It's WAN Show time.
I'm actually excited for WAN Show today.
Are you?
Yeah.
Why?
Because as soon as I'm done WAN Show,
oh wait, no, nevermind.
I thought as soon as I was done WAN Show,
we were gonna be going out for fun.
But actually as soon as I'm done WAN Show,
I need to shoot the other half of the video.
So, oh wow.
Oh.
It's gonna be a great week everyone.
We have really awesome news.
First topic.
I started out up here.
Just went really far down.
That was unfortunate.
If you want a topic that starts on a confusing note
instead of a high or low.
Yeah.
We've got Walmart is making gaming PCs.
Yeah.
And not just like they're selling gaming PCs
from iBuyPower, like.
No.
These are Walmart gaming towers.
But like, they don't look that horrible.
Apple quietly added Radeon Vega GPU options
to the MacBook Pro.
That is pretty sick.
I have no idea how that's going to affect the thermals.
Trusted reviews pays 1 million pounds.
Yeah.
After Red Dead Redemption 2 leaks.
So this is really confusing to me.
And I'm going to, so yeah, we'll have to.
Do that.
Go over that later.
You know what?
That's gonna be what we're calling
an interactive topic segment.
Yeah.
We're creating branding for it.
I like it.
That's where Luke and I have no idea
what the crap is going on.
Yeah.
So we're going to be really relying on you, the viewer
to kind of walk us through.
So I'm going to start with what I think is going on.
Wait, we're changing the name Wancho?
We probably should change the name of the Wancho.
Cause it's like not really analysis and news.
It's more like weekly.
Judgment and news.
Weekly shooting the breeze.
And there's not a lot of news anymore.
So.
There's some technically.
Yeah.
There's some, but it's like usually
just like about our lives.
Finally, Apple launches a vintage repair program
for Macs and iPhones.
Okay, I've got one more news topic
before we jump into the intro here.
And that is that the Galaxy Watch has quite possibly
the worst activity tracker that I have ever encountered.
Almost every single time I walk down the stairs
I get a little buzz on my wrist.
Well done, great workout.
No, no, I was going down the stairs
and it was telling me what a good job I was doing right now.
I'm sitting here like this.
Yes, I'm waving my arms around him.
Maybe that's how I don't get fat.
You're just so animated.
Talking with my hands.
Talking with your hands.
It's going to be the new workout sensation.
And on that note, bye.
Leave it, leave it, hey!
Don't touch it.
I like the mic arm and the frame
regardless of where the hole is sitting.
I don't know, Jake.
Not too bad.
Smashbox.
Grab it in the good access.
And Squarespace.
I don't have the thing up right now
so I can't even tell what you're changing.
Yeah, it does look a little better.
All right, Jake, good work.
All right.
Now it's off the white line thing.
Yeah, wait, what do you even?
And like that, the white line thing isn't centered either
and that's bad.
You know what, just, yeah, he didn't move the camera.
He didn't move the camera.
It's fine, who cares?
Let's just, I mean, it's WAN Show.
What are people's expectations of this at this point?
Speaking about questionable expectations,
Walmart gaming PCs.
Walmart gaming PCs.
Okay, so here we go.
Walmart has partnered with Esports Arena to create its,
go ahead, please.
OP line of pre-built gaming desktops.
Also, very definitely overpowered.
That's what that means.
It means overpowered.
Really?
Like, okay.
They're not even trying to.
Who was the marketing executive that was like.
I don't think that's that bad.
Really?
Actually, it's a decent, you know.
The OP DTW1.
Okay, that's bad.
That is terrible.
I didn't know that part.
Or the OP DTW2.
That's another model.
If it was like just OP1 and OP2, that could be okay.
Yeah, but it sounds more like a model name
and less like a brand.
The overpowered or OP line of,
and they have desktops and laptops here.
But is this gonna be like,
like the G-Force before the other thing?
You know what I mean?
I don't think it's that bad.
All right.
I mean, I guess there's certainly worse out there.
There's like, in light of some of the,
not even just that,
in light of some of the general naming
that's happened recently.
I'm coming around.
I'm coming around.
What's that new, isn't it a Samsung phone?
I'm coming around to it.
