Marques Cancelled His Roadster

Wild sighting today: you’re rocking two regular‑size phones instead of the XL or Max.

Guilty—Pixel 10 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro in the smaller sizes, and it’s nice when a compact phone still lasts all day; what’s up, internet, welcome back to Waveform with me, Marques, and Andrew while David’s out, and it’s a loaded September with iPhone reviews, early award talk, and a Meta event debrief.

We tried the Meta gear before the show and it was solid, which made the on‑stage train wreck even weirder.

Post‑mortem from Meta was a Wi‑Fi isolation mishap that routed everyone’s glasses to a dev server, so one voice command basically DDoS’d the demo, plus a call bug and a missing third demo that got replaced by a Diplo running montage.

My smart glasses video struck a chord, and thanks for riding along through Techtember; Pro review is imminent.

Funny enough, everyone’s been asking me about the Air, not the Pro.

Same vibe on YouTube, but the sales skew hard the other way: Dbrand’s accessory orders break down to about five percent Air, seven percent base 17, thirty‑one percent Pro, and fifty‑six percent Pro Max.

Carrier deals in the States push people to the top model, so a few dollars a month turns into the giant phone by default.

Exactly—pitched as a tiny monthly bump, not a big upfront price.

Which makes Pro reviews tricky: it’s packed with niche tools like ProRes RAW and Genlock, yet it’s also the most mainstream iPhone.

iFixit gave the Air a repairability seven, with dual‑entry design and day‑one Apple guides that make battery and parts access reasonable for something so thin.

I ate my words on fragility—it’s no Fairphone, but it’s far from the twos of old.

Inside is mostly battery with a tiny Taptic spot and a tighter USB‑C housing, it bends at the antenna like past iPhones, and the MagSafe battery pack uses the exact same cell so you only net around sixty‑eight percent on wireless.

Right, it won’t refill the phone once due to wireless losses, but the one‑to‑one cell match is wild.

We need a bonus episode on Apple’s strangest patents, because they quietly explain so many weird product choices.

Speaking of weird timelines, I canceled my paid Tesla Roadster reservation after eight years; I’m getting forty‑five grand back, lost the initial five, and I still have the referral founders slot—allegedly.

If you’d put that fifty thousand into Tesla stock back then, it’d be roughly seven hundred forty‑seven thousand today.

Canceling was a maze with no button, phone tag, and a paper check, which is somehow still easier than quitting a gym; you can still give Tesla money for a Roadster on the site, by the way.

Is it even worth it if it ships now?

All we get are annual teases that every spec beat the original promise, but a two hundred kilowatt‑hour pack and six hundred twenty miles in a small sports car still sounds suspect.

They once said zero to sixty was rubber‑limited, then floated a SpaceX package to fix that—so are we inventing new tires or firing thrusters?

Cold gas thrusters are the running gag—faster launches, extra braking, maybe even hops—but Roadster always gets framed as dessert after trucks and mass models, so it keeps slipping.

Would it still feel special with Plaid, Sapphire, Nevera, and Taycan Turbo GT out there?

If they deliver at the promised price, it could be insane value next to million‑dollar hyper EVs, with Tesla software and charging as a bonus.

Elon said a demo is coming by year’s end, though it could just be another robot detour.

If it’s Roadster, expect a thruster tease and another round of “stay tuned,” not a ship date.

Keyboard corner: ceramic keycaps are a thing now and they sound deeper; Keychron even announced a fully ceramic board with hall effect switches, which makes me worry about brittleness if it takes a hit.

Ceramic can be tough but brittle, and iPhone’s ceramic shield is a different beast from a full ceramic case.

Ceramics are a family—great against acids and compression, weaker under tension and shear—so a long chassis could be risky.

These caps are glossy and hefty, the sound is distinct, and that full ceramic board is around two hundred nineteen dollars, which is wild given some ceramic cap sets cost almost that alone.

Quick PSA to accounts clipping our podcast: tag Waveform or MKBHD so people can find the full episode, and please don’t slap your watermark over our faces or funnel to sketchy storefronts.

Some folks do it right with clear links, others don’t, and the latter makes discovery harder even if the exposure helps.

Also, read up on fair use; typing it in a caption does not make it so.

Same energy as companies emailing embargoed info without an NDA—it’s like saying, I declare embargo, and hoping that counts.

Trivia time: what’s the iFixit wedge tool used to pry phone screens?

We’ll reveal it at the end, and now let’s start sketching early Smartphone Awards since most big releases are out.

Best big phone looks like S25 Ultra territory again, with gaming phones and something like OnePlus 13 in the mix, while iPhone Pro Max is a supercar next to hyper‑spec monsters from Android land.

Apple is finally using the extra room for battery and pro features, which helps, but the Android ultra phones still cram in more.

Best small phone is tough because small barely exists, so flips may count, and we might roll in things like Light Phone for a true tiny option.

I’ll consider flips and anything in the lower half of typical sizes since sub six‑inch slabs are rare.

Best camera always sparks debate; I weigh video heavily, and the iPhone still owns that, while others beat it in some photos and zoom, so the balance matters.

Split it down the middle and use honorable mentions to call out photo‑first champs.

