The 2026 Smartphone Awards Discussion Episode

This week the news is a little slow, so we decided to take this time to get some discussion in before we have to choose the winners of the 2026 MKBHD Smartphone Awards. We debate some phones in some highly contested categories and ask you who you think should win. We also wrap it up with a discussion on MMOs. Links: Mark Gurman: ⁠LG Partnership Tweet The Verge: S26 Price Increase J1mmy: New World of Warcraft Video Bellular: What is Wow Forever Really? Runescape: RS4 Trailer This episode brought to you by: Charles Schwab: https://www.schwab.com/oninvesting Framer: https://www.framer.com/wave Jira: https://www.jira.com Follow us on socials: 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 Waveform Threads: https://www.threads.net/@waveformpodcast Waveform Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/waveformpodcast/?hl=en Waveform TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@waveformpodcast Join the Discord: https://discord.gg/mkbhd Intro/Outro 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.

• 0:33David Imel?

  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,

• 1:15David Imel?

  and more time actually shipping. Learn more at jira.com. That's J-I-R-A dot com.

• 1:21Speaker 02

  Great meeting. Who took notes? Anyone?

• 1:26Speaker 03

  With Monday Note Taker, nobody has to take notes again. It joins your call, transcribes it, and turns the whole conversation into a clear plan. Action items, owners, deadlines, all right there on your monday.com board, ready for the team. So the meeting ends, and the plan already exists. Meetings aren't just talk anymore. Go to monday.com, the AI workspace platform.

• 1:51David Imel?

  Apple always seems to try new things, at least with the iPhone, twice. So they tried the Mini, the 12 Mini, and then they, yeah, and then, you know.

• 2:01Andrew Manganelli?

  How'd you have your hand on that button?

• 2:10David Imel?

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

• 2:15Andrew Manganelli?

  And I'm Andrew.

• 2:16David Imel?

  No David today, but over at the producer desk, we have Ellis and Mariah is back. And it's mid Techtober as you listen to this and as we record this, which means, of course, there's a little bit to talk about. It's kind of crazy. There's like one week lull.

• 2:31Andrew Manganelli?

  It's the break between Techtober, or Techtember and Techtober.

• 2:35David Imel?

  Yeah, like Techtember kind of spills into the beginning of Techtober, and then Techtober is about to kick off again, but we have a little, little sliver, a little rest period. But in this episode, we still have a couple other things. We've got to talk about some price increases of some phones that also have already come out. Apple with an unusual partner to release some new products potentially. We're also going to have our preliminary discussions, our way-too-early discussions, on what could be the Smartphone Awards this year.

• 3:02Andrew Manganelli?

  I wouldn't even call it way-too-early.

• 3:04David Imel?

  Not even way-too-early, but early enough that there's still phones coming out, but early enough that it's fun to talk about. We have some, some thoughts. And of course, we'll end by talking about some MMOs. I know what that stands for, but I don't know what else we're talking about. So it'll be good. Don't forget to subscribe, of course. We have found that asking you to subscribe does way more towards getting you to subscribe than anything else, so I'm going to just say it. Make sure you subscribe if you haven't already, wherever you listen to podcasts, or especially on YouTube. Appreciate y'all.

• 3:33Andrew Manganelli?

  We discussed that with Adam Gold, or Alex Goldman, this week on our bonus episode that came out Tuesday. You may have missed if you weren't subscribed, but that was a super fun episode. We talked all about podcasting, the old days of podcasting, what it's like starting one today, whether it should be on YouTube. We talked about asking your audience to do things like subscribe or be a premium member, and how excruciating it is, and how we feel bad about doing it sometimes. But we still have to do it anyways, but great episode. Go give it a wash. I said wash, because I was gonna say, if you have extra dishes, and I was ahead of myself. So.

• 4:07David Imel?

  Give the dishes a wash. You know what we meant. Give the dishes a wash. But first, did they even test this?

• 4:15Andrew Manganelli?

  I have potentially the most niche one possible. And this is one I know you have not seen before. So I'm excited to show it to you. And that is, in Megaphone, which is the piece of software that we use to upload the podcast.

• 4:30David Imel?

  The audio version.

• 4:31Andrew Manganelli?

  The audio version. When you are going to schedule what time it is coming out, I'm going to hopefully be able to go to it.

• 4:39David Imel?

  I have our time trust in these tools already.

• 4:40Andrew Manganelli?

  So in the publish section, we have publishing details, draft, scheduled, publish now. When we do scheduled, we have a dropdown for the time. Right now, it says 12:00 AM. What integers or what time variations do you think it's going to go down when I drop this menu down?

• 4:58David Imel?

  At first, I expected one-hour increments, but now I'm thinking maybe 30-minute increments.

• 5:03Andrew Manganelli?

  Ready? I'm gonna drop this down, and you tell me what you see.

• 5:05David Imel?

  Okay. One-minute increments. There's a dropdown that starts at 12 and goes to 12:01, 12:02, 12:03, and you're scrolling, and it's 12:12, 12:13, 12:14, 1:32, 1:33, 1:34. That is a long dropdown.

• 5:19Andrew Manganelli?

  It's, I mean, it could, because it goes to midnight.

• 5:22David Imel?

  You can't type it? You have to scroll?

• 5:24Andrew Manganelli?

  I've, when you click in, the cursor doesn't move at all, so I can't like just change the two.

• 5:30David Imel?

  Oh, for sure you can type it, though.

• 5:31Andrew Manganelli?

  What I've found, you can just start typing, I think. Yeah. So you have to make sure, though, you're very caught in doing 06:00, and then you get the ones you can do.

• 5:41David Imel?

  That's crazy.

• 5:42Andrew Manganelli?

  I think the fact that the singular minutes in the dropdown, on top of the fact, when you click into the box, nothing deletes, or the cursor doesn't move, it should at least show that, like, hey, you're typing now. You are allowed to not scroll minute by minute.

• 5:57David Imel?

  It's one of those weird, it feels like it's vibe-coded, where like, you, you want to give people a dropdown, but you, you can only really select the time by clicking something in the dropdown. So you start typing, and it surfaces the dropdown, and then you click the time, which is probably, yeah, they probably didn't test that too much.

• 6:11Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah.

• 6:11Speaker 04

  So you can scroll through the whole day by minute?

• 6:14Andrew Manganelli?

  By minute.

• 6:15David Imel?

  Yeah. How many minutes are in a day? Pop quiz.

• 6:18Andrew Manganelli?

  I have no idea. Hold on, let me count. One, two, three.

• 6:22David Imel?

  There's 3,600 in an hour, right? 60 minutes, sorry, 3,600 in.

• 6:28Andrew Manganelli?

  What's that?

• 6:28David Imel?

  Seconds in an hour. That's seconds in an hour.

• 6:30Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah, what's the song? Rent, Chicago, one of those.

• 6:36Speaker 05

  How many minutes are in a day?

• 6:37David Imel?

  How many minutes are in a day? So 60 minutes is times 24. What's six times 24?

• 6:43Speaker 05

  2,400 plus.

• 6:45David Imel?

  This is that mental math.

• 6:46Speaker 05

  Times four.

• 6:48David Imel?

  24 times three is 36, times two, 7,200.

• 6:53Andrew Manganelli?

  When people ask us how we retain viewership, this is why we shouldn't be the people who has to do it.

• 6:59Speaker 05

  I'm proud of us. Not a single one, one of us here opened up a calculator.

• 7:03Andrew Manganelli?

  I didn't. I just gave up off the start and let you guys figure it out.

• 7:06David Imel?

  I think it's 7,200, and I'm not going to double-check.

• 7:09Speaker 04

  Do you want to know?

• 7:10David Imel?

  Sure.

• 7:11Speaker 05

  You did it!

• 7:13David Imel?

  Is that trivia?

• 7:13Speaker 04

  What do you think, what do you think it is, Andrew?

• 7:16Andrew Manganelli?

  I just want to appreciate the fact that generally, what we've learned about Marquez in the "Am I the Asshole?" episode is, he would just search this immediately, while we're all having the fun time of figuring it out, and he didn't do that.

• 7:28David Imel?

  I know. That's growth.

• 7:29Andrew Manganelli?

  Growth, yeah.

• 7:30David Imel?

  That's growth.

• 7:30Andrew Manganelli?

  Most improved.

• 7:31David Imel?

  But now I want to know if I'm right.

• 7:32Speaker 04

  That's okay, because I Googled it immediately, because I wanted to know. And it is 1,440 minutes in one day.

• 7:40David Imel?

  Minutes in a day.

• 7:41Andrew Manganelli?

  Is that AI overview?

• 7:42Speaker 04

  Maybe.

• 7:42David Imel?

  60 times, I'm trying also, 60 times.

• 7:48David Imel?

  It's 1,440.

• 7:49Andrew Manganelli?

  1,440.

• 7:50David Imel?

  Well, now we know. There's 1,440 things in that dropdown.

• 7:53Andrew Manganelli?

  That's crazy.

• 7:54David Imel?

  Fun. All right. Also, we want to shout out the studio desk mat real quick. So I showed it in the last MKBHD video, but if you haven't already seen it, we are finally, and I say that because we've had a long behind-the-scenes process, but we are finally launching and sharing this studio-themed desk mat with the world. You have two of them, Andrew. You want to say why you have two of them?

• 8:14Andrew Manganelli?

  I have two of them. I have two of them because we partnered with a company named OmniType, who has been in the mechanical keyboard market for a long time. It makes very high-quality desk mats. And something they actually introduced to me, which you've been using for far longer than I have, is the, it's called like the rough or controlled texture.

• 8:32David Imel?

  Control surface, yeah.

• 8:33Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah, so you use an artisan mouse pad, because you don't use a full desk mat. And it kind of has this like, I don't want to call it stitched feeling, but almost like raised. When you describe it and don't feel it, it sounds bad. You want a mouse to like glide, right?

• 8:48David Imel?

  Sure, yeah.

• 8:49Andrew Manganelli?

  But to me, it actually, it feels better. I think it actually feels like a higher quality than the smooth ones, but it's just not your normal desk mat.

• 8:58Speaker 04

  For our audio listeners, what does the mat look like?

• 9:00Andrew Manganelli?

  I've held it up already.

• 9:02Speaker 04

  For the audio listeners.

• 9:03Andrew Manganelli?

  Oh, for the audio listeners. What, they didn't see? Okay, so studio vibes, studio colors, lots of different colors and shapes that are overlapping with each other to create other colors. And then we have this kind of really nice fade on a lot of it. Um, I just think overall it's one of those things that will match with a lot of desks because it has so many colors unless your desk is just like matte black everything.

• 9:28David Imel?

  In which case it stands out.

• 9:29Andrew Manganelli?

  It stands out a lot. David, when he used to work here, originally started the idea. He's left and then Tim kind of brought it all together to finally make this push.

• 9:39Speaker 05

  Wait.

• 9:40Andrew Manganelli?

  What?

• 9:41Speaker 05

  You're talking about our former.

• 9:42Andrew Manganelli?

  David Fetter.

• 9:42Speaker 05

  Yeah, our former.

• 9:43Andrew Manganelli?

  Yes, sorry, David.

• 9:45Speaker 05

  David Malt, who is not here today.

• 9:46Andrew Manganelli?

  Not the other David.

• 9:47Speaker 05

  Does still work.

• 9:48David Imel?

  As the chair is empty next to you.

• 9:50Andrew Manganelli?

  Sorry. Um, I'm obviously, I'm so excited about this test mat that I'm all over the place right now because we have been working on this for a while. And I'm so pumped for it to come out. We made it the exact, actually, we made sure it was the same price as OmniType sells it. So people didn't think we have like a YouTuber tax on it. We accidentally put it at $29 when they sell for 30. So we're actually cheaper than OmniType by a dollar. So no one can blame us for that. And not only that, but Garrett at OmniType is big on packaging. I feel like companies that focus a lot on packaging and user experience generally are pretty high quality. And he let Tim and Olivia kind of go wild with this box.

• 10:28David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 10:28Speaker 04

  Everyone worked really hard on it.

• 10:29Andrew Manganelli?

  Everyone worked really hard. We had a massive studio wide discussion on if we should launch it in only the rough texture or just the smooth texture since people are used to that.

• 10:39Speaker 04

  You could say we A B tested it.

• 10:41Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah, we did. I mean, we did launch both. We were worried about launching both, but we did. And I think the sales right off the riff were within 10 of each other.

• 10:49David Imel?

  Basically 50 50. Um, and I, you know, I made it clear that if you're not like up on game, you could probably just safely order the smooth and it's going to feel like what you're used to. But if you do know ball, then it's cool to know you have the option of a control texture surface. So that is, uh, that's where we're at. They're out. They're available. Go check them out. MKBHD.com. Okay. Now, speaking of things that are not so cheap, Galaxy S26 prices did go up, um, roughly by a hundred bucks across the board. So we talked about this when Apple did it. They raised a lot of prices that were not the iPhone. And then they, they launched new iPhones, obviously that are more pricey.

• 11:28David Imel?

  Galaxy S26s have been out since January, but are now getting a price increase, uh, near the end of this year.

• 11:35Andrew Manganelli?

  Well, and Apple in their launch also increased the prices of the previous generations.

• 11:39David Imel?

  So it did finally hit the entire Apple store, basically. Um, so basically everything's about a hundred bucks more expensive. It's kind of right in line with what we seem to be expecting from everyone. So like the Galaxy S26, 256 gig instead of starting at 900, it's a thousand dollar phone now. And then you go up from there. So if you want an S26 plus, that's a $1,200 phone. If you want an Ultra, that's a $1,400 phone to start. And then they go up from there. I think the max price one terabyte Ultra is a $2,000 phone now.

• 12:06Andrew Manganelli?

  That's wild. The Ultra is a $2,000 phone. A non folding phone is a $2,000 phone now?

• 12:11David Imel?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 12:12Andrew Manganelli?

  Is that actually, is that the first time we've seen it?

• 12:14David Imel?

  That's, that can't be the first thousand dollar non folding phone, but it is definitely like you're getting, like, obviously the Duo is going to be a thousand, $2,000 to start. So

• 12:23Andrew Manganelli?

  Well, yeah.

• 12:24David Imel?

  You're, you are approaching foldable territory real quick at the top of that lineup. Uh, if you get a terabyte phone, by the way, uh, let us know what you do with that terabyte. Cause the only thing I've ever upgraded my storage for is a lot of video shooting. I know I'm going to be doing a lot of photos and videos, so I get them more storage. Everything else I do on my phone is like a tiny fraction of the amount of photos and videos. All the apps on my phone combined are like less than 50 gigs. Like I don't have huge apps on my phone. Yeah.

• 12:52Andrew Manganelli?

  You do switch your phone all that?

• 12:53David Imel?

  Yeah, but I have a bunch of apps and I, here, I'll just pull it up on this one plus 15, but like, I would be curious if anyone does anything other than media to fill up their storage. Let's see what I actually have.

• 13:04Speaker 05

  There is a $2,000 iPhone spec that you can buy.

• 13:08David Imel?

  Yeah. And a Pro Max. Yeah.

• 13:10Andrew Manganelli?

  A Pro Max one.

• 13:11Speaker 05

  A, a regular Pro in two terabytes is 20.

• 13:15Andrew Manganelli?

  There's a two terabyte regular Pro? I did not know. Wow, I missed that.

• 13:18Speaker 04

  Terabyte?

• 13:19Andrew Manganelli?

  Two terabytes?

• 13:21Speaker 05

  $2,400.

• 13:24Andrew Manganelli?

  That's.

• 13:24David Imel?

  Jesus.

• 13:25Andrew Manganelli?

  That's crazy. I did not know that.

• 13:27David Imel?

  All right. I have a 512 gig one plus 15 here. All of my apps combined are 145 gigs. And that's including everything I've downloaded from Spotify, which is all of my libraries and lossless. So it's, it's not that much.

• 13:41Andrew Manganelli?

  Lossless.

• 13:41David Imel?