Yeah, where it like goes backwards or whatever stupid thing.
Like at least they're not doing something weird like that.
I don't know.
All right, all right, all right, all right.
Okay, all right.
I've come around to it.
I mean, honestly, it's a lot less cringy
than Republic of Gamers,
which we only accept because it's been around for so long.
And everyone ever tries as hard as they can
to make sure they can throw the abbreviation in
instead of the full name.
Yes.
ROG is like pretty cool.
ROG sounds fine.
Republic of Gamers, which was what they were,
it is remarkable to me what ASUS has done
with the Republic of Gamers brand.
Because the first product that launched under it
was awful.
I'm serious.
Our RMA rates- What even was it?
It was the Stryker Extreme.
It was an Enforce 680 chipset motherboard.
Oh.
If I recall correctly.
Was it 680?
You know, don't quote me on that.
I think it's 680, but don't quote me on that.
Anyway, it was the Stryker Extreme.
Don't remember what the chipset was.
And our RMA rate on that at NCIX was like 40%.
Pfft.
Yeah.
And it was like a 450 or $500 motherboard
or something stupid like that.
I can bring it, yeah, I should bring up the picture.
So Stryker Extreme, here we go.
I'll screen share with you guys here.
Look at this, look at this.
Tweaktown, Tweaktown review.
Not one star.
One star.
This board was that bad.
Oh, well, yeah, it was.
Enforce 680i SLI.
And it just, I don't know what memory it did work with.
Because you could put random memory in it.
You could put generic memory in it.
You could put high-end memory in it.
You could put SLI certified memory.
That was the thing for a bit there.
And the idea was that it was certified for Nvidia chips.
You could put anything in this board
and then you could roll a die,
pray to whatever gods it is that you believe in
and turn around six times in a circle and go like this.
And none of it would affect anything.
It might work, it might not.
It was an awful, awful motherboard,
but they've really turned that around.
They've really turned that around, which is good for them.
Good for them, good for gamers.
Anyway, back to the OP line of gaming desktops from Walmart.
The DTW1 is the entry-level model
with a Core i7-8700, 16 gigs of memory
and Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070, 256 gigs of solid state storage
and a two terabyte hard drive for 1399.
That's actually not that bad.
Yeah, honestly, that was my first thought
when I looked at this was like,
oh, that's, oh.
Should we review it?
Yeah.
I was kind of asking them, but sure, yes.
Should we review it?
Yeah. Yeah?
Because I would be very interested as a consumer
because it seems like a decent price, whatever, whatever.
But my techy consumer brain is like,
what memory is that?
What board is that?
What drive is that?
All that kind of stuff.
From what I can tell, Walmart has no experience
whatsoever.
So it seems like, okay, look, okay.
To me, building a gaming computer
is a pretty straightforward thing.
I could literally do it blindfolded.
But there's people who haven't been living
and breathing it for the last decade.
There's a lot that they can screw up.
The headers are complicated.
So I'm like cable management and like little things
like putting the drives in a cage
that doesn't have a cooling fan next to it
so that it'll run hotter.
And it's not gonna kill it immediately,
but it's just like little things you can do
to optimize the system.
And I would wanna see,
does Walmart have the gaming know-how to do this correctly?
Okay, you know what?
We're gonna do it.
Even if we have to drive down to the States,
we're gonna do it.
We're gonna buy a Walmart OP gaming desktop.
Yeah. Yeah.
Okay, that's my commitment.
Apparently they're making gaming laptops as well.
Yeah, but those are probably just rebranded Clevos.
Yeah.
I mean, I'm assuming, I haven't actually seen the picture.
I should probably check the source.
Yeah, the source Sega, but yeah, Clevo's the parent company
of them anyways, or something.
He meant Sager, not Sega.
Yeah, it came out Sega.
Yeah, sorry.
Anyways.
Yeah, definitely not Sega.
Cause I'm very much expecting,
like they obviously are throwing in Nvidia cards
and Intel CPUs.
I'm expecting the rest of it
is just gonna be as cheap as possible.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure that these are Clevos.
Those look like Clevos.
They look like Clevos.
Those are the most generic looking chassis of all time.
Yeah.
