This week, the crew sits down to talk smartphones. They go over each of the phones that Marques picked and offer a few hot takes along the way. On top of that they also talk about the Android XR show, a new smartring from Pebble, and the Xiaomi SU7! Shop the merch: https://shop.mkbhd.com Links: Verge - Google Project Aura Verge - Pebble Index smart ring Adweek - Google Gemini Ads Video of Tesla robot MKBHD - Smartphone awards MKBHD - Xiaomi SU7 review This episode brought to you by: Framer - wwww.framer.com/design (code: wave) Grammarly - wwww.superhuman.com/podcast LinkedIn - www.linkedin.com/mkbhd Wealthfront - www.wealthfront.com/wave T-Mobile - www.t-mobile.com Music provided by: Epidemic Sound Social: Waveform Threads: https://www.threads.net/@waveformpodcast Waveform Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/waveformpodcast/?hl=en Waveform TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@waveformpodcast Hosts: Marques: https://www.threads.net/@mkbhd Andrew: https://www.threads.net/@andrew_manganelli David: https://www.threads.net/@davidimel Adam: https://www.threads.net/@parmesanpapi17 Ellis: https://twitter.com/EllisRovin Join the Discord: https://discord.gg/mkbhd Intro/Outro music by 20syl: https://bit.ly/2S53xlC Waveform is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: What are the key features of MongoDB for developers?
If you're tired of database limitations and architectures that break when you scale, then it's time to think outside rows and columns. MongoDB is the database built for developers by developers. It's ACID compliant, enterprise ready, and fluent in AI. That's why so many of the Fortune 500 trust MongoDB with their most critical workloads. Ready to think outside rows and columns?
Start building faster at mongodb.com slash build.
Right now is the AI gold rush. And that means everybody who builds an app, a platform, a piece of software, a gizmo that somebody, anything, everybody is trying to put AI everywhere. And for two weeks in a series on The Verge Cast, we are talking through what that looks like. We're talking to developers about what they're building and how they're building it.
And whether AI actually does make sense everywhere or is just gonna ruin everything in the process. That's the AI miniseries on the Verge cast, wherever you get podcasts. This series is presented by MongoDB. Yeah, what is up, people of the internet? Welcome back to another episode of the Waveform Podcast. We're your hosts. I'm Marques. I'm Andrew. And I'm David.
And it's December, which means there's still huge videos happening and still a lot to talk about, which is very exciting. We had two really big videos we can talk about from this week. We had the Smartphone Awards 2025, so feel free to argue with me about any of them. And we also had the Xiaomi SU7 video go up, which was a long time in the making. We had to import a car, a whole bunch of, like,
living with it, shooting it. It went really well and obviously that video's been out. Also new Android XR stuff and Glass and a Pebble Ring. But first, I just want to shout out that this channel is a mere, at the time of recording, 4,000 subscribers away from half a million on YouTube. The Waveform YouTube channel is so close to 500,000 subscribers. So I just want to give that little nudge.
If you're watching on YouTube, or even better, if you're listening somewhere and haven't subscribed on YouTube, go subscribe to the YouTube channel. and then we'll be able to celebrate before the end of the year.
It's the last chance to hype us. It is the last chance to hype us.
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Chapter 2: What is the significance of the AI gold rush?
We become ineligible for hype once we cross over the threshold. Oh, true. We want to pass the hypes on to other channels. Yeah, help us graduate from hype. And once we hit 500K, Netflix will put us on the platform. And we will be part of Warner Brothers Discovery. By the way. Oh, my God, yes. Someone, I think it was on Threads. There was a clip.
Yeah, there was a clip from us from a year and a half ago predicting that Netflix would eventually buy Warner Brothers. Predicting is a strong word. Well, joking. But also it turned out to be right, oops. Unless, you know, that kind of thing. Dude, I can see it now. Netflix, Paramount, Skydance, Discovery, Warner. Don't put this out there now. Waveform. Waveform, that's right. Excuse me?
Waveform, Netflix, Paramount, Skydance. Look, Netflix, I know that you're getting a bunch of hostile bids for Warner Brothers and you might not even be able to buy it, but if you want a good B plan, we're available.
We have like $6.
I just want to say, speaking of hostile bids, hilarious story that showed up on a timeline this morning. It was just someone who was squatting on Lambo.com, obviously waiting for a certain car manufacturer to scoop it up, got nothing out of the deal. A judge ruled that they were acting in bad faith. So what? Yeah, I know. They own it.
When you just sit on a domain because you know you're going to eventually sell it to someone, that's... maybe arguably good faith. That's called capitalism. That's like reserving it for their rightful owner. But I read the story and it's like this person called Richard Blair from Arizona, he bought this for $10,000 in 2018. Lambo was already well known to be Lamborghini by then.
But then he listed it for $1.1 million in 2020. And then raised it to $1.5 million. And then raised it to $3.3 million. And then raised it to $12 million. And then raised it to $58 million. And then by 2023 just settled it at a nice even $75 million. I see nothing wrong here. That's like having a house on the market and it's not selling for years and you just keep raising the price. Yeah.
And he claims that Lambo is just a pun on the word lamb. And people call him lamb. Oh, just like Lego Flegos. Yeah, right? So anyway, he didn't get the money. That's crazy. I kind of think so. I think that's crazy. I think they had plenty of money to buy that from him a long time ago. He took a big risk.
But this reminds me of, for a while, it doesn't seem like it's anymore, but Steam.com feels like almost the opposite. But for a while, Steam, the video game platform, is Steampowered.com. So Steam.com used to be, you would just go onto it and it was like this white page with background of a bunch of pipes. And then it said, welcome to Steam.com.