  62 gigs of it is Spotify. So I have like 80 gigs of apps, all my apps.

• 13:46Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah.

• 13:47David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 13:47Andrew Manganelli?

  I, um, is this not, as we're talking about this, is this not the perfect time for phones to start bringing back the micro SD card slot? And just let, being like, you guys can figure storage out because it's costing us a damn fortune right now?

• 14:00David Imel?

  It's funny because I think they would use the opposite argument is the storage is the way that they can upcharge. It's the RAM that costs them so much. And obviously storage is still storage. It costs more, but like the amount that they charge you for extra storage is definitely recouping more than they're paying.

• 14:17Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah.

• 14:17David Imel?

  So they would love to keep charging you for storage and not giving you the micro SD card slot.

• 14:21Andrew Manganelli?

  Well, but that's not the excuse they're saying out loud because that's basically saying.

• 14:24David Imel?

  Well, yeah. I mean, they're, all the prices go up because all these phones still have a bunch of RAM in them, but they are always going to charge more for more storage. And this is, uh, not a shock, I guess.

• 14:35Andrew Manganelli?

  I want the micro SD card back.

• 14:37David Imel?

  I think we all want a lot of things back.

• 14:39Speaker 04

  We're going to get cloud storage and we're going to like it.

• 14:41Andrew Manganelli?

  That's the real thing is cloud storage is a subscription. So why would they give you something that you can pay someone else one time for?

• 14:48Speaker 05

  How much do you think you can get a two terabyte SD card for?

• 14:51Andrew Manganelli?

  Micro SD?

• 14:52Speaker 05

  Micro SD.

• 14:53Andrew Manganelli?

  Which kind?

• 14:54David Imel?

  Sandisk.

• 14:54Andrew Manganelli?

  Slow one?

• 14:55David Imel?

  Two terabyte?

• 15:00Speaker 05

  I have two micro SD cards, both with two terabytes of storage in front of me. They're both Sandisk Extreme SD XC's. One of them has the V30 A2 with the three in the bucket rating and the other one does not have the three in the bucket.

• 15:14Andrew Manganelli?

  What are the just the numbers?

• 15:17Speaker 05

  V30, one, A2. One of them has the three in the bucket.

• 15:20Andrew Manganelli?

  Sorry. I mean, like 300, like the read write.

• 15:23David Imel?

  Megabytes per second.

• 15:24Speaker 05

  All right, all right. Making me click on the link. So.

• 15:26Andrew Manganelli?

  Oh, really? It usually just says it right on the card.

• 15:28David Imel?

  Yeah. I think XC XC is, they have a minimum speed to qualify for that.

• 15:32Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah.

• 15:33David Imel?

  So I'm, I'm going to, I have a guess already.

• 15:35Andrew Manganelli?

  I should have said, what colors? Is it the Sandisk Gold one?

• 15:38Speaker 05

  It is the Sandisk Gold.

• 15:39Andrew Manganelli?

  Okay, that's fine. That's a good or nice. Um.

• 15:42David Imel?

  Two ter, two terabyte?

• 15:44Andrew Manganelli?

  Wait, let me think of a guess. So I'm not going off of you.

• 15:46Speaker 05

  All right. Write speed, 150 megabytes second.

• 15:48Andrew Manganelli?

  Two terabyte?

• 15:49Speaker 05

  245 megabytes second.

• 15:52Andrew Manganelli?

  Okay, I'm locked in. Do you want to say that at the same time?

• 15:54David Imel?

  Um, okay. Yeah.

• 15:56Andrew Manganelli?

  One, two, three, two 30. Big difference.

• 16:00Speaker 04

  $90?

• 16:01David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 16:01Speaker 04

  Brother.

• 16:02Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah, no, shit, way too expensive now.

• 16:04David Imel?

  Maybe that's one terabyte.

• 16:05Speaker 05

  Uh, the one I'm looking right now is $400.

• 16:07David Imel?

  For two terabytes?

• 16:08Speaker 05

  For two terabytes.

• 16:09David Imel?

  When you go down to like, uh, 512, is that like 60 bucks?

• 16:12Andrew Manganelli?

  I'd say that's probably around 90.

• 16:16Speaker 05

  Still 140.

• 16:17Andrew Manganelli?

  How much is a 256?

• 16:19Speaker 05

  But if you get, is that Gengar?

• 16:22David Imel?

  Is it a brand name?

• 16:23Andrew Manganelli?

  That's another 20 bucks.

• 16:25Speaker 04

  Wait, I think it might be.

• 16:26Andrew Manganelli?

  It's a gang. Oh, oh, uh, didn't the Switch do a bunch of micro SD cards? Yeah.

• 16:30Speaker 05

  That one's only 120.

• 16:32David Imel?

  Speaking of things with memory, there's some, some interesting stories popping up that are like a combo of like leaks and reporting about Apple's new, I guess, home devices. And this, this latest one was interesting. It's basically that Apple's going to be partnering with LG on launching a bunch of, uh, like doorbell and thermostat and temperature sensor type things. And I saw that and I was like, oh, interesting partnering with LG. So that kind of implies that Apple is not building them, but if they're partnering with them, so they'll be Apple branded maybe. Or maybe it's kind of like a Beats partnership scenario. I'm not really sure. So I click on it and there's some leaked images, uh, from this nine to five Mac article.

• 17:13David Imel?

  And they are just straight up not branded at all. Actually, it just says LG. There's no Apple branding at all on them. So one of them's a doorbell, uh, sort of a deadbolt on one side and a touchpad on the other side, which I don't love.

• 17:27Andrew Manganelli?

  I think those are two different things, no? The doorbell and the, I think, no, no, that's the deadbolt.

• 17:33David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 17:33Andrew Manganelli?

  Which, and then there's a doorbell. I don't think the doorbell's in the leaked images, but it is a rumored thing to be coming out.

• 17:40David Imel?

  Okay. So just the deadbolt. Sorry, with the passcode on the other side.

• 17:42Andrew Manganelli?

  With the passcode on the other side. Yeah.

• 17:44David Imel?

  Yeah. And, uh, yeah, it just says LG on it. There's no Apple branding here. The other is a smart thermostat. Again, it looks like a nest. They all kind of look the same at this point. It's a circle with very thin bezels with a big temperature and you probably rotate it or press the button on either side to rise and lower the temperature. And then a temperature sensor. But the fact that none of them say Apple on it kind of makes me think this is kind of getting blown out of proportion. Like what, what kind of partnership is this exactly? If it's just being in the Apple store or getting announced as a compatible accessory, but it's not made by Apple, then this doesn't really make it as interesting.

• 18:18Andrew Manganelli?

  Well, here's the other thing. If you look up LG homes, like I don't think LG was making these home devices beforehand.

• 18:26David Imel?

  Sure.

• 18:27Andrew Manganelli?

  And I think because two weeks ago, when we talked about this potential, or maybe it was last week, um, cause next, next week we're having the Apple, like

• 18:37David Imel?

  We think there's going to be.

• 18:38Andrew Manganelli?

  The rumored event, the home event, the home hub event. That's what I, geez, I keep getting like confused, not homepad, home hub, which we might get the homepad at. And we specifically said we were not going to see, um, a security camera.

• 18:52David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 18:52Andrew Manganelli?

  And now we're seeing all this that we are going to see doorbell, deadbolt, thermostat, indoor, outdoor and floodlight camera, but all made in partnership or

• 19:01David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 19:01Andrew Manganelli?

  co-made with LG. And that's coming from Germain, the same person who said it's not coming, which makes me think, like you said, LG is just going to make these products. And maybe at this launch, we're just getting the first view of like compatible with Apple's new home hub. These are the products that are going to work with that.

• 19:19David Imel?

  Maybe there's going to be some sort of like branding to mark them as officially compatible. I don't really know. Cause right now, if you want to buy something that works with HomeKit, I guess is what it's called, you just look for that logo on the box and it says HomeKit compatible. And you're like, great. If I buy this, it'll, it'll be able to plug into the ecosystem. It'll show up in my home. Um, maybe this is some like higher level of this is optimized for and passes any number of requirements for not sharing data or whatever it is. And it'll be in partnership with and they'll get the like plug and they'll show them off alongside the new home stuff. I could see that. Kind of not super interesting, but.

• 19:58Andrew Manganelli?

  No, I, it makes sense to launch it around this time because they're going to need to show off Home Hub and that's, they're going to want products that they, you know, feel like they have some control over. So partnering with LG, yeah, then they can endorse it and they don't have to be like, because this is so clearly a shot directly at Amazon and Google with Nest and Ring. Like, they basically just went, go to the Nest website and make all of the things on that website.

• 20:25David Imel?

  Yeah, we need the equivalent stuff in our ecosystem.

• 20:28Andrew Manganelli?

  And these are easily the most popular, like I own one of all of these products in some sort of home.

• 20:32David Imel?

  I have all three of these in my Google Home. I have temperature sensors. I have the deadbolt lock and I have a, I even have a, the camera stuff, like they're all sort of talking to each other in the.

• 20:43Andrew Manganelli?

  Doorbell.

• 20:43David Imel?

  I have the doorbell, exactly. So yeah, if Apple's going to have this brand new fancy display that can show the feed from a doorbell and a security camera and open and close like the locks and all that stuff, you might as well have some, some first party-ish locks and doorbells and security cameras to point to that this will work with. So.

• 21:03Andrew Manganelli?

  And in their marketing material, they don't want it to say Ring and Nest all over the cameras that they're switching to. I'm sure. And I doubt these are going to say LG if they made it in collaboration with Apple.

• 21:14David Imel?

  Yeah, they'll have to name it. They'll have to name it something.

• 21:16Speaker 04

  It's interesting because it already looks like LG has their own like home app for all of their devices for like your fridge or whatever. So I wonder if it'll still be available on that app as well.

• 21:26Andrew Manganelli?

  That's the thing I'm confused though is like, it doesn't seem, and I haven't looked up everything, but like they didn't have a doorbell or a smart lock. So it is funny that you think of LG as like, you can create your whole, whole home with LG appliances and like everything LG. Yeah. But they didn't have all the connection things. So maybe this is just a, a good place to find the partnership of Apple ecosystem, software, LG product. I know Ellis loves LG software. Cut his mic right now. And this, this is it. You love Apple and you love LG. This is a perfect partnership.

• 22:00David Imel?

  He's just facepalming over there.

• 22:02Speaker 05

  I had my final freaking straw with my LG TV this week. Cause remember a few weeks ago when I was like, yeah, you know, like LG always asked me to sign this crazy privacy agreement. I just decline and then it lets me use the TV. Last week, man, it was finally like, if you don't accept this, I will not connect to your wifi network. And, uh, and I'm working on a few different solutions and maybe I'll bring it up later, but my time with WebOS has come to an end. I'm done with you. That TV is getting air gapped the second I figure it out.

• 22:32Andrew Manganelli?

  One other thing, there is, there was an article at least about the duo potentially hitting some production difficulties already. A quote from someone close to production lines in a Chinese news article, then posted by Mac rumors, which is the way we get, seem to get all this stuff, said, final assembly yields for Apple's first foldable iPhone were only slightly above 60% as of September 17th. Source said that under Apple's current quality standards, it could take another six months to a year for the assembly line to reach a mature yield, which is, I don't know what to make of that.

• 23:06David Imel?

  I, my take on this is, I have a hard time believing some parts of it. Like I think it makes a great headline and a really interesting headline. Like, oh wow, that must be so difficult to make the duos and they might not be able to make as many as they need. But I also tend to think that with a supply chain mastery giant like Apple, by the time they announce a new product like the iPhone Duo, it's very rare that they aren't ready to make it. Like, remember the, the wireless charger, what was it called? The air power? That's like the only example I can think of, of Apple, like getting to the finish line of announcing a product, but not really having the finished product ready. When we got iPhone Duo, like announced, I'm pretty sure they had for weeks and weeks and months and months been done

• 23:51David Imel?

  deciding how they're going to make it. And they've started, they've started making thousands of thousands of thousands of them. And the month between announcement and preorder is to give developers a bunch of extra time to start making their apps compatible with Duo and to get it ready to ship and to give a little gap after 18 Pro. And I, I don't think that this new information, I don't think that this crazy yield is new information. I'm, I'm willing to believe that it is difficult to make these.

• 24:18Andrew Manganelli?

  Oh yeah.

• 24:18David Imel?

  But I don't think that there's suddenly some snag of like, oh, we announced it now. Suddenly we're not sure we can make enough. I, I feel like they've made as many as they thought they were going to make and it's going to be hard to get, but not in any sort of drastic way.

• 24:31Andrew Manganelli?

  I could see there being some sort of issue developed along the way. Like we've had things where, what was the pixel where some of the screens were made in one factory and had like X issue. And like when you, when the scale is so big, even when you're producing and producing and producing, getting up to it, like there is potential for a scale issue to come out, which.

• 24:53David Imel?

  Yeah. But even that, I remember that, I forgot what phone it was. I want to remember. But even that, I remember different reviewers would have different panels in their review units. So it was like, even before the whole like mass shipping situation, like they had already decided that that's how they were going to satisfy how many units they had to make. They were like, all right, we got to get panels from two different factories and it just happened. And that's how, and then people discovered it and then it was a big deal. But I think, yeah, there's probably a lot of things that have already been decided about the duo that we're now discovering because they're just coming out.

• 25:26Andrew Manganelli?

  This headline also is like, kind of interesting because it says like, under Apple's current quality standards, which this is one of those things where a bad headline can kind of make you look good by being like, well, we're Apple. We have such high standards that, you know, like we might be reaching some delay, but we're always going to get you the best thing. It kind of reminds me of how every single week we see like AI company delaying launch of blah, blah, blah, because it's just too strong for you guys. Which like then feels like built hype, like, oh my God, I have to get the strongest AI ever. And then they've released it a week anyways.

• 26:00David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 26:01Andrew Manganelli?

  I don't know. I feel like we're getting more into these like semi-negative headlines where we all just turn it into, no, that actually means they're fantastic.

• 26:08David Imel?

  Yeah. I mean, this is, you know, probably not a headline Apple wants to be out there, but we, I think what's going to happen is the duo is going to come out. It's going to be limited in quantity. It's going to be hard to get. It's going to drive demand up. People are going to sell them on eBay for 3K for the first couple of weeks. And then they're finally going to start being in more Apple stores and in higher quantities. And then we'll all forget that happened. But the people who paid $3,000 for it on eBay will not forget that that happened.

• 26:34Andrew Manganelli?

  No, I'm still so intrigued to see how many of these I'm going to see around.

• 26:40David Imel?

  You know what's funny? In the studio, one by one, I see people like caving and deciding they actually like the duo and might want to get one. Cause I feel like at the very beginning, didn't we do a short where we're like, how much is the duo going to cost? And we went around and then I think we asked, are you going to get one? And almost everyone was like, no. And now I think if you went around, you might get a few more yeses.

• 27:02Andrew Manganelli?

  I know Alex is probably in.

• 27:04Speaker 04

  Olivia said maybe because she wants to watch YouTube while she does stuff on her phone.

• 27:10David Imel?

  People's imaginations are slowly like making the duo really interesting to people. And this delay is maybe serving as like a bit of marketing and people like thinking about the duo a little more, but it is also expensive.

• 27:20Speaker 04

  2K for a first gen product? I don't know.

• 27:23David Imel?

  Yeah. This is going to be fun for the review. Like I think we have to remember as we review this, that it is, it is a first gen product.

• 27:31Andrew Manganelli?

  Oh, that's so hard as the review because it's like, it's Apple's first gen product, but they've gotten to watch eight years of people doing this.

• 27:40David Imel?