And I know Clevo does this goofy offset touch pad thing.
Like why there?
Why?
What reason would you have for wanting it there?
I actually really tried to think of one
while we were sitting there, but I can't.
So there's that.
And then there's the DTW1, W2, W3.
And the main difference is just
stepping up the graphics card, really.
This has got a 1080 TI, this is a 1080, and this is a 1070.
Your gateway to elevate.
It's so weird scrolling through like gaming computers
with a Walmart logo at the top of the page.
Yeah.
Transcend your expectations.
What are those?
Overpowered.
Those are the laptop boxes?
Yeah, those are the laptop boxes.
Why would it be overpower?
And why is there a puffer fish here?
I mean, the bomb I get.
And the helmet.
Yeah, the helmet I get.
This.
Is this like to make sure you don't buy the like
entry level one?
Maybe.
Game on.
That game on looks like Serious Sam.
It does too.
Wow, yeah, it really does.
This is actually kind of cheaply done.
Yeah, it really is.
You can tell that that was not very well thought out there.
Over 125 premium brands from Lord and Taylor.
Now Walmart doesn't like it.
It's so weird.
Lord and Taylor and gaming PCs on the same page.
And you can always tell when like a company's not used
to carrying a certain thing.
Cause it's under video games.
Yeah.
Sure.
All right.
Anyway.
Okay.
Yeah.
Easy conclusion.
We're going to go ahead with the review one.
Should we straw poll the chat?
With what?
Like which one to get?
No, whether or not they think it's going to be
a complete failure or not.
For sure.
Do you want to, do you want to hit that?
Yeah.
All right.
I'm going to jump on to, you know what?
I'll do a couple of super chats before we,
before we move on there.
All right.
I can never tell what order they're in.
Okay.
We've got Chris.
Hi Chris.
We've got Stefan.
Hi Stefan.
We've got Arrow.
Did you know there's a body pillow with you on it?
Whoa.
What?
No.
That's okay.
Hold on a second.
We might be veering off topic a little bit here.
Go ahead and get that discount code.
Do you want to just, shut up.
Okay.
I got a straw poll coming.
Is there just a company that makes custom body pillows?
I'm sure there is.
No, I don't see it.
Wait, need portrait image of Linus for hug pillow.
Senpai tech tips.
Straw polls coming in the chat guys.
Okay.
So all I found so far is a picture of me with a body pillow.
Not the same.
Which is not the same thing.
You're so obsessed with that channel.
I'm surprised you don't have a Linus hug pillow.
When is this from?
This is from 2014,
which is good because of that.
So that's been changed by now.
So that's good.
Okay.
Yeah, no, no, no.
I don't, I don't think that's a thing.
I haven't seen one.
I don't think that's a thing.
I think someone would have tweeted that at me by now.
If that was, if that was a thing that actually existed.
Yeah, it's more like rant show.
This is not a rant show.
We very rarely spend the entire show ranting.
Yeah.
Let's rant about that.
Did you hear about hashtag wall street journal kills kids
on Twitter?
No, I actually stay shockingly far away from,
from Twitter and like whatever is trending on Twitter.
All right.
What else we got here?
What happens when you drop a can of water on a PC asks,
Chris, it dies.
Hi Nicole.
Dorf says, I've been watching you for years
and took my girlfriend pointing it out to realize it.
You look like a Keebler elf.
Thank you Dorf.
Okay.
Moving on then.
Brandon offset just as cracks up laughing.
What's a Keebler elf?
Like, do you get the reference?
Oh, what, what can you come explain on stream for those,
for the idiots in the audience like me,
who don't know what it is?
You'll bring, you'll show me a photo.
Well, no here.
I mean, I can Google a photo.
All right.
Let's find out what a Keebler elf is.
You can just send my screen.
Yeah. Okay.
Okay.
So they're like the guys from like the Rudolph holiday
special then like, is that a Keebler?
Oh wait, no.
No, I think he was a brand.
Oh yeah.
Snap, crackle and pop.
There's three guys from Rice Krispies.
It's like using old version of those guys.
Okay.
Oh boy.
I feel like we've gone off the rails a little bit here.
Do you want to send me the,
or actually do you have the results of the straw pull up?
