Nothing Like a New MacBook!

0:00 460 4

0:02 460 what the Mark 60 Yeah.

0:05 Remember they went up

0:06 they went up in price this year 460.

0:08 Yeah.

0:09 They're hella expensive

0:10 for headphones that sound like the music is coming out of a bee's hole.

0:15 I remember when they were like 330 then they were for that.

0:21 That is not what they sound like.

0:23 Not bad.

0:23 That's like the engine.

0:28 Yeah.

0:28 Like Yo, what is up people of the internet?

0:35 Welcome back to another episode of the Waveform Podcast.

0:38 We're your hosts.

0:38 I'm Marquez.

0:39 I'm Andrew.

0:40 I'm David.

0:40 And welcome to TechTember.

0:42 Everything is happening.

0:44 Wait a second.

0:45 Hold on.

0:46 Oh,

0:46 it's it's TAR.

0:47 Hold on.

0:48 Tar.

0:48 It's March.

0:49 It's not.

0:50 It's Tar.

0:51 Sho's been trying to get Tar going.

0:53 Tech.

0:53 The start of Tar.

0:54 We don't claim Tar.

0:55 I don't know what you're talking about.

0:57 Mech.

0:57 No,

0:58 I don't like

0:59 it's like Christmas in July, but September and March.

1:03 Yeah, it's it's a lot.

1:04 We've got So, we're working on the S26

1:06 Ultra review and then Apple drops six new products.

1:09 Nothing drops three new products and suddenly we just have a lot on our plate.

1:13 And also, we got to talk a little

1:14 bit more about AI and how it's affecting reviews.

1:17 So, this might be a six-hour episode is what I'm trying to say.

1:20 And we're shooting

1:21 because it's Thursday.

1:22 We're shooting it on Thursday, too.

1:23 Don't threaten me with a good time like uh Yeah.

1:26 Make sure you get subscribed because we have a lot to talk about.

1:29 So, if we don't get to all of it this week,

1:30 we'll probably get to more of it next week.

1:33 Yeah.

1:32 But first, I'm just going to take it in.

1:36 Did they even test this?

1:37 Apparently, this has already gone outside of this room

1:40 and Olivia has something she wanted to add.

1:42 So, Adam will be her surrogate.

1:45 Surrogate, right?

1:46 Yeah.

1:47 Olivia and Michael were doing graphics for us

1:51 because we asked for specific graphics for the channel.

1:53 You might actually be seeing them on this episode.

1:55 So YouTube viewers, let me know how uh how you like them.

1:58 Is this something the thing that happened yesterday?

2:02 Yes.

2:01 It's so they've been working with an app called Apple Motion,

2:06 which is their version of After Effects because they were like,

2:09 you know, the team kind of works in Final Cut.

2:11 Yeah.

2:11 Marquez is like

2:12 like you could call it that.

2:14 That's what they want.

2:16 They they're doing this for our benefit because we work in Final Cut mostly.

2:20 And they're like, you know what?

2:21 All our graphics we make in After Effects.

2:23 Let's see if we can like learn this other program.

2:25 it'll be easy to drop drag and drop into Final Cut like it'll be simple.

2:30 Uh Olivia ran into this weird problem where she had this template that it was

2:34 popping like a speck up on the screen and then she would go do other things,

2:38 come back and it would just be like slightly off to the right.

2:41 And she's like, "This is so weird." And she's like working on this for like

2:44 the past week and every time she has to keep moving it back.

2:47 She's like, "Why does this keep happening?" Then she like talks

2:49 to Michael about it and Michael's like, "I figured it out.

2:51 What happens is every time she hits save, it increments the X position by one.

3:00 What?

2:58 Yeah.

2:59 So it she hasn't set it at zero and app.

3:04 No.

3:04 And so the solution they came came up with is

3:06 she just has to remember every time she hits

3:08 command S to move that asset to -1 on the X-axis

3:12 and then when it saves it reverts to zero.

3:14 What the heck?

3:15 That's real.

3:16 That's not so funny.

3:18 It's so fast that that makes me not trust computers.

3:21 I feel like if in Microsoft Word every time you

3:23 hit save it added a dash to wherever your cursor is.

3:26 It makes me afraid to save which is the one thing I should not be afraid to do.

3:31 Is motion does motion have not autosave like Final Cut?

3:34 I do not know.

3:35 I I should cuz that might be a habit you can drop by switching to motion.

3:39 I remember when I had I was in Premiere,

3:41 I would automatically save every time I could because it if it crashed,

3:44 it would just forget everything I did for the last 12 minutes.

3:47 But when I switched to Final Cut Pro,

3:49 it could crash and I would bring it back and it would remember.

3:52 It would actually start trying to do the thing that made it crash again.

3:56 Like it was that recent of a memory.

3:58 Oh my god.

3:58 So I wonder if the move is to stop commands and and

4:02 stop saving.

4:02 Maybe I'll I'll ask her.

4:04 I'll see if that's a little life hack.

4:05 Super weird, bro.

4:06 Just tell Claude to oneshot this app.

4:09 One shot Apple Motion.

4:10 We don't need Apple software.

4:12 We can just make it.

4:13 I wonder if it's a weird shortcut thing that's happening.

4:17 I don't know that that's so I can't believe Michael found it out.

4:20 That's really impressive.

4:21 But

4:21 yeah, well, he's he's an After Effects guy, so he's command SL.

4:24 Now when she does want to move it one,

4:26 she'll just be like command SS SS like 10 spaces over.

4:30 At least she's saving it and making sure it doesn't crash.

4:32 I have a great segue because the the video

4:34 that Apple played for the beginning of their event and that's

4:36 now on their YouTube channel was really really good

4:40 which is why I'm so sure they didn't use motion.

4:43 So good.

4:44 It was it's really good.

4:45 It's really good.

4:47 So Apple dropped a little uh we we'd had a week-long event.

4:51 Oh, I guess we haven't talked about any of this.

4:52 So we had Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.

4:56 Yeah.

4:55 Monday we got iPhone 17e if I'm remembering correctly.

4:59 Tuesday we got MacBook Pro, M5 Pro, M5 Max.

5:03 Oh, Tuesday.

5:04 Yeah.

5:04 Yeah.

5:05 And Studio Display and Studio Display XDR.

5:08 Monday we also got iPad Air with M4, too.

5:11 Oh, I forgot about those.

5:12 Yeah.

5:12 I mean,

5:13 it's been a week.

5:15 Yeah.

5:14 And there's new cross body strap colors.

5:16 Two of them.

5:18 Cool.

5:17 Uh, yeah.

5:18 And then we also got the S.

5:20 And then Wednesday, we got the And then Wednesday, we got MacBook Air.

5:23 Oh, wait.

5:23 Tuesday, we also got the M5 MacBook Air.

5:27 Oh, did we?

5:28 Yes,

5:28 I know.

5:29 Yeah, the things that just got spec bumps are obviously less interesting.

5:33 Yeah, I feel like we can skip those pretty quick.

5:35 M5, MacBook Air.

5:36 It's the MacBook Air, but with M5.

5:39 Yeah.

5:38 And Wi-Fi 7.

5:39 Okay.

5:40 Well, there's other things.

5:42 Oh,

5:42 okay.

5:42 Never mind.

5:42 I mean, it's mostly just like they started at 512 gigs of base storage now.

5:47 That's pretty awesome.

5:48 And it goes up to 4 tab instead of two.

5:50 2x faster read and write speeds, which is pretty awesome.

5:53 Supports Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6.

5:55 $100 more expensive than the base M4 Air.

5:58 Um, so that's not great, but uh, but at least it starts at double the storage.

6:04 Can I Well, sorry.

6:05 And you may have kind of answered that, but I'm I missed it.

6:09 Okay.

6:09 It's 512 base storage, but the price has gone up.

6:11 Yes.

6:12 Is it the same price as the old 512 base?

6:15 So, it is more expensive than the baseline M4, but for the same storage tier,

6:20 it's actually $100 cheaper than you would have gotten on the M4 MacBook Air.

6:23 Good.

6:23 So, it is like a better deal.

6:25 And for a lot of people,

6:25 the MacBook Air is going to be the better option anyway,

6:28 which we will get to the the Neo in a bit.

6:32 Mhm.

6:31 Um, but yeah, and then like you said, M5 Pro and M5 Max, MacBook Pros,

6:35 that's kind of a big deal because we didn't

6:37 have M5 Pro or M5 Max of anything yet, right?

6:40 So,

6:41 those are going to be way better for AI tasks, etc.

6:45 Um, they also have video editing,

6:46 video editing.

6:47 They have way better GPU, uh,

6:49 4x peak GPU compared to M4 Max, which is pretty insane.

6:53 Where's the M5 Ultra, man?

6:55 I know.

6:56 Even for Yeah, they don't love the Ultras.

6:58 They've only released a couple of those.

6:59 Only three Ultra so far.

7:01 Yeah.

7:01 Uh up to 614 g gigabytes per second.

7:04 Uh up to 128 GB of unified memory in the M5 Max.

7:09 Pretty crazy stuff.

7:11 It's ironic that they're releasing these now because

7:12 people again were saying that in November or so

7:15 they're going to release the M6 series because

7:17 of the touchscreen MacBooks that are going to come out.

7:20 Yeah.

7:20 Um, but it was funny how everyone was speculating that these were

7:23 going to be the touchscreen MacBooks

7:24 because of the animation that they released,

7:26 which was like the pinching of the Apple logo.

7:29 Yeah, that was funny.

7:30 Yeah.

7:30 And I just went on a tirade on Twitter being like, "No, it's the cheap one.

7:34 It's the cheap one."

7:35 Also, they started a terabyte now, which makes me feel kind of old because

7:38 a laptop starting at a terabyte storage is That used to be the top tier model.

7:43 Yeah.

7:43 That used to be like you could get a terabyte.

7:45 Now it's you have to start at a terabyte.

7:48 Yeah, that's that's wild to me.

7:49 Uh, do you want to talk about the displays

7:51 on the M5s?

7:52 Uh, no.

7:53 MacBook Pros.

7:53 Oh, the Pro.

7:55 Yeah.

7:56 Okay.

7:56 So, two new displays.

7:58 They have a new studio display and a new studio display XDR,

8:02 which is uh fancy and has sparkles around it.

8:04 Uh, so no, it is a new technology.

8:07 The new studio display is a little underwhelming.

8:09 It's still like $1,600.

8:11 It's still 60 Hz.

8:12 I think essentially what they did was add a Thunderbolt port and it's Yeah,

8:17 they didn't really do a whole lot else to it, but yeah,

8:20 the Studio Display XDR replaces the Pro Display XDR.

8:25 Yeah.

8:24 And it's significantly cheaper.

8:27 And here's the difference.

8:27 So,

8:28 that's a really nice way of putting it's 35 or $3,200.

8:32 Yeah.

8:32 Instead of $5,000.

8:34 No, this is a Well, okay.

8:35 Okay.

8:35 So, this is a thing that happens with Apple a lot, which is we go,

8:37 "Look how much better it is than last time."

8:39 Because last time was like horribly overpriced or something.

8:42 What we're going to do with the 17e as well.

8:44 Yeah, exactly.

8:44 So, it's like the Pro display was

8:46 $5,000 plus $1,000 stand and $1,000 nano texture.

8:49 So, yeah, this is significantly cheaper,

8:51 but this is also a better display in just about every single way.

8:54 The only thing that I will miss when I inevitably get two

8:57 of these is 6K and 32 in because these are both now 5K 27in displays

9:05 but they are I think now 2,000 nits peak brightness.

9:07 They're miniLEDD instead of the backlight in uh the Pro displays which

9:12 I think is just a bunch of backlight zones instead of miniLEDD.

9:16 Um, so yeah, 5K 27 in 120 Hz and very exciting.

9:21 And also you can daisy chain them because they

9:23 have a Thunderbolt extra Thunderbolt port which is sick.

9:28 Yeah.

9:26 So I I think I have to get these.

9:30 I'm excited for what the mini LED ends up looking like.

9:33 There's 2,34 dimming zones uh which are supposed

9:36 to have even better contrast levels which is very nice.

9:39 And 120 Hz is pretty crazy to be able to do that on these displays.

9:43 Now, obviously, we've had gaming displays for a long time,

9:45 and there's like ProArt, there's like all these high-end displays.

9:48 But the reason people always end up buying

9:50 these, even though that they're a bad deal,

9:53 is just because of the seamless integration where you can just

9:56 plug it in and it just works and all that stuff.

9:58 That is probably the top of the list.

10:00 The second thing on the list is

10:02 probably color accuracy and being able to depend.

10:05 There's a ton of reference modes in here.

10:06 Like, this is actually still going to be a very good display.

10:10 Um, I kind of wonder how it'll look next

10:12 to a Pro display or how comparable they will be.

10:15 Ideally, they're very, very similar.

10:16 But yeah, I think I think these are actually a really good display.

10:19 And the fact that they're $2,000 cheaper makes it look good compared to a Pro,

10:24 which is obviously why you should never buy a Pro Display again,

10:26 and they're discontinued.

10:27 That's going to be a pretty significant lack of real

10:29 estate you're going to lose when you're 2xing this now,

10:32 putting them next to each other.

10:33 Like, you're you're losing a lot of space.

10:36 It would be way easier to have made your replica

10:38 desk if I could have done 27 in 5K monitors instead.

10:41 Well, maybe now on the replica desk you can just buy

10:44 used Pro Display XDRs cuz those are going to be cheaper.

10:47 You don't have to buy the XDR.

10:48 You should just buy the studio display.

10:50 Well, but the Pro display XDR might be like

10:51 the same price in the used now, you know.

10:53 Oh, you think used the price would be it won't be that low, but I don't.

10:56 You don't think they go up for people who want stills?

11:00 The 6K Apple display is now going to be like no more production.

11:04 It's limited edition.

11:06 I think people are interested in the miniLEDD.

11:08 I totally agree with that.

11:09 And the refresh rate.

11:11 Now, the only 6K 32 in cheese grater monitor you can get is

11:15 that weirdo knockoff that we got for the replica video if you on the studio.

11:20 Also, the XDR model, the 27 in does charge at 140 watts.

11:23 So, you can plug in the full 16-inch MacBook Pro.

11:26 The other one that is not the XDR model charges at 96

11:30 which is I believe the charging speed of the 14inch MacBook Pro, right?

11:36 Yeah.

11:35 Or some something like that.

11:36 Yeah.

11:37 And uh so that I mean that kind of shows

11:39 what Apple like who Apple thinks is going to buy these.

11:41 They think the mini LED ones they're going

11:43 to be the hardcore workstation MacBook Pros whereas

11:46 the the smaller well not smaller the cheaper one

11:49 is going to be you know the lighter MacBook Pro.

11:51 Yeah.

11:52 Um, but you know, my summary is the regular

11:54 the regular studio display is not that great of a deal.

11:57 Please cross shop a bunch of stuff.

11:59 The Pro Display the Studio Display XDR is kind of one of one again.

12:04 Yeah,

12:03 it's I feel like it's not going to be adding much

12:06 to people who were like the people who bought Pro Display XDR previously.

12:11 Now this is just what you buy instead.

12:12 And it's not going to be like just cuz it's cheaper,

12:14 I don't think it's going to gain that many more users.

