

  Way more scared on a horse.

• 1:42:01Speaker 03

  Have you ever seen someone fall off a horse?

• 1:42:03Speaker 02

  It's terrifying.

• 1:42:04Speaker 01

  No, it's terrifying, but I just thought.

• 1:42:05Speaker 03

  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.

• 1:42:11Speaker 01

  I think if you, 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.

• 1:42:23Speaker 02

  No way.

• 1:42:24Speaker 01

  Easily.

• 1:42:24Speaker 02

  No way.

• 1:42:25Speaker 01

  I am never podiuming in an F1 race ever.

• 1:42:28Speaker 03

  You're never podiuming, you're never podiuming.

• 1:42:30Speaker 01

  I'm just hanging on. I don't think I'm, I, I think there is a sliver of a chance.

• 1:42:34Speaker 03

  How many times have you ridden a horse before?

• 1:42:37Speaker 01

  Five. I don't know.

• 1:42:37Speaker 03

  All right. So you're not, you're not podiuming in either of these things.

• 1:42:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:42:42Speaker 03

  But I think you have a better chance of coming out of this whole experience alive in the F1 car than the horse.

• 1:42:49Speaker 02

  I agree.

• 1:42:50Speaker 01

  If that's the case.

• 1:42:51Speaker 03

  Than a roided up super horse?

• 1:42:53Speaker 01

  I'm just hanging on.

• 1:42:55Speaker 03

  I don't think you're hanging on.

• 1:42:56Speaker 01

  Really?

• 1:42:57Speaker 03

  Dude, Marquez, you're like 6'5".

• 1:43:00Andrew Manganelli?

  It is hard, but Marquez does have really good quad strength.

• 1:43:03Speaker 01

  I think I.

• 1:43:04Andrew Manganelli?

  And like.

• 1:43:04Speaker 01

  Like strap me on to the back of the horse.

• 1:43:06Speaker 03

  Dude, I, I think.

• 1:43:07Andrew Manganelli?

  Well, you don't get strapped on. You still have, you have to like hold yourself on.

• 1:43:11Speaker 03

  You're a, you're a, Marquez, 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.

• 1:43:20Speaker 01

  Be blowing the doors off.

• 1:43:21Speaker 03

  I think, I think in the F1 car, you, you might not even, you, you might finish. I think if you got.

• 1:43:27Speaker 01

  I think I have a better chance of killing myself in the F1 car.

• 1:43:30Speaker 03

  I really don't, dude, especially on like a, on a horse racetrack where it's an oval and the horse is going full speed the entire time. You have no chance to adjust to calibrate yourself.

• 1:43:39Speaker 02

  If it makes like a hard turn, you're just flying off.

• 1:43:41Speaker 03

  You're falling off that horse.

• 1:43:42Andrew Manganelli?

  It shouldn't make a hard turn.

• 1:43:43Speaker 01

  There's way more hard turns in F1.

• 1:43:45Speaker 02

  But you're in a car.

• 1:43:45Speaker 03

  But you're harnessed and you've, you've done hard turns in a car before.

• 1:43:50Speaker 01

  Not like.

• 1:43:50Andrew Manganelli?

  Oh, I think that's, I think it's way different.

• 1:43:53Speaker 03

  But he could do the, the, the turn at whatever pace he wanted to. You know what I mean? Marquez.

• 1:43:57Andrew Manganelli?

  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.

• 1:44:09Andrew Manganelli?

  In an F1 car, like basically letting it like roll down.

• 1:44:11Speaker 01

  Okay. Which one do I have a better chance of not coming in last?

• 1:44:15Speaker 03

  I think you're gonna die on the horse. I think, I, I don't, I think that is the.

• 1:44:21Speaker 01

  I think if the horse could come in second to last place pace and I'd be okay.

• 1:44:25Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:44:25Speaker 01

  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. In a F1 race.

• 1:44:33Speaker 02

  You have a better chance in a car.

• 1:44:34Andrew Manganelli?

  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.

• 1:44:41Speaker 03

  I don't.

• 1:44:42Speaker 01

  Yeah. I need to see how jockeys train. 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.

• 1:44:51Speaker 03

  I'm not, 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, Marques Brownlee, right now you're plucked out of the studio and you are put either in an F1 car on a starting grid right now.

• 1:45:06Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:45:06Speaker 03

  Or you are put on the back of a championship quality horse.

• 1:45:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm in the, I'm on the horse or I'm in the Red Bull F1 car.

• 1:45:14Speaker 03

  Yeah. You're a smart guy. You're a careful guy. You would, you would at the very least.