All right, let's get that straw pull going here.
Results.
Wow.
That's actually quite a bit of confidence in my opinion.
Walmart PC, complete failure.
We are almost exactly evenly split on this.
I can't even believe that.
The community is never so evenly divided on an issue.
51% of you are saying yes.
Walmart PC, complete failure.
49% saying no.
Okay, let's get, that's actually,
let's get back to that for a minute.
So I want to know what you think.
I don't think it will be.
Why?
Hardware, a long time ago,
if you bought a bunch of cheap stuff,
you were probably going to be screwed.
Hardware today is actually generally quite stable.
Okay.
And that I think relies a little bit more
on fewer components, if that makes sense.
So I think they'll be able to get by
cheaping out on a few different things.
Okay, all right.
What do you think?
Based on that their pricing makes sense.
Yeah.
And that the configs make sense.
The fact that they went with the 8700.
Well, yeah.
If that was different, I also read that.
If that was different,
I would have maybe had less confidence.
I probably wouldn't have put 32 gigs in the DTW2.
That's the one thing that I might've changed here
because you can always upgrade RAM.
You can never ungrade RAM.
Walmart's probably going to assume
that you're not going to.
If you're buying a computer from Walmart.
That's fair.
And six cores, 12 threads, 32 gigs of RAM.
I think 32 gigs on that system is probably fair.
Using it as both a gaming rig and a budget workstation.
Okay, all right, all right, all right.
I'm sold, I'm sold.
So based on the fact that they've clearly done
some research here,
I'm actually in the not fail camp as well.
So we are going to see who ends up being right about that.
It's going to be interesting.
Yeah, I don't necessarily think it's going to be
like a home run or anything,
but I don't think it's going to be a complete failure.
In other news, Apple quietly adds Radeon Vega GPU option,
a Vega GPU option to their MacBook Pro.
And we've got a link to Ars Technica here.
So I guess we're going to go ahead with that,
but also might've been nice to just have a link
to apple.com.
And Thunderbolt 3 equipped Macs can make use
of a new Blackmagic eGPU Pro.
I actually don't know what would make it an eGPU Pro.
So Apple claims and eGPUs will provide up to what?
60% better graphical performance.
Yeah, that makes sense.
But that's probably a very strong up to,
because from our experience with the MacBook Pro,
unless they are making some significant changes
to the cooling system,
which I sincerely doubt that they did,
it is running at within a hair's breadth
of its total limit for how fast it can go before it
experiences catastrophic thermal throttling.
So like if you're running both the CPU and the GPU hard
at the same time,
I just have a really hard time imagining
how they aren't both going to end up throttling.
But in a best case scenario,
like for example, if you were gaming
and the game you were playing
only used a couple of CPU threads,
I could see this being
a very significant performance upgrade.
Blackmagic also has their new eGPU Pro,
which will have a Radeon RX Vega 56 graphics processor.
Oh, okay, it's just like a pre-done external GPU.
Oh, okay, yeah, I wasn't that familiar
with Blackmagic's thing,
because I couldn't really figure out any reason
that anyone would buy it.
Because you could just buy any eGPU,
because Thunderbolt 3 is a standard,
and you could just plug it in.
That is to say, as long as it has
a new enough Thunderbolt 3 chipset.
So I don't think Alpine Ridge worked,
but then Titan Ridge should be fine.
Don't quote me on that though.
I can't keep track of like the code names
for the different Thunderbolt 3 chipsets
and this is a live show.
I don't have time to look things up.
All right.
Huh.
Apparently people are linking the body pillow in Discord.
But like, because I'm assuming our bot blocks out links.
Oh, yeah, that makes sense.
All right.
But then I'm not signed in, so.
Well, we can cross that bridge when we get to it.
Yeah.
All right, what else do we got here?
Oh boy, this again.
Apple slows down last year's iPhones with iOS 12.1.
I mean, there was a whole thing where iOS 12
was actually giving people with older phones
significantly better performance.
Like a lot of people were giving Apple
really positive feedback about iOS 12.
It looks like they've taken all that positive feedback
and put it in a fire.
So with iOS 12.1,
Apple has brought its controversial
performance management feature
to the iPhone 8, 8 Plus and 10.