12:18 Yeah, I think it's if you today were thinking about buying

12:20 a Proisplay XDR and then this comes out, it's like, "Oh,

12:23 thank god I don't have to buy a Pro Display because that was going

12:25 to be way more expensive for essentially 2x3 in of screen or five or whatever,

12:29 but this is way cheaper and and a better display.

12:32 120 Hz is pretty nice though, I guess.

12:34 That's really what I'm most excited about to be honest."

12:38 Yeah.

12:38 Yeah,

12:38 that's pretty good.

12:39 You're going to rock and see us too.

12:41 I'm going to edit 30 fps videos and it's going to be great.

12:46 Yeah.

12:46 Um, okay.

12:46 Okay, we got to talk about the iPhone 17e.

12:49 Mhm.

12:50 Yeah.

12:49 So, obviously last year, uh, review was called like, who is this for?

12:53 Or something like that because it just didn't make any sense at all.

12:57 It was a $600 iPhone with a 60 Hz display

13:01 with no Mag Safe.

13:02 Yeah.

13:02 One camera and with a single camera,

13:05 which is the worst of all worlds.

13:08 Yeah.

13:07 And also, last year was the year that they

13:09 started making the base iPhone like really good,

13:13 so it just made even less sense.

13:15 I reviewed a $900 iPhone 16.

13:19 Why would they give you the top model?

13:23 $900.

13:24 Nobody is going to buy the top model.

13:25 You can get all of the phone for $900.

13:26 Dude, that's insane.

13:27 So, okay, now we have the 17e one year later.

13:30 And what do they change?

13:31 There's like two ways this could have gone.

13:32 Either it stays exactly the same or it's horrible or it's

13:35 best is we get what the 16e should have been.

13:39 I think that's what we got.

13:39 And I think that's what we got.

13:40 I think that's what we got.

13:41 It has Mag Safe now.

13:42 It has one more color.

13:43 So, it was black and white.

13:44 Right now there's black, white, and pink.

13:46 Uh I don't know if anyone's asking for pink, but every

13:48 They're doing pink this year.

13:49 I swear.

13:49 Yeah.

13:50 Um and it has the newest chip and it doubles up to 256 gigs of storage again.

13:55 And it's still the same 599 price.

13:57 And Ceramic Shield 2.

13:58 And Ceramic Shield 2, which a lot of people are very excited about.

14:03 Yeah.

14:02 So C1X chip may be underrated, but it's in there, too.

14:05 Uh it's their newest highest end modem cellular wireless chip.

14:10 Uh, so that may end up being like

14:12 the most high-end thing in here alongside the the processor.

14:17 Yeah.

14:16 But I think what's really interesting is

14:18 they stuck with a single camera and they

14:20 stuck with the same exact design and the 60 Hz display on the front.

14:25 Yeah.

14:24 So now the question is just how much do you

14:27 care about a single camera and a 60 Hz display?

14:29 Lots of people don't care clearly.

14:31 Yeah.

14:31 And lots of people will just buy this phone.

14:34 I find it still a little crazy that if

14:37 you cross shop a little bit for 600 bucks,

14:40 you can get a 120 Hz OLED, you could get dual, probably triple cameras.

14:44 Uh, but a lot of people don't want the Android thing.

14:47 I'd rather buy a standard 16 refurbished

14:50 for probably cheaper than this than the 17e.

14:53 Yeah.

14:53 I wonder if there's refurbished 17s already that are cheaper

14:56 that are like 600 bucks.

14:58 Probably not that cheap.

14:59 Probably not that cheap yet,

15:00 but 16s definitely.

15:03 Yeah.

15:03 Yeah.

15:03 I think I mean a lot of these things

15:04 that we're going to talk about today it's like if

15:07 you're willing to buy used or refurbished the the bit

15:10 better one from last year is a better deal

15:13 and I think that people should get

15:14 into the habit of looking at used and refurbished

15:18 things before they buy the new thing especially

15:19 because we're getting such incremental upgrades every year.

15:22 I was going to say not even everything we

15:24 talk about today every phone we talk about pretty much

15:27 even the MacBook when we talk about it because a lot

15:29 of people are talking about the refurbished MacBook Air from last year.

15:31 Well, I was going to say that going off of how Marquez

15:34 started his video is like if you're listening to this, if you're

15:38 like one of our like if you're subscribed to tech channels,

15:41 you just this isn't for you.

15:42 Just like get the get the regular iPhone 17

15:45 or an old like air or like refurbished like do do that because

15:50 this is not for the people that are aware of of this.

15:54 This is like you walk into a store and you're like give me the cheap one.

15:57 I don't care.

15:58 Whatever.

15:58 like those people, they're going to get the

15:59 but it's got to have iMessage cuz my nieces and nephews have iMessage.

16:03 Like I don't the same thing with the with the new computer.

16:04 Like I don't care what's the cheap one.

16:06 Like that's that's who this is for.

16:08 At least this year they get a decent phone like a phone that makes

16:12 sense in the lineup where last year it felt like they were getting scammed.

16:15 Not having Mag Safe was like a big L.

16:17 And then like they're kind of mogging Google with the storage right now.

16:20 I'm going to

16:21 I don't know what mogging means but get get mogged.

16:24 Pixel Alyssa Lou said it so I can see storage mogging.

16:28 Yeah.

16:28 So,

16:29 Apple frame mogs Google in Miami club.

16:33 Google with a massive cortisol spike.

16:37 After being frame mogged by Chad Apple

16:40 Google's Google's 10A has 128 gigs of storage again.

16:44 So,

16:45 yeah.

16:45 So, yeah, if the 11 comes out, I'm assuming that'll be 256 base.

16:48 It's got to be.

16:49 That's just Yeah, you're right.

16:50 Cuz now they did the

16:51 It's got to be, dude.

16:52 17 over the Pixel 10, doubled storage, same price,

16:55 and now they did it for the cheap versions on both.

16:58 17.

16:58 This just feels like they're picking on Google at this point.

17:02 Yeah, they deserve to get picked.

17:03 Google Yeah, Apple's getting to the point

17:04 where they're like not releasing anything with 128

17:06 gigs of storage anymore cuz when we get to the Neo starts at 256 as well,

17:10 like there's not a lot of 128s left uh in the Apple ecosystem.

17:14 Google's got to catch up otherwise they're going

17:16 to have a lot of cortisol this this summer.

17:18 I know you're watching.

17:20 I know you are.

17:20 I know you've heard us.

17:22 You can delete that comment and just get to work on the phone.

17:27 All right, there's one more thing that Apple announced and it

17:30 was uh the final thing that they saved for Wednesday,

17:32 which is a MacBook Neo new name.

17:35 Cool name.

17:36 We've never heard that word from Apple before.

17:37 We thought it would just be the MacBook.

17:39 So, MacBook Neo is a $599 MacBook.

17:44 It's a 13-in display.

17:45 It's powered by an A18 Pro chip.

17:47 So, not quite Apple silicon M series chip,

17:51 but that was a chip that was in the iPhone 16 Pro,

17:53 and it seems to be right around the level of performance of M1.

17:58 Probably a little better in single core,

18:00 a little worse in multi-core, but anyway,

18:02 A18 Pro inside, 8 gigs of RAM, 256 gigs of storage, and four colors.

18:08 It's incredibly inexpensive,

18:10 and so they've done all the things they have to do to get a MacBook,

18:13 which is still made of metal all the way down.

18:16 Uh, like the keyboard's not back lit anymore.

18:18 It's only two ports.

18:19 Both are USB type-C.

18:20 One of them is USB 3.

18:22 One of them is USB 2.

18:23 And they're not labeled

18:24 and they're not labeled.

18:25 The back one is USB 3.

18:26 The front one's USB 2.

18:27 You probably figure that out sooner or later.

18:29 I don't know if people will, bro.

18:30 I don't think you don't care.

18:32 If you figured it out, you shouldn't be buying this.

18:34 I think most people are just using these ports to charge and not using them for

18:38 one to charge, one to plug something in, a mouse, a keyboard, some random.

18:42 I don't know.

18:42 Everything is wireless now.

18:43 It's true.

18:44 I think I cuz this is for people that are doing every

18:46 it's the like you said you guys both said this the Safari book, right?

18:50 So like people are using online services almost exclusively with this computer.

18:53 So like why plug anything in except for charging it?

18:55 That's totally true.

18:57 Yeah.

18:57 Uh what else is true?

18:58 Oh uh so the keyboard Yeah.

18:59 not back lit and the trackpad is not a force touch trackpad.

19:02 It's an actual clicking trackpad and it's a little bit smaller.

19:05 Yeah.

19:05 You said it felt good though.

19:06 It felt good.

19:06 Felt totally fine.

19:07 Uh no issues with that at all.

19:09 And the last thing I noticed is the keyboards were white and they had so

19:14 the the on the side they had like moved the speakers to the side of the laptop

19:18 side firing like sidefiring.

19:19 I got a couple demos to listen to them.

19:22 They do not sound good.

19:24 That's okay.

19:24 They're just baseline at laptop speakers at this point.

19:28 Wait, before you move on, this is something I want

19:30 to clarify on here because I asked you this question.

19:32 I was reading in the review before you even got back or what

19:35 you were writing and you say all the keyboards are white, but like

19:39 on the picture they look

19:42 tinted.

19:41 They're tinted, but like on apple.com they look like

19:47 colorful.

19:46 Colorful.

19:47 Very colorful.

19:48 And then I did see some of your footage.

19:49 You said the lighting wasn't great,

19:50 but like it seems like they're closer to white.

19:53 Yeah.

19:53 So they're they're Yeah.

19:55 To to be fair, I think apple.com pumps the color a little bit.

19:58 I think they look light and tinted.

20:01 So on the indigo laptop for example,

20:03 the keyboard looks light light light light light blue.

20:07 Close to white.

20:08 Not quite white.

20:09 On the website looks like dark purple almost.

20:11 Yeah, it looks dark.

20:12 Yeah.

20:12 It's not quite that t.

20:13 So it's like LCroy blue.

20:14 A breath of Exactly.

20:16 Just a tiny bit.

20:17 A truck passed by with a blue in it.

20:19 Somebody whispered blue at the factory.

20:21 Yeah.

20:21 Yeah.

20:22 So uh so slightly matching keyboards and even like matching

20:26 wallpapers and UI elements by default out of the box.

20:28 So, like on the yellow laptop,

20:30 the menu items are yellow and the keyboard's slightly yellow.

20:33 And it's like, okay, you got the citrus theme.

20:34 I love the citrus one so much.

20:36 Are you into citrus?

20:37 I was thinking about that.

20:38 They asked me, "What's your favorite color?" There's citrus.

20:40 There's That's the yellow one.

20:41 There's indigo, which is the blue, dark blue one.

20:44 Then there's the pink one, which I think is called blush.

20:45 And then there's silver.

20:47 Andrew, you piss colored.

20:51 Yellow.

20:52 I do like yellow a lot.

20:53 It's piss.

20:54 Yeah, they got him on the It looks good.

20:56 Also, I just thought, where's Project Red?

20:59 Oh, yeah.

20:59 That would be cool.

21:00 The red would be sick.

21:01 I don't know.

21:02 In Product Red.

21:03 Product Red.

21:03 Yeah.

21:04 In all the videos, I know the lighting was kind of

21:07 Yeah.

21:06 The The Piss one looked like kind of It looked like neon green.

21:11 It Yeah, because the lighting It's so tough.

21:14 It in person it it's giving lemon lime.

21:18 It's giving lemon like the Gatorade.

21:22 Yeah.

21:22 It's like the best Gatorade flavor.

21:23 So, like a tiny bit of green, but not really.

21:25 Good morning.

21:26 It's mostly yellow.

21:26 Y'all haters.

21:27 It's mostly yellow.

21:28 It's my favorite flavor.

21:29 Gatorade.

21:30 I don't want to hear that.

21:31 You probably should not say my favorite flavor while he's saying

21:35 Wait, lemon lime is your favorite Gatorade.

21:36 I like orange and yellow.

21:37 Yeah.

21:38 It's such a boring pick, but I think I agree with yellow.

21:41 It's so good.

21:42 And then

21:42 Gatorade.

21:43 Yeah.

21:43 And then Glacier Cherry.

21:45 What What's your favorite flavor of Gatorade?

21:46 Like the red one.

21:47 The blue you can't call boring and then go fruit punch.

21:51 I agree.

21:52 Fruit punch is delicious.

21:53 That's the default.

21:53 Good.

21:54 That's the antiator.

21:55 No, the blue one.

21:56 Yeah, but which blue one?

21:57 Oh god, I hate that one.

21:59 Light blue.

21:59 No, the problem with the blue one and the yellow

22:01 one is that they make my sal like saliva glands fire.

22:04 They all do that.

22:05 The red one doesn't.

22:06 So full of sugar.

22:07 Really?

22:07 Well, are you taking a zero?

22:08 I'm talking because they're a little bit sour background.

22:14 Anyway, the flavors of Gatorade here with this MacBook Neo.

22:17 The silver is the absolute best color because

22:19 it looks just like the old 12-in MacBook.

22:22 It looks very clean.

22:23 Everyone buying the silver is why we don't get fun colors

22:25 on things anymore because they're giving us fun colors and y'all are like,

22:28 "Oh, I want silver."

22:29 That's actually I want to see

22:30 the distribution here because there's a silver one.

22:33 You can get the boring one or a colorful one.

22:35 And I want to know what the spread ends up being for different colors.

22:37 Regular people will buy a color.

22:39 Schools will buy a thousand of the silver ones and that's it.

22:42 Everyone I know that pre-ordered one pre-ordered the piss color,

22:44 but I think it's just because they like have taste.

22:47 Who do you know that pre-ordered a MacBook Neo?

22:49 Three people.

22:50 It's do they know they're all piece of

22:53 Well, it's really I mean it's project Linda.

22:55 It's a phone.

22:56 No, think about this.

22:57 The A18 Pro is is about the M4 single thread performance.

23:02 Multi-thread it's not.

23:03 But for single single threaded tasks, it's about the M4.

23:07 We should talk about what this computer is going to be capable of, right?

23:10 Okay.

23:10 Everyone sees it's the the the smartphone chip.

23:13 And to be fair, it will be not as good, especially with the 8 gigs of memory.

23:19 I think that's actually the real bottleneck.

23:20 But it will not be good for video editing.

23:23 It won't be good for gaming.

23:24 They were bold enough to do a gaming demo for me on this on a 60 Hz display.

23:28 Was an iPhone game though.

23:30 It was basically an iPhone game.

23:31 It didn't look that great.

23:32 This is not for that.

23:34 But if you think about who's going to be buying this, it's a lot of schools.

23:37 It's a lot of students.

23:38 It's a lot of young people's first

23:40 computer who you're getting them a Mac instead

23:42 of a tablet or something or like a cheap a random HP or a Chromebook.

23:46 Yes.

23:46 This for those people is a web browser and it's a spreadsheets,

23:50 word processing, texting, basic stuff like that.

23:54 Email, it's going to kill all that.

23:55 It's super good.

23:56 And most of these things are single core tasks

23:58 that this chip is going to be totally fine for.

24:00 When you ask more of it, that's when you're going to, you know,

24:03 feel like the edges of performance of like,

24:05 oh wow, I can't play Fortnite on this laptop or you can play Fortnite.

24:10 It's optimized.

24:10 Great.

24:11 I mean, you can play it on a phone.

24:13 at 60 Hz on this laptop, but us isn't a this isn't going to be for that anyway.