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Chapter 3: What are the highlights from the Smartphone Awards 2025?
I just think the whole Lambo story, if they didn't buy it by 2018 and Lambo was just sitting there as a domain in 2018, that's on them, bro. I don't know why the judge would rule that. Yeah. I mean, you already knew Lambo as Lamborghini by then. By 2018, of course. I guess it was like accidentally people going to Lambo.com. Like how many buyers are you going to get? I guess that's the thing.
What's the conversion rate of someone who accidentally goes to Lambo.com instead of Lamborghini.com? Did you really lose a customer there? Two Lamborghinis. That's a good point. The customer base is pretty small. If you're Googling it, you're not buying a Lambo.
Yeah.
Yeah, exactly. So it's like probably not as valuable to them, but it would be nice to have. And then they sued him instead? It was more just like the judge took the domain from him. Yeah, but they would have had to sue him to get it, right?
Chapter 4: What new products are discussed in the context of Android XR?
Did he have anything on the page or was it just a... He did.
Oh, he did. Oh, it was something on the page.
Oh, I can see that. What was on the page? Yeah, I can see that. Was it just like pay me this money? Was it something... Because if it's something... I have your children. Or yeah, like... Targeting Lambo? The Lamborghini? It was a Bitcoin wallet address.
He directed Lambo.com to a separate personal website where Road & Track reported that he posted a statement that says, I am Lambo of Lambo.com and I will defend, defeat, and humiliate those endeavoring to steal any of my domain name brands, including my moniker. How many does this man have? He was in for a fight. That guy, a little too much confidence going into that one.
It's a little funnier knowing he had that statement and watching him lose that. You also have to assume this guy wasn't very good at bargaining because he probably had, he was easily making more than $10,000 he paid for it.
Yeah, yeah.
But he had to go up to, what, $70 million? $75 million. He probably could have gotten $500,000 out of that pretty easy. Yeah. He won it all. He is hiding every single part of this domain on the Whois lookup page. Everything is hidden. It seems like it's not his anymore. Everything has been hidden on that for like three years now. Yeah, I'm guessing he's squatting on more than just that domain.
Yeah. Nice. Maybe he'll get some money out of the other ones. Well, Lego, if you want to buy LeagueofLegos.com for me, I still have it available. How much did you buy it for? 75 million. Okay. I think it was like 12 bucks, I don't know. 75 million starting. 75 million is fair market value. Do they raise the price on you every year? No. Who'd you? Yeah, who? Well, it was Google Domains.
Back in the good part of the internet. A certain domain seller that maybe is sort of similar to Buy Mommy. Every year raises the price of my obscure ass domain. Switch off of that. It's so... You can transfer it. I can? Yeah. Yeah. Oh. I recommend it actually. I recommend it. I bought it for dollars because it's almost a random string of characters. What's the domain?
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Chapter 5: What design features make the Samsung phone stand out?
Would you, the Samsung one, you think, is the best looking one? That one looked so nice. They had this like purple violet one that was interesting to look at. Yeah, well, and like the way the light comes off of the ceramic back too is like really pretty.
I know it's like sort of a matte, not matte, but like it's not, it doesn't exactly have a texture, but the light does come off of it in a really cool way. Yeah. I like the matte black one. It is... Yeah, you would say that.
Chapter 6: What makes the TCL Nexpaper a notable phone?
Well, it is the darkest matte black phone I've ever seen. Oh, that's a good point. So I thought that was nice. That's a good point. Yeah. Can I throw a design award out? Yeah. Actually, I almost have two, but... that TCL Nexpaper. Bro, that switch that switches it from like color e-ink to regular e-ink, I think it's one of the most jaw-dropping things a phone has done in a long time.
I want to rewind that. It was like when the sermon in church hits a really good bar.
Chapter 7: What are the key features of the iPhone Air?
Everyone goes, mmm, mmm, mmm. Yeah, preach, Andrew, yes. I feel like we barely showed that thing off. Just the animation. I know we barely showed that thing off. I still get tweets that are like, what are you going to talk about the TCL next paper?
All right, make sure we show a clip of B-roll in this, but it has this switch that goes between colored e-ink to black and white e-ink and the animation. Yeah, it's awesome.
is chef's kiss i think when i first saw it my jaw literally dropped it kind of looks like the harry potter uh mag whatever the magazines are called in harry potter like the quibbler is that what it's called where the images move on the paper and you're like this seems crazy yeah it's like magic it's pretty cool i have to throw that that's valid okay Yeah.
Chapter 8: Why is the Nothing Phone 3 considered a bust?
Yeah. You know, ultimately, I gave it to the iPhone Air. I don't regret it. And I just need them to give it a silicon carbon battery and dual cameras next year. I just I know they're not going to do it, but I need to put that out there.
I have a suggestion for next year. OK, what if we remove the best small phone award since there really are none anymore?
Go on.
And then we add like a best technical achievement award.
Because we had the screen on the back of the phone this year that you can actually use. Best gimmick.
I like best gimmick. The best gimmick is cool.
That's interesting because there's a lot of stuff that comes out that qualifies for that. You could say the screen on the back. You could also say like one of those super thin foldables with like no crease could be interesting. You could also say the display that we just spoke about. Valid, okay. Yeah, best gimmick.
I love the idea of it, Adam, but you have to put yourself in the perspective of these tech companies, right? Boardrooms across the world are saying, look, market research shows people don't want small phones. The things people do want in their phones will not fit in a small phone. but we have to win the MKBHD Small Phone of the Year award.
This is the only thing keeping the category alive.
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