For best value, Nothing 2A won last year, but the base iPhone 17 is shockingly compelling with ProMotion and two hundred fifty‑six gigabytes at seven ninety‑nine, even as POCOs and FE models punch above price.

CMF Phone 2 Pro at two seventy‑nine is a sleeper with solid specs, though long‑term software support could tilt the calculus back to iPhone.

Best battery is about never thinking about it; last year’s Red Magic had a seven thousand fifty milliamp‑hour pack with one hundred watt charging and pass‑through, and this year OnePlus 13 feels strong with six thousand and fast wired and wireless.

Best design is subjective; Huawei’s tri‑fold took it last year, and now the ultrathin iPhone Air and Motorola Edge both wow in hand, while S25 Ultra is the utilitarian baseline and the Nothing Phone 3’s back display is divisive.

Hand someone an Air or an Edge and they say wow; the Edge trades a millimeter for stereo speakers, bigger battery, and dual cameras.

Best foldable is wide open with Pixel 10 Pro Fold coming, Samsung’s next Fold, Honor’s super‑thin book style, flips with big cover screens, and maybe a trifold on deck.

Rumor says an Unpacked later this month could be where that trifold appears.

Most improved last year went to Pixel 9 Pro Fold, and this year the base iPhone’s jump to ProMotion and more storage feels like that, while Pixel 10 trends the other way and TCL’s paper display phone might be a big leap in its niche.

Tap a button and the screen flips to a black and white e-paper look; it feels like a software-driven magic trick and totally video-worthy.

It showed up right before chaos, so we have not filmed with it yet.

Wild to see you carrying two regular-size phones instead of the XLs.

I’m dailying a Pixel 10 Pro and an iPhone 17 Pro, both non-XL, and it is nice having smaller phones that still go all day; those XL slabs are huge.

Bust of the year is subjective, but would you call Pixel 10 a bust just because Tensor did not improve?

The base Pixel lost its value angle: still 128 gigabytes, gained a third camera, yet other trade-offs got worse while base iPhones added more, and the storage decision is frustrating.

iPhone 16 E looks like a bad deal at six hundred dollars with one rear camera, no high refresh, no MagSafe, and tiny storage; next to the iPhone Air’s big 120 Hertz OLED and decent battery, I’d take the Air, and my review unit’s upgraded storage pushed its price into comedy territory.

For phone of the year, I spent months on the Galaxy S25 Ultra, a shorter stint on OnePlus 13, and lately Pixel 10 Pro, but the award weighs the whole story, not just my carry time.

Last year the S24 Ultra won by being the boringly great all-rounder; S25 Ultra is similarly excellent and similarly dull, while pro iPhones, S25 FE, a much improved base iPhone 17, and possibly a Samsung tri-fold all have a shot.

A tri-fold could be the coolest thing or a three-thousand-dollar flop; if it is thin, has a huge inner screen, and real desktop mode, it could swing the year, and foldables feel closer than ever with Z Fold 7 likely best-in-class while ultra-thin rivals still stumble on software.

Quick trivia before the break: SpaceX launched a Roadster with a mannequin—what was the mannequin’s name, hinted by a David Bowie song?

We were set to talk the James Cameron Bose interview, but during the break we spiraled into a debate: for a newcomer like Marques, what is riskier, elite horse racing or getting dropped into a Red Bull F1 car; ride with us here or skip ahead to trivia.

So what actually makes a good rider?

There are different disciplines from jumping and dressage to racing, where the horse is the engine but rider weight, balance, and timing matter, and polo is probably the most rider-dependent.

There is even a clip of a horse winning after the jockey fell, which makes you wonder how much is rider input versus training.

If I put you on a champion racehorse or in an F1 car, where do you have a better shot?

I say the horse, because an F1 car lets you build pace while a racehorse has its own plan and can launch you, and fear-wise the horse is scarier even if the car’s forces are brutal.

I think I have better odds of not finishing last on the horse by hanging on, while I am never podiuming in F1 without retirements, and I still do not know how jockeys train so we need an expert.

All right, back to trivia.

Plenty to comment on this week, from phones to horses to F1.

I grew up around horses, and the family car often smelled like a stable.

My sister had a horse phase too, and it is an expensive hobby.

Quick note on a Reddit thread about me not buying a new phone: it is not about affordability, it is that a thousand-dollar upgrade does not feel worth it and trade-in math worries me; now, trivia time.

What do you call the iFixit tool you wedge into the seam to pry up a screen; it is the spudger.

I pictured the long pry bar as the spudger and the little guitar-pick pieces as the adhesive cutters, which is how I use them.

Housekeeping: we fixed a bonus-episode ruling and awarded a point, so the scores are Marques at six, Andrew at eight, and David at three.

Second question: name the Roadster mannequin.

I totally guessed Rocket Man, which is not a Bowie song.

The correct name was Starman.

Light us up in the comments about budget phones, small phones, and whether riding horses is harder than driving F1.

An F1 car at least has pedals and a wheel; a horse has its own mind.

Next episode kicks off Techtober, so we will see you then; peace.

Thanks for listening, produced by Adam and the team, part of the network, with theme music by Vainsil.

We rang David in the French Alps for trivia and he whiffed both—spudger and Starman—so enjoy France, we miss you, and yes, we replaced the Cameron segment with horse talk; peace.