24:24 So, I think it's actually a perfectly reasonable performance envelope.

24:28 I think the 8 gigs of memory is going to be like a time

24:31 thing like how long before apps are just using too much memory for this 8.

24:36 I had an 8 gigaby M1 MacBook MacBook Air when it came out.

24:40 Yeah.

24:40 And it's great up until your storage starts

24:43 filling up because it uses the swap memory.

24:47 Yeah.

24:46 And the memor is very fast.

24:47 So it's like it's generally fine,

24:49 but as soon as your storage starts filling up, it starts getting slow.

24:53 Yeah.

24:52 So I don't know.

24:54 I go back to the story with my sister how she bought the uh she

24:57 bought the Mac Mini and the next day

24:59 the double storage model was the same price.

25:02 So I told her to return it.

25:03 She's like, "Why would I do that?

25:05 I don't use storage.

25:05 I just browse the web." That's exactly what she said.

25:08 What am I going to do with storage?

25:09 Yeah.

25:09 And I was like

25:13 regular people like we have so many things on our desktops and like locally

25:17 on our computer because it's video files

25:18 and it's big photos and it's all this stuff.

25:21 Regular people just do everything on the web browser.

25:24 I know.

25:24 But that web browser is usually Google Chrome which demands 64 GB of RAM.

25:29 This is why this is Safari.

25:31 Safari book

25:32 which I you know how I feel about Safari.

25:34 I'm like the biggest Safari evangelist of all time.

25:37 But like

25:38 I don't know, man.

25:39 Yeah, I love Safari.

25:40 I'll never use anything else.

25:41 Here's an interesting spec about like what might make this a Safari book.

25:44 The battery size on this laptop is significantly smaller than a MacBook Air.

25:49 MacBook Air has something like a 55watt hour battery.

25:52 This has a 36 12 watt hour battery,

25:54 but they are quoting almost the same battery life as a MacBook Air.

25:59 I guarantee that's mostly like video playback

26:01 and using Safari because the second you

26:03 throw Chrome on this thing is going to tank through that half size battery.

26:07 So this is this is specifically like you're using Apple's apps,

26:10 you're using Safari,

26:11 you're using iMessage, you're using Apple Music,

26:13 and that's that's going to be great.

26:15 It's also lower TTE cuz it's a literally the phone processor,

26:18 but like an M processor is just a big phone processor.

26:22 They're pretty much the same architecture.

26:23 I think it also comes with like a 20 watt charger cuz it's such a small battery.

26:26 It doesn't need a big charger.

26:28 And that's lower total lower power envelope.

26:32 Wow.

26:32 It is so crazy that you can run Mac OS on an A18.

26:36 Yeah, man.

26:37 What's also crazy is we've been running iPad OS on an M4.

26:41 That is that is also crazy.

26:43 Now an M5, right?

26:45 The M4 iPad.

26:46 Yeah.

26:47 Like what else could we be doing?

26:48 You know, so

26:50 can I run Linux on a toaster?

26:51 Like are we

26:55 Absolutely.

26:55 Isn't there an A19 Pro in the studio display XDR?

26:59 Like they just print these chips.

27:00 Yeah, they put the iPhone in that display just for the camera.

27:04 This chip is so cheap for them to make.

27:05 It's unbelievable.

27:06 Yeah, Ellis's point though,

27:07 that was the one takeaway that I had from this MacBook Neo thing was like,

27:11 "Oh, so you can run Mac OS on these phone chips?

27:13 They just choose not to." For sure.

27:15 So, you think I can plug in the iPhone Fold and have a Mac OS experience?

27:18 Cuz it's possible.

27:19 Clearly, they might do that.

27:21 I don't know.

27:22 Especially if Google's doing it.

27:23 That would be freaking awesome.

27:24 I think that's a philosophical thing cuz you're

27:26 what you're saying makes perfect logical sense and we

27:28 are the consumer and so we're thinking logically

27:30 about this but if you're Apple and I

27:32 thought a lot about this recently like the super

27:34 super powerful iPad is still not good enough

27:36 to be your fulltime that's a $2,000 M4

27:40 powered iPad and it's still not your full-time laptop

27:43 for some people it could be

27:44 for a lot of people get an iPad and have Mac OS depends on what you do

27:50 there's some evangelists and there's a small fraction

27:52 of people who are like iPad sickos that are like, "Yes, I got rid of my laptop.

27:57 Yes, this is a thing." And you can do that if you're really dedicated.

28:01 But I think for most people, iPad,

28:03 they're specifically designing these products to live alongside each other.

28:06 Apple's like, "Please buy a MacBook and an iPad.

28:10 Use Sidecar, use continuity, use the sync across the devices.

28:14 They are perfect for each other." Michael,

28:16 our our our graphics guy, he uses an iPad.

28:18 He said, "Just for the pencil and to draw things and then for Sidecar." Yeah.

28:23 Yeah.

28:23 But he also uses a magic mouse.

28:25 So like

28:26 I mean if you buy like a used iPad Air for pretty cheap.

28:30 Having an external display that you can just

28:32 have at any time is pretty awesome too.

28:33 Yeah.

28:34 For your Mac.

28:34 For your Mac.

28:35 So they're like please buy both.

28:37 Yeah.

28:37 And so for as powerful as they are willing to make the iPad Pro,

28:40 they are not willing to make it

28:41 powerful enough philosophically to be your full-time computer.

28:45 They want you to use it alongside.

28:46 It's an artificial limitation.

28:47 It is 100%.

28:49 Yeah.

28:49 So Apple specializes in it.

28:50 I know.

28:51 It's their specialty.

28:52 But they also let you plug it into the display.

28:53 And they talk about how with the new displays,

28:56 I love that.

28:56 Yeah.

28:56 They talk about how with the new displays,

28:58 like you can plug the the iPad the new iPad Pro into the 120 Hz

29:02 display and it'll like run at 120 Hz and you can do all the things.

29:06 And I think if they're letting you plug the iPad into that display

29:08 with the Thunderbolt cable and like run iPad OS on the display,

29:11 they will probably let you do that with the Fold.

29:13 That's my guess.

29:14 Have you ever noticed the demos though that they run?

29:16 Whenever they do that, I pay very close attention

29:18 to the demos that Apple constructs to demo their products, right?

29:22 And when they ever do whenever they do

29:23 the like iPad plugged into the studio display,

29:26 they immediately open Procreate and they just start like doing the artist thing.

29:30 They never do file management.

29:31 They never do multitasking.

29:32 They're doing like the very simple like, oh,

29:34 here's the big display so you can view your work thing.

29:37 That's on purpose.

29:38 I think if they wanted you to do all that like computer stuff, Yeah.

29:42 they'd be selling you a computer.

29:43 I will say uh really quick with the new display,

29:45 the the really good one, the XDR one, they have the camera in it now.

29:49 So they could just get you you guys should just get rid of continuity camera

29:53 cuz every there's many times when I get on a video call and my feed

29:57 is just black and I don't understand

29:58 why and then I realize it automatically connected

30:00 to my phone and it's just in my pocket and I'm like, "Oh, this is

30:04 that's true." But please don't actually because

30:08 you don't have to get rid of it.

30:08 I'm just saying like when I'm in the audio room, I need to take a call.

30:11 There's no webcam in that room, right?

30:12 And I I am so peripheralled up in that setup.

30:15 Like I really don't want to add another one.

30:17 But I recently added my iPad as a third monitor with Sidecar.

30:22 You can use that camera.

30:24 No, but I just close the the sidecar window and take the call on the iPad.

30:29 Oh yeah, that's cool.

30:31 Yeah.

30:31 So I Yeah, I guess you could get rid of it.

30:33 Marquez, I want to know cuz you actually played with uh these laptops.

30:37 People were talking about the thickness.

30:39 Can you talk about that?

30:40 Sure.

30:40 So,

30:41 are you down with the thickness?

30:43 I think a lot of people will be totally fine with it.

30:44 So, technically it is a little bit smaller

30:48 than the iPad uh than the MacBook Air.

30:50 It is a 13-in display instead of 13.6, right?

30:54 But it is basically the exact same weight and it

30:57 is actually slightly thicker because of the lack of wedge shape.

30:59 And that's not to hold more battery.

31:01 It's not even like a bigger battery.

31:02 It's just like this is a not engineered for maximum thinness air.

31:06 So, it feels like an Air to me when I'm holding it.

31:09 It does.

31:09 I didn't worry about like extra weight or thickness.

31:12 It's I think technically on paper a tenth

31:14 of an inch thicker than the MacBook Air.

31:16 Yeah.

31:17 So, like not a big deal.

31:18 Yeah.

31:18 Is it I'm assuming it's not wedge shaped

31:20 cuz now the speakers are down here, right?

31:21 Which if you wedged all the way down to there,

31:23 you can't have the speakers in the bottom corner.

31:26 And also the headphone jack there looks really strange.

31:28 Yeah, it is weird.

31:29 It is really weird.

31:31 It kind It makes more sense to be honest.

31:33 figure out why weird sense

31:35 cuz it's just closer to you and when

31:36 you have actual headphones you're plugging in the further I mean it's like

31:41 3 in closer

31:42 8 in it would probably be the difference but

31:46 I will say uh the refurbished 13-in MacBook

31:48 Air right now on Apple's website is $750.

31:52 This is how I think I need to review this computer.

31:54 Yeah.

31:54 is if you are thinking about buying a MacBook Neo and you want to be

31:59 a little bit like you want to like look into it a little bit.

32:03 There's actually two other things you could do

32:05 for $600 is you could get an M1 MacBook Air

32:10 M1, right?

32:11 That'd be really cheap.

32:13 That would be a potentially just as good computer for you, but it's an M chip.

32:18 Um, you get more software support from buying a Neo today

32:22 because you're starting today at day zero and have years of software,

32:25 but you know, maybe you think an M1 Air will have a better display,

32:28 more multi-threaded, whatever.

32:30 That's a choice you could make.

32:33 Mhm.

32:32 Uh, and the other is you could still buy like a $500,

32:36 $600 Windows computer or a Chromebook for that price.

32:40 It's and I think it's we all have this reaction because we're like,

32:44 well, why would you do that if you could get Mac OS?

32:46 But I think that's the comparison that I need to put it all

32:49 I need to put these things all online and see like what's the advantage.

32:52 What's the best Windows laptop I can get for $5.99 for students?

32:56 $4.99.

32:56 That's going to be tough, but I want to actually figure that out.

32:59 I think it's like if you are watching or listening to this podcast right now,

33:03 that might be a something you look into.

33:06 Most people buying this they and those people might

33:09 find your regular channel review going to buy it.

33:11 They just like to me the MacBook Neo is it's a laptop.

33:16 All of us don't have laptops anymore.

33:18 We have fullblown workstations that happen to be

33:22 in a laptop now because we got to that point.

33:24 Maybe workstation is not the right word,

33:26 but like these are insanely powerful for this.

33:28 But when you think about what we just used to do with laptops,

33:32 we never sat at a desk with them and like plugged it into something.

33:35 We would sit on the couch or a chair

33:37 or a coffee shop and like that's what the Neo is.

33:40 It's just a laptop.

33:41 That's a world I've never known.

33:43 Like my first my first laptop was like

33:46 a plug into a a a workstation desk and like and do it.

33:50 And I remember

33:52 being like, yo, why are laptops not as powerful as computers?

33:56 Until M the M series came out and it's just like why would we go for

33:59 like Claire has a laptop.

34:01 It's never she's never sat at a desk with it.

34:04 She uses it on the couch or maybe at the dining room

34:07 table or like in the like and she uses it at work sometimes.

34:11 I guess that's at a desk.

34:12 But like those are laptop things to just do laptop things or

34:15 we need to do like a studio video that's

34:16 like a competition between a MacBook Air, a Neo,

34:22 a a Windows PC and an iPad cuz I'm I'm so curious

34:26 where the edge case is that one c one of those cannot do.

34:30 I think this is that point though where if you're watching

34:32 a video of like a competition between a Neo and something else,

34:36 you're out of the Neo range already.

34:38 No, but like even for like like genuinely

34:41 what can what can you not do on an iPad that you can do on a Neo?

34:45 You can get a keyboard.

34:46 You can Bluetooth any keyboard to an iPad.

34:48 I know.

34:48 But

34:49 here.

34:49 So that might be one thing to add to my discussion because the base iPads 329.

34:54 The keyboard and trackpad they make for it are $250.

34:57 So that's $600 right there.

35:00 You could get that and you can do file management and multi-wind and most

35:06 it's modular at that point too.

35:07 And you have a touch screen if you want it and you could pop it off.

35:10 Yeah, that's that's maybe that's one more option.

35:12 Put it on your lap.

35:13 And I I would also That's true.

35:17 That's very true.

35:17 I would also argue that the people the the market for the Neo is more

35:24 likely to use cloud storage and just file

35:27 management doesn't matter really on like the iPad.

35:30 I don't know, man.

35:31 I think I just like integrated laptops more

35:34 than twoin-one touchcreens with detachable keyboards.

35:38 I also think we're overthinking this.

35:39 Yep.

35:40 I think if a if a parent walks into Best Buy

35:42 and sees three laptops and an iPad that are all $600,

35:45 they're buying the Neo because they're familiar with Apple.

35:48 It looks like going to sell.

35:51 Also, education discount is $100 off.

35:53 So, it's $500 with education discount.

35:56 Can I ask a question if any of you guys might know?

35:58 I asked this to Marquez and I wasn't like

35:59 when I always think of getting an educational discount,

36:01 it's usually with aedu email address which is college,

36:05 but like very clearly this is great for high school and

36:08 it might work if you have like a high school ID.

36:10 I'm not sure.

36:10 Yeah, I guess a high school ID,

36:11 but it's harder to prove you are a student and if you don't have to, then

36:15 I'm just going to walk into an Apple store with a kid and be like,

36:18 look at this student over here.

36:19 It's been a long time since since I was in that world,

36:23 but I believe Apple partners with a company

36:25 called Uniday to do uh educational status verification.

36:29 Like for the past ever since I was in college,

36:32 like even my freshman year of college to get any Apple edu discounts,

36:36 you needed to first go through the Uniday's verification process.

36:39 And that's like high school students.

36:41 No, that's why I'm saying like I don't know how you

36:43 would do it as a high school student because you need

36:44 to like you need to give them a bunch of documents like

36:47 your your transcripts and like your ed your edu email and like

36:51 but also I wouldn't be surprised if a lot

36:53 of high schoolers are getting edu emails now.

36:56 Yeah, possibly.

36:58 Um I feel like also a lot of middle

36:58 schools high schools are the ones supplying the computers

37:01 for the classrooms at least in the US

37:03 from what I've seen but I'm sure there's plenty of How do schools work in 2026?

37:06 I don't really know how

37:09 your open claw teacher tells you some lies about George Washington and then

37:13 you go home and like play Fortnite and drink caffeine all night, right?

37:17 I remember in like 8th grade when we got a Smartboard and the thing

37:20 just never worked so they just used the whiteboard instead and we were like,

37:23 "Damn, look at this technology." Smartboard in eighth grade.

37:26 It was called a smart.

37:27 It never worked.

37:28 It

37:29 never worked.

37:29 We just watched movies on the CRT, baby.

37:31 That's all we did.

37:32 The smartboard wound up just being the projector white screen

37:35 essentially and they never used the fake markers on it.