  Right. So Apple specifically sat back and waited for many, many, many others to do many other multiple generations of their products before they make their first generation. So the standard for this as a first generation product is not the same as the standard for Samsung being the first one to ship a foldable phone in the US. But it is still the first version for them. And I do find often the second generation is where you learn the most about what this is, who it's for, what it's good at, and like what they're doubling down on. And I think the second generation will probably be the one that is more likely to be easy to recommend to people, but we have to see like what they change. Cause remember all those like first gen foldables, first gen pixel? It was a passport size. First

• 28:23David Imel?

  gen like Apple find like X or find N was passport size. And then the second generation, they all started leaving that shape. So what does Apple do with the second gen? I don't know. But we, yeah, I, I stay, I'm still thinking about it as a first gen foldable, at least through that lens.

• 28:37Andrew Manganelli?

  I'm most intrigued if they're going to keep the under display selfie camera.

• 28:41David Imel?

  For the second gen.

• 28:42Andrew Manganelli?

  Yes. And I have to assume they are because they're stubborn, whether it will be the right move or not. I think is another question.

• 28:48David Imel?

  Yeah. And it's also funny because Apple always seems to try new things, at least with the iPhone, twice. So they tried the mini, the 12 mini. And then they, yeah. And then, you know.

• 29:02David Imel?

  They tried the 12 mini and a lot of people liked it, but it really did not sell very well. But that did not stop them for trying a second one, the 13 mini. They fixed the battery life. It was a better phone. And then, yeah, it didn't sell enough and it was over. They switched to the plus.

• 29:16Andrew Manganelli?

  That, you're bringing up the like, the, this weird section of iPhones where like, they do something for two years, kill it, do something for two years. So, mini, plus, air.

• 29:28David Imel?

  We got an air.

• 29:29Andrew Manganelli?

  We got our new air.

• 29:30David Imel?

  We're expecting a second generation air. I don't think there's any doubt, there's gonna be a second gen air, probably in January, February, whatever. Then what?

• 29:37Andrew Manganelli?

  Will a third one happen?

• 29:38David Imel?

  Will it stay around? I don't know. But I would bet anything there's gonna be a second gen air. So, there will be another generation of, you know, duo, obviously. Will they keep all the things from the first generation? We'll have to see.

• 29:51Andrew Manganelli?

  All right, speaking of Apple.

• 29:53David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 29:53Andrew Manganelli?

  Android Central, closing down.

• 29:55David Imel?

  Speaking of Apple.

• 29:56Andrew Manganelli?

  I just wanted to throw this out here. It's always a bummer when we see other publications kind of die out, especially in the, the age of AI, which you kind of have to assume is part of the reason why this happened, but um.

• 30:08David Imel?

  Yeah, that's the thing, is it's not shutting down.

• 30:11Andrew Manganelli?

  Well, yeah.

• 30:12David Imel?

  They got rid of all of their writers.

• 30:14Andrew Manganelli?

  It's not shutting down, but they fired all of their writers.

• 30:16David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 30:17Andrew Manganelli?

  And, yeah, so apparently, so Future, they're, they're owned by Future. Um, they've owned Android Central for a while, but after this last week, all six writers got let go. Um, total bummer.

• 30:30David Imel?

  All remaining staff.

• 30:31Andrew Manganelli?

  All remaining staff. So, what happened is there have been articles launched since this happened, and they do have a freelance contributor section, and all of those posts have been made by freelance contributors. So, it's this weird thing of like, are they just going to ride the freelance contributors into, to like, try and stay relevant and probably overwork them? Or, I don't know what the deal is there on, on how those people get paid, how many things they have to write.

• 30:56David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 30:57Andrew Manganelli?

  So, that's a really tough thing. They, I think they claim they're not gonna use AI, but I think we're all under the assumption that this is just going to unfortunately turn into AI slop.

• 31:06David Imel?

  Yeah, which is kind of like the dead, it's like the last, it's like the death rattle of like, a company like this. Like, we've, all, uh, all publications have some sort of a life cycle, I guess.

• 31:19Andrew Manganelli?

  Well, that life cycle is getting choked out real hard right now with AI. Cause like, we saw, Verge, didn't Verge post those numbers of like, uh, weekly visitors? And how bad they got hit in like, the last year because of overviews and stuff in the search engine?

• 31:34David Imel?

  Exactly.

• 31:35Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah. This is why. I think Verge had like a 90% reduction or something.

• 31:39David Imel?

  Right, which is, uh, this was like, what tied into my whole, like, question about the Ask YouTube feature from the Made on YouTube thing. Because if you, you know, if you ask most publishers, like, what happened to your traffic when AI overview started like, learning from your stuff? And then just telling people the answer before they ever get to your site? Well, of course, your traffic basically disappears, your ad revenue basically disappears, and you have to completely rethink how you exist. Uh, if this YouTube feature does the same thing, or a similar thing, what does that look like for traffic? Like, do people use the feature to talk to it and never watch a YouTube video? Or do they use the feature to jump into the middle of a YouTube video and so they still get the traffic? And then the one second of playtime still equals a view? Not really sure how this works.

• 32:20Andrew Manganelli?

  Equals a view, not a, not a view that pays us.

• 32:22David Imel?

  Not an engaged view. Not an engaged view.

• 32:24Andrew Manganelli?

  Uh, it's weird on YouTube, cause we always say, the number one thing the algorithm wants is get your, stay on YouTube as long as possible. Like, do not leave, come here, stay here, watch around.

• 32:36David Imel?

  Have a good time.

• 32:37Andrew Manganelli?

  So, how does that fit in the ethos of, I don't want to watch this video, I just want to know the answer? Now I'm not watching videos. Is that, is that, do they assume that person's not someone who's gonna stay on anyways? They're just looking for the answer?

• 32:48David Imel?

  Yeah, so YouTube has slowly evolved over the years how they, uh, measure success of like, a viewer session, I guess. And I think viewer satisfaction has always come up, and like, how long you spend on the site was a more rudimentary way of measuring that. But maybe there is a higher satisfaction rate of getting the answer from a video quickly instead of trying to find it and failing and leaving? And so they think that that's a better experience? Which YouTube, if you're listening to this, and you want to deliver a better experience, perhaps some sort of glanceable information to quickly understand the quality of a video

• 33:32David Imel?

  would be useful, so people don't waste time on bad videos. Maybe if there's some sort of like, I don't know, like a ratio of people who liked it versus didn't like it? Then you could see that and go, oh, a lot of people didn't like this one, I'll move on. Just an idea. I, I don't know if you're like, thinking about that stuff, but yeah, just a, just a thought. But yeah, that is, that is just a, a long tangent, which is to say, RIP Android Central.

• 33:58Andrew Manganelli?

  RIP.

• 33:59David Imel?

  Uh, you'll be missed. I've read a lot of Android Central articles over the years, especially in my rooting and modding and boot loading days.

• 34:07Andrew Manganelli?

  And I don't want to take away from the people who are the freelance contributors over there, I'm sure they're still writing some good stuff. I just hope that if you are one of those people, that Future's treating you well, which I doubt they are, and like.

• 34:19Speaker 05

  Do you think he made enough money off of Mask Off to pay six people?

• 34:22David Imel?

  Future. That's a Future joke. Well, you know what else?

• 34:28Andrew Manganelli?

  We'll find out in the future?

• 34:29David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 34:30Andrew Manganelli?

  The answers to this trivia.

• 34:33David Imel?

  That's good. That was smooth.

• 34:34Andrew Manganelli?

  You were somehow faster on the ding for the iPhone mini than you were for the trivia thing that we just set up for 25 seconds?

• 34:41David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 34:41Speaker 05

  Diamonds from Africa. It's another Future slogan. Apple's partnering with LG, but it is not the first time. They've worked together, and I'm not talking about the ultrafine 4K that was like, in Apple's stores.

• 34:54David Imel?

  That's the one I remember.

• 34:55Speaker 05

  That one was.

• 34:55Andrew Manganelli?

  Is that the one that blocked wifi?

• 34:57Speaker 05

  That was the one that kept flickering when you were using it in your.

• 35:00David Imel?

  Yeah, people forget, people remember that, but they forget that it was actually a pretty solid deal.

• 35:05Speaker 05

  Yeah. Unfortunately, this question is slightly muddled by the fact that for some reason LG and LG displays are like, separate companies, but not separate companies, but like, not the same company? Whatever. LG displays, which is not LG, so I guess they haven't collabed, but just roll with it, you know, suspend some disbelief for the sake of this trivia question, has made the displays in a lot of Apple products. I was able to confirm two Apple products that they were either the exclusive or main supplier of panels for. What two Apple products?

• 35:35Andrew Manganelli?

  Do you want like, specific series number?

• 35:37Speaker 05

  Nope.

• 35:38Andrew Manganelli?

  Just like, in general?

• 35:39David Imel?

  Just product.

• 35:40Speaker 05

  Just, just product. Um, one of them, I will give you a little hint, one of them is a product line that has had generations. One of them, there is only one.

• 35:49Andrew Manganelli?

  Air power.

• 35:51David Imel?

  There's only one. That doesn't actually narrow it down, cause you know, there's a couple of things that still only have one generation? Thinking about like, HomePod has a display. HomePod Mini has a display. Just a little glowing, that's probably not the answer, but that's something. Something to think about. Well, we'll get the answers, like we've said, in the future, at the end. So, we'll be right back.

• 36:27David Imel?

  Support for the show comes from Framer. If you want to create a website that looks great, feels handcrafted, and comes together fast and seamlessly, then look no further than Framer. It's a complete website platform, not just a builder, so teams can launch and keep improving their sites in one place. It helps creators, teams, and businesses ship production-ready websites faster than ever while getting every detail right. You're able to prompt, inspect, edit, and publish in one place at a whole new pace. On Framer, agents and humans work in tandem. Agents bring speed and scale, while people bring taste, judgment, and control. And that all takes place in the same workspace where the real site is designed and managed and reviewed and published. Those ideas land on the canvas, stay editable, and can be published when the team is ready. Framer is an enterprise-level solution.

• 37:12David Imel?

  Thousands of businesses from early-stage startups to Fortune 500s are choosing to build their websites in Framer, where changes take minutes instead of days. Learn how you can get more out of your site from a Framer specialist, or get started building for free today at framer.com/wave for 30% off a Framer Pro annual plan. That's framer.com/wave. Rules and restrictions may apply.

• 37:33Speaker 06

  At T-Mobile, the new iPhone 18 Pro is here with a big leap in battery life, and you can get it for nothing upfront. With so many reasons to choose T-Mobile, you'll want to talk about it.

• 37:42Speaker 07

  I heard at T-Mobile, you can get iPhone 18 Pro for nothing upfront and get $1,000 off. Pass it on. Pay nothing today. No taxes, no fees, nothing down. Pass it on.

• 37:56Speaker 03

  Hey Mickey, pass it on. iPhone 18 Pro has the most advanced iPhone camera ever. Pass it on.

• 38:03Speaker 07

  A T-Mobile? You can get iPhone 18 Pro for nothing upfront. Pass it on.

• 38:08Speaker 06

  At T-Mobile, get $1,000 off the amazing iPhone 18 Pro with no trade-in needed. The 36 monthly bill credits when you switch to T-Mobile on a qualifying plan. If you cancel an entire account before receiving all bill credits, credits stop and balance on required finance agreement is due. Example, $1199.99 iPhone 18 Pro 256GB. Bill credits and if you pay off the device early. Qualifying credit, new line, cord in and service. $85 more per month with autopay plus taxes and fees required. $35 device connection charge due at sale. Visit T-Mobile.com.

• 38:32Speaker 07

  Support for the show comes from Google Gemini. You know that moment when curiosity strikes? You're exploring a new city with the family and a sculpture catches your daughter's eye. What is that? Who made it? With Gemini, you can snap a picture and get a fully interactive breakdown of its history, architecture, and even hidden secrets. Gemini is built for moments like that. Whether you're learning something new, solving a problem, or looking for your next favorite thing, Google Gemini is here to help. Download Gemini, Google's AI app, or visit Gemini.google.com to learn more.

• 39:11David Imel?

  All right, welcome back. Now, it's Techtober, so we're starting to get towards that end of the year where all of the phones are out, which means it's starting to get to that time where we start thinking about who's going to win awards for the smartphone awards. Every year, we give out awards for the best and worst smartphones that came out during the calendar year. We have a bunch of categories, and I think we can just sort of step through these and start thinking about storylines and thoughts. And this is also a great fun time to sort of poll like what our audience thinks, because people have hard reactions on what they think should definitely win certain awards. And we will hear from those people as well, but.

• 39:52Andrew Manganelli?

  Can I do a fun fact of the process of this? I'm bringing it up now, well, one, because not a lot happened this week. So it's a bummer that David's not here to talk about this, but we actually have a date for end of October for when we're going to have a meeting to kind of like discuss this. And I thought it was funny because obviously when the video comes out in early December, all the time we take to discuss it, we have to order trophies because that's the thing we started doing a few years ago. There's this gap of when a phone might come out. So I'm sure people are going to be like, what happens if X phone comes out in that process? And I believe it may have been last year, the year before is the first time we've done it, but we've done where we know a phone is coming out that we don't have

• 40:35Andrew Manganelli?

  that we think could like legitimately fight for an award, and we've ordered the trophy for that phone, just in case.

• 40:44David Imel?

  I think what it was last year was the best camera, right? And we had like two or three that we were juggling between. And we also were waiting to get like the Vivo X300 Pro or Ultra.

• 40:54Andrew Manganelli?

  I'm pretty sure Samsung tri-fold was something we were debating for best foldable as well.

• 40:59David Imel?

  Right, because it was super, super late in the year.

• 41:01Andrew Manganelli?

  Because it's obviously a triple folding phone.

• 41:03David Imel?

  Yeah, so just the like, maybe this is good enough, so let's just leave room for it to maybe win as well.

• 41:09Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah.

• 41:09David Imel?

  And then obviously decide at the very end, okay, this one wins, this one wins. Yeah, so yeah, we, there's some phones that haven't come out yet. Obviously, the iPhone Duo, we know what it is, but it's not out yet. I think the Vivo like X500 series is around the corner. If things hold, like that's usually what happens is it's around this time of year.

• 41:31David Imel?

  But yeah, this is what we're working with, what we have and what's out. And we definitely already have some thoughts. We can kind of go in order.

• 41:37Andrew Manganelli?

  You want to go in order?

• 41:38David Imel?

  Okay, I'll go in order. So we start with best big phone. And this is funny because when we first started the smartphone awards, there was distinctly huge phones, like Fablet, like Galaxy Note, Galaxy, what do they call it? Galaxy Mega? Remember that?

• 41:52Andrew Manganelli?

  No.

• 41:53David Imel?

  Do you remember that?

• 41:54Andrew Manganelli?

  No.

• 41:55David Imel?

  They used to have like a regular sized phone.

• 41:57Andrew Manganelli?

  Is it British?

• 41:58David Imel?

  No, it's just Galaxy Mega. And it was a Fablet freakishly big phone, which to us today is a regular sized phone.

• 42:04Andrew Manganelli?

  Guess how big that is?

• 42:05David Imel?

  It was like a 5.3 inch phone, probably.

• 42:06Andrew Manganelli?

  Oh, it was bigger than that, but it's still 6.3.

• 42:10David Imel?

  Okay, so like, but back then phones were all 4.75.

• 42:13Andrew Manganelli?

  Are any phones under 6.3 now?

• 42:15David Imel?

  That would be a small phone today, which is crazy. Galaxy Mega would be a small phone today. But yeah, we used to have like distinctly huge phones and small phones. So I would give an award for best big phone.

• 42:28Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah.

• 42:28David Imel?

  Nowadays, all these slab phones are kind of the same size. Like we have the ultras that are really big, and then we have all the other phones that are just big.

• 42:38Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah.

• 42:38David Imel?

  So it's hard to pick one that's like clear cut best big phone. I don't know if I have any thoughts yet. I tend to not do the ones that are like super, super safe with design. Someone who did something interesting last year with Xiaomi 17 Pro, which had the screen on the back, like they really use the space well, huge battery, great specs, great cameras. They did that again with the 18 Pro this year, so that's interesting.

• 43:05Andrew Manganelli?