• 1:45:20Andrew Manganelli?

  I agree with you on this.

• 1:45:21Speaker 03

  You're on that horse. The light, the light goes. You are about to experience things that you can't believe.

• 1:45:28Andrew Manganelli?

  I would like to see Marquez because he is probably almost twice the height of most jockeys.

• 1:45:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, how much does Jackie weigh?

• 1:45:36Speaker 01

  110 pounds?

• 1:45:37Andrew Manganelli?

  Average jockeys stand between 4'10", 5'6" and weigh between 108 and 118.

• 1:45:43Speaker 01

  That's so specific. I will figure this out later, how jockeys train. Yeah, no, I need to, we need to ask Olivia. I need to ask Michelle.

• 1:45:49Andrew Manganelli?

  We need to just send her this last 20 minutes and see if she continues to work with us. This is the intro.

• 1:45:56Speaker 01

  Well, that was a fun conversation. I, I'm very much looking forward to the comments, but I think we should probably get to trivia.

• 1:46:03Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:04Speaker 01

  Let's do it.

• 1:46:06Speaker 03

  There's a lot for people to comment about.

• 1:46:08Speaker 01

  I think so.

• 1:46:09Speaker 03

  We did all the phones. We spoke about F1 and horses.

• 1:46:12Andrew Manganelli?

  I just want to say, 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. I don't actually hate horses that much.

• 1:46:25Speaker 01

  I will say shout out to my sister, Simone. She did have a brief obsession with horses and luckily that did end eventually.

• 1:46:34Andrew Manganelli?

  It's an expensive hobby.

• 1:46:35Speaker 01

  It is so expensive.

• 1:46:36Speaker 03

  I have something to say.

• 1:46:37Speaker 01

  It smells like horse poop.

• 1:46:38Speaker 03

  Because my attention was brought to a Reddit thread about me not being able to afford a phone. First of all, stop pocket watching.

• 1:46:49Speaker 03

  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 a thousand dollars.

• 1:46:59Andrew Manganelli?

  And you're also excited for the folding phone?

• 1:47:01Speaker 03

  And I'm excited for the fold, yes. And I don't trust Apple trade in values enough to buy a phone for a thousand dollars now, only to buy a phone for $2,000 next year. $3,000, Adam whispered in my ear, 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 iFixit kits that is used to be wedged between the screen and the phone and rip that bad boy off? Hit it.

• 1:47:34Speaker 01

  I wrote what I think you also wrote.

• 1:47:37Andrew Manganelli?

  I wrote what you definitely wrote, but I kind of don't think that's it.

• 1:47:41Speaker 03

  That's funny because that's what I wrote.

• 1:47:42Speaker 01

  I can't think of anything else, though.

• 1:47:43Andrew Manganelli?

  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.

• 1:47:51Speaker 01

  The way I was asked the question implied that it is kind of a funny name.

• 1:47:56Speaker 02

  I have to cover my bottom answer.

• 1:47:59Andrew Manganelli?

  Can you just erase it and remember what it is?

• 1:48:01Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 1:48:03Speaker 03

  All right. Let's flip those boards around. And you're both correct.

• 1:48:08Andrew Manganelli?

  We are.

• 1:48:09Speaker 03

  It's called a spudger. And now, Andrew, tell me about how wrong I am.

• 1:48:12Andrew Manganelli?

  I thought the little guitar picks were the thing that helps.

• 1:48:14Speaker 02

  That's a spudger?

• 1:48:15Andrew Manganelli?

  No, the spudger, I thought, was the long thing with the, like, flat piece at the end of it.

• 1:48:21Speaker 03

  You're right.

• 1:48:22Speaker 02

  So what's the?

• 1:48:23Andrew Manganelli?

  I thought the little guitar picks were like, you use the suction cup to kind of pop it enough, and then the guitar picks go in and cut out the adhesive.

• 1:48:30Speaker 03

  I don't know what those are called, but the long, the long skinny thing that you stick in there and...

• 1:48:34Andrew Manganelli?

  So I thought that was for popping off all the ribbon cable.

• 1:48:38Speaker 02

  That also you use to like, push the display up, and then you also use the pick to like, help cut the adhesive, but...

• 1:48:44Speaker 03

  I thought the pick, I thought you use the spudger to wedge it up, and then the picks just hold it in the wedge, like, you stick those in there.

• 1:48:50Andrew Manganelli?

  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 the adhesive, then leave it in, like you said, then do the other side. And then maybe I guess you use the spudger to pop it off.