37:38 70 lb TV.

37:39 The overhead projector, not

37:40 my old This might be I might be

37:41 at the end of people who had to use transparencies.

37:44 This was like maybe the end of school.

37:46 I had transparencies in middle school.

37:49 Okay.

37:49 Yeah.

37:50 That like the projector with the transparent thing.

37:52 The overhead projector.

37:53 That's what I just said.

37:54 Yeah.

37:54 The overhead projector.

37:55 Overhead.

37:55 No.

37:55 No overhead.

37:56 It's on a cart.

37:57 Yeah, it's on.

37:58 But it's for some reason it's called the overhead projector cuz I think

38:00 the mirror or whatever that's above it is over top of it leads into it.

38:05 Yeah.

38:05 Yeah.

38:05 Yeah.

38:05 That thing that was always funny when they erased

38:07 and it just wiped stuff all over the place.

38:10 That is an evolution of slide film by the way which was

38:12 used specifically for slides like that so they could draw on it.

38:15 Anyway, stay tuned for the Neo review.

38:17 I do think this is Yeah,

38:19 I do think this is potentially one of the most

38:21 disruptive products of the last couple of years.

38:24 I think a lot of Chromebook sellers and Windows laptop OEMs who

38:28 have been feasting in that price segment are very worried about that one.

38:34 Yeah.

38:34 Um but we'll see.

38:35 Can I throw one other like pro of this out here which is

38:37 the pro to all Apple products in the US at least is like

38:40 it's not a pro, it's a Neo.

38:41 Yes, I was gonna make the joke and then I thought it was

38:46 No, it's just like when we're looking at cheaper

38:48 products that are specifically not for tech people,

38:50 the biggest pro of me suggesting this is when it breaks on you,

38:54 I can tell you to go to an Apple store and get

38:55 it fixed and I don't have to diagnose everything over the phone.

38:58 Like it's so much easier to just be like, "Hey,

39:02 you can get the help here." I was

39:03 thinking that because I've bought my mom computers before.

39:06 Like I bought her like a a Chromebook before.

39:08 I think, "Oh, it's Chrome.

39:10 It's just Chrome.

39:10 She can't mess it up.

39:11 I was wrong." Like there are just infinite ways.

39:16 And you know, she could just go to a store and I don't have to be her son.

39:19 Then I guess that that you know, it's great.

39:22 Anyway, uh I want to make one more thing.

39:24 The closest like analogy to this is the Surface Go.

39:27 Do you guys remember that computer?

39:29 Oh, they tried a Snapdragon one.

39:30 It was not Snapdragon.

39:31 It was it was Intel Pentium Gold 4415Y.

39:35 Bless you.

39:36 Yeah, thanks.

39:36 And if you remember, Dave 2D just shat all over this computer cuz it was so bad.

39:41 And it it started at 400 bucks just for the tablet and then

39:46 you still had to buy the keyboard and the pen which were more expensive.

39:50 I believe altogether it was probably about

39:52 the same price as the as this Neo device.

39:55 Um and it sucked.

39:57 It really did.

39:58 It was seven years.

39:59 7 years old now obviously and they made a better one

40:01 that made it better but it was still expensive and bad.

40:05 So I'm just saying that look all the all the tech

40:10 PC channels Lionus Tech Tips Lionus is is slowly like

40:14 has been making videos being like oh no oh no Mac

40:19 is better value than Windows in like almost every way now.

40:23 Like there is no it's very hard unless you're

40:25 a gamer at this point to recommend yourself a Windows computer.

40:30 Also like

40:31 also everyone's mad at Windows so that helps.

40:33 Yeah, because Microsoft is a legacy corporation that doesn't Anyway,

40:37 I'm going to get so yelled at.

40:38 But I'm just saying I'm just saying this I for the Surface Go if you look at it

40:42 from the side just looks like a bad math problem.

40:45 There's so many angles going on.

40:48 the keyboard is like slightly flipped up and it's

40:50 got the stand and like everything about this.

40:53 I don't know.

40:54 Again, it was it's seven years old.

40:56 I get that.

40:56 Um but there just hasn't really been anything except for like

41:00 a Chromebook that is this price and can do this many things.

41:04 And a lot of people, especially in the United States,

41:06 own iPhones and the integration and all that stuff.

41:09 Yeah.

41:10 I mean, this is a pretty this is a pretty serious computer from Apple.

41:12 I'm still I'm very interested to get it in and have us like

41:15 test it and play with it and see what it ends up being like.

41:18 But being M4 single thread performance when

41:21 that's what everyone wants most of the time,

41:23 single thread performance is like,

41:25 you know,

41:26 it's just yellow, too.

41:27 It's sick.

41:28 It's piss Andrew.

41:30 So good.

41:30 The silver is the best.

41:31 I want the yellow keyboard so bad.

41:33 I'm happy for you.

41:36 I think we have to take it to trivia.

41:37 Yeah.

41:38 Stay tuned.

41:42 But first,

41:46 I messed up.

41:52 Oh,

41:50 I was so diligently researching when the Galaxy Buds actually came out

41:56 because it was a more difficult thing to research than you would expect.

41:59 You mean the Galaxy Gear Icon X?

42:01 No.

42:01 Try AI overview.

42:02 I would never try AI overview, dude.

42:04 Okay.

42:05 AI overview almost messed me up for this week, too.

42:07 I spent way too much of if you saw me on my phone and on my on the computer.

42:12 I'll Anyway, Marquez,

42:15 you stated yesterday that the buds came out before

42:19 the fold or I don't know what you stated

42:21 yesterday.

42:21 Last week.

42:22 Last week.

42:22 Last week.

42:23 But you said the opposite of the other two

42:24 boys and you were actually correct and I was wrong.

42:31 Who?

42:30 I just want whoever put the comment correcting them.

42:34 Uh, please unsubscribe.

42:37 That was the first point David and I got in what felt like weeks.

42:40 Hey man, I got another point last week.

42:42 Wow, that's a huge.

42:43 So, I'm one point up and y'all are both one point down.

42:46 That's huge.

42:46 No, I'm not.

42:48 I'm huge for the program.

42:50 I got the other question correct though, so it's okay.

42:52 I know, but you both have minus one point.

42:53 I have plus that point now.

42:54 So, I mean two point spread.

42:57 I just want to say Alex Wadell who who sent us that I'm blue sky.

43:02 Appreciate Sky.

43:03 So you can admit we need to nuke blue sky.

43:05 You can admit that there's value to blue sky.

43:07 Make a waveform.

43:09 Make a waveform.

43:10 Yeah.

43:11 Okay.

43:11 Mr.

43:13 Care.

43:14 The the trivia question for this week is one that I hopefully cannot get wrong.

43:19 So I wrote a crazy question that honestly let's go for it.

43:22 I will give each of you one point for every tech

43:26 product that you can name that has the word Neo in it.

43:30 Okay.

43:30 Assuming MacBook Neo does not count.

43:32 MacBook Neo does not count.

43:33 And um and the word it doesn't need to have

43:35 the word like a space between the Neo and another thing.

43:38 It has Neo in it somewhere.

43:43 Okay.

43:43 Yeah, sure.

43:43 Honestly, I don't Yeah,

43:45 it just has the letters Neo consecutively in the product name.

43:48 The reason I was going to say a over mess up is because I was just

43:51 making sure that there were enough tech products

43:53 with the word Neo in the name to even

43:55 product.

43:55 Yeah, it has to be a tech product.

43:57 And tech product can be really broad.

43:59 Like uses electricity broad.

44:01 Oh, I know one.

44:02 I don't even Oh, Nero.

44:03 Never mind.

44:04 I don't even know.

44:04 Nope, that doesn't count as an R.

44:07 Damn.

44:06 Um, but what was really funny is that when the MacBook Neo got announced,

44:10 a bunch of AI slot videos came out um that were fake Samsung

44:14 product announcements for a phone called

44:16 the Samsung S26 Ultra Neo that doesn't exist.

44:20 Just because as people would Google MacBook Neo,

44:23 this this would also get served.

44:25 Of course, AI overview does not know that those are that's AI slot videos.

44:30 So, when you Google Samsung Neo to see if that ever existed,

44:34 you get this really indepth overview with specs

44:37 of the Samsung S26 Ultra Neo a phone that does not exist.

44:42 It's sloped.

44:42 Now, back in our day, it was just small channels making the Pixel Ultra instead.

44:47 All right.

44:47 Well, we will learn or we will know the answers.

44:50 They'll be at the end like usual.

44:51 We'll be right back.

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46:02 That's shopify.com/wayform.

46:06 All right, welcome back.

46:07 Let's talk about Nothing.

46:09 Damn, I make a pun every time I talk about that company.

46:11 Um, nothing came out with

46:13 not say anything for a while.

46:14 Yeah, sorry I had to.

46:15 But nothing's coming out with three things.

46:18 Nothing phone 4 A, nothing phone 4 A Pro,

46:21 and nothing phone headphones.

46:23 Nothing phone Nothing Headphones A.

46:25 Nothing a headphones headphones A.

46:27 Headphones A.

46:28 Headphones parenthesis A.

46:29 Yeah.

46:29 God.

46:30 Close.

46:30 Their naming is still kind of tough, not going to lie.

46:32 Nothing's a weird name for a company.

46:34 It is.

46:36 Anyway, so the 4A is the the one that most of us are interested in.

46:39 It's a 350 pound aka

46:43 that's a really heavy phone.

46:44 I know that was a joke.

46:46 Uh $350ish phone.

46:48 Uh coming out in a bunch of markets.

46:49 I think it's this is the one that's going global.

46:52 Uh new design.

46:53 Wait, which one?

46:54 The 4A is UK, Europe, India.

46:57 Okay.

46:57 So, the 4A Pro is a global one.

46:59 It uh 4A is in those markets, I guess.

47:03 Um blue and black.

47:04 Yeah, it's a slight spec bump.

47:06 It's got a couple new interesting things.

47:08 Uh, I think people in this room have called

47:10 it the best looking nothing phone ever last week.

47:14 It's got pink.

47:15 Do you still feel that way?

47:16 I need to look at it again.

47:18 I'll go It's hard to say compared to the Pro.

47:21 The Pro looks really nice, but not in the colors.

47:24 Just the regular silver Pro looks really nice.

47:27 The um I I think 4a is still nicer looking.

47:31 4a I think is a more general nicel looking phone.

47:34 The 4A Pro is really cool and kind of almost gamey but in like a a subtle way.

47:41 Well, I don't we get to that soon.

47:43 Yeah, I think Yeah, true.

47:45 So, I guess I'll just jump into the specs of the real quick though,

47:48 but last week we only talked about the pink and the white.

47:51 There's also a blue and a black one.

47:52 So, there's four colors for the blue looks good, too.

47:55 The blue looks really nice.

47:57 Yeah.

47:57 So, this is running a Snapdragon 7S Gen 4.

48:01 It has a 580 millah battery with 50 watt charging,

48:05 uh, IP64, a pretty bright display.

48:07 It says 4500 nits peak brightness.

48:09 I almost never know what to make of that.

48:10 I kind of want to know just what the regular

48:13 4500.

48:13 Yeah.

48:13 Like then peak HDR.

48:14 Like one pixel will be at 4500 nits and then you

48:16 can put that number on the spec sheet, but I don't know.

48:18 One of the glyph LEDs on the back.

48:21 Yeah.

48:21 Uh, Gorilla Glass 7i.

48:23 Uh, it's got triple cameras.

48:25 It's got a pretty good looking set of specs for a phone that is this cheap.

48:30 I have a question for the audience that maybe you guys can answer.

48:34 People still seem to care about processors.

48:39 Yes.

48:38 Hard stop.

48:39 And I I understand the gaming aspect of it, I suppose.

48:43 Um although I'm not really sure what mobile

48:46 optimized games don't run at high frame rates anymore.

48:49 Maybe like Genchin Impact or something.

48:51 That seems to be the the benchmark.

48:53 But I still see people caring about the processors and I'm like,

48:56 if it if the processor is lower tier, quote unquote,

49:00 but it enables things like super bright uh 120 Hz,

49:04 50 watt charging, like all this stuff, why do you care?

49:07 This is my question.

49:08 Yeah, great question.

49:10 I think this is another thing where in the bubble

49:12 that we're in of people overanalyzing every little detail about a phone,

49:16 like the enthusiasts, they care about getting the most for their money.

49:21 slightly better.

49:32 But who are just more casually shopping,

49:34 they are not thinking about the difference

49:35 between the Snapdragon 8 Elite or the Snapdragon

49:38 8 Elite Gen 5 or the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy.

49:42 Like, they're all a good chip and the phone performs well.

49:47 Therefore, I'm not getting ripped off.

49:48 I I agree with you.

49:50 I use a tensor chip, so clearly I don't give a about performance.

49:53 Um, but I think like what Marquez said in like

49:56 this more range of things when you're probably cross shopping,

50:00 if I'm looking at two phones at the same price and one chip is better,

50:03 then I'm probably going to go that for the longevity route.

50:06 That's when I I'm hoping that's when people care about it more so here.

50:10 But I also,

50:12 as much as I love speaking for the audience, I'm probably wrong when I do it.

50:16 There's two audiences.

50:17 I think it's less like the people that care

50:19 about the frame rates on the newest game.

50:21 It's more so how long will this phone last me?

50:23 I'm spending like $500, $600 after taxes.

50:26 Like I want it to last a while.

50:28 Well, Apple would say that rowing at a lower

50:30 clock speed actually makes the phone last longer,

50:32 which is why they force lower clock speeds, but they can't really do anymore.

50:35 I think that's a perfect example of the two different audiences.

50:38 There's one audience who's like, "How dare you?

50:40 I want the highest clock speed so I

50:41 have every single frame with the maximum performance."

50:44 And then there's the other audience Then there's

50:47 the other audience who wants just the phone,

50:49 hey, it works, so make it last as long as possible.

50:52 So, if you were in the first bucket who's like,

50:53 I want to maximize and get the best possible performance.

50:56 Especially when you're buying a higherend phone,

50:57 I think it makes way more sense to pixel peep

50:59 and to really want the most out of your phone,

51:01 then that makes sense.

51:02 But if you're buying a $350 phone and it just

51:05 works and especially with I think nothing software is pretty good,

51:08 like it's smooth enough.

51:10 I don't think it would even feel that different

51:11 on a Snapdragon 8 Elite versus a 7S Gen 4.

51:15 Yeah.

51:15 So, it's like Yeah.

51:15 As long as it lasts me a couple years and doesn't fall apart,

51:19 seems like it's a good enough chip.

51:21 Yeah.

51:22 Yeah.

51:22 What do I mean?

51:23 So, that's the regular 3, the 4A, and we also got the 4A Pro,

51:27 which I have to say like got announced this morning.

51:30 Um, you probably got some early stuff about it, but

51:33 I did not know anything about it.

51:35 It didn't leak online.

51:37 This has got to be one of the first tech launches that hasn't leaked.

51:40 They played us

51:41 a very long time.

51:42 I feel like they the design video last week was to be like

51:48 look over here.

51:49 Yeah.

51:49 Yeah.

51:49 They literally like slide them in.

51:52 Yeah.

51:52 And they did a good job at it.

51:53 Yeah.

51:53 This morning I came in I was like we have a lot to talk about the pot.

51:56 I have a lot to write this morning cuz we also had to shoot S26 review.