So this functionality throttles the phone's processor
as its battery degrades over time.
And it can stop the handset from randomly shutting down,
which is good,
but it can also cause its performance to degrade,
which is less good.
The good counterpoint to that last point
is that it can be turned off if desired.
Now I have an easy solution to this problem.
How about Apple puts bigger batteries
in their phones in the first place,
if they care about the user experience?
I actually was, okay.
And again, I haven't done the background research on this.
I haven't done my car review yet.
So I'd still have some digging to do,
but I was impressed to hear when I walked onto the lot
and I told, this was at a Chevy dealership.
I told them I was already planning to buy their car.
And I told them my reasoning.
The reason that I wanted the Chevy Volt
was because the electric range was advertised such that
even when I factored in five years of lithium cell aging
and cold weather,
I would still get the desired range,
which was about 45 kilometers.
And they were like, oh, that's not actually how it works.
We only discharge the battery down to about 30%
and we only charge it up to about 80%,
like when it rolls off the lot.
And so you're actually only using about half
of the capacity of the battery from day one.
And then over time, as the cells degrade,
it will expose more of it so that,
and I forget what the period of time it was.
It was either five or 10 years or whatever it was.
Over the period of time that you use the car,
there should be no noticeable difference
in the user experience.
And so on the Android side of things,
what they do is they just stuff gigantic batteries
in the phones as big as they can.
You look at something like the OnePlus 6T,
that's actually a really slim device
and it's got a 3,700 milliamp hour battery.
And they give you all of it
and then it just degrades over time.
I can get behind that particular approach.
Obviously the ideal one would be you have extra,
you build in spare area so that the user's experience
is always consistent.
But when you're gonna have competitors
that are exposing all the battery capacity,
you have to be able to go toe to toe with them in review.
So I understand why you can't really do that.
I'm also more okay with the fully exposed battery on a phone
and I'm more okay with the not fully exposed battery
on a car, you know what I mean?
Yeah, it's totally different.
Like a phone, you're gonna be cycling it out,
a car you're probably gonna wanna keep
for a longer period of time.
Yep. And resale and all that kind of stuff.
And then Apple's approach
is in order to preserve battery life
and make sure the device doesn't turn off,
it is to throttle the performance.
I'm kind of surprised they're sticking with this.
Like I get that if this was the plan all along
to roll this out for the iPhone 8, the 8 Plus and the 10,
that by the time this whole thing blew up in their face,
it was probably too late to set a different course.
Like in order to keep these phones from turning off
because they were so close to like the bleeding edge
where they were gonna potentially draw too much power
once they were down to a low percentage of battery life left
and they were just gonna like turn off.
Like if that was the plan,
there's nothing that they can do to undo that
other than just change the amount of battery life
that is exposed to the user so that the old 15%
becomes 0% to make sure that it won't just turn off.
And I'd be more mad about that personally.
I think most people would be.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But I would like to see if maybe they change this strategy
moving forward, whether that be, I don't know,
I don't even know what they would do.
Do they try and get more power efficient on the processor
and worry less about delivering more performance?
Cause that would work.
Well, you can turn it off, right?
You can turn the feature off, yes.
You know, here's the thing.
My aunt needs a new phone.
Did I talk about this on my show last week?
Don't think so.
Okay, so my aunt needs a new phone.
And I feel like it's really easy sometimes
for people like us and people like our viewers
who I'm generalizing, but probably in a way
that's pretty accurate are among the more tech savvy people
in their social circles, right?
So what Apple's doing is annoying to us
and it feels wrong to us, but you got to remember
that Apple is not like some enthusiast brand.
They're not OnePlus, they're not ROG
or whatever the case may be.
We can't make assumptions about the amount of research
and self-education that the user of an Apple product
has done before they purchase it.
Yeah.
And so I had this sort of enlightening experience
where my aunt is upgrading her phone
and I was trying to talk to her about Android
because right now she's got an iPhone 5C
and it is definitely time for something new.
And she's like, oh, I don't know what that is.
I'm just gonna go get an iPhone.
And I was like, okay, look, it's the same as an iPhone.
She goes, it's the same as an iPhone, it's an iPhone?