• 1:49:04Speaker 02

  I thought this was trivia.

• 1:49:05Speaker 03

  Yo, I thought this was a horse.

• 1:49:08Andrew Manganelli?

  Alright, well, we both got it right.

• 1:49:09Speaker 02

  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, September. 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.

• 1:49:27Andrew Manganelli?

  I think you should get the point.

• 1:49:28Speaker 02

  Alright.

• 1:49:28Andrew Manganelli?

  I posed it as a question for David and Marquez to get a point without me being eligible for it.

• 1:49:33Speaker 02

  So then...

• 1:49:34Andrew Manganelli?

  That's such a nice guy that I am.

• 1:49:35Speaker 02

  There's a point for Marquez.

• 1:49:36Andrew Manganelli?

  So, I should get a point for being generous.

• 1:49:37Speaker 02

  Charity of you. So nice of you. So, with that point, quick update on the score. Uh, Marquez now with six, Andrew with eight, and David TBD, because we're gonna call him later. Alright, question number two. What was the name of the mannequin in the driver's seat of the roadster that got shot into space?

• 1:49:58Speaker 02

  This would be crazy if I got a pop culture reference.

• 1:50:00Andrew Manganelli?

  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.

• 1:50:09Speaker 02

  So you hate horses and you don't listen to David Bowie? That's crazy.

• 1:50:15Andrew Manganelli?

  I don't even, I don't have an answer.

• 1:50:17Speaker 03

  You don't have any answer? Just write any David Bowie song.

• 1:50:22Andrew Manganelli?

  Here they are.

• 1:50:23Speaker 01

  Name one David Bowie song. I can't name a single other David Bowie song, but I do think it's this one. Is it Rocketman?

• 1:50:32Speaker 03

  No.

• 1:50:32Andrew Manganelli?

  That's, that's the joke that I said before, the Elton John reference.

• 1:50:36Speaker 01

  You said an Elton John song? I Take It All Back. What is the name?

• 1:50:42Speaker 03

  You said nothing?

• 1:50:43Andrew Manganelli?

  I said nothing.

• 1:50:43Speaker 03

  Alright, well that's also wrong. The name was Starman.

• 1:50:46Speaker 01

  Star, that's what it is.

• 1:50:48Andrew Manganelli?

  Close.

• 1:50:48Speaker 03

  You got, you said Rocketman.

• 1:50:49Speaker 01

  I was half right. Oh man.

• 1:50:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, you got the man part.

• 1:50:52Speaker 01

  Dang, I thought, yeah, okay.

• 1:50:55Speaker 03

  I bet David gets that one.

• 1:50:56Speaker 01

  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,

• 1:51:05Andrew Manganelli?

  horses.

• 1:51:05Speaker 01

  how hard it is to ride horses or drive F1 cars. Many things that I'm sure you guys will light us up about.

• 1:51:11Speaker 03

  I did not say driving F1 cars are easy. I just want to say that.

• 1:51:14Andrew Manganelli?

  So everyone's worried about how they're, I'm worried about how my mom's gonna call me after this and say how mean I was to horses.

• 1:51:20Speaker 03

  I just think, I just think, you know, you still have the pedals and the steering wheel in an F1 car. The horse does, is gonna do what it's gonna do. If you're dropping, anyway.

• 1:51:29Speaker 01

  How hard could it be?

• 1:51:30Speaker 03

  Please sign off.

• 1:51:32Speaker 01

  Thanks for watching. And, uh, hey, next episode is, correct me if I'm wrong, Techtober? Right?

• 1:51:39Andrew Manganelli?

  You're right. Next episode's Techtober. It is. Well, are we, we record on the first day of Techtober.

• 1:51:45Speaker 01

  Alright, so see you guys in Techtober. Peace.

• 1:51:49Andrew Manganelli?

  Goodbye. Wave from its producer, Adam Alina and Ellis Rovin, a partner of Vox Media Podcast Network, and our trap music was created by Vane Sill.

• 1:52:04Speaker 03

  David.

• 1:52:09Speaker 07

  I didn't have the question yet.

• 1:52:11Speaker 03

  Welcome to Waveform Trivia, David. Where in the world are you?

• 1:52:17Speaker 07

  I am in the French Alps.

• 1:52:20Speaker 03

  She's rubbing it in, why don't you? Well, I'm in New Jersey.

• 1:52:22Speaker 07

  You asked me a question. You asked me a question.

• 1:52:25Speaker 03

  Well, I'm gonna ask you another question, specifically about iFixit toolkits, because on this episode of the Waveform Podcast, we talked a little bit about iFixit. iFixit 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?