51:59 And then I sit down and there's two new nothing products I didn't know about.

52:02 I was like, "Oh my god,

52:04 we didn't know about it." Technically Marquez told us last week.

52:06 Marquez did not tell me about I asked earlier on the podcast.

52:10 I left it in the edit.

52:12 He did ask, "Is there a 4A pro?" And I was like, "Yeah, probably."

52:18 He said, "Yeah, but I thought you were just speculating."

52:21 Why are you hiding from us, Mark?

52:23 Well, I only say what I'm allowed to say.

52:25 Earlier this week, I said,

52:26 "Hey, I need to I'm writing podcast.

52:28 Can you send me the 4A specs so I can write it down?" You're like,

52:31 "Sure." And didn't send the Pro or the headphones.

52:35 Well, I didn't get the 4A Pro info.

52:37 That was the thing.

52:37 So, so, uh, so the event was in London

52:41 the literal hours after the Apple event in New York,

52:44 so I couldn't physically be at both.

52:46 So, I made the decision to see the six Apple devices in New York,

52:49 and I wasn't able to teleport to London fast enough to also see the 4A Pro.

52:53 Bummer.

52:54 Um, dude, what's wrong with you?

52:55 Yeah, I couldn't there.

52:56 I actually looked.

52:57 I was like, is there a flight that takes off and gets me there

53:00 at like 3:00 in the morning so I can just show up and make a video?

53:03 But no, there there were no flights I could make that happen.

53:06 Um,

53:08 do not cutting that.

53:12 Why?

53:11 Cuz that's not real.

53:13 We talked about it though.

53:15 That is not coming out.

53:16 Are you kidding?

53:17 That's why we couldn't take it.

53:18 That's why we couldn't fly on it.

53:19 That's true.

53:20 Yeah.

53:20 No, that

53:21 But yeah.

53:21 So anyway, this this stuff was uh was sort of held in in London

53:26 for us to see from those who are actually there with cameras.

53:29 Yeah.

53:29 And it looks pretty good.

53:30 The specs also look pretty good.

53:32 So the 4a Pro again, it's a 4a pro, not a not a full flagship.

53:35 It's not a 4.

53:36 So, because it's a 4A Pro, it's got a Snapdragon 7 Gen 4 chip.

53:42 Going to kill myself.

53:43 I think this is just them coping that it's like, hey,

53:45 if you want to put a mid-range chip in this, you can't call it a flagship.

53:48 If this was a Snapdragon 8 Elite, then they could call it a flagship.

53:52 But since it's not, all right,

53:54 we have to call it the A Pro instead of the flagship.

53:56 Fine.

53:57 So, Snapdragon 7 Gen 4, uh, 6.83 in AMOLED.

54:01 It's a 120 Hz display,

54:02 but it will sometimes get to 144 hertz depending on the app.

54:05 Kind of similar to some other gaming phones have.

54:08 Okay.

54:07 Um, 5,000 nit peak brightness, which means nothing to me.

54:11 5,000 mAh battery, 50 watt charging, triple cameras again.

54:15 Better cameras though than the 4a.

54:17 So,

54:17 and better looking.

54:18 It's got the glyph on the back.

54:19 It's got a It's got the Nothing Phone 3 like little display thing.

54:25 Yeah.

54:25 In a better way.

54:26 So, like it, if you haven't seen it yet, it is an all metal body, which is

54:32 awesome.

54:32 Beautiful except for wireless charging it cuz it doesn't have that cuz it can't

54:35 Oh, I didn't even think of that.

54:37 Yeah.

54:36 Poo poo.

54:37 Um, it has like a large camera bump similar to an iPhone in terms of footprint,

54:42 but this is proof that you can do that like

54:44 everyone else and make it unique because this is actually sweet.

54:47 Essentially, one main camera, top left corner,

54:50 dual camera, what are we calling them again?

54:52 Pills.

54:54 The pill.

54:55 The bean.

54:55 the bean.

54:56 We got a bean, a double camera bean under that horizontally.

55:00 Then to the right of that, a large circle glyph interface,

55:03 which I believe has 137 mini LEDs,

55:06 is 57% larger and twice as bright compared to the phone 3 glyph interface.

55:11 Wow.

55:11 Yeah.

55:12 And we still have the red recording LED on it

55:15 because that should be on every single phone ever.

55:18 Yes.

55:18 But then encased in that is a full metal

55:22 silver pink or black body and it looks great.

55:25 It also has the

55:26 cooking over there.

55:27 It looks

55:27 has like the little circular like indent on the bottom that matches the new uh

55:32 pixel buds I or uh sorry not not pixel buds nothing buds feels like that thing.

55:38 Yeah, it matches all together really well.

55:40 Although the pink I will say um okay so

55:43 like in the camera bar it is color matched

55:46 on the silver and it's color matched on the black

55:48 but the pink is still silver so it looks really weird actually

55:52 I kind of wish that they made that pink

55:55 here's my problem is look at this picture on the verge that looks

55:59 this is the black phone but looks like a silver camera bump

56:02 and the black metal looks like it got like plasti dipped instead of like

56:07 the silver version of this phone is the best looking 100%%

56:09 it looks great.

56:11 Yeah, I will say like I miss the HTC full metal body

56:13 phones and um if you're not going to have wireless charging,

56:16 which I still really love wireless charging, all metal is pretty awesome.

56:20 I'm curious about uh heat and how that ends up working out.

56:25 Maybe because this chipset is, you know,

56:27 a little bit lower performance, it's not going to get as hot.

56:30 Is there a vapor chamber in there?

56:31 Uh probably.

56:32 I don't actually know.

56:33 I don't know.

56:33 I don't know.

56:34 The renders might look better than these in person.

56:37 I'm very curious to see them in person.

56:39 Um, it's definitely more gamey than their other devices.

56:44 It's a little more I don't know.

56:45 I'm not getting gamey as much as I'm getting like R2-D2.

56:50 Yeah, like a little playful pill morphing type.

56:53 It feels like a phone that they took the nothing

56:55 buds and just put it in the camera bump.

56:57 Like that's where all the nothing design aesthetic is.

57:00 The clear and kind of like red accent and whatever.

57:03 And then there is a little bit at the bottom, but I kind of dig it because it's

57:07 not trying too hard while also trying too hard.

57:11 Yeah.

57:10 Which is a hard thing to do.

57:11 Do I see the price yet?

57:14 $4.99.

57:14 $4.99.

57:14 So not

57:15 flagship price.

57:17 I think pretty good price actually.

57:18 It's cheaper than the Pixel.

57:20 It is interesting though because it's $4.99 USD, £499, and £479,

57:26 which if you do the They've done this before where like they match the price,

57:29 but when you do conversion rates on that is wildly different.

57:33 Yeah, it's a better It's the same price as the Pixel 10a, right?

57:37 Uh $4.99.

57:38 Yeah.

57:38 While you guys are looking,

57:39 my favorite thing about the video was it says world's first 140x zoom

57:43 asterisk and then says claims are based on publicly available data at launch,

57:47 which I think is the claim that it's the world's first 140x zoom,

57:52 which again just

57:54 it's going to look really bad.

57:55 If you zoom into 140x, what are you doing?

57:57 Have you watched the video?

57:59 No.

58:00 Even when it zooms in on the like perfectly rendered video of everything,

58:04 the safe looks terrible.

58:07 Yeah.

58:06 Yeah.

58:06 I mean, yeah.

58:07 Hey, at least they're honest.

58:08 Here, real quick.

58:09 It's $4.99 for the 8 gigs of RAM, 128 storage,

58:12 another $100 for the 12 gigs of RAM, 256 storage.

58:16 Those are the only two options.

58:17 Just do a,000x and just make it look really bad.

58:20 Yeah.

58:20 What's stopping you from going to 2,000?

58:22 Yeah, exactly.

58:22 You could just brand it that way.

58:23 2000X Zoom.

58:25 World's first.

58:26 World's first.

58:28 Yeah.

58:27 Um, yeah.

58:28 I think it looks pretty good.

58:29 I think the nothing uh design team has been really cooking recently.

58:34 I think they also did the thing where they kind

58:36 of uh made the previous stuff worse so that we'd go,

58:39 "Wow, they cooked this time.

58:40 Look at the improvement." Probably not.

58:43 I mean made it worse like how the iPhone 16 was so bad

58:46 that when the 17e was what it should have been,

58:48 we were like, "Wow, they really cooked."

58:50 Is that Can you do that with design or is it just they tried?

58:53 It depends how quickly you you have turnaround.

58:56 Like we hated the three.

58:57 We hated the three but not the 3a.

58:59 So I guess that depends on there is like

59:01 I mean the analogy I'm making for the 17e is to to the 16e is the iPhone 12 mini

59:07 to the 13 mini because the primary problem was the battery

59:10 and that's the primary thing they addressed in the next one.

59:14 Yeah.

59:13 And with this one the primary problem was

59:15 the lack of wireless charging and the storage.

59:18 Right.

59:19 For the price

59:20 versus the 3a pro.

59:22 I was talking about the 16 in.

59:24 Oh the iPhone.

59:24 Yeah.

59:25 So now with this,

59:27 I think this is more analogous to the 3 than the the yeah the 3A

59:32 because it uses the same kind of glyph

59:34 interface even though it's bigger and better now apparently.

59:37 Um it the 3 still had a chipset that people were not that happy with.

59:41 It was also super expensive.

59:42 It was also super Yeah.

59:44 Like I don't see a reason anyone would buy the 3 when the 3a Pro exists,

59:48 which is kind of funny.

59:49 I feel like maybe they should have just called this the 3 Pro,

59:51 but I guess they couldn't because the chipset is technically not as good.

59:55 I just hate this is the thing.

59:56 This is my thing.

59:57 Why does everything rotate around the freaking chipset?

59:59 Because of the super super like the nerds among us would be like,

1:00:02 "Are you seriously making a new flagship with a worse chip?" Yeah, but like

1:00:08 we've all said it and we've all done it.

1:00:09 Also,

1:00:10 it's like they can't they cannot name

1:00:12 this a flagship because everyone will say that about them.

1:00:15 So they have to leverage this naming scheme of like, okay,

1:00:17 it's not the A because the A was the 4A, but it

1:00:20 is better than the 4A, but it's not a flagship chip.

1:00:23 So we'll call it the 4A Pro.

1:00:25 That's how they get away with this specific set of specs and this price.

1:00:29 And when they inevitably try a flagship sometime later,

1:00:32 all of us nerds will go, "Well,

1:00:33 you better put a flagship chip in it,

1:00:35 otherwise I'll spend my money on something else with a flagship chip."

1:00:37 Can't wait for the CMF Phone 3 Pro Light that is better than a Nothing Pro 4A.

1:00:42 Yeah, it'll be tough.

1:00:44 Yeah.

1:00:44 Yeah, I think they did a great design.

1:00:46 I love this phone.

1:00:47 I didn't know what I didn't even think of no wireless charging though.

1:00:50 That makes me sad.

1:00:51 It makes me sad.

1:00:52 But I don't know if you're not going to I mean I want it for sure.

1:00:56 I always want it.

1:00:57 But if you if you're not going to do it, metal body is sick.

1:01:02 True.

1:01:02 Cuz I miss my HTC Thunderbolt even though it burned my hand.

1:01:05 What about There's so many better metal phones you could The HTC Thunderbolt.

1:01:09 The Thunderbolt was the worst one.

1:01:10 It had What are you talking about?

1:01:12 Thunderbolt was the worst battery life of any phone I've ever used.

1:01:14 Yes, I agree.

1:01:16 They were like, "Let's do 4G and then burn it

1:01:18 to the ground." What about the HTC1 or the HTC 1 M78?

1:01:23 I guess.

1:01:23 Yeah, those are more light.

1:01:25 Google Play Edition.

1:01:26 I know.

1:01:27 Those phones were Nexus 6P.

1:01:29 Yeah.

1:01:29 Yeah, we had good Oh, Nexus 6P.

1:01:31 Good metal phones did exist.

1:01:33 Yeah, I guess.

1:01:33 Yeah, I only made that.

1:01:35 It was my first smartphone, so I guess that's why.

1:01:37 Yeah, you didn't know better.

1:01:39 Yeah.

1:01:39 Yeah, I didn't.

1:01:40 Well, they didn't have anything better at the time.

1:01:42 Yeah.

1:01:42 So, they also made headphones.

1:01:44 Nothing headphones A.

1:01:46 Yeah.

1:01:45 So, now they have two tiers of headphones.

1:01:47 Again, we can assume based on the name that the headphones A, A again,

1:01:50 I haven't tested them.

1:01:51 I'm seeing the design and the $100 lower price.

1:01:53 We assume that this is a slightly lowerend set of headphones,

1:01:57 but it still has all the nothing design philosophy.

1:01:59 There's some colors as well.

1:02:02 Yeah.

1:02:01 Um, they still have some of those clever buttons,

1:02:04 too, that the original Nothing headphones had.

1:02:06 I think a lot of people forgot how interesting the Nothing Headphones were.

1:02:09 They had like a paddle.

1:02:11 Yeah.

1:02:11 Okay.

1:02:11 So, you know, they have the paddle, they have the roller as well

1:02:14 and the software that talks to them.

1:02:16 So, these headphones still have a lot of that stuff

1:02:18 and they have uh seems like a pretty decent Well,

1:02:22 eight hours of playback.

1:02:23 Oh, in 5 minutes of charging.

1:02:24 Sorry.

1:02:24 We don't know what the battery life is totally.

1:02:26 Five day battery lasts for 5 days, which could mean a billion different.

1:02:31 How many hours of playback?

1:02:32 This is the one thing.

1:02:32 The battery literally dies after 5 days and you cannot use can't charge it.

1:02:36 Yeah, you I guess that's a mixed use stat,

1:02:38 but like with headphones, you can just be like, I turned them on.

1:02:41 I hit play.

1:02:41 When did they die?

1:02:43 Yeah, that would be a useful number.

1:02:44 These, in my opinion, look significantly worse than the headphones.

1:02:47 I think I kind of like them more than the regular nothing headphones.

1:02:51 I think I just like the clear part on the out.

1:02:54 So, it's if you remember the other nothing headphones,

1:02:57 they're square and circle.

1:02:58 Square outside, circle bump on the inside.

1:03:01 This time

1:03:02 says two.

1:03:02 Yeah.

1:03:02 Yeah.

1:03:03 But the circle part on the nothing ones,

1:03:05 the headphone ones is where the clearness is.

1:03:08 And then on this, the circle part on top of the square is where the color is.

1:03:12 And the clear part's the square.

1:03:14 I just think it looks

1:03:15 So it's like opposite.

1:03:16 Um I think it's just trying to do less.

1:03:20 Yeah, but it looks way cheaper in my opinion.

1:03:23 I mean, I think both of them look pretty cheap.

1:03:26 Uh I don't really love either of them.

1:03:27 I love my Nothing earbuds.

1:03:29 I will say I I wear I use the Nothing headphone ones

1:03:32 pretty much every day because I've been using them as ear muffs.

1:03:35 Um

1:03:35 Well, you just use them because those Stranger Things guys use them.

1:03:38 Yeah, they're fashionable.

1:03:40 No, but I get stopped by a lot of people asking

1:03:42 me what they are and people are like, "Oh, it's cool.

1:03:43 It look it looks like a cassette tape inside.