  I did find a comment last year on a Reddit thread

• 43:10Andrew Manganelli?

  that I found interesting because we last year, I think it was the first time, had a small phone be a flip phone. And they said, if a small phone that can flip to a normal sized phone is allowed to be a best small phone, why isn't a folding phone allowed to be best big phone? And I think it's along the lines of, it's not that it's not allowed, it's that the criteria between these two are generally the big phone should have the absolute packed amount of features because it is using, is utilizing all the space best. Where smart, small phone is like, we know there have to be sacrifices made for it to be small, but what can they pack into the smallness of it to make the size of it beneficial? So like, a folding phone is like, you get a normal sized phone,

• 43:55Andrew Manganelli?

  but it gets to be little for like putting it in a purse or like women's pockets sucks. So like, maybe they can actually fit it, but you still get a lot of stuff. Where it feels like a lot of folding phones actually do have sacrifices compared to the slab phones that those companies make.

• 44:09David Imel?

  Totally, but I also think that's valid. If you want, you want a huge screen, you would say, I want the, I want the folding phone. That's the best big phone for me.

• 44:17Andrew Manganelli?

  I think the bummer is we still see like lack of flagship, not flagship cameras, but like in the lineup, they're never the best of the best.

• 44:26David Imel?

  Yeah, the best, they are the biggest and most expensive phones, but not necessarily the most capable because they don't have the biggest, you know, internal space for the heat shield. They don't have the biggest internal space for the cameras, so they don't have the most flagship specs. Which is probably why you lean again towards, yeah, the big slab phone with the big slab specs.

• 44:45Andrew Manganelli?

  It used to, like ROG Phone used to run away with this because they were just like, throw all the cool features that other phones don't have in here.

• 44:53David Imel?

  And a vapor chamber and like all of these crazy, like flashy external pieces of hardware, like external attachable fans and stuff. Yeah, they went super hard. Now there's a lot of those things.

• 45:04Andrew Manganelli?

  Honestly, big phone and small phone, writing this is the ones I had the absolute hardest time. I'm thinking these categories are almost, I think they're still beneficial, but they're becoming the least competitive.

• 45:18David Imel?

  You know what it is? You know what it feels like? It's like when there's an MVP award, but there's also an offensive player of the year award. And you're like, isn't the best offensive player probably going to win MVP? Yeah, usually, but if there's like an extremely interesting example of like super heavily weighted offense and no defense, you're like, all right, that's the offensive player of the year, but the MVP is a little more well-rounded. That's kind of what best big phone is to me. So I don't really have a front runner for that yet, but that's how I'm thinking about that one. So yeah, best small phone.

• 45:49Andrew Manganelli?

  Name a small phone. They don't exist anymore.

• 45:53David Imel?

  Yeah, it probably has to be a folding phone, one of those flips. In which case you have a couple.

• 45:59Andrew Manganelli?

  I guess we did get smaller folding phones.

• 46:01David Imel?

  Yeah, and you have like Z Fold, we have like Razors, we have a couple of those Huawei, like there's a bunch that are all kind of the same size and shape that we can, that we can look at those. But yeah, we don't have like small slabs anymore. I remember when the Zen phone was just like such an easy pick. It was so good.

• 46:18Andrew Manganelli?

  It was such a good phone in general.

• 46:20Speaker 05

  We might, 2026, 2027 Smartphone Awards, we may have some small phones, depending on the successful release, because Clicks Communicator would be a small phone.

• 46:31David Imel?

  Oh, is that coming out?

• 46:32Speaker 05

  They're running out of time.

• 46:34David Imel?

  Yeah, that's another one that we might want to see if that comes out this year.

• 46:37Speaker 05

  I don't know, actually, I should, also, I don't know when minimal phone ships, but I would call that a small phone too.

• 46:43David Imel?

  Yeah, they are technically small. That's interesting, yeah. Some of those are going to be like thoughtful, small phone executions. So we'll have to think about those.

• 46:52Andrew Manganelli?

  It is hard because in the sense of like, we want the small phone to be the most capable thing in a small form factor, when those you could argue are like trying to be less capable. And therefore, is the size to capable capability ratio not really that good?

• 47:09David Imel?

  I think they're worse.

• 47:10Andrew Manganelli?

  And arguably, big, like big for what it can do.

• 47:14David Imel?

  Yeah, you know, it is technically the best compact award, not the most capable compact award. So I'm like, if we just really like it, then we can give it the award.

• 47:22Andrew Manganelli?

  Vague awards means we can change our mind every year.

• 47:24David Imel?

  Exactly, it's our awards. I think I opened the last three years being like, it's my awards, guys. I can, I can decide whatever I want to win and I will be able to justify it.

• 47:33Speaker 05

  Okay, wait, if that's the case, can I, can I lobby for a nomination?

• 47:37David Imel?

  Of course.

• 47:37Speaker 05

  There's a few comparable products and projects. The one I'm looking at is called Tiny Pod. Are you familiar with this?

• 47:44David Imel?

  No.

• 47:44Speaker 05

  It's that Apple Watch and Apple Watch Ultra case that hooks up the crown to a scroll wheel. So if you have a cellular enabled one, you can use it as a standalone handheld device. Technically, you can make a phone call on that.

• 48:01David Imel?

  This is, it is, you're right. It is small and it's technically cellular enabled.

• 48:06Speaker 05

  And you can connect AirPods directly to it, so it kind of.

• 48:11Andrew Manganelli?

  That's like what you, when we give kids their first phone, that's what they should have, like.

• 48:17David Imel?

  Wow, I will add this to the consideration. I doubt it will win.

• 48:20Andrew Manganelli?

  That'd be a wild card to just pull that out.

• 48:23David Imel?

  The winner, the Apple Watch.

• 48:25Speaker 05

  There's like, like I said, there's a few different companies that are making pretty similar products. This is just the first one I can remember the name of.

• 48:32David Imel?

  Here's a controversial one. Should thinness be small?

• 48:38Andrew Manganelli?

  I mean, like, in the, in the area of where we're at.

• 48:42David Imel?

  If all phones, if all phones are small, if all phones are big, no phones are big, right? So every phone is the same size. So what else makes it small? If it's thin and light.

• 48:49Andrew Manganelli?

  Here's the issue.

• 48:50Speaker 04

  Like a cop out. I feel like there actually are genuinely small phones. They're just the weird little freaky phones.

• 48:56David Imel?

  Yeah, but then the question is, are the weird little freaky small phones the best small phones?

• 49:03Speaker 04

  But it's still subjective. So it's just.

• 49:05David Imel?

  Yeah, it's true.

• 49:06Speaker 05

  Is, is the iPhone era, it's a compact phone, so I guess it technically.

• 49:11Andrew Manganelli?

  Well, the iPhone era and the S25 Edge came out last year, so it doesn't even matter.

• 49:15David Imel?

  That's true.

• 49:16Speaker 05

  Ah.

• 49:16David Imel?

  And there is no S26 Edge.

• 49:18Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah.

• 49:18David Imel?

  Yeah. So they're both not going to qualify. So why am I even saying any of this?

• 49:22Andrew Manganelli?

  Well, I honestly, I thought you were going to come at me with someone that I just missed.

• 49:26David Imel?

  No, no, that's, that's, I mean, there are thin phones, but they're all folding phones now. So, yeah. Interesting. Yeah, I'd like to hear.

• 49:33Andrew Manganelli?

  That's gonna be a fun one. Yeah.

• 49:35David Imel?

  All right. So next one is best camera.

• 49:38Andrew Manganelli?

  Okay.

• 49:38David Imel?

  And so there's lots of good cameras at this point. And I almost talked about this. I'm trying to think of which one. I think it might've been the Pixel 11 Pro review. Where I almost, I think I cut it from the video, but I almost went on this like diatribe of like, I don't know, they're all kind of the same thing, but like playing a different character. And it's just how much do you like the character that they play? Do you like the contrasty confident one? Do you like the super, super flat one that always has light on your face? Do you like the really, really sharp one? Cause they all just do their own thing. And whichever one is best, I don't know. Do you just want the sharpest one? Do you want the one that looks the least processed? What is the best camera anymore? There are, there are ones that have clearly the best specs.

• 50:22Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah.

• 50:23David Imel?

  Like the biggest sensors and the most advanced hardware and the most customization.

• 50:28Andrew Manganelli?

  Most sharpening.

• 50:28David Imel?

  That is, that is a character that you can get. But is that the best?

• 50:33Speaker 04

  You know, David is fuming somewhere listening to this.

• 50:36Andrew Manganelli?

  To bring up what David would probably say, and this is potentially, I have a couple of different things written down on some things I think should be considered, some things that I wonder if we should consider, probably not, but I do have Pixel 11 because of camera looks, like camera looks is actually a really cool feature they added. And arguably the shining spot of the Pixel 11 series, which didn't shine very bright overall. But camera looks is a really cool new thing that kind of defaults and does the thing we've been asking for a long time, which is like, stop processing the absolute hell out of my photos. And you get to default them in the camera app, correct? And change things up like, I actually think that's awesome. And Pixel's always been a camera that can hang, but having that feature, I think is nice.

• 51:20David Imel?

  Yeah. And that's kind of the story of a lot of the most high-end smartphone cameras is they are very high on processing too.

• 51:27Andrew Manganelli?

  Yes.

• 51:28David Imel?

  And it's an interesting story if the one that is the best is the one that turns down a lot of that over processing.

• 51:34Andrew Manganelli?

  And gives you some options as well. So like you said, you were just saying, do you want the most contrast? Do you want this and that? The Pixel 11 gives you some options and lets you lock in on your option.

• 51:44David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 51:44Andrew Manganelli?

  And I think that's a, I think that's a good thing.

• 51:47David Imel?

  I still like the look of the Pixel cameras. I think for a couple of years now, many years, actually, they've been on the contrastier side. A lot of the smartphones kind of just opt to like, put light on your face no matter what. But it's on the contrastier side. Skin tones are sort of realistic in a lot of situations. So uh, I value that in a smartphone camera. But I also just took a lot, a lot of pictures with like the, the Xiaomi 18 Pro Max and really, really good set of cameras. They kind of just stopped caring about the ultra wide, I think.

• 52:17Andrew Manganelli?

  I feel like everyone stopped caring about the ultra wide. Unfortunately, feels like it's turning into like the, the, what? 10 megapixel macro or whatever, the one megapixel macro.

• 52:27David Imel?

  I, I wouldn't quite go that far.

• 52:29Andrew Manganelli?

  Not quite.

• 52:29David Imel?

  I think those macros were just like useless, like zero value add. I think the ultra wides at least give you like the option to like zoom out or take like a wide. I've also, I've taken, this is something I noticed in the last year specifically. I've had a lot of people like take selfies with me. And a lot of times it's like the selfie camera and like just holding it out or whatever. And there's this, maybe not Gen Z, but there's this young person thing where they will use the regular camera, they'll flip it around to the ultra wide and they'll take it from a pie. And that's the specific thing you need an ultra wide camera to do that. But I see that a lot more and I'm curious if, if neglecting the ultra wide is a mistake for people who like that stuff.

• 53:10Andrew Manganelli?

  It feels like every camera is always, uh, every time we review a camera, there's always just, oh, this is good, this is good. Ultra wide, not as good. Or we'll be like, the ultra wide finally matches the megapixels of everything else. So maybe they care about it.

• 53:28David Imel?

  Yeah, but that's the, yeah.

• 53:30Andrew Manganelli?

  And that doesn't necessarily mean it, but yeah.

• 53:33David Imel?

  Yeah. Yeah. Because people see the 200 megapixel number now and they go, ah, selfie or like flagship, like 200 megapixels equals flagship. But then you look at the size of the sensor and you're like, oh, it's just kidding. It's they, they packed the sensor with pixels, but that doesn't mean it's actually great. Sometimes it means it's worse because the pixels are individually smaller and it's noisier. Blah, blah, blah. We're getting into the weeds.

• 53:52Andrew Manganelli?

  You mentioned Xiaomi before. This felt like the year of, um, really harping on the legacy camera collaborations. Cause we got.

• 54:00David Imel?

  Oh, yeah.

• 54:01Andrew Manganelli?

  The, the like a phone, which is, this is the Xiaomi 17.

• 54:05Speaker 05

  That is a phone.

• 54:07David Imel?

  Got it. But yeah.

• 54:09Andrew Manganelli?

  This is a Xiaomi 17 Pro Ultra. I forget the name of it, but like addition. Technically this release in China, December 25th.

• 54:17David Imel?

  2025.

• 54:18Andrew Manganelli?

  But globally was February 28th. I think this should count. The, um, this is just one of those things where like, it has the, the zoom ring on the outside. It has this incredible knurling, I think it's called, right?

• 54:32David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 54:32Andrew Manganelli?

  Knurling?

• 54:33David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 54:33Andrew Manganelli?

  Nurring?

• 54:34David Imel?

  Knurling.

• 54:35Andrew Manganelli?

  Knurling.

• 54:35David Imel?

  It feels like a.

• 54:39Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah, the side of the phone. Yeah.

• 54:40David Imel?

  It's, it's a nice phone to hold and take photos with.

• 54:43Andrew Manganelli?

  Speaking of another one, the Oppo X9 Ultra Hasselblad Edition, like, and then I think Vivo's also been doing Zeiss stuff and like there, we think the X500 is coming out soon. We've been doing all these things where this Hasselblad one and Vivo in the past have had all these extra lenses. Do we add extra lenses?

• 55:03David Imel?

  That X9 Ultra I thought was incredible. That's what that won last year, right?

• 55:08Andrew Manganelli?

  I know this came out this year.

• 55:10David Imel?

  Okay, X9 Pro.

• 55:10Andrew Manganelli?

  Right?

• 55:11David Imel?

  X9 Pro won last year. X9 Ultra. I used that phone for a while, for a couple. Yeah, no, it came out this year, I think. Okay.

• 55:17Andrew Manganelli?

  Now you're making, I'm almost, I looked at so many camera collabs things and sometimes the Chinese phones are hard to tell.

• 55:23David Imel?

  It is hard to remember sometimes. I, I use it for a bit this year because I remember I had it in that, um, when we shot the Luce, I had that as my phone. Okay. Fun fact, for those of you who don't remember.

• 55:33Andrew Manganelli?

  This came out this year.

• 55:34David Imel?

  Yeah, we went to Italy to shoot the Ferrari Luce, at least I did. I, uh, forgot my charger. No, I didn't. I forgot my adapter for Italian outlets. So I had to make my phones and everything that I was using last for two days without charging it. Luckily I had an iPhone Air and this phone. So the iPhone Air died really fast and this phone lasted forever for like two straight days. And I took a lot of photos and videos on it and it was excellent. And yeah, I remember that being really, really good. That's definitely a candidate for, for camera.

• 56:08Andrew Manganelli?

  Do you remember if this orange, like Hasselblad colored camera button has like haptics? Because it's not turned on right now and it feels awful.

• 56:15David Imel?

  I think it's just a shortcut. I think some of them have also copied the like swiping back and forth. The like change, yeah, camera control stuff. I don't think that's one of them.

• 56:25Andrew Manganelli?

  This one does not have a rotating bezel around the camera, but this is a good looking phone.

• 56:30David Imel?

  Yeah. Really, really capable camera system. That's definitely a candidate right there.

• 56:34Andrew Manganelli?

  Um, and then the last thing, which I don't think we should count, but we have to bring up is we just kind of got the first looks at this Huawei Mate 90 Pro Max that has a $900, they're calling it the Z10 camera attachment.

• 56:48David Imel?

  Okay, this should be, this should not count.

• 56:49Andrew Manganelli?

  No.

• 56:50David Imel?

  Okay. I'm glad we're on the same page. Yeah. So they made a, this has actually happened before.

• 56:55Andrew Manganelli?

  Uh, yeah. I think it's happened a couple of times, actually.

• 56:58David Imel?

  They made a lens that you attach to the phone, but it has its own sensor in it. So it's like a 24 to 200 millimeter lens or something.