I go, no, it's not an iPhone.
And she goes, well, how is it the same?
And I go, look, what do you do with your phone?
And she goes, I answer calls.
And I go, okay, Android is the same.
And I pick up an Android phone.
I think it was a Note 5 or something.
Cause I'm trying to save her a buck
cause she's gonna walk into like a Bell store, Rogers.
I think she's on Rogers.
She's gonna walk into a Rogers store.
They're gonna sell her an iPhone 10S Max or whatever.
And it's stupid because literally that is all she does.
I know that for a fact.
She actually also sends text messages
but that really is it.
Like I tried.
I tried to explain Google maps and like, okay.
I love my aunt, but holy cow.
Sometimes like she kept bringing the CD player
over to our house and look, I have Google play music.
I put a phone on the counter.
Like it is dedicated to just Google play music.
Here's how it works.
You unlock it.
And the pin is something very easy for her to remember.
And then you press music.
And then you just type in any song, any album.
It's amazing.
You'd love it.
And then you press play.
And then there's one tricky part.
There's just one tricky part.
You have to press cast and select kitchen and living room.
Yeah. Okay.
And I hadn't even gotten to cast yet.
And she's like, okay, hold on.
So I got to start writing this down.
I'm like, no, no, you don't have to write it down
because all you do is you just turn it on
which I think is self-explanatory.
You press music, which I think is pretty self-explanatory.
And the thing is, is that she's not stupid.
It's just that this is not a part of her life.
Not her wheelhouse.
And it never was.
No.
And so coming back to Apple and this particular strategy.
Oh, right.
So I was showing her how to use the Android phone.
I'm like, look, you just press the phone.
It's a picture of a phone.
And then you just key in a number.
It's the same.
It's the same.
She was really, really tired that day.
And she didn't want to deal with it.
So she just left, but we're going to get there.
Sure.
But the point is Apple's typical user
is probably closer to my aunt than they are to me.
One thing that I will drop in here
is that Apple does have its own enthusiasts.
It does.
Quite a few.
For sure.
Like a lot.
But I said, typical user.
And they're, yes.
And I think the enthusiast population
is a sliver of a sliver of a sliver of a niche.
Yeah.
They definitely exist, but yeah.
But they absolutely do.
I mean, I would even go as far as to say
that there are no fewer Apple mobile enthusiasts than there
are Android mobile enthusiasts.
It would be incorrect to say that Android
is the OS for mobile enthusiasts.
Yeah.
Wrong.
I just wanted to let us go down that road for a second
so people didn't freak out in the comments or something.
I like iPhones, and I'm an enthusiast.
Of course you do, and of course you are, and that's fine.
Not the point.
The point is that the typical user.
The typical user.
That's why I specifically called out OnePlus, not
Android in general, although they're going more mainstream.
They're in T-Mobile now.
So there's literally thousands of stores, worldwide,
excuse me, nationwide in the US that are going
to be pushing the OnePlus 6T.
I was like, oh, good for you guys.
That's cool.
Anyway, so back to the typical user.
I suspect they neither notice nor care in a lot of cases.
Because you've got to remember, even the more normie users
online are still probably more connected.
Because even people who don't care about smart functionality
at all, who might not even have a data plan,
they're still buying smartphones these days
because where are you going to get a flip?
You can get them.
You can get them, but they're kind of garbage.
Yeah.
They're actually disposable phones in most cases.
I was thinking the other day, if I didn't have the work
that I currently have, because the vast majority of the time
that I'm on my phone is for work.
You'd be a drug dealer?
No.
Is that where you're going with this?
How does this tie into flip phones?
I honestly wouldn't use very much on the phone.
And I could actually pretty easily
get by with a flip phone.
And maps.
I really like maps.
I'm having a really hard time with my Pixel 3 XL review
because I don't typically use canned benchmarks
to measure battery life.
Because my usage is pretty consistent,
like the way that I use my phone.
Except that a few days into my Pixel 3 XL review,
I kind of made an early New Year's resolution
to stop consuming political news.
And probably a good 50% to 60% of my screen time
was like political news before that.