1:03:45 It looks like and then they put their AirPods

1:03:47 back in and walks bad cuz it's glossy."

1:03:50 I disagree.

1:03:51 The black is the way to go because they're so minimal.

1:03:54 You can see the fingerprints so much more.

1:03:56 Yeah, but no one knows you're wearing a crazy pair of headphones.

1:03:58 The white ones are like, "Woo,

1:03:59 I'm here." The same way with all these colorful ones.

1:04:01 It's like there's so pick me energy.

1:04:03 The black ones are the ones

1:04:05 you are all you just the color doesn't

1:04:07 change the pick me energy on these headphones.

1:04:09 I disagree.

1:04:10 I think it totally does.

1:04:11 Bro, I don't know.

1:04:12 I think we're all contributing to phone companies

1:04:15 only releasing black and white at the moment.

1:04:18 These are four different colors.

1:04:19 Look at You're telling me.

1:04:20 No, it looks beautiful.

1:04:21 I just would never wear them in public

1:04:23 because it's like going to get double takes.

1:04:25 Like people are going to look at you and then look away and then be like,

1:04:27 "Wait, what are those?" Cuz how bright they are.

1:04:29 The black ones are just headphones.

1:04:30 People will look at you and be like, "Oh, he's wearing headphones."

1:04:32 But you really think that the A looks better.

1:04:35 Uh yeah, they look like nothing.

1:04:37 I kind of one pun.

1:04:39 Uh oh my god.

1:04:40 Their website is infuriating.

1:04:42 Oh god.

1:04:43 Okay.

1:04:43 What I didn't even know was that there's four colors.

1:04:47 Oh my god.

1:04:48 What is that?

1:04:49 Holy m Show Adam.

1:04:51 Okay.

1:04:51 saw.

1:04:53 You haven't seen the yellow.

1:04:53 The yellow and pink are just in the So, that's what I'm saying.

1:04:56 They're just in the center.

1:04:57 The yellow and the pink ones.

1:04:58 I think I like the colors, but I do not like the headphones.

1:05:01 They look so bad.

1:05:02 The white and black ones are fine.

1:05:04 They're unbelievably ugly.

1:05:06 Also, I just want to say I just went to the PC Mag website where they have

1:05:10 an article about these headphones and they're saying the 5day

1:05:13 battery life is 135 hours straight of play time.

1:05:17 That's what it says on the Verge, too.

1:05:20 So, cont die in 5 days.

1:05:23 Just for context, a normal I does this have ANC is the other question.

1:05:27 Yes, it does.

1:05:28 So, a normal ANC set of headphones flagships are getting 30 40

1:05:32 the really good ones 50 and in some insane cases 70 to 80.

1:05:37 Like I think the Dyson headphones had a crazy big battery and did 80.

1:05:41 135 is unheard of for A&C headphones.

1:05:44 That does seem like a lot.

1:05:45 I need to investigate.

1:05:46 That's only with the AAC codec though.

1:05:48 If you as soon as you switch to LDAC or any other

1:05:50 lossless thing that it has built in, you're going to cut that in.

1:05:54 Yeah.

1:05:53 So they cherry picked 135 hours with the lesser codec and ANC off.

1:05:57 That's how they got this number.

1:05:58 If you do LDAC and ANC on, it's 62.

1:06:01 Oh, that's okay.

1:06:02 That see how the context makes more.

1:06:04 Okay.

1:06:05 That that Okay, got it.

1:06:06 Yeah.

1:06:06 So if you're willing to have it sound like ass, then you can get a lot better.

1:06:12 Hot.

1:06:12 You can't tell.

1:06:14 You David, I guarantee you you cannot tell.

1:06:16 I know.

1:06:16 Okay.

1:06:16 I've been pumping AAC into your headphones this whole time.

1:06:19 You have no clue.

1:06:21 Sound like ass.

1:06:22 You You're listening to a AAC in your headphones right now.

1:06:25 David, I almost brought this and I wish I did.

1:06:28 I'm kidding.

1:06:29 Fender released a bunch of new stuff recently.

1:06:31 They I don't know if you remember this.

1:06:33 A year and a half ago, you had me take a Fender briefing for you.

1:06:37 These guys?

1:06:39 Yeah.

1:06:38 Okay.

1:06:38 And they released My cousin just did air guitar.

1:06:42 Air guitar.

1:06:43 I've heard of Fender.

1:06:44 They were announcing like new headphones and some

1:06:47 new speakers like wireless speakers that are also amps

1:06:51 and they got bought by by a like

1:06:54 a Chinese company or something and they decided to make

1:06:56 the brand like way better and they sent a year

1:06:59 and a half ago is when I had this briefing

1:07:01 and then yesterday on my front porch arrives

1:07:04 an enormous box enormous like huge and I was like

1:07:10 what the hell is this and one of them

1:07:12 was a pair of headphones wireless ireless headphones from Fender.

1:07:15 And inside of the left ear cup, they have a dongle,

1:07:18 a USBC dongle that you plug into any device,

1:07:21 and it allows you to do uh it allows you to do lossless audio.

1:07:25 When you say inside the ear cup, you mean like

1:07:28 like you take the you take the ear

1:07:30 plush thing off and then there's a dongle inside

1:07:33 that you can take out and you can put it in your laptop or in your phone.

1:07:40 Okay.

1:07:39 And it allows you to listen to lossless audio.

1:07:42 Oh, and there's three modes.

1:07:44 There's like there's like AAC, there's lossless, and then there's um OraCast,

1:07:48 which allows you to basically transmit the same

1:07:51 signal like audio signal to multiple headphones.

1:07:53 It's actually kind of interesting.

1:07:55 It's interesting.

1:07:55 And then they they're also insanely repairable.

1:07:57 Like the other side has a you can take this off and replace the battery.

1:08:01 Like they're sort of trying to be like the Fairphone headphones,

1:08:05 the Fairbuds XL in a lot of ways.

1:08:08 Um why did I bring this up?

1:08:10 I brought this up related to these headphones for a reason.

1:08:13 Is it because they're lossless and wireless battery life?

1:08:15 Because of the audio codec because why you talked about it?

1:08:19 I guess just wanted to flex on us, man.

1:08:21 No, I a possible embargo.

1:08:24 Cuz he's wearing the white headphones all the time.

1:08:26 So I had a reason for this.

1:08:28 Well, anyway, that it was interesting.

1:08:30 I'll bring it in next week.

1:08:31 I'll show you.

1:08:32 Sure.

1:08:32 I'll show you.

1:08:33 That's cool.

1:08:33 That's kind of like Yeah.

1:08:34 You can do Bluetooth on the MXM 4S or you

1:08:36 can plug in the dongle and get like a connection.

1:08:39 Right.

1:08:39 Right.

1:08:39 Right.

1:08:39 All right.

1:08:40 So, it was interesting.

1:08:40 I got something to say.

1:08:41 Say it.

1:08:42 Say it.

1:08:43 Last time we talked about the Nothing headphones,

1:08:44 like when they came out and I wore them on the podcast

1:08:47 and I was just sort of like, "Come on, guys.

1:08:49 Who cares?" You know,

1:08:50 I sort of gave him I have revised that opinion because I personally feel

1:08:58 that the wireless overhear ANC headphone space

1:09:04 since that conversation has turned into such garbage.

1:09:09 um that actually I find myself recommending the nothing

1:09:13 over your headphones more than most other things.

1:09:16 They're 500 bucks.

1:09:17 They're 300 bucks.

1:09:19 Oh.

1:09:19 And that and that's so that's the first reason is

1:09:20 that most things in this space are like crazy overpriced.

1:09:26 The headphones that I use every day, the Focal Batiste,

1:09:28 I mean

1:09:29 dummy overpriced.

1:09:30 Sure.

1:09:30 But that's like my Maserati the Wilkins like PX8 whatever those are like

1:09:39 way overpriced.

1:09:40 They do not sound significantly better than these.

1:09:45 Yeah.

1:09:44 I think

1:09:46 every single year the Sony WHX whatever sound progressively worse and worse.

1:09:51 And like the newest ones,

1:09:52 whatever number we're on, I just think are like borderline unlistable.

1:09:55 They sound so bad.

1:09:57 Wa.

1:09:58 That's a hotter take.

1:09:59 That's a hot take.

1:09:59 I they sound he's been whiner.

1:10:01 I consistently choose them over AirPods Max despite

1:10:03 the worst connectivity cuz I think they sound

1:10:05 I think if you're looking You think they sound better than AirPods for flying?

1:10:09 I think well we got to talk about that because that doesn't even the to me

1:10:14 the the the Sony's are so midforward

1:10:19 and they have so much distortion in the mids

1:10:22 that if you're trying to use them for like any sort of clinical listening

1:10:26 they're like it's it's the equivalent of like rubbing Vaseline on a lens like

1:10:30 for clinical listening.

1:10:31 Yeah.

1:10:31 Is that your problem?

1:10:32 Like a doctor podcast.

1:10:34 No no no no no.

1:10:34 Like if you were trying to like if you were trying

1:10:36 to like listen to something and be like does this sound right,

1:10:40 you know what I mean?

1:10:40 For any sort of like obviously like I'm coming at this from a different thing,

1:10:44 but like I don't I I don't enjoy listening to them.

1:10:46 I think you enjoy listening to music differently than people.

1:10:50 Sure.

1:10:50 I think the Sony's probably sound excit Anyway,

1:10:52 what I'm trying to say is like for the money Yeah.

1:10:56 and expensive, too.

1:10:57 For the for the money and the feature set,

1:10:59 I think that nothing's actually like some one of the most competitive offerings.

1:11:02 And you know something really funny cuz I obviously get

1:11:05 asked way too often like what headphones should I buy

1:11:08 and so I've been recommending the nothings more and more and more

1:11:10 and I have not gotten a single person to buy them.

1:11:13 Oh, interesting.

1:11:14 Because of the aesthetic, the way they look,

1:11:16 every single person I've been like, I think this is the best bang for like

1:11:20 also because like Bose quality, like the obviously the noise cancelling Bose

1:11:24 offers is still like really really terrific, but like sound quality,

1:11:26 I can't really say the quiet comforts aren't super competitive anymore.

1:11:31 So, it's like yeah, like this is kind of kind

1:11:33 of the jam and no one wants the Nothing.

1:11:36 The two thing I hate about the Nothing

1:11:37 headphones is that the ANC basically does not exist.

1:11:41 like is it is a feature that I don't hear it almost at all.

1:11:45 The the Bowowers and Wilkins are the same way and the Focals

1:11:47 are the same way and those are both twice the price.

1:11:49 Okay.

1:11:49 So, it's like

1:11:50 the I don't love the audio quality on the Nothing headphones either.

1:11:53 It kind of it feels like everything is like a very it's like it

1:11:56 feels like it's trying to force like a spatial audio thing all the time.

1:12:00 Okay.

1:12:01 And you can't turn it off.

1:12:02 If there is a sometimes they do have the nothing that's on.

1:12:06 Maybe it's in the nothing.

1:12:07 probably I feel like with the nothings it's like

1:12:09 you get clear highs that are not piercing.

1:12:13 You get clear mids that are not like blurring everything else

1:12:17 in this in the the sound the sonic field and then you

1:12:20 get good decent enough lows and the transient response is good

1:12:24 and music sounds like the way it mostly should on those things.

1:12:31 Um so show me a graph where I don't believe you.

1:12:33 No, no, no, no.

1:12:34 All right.

1:12:35 And and uh shoot, I wish I brought in these these uh

1:12:40 these uh nothing.

1:12:41 I was going to say the other headphones that I I haven't tried,

1:12:44 but I people I trust say are like pretty

1:12:46 decent are the the Marshall headphones, the the Monitor 3s,

1:12:50 which are about the same price as these.

1:12:51 Anyway, this is all to say that I'm excited to try

1:12:54 these headphone A's just because the longer I've like observed the space,

1:12:58 the more I've been like, damn,

1:12:59 I was really not fair to the original nothing headphones.

1:13:05 They really are a cool offering.

1:13:06 Bring Yeah.

1:13:06 I'm going to bring in the Fender next week for you

1:13:08 to try cuz they look very normal and they also

1:13:11 cost $300 and they have lossless audio and Ora and all

1:13:16 this cool stuff and see is way better than nothing.

1:13:18 The Sony's.

1:13:22 Yeah, the Sony's are sound so bad that um How bad do they

1:13:27 that when I I finally confronted Rich and I

1:13:29 was like you have to stop editing on these

1:13:32 because you're on because you're missing you're missing so

1:13:36 much like you're missing you're not hearing so much stuff.

1:13:39 And I gave him the Bowers and Wilkins which are not that much better headphones.

1:13:43 Like they sound pretty bad in my opinion too.

1:13:46 And he it was literally like, "Oh my god, like I can hear the room.

1:13:51 I can hear these qualities in their voices." Like

1:13:53 the Sony's literally are unable to recreate these sounds.

1:13:56 Interesting.

1:13:57 Yeah, I would definitely not edit on them.

1:13:58 I I usually think of like the types of headphones.

1:14:01 I think of like the the listen music listening fun headphones,

1:14:03 V-shaped, graph, all that fun stuff.

1:14:05 And then like the more reference headphones and I've I firmly

1:14:07 put the Sony ones in the like music listening fun headphones thing.

1:14:11 I guess my my different like what like picture me telling you

1:14:15 the video equivalent of this Marquez like picture me being like dude I have

1:14:18 this display the blacks are bright as hell the whites are not bright there's

1:14:22 no color accuracy but it's just so much fun to watch movies you know

1:14:26 that's actually how TVs are

1:14:28 watch movies dude

1:14:29 that's how I would never edit on a TV I would never edit on a TV

1:14:33 no we we watch this we we all

1:14:34 think this looks everyone thinks this looks bad there's

1:14:36 entire subreddits that are like here like here's how

1:14:40 you turn off all the stuff on your TV.

1:14:42 But if you walk into a store and they all have all those settings turned

1:14:45 on, you buy the one that has all them turned on cuz it looks better.

1:14:48 Yeah, the punchy one.

1:14:49 Yeah, they're like that's why they turn it on.

1:14:51 That's what people do why it's turned on.

1:14:53 Am I just like so off base here that this is classic?

1:14:57 No, you're too plugged in.

1:15:00 You care too much.

1:15:02 When the when you've listened to 30 pairs

1:15:03 of headphones and you know the nuance differences between them,

1:15:06 it's easy to to like evaluate that way.

1:15:09 I know what I like.

1:15:10 You know, there's there's that, too.

1:15:11 There's some personal.

1:15:12 But I think there's I think there's a lot

1:15:13 of people shopping for headphones that are just like,

1:15:15 "All right, I'm going to fly with these." So,

1:15:16 I need uh step one, good build, step two, good battery, step three,

1:15:20 good noise cancellation, and then as long as they sound pretty good, I'm happy.

1:15:22 And that is kind of the Sony's.

1:15:23 You're right.

1:15:24 But this is like five or 600 bucks.

1:15:26 They've gone up, but they're not that high.

1:15:28 I think they're under four still.

1:15:30 I think they're under four.

1:15:31 I still think getting the older versions is a better deal, but

1:15:34 I agree with that.

1:15:35 But they they stopped folding for some reason for the last gen.

1:15:38 And I have 460

1:15:41 460.

1:15:42 What?

1:15:42 The Mark 6.

1:15:43 Yeah, remember they went up.