• 57:07Andrew Manganelli?

  It's a one inch sensor and I know it has 10x optical zoom.

• 57:10David Imel?

  Yeah. So what happens is you screw it onto the back of the phone and it uses your phone as a viewfinder, but it's not using the cameras on your phone. It has its own camera built in. So you're connecting to it and then you take pictures with this, it's a whole camera. It just doesn't look like one because it's sort of closed off.

• 57:26Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah. I want to, I think it actually is like a. Is it magnetically hooks onto the back and then you screw the lens on? It's like

• 57:33David Imel?

  Something like that.

• 57:34Andrew Manganelli?

  I'm sure, yeah.

• 57:35David Imel?

  But yeah, I, it is not part of the Huawei phone. It actually only works with like some special edition version of this.

• 57:44Andrew Manganelli?

  I think it's like the collector's edition or something, yeah.

• 57:46David Imel?

  But that is a really funny concept because we've seen this before. I'm trying to remember, was it Sony that did this?

• 57:50Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 57:51David Imel?

  It was Sony like QX10 or something like that?

• 57:53Speaker 05

  I don't remember. Let me, let me get it, but it was Sony.

• 57:56David Imel?

  So last time I saw this, it latched onto the phone. And it again, had its own sensors in it and you could connect it, you'd pair it with your phone, your phone became the viewfinder. And that was supposed to be a better sensor you could take pictures with.

• 58:07Andrew Manganelli?

  I do think Xiaomi did this a couple of years ago. Yeah, Xiaomi did this last year, actually. Um, at CES, I think.

• 58:15David Imel?

  It was, it was bad last time.

• 58:18Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah, it looks much different. This one looks way nicer in the sense of how it physically looks, but who really cares about that unless it takes a nice picture, but.

• 58:25Speaker 05

  Marquez, that was a crazy poll. It was the Sony QX10.

• 58:28David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 58:29Andrew Manganelli?

  12 years ago.

• 58:29David Imel?

  Cause I reviewed this and I was like hoping it would be great and it was a real pain. It did not connect very smoothly to the phone. It didn't take much better pictures in the phone. It was, it was a cool idea, but it did not work very well.

• 58:42Speaker 04

  But you looked cool using it.

• 58:46David Imel?

  Yeah, you felt cool sometimes because you thought you're going to take a sweet photo with that big zoom lens, but yeah. Anyway, that will not qualify.

• 58:54Andrew Manganelli?

  I think cameras got the most fun distinctions this year.

• 58:58David Imel?

  Really good stuff in there.

• 58:59Andrew Manganelli?

  Competition.

• 59:00David Imel?

  Then there's a value award. So we changed it because it used to be best budget phone. Now it's value award because what is budget anyway? You know, 200, 300, 400, whatever. Best value award. We have lots of players in this space every year and it, it almost ends up just being like most interesting, good value phone.

• 59:18Andrew Manganelli?

  I mean, this is a year where it's the hardest to pick it because everything, things have literally gotten more expensive since they launched. We just talked about it. So, you know, this is usually something where we talk about MSRP, but MSRP at launch isn't even how much they cost anymore. So it's such a hard thing in Ramageddon to, to think about of a good value right now. Cause it's not a lot of things are a great value.

• 59:44David Imel?

  Yeah. I kind of think that the, we have all the usual players in this space. Like we always get Moto G's at $225 or whatever. We always get, now we always get CMF phones. We always get nothing phones. We always get like Galaxy A series phones. And a lot of them are pretty predictable and I don't want to fall into the trap of just being like, well, this one has the best specs. So it just wins. Cause I think the experience of using a budget phone sometimes is more than just the specs.

• 1:00:12Andrew Manganelli?

  Well, CMF is not releasing a phone in 2026.

• 1:00:15David Imel?

  That's fine. I mean, there's going to be, you get like, uh, like the A series is very predictable. They're just paring down what you know from a Galaxy S26 and it's just going to be the A50, whatever they do. Like that's a, that's a very predictable safe budget phone. But that's almost like the most boring possible option. And I'm curious, I'm going to sort of, what I usually end up doing is digging back through the whole year of phones under a certain number and seeing like which ones actually were good, which ones were interesting, did something unique at that price? That's more likely to win an award for best budget phone or best value phone.

• 1:00:49Andrew Manganelli?

  I think it's the one we're going to have to do the most research on because we didn't cover a lot of, you know, more budget things this year. And we'll probably have to go find what people are enjoying.

• 1:00:58David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:58Andrew Manganelli?

  Under X amount of dollars.

• 1:01:00David Imel?

  S26 Ultra, best budget phone, best value.

• 1:01:02Speaker 04

  What price, if you had to guess off the top of your head?

• 1:01:05Andrew Manganelli?

  Don't, Mariah, don't open this can of worms.

• 1:01:08David Imel?

  What, what price should win?

• 1:01:09Speaker 04

  Oh no, I was going to say like, if you were considering a budget phone, like what price would you start up or like, you know, go under?

• 1:01:16David Imel?

  So the law of diminishing returns, I think the, I think the, your phone isn't going to get much better bar is at like $800. I think once you get to $800, you can't really, your, your phone's not going to get much better than the phones you get for $800. But if you're looking for value and you're looking to get significantly less than $800, I think, I think $500 and under. There's some good value down there.

• 1:01:42Andrew Manganelli?

  I think 500 is the number for a long time that I've thought of with price increases. Like those phones we were used to being at $500 are probably closer to six right now.

• 1:01:53David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:53Andrew Manganelli?

  The problem with the can of worms I'm talking about is no matter what we say, people are going to say, that's not budget. Budget is under 350, budget is under 200. So yeah, that's why we kind of changed value and like defining a number.

• 1:02:08Andrew Manganelli?

  Bites us in.

• 1:02:09Speaker 05

  So a tiny pod might win two awards this year?

• 1:02:12David Imel?

  $79. It is a, it is a case technically. That makes it hard to win.

• 1:02:18Andrew Manganelli?

  I don't know. I, I'm.

• 1:02:19David Imel?

  But yeah.

• 1:02:20Andrew Manganelli?

  It is interesting, like, and again, we're in the United States where a, an MSRP of a phone doesn't matter as much. Because especially the people looking for, just give me whatever works are definitely going to a carrier and not, and paying monthly. Like no one in the U S is really buying phones straight up unless you're probably listening to this podcast.

• 1:02:41David Imel?

  Yeah, the people listening are like, what do you mean I do?

• 1:02:43Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:43David Imel?

  But yeah, yeah. Well then, um, okay.

• 1:02:48David Imel?

  Best, uh, best battery category. Wow. There's so many good ones for this year.

• 1:02:52Andrew Manganelli?

  I have a question.

• 1:02:53David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:54Andrew Manganelli?

  We still should consider one plus 16 in everything as.

• 1:02:59David Imel?

  It'll just make you even more sad when it wins a bunch of awards for all the things it's getting. Yeah.

• 1:03:03Andrew Manganelli?

  But.

• 1:03:03David Imel?

  So best battery is obviously you want it to have phenomenal battery life. But then also include some of the other things that make a good battery experience. It lasts all day. It doesn't kill background apps in doing so. It charges fast ideally. Maybe it has wireless charging. It's just super convenient to charge all the time. Maybe it has magnets in the back, so it's super easy to charge, stuff like that. I, I, I want to include all of that in my best battery award. But yeah, the one plus 16 has a, is it 9,000 milliampere battery now?

• 1:03:31Andrew Manganelli?

  I think 9,000.

• 1:03:32David Imel?

  Or 8,800 or something. Like we've got a lot of phones with ridiculously big batteries now. That X9 Ultra, like I said, lasted me two straight days plus traveling. Like it was a, it was a dog. It lasted a long time and I think that's a 70, some 7,500 or something.

• 1:03:50Andrew Manganelli?

  That dog in the award?

• 1:03:52David Imel?

  It's got that dog in it. And then this one plus 15, which I've been using since last year is still like a phenomenal battery. And we've gotten phones that are like running laps around it. It's crazy. I gotta pick which one is legitimately just like a two day long heavy.

• 1:04:07Andrew Manganelli?

  Do you know what probably would get two days?

• 1:04:09David Imel?

  What?

• 1:04:09Andrew Manganelli?

  A tiny phone, tiny pod.

• 1:04:13David Imel?

  No, the Apple Watch battery is noticeably less.

• 1:04:16Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah, but it's not doing heart rate sensing.

• 1:04:17David Imel?

  Oh, if you're, if it's in your pocket, that's like, does it? If it's sitting in your pocket, what is it doing?

• 1:04:23Speaker 05

  All right. The other one is called the mini phone ultra. That's the one that's specifically.

• 1:04:28David Imel?

  Great name.

• 1:04:28Speaker 05

  That's the one that's specifically for the, um, Apple Watch Ultra. And I think, yeah.

• 1:04:33Andrew Manganelli?

  Oh, damn, that's kind of sick. Not going to lie.

• 1:04:36David Imel?

  So you put your Apple Watch in a case. It's got a flat screen.

• 1:04:39Andrew Manganelli?

  This is so atom core. I can't even.

• 1:04:42David Imel?

  Wow.

• 1:04:43Andrew Manganelli?

  He's.

• 1:04:43Speaker 05

  Although this could not go for best, best deal because it does, it is $800 because of.

• 1:04:49David Imel?

  The case is $800?

• 1:04:50Speaker 05

  No, no, no, no. The, the Apple Watch Ultra inside.

• 1:04:53David Imel?

  Oh, the case is $38, but you need an Apple Watch Ultra. Yeah, that's fair enough. That's funny. Yeah. There will be some interesting ones for best battery. Okay. Next up, best design.

• 1:05:04David Imel?

  Best design, best design.

• 1:05:07Andrew Manganelli?

  I have one in terms of just like honestly coolest looking, solid materials.

• 1:05:14Andrew Manganelli?

  The nothing phone for a pro.

• 1:05:16Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:05:17Andrew Manganelli?

  The funny thing is in neither of the colors I'm holding up because the silver color is the best. Um, this is pink and this is black.

• 1:05:24David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:24Andrew Manganelli?

  But the silver color is the best looking. I think the, keeping the transparency to just the camera plateau and then making the rest of it metal for a fairly decent price. I think this is designed great. My biggest gripe, that one button is rounded and the rest of them are flat. But I think that actually does serve a purpose of, well, they say it's the easier to find the AI button, except it's the only button on that side. So I don't think I need it to be round. I just know it's on the left.

• 1:05:51David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:51Andrew Manganelli?

  I think these are really nice designed phones.

• 1:05:54David Imel?

  I agree. Now here's, here's the complication with this.

• 1:05:58Andrew Manganelli?

  Yes.

• 1:05:58David Imel?

  This has always been the most subjective and most complicated award for me. This one's changed names more than once. It used to be the like best built phone.

• 1:06:09Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:09David Imel?

  Durability award, and then like build quality, and now it's design. And design includes so many things. It includes functionality. It includes durability, potentially repairability and aesthetics. The metal on the bottom of that phone means no wireless charging. If it has a design compromise, can it win? Yes, but makes it harder to justify. So I love the way that phone looks aesthetically. It wins, but that's one of the compromises it has. There's other things that are just like, we have these crazy thin, like folding phones now that could win a design award because they've done great there. We have, well, there's no new thin, thin, thin phones, like the iPhone Air that won this last year. There's no new S26 Edge or iPhone Air 2.

• 1:06:55David Imel?

  But yeah, design award is, that is, I'm all over the place with this one.

• 1:06:59Andrew Manganelli?

  Design's always tough. There's a feature I can think of, which is, I think one day, especially with big and small phone category getting a little more boring and hard, like, I think in the future, a potential new category could just be the best feature that launches in a year of like, what actually is like a really cool thing people added? And I do think the S26 Privacy Display is really cool. The reason I don't think it can win best design is because it actively makes something else worse on the phone, which is hurting the resolution and quality a little bit. But I especially like the S26 one over the Xiaomi 18 Pro Max one.

• 1:07:37Andrew Manganelli?

  I just didn't think that worked quite as well when I saw it, but the, I was like genuinely impressed with how well that S26, it's only in the Ultra, right?

• 1:07:45David Imel?

  Only Ultra.

• 1:07:46Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah, that Privacy Display was really cool.

• 1:07:48Speaker 04

  When I was editing that video, I was like, I want this on my phone now. Like, it's been a long time since I've seen like a feature and I'm like, wow, that's like, that's really great.

• 1:07:56Andrew Manganelli?

  I think they could have so easily done just, uh, hardware wise, what every privacy, like screen protector could do. But the fact that they're making, they're localizing it to like notifications and certain things, or even just certain programs. I think that was a really smart idea.

• 1:08:12David Imel?

  Yeah, that was a really good feature. I don't know if we're, yeah, is it a separate like?

• 1:08:15Andrew Manganelli?

  S26 can't win because it's the exact same phone as it's been for four years.

• 1:08:19David Imel?

  Yeah, it's, yeah, that is the other thing.

• 1:08:21Andrew Manganelli?

  I think a feature, a feature award would be pretty cool.

• 1:08:25David Imel?

  Yeah. Yeah. We'll have to, I'll play with this one. Best design is, uh, I'm also gonna listen to comments, but that's a, that's one that I don't have a frontrunner for yet.

• 1:08:33Andrew Manganelli?

  Best design, I think peaked with the Essential phone.

• 1:08:37David Imel?

  There's also, a lot of phones are like, kind of the same design, like the big, look at the big circle on the back of the Oppo and then the big circle on the back of the Xiaomi.

• 1:08:45Andrew Manganelli?

  Yes, and I accidentally pulled out the, well, the, and the other phone I talked about in terms of legacy camera collaborations is the Vivo, which looks just like. I mean, they're all supposed to be cameras, so I guess that makes sense, but yeah. Big ol' circle.

• 1:09:01Speaker 04

  Minions phone.

• 1:09:02David Imel?

  The Minions. Alright, best foldable is another award. We, there's a lot of options this year, finally.

• 1:09:08Andrew Manganelli?

  Cause it's different. We arguably have three, I guess we've always had Passport, but like, we really got the more like squat Passport style comeback. Along with regular and along with flips.

• 1:09:22David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:22Andrew Manganelli?

  I, I mean, I think it's between Duo and Xiaomi 18 Fold.

• 1:09:28David Imel?

  Okay.

• 1:09:29Andrew Manganelli?

  They just seem to, you know, be the newer thing, which maybe that's recency bias, but they're just the more fun thing. Foldables are fun.

• 1:09:36David Imel?

  Well, don't forget about Fold 8.

• 1:09:38Speaker 05

  I was gonna say, bro.

• 1:09:39Andrew Manganelli?

  Fold 8, yeah. I remember Fold 8, but Fold 8, my issue with Fold 8. Fold 8 though, is worse than the other thing that came out with it, which is Fold 8 Ultra. That's why I don't like it. I think if Fold 8 was same specs as Fold 8 Ultra and like hammered home, I'm still like,

• 1:09:59Andrew Manganelli?

  that, you know, like flagship level as my older brother, but I'm just, you get to pick your, uh, form factor. I would like it a lot more.

• 1:10:06David Imel?

  Interesting. Yeah, there's also the Huawei Pura X Max, which is another, like, exact same shape as the Duo and the Passport stuff.

• 1:10:16David Imel?

  I don't know. I, I think the Fold 8 had a lot going and you said worse specs, but like it has, I think one less camera and less battery than the big screen, but I think that sacrifice was worth it to make a phone that's like funner to hold and use and has like this great aspect ratio when it's open.

• 1:10:35Andrew Manganelli?

  I think it looks nicer.

• 1:10:37David Imel?

  Looks nicer.

• 1:10:38Andrew Manganelli?

  Than the Duo and the 18 Pro.

• 1:10:40David Imel?

  Yeah, cheaper than the Ultra.

• 1:10:42Andrew Manganelli?

  Probably is super.

• 1:10:43Speaker 04

  Are you considering just hardware or like also are developers making like actual apps that utilize these spaces?