So I ended the day yesterday with 82% on my Pixel 3 XL
battery because Google does a great job of idle battery
management on the Pixel lineup, for sure.
And I barely touched my phone.
Like, it's crazy.
Over the last few years, it used to be
I couldn't go five minutes without getting
a phone call or a text.
Are you sure that's entirely because of the political thing?
Or is that because you don't like the experience so much
that you're just using it less?
OK.
There's a little bit of me not liking the experience that much.
But I also definitely have.
Because I know you did that.
I've cut down my consumption.
Shoot, I forget where I was going before.
That's fine.
Yeah, someone in the chat just said,
don't forget flips are used for tough environments.
Yeah, they've got some pretty rugged smartphones
these days, too, though.
Just throwing that out there.
Yes.
All right, so let's finish up here.
Apple's position is iPhone 8 and later use a more advanced.
Don't you love that?
They don't call it the iPhone and iPhone.
It's iPhone, like it's a person or something.
I'm not going to do it.
The iPhone 8 and later use a more advanced hardware
and software design that provides
a more accurate estimation of both power needs
and the battery's power capability
to maximize overall system performance.
This allows a different performance management system
that more precisely allows iOS to anticipate and avoid
an unexpected shutdown.
As a result, the impacts of performance management
may be less noticeable on the iPhone 8 and later.
Someone in chat said, Casey Mac in the YouTube chat.
I'm trying to pay a little bit of attention to both.
Said, I can't believe Linus covered an iPhone.
That's a very confusing statement.
Yeah.
I've been doing iPhone reviews for literally years.
Yeah.
Four years or something.
Even iMac and MacBook and iPad.
Yep.
And I have even given some very positive iPhone reviews.
Yeah.
They just don't come out, though, right?
Yeah, there's that.
I mean, it's once a year.
And we don't like hang on and do iPhone video after iPhone
video.
We'll kind of cover it at launch,
and we consider that sort of good enough.
Yeah.
I mean, basically any other product, but like.
I mean, we're not like an iPhone review channel,
which is sort of a thing.
I don't know.
This has been a very frustrating thing for me
over the last little while.
So I did that one video where I talked about all the things
I didn't like about the iPhone XS, and I still don't like them.
And I'm still not going to use it as my daily driver.
But it's not because I hate Apple
or that I hate the iPhone XS.
It's just I don't think it's the best choice.
And I'm a tech reviewer.
I can use literally any device I want.
And if I can, then I will use something else.
But I also don't, did I say I don't hate them first?
Oh, right, yeah.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, this was bizarre.
So then because I did feel like that particular piece,
like I think even if my personal preference is not
to use an iPhone XS, doesn't mean I hate it.
And I think my original piece was overly negative.
And so we were already planning to do a counterpoint piece.
10 things that are great about the iPhone.
Which is a cool idea when both of those pieces
are opinion pieces anyways.
They're not reviews.
Yeah, neither of them were reviews, to be very clear.
And it feels like our community was split in twain.
And half the comments on the initial piece
are that I'm clearly paid off by Google or Samsung
or whoever else the case may be because I'm just
trashing the iPhone.
And then half the comments on the iPhone one
are that Apple clearly sent a big bucket of money
for us to say positive things about the iPhone.
I'd like to set this clear once and for all
so that it can never be forgotten or misunderstood
again.
If we were paid for something, you
would know because it would say sponsored by the name of whoever
gave the money for it.
Been kind of doing it forever.
In the video.
It's happened a lot.
And we would say verbally, sponsored by or thanks to
or whatever it is, to be very clear.
Is it also in the description?
Yeah.
So it's on screen.
It's verbally said, and it's in the description.
Apple has never paid us to do anything,
and they have never even accepted
a phone call or an email.
So no, that didn't happen.
What happened was that they're just products.
They're just phones and laptops and motherboards.
That's all they are.
There is no tribe that you join by buying a product.
I mean, OK, I shouldn't say that because there kind of is.
But I reject that reality, and I substitute my own
because it's ridiculous.
I agree.
Someone in chat brought up a pretty good point, though.
You are paid off by BlackBerry.
I am?
Obviously, yeah, or else you wouldn't
have the opinion of being against both sides.
We have figured out the conspiracy.