1:15:45 They went up in price this year.

1:15:47 460.

1:15:47 Yeah, they're hella expensive

1:15:49 for headphones that sound like the music is coming out of a bee's hole.

1:15:54 I remember when they were like 330 then they were for that.

1:15:59 That is not what they sound like.

1:16:01 Not bad.

1:16:02 That's like the engine.

1:16:06 Yeah.

1:16:07 Like Next up, that's what the Sony's sound like.

1:16:11 No, they don't.

1:16:13 They do not sound that bad.

1:16:15 They sound pretty good.

1:16:17 Someone I guarantee someone is listening to this podcast on a pair of Sony's.

1:16:20 They're going to be like, I can't hear the difference.

1:16:21 That's just what Wait, that just sounds like what it sounds like all the time.

1:16:24 Oh my god, you are so hard on me.

1:16:26 I did forget that they were 460.

1:16:27 I thought they were more cuz they AirPods Max are

1:16:30 like $550 and they don't lower the price and then all

1:16:33 the others start to creep up in price cuz they're all

1:16:35 competing and then Apple comes out and seems to enable $500 headphones.

1:16:38 Now the 350 ones are 400 and 450.

1:16:41 So it's all creeping up which is

1:16:42 valid that the nothing headphones are only 3000.

1:16:45 That's really nice.

1:16:47 But yeah.

1:16:47 Well, and the headphones a are 1990 and they see how they sound.

1:16:52 It's hard for me to tell exactly from the website,

1:16:54 but it seems like you can bypass a bunch

1:16:58 of the digital stuff with the 3.5 millimeter connection,

1:17:00 which is something that a lot of headphones actually you can't do anymore.

1:17:03 I just not have one.

1:17:04 I just want to say if you want to yell at Ellis Roven on X,

1:17:09 like I'm so sorry.

1:17:12 I'm like genuinely so sorry if I offended you and you like the Sony's.

1:17:14 Like I do really believe like the best headphones are the ones that you like.

1:17:19 They're the one.

1:17:20 That's so true for for headphones and earbuds.

1:17:23 It's like the best.

1:17:24 Don't let anyone tell you that the ones that you like are bad.

1:17:28 You just did.

1:17:30 I personally just feel like I was going to say

1:17:32 you're missing on a rant about those.

1:17:35 They sound like a bees.

1:17:39 What's But if they sold them for $100, I'd be like,

1:17:42 "That's amazing." I'd be like, "You have to go buy these.

1:17:45 These are the best." But it's like

1:17:46 I go on I will say I'm on a lot of flights and I I

1:17:49 tend to like look around and notice

1:17:50 all the headphones people are wearing and there's

1:17:52 first of all tons and tons of AirPods and I know they're $500 headphones

1:17:56 and I'm always amazed at how many AirPods

1:17:58 there are and maybe that's cuz I'm flying

1:17:59 out of Newark but then two there's a ton of bows and Sony and I

1:18:02 know they're not the the Bose especially it's like I know they're not the best

1:18:05 sounding but they sell them in the airport

1:18:07 vending machine and they're designed to be

1:18:09 four flights and they have tons of&c and they have the adapter in the box and

1:18:14 apparently the newest ones actually sound pretty good.

1:18:16 Yeah, Bose Bose is a historic like Bose is an R&D company first.

1:18:20 You know what I mean?

1:18:20 Like they put a lot of effort into this,

1:18:22 but like the old Quiet Comforts had pretty

1:18:23 ass audio quality with just really good ANC.

1:18:26 Yeah, but were they bees ass audio quality?

1:18:28 I don't I don't know if I can cosign that that statement.

1:18:31 Um, you know, there's there's a there's a funny thing in audio where

1:18:34 like you know the like the like mimi bell curve

1:18:37 with like the angry dumb guy on one side

1:18:40 and the angry genius guy on the other side and like it's with everything.

1:18:43 Well, no, but with with headphones,

1:18:45 it's like the I don't know anything about audio, blah, blah, blah.

1:18:49 Use AirPods.

1:18:50 And then you have everyone arguing in the middle about what's best.

1:18:52 And then like everyone I know who's like a super esteemed,

1:18:56 knowledgeable audio engineer, like super techy, really knows their stuff.

1:19:00 It's AirPods.

1:19:01 It's like, and they wouldn't even consider using anything else.

1:19:03 No, it's it's the same in pretty much everything in note takingaking apps.

1:19:07 Same with c with photos.

1:19:08 I'll have people that are like, "Oh,

1:19:10 look at this awesome picture." And it's like the worst picture I've ever seen.

1:19:13 Like the HDR is just like, "Did you shoot this from a bee's?

1:19:18 What is this?"

1:19:20 Cuz it sounds like the sound is coming out of a really skinny tube.

1:19:24 That's what I was trying to

1:19:26 I was just saying.

1:19:27 I can't wait for the new merch.

1:19:30 Bele merch.

1:19:31 The m the area under the curve of people that really like ass is high as it is.

1:19:40 In fact,

1:19:43 I'm not going to understand what you

1:19:44 just said cuz it's getting bleeped entirely.

1:19:46 I'm going to I'm going to leave whole so people know.

1:19:50 All of the most But you're right.

1:19:51 Every category, all of the most mid products

1:19:53 in the middle are all fighting each other.

1:19:55 And then the just like thoughtless product on each end is probably the one

1:19:58 most people should get and that's fine cuz you don't want to think about it.

1:20:02 Yes.

1:20:02 Ellis is just saying though that thoughtless product

1:20:04 on each end should be the nothing headphones.

1:20:06 No,

1:20:09 Carl Pay will clip that.

1:20:11 I'm saying I'm saying I'm saying Carl, you know,

1:20:14 I got on I got over there right where Andrew is sitting and did not give

1:20:18 you a fair shot and and I apologize and I and I have since come around,

1:20:25 but but it's an it's a great it it fits in to the the product lineup

1:20:30 really well at a competitive price with competitive offerings.

1:20:33 I don't know about all that.

1:20:34 You got to use the app stuff.

1:20:36 But that part black

1:20:37 the new nothing headphones.

1:20:39 A It looks like you have a pair of AirPods

1:20:42 that are glued to the side of a square.

1:20:45 It would be sick if you could pull a pair of earbuds out of that.

1:20:48 That would be cool.

1:20:48 That's what they look like except they're going

1:20:51 all this to say, we should get these here.

1:20:52 We should listen to them.

1:20:53 We should put them on Ellis's head and have them live react to them.

1:20:56 Yes.

1:20:56 Should see if we can get 135 hours of listening.

1:21:00 Yeah.

1:21:00 I want to try them because I want to see how often people stare at me with them

1:21:03 and then just take them off and don't

1:21:05 want to be the person being stared at anymore.

1:21:07 Yeah, they're $100 cheaper.

1:21:08 I don't know if we said that.

1:21:11 Yeah, somewhere in in there we did mention it and but yeah,

1:21:14 probably got lost.

1:21:16 All right.

1:21:16 All right.

1:21:16 Well, we do have a little bit more to talk about after the break.

1:21:18 So, before that break trivia like nothing's nothing's

1:21:23 design team simultaneously cooked and like got cooked.

1:21:27 Okay, question two.

1:21:29 Speaking of nothing,

1:21:30 the first video ever uploaded to nothing's YouTube channel was uploaded when?

1:21:36 Closest without going over.

1:21:39 Wasn't it just like a prank video?

1:21:40 It was a hype video.

1:21:41 It was definitely a like a ladybug and a prank lady.

1:21:44 It was like 8 to 12 months before they launched their first product.

1:21:47 What?

1:21:48 It was irrelevant.

1:21:49 When it was relevant, is this closest delta or closest without going over?

1:21:57 We'll brainstorm that a little bit.

1:21:59 We'll be right back.

1:22:08 All right, welcome back.

1:22:09 Uh, really quick here because we spent

1:22:11 a really long time talking about bees there.

1:22:13 Um, I got bees, boy.

1:22:16 We've talked multiple times about how like AI overviews and whatever are going

1:22:19 to really uh screw up page views

1:22:23 and journalists getting paid and reviewers getting paid.

1:22:26 And we saw that happen this week with the website

1:22:29 ratings or rings um is how it's spelled out.

1:22:33 But they had to kind of make a huge change to their website.

1:22:36 They are uh they're known for doing super in-depth reviews on a lot of things,

1:22:40 tech included, one of the largest.

1:22:42 But like so in-depth that when you're shopping for a printer,

1:22:44 you can compare printers by cost per page or like

1:22:48 pages per hour or cost per hour at max flow, you know, like Yeah.

1:22:52 Like they're the ones.

1:22:54 Yeah.

1:22:54 It's deep.

1:22:54 And it's like they're doing it with different equipment

1:22:57 on a lot of different things to be able to test these.

1:23:00 So that obviously costs money,

1:23:01 but um previously it was free and now they had to make a pretty

1:23:06 large change to make uh the full

1:23:08 in-depth reviews of everything behind a payw wall.

1:23:12 Uh it is now $10 a month or $45 a year.

1:23:16 But the most interesting thing about this uh announcement was

1:23:20 an a section of their release saying why we're making this change.

1:23:24 It says, "Ratings.com has historically relied heavily

1:23:26 on organic search traffic from Google and affiliate links.

1:23:29 That model is becoming less reliable.

1:23:30 Fewer people click through Google organic results than they used to.

1:23:33 At the same time, AI actively scrapes and reuses our test results,

1:23:37 often without attribution and without

1:23:39 the context needed to interpret them correctly.

1:23:41 That's like a huge thing by itself, interpreting things correctly." Yeah.

1:23:45 Uh, meanwhile, performing lab-based and in-depth testing is expensive.

1:23:48 We buy every product ourselves like normal consumers.

1:23:51 No paid or sponsored reviews.

1:23:52 Test them using standardized repeatable methods

1:23:54 and publish the full test results transparently.

1:23:57 A membership supported model reduces our dependency on Google.

1:24:00 Limits unrestricted AI scraping for our test results and gives

1:24:02 us incentives that are more sustainable and aligned with our customers.

1:24:06 So, this sucks but is necessary, I guess, is the easiest way of putting it.

1:24:11 It stinks for all the people who want

1:24:13 to just go to their website and support them, but also like I don't know,

1:24:19 not many people are going to pay $10 to just go for a month

1:24:23 or pay $45 a year for a reviewing

1:24:26 website because you don't buy things that often.

1:24:29 Lots of times you're just like in the pinch

1:24:31 of comparing things and want to go check it.

1:24:35 Yeah.

1:24:34 So, this is a tough look.

1:24:37 This is part of the inevitable death of SEO and the web.

1:24:40 I mean, every website for the longest time.

1:24:42 Adam and I used to work at Android Authority and we were privy to a lot

1:24:45 of the SEO that the people would have to talk about all the time.

1:24:49 And it it basically equated to Google makes all

1:24:52 of these changes constantly that you have to adapt to.

1:24:56 Often times when you're adapting to it,

1:24:58 making these changes makes your website worse, but if you don't,

1:25:01 then Google will derank your website because you are

1:25:04 optimizing the way you show up in Google search.

1:25:07 Yeah.

1:25:07 And with the speed of which this stuff is changing,

1:25:09 especially with AI overviews and all of this stuff,

1:25:12 now you have the additional factor of having

1:25:14 to like adapt to what the AI overview shows.

1:25:17 If it chooses your website to show in the AI overview,

1:25:20 if it chooses you to show in Gemini when

1:25:22 Gemini gives uh gives sources and stuff like that.

1:25:25 And I mean, there's a reason a lot of websites are moving to paid.

1:25:28 The Verge moved to paid about a year ago.

1:25:30 That was a pretty major change.

1:25:31 It made their web traffic really sink a lot.

1:25:34 But they are making a lot more money on subscriptions.

1:25:37 I just think the entire internet is moving more towards direct

1:25:40 to creator payments because SEO is just kind of dying very rapidly.

1:25:45 So I think I'm like thinking out loud here.

1:25:47 This I think this is my real beef with AI overviews.

1:25:50 I know I know Ellis like it's the accuracy and there's

1:25:52 a bunch of other things are wrong about it but

1:25:56 I think it's because the like it it so

1:25:59 fundamentally removes the incentives to make good stuff right

1:26:03 so before and I there's you know the ratings

1:26:06 video kind of illustrates this perfectly but like when you

1:26:09 make good stuff and you optimize for people

1:26:11 to find that good stuff Google and all the search

1:26:14 engines when people are in the buying process will

1:26:16 funnel you will funnel those people to find your stuff.

1:26:19 Yeah.

1:26:20 And so you make the stuff because people find it

1:26:22 and you get paid from the ads and the cycle continues.

1:26:24 So you're incentivized to make good stuff so that more people find it.

1:26:28 Now you make good stuff.

1:26:30 That stuff gets scraped by AI overview.

1:26:33 And when people start to go through that buying process,

1:26:36 they find the AI overview and they never find your stuff.

1:26:39 So the only incentive you have to make good stuff is

1:26:42 to be the source for the AI overview to be good.

1:26:44 And you don't get any credit for that and you don't get paid for that.

1:26:47 So the incentive is effectively gone.

1:26:49 Yeah.

1:26:50 So, think about that.

1:26:51 The effect the the incentive to make good stuff is gone.

1:26:56 Now, why would you make any more stuff?

1:26:58 It's almost like we've decided, all right,

1:26:59 the entire corpus of human knowledge is complete.

1:27:02 We need nothing more to be new.

1:27:03 We will just be trained on the old stuff.

1:27:06 That is that is my that's a bummer.

1:27:08 This is a concern that we talked about at the very beginning of this.

1:27:12 We literally said, "What happens when there is no incentive to go

1:27:15 to a website because the answers are all on Google?" And like,

1:27:18 "Why would you make content if people are not going to go to your page

1:27:22 and you can't get paid for it?" And then the AI has nothing to grab from.

1:27:25 Like that that is the question that we asked 3

1:27:27 years ago and now it's actually hitting websites really hard.

1:27:31 Yeah.

1:27:32 So, we're seeing like the Verge and ratings and like

1:27:34 adding membership programs because there

1:27:36 are still enthusiasts willing to support

1:27:37 the creation of good stuff and you know the membership

1:27:41 program is maybe the most ideal way to do that.

1:27:43 I subscribe to The Verge.

1:27:44 to read a lot of these things, but it's often like

1:27:46 uh like Wire Cutter for example, I brought up earlier or off camera,

1:27:49 but like when I'm about to buy a blender and I'm doing

1:27:52 my six hours of way too much research to buy the perfect blender,

1:27:56 that's when I'm deep in the ratings and the wire

1:27:59 cutter and the Verge and reading blender reviews.

1:28:03 Yeah.

1:28:02 And then once that's over,

1:28:03 I'm not going to read another Blender review for years.

1:28:06 That stuff I'm not going to do that.

1:28:07 So, it's hard to get people to support and to, you know,

1:28:10 spend regularly on something when it seems like there's the incentive is gone.

1:28:14 This is specifically hard because I don't think a lot of people are Yeah.

1:28:17 reading ratings for fun.

1:28:18 Like we don't, we are part entertainment, right?

1:28:21 So, like people see our reviews, but we're also entertainment.

1:28:24 So, that's not getting hit as hard.

1:28:26 But like this kind of stuff that is just like

1:28:29 numbers and what prints per minute or Marquez's

1:28:32 smoothies per hour and his blender likeuge.