• 1:52:46Speaker 07

  Oh, is it called the Pryor Tool?

• 1:52:52Speaker 03

  It is not called the Pryor Tool.

• 1:52:56Speaker 03

  We can't cut the music, so we're just gonna have to let you stew in the wrong answer. The correct answer was the Spudger.

• 1:53:08Speaker 07

  Oh, I wouldn't have got that at all.

• 1:53:10Speaker 03

  I'm now going to turn it over to my co-host, Adam Molina.

• 1:53:16Speaker 07

  Hello, Adam Molina.

• 1:53:17Speaker 02

  Hello, David Immelt. Next question. I don't know if you saw in the Slack, but Marquez canceled his Roadster order, so we were talking Roadster in this episode. When it was launched into space, there was a mannequin in the driver's seat. What was the name of that mannequin?

• 1:53:35Speaker 07

  There was a...

• 1:53:37Speaker 03

  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.

• 1:53:48Speaker 03

  This did not help either of them, but there is a David Bowie song.

• 1:53:54Speaker 07

  Yeah, geez. I know this. Hold on.

• 1:54:01Speaker 03

  You're gonna need to flip that mental board, David. Flip it, flip it!

• 1:54:04Speaker 07

  I'm trying to flip it, because I literally know this.

• 1:54:10Speaker 07

  Hold on, I didn't run out of time.

• 1:54:12Speaker 03

  I did run out of time. You ran out of time.

• 1:54:17Speaker 07

  You guys ran out of time. It's...

• 1:54:21Speaker 03

  Come on, David.

• 1:54:24Speaker 07

  Ziggy Stardust, Ziggy Stardust.

• 1:54:25Speaker 03

  Nope, that's a guy. Close. It's Starman.

• 1:54:33Speaker 07

  Isn't Ziggy Stardust a David Bowie song?

• 1:54:35Speaker 03

  I think it's a nickname of David Bowie's. Or an alter ego of sorts.

• 1:54:41Speaker 02

  Thanks for playing.

• 1:54:42Speaker 03

  Thanks for playing this episode of Wait For Trivia. I'm 100% sure. David, you scored zero points, keeping you in last place with three points.

• 1:54:52Speaker 02

  Enjoy France.

• 1:54:54Speaker 07

  Epic.

• 1:54:54Speaker 03

  Enjoy France. We'll see you next week. We miss you dearly. It's not the same without you.

• 1:54:58Speaker 07

  I'm getting some...

• 1:55:00Speaker 07

  Oh, that's cute.

• 1:55:01Speaker 03

  The entire-

• 1:55:01Speaker 07

  I'll bring back some panoramas for you guys.

• 1:55:03Speaker 03

  You know what happened while you were gone, David? The entire third-

• 1:55:07Speaker 07

  What has happened?

• 1:55:08Speaker 03

  The entire third segment of this week's episode is about horses.

• 1:55:16Speaker 03

  We cut an interview with James Cameron because the horse conversation was so extra.

• 1:55:22Speaker 07

  That's incredible. I love that. That deserves to happen.

• 1:55:26Speaker 03

  Enjoy your vacation. We miss you.

• 1:55:28Speaker 07

  Enjoy.

• 1:55:28Speaker 03

  We'll see you soon.

• 1:55:29Speaker 02

  Peace.

• 1:55:29Speaker 03

  Peace.

• 1:55:30Speaker 07

  Thank you. See you soon. Bye.

• 1:55:33Speaker 08

  Running a business shouldn't feel like surviving a software group project. One app for accounting, another for inventory, another for sales, and somehow, none of them talk to each other. That's where Odoo comes in, an all-in-one business management software that brings every part of your business together. From sales and accounting to inventory and marketing, all in one powerful platform. No messy integrations, no bouncing between tabs, and best of all, no spreadsheets. Stop managing software and start managing your business with one unified system. Try for free today at Odoo.com/vox. That's O-D-O-O dot com slash vox.

• 1:56:10Speaker 04

  Support for the show comes from Jira by Atlassian. Your work lives in scattered places, and it's not only your team searching for context, your AI agents need it too. Jira taps Atlassian's teamwork graph to bring that context together. Across Jira, Confluence, Slack, GitHub, and more. And makes it easy to share with the agents you already use, like Claude, Purser, and GitHub Copilot. Assign them work directly, or connect your agents through MCP. Spend less time hunting for context, less time asking, "Wait, what did we decide?" And more time actually shipping with Jira. Learn more at jira.com. That's J-I-R-A dot com.