• 1:10:50David Imel?

  Everything. Uh, that's definitely a part of it. Android's had folding stuff for so long that that world is kind of a little bit more evolved, but also messy. Uh, iPhone Duo is gonna come out and we expect to see a big response from developers and we kinda hope to see a bunch of really good iPhone Duo apps that could push us in that direction.

• 1:11:10Speaker 05

  That animation though.

• 1:11:11David Imel?

  That animation though, it's pretty nice. They're also capability wise, all pretty similar to each other. Like iPhone Duo, dual cameras, Fold 8, dual cameras.

• 1:11:21Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah, I guess when you compare Fold 8 to Duo.

• 1:11:24David Imel?

  Very similar.

• 1:11:25Andrew Manganelli?

  Like, I think it looks way better than both of them.

• 1:11:28David Imel?

  Which one do you think's better?

• 1:11:29Andrew Manganelli?

  The Fold 8. I think the, the, the two vertical cameras look so much nicer than the horizontal cameras on Duo and, uh,

• 1:11:37David Imel?

  Xiaomi.

• 1:11:37Andrew Manganelli?

  Xiaomi.

• 1:11:38David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:38Andrew Manganelli?

  And I like the symmetrical front versus asymmetrical front.

• 1:11:43David Imel?

  True.

• 1:11:44Andrew Manganelli?

  It looks, I haven't held it in a while, but I also haven't held the Duo at all.

• 1:11:47David Imel?

  It's really light. The Fold 8 is way lighter than the others.

• 1:11:51Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah, I think you may have convinced me. Fold 8 probably is.

• 1:11:54David Imel?

  I think it's my favorite that I've used this year and I haven't spent much time with the Duo, so we have to obviously reserve judgment there, but I think a lot of the things I like about the Fold 8 are, are a little bit more unique to it. How light it is, the dual camera layout, stuff like that.

• 1:12:09Andrew Manganelli?

  And Samsung has years of experience of making the software functionality.

• 1:12:13David Imel?

  I just wish they could have gotten the no crease down the way Apple did, cause god, that screen on the inside of the Fold, of the Duo. It's the best inside screen.

• 1:12:21Andrew Manganelli?

  It's so funny that they focused so much of being like, can't see the crease, but you are gonna see this, uh, dot for the under display selfie camera. Like, they had such an opportunity to be like, don't see anything, but they're like, I'm gonna make something else also pop up in certain bits of light.

• 1:12:39David Imel?

  Yeah, it's, it's, it's not not noticeable, but it is less noticeable than maybe the worst creases that are out there. Creases are generally getting really good across the board, so I'm not really mad about the creases. But yeah, what Apple did with their screens and the anti-reflective coating and just using it, really liked that screen on the inside. So, yeah, I'm gonna, we'll use it more obviously later in the month, but that is.

• 1:13:02Andrew Manganelli?

  I'm so interested to see how much you like the right aligns like menu system in the front screen. And I think that could be, it's either gonna be like, this is a great idea, or you should have just put the selfie camera in the middle and called it a day.

• 1:13:16David Imel?

  And to see what sort of experiences app developers come up with for iPhone Duo. Cause I use, there's a bunch of interesting iPhone apps that I'm curious if they're gonna do like fun stuff on the Duo, or if it's just gonna look like a iPhone app or an iPad app. We'll see. Uh, okay, so then there's three more awards. There's most improved, bust of the year and MVP.

• 1:13:36Andrew Manganelli?

  I've got one down already.

• 1:13:37David Imel?

  I think these are my most important ones. You got one for most improved?

• 1:13:39Andrew Manganelli?

  No, bust of the year.

• 1:13:40David Imel?

  Oh, bust of the year? Go ahead and.

• 1:13:42Andrew Manganelli?

  Pixel 11 Pro. Don't even debate it.

• 1:13:44David Imel?

  The Pro?

• 1:13:45Andrew Manganelli?

  Highlight was the biggest failure of the year by far. And the Pro is such a waste of money compared to the 11. And the 11 already is more expensive and still stupid. And this is coming from Pixel user.

• 1:13:58David Imel?

  You make a lot of good points. It is definitely, this was the year of Pixel and Pro Pixel being the least differentiated. And Highlight, yeah, nothing good there. So I, I feel that. Is it the bust of the whole year, considering all the other phones? I gotta actually think about that.

• 1:14:19Andrew Manganelli?

  I mean, that's what's hard. What, bust is becoming harder because less phones are taking big risks and yeah, so you have to just actually nail the things that you're doing, um, when you want. Calling Highlight a risk is wild. They've, it's been a thing phones have had for over a decade ago. Like, they could have just done it right the first time and we probably would have been like, damn, that was one of the best features of the year.

• 1:14:45Andrew Manganelli?

  Lowest bar possible and they still slam their forehead on it.

• 1:14:49David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:50Andrew Manganelli?

  It's tough. The Bluey phone, if you give Bluey phone bust of the year.

• 1:14:54David Imel?

  Didn't come out this year, actually. That's funny.

• 1:14:55Speaker 04

  You have to consider that one for all the categories.

• 1:14:58David Imel?

  Yeah, the Bluey phone has to be in the race.

• 1:14:59Andrew Manganelli?

  Or just like, it should be on the side of the table and just never mentioned.

• 1:15:02David Imel?

  Virtu Phone.

• 1:15:03Andrew Manganelli?

  Virtu.

• 1:15:04David Imel?

  Virtu Phone.

• 1:15:06Speaker 05

  Wow.

• 1:15:07David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:07Andrew Manganelli?

  It's been a long year.

• 1:15:09David Imel?

  Yeah, I'm willing to say that the Pixel 11 Pro is on the front page of things I'm considering for bust of the year.

• 1:15:14Speaker 04

  The Trump phone was this year, right?

• 1:15:16David Imel?

  The Trump phone was this year? Damn.

• 1:15:19Andrew Manganelli?

  That's a, that probably doesn't count because the phone on the base of it is probably seven years old.

• 1:15:24David Imel?

  Yeah, unfortunately, that makes it worse that it came out this year.

• 1:15:30David Imel?

  Well, then there's most improved. So most improved is another one where it's like, alright, who actually did something like really different? The Privacy Display on the X26 Ultra might be enough by itself to make it most improved, or at least be on the front running. For most improved, cause people don't do that much different from year to year with their phones.

• 1:15:48Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:15:49David Imel?

  What did the iPhone 18 Pro add? A variable aperture and a 2 nanometer chip. Is that?

• 1:15:54Speaker 05

  Bigger vapor chamber.

• 1:15:55David Imel?

  Most improved? Yeah, bigger vapor chamber, which is great. Like, that's three things. Three things. We don't often see three things.

• 1:16:02Speaker 05

  20 minutes ago, you were like, we, the S26, we can't even talk about a design award for it because they haven't changed it in five years.

• 1:16:08David Imel?

  Well, the base S26 is, there's, there's nothing new about that design. S26 Plus, nothing new about the design. S26 Ultra, barely new design, new screen feature, new chip. That's basically the three things that are new with it. You look at a lot of the budget phones, like the Nothing phone, where they play around with the design more, they changed more things.

• 1:16:28Andrew Manganelli?

  Well, they, their issue is, is last year, the Nothing phone 3, their fanbase hated. And then they didn't release a flagship this year, so there is no Nothing phone 4. I don't think we can consider for a Pro, the same phone being improved. So they were ready, you know, a lot of times the people who win most improved are the people who essentially won a bust the year before, or were in runner up for bust. And then they made a change. Nothing was like, nah.

• 1:16:53David Imel?

  Yeah, so on that note, the bust of the year last year was the iPhone 16E.

• 1:16:59Andrew Manganelli?

  Well.

• 1:16:59David Imel?

  The 17E is a better phone, but not good enough to be like a most improved winner, I wouldn't say.

• 1:17:09Andrew Manganelli?

  Not a celebrated.

• 1:17:10David Imel?

  Yeah, not exactly a trophy winner. Um, so yeah, another one that we'll, we'll have to do some digging for. It might be, one plus 16 is so sad. Not coming to the US.

• 1:17:21Andrew Manganelli?

  Well, it's hard to improve over the phone that you're literally still using. So it obviously was great.

• 1:17:26David Imel?

  True, but they somehow did. They got the 2 nanometer chip in there. They got the 9,000 milliampere battery in there. They got the screen on the back for some reason. I don't know what that does, but it looks cool.

• 1:17:40Andrew Manganelli?

  15 won, oh no.

• 1:17:42David Imel?

  15 didn't win anything. It's just the phone that I used the most.

• 1:17:44Andrew Manganelli?

  I was gonna say, I thought it won Phone of the Year last year, but that was.

• 1:17:47David Imel?

  It was pretty close to battery. Oh, won battery award.

• 1:17:49Andrew Manganelli?

  It won battery.

• 1:17:50David Imel?

  Yeah, it was great for battery.

• 1:17:50Andrew Manganelli?

  If iPhone, or sorry, if OnePlus 15 or 16 wins most improved, I don't see how it doesn't win Phone of the Year.

• 1:17:58David Imel?

  Fair enough. Yeah. So Phone of the Year is like the MVP award.

• 1:18:03Andrew Manganelli?

  I know. How can you give your most valuable phone to a phone that's not even coming to the US? Or you can really use in the US?

• 1:18:10David Imel?

  That would be a real bummer. What would win Phone of the Year? Okay, there's a couple of storylines. iPhone Duo is a storyline because folding phones have been around for a long time, but then when Apple jumps in, it kind of brings that category to the forefront of people's attention, even though it's been around for forever. Now suddenly we may get a bunch more people interested in foldables, good folding apps, et cetera. So that's a storyline.

• 1:18:37David Imel?

  The OnePlus is kind of a storyline, but it's like in the opposite direction. Like it's not, like OnePlus is kind of shrinking their footprint and not shipping to the US anymore. And like, they made it a really, really good phone, but I'll never be able to use it. And that's really sad.

• 1:18:50Andrew Manganelli?

  There's also the Xiaomi 18 Pro Max, which was just like, hey, everyone who did something cool, we're gonna put them all on the same phone and just make a behemoth of a feature set phone. Yeah.

• 1:19:01David Imel?

  Yeah, they doubled down on, on just one-upping everything and did a really good job. Sounds like a good storyline. And then, yeah, phones that sort of get forgotten about from earlier in the year, like the S26 Ultra with the privacy screen, or the Find X9 Ultra with the Hostile Blood collab and the incredible battery life, or the great design of our nothing phones that we've seen for the past.

• 1:19:21Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah, it's a good design.

• 1:19:23David Imel?

  It's not an MVP level design, but it's interesting. Yeah, I don't have a frontrunner for this either, but I'm, I'm.

• 1:19:32Andrew Manganelli?

  Carl's ears just perked up when you said nothing in the MVP.

• 1:19:36David Imel?

  I really consider everything for, for MVP. Cause I know it's, it's not, I always say this, it's not the best Phone of the Year award. It's not the most capable, best specs you win, here's the trophy. It's the, it's the phone of the year. And that's like all the things that come with like what happened this year, the stories of the year. Maybe it was just like, they finally did the thing we were asking them to do for years, like the iPhone 17 last year. So things like that all, all factor in. So I have to think about that too. But yeah, I'm, I'm fascinated for what the comments will be on this episode. Cause I think people always feel strongly about things that they think should win certain awards for sure, definitely. And we'll see a bunch of people disagreeing on what they think those things should be.

• 1:20:20Andrew Manganelli?

  Yes. It's also okay if the phone you own doesn't win an award. It's still a good phone. If you're enjoying it.

• 1:20:26David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:26Andrew Manganelli?

  Congrats.

• 1:20:27David Imel?

  There's lots of really, really good.

• 1:20:28Andrew Manganelli?

  We could ABC test Phone of the Year.

• 1:20:31David Imel?

  That would be terrible. A B test the video. I think that what happens is a lot of the best, most boring phones don't win any awards. Because they're already really good and they take no risks and they change nothing. They're not most improved. They're not the bust. They're not the phone of the year. They're not the design award. They're just boring. Like, ah, I just won an S26. Alright, fine. That's a solid phone. Nothing boring. Like, next. Like phones like that, like the iPhone 18. We don't have one yet, but the 18 Pro, hey, good phone. Design award? No. Best battery? No. Best specs? Best cameras? No. But like, pretty good at a lot of stuff. So it's not gonna win awards for that.

• 1:21:08Andrew Manganelli?

  The issue is, is like, the goal of almost every major phone company is they want to eventually be the boring phone, because that means they're selling so much that they can just continue to be a default. And like boring probably means a ton of money. So like, if you're doing all these crazy features, it's usually because you're trying to catch up in market share. So Samsung is just dominating the Android market. They get to just be the same S23++.

• 1:21:35David Imel?

  Yeah. Yeah. You gotta take risks to get to the top. And then once you get to the top, you don't want to take any risk to lose your spot. And then someone else is gonna take risks to get to the top. So.

• 1:21:43Andrew Manganelli?

  Playing with a lead, yeah.

• 1:21:45David Imel?

  Yeah. Alright, well, let us know in the comments how you feel. Of course, we will be reading those. And in a few short weeks, we'll be starting to pick them out. But of course, we have a little bit more to talk about, so let's take a quick break and do a trivia question.

• 1:22:03Speaker 05

  Do you guys want, they're both tech questions.

• 1:22:07Andrew Manganelli?

  The way you said it like that makes me think one's not really.

• 1:22:09David Imel?

  Okay.

• 1:22:10Andrew Manganelli?

  I want the less tech question.

• 1:22:12Speaker 05

  You want the less tech question?

• 1:22:13Andrew Manganelli?

  Mark has gonna have the more tech question.

• 1:22:15Speaker 05

  Well, here's the thing. The less tech question has more points available for it.

• 1:22:20Andrew Manganelli?

  More points on a no David week? I think we have to assume.

• 1:22:23David Imel?

  I need more points. Yeah.

• 1:22:27Speaker 05

  After the break, we're gonna talk about MMOs. And every single person who works here asked me to do an MMO question. But here on the Waveform Podcast, we believe in fairness.

• 1:22:39Speaker 05

  And so I went on a bunch of forums looking for the original 2004 minimum specs required to run World of Warcraft.

• 1:22:50David Imel?

  Oh, boy.

• 1:22:50Speaker 05

  I need you guys to tell me closest Delta, this is not Price is Right rules, these are Delta.

• 1:22:56Speaker 05

  How much video memory do you need? How much hard drive space do you need? And how much RAM do you need to play World of Warcraft on the minimum specs in 2004? Fun fact, in the minimum specs from that year, they specify that you need at least a 56K modem. Hilarious that you could get half a megabyte per second.

• 1:23:20Andrew Manganelli?

  I'm pretty sure.

• 1:23:21Speaker 05

  And still play.

• 1:23:22Andrew Manganelli?

  WoW came on three or four discs as well, if that helps.

• 1:23:27Speaker 05

  Wow.

• 1:23:27Andrew Manganelli?

  Hint. But yeah, I remember putting multiple CDs in my computer to download.

• 1:23:32David Imel?

  See, I'm at a huge disadvantage already, because you have installed and played this game before.

• 1:23:36Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah, but I, this was on like a family computer.

• 1:23:39David Imel?

  Which means you've got the minimum requirements right there. I'm just looking for context.

• 1:23:43Andrew Manganelli?

  Oh, I don't remember the minimum.

• 1:23:44Speaker 05

  Also, this was a surprisingly difficult thing to find online. And so I'd like to give a shout out to the Blizzard forums user, Cruge.

• 1:23:53Andrew Manganelli?

  Cruge.

• 1:23:54Speaker 05

  Thank you, Cruge.

• 1:23:55Andrew Manganelli?

  Thanks, Cruge. You couldn't find like, did it have it on the box? Man, I remember that box. The.

• 1:23:59Speaker 05

  It was in the manual.

• 1:24:01Andrew Manganelli?