1:28:35 This is not the stuff you read for fun.

1:28:36 This is the stuff you read for a purpose.

1:28:38 And when you don't have that purpose,

1:28:39 it's really hard to pay monthly or yearly on it.

1:28:42 Even though I don't know if you were like buying

1:28:44 a new house and equipping it for the next year,

1:28:46 maybe 45 bucks for the year wouldn't be bad.

1:28:48 But that's not a great business model to be like,

1:28:50 "Cool, every time someone buys a house,

1:28:52 we'll get one year of uh a subscription." So this I feel bad for ratings.

1:28:56 This is just absolutely probably tanking there.

1:29:00 It's very tough for stuff like this.

1:29:02 There's um there's an interesting graph and also

1:29:04 a chart as Marquez like to call out.

1:29:07 Yes.

1:29:07 That shows the decline of peak traffic on tech websites year-over-year.

1:29:12 And it's it's pretty nasty.

1:29:14 Like all of these numbers are really high.

1:29:16 And it's only a oneyear graph.

1:29:19 2024.

1:29:19 Yeah.

1:29:20 To now, I guess.

1:29:21 Year and a half.

1:29:22 So March 2024, Digital Trends got 8.5 million peak traffic.

1:29:28 January 26, they got 264,000.

1:29:31 That's a decline of 97%.

1:29:33 That was a rounding error in their previous number.

1:29:36 Now it's their entire traffic is crazy.

1:29:39 Yeah.

1:29:38 I mean, this is going to decimate websites on the internet because the same

1:29:42 way that Facebook video when it decided to not be a thing anymore,

1:29:45 like ruined Buzzfeed basically.

1:29:49 Yeah.

1:29:48 This is what Google SEO is doing to all

1:29:50 the internets that have built businesses being the source of information.

1:29:53 Well, what's crazy is like I think a lot of these websites like

1:29:56 well services like Google they they just sort of think social media is

1:30:01 free information and I think in their head if you take the average

1:30:06 of all information about one topic you get closer to a source of truth

1:30:10 right because there's signal to noise hopefully you have more signal than

1:30:13 you have noise and if you take a billion sources hopefully you have

1:30:17 the right data and I think all of these services and websites are

1:30:20 just kind of like why do we have to pay websites when You know,

1:30:23 we could social media is free like quote unquote journalism or information

1:30:29 and you can just theoretically get closer to a source of truth,

1:30:32 but that really just it destroys the internet as we know it currently.

1:30:37 So, it's not good.

1:30:39 We talk doesn't give good information for the most part.

1:30:41 Yeah.

1:30:41 I mean, there's a reason why there are certain trusted sources

1:30:43 because they have processes in place that will take away the noise.

1:30:47 I agree with you, but I I think that they

1:30:49 just think that on a on a numbers basis,

1:30:51 if you have 1 billion people talking about a thing,

1:30:54 the average is always higher to truth.

1:30:56 That that's exactly what poly markets like, you know,

1:31:00 all of these guys, they say like, "Oh,

1:31:01 we can predict what's going to happen because people are

1:31:04 putting their money towards this thing because they this many

1:31:07 people think it'll happen and that means it will

1:31:09 probably happen." I don't know if that's true or not.

1:31:11 Uh there's a zillion problems with that, but um either way,

1:31:15 the average number of arms per human is less than two.

1:31:20 That's taking all the data about all humans ever.

1:31:22 The average number of arms.

1:31:23 Just saying.

1:31:24 Sometimes that logic can be flawed.

1:31:27 It's I just don't think that was a fire exam.

1:31:30 Just saying.

1:31:31 I just they don't all just think hard enough about

1:31:34 stuff like this because they just want to get their I disagree.

1:31:38 I think they know they don't know, dude.

1:31:40 Google At a certain point though,

1:31:42 this is going to screw themselves when their AI can't scrape things

1:31:44 anymore because no one's making no one can get paid to make the

1:31:48 everyone is making stuff all the time for free on social media, I guess.

1:31:52 But now that that level of what we get is worse and then Oh yeah.

1:31:57 And then it just all turns into nothing

1:31:59 when the free stuff is that's being made is doesn't mean anything.

1:32:03 Nothing was the last segment where I we've talked

1:32:09 I just remember we talked to somebody who made an AI product.

1:32:12 Uh I won't name them but we brought this up to him

1:32:15 and he said I don't think you guys should have any worries.

1:32:17 You make really good stuff.

1:32:18 And I was like I'm not talking about us.

1:32:20 I'm talking about like these people the people who

1:32:23 are doing the in-depth web textbased reviews and like that.

1:32:27 And it felt like he'd never heard that before.

1:32:31 Yeah.

1:32:31 It's gone.

1:32:31 It's This stuff is going to be gone.

1:32:33 This Yeah, this feels similar.

1:32:34 I I went to Claw Con last night.

1:32:36 Um who you know Cladbot?

1:32:39 We talked about Cloudbot.

1:32:40 Open Claw.

1:32:41 Open Claw.

1:32:41 Sorry.

1:32:42 You remember OpenClaw?

1:32:42 We talked about Open.

1:32:43 I went to Is that the one where everyone dresses up

1:32:45 as Santa and like goes around the city?

1:32:47 I thought that was somehow worse.

1:32:50 Somehow worse.

1:32:50 Everybody did have um lobster hats on.

1:32:53 Okay.

1:32:54 But the people I talked to primarily were like, "Oh yeah,

1:32:56 well you can just like create your own apps and blah

1:32:58 blah blah and everything." thing and I was like, "Okay,

1:33:00 but what happens when all the ser people don't need to use any

1:33:03 services anymore because they can just spin

1:33:04 up their own services?" And they're like,

1:33:06 "Well, that's fine." It's like, "Okay, but then how do people make money?" Like,

1:33:09 "Well, you can sell your apps that you make." And I'm like,

1:33:12 "But no one will buy it because they can all make

1:33:14 people get money so they can pay for housing and food."

1:33:18 Those are the primary things I think you're forgetting that people need.

1:33:22 Yeah.

1:33:23 Similar to this.

1:33:24 How often did you run into that the like meme of like you should try Open Claw?

1:33:28 It's awesome.

1:33:29 Cool.

1:33:29 What do you do?

1:33:30 It's really cool.

1:33:31 I use it every day.

1:33:32 Oh, yeah.

1:33:32 But what are you making?

1:33:33 You're going to get left behind.

1:33:35 That's exactly why I went to to the conference.

1:33:37 And I did find some pretty insane use cases

1:33:40 that people were using with for I did have

1:33:42 to actually talk to people because the actual event

1:33:45 where they talked about everything that was going on.

1:33:47 They had a bunch of speakers.

1:33:49 All of them were just OpenClaw rappers to try

1:33:51 to sell you like an easier way to use it, which is very ironic.

1:33:55 Yeah, I know.

1:33:56 They also did have a rapper there.

1:33:57 They did have a route.

1:33:58 It was very Silicon Valley, I will tell you.

1:34:01 Anyway, um there were some use cases.

1:34:02 Either way, I'm sort of just equating that to this because it's like

1:34:07 I understand the revenue generation angle,

1:34:12 but you're not thinking far enough into the future

1:34:14 where it's like why would people buy use your service

1:34:18 and buy your thing if you're taking away if you're

1:34:22 giving everyone the ability to have the service and the thing?

1:34:26 Yeah.

1:34:25 You know what I mean?

1:34:26 I don't know democratization in a way is like good but also bad sometimes

1:34:32 we uh this is not I guess it's it's sort

1:34:35 of a unique situation but I I do have sort of like

1:34:38 faith that god forbid like we do lose things like ratings

1:34:42 and the verge and like these places that do give these like

1:34:45 really important honest reviews Tom good mashable that the pendulum will

1:34:50 swing back in the other direction um I'm mostly thinking about consumer

1:34:55 reports which I think is a little bit more safe because

1:34:59 they're a nonprofit and they get a lot of money through donations.

1:35:03 Um, and you know, a big part

1:35:06 of the founding of Consumer Reports in the late 20s,

1:35:09 early 30s was like this period of time

1:35:11 where corporations could just were literally killing

1:35:15 people with their products and and there was

1:35:17 like not really any like consumer protection ability.

1:35:20 And I'm not saying like we're going to go

1:35:22 all the way back there where like you don't know

1:35:24 if your the product if this blender you're going

1:35:27 to buy is going to end your life or not.

1:35:29 Um but I you know we we could get close to back

1:35:34 there and and it'll necessitate like we'll need some way to know.

1:35:38 I think Google would probably say enough people are truthful, but I don't.

1:35:41 But they're not.

1:35:42 Well, no.

1:35:43 No.

1:35:44 And I'm saying what I'm saying what Google would say.

1:35:47 Like if you know, God forbid.

1:35:49 Did you guys watch the Hank Green video, the hourlong AI?

1:35:52 Like the thing that he said about how like there's a world where

1:35:56 we we lose access to like all of Google and all of and and all

1:36:00 of our information is gained through some sort of like LLM interface.

1:36:04 And at that point, there's literally no way to know

1:36:07 what's true because you'll have three sources of truth,

1:36:09 you know, anthropic, OpenAI, and Google.

1:36:13 And whatever they want you to believe,

1:36:16 there's you'll have literally no way to fact check it, you know.

1:36:19 Um, so when you're like, is this the best blender?

1:36:22 You know, Google will decide what the best blender is and and sell you that one.

1:36:26 Open AI will serve you an ad.

1:36:27 Yeah.

1:36:27 There there was like a period of time, remember,

1:36:29 where like auto car companies were genuinely telling consumers like

1:36:32 your car will be worse with seat belts in it.

1:36:36 Like remember like that was like like we've been there before.

1:36:39 There's nothing stopping us from going back there.

1:36:40 And so I do have faith that eventually like

1:36:43 this is just a thing that we need in a developed society

1:36:46 and somehow someway we as a as a populace will hopefully figure it out.

1:36:51 People still do value quality and this has been sort of the ultimate

1:36:55 debate that people have been talking about like with AI slop will

1:36:58 that actually make quality more valuable

1:37:00 and people will gravitate towards the quality

1:37:03 we don't really know yet we're still too early in the stage

1:37:06 I think that obviously people go towards the lowest friction generally

1:37:10 so there will be a lot of slop that will be consumed

1:37:14 but the big question is will people also seek out the quality stuff

1:37:17 which will still find a way to exist um either way it seems

1:37:21 like most of these websites really

1:37:22 are going to start moving towards subscription

1:37:24 models I see the value in the verge moving towards has a subscription model.

1:37:28 I think a lot of people like to read news is like the money maker for them.

1:37:32 I don't know how Artings or Ratings has

1:37:35 a subscription model and uses that to exist.

1:37:37 Do you know how farm co-ops work?

1:37:39 I feel like this is the this is how we should figure

1:37:41 this out where like like let's say and I'm not a farmer

1:37:44 so please let me know if I get some of this wrong

1:37:46 but my understanding is like if you live in like South Dakota, right?

1:37:49 and you live in this place where like there's

1:37:51 a bunch of independent farmers and you all grow corn.

1:37:54 You know, you could try to set up business deals

1:37:57 with corn distributors and people who are going to use your corn.

1:38:00 Or you could establish a co-op and all

1:38:02 the farmers drop their corn off at this mutually

1:38:05 owned place and then the co-op is the one that handles selling all the corn.

1:38:09 Yeah.

1:38:09 And you just get paid off.

1:38:10 You know, you you with the the co-op consortium decides on how much

1:38:14 they're going to sell the corn for and then you divide the things.

1:38:16 That'd be a cool way to do these sort of reviews, right?

1:38:18 is like is like you have like one place

1:38:21 you go for all of these sites independent testing,

1:38:24 you know, and you pay for that collectively.

1:38:27 We all pay for that and then that money can get distributed.

1:38:30 There was a cool um service that Twitter owned before uh it got bought Vine.

1:38:36 No.

1:38:36 Well, I don't I don't know if that was cool or not.

1:38:40 Uh it created it created the Paul brothers.

1:38:42 Um, regardless of that, they had this service where

1:38:47 you could pay like a $5 fee and it would allow you to if you clicked a link

1:38:52 on Twitter for a website that had a payw wall,

1:38:54 it would let you like read it without the payw wall

1:38:56 or like it would remove all the banner ads or whatever.

1:38:59 And it was a super cool idea and I don't know if it was working or not.

1:39:03 They had this scalable thing where it was like

1:39:06 the more websites that got on the more it would distribute the money.

1:39:09 So obviously the more websites the less money.

1:39:12 News is another great Yeah, Apple News is a good example of that, too.

1:39:14 I don't know if either of those services took advantage of these platforms,

1:39:17 but to me, like instead of being like like with Marquez, it's like, dude,

1:39:21 I don't I don't need to pay for Blender honesty 24/7, you know?

1:39:26 But if I I do need to pay for product honesty 24/7.

1:39:29 And so, if there was some sort of consortium here, Yeah.

1:39:33 Yeah.

1:39:33 It's sad that we have to start thinking about these things like this is

1:39:36 what Sam Alman's always being like is like in a world without money,

1:39:40 how do we give people UBI or whatever.

1:39:42 It's like I don't like to Why are you forcing this world on us right now?

1:39:47 Um yeah, it's sad.

1:39:48 Anyway, you should subscribe to I you should subscribe to news

1:39:52 that you care about and websites that you care about.

1:39:54 I think that's kind of the crux of it.

1:39:55 If you're willing to subscribe to like Netflix or HBO Max,

1:39:59 like think about your con like the the quality of your content

1:40:03 consumption and what actually matters to you in your regular life.

1:40:06 And it's important to give news.

1:40:09 We were a few days away from those being the same company.

1:40:11 We were and yet something worse happened.

1:40:14 Oracle is now Oracle's son dad.

1:40:19 Yeah, son.

1:40:20 I'll throw one more sad thing in here in the

1:40:23 sad part of this, but of uh if you own uh Meta Ray-B bands,

1:40:27 you should probably read the article uh that just

1:40:30 came out about them and the video camera on it.

1:40:32 We definitely don't have time to talk about.

1:40:34 In fact, the ratings thing I thought was going to be the least

1:40:36 depressing thing we could have talked about and it definitely was not true.

1:40:39 But yeah, uh if you have these, go read them.

1:40:41 Maybe we'll talk about it next week.

1:40:43 But you probably cover the cameras.

1:40:47 Yeah.

1:40:47 But uh we probably should get you to trivia because Adam

1:40:50 and Ellis need to edit this very fast to come out by tomorrow.

1:40:57 You need one.

1:40:58 Trivia.

1:40:59 Dude, I've got a marker.

1:41:01 When the when the death bots come for us, I'm going to do a trivia question like

1:41:06 the band on the Titanic going down with the ship.

1:41:08 That's going to be that's going to be my final gift to humanity.

1:41:11 Guys, the MacBook Neo is here.

1:41:15 None of us knew it was coming until it came.

1:41:18 And uh you know, so how many other tech products

1:41:22 can you guys name with the word Neo in it?

1:41:25 You get one point per product.

1:41:27 You guys got mad at me because I

1:41:29 made the questions too hard and you weren't scoring.

1:41:31 So this is literally a waterfall of points available for you guys.

1:41:34 You could literally bathe in the points.

1:41:37 I only have one and it's dude.

1:41:38 And I'm going to be so It doesn't matter.