  The intros, the like intro sequence when you first booted up WoW, the like cinematic intro of OG World of Warcraft, chills.

• 1:24:09Speaker 04

  Can I guess for David this week? Cause I don't know the answer.

• 1:24:12Speaker 05

  Yeah. I, you could, however, I think I know what David is doing right now. And I kind of want to just call him out of the blue on the podcast.

• 1:24:25David Imel?

  And see if he knows?

• 1:24:26Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:24:27Andrew Manganelli?

  Or just text him and be like, you have five minutes to respond to this text message.

• 1:24:31David Imel?

  Alright, well, we'll have those answers at the end as well, like usual. We'll be right back.

• 1:24:48Speaker 06

  Purchase new carpet from The Home Depot and get it installed for free right now. Shop the stylish choices and simple pricing of carpet from Home Decorator's Collection, Traffic Master, or LifeProof with PetProof technology. And see for yourself why nobody beats our prices. Enjoy new carpet with free installation right now at The Home Depot. Offer valid October 15th through November 1st, 2026. Exclusions apply. For licenses, see homedepot.com/license numbers. Chronic migraine is 15 or more headache days a month, each lasting four hours or more. Botox, onabotulinum toxin A, prevents headaches in adults with chronic migraine before they start.

• 1:25:28Speaker 02

  It's not for those with 14 or fewer headache days a month. It prevents on average eight to nine headache days a month versus six to seven for placebo. Prescription Botox is injected by your doctor. Effects of Botox may spread hours to weeks after injection, causing serious symptoms. Alert your doctor right away. As difficulty swallowing, speaking, breathing, eye problems, or muscle weakness can be signs of a life-threatening condition. Patients with these conditions before injection are at highest risk. Side effects may include allergic reactions, neck and injection site pain, fatigue, and headache. Allergic reactions can include rash, welts, asthma symptoms, and dizziness. Don't receive Botox if there's a skin infection. Tell your doctor your medical history, muscle or nerve conditions, including ALS, Lou Gehrig's Disease, Myasthenia gravis, or Lambert Eaton Syndrome, and medications, including botulinum toxins, as these may increase the risk of serious side effects.

• 1:26:11Speaker 04

  Why wait? Ask your doctor. Visit botoxchronicmigraine.com or call 1-800-44-BOTOX to learn more.

• 1:26:18Speaker 06

  Payday bars have a bone to pick with the other candy bars. Enough with the toppings and layers and stuff, kay? Payday bars are just salty crunchy peanuts and sweet caramel. Delicious. Payday Peanut Caramel Bar.

• 1:26:33Andrew Manganelli?

  All right, welcome back. This next part of the podcast will probably mostly be dominated by Mariah and myself because we're going to talk about MMOs. But you did say you know MMO stands for.

• 1:26:43David Imel?

  Massive Multiplayer Online.

• 1:26:45Andrew Manganelli?

  Yes. Almost always essentially also means MMORPG, which then-

• 1:26:49David Imel?

  Role playing game.

• 1:26:50Andrew Manganelli?

  Correct.

• 1:26:50David Imel?

  Yes.

• 1:26:51Andrew Manganelli?

  So, oh man, I'm gonna have to, I'm gonna have to condense this. And the hardest part about condensing one of the most convoluted video game types possible is I'm going to get flamed.

• 1:27:01David Imel?

  Is this a new story?

• 1:27:03Andrew Manganelli?

  Sort of.

• 1:27:03David Imel?

  Or a new thing that's happening?

• 1:27:04Andrew Manganelli?

  It's, it's, it's a mix of a bunch of new things with your absolute favorite category possible, which is nostalgia.

• 1:27:11David Imel?

  Ah.

• 1:27:11Andrew Manganelli?

  Yes, so let's go. See if you follow me at the end, I'll kind of see what you think. But in the last couple of months, we've gotten a new World of Warcraft game announcement. And we also just got at Rune Fest, a new RuneScape announcement.

• 1:27:27David Imel?

  Of course.

• 1:27:28Andrew Manganelli?

  Rune Fest is something that Mariah and I will be finding a way for convincing you to send us to it for studio or something.

• 1:27:35Speaker 04

  For business.

• 1:27:36Andrew Manganelli?

  For business, purely business. It is in London. That part will be a little tough. Anyway, World of Warcraft and RuneScape are kind of like two of the bigger MMORPGs out there. And both of them, you know, have a great player base and a lot of them are focused on nostalgia. But with these two announcements, in my eyes, it feels like World of Warcraft is trying to be RuneScape and RuneScape is trying to be World of Warcraft. And I will explain why. All right, let me bring you, let me reevaluate my-

• 1:28:06Speaker 04

  Paint him a scene.

• 1:28:07Andrew Manganelli?

  Paint me, okay, yeah. So RuneScape is a game that launched in 2007. It was a browser based MMO.

• 1:28:12David Imel?

  It's like the iPhone.

• 1:28:13Andrew Manganelli?

  It was really popular because a lot of it was free. It was actually, you could, it was linked on MiniClip. So a lot of people found it through MiniClip. It was browser based, so you could play it at school, which is probably a huge plus. Almost zero computer requirements because it's browser based. And even when you did pay for the subscription, it was like $5 a month, so fairly cheap. Lots of stuff to do in it. World of Warcraft, on the other hand, like Ella said in the trivia question, launched in 2004, backed by, I mean, made by Blizzard. So we're talking about massive gaming company here.

• 1:28:50Speaker 05

  Also made on existing IP.

• 1:28:52Andrew Manganelli?

  Yes, correct.

• 1:28:53Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:28:53Andrew Manganelli?

  The, from the Warcraft RTS games. And, you know, this was an expensive, you had to pay for the actual game and it was $15 a month. But this is like more modernized of that time because we had actual graphics. We had incredible scaling, open worlds. It was first player for our third person, but roaming a lot more where RuneScape is click based. You know, a much more lax combat style and everything.

• 1:29:21David Imel?

  Okay.

• 1:29:21Andrew Manganelli?

  And both of these games, you know, kind of have had their heydays and then have all both went astray a bit. RuneScape tried, kept trying to modernize. It changed the way combat handled, it changed the way graphics handled it. It turned into what we now know as RuneScape 3. In 2013, Jagex launched something Jagex makes RuneScape called Old School RuneScape, which essentially was, thank you, Mariah, bringing back the 2007 RuneScape that we all knew and loved.

• 1:29:49Speaker 04

  Yeah, they said, do you like nostalgia?

• 1:29:51Andrew Manganelli?

  Yes.

• 1:29:51Speaker 04

  Do you have money?

• 1:29:53David Imel?

  I'll sell you some.

• 1:29:54Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah, come back. And one thing they've done great since then, that game is still running, is they just kept what was good and what everyone liked about old RuneScape, but still added updates to it. There's still progression and what they call permanent progression, kind of where like you grind really hard to try and get something and that thing stays relevant, even though they're going to release new items, new bosses, new raids, all new things to do.

• 1:30:20David Imel?

  Can I ask a dumb question?

• 1:30:22Speaker 04

  Always.

• 1:30:22David Imel?

  I'm gonna get flamed already, no, it's okay.

• 1:30:24Andrew Manganelli?

  You're not gonna get flamed because you're saying you don't know what's going on.

• 1:30:27David Imel?

  Yeah. Can you win?

• 1:30:29Andrew Manganelli?

  No. I mean-

• 1:30:31Speaker 04

  I mean-

• 1:30:32Andrew Manganelli?

  Depends.

• 1:30:33Speaker 04

  Who's to say?

• 1:30:33Speaker 05

  You can, in RuneScape, you can totally win.

• 1:30:36Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah, there's a game over section.

• 1:30:38David Imel?

  Because the way you're describing it, because when I picture a game, I'm like, all right, it's competitive, people are trying to win and then you win. But as you describe the game, it sounds like, oh yeah, you're just kind of roaming around doing stuff. And then you buy the expansion pack and you can roam around more and then do more stuff.

• 1:30:52Speaker 05

  And you can scam 12 year olds.

• 1:30:54Andrew Manganelli?

  Free gilded armor. So like RuneScape, the ultimate goal is you have, what is it, like 26 different skills that you can all get to 99, which takes a metric piss load of time. I mean-

• 1:31:07Speaker 04

  You can basically max out everything, all skills, do every quest in the game. For some people, they don't consider that being done, but I would say that's more than enough.

• 1:31:17Andrew Manganelli?

  There's more to do because then there's like, there's collection logs of different types of gear. Some of the gear is just for show essentially.

• 1:31:24Speaker 04

  There's a notorious like meme going around that it's a game you never quit because like the game really never ends. So it's like people will come crawling back years later. I'm in RuneScape recovery right now, so.

• 1:31:36Andrew Manganelli?

  You only take breaks. RuneScape does such a good job though of keeping the old style, releasing updates that are still to what all the players want and not making all the work you did totally useless. World of Warcraft, on the other hand, they're the ones, or they re-released something called WoW Classic in 2019. I got really into it again because it was literally just re-released the old game that everyone loved, max level 60, slowly roll out the old raids, everything you used to do. The issue is then they made the same mistake of they continued to launch all of the old expansion packs they did in the past. And now we lost this, you know, your, all the stuff you worked for again to get in 60. So now both of these have launched new things.

• 1:32:21Andrew Manganelli?

  World of Warcraft is launching something called WoW Forever, which is essentially bring back the old World of Warcraft that launched in 2004. But they are going to actually update the thing while guaranteeing a, a level 60 cap, which is what the original one was. So they're focused on this like permanent progression, horizontal progression, whatever you want to call it, where you work and work and you, it's beneficial to do all these things, you don't lose everything. So in my eyes, World of Warcraft is like, what did RuneScape do really well? I want to launch the new game. So they're adding in professions, there's all these new items you can get from only grinding professions. They're opening up that part of the game more. They're adding different skills to characters that have been around for a while, a new race.

• 1:33:05Andrew Manganelli?

  New things that still are part of the old game, the nostalgia game that everyone likes because they keep ruining their games.

• 1:33:13Andrew Manganelli?

  And now they're relaunching that where RuneScape decided to just launch a new game called RuneScape 4 that's currently in development. Won't be launched for New Year, but it's made on the Unreal Engine. It's going to be the same world and characters and general storyline in a different time. But we're finally going to get the modernized graphics. So when someone decides, hey, I want to play RuneScape, if you don't know about it or have the nostalgia for it, if you went into old school RuneScape, you would probably be like, what the, what is this low poly ass like?

• 1:33:43Speaker 04

  Yeah, so basically like most of the demographic is familiar and has the nostalgia for the super low poly. And can you imagine jumping from that to Unreal Engine new game?

• 1:33:54Andrew Manganelli?

  This vibe, this low poly vibe into a modernized version of it on Unreal Engine? So I'm really excited for both of these.

• 1:34:01David Imel?

  I have two questions.

• 1:34:03Andrew Manganelli?

  Okay, I rambled so much there.

• 1:34:05David Imel?

  My two questions, and there might not be real answers to this, but one, is there, because you know, kids growing up these days, playing games, didn't play old school RuneScape. Do those kids clamor for the old RuneScape? Or do you think they are just on the new RuneScape? Like if, if you were to start playing RuneScape today and you played the newest one, do you think they go, ew, this sucks? Give me the like new one that looks like the old one? Or do you think they wouldn't care for that at all?

• 1:34:35Andrew Manganelli?

  I think, I think actually right now, old school RuneScape is more popular, even if you're a new player, because there seems to be this back and forth with at least streamers, which streamers kind of essentially help control a lot of popularity of games, right? So like WoW and RuneScape keep hitting these lulls of content and a lot of the streamers play both of them. There's this one, you're not going to watch him, but if anyone out there is interested in this, a YouTuber named Jimmy, J1MMY, plays both of these a lot and does really great content, just discussing the changes between both of them. But we'll see a lot of things happen where World of Warcraft launched hardcore mode, which is if you die, you lose your character. There's a lot of dying in MMOs.

• 1:35:19Andrew Manganelli?

  So all these streamers and YouTubers got together and made a guild in this hardcore mode and turned a bunch and like made a bunch of content. And then, once that started getting stale, a bunch of them went over to RuneScape and started playing RuneScape. And RuneScape had this like huge surge. So they're kind of going between both of them. And I think old school is already just more popular. This new game, I do think if you discover RuneScape, especially if they, Mariah, do you think there'll be a free, a free to play world in RS4?

• 1:35:49Speaker 04

  Dude, there better be, I don't know.

• 1:35:51Andrew Manganelli?

  That's the thing, if you, you can hook people with free. And, and when I say like, there's free and membership, membership unlocks a bunch, but there's still so much to do in the free version. It's like-

• 1:36:01Speaker 04

  But if you're asking Marquez if the young folk are playing these games?

• 1:36:05Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:05Speaker 04

  I don't know.

• 1:36:06Andrew Manganelli?

  MMOs, there's definitely-

• 1:36:08Speaker 04

  Like, but RuneScape and stuff, like there's surely-

• 1:36:12Andrew Manganelli?

  I don't know.

• 1:36:12Speaker 04

  Other things.

• 1:36:13Andrew Manganelli?

  I would argue, all they need to do is see a streamer watching it and then be like, oh, I want to play with you. I'd say they're more likely to be influenced by someone on Twitch playing RuneScape and-

• 1:36:25Speaker 04

  Yeah, unless you had like an older sibling who played it and then told you about it, you probably wouldn't really know what it is.

• 1:36:31Andrew Manganelli?

  RuneScape came out in 2004 at this, or 2007, at this point, parents might be showing their kids.

• 1:36:38David Imel?

  Here's my other question. I'm going to describe to you a game that I used to play when I was in high school.

• 1:36:44Andrew Manganelli?

  Okay.

• 1:36:44David Imel?

  And you can tell me if it's closer to RuneScape or World of Warcraft.

• 1:36:50Andrew Manganelli?

  Okay.

• 1:36:51David Imel?

  So the mechanics of this game, this is, this game is called Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2007. And here's what happened. I, I obviously played golf growing up. And I had like a not that powerful PC that I installed this on. This game, this game came on three discs, three CDs.

• 1:37:11Andrew Manganelli?

  Nice.

• 1:37:11David Imel?

  And I installed the game and basically it let me build my own character and then go play any number of like kind of photorealistic golf courses. But it also let me play the game as Tiger Woods or as Davis Love III or as Vijay Singh or any number of those characters that had different sort of attributes and you could swing their swing and like play the golf course as them. So if you played as your amateur character, you'd probably not hit the ball as far as not as fun. You play as Tiger, you're like, wow, my god. When I first got that game and started playing, I didn't have nearly a powerful enough GPU. So when I loaded that game up and installed it, my character

• 1:37:50David Imel?

  was a, a series of like vectors and like colorful lines on the screen, but it didn't actually load all the polygons to like see their face. And I still could see the golf course and the ball. So I would play the game as this bunch of lines and rays and like I'd see the swing. And I actually went in and customized their face and their clothes and like bought accessories.

• 1:38:13Andrew Manganelli?

  To not even see it?

• 1:38:13David Imel?

  To not even see it. And then one day I got enough allowance money to get a new GPU for that computer and I installed it. And I loaded up the game for the first time and saw my character for the first time. He looked nothing like what I thought he looked like. But the general tones and colors were correct, but like everything else is a surprise. But then I went on to like play the game with a new appreciation. I would like spend earned money in the game to get like a new glove or a new club or a new ball. And you could play new courses. You could never win, like you could compete and win a tournament and yay, you won the tournament and now there's another tournament next week. So like you're not winning the game.

• 1:38:57David Imel?

  But you could always play new courses. You could always buy new accessories for your player. You could always upgrade your GPU and see more. There was also future versions of the game that had more microtransactions and higher quality graphics and that maybe made people crave the nostalgia of the 07 version of the game a little bit.

• 1:39:22Andrew Manganelli?

  So in the terms of how you're longing for it nostalgia wise?

• 1:39:26David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:27Andrew Manganelli?

  That's like the RuneScape

• 1:39:31Andrew Manganelli?

  perk, I guess. It's like we all had that moment, you know, we wanted to, I, I remember the first time I got my first dragon weapon was like the coolest thing ever. And that's, I, yeah. The rest of it is more RPG versus MMORPG because there's no online. So imagine you had, you built your character. And now all of those golf courses, other people online were also had all of their characters at the golf course. So maybe you would

• 1:39:58David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:59Andrew Manganelli?

  team up with four people on a card. That would be like running a dungeon.

• 1:40:02David Imel?

  I think that was a thing in later versions of the game. And I needed to have a certain level network connection to play at the same time as other people.

• 1:40:12Andrew Manganelli?

  And the most important part of that online game would be you get your, you know, your really sick new golf clubs or clubs and stuff and it's equipped to your character. The most important part is then when you stand at the clubhouse and everyone just stands around and you look at all the, you like, you stand there asserting dominance by how much better your gear is. We call that bank standing. So much of MMOs are just standing in the popular places to show off the stuff you worked for and doing actually nothing.

• 1:40:45Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:46David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:46Andrew Manganelli?

  That's why MMOs are so great. It takes so much time to play RuneScape. I kind of just want to like be in the world again and screw around for a while and not commit to anything. But that's not going to be out for a few more years. But you know, maybe you'll send Mariah and I to Rune Fest and we'll have a good time there. Company card, we'll make a studio video.

• 1:41:05David Imel?

  You know, I'll, I'll spin that in my head a few times. I'll think about it.

• 1:41:09Andrew Manganelli?

  Appreciate you. Yeah. Thank you, Marquez.

• 1:41:10David Imel?

  Yeah. Well, you know what it's time for now?

• 1:41:13Andrew Manganelli?

  I do.

• 1:41:13David Imel?

  The end.

• 1:41:15Speaker 05

  Andrew, you said something earlier that I wanted to draw attention to.

• 1:41:18Andrew Manganelli?

  Okay, I'm scared.

• 1:41:18Speaker 05

  You made sure to specify that you were referring to a metric piss load.

• 1:41:23Andrew Manganelli?

  Oh.

• 1:41:24Speaker 05

  Which sort of implies the existence of both a

• 1:41:26Andrew Manganelli?

  Imperial?

• 1:41:27Speaker 05

  Well, I was gonna say like the mega and giga piss loads. That's part of the tiered system. I just thought that was really funny.

• 1:41:33Andrew Manganelli?

  Oh. I don't know why I use the term piss load all the time. I think it's my way of trying not to curse on the podcast, which probably just makes it more offensive.

• 1:41:42David Imel?

  Cause everyone's like, what is that?

• 1:41:45Speaker 05

  Guys, LG has made display panels for two Apple products. What were they?

• 1:42:04Speaker 05

  He's thinking. Someone else is writing. Also, they probably made displays for more Apple products, but these are just the two that I could find like industry trade journals being like LG made these. LG Display made these. And, uh, you know, it's just so hard to track down Apple suppliers.

• 1:42:21David Imel?

  Something Marquez said before.

• 1:42:22Speaker 05

  Unless you're making cheap quote. All right. I'm going to give one point per correct answer. Who wants to read first?

• 1:42:29David Imel?

  I'll, I'll go first.

• 1:42:30Andrew Manganelli?

  Marquez has.

• 1:42:32David Imel?

  An iPhone at some point? Okay. I think it was an iPad, damn. And I said iMac.

• 1:42:40Speaker 05

  But if anyone online can find proof that Marquez is right, I will award him the point in retrospect. These is, I just spent a lot of time and these are the only two I could really confirm. Andrew?

• 1:42:48Andrew Manganelli?

  I heard a MacBook. And a HomePod.

• 1:42:51Speaker 05

  Oh my god. The answer I was looking for was the Apple Watch.

• 1:42:57Andrew Manganelli?

  Oh, I would not have pissed off.

• 1:42:58Speaker 05

  They made the OLED in that?

• 1:42:59David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:00Speaker 05

  And the Pro Display XDR.

• 1:43:03David Imel?

  Oh, Pro Display XDR.

• 1:43:05Speaker 05

  That is an LG panel. An LG Displays panel. No, I don't know anymore.

• 1:43:11David Imel?

  Wait, no, wasn't it the?

• 1:43:15David Imel?

  Oh, it was the Pro Display XDR because that was a five, six K. Well, okay. So I remember the, the LG Ultra Fine 5K came out. And everyone was like, oh, the same panel, but smaller slice of it. Were they referring to the Pro Display?

• 1:43:31Speaker 05

  I don't know.

• 1:43:31David Imel?

  Cause it doesn't have the same specs, but the idea was they had the same scaling. Damn, I missed, I forgot that story. There was a whole story about that.

• 1:43:39Speaker 05

  For three more potential points to get today. I need you to tell me the video memory, hard drive space and minimum RAM required to run 2004's World of Warcraft.

• 1:43:53Andrew Manganelli?

  Wait. Storage, VRAM and

• 1:44:00David Imel?

  And RAM.

• 1:44:01Andrew Manganelli?

  And RAM.

• 1:44:02Speaker 05

  They wait, wait, what?

• 1:44:14Speaker 04

  Sorry, we're having a technicality issue.

• 1:44:22Speaker 04

  Marquez, I'm trying to get you a point.

• 1:44:24Speaker 05

  All right. We're doing closest delta.

• 1:44:27Andrew Manganelli?

  I have two gigs of storage. That's definitely too high. 256 of VRAM, megabytes. And 512 megabytes of RAM. I think I'm too high on everything.

• 1:44:39David Imel?

  I wrote one gig of storage. Eight megabytes of VRAM and 64 megabytes of RAM.

• 1:44:48Speaker 05

  He said one gigabyte of storage.

• 1:44:49David Imel?

  One gigabyte of storage.

• 1:44:50Speaker 05

  All right, let's see if David is driving. I'm on the waveform podcast? Well, that's crazy. You're on the waveform podcast, David. I need you to answer two trivia questions for me. Are you ready? Okay, I'm ready. Can you name two products that LG, two Apple products that LG made the display for? Studio Display XDR? No, I'm sorry. Uh.

• 1:45:12David Imel?

  Pro Display.

• 1:45:15Speaker 05

  He can in fact hear you. I can't hear Marquez, but I didn't hear him.

• 1:45:19David Imel?

  Just get it wrong. Just get it wrong.

• 1:45:23Speaker 05

  Apple products? All right, I'm gonna have to cut you off. I'm so sorry.

• 1:45:27Andrew Manganelli?

  Time's up.

• 1:45:28Speaker 05

  Wait, I'm gonna say iPhone 4S. Probably not, but if, if it turns out to be right, we'll, uh, we'll, we'll give it to you. All right, question number two. I need you, or the answers I was looking for were Pro Display XDR and Apple Watch. Didn't I say that? No, you said Studio Display XDR. Did I really? You did. We have, I have it on tape. Next question.

• 1:45:48Andrew Manganelli?

  He's gonna be so confused by this question.

• 1:45:50Speaker 05

  David. I was thinking the Pro Display. Okay, whatever. Are you familiar with the hit game World of Warcraft? I'm familiar. All right, I need you to tell me the minimum hard drive space, VRAM and, uh, regular RAM memory of the 2004 release of World of Warcraft. Minimum hard drive space, I'm gonna say.

• 1:46:16Speaker 02

  Two gigabytes.

• 1:46:17Speaker 05

  Two gigabytes hard drive space.

• 1:46:19Speaker 02

  RAM requirement, four gigabytes.

• 1:46:21Speaker 05

  RAM requirement, four gigabytes, okay.

• 1:46:24Speaker 02

  And then VRAM?

• 1:46:25Speaker 05

  VRAM.

• 1:46:26Speaker 02

  Two gigabytes.

• 1:46:27Speaker 05

  Two gigabytes. All right. Is everyone ready for the answers?

• 1:46:30Andrew Manganelli?

  Yes.

• 1:46:31Speaker 05

  The first one, we're gonna do hard drive space. Andrew, you said two gigabytes. Marquez, you said one gigabyte. David, you said two gigabytes.

• 1:46:38David Imel?

  Yep.

• 1:46:39Speaker 05

  The correct answer is four gigabytes, meaning that David and Andrew tied, and get the point.

• 1:46:46Andrew Manganelli?

  How did they both?

• 1:46:47Speaker 05

  Do you mind updating the score? That's David and Andrew, get one point. Next one, let's do VRAM. Andrew, you said 256 megabytes. Marquez, you said eight megabytes. David, four gigabytes?

• 1:47:01Speaker 02

  I said four, four gigabytes.

• 1:47:02Speaker 05

  Oh, sorry. My bad. Marquez has gotten this point. You need 32 megabytes of VRAM to play WoW.

• 1:47:11David Imel?

  Geez. Okay, I'll take it. I'll take it.

• 1:47:13Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:47:13Speaker 05

  And finally, RAM. Andrew, you said 512 megabytes. Marquez, you said 64 megabytes.

• 1:47:23David Imel?

  I think Marquez is on the money.

• 1:47:24Speaker 05

  And David, you said two gigabytes of RAM. Do I have that correct?

• 1:47:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:47:29Speaker 05

  Marquez gets the point.

• 1:47:31Speaker 02

  Or I said, I think I said four gigabytes of RAM, but I said two gigabytes of VRAM.

• 1:47:36Speaker 05

  Either way, we need 256 megabytes of RAM, meaning Marquez's 64 megabytes barely inches out, Andrew.

• 1:47:44Andrew Manganelli?

  We're both like one delta off in terms of actual number. Yeah.

• 1:47:49Speaker 02

  So I really said Studio Display?

• 1:47:51Andrew Manganelli?

  Oh, no, actually.

• 1:47:52Speaker 05

  I'll check the tape.

• 1:47:53Speaker 02

  I really said Studio Display.

• 1:47:55Speaker 05

  I'll, I'll check the tape and make sure that none of your guesses were accidentally correct.

• 1:47:59David Imel?

  You definitely did.

• 1:48:00Andrew Manganelli?

  I know he said Studio because then Marquez said into the mic, "Pro Display XDR", and I was like, if David then guesses that next, I know he heard Marquez because there's no reason to guess the Pro Display after saying Studio.

• 1:48:11Speaker 05

  All right, quick update on the score while we have you, David. Oh, Mariah is still adding the points. We're gonna have to put, the score will be on the screen as we review the tape.

• 1:48:20David Imel?

  It should be respectable now.

• 1:48:21Andrew Manganelli?

  Audio listeners, enjoy.

• 1:48:23Speaker 05

  Yo, all right, next day is here. I'm editing the podcast. It's Alice if you're audio listening and don't recognize my voice for some reason. I did not award those trivia points correctly because questions about Apple suppliers are really, really hard to answer. I did more research and I think I have at least some conclusive answers, so let's get into it. Okay, Marquez, he said iMac G4 and Apple iPhone 4. I don't know why I said Apple. It's an iPhone. They're the only people that have ever made iPhones. The G4, I was able to find a Macworld article from 2002 that cites some sort of industry trade journal-y type publications talking about how a second display supplier had been added to the G4's supply chain. So

• 1:49:08Speaker 05

  LG was no longer the only one, so I'm counting that as proof it sourced. LG did make displays for the iMac G4, so Marquez gets one point for that. iPhone 4, this one is a little bit harder to track down, but I was able to find a Korean trade journal press report type thing from 2010 that I had to translate from Korean into English with the Safari thing that talked about LG ramping up their production of the retina display in that phone. So I think that's safe to say LG did produce the displays in both those devices. Next, Andrew.

• 1:49:47Speaker 05

  Andrew said the HomePod Mini. There's an iFixit teardown that I think just shows that the iFixit, it's not actually a screen, it's like an LED controller by Texas Instruments or something like that, so LG's not involved there. He does not get that point. Andrew also said MacBook. And I wrote this question really poorly. I'm just gonna accept that answer. LG does make the displays in the Apple Silicon MacBooks, or at least they did for a long time. I think they're no longer the primary supplier, but again, this stuff is really hard to get actual answers to, which is part of the reason Mingchi Quo is like so amazing. Like, I don't know how they find out. Anyway, whatever. David, what did David say? David said iPhone 4S,

• 1:50:29Speaker 05

  which would be correct because it's the same retina display as in the iPhone 4. They're not the exact same display, which explains why I could not really find that much about the 4S, but I could find stuff about the 4. I'm just gonna assume they're the same. We're just gonna give David that point. David's other answer was the Studio Display XDR. It's too new. I just couldn't find supplier data on that, so he's not gonna get that point. So, in conclusion, Marquez got two points, Andrew got one point, and David also got one point.

• 1:50:58Speaker 02

  Thanks.

• 1:50:58Speaker 05

  David, do you have anything you want to tell the people before you go home?

• 1:51:01Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:51:02David Imel?

  Do you think World of Warcraft is turning into RuneScape and do you think RuneScape's turning into World of Warcraft?

• 1:51:07Speaker 02

  I've never played either of the games. I really couldn't tell you.

• 1:51:11David Imel?

  And you would agree Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2007 is the best version of the Tiger Woods franchise, right?

• 1:51:16Speaker 02

  I'm partial to the 2006 version. I'm gonna be honest.

• 1:51:20David Imel?

  I don't think that exists, but okay, I'll, I'll, I buy it. I buy it.

• 1:51:25Andrew Manganelli?

  We didn't have the technology back then.

• 1:51:27David Imel?

  EA Sports.

• 1:51:29Speaker 02

  How many gigs did that require?

• 1:51:31David Imel?

  I don't know. It was three CDs, so something huge.

• 1:51:35Speaker 02

  Three CDs?

• 1:51:36David Imel?

  Three CDs, yeah.

• 1:51:37Speaker 02

  For a computer game?

• 1:51:38David Imel?

  Yep. It was a lot.

• 1:51:40Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:51:40Speaker 05

  All right. Thanks for picking up the phone, David. We really appreciate it.

• 1:51:44David Imel?

  Bye, David. Have fun.

• 1:51:45Speaker 02

  From Stone, Vermont. I'm out.

• 1:51:47Speaker 05

  David Amell, everybody.

• 1:51:50Speaker 02

  Wait, isn't that the crazy trivia music for like the big ones?

• 1:51:53Speaker 05

  I use it all the time.

• 1:51:54David Imel?

  So, anyway, thanks for watching. Thanks for listening. Thanks for the trivia points. It is, of course, mid-October, which means we have much more to talk about, and next week's gonna be lit. And so will the next one. So will the next one, and so will the next one. See you soon. Get subscribed if you haven't already. Get a desk pad. Wash those dishes. And we'll catch you in the next episode. Peace.

• 1:52:17Andrew Manganelli?

  I really hope David's waiting.

• 1:52:18Speaker 02

  Bingo.

• 1:52:19Speaker 05

  Let's go.

• 1:52:21Speaker 02

  Let's go.

• 1:52:23Andrew Manganelli?

  Waveform is produced by Mariah Zank and Alice Rovin, a partner of Vox Media Podcast Network, and our intro music is created by Vane Sil.

• 1:52:29Speaker 02

  All right. Great show, everybody. Great show.

• 1:52:32Andrew Manganelli?

  Great show, great show.

• 1:52:33Speaker 05

  Thank you. Thank you so much, Andrew. Appreciate it.

• 1:52:35Speaker 02

  Glad to contribute.

• 1:52:46Speaker 05

  Fall savings are happening now at The Home Depot. Save up to $500 on select appliances. Plus, enjoy free delivery when you spend $998 or more. From prepping to cooking to cleaning up, Frigidaire has you covered. The custom Flex Temp drawer switches from fridge to freezer. With more than 15 cooking modes, including stone-baked pizza mode, you can enjoy restaurant-quality pizza in as little as two minutes. Then clean up with the Frigidaire Dishwasher, featuring the industry's fastest normal wash cycle. Shop fall savings now at The Home Depot. Off the ballot through October 21st, US only. See store online for details.