Well, I don't have to be paid.
They're just my Canadian bros sort of nachos.
License to TCL.
When was the last time we covered a Blackberry?
I reviewed The Key 2.
Oh.
Yeah, quite recently, actually, and I did not get a good review.
So BlackBerry is paying me a bunch of money.
They are not getting a great value out of that.
Quite frankly, I am setting myself up
for another wave of hate right now.
So I just mostly finished.
Almost finished the script for my Pixel 3 XL review,
and it is pretty negative.
Yeah.
Well, do you remember what I was talking about?
I said for months I was just going to buy Pixel 3 when
it came out, and I haven't yet, and I've still got my one,
and it's feeling really old.
Sorry, I have a Note 9 in my pocket
right now because I just finished
my script for the Pixel 3.
I forgot I'm not actually carrying it anymore.
But there's just a handful of things
that are just shockingly stupid.
So one, have you got the Pi update yet?
Yes.
OK.
Did you notice that when you are watching a video, for example,
and you click the volume rocker?
Everything they did to volume is horrible.
OK, just checking.
So I have a whole thing on audio management in Android Pi
and how unbelievably, just shockingly stupid it is.
I have missed an obscene amount of calls
because I go to lower the volume and it lowers the freaking call
volume.
Oh, that's interesting.
So I have observed on my Pixel 3 XL
that the default system behavior,
when you're not doing anything, is now
to adjust media volume rather than ringer volume.
Let's see what happens.
Let's see what happens with yours.
But it's not a single occasion.
This has happened over periods of time.
So I basically am going to go off
on a fair number of things, and I
think the Android slash Google fanboys are going to figure
I'm paid off by Apple or whatever the case may be.
But the reality of it is is that, to me, these
are just products.
They're just glass, metal, and plastic.
And so if they're really lovely, then they're really lovely.
And if they're really not, then they're really not.
And that's all there really is to it.
So I'm not on sets anymore, so I never
want my call volume silenced.
Sure.
It's silenced right now.
Are you accidentally mashing your lock and your volume up?
Because that's a gesture.
It's very unlikely.
Well, it's a gesture on the Pixel 3 XL.
I don't know if it's on this one here.
You've got to turn it up and then hit it.
Yeah, that's probably what you're doing.
But then if you press it again, it doesn't go back up?
So I rant about that too.
Oh my god.
That's probably happening in my pocket just all the time.
Why are calls just permanently muted?
And it doesn't make them vibrate.
And I changed the interaction so that it's
supposed to vibrate when ringing.
And it still doesn't most of the time.
So I'm bracing myself for the hate storm.
But I'm at the point now where I just kind of don't even care.
Because the number of people that
said they unsubscribed over that iPhone video
was like, if you read the comments,
it was probably similar to the number of people
that claimed they unsubscribed over the, what was that,
company that did the benchmarking for Intel again?
Performance something?
I can't remember.
Yeah.
It had something to do with like justified or.
I don't remember.
Anyway, neither of those days even registered as blips.
So I don't know.
It seems to be either vocal minorities or I don't know.
Something technologies?
Ah, dang it.
I can't remember.
Anyway, why don't we get into our sponsors?
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I just got a well done notification for this watch.
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Finally, private internet access.
We have kind of a weird deal with these guys.
So it kind of doesn't even really matter what I say.
PIA, PIA.
PIA.
PIA, PIA, PIA.
Just copying my old dbrand sponsor spot.
Really?
You did that?
Yeah.
I didn't know you did that.
dbrand retweeted it and it like blew up and stuff.
Oh really?
It was at CES.
I did so many dbrand spots.
I was just like, whatever.
And I just said dbrand a whole bunch of times
and people loved it.
It was great.
It was freaking awesome.
So this PIA sponsor spot has turned into a dbrand spot.
And I don't even care.
PIA, check it out today at the link in the video description
or at privateinternet.com slash pages slash linus-tech-tips.
Secure your internet and stuff.
No, no, no.
We weren't doing any talking points.
I was trying to throw in like a yo.
No, you ruined it.
Young kids.
You ruined it.
Fellow high schoolers.
Fellow high schoolers.
You should secure your interwebs.
Like surf in the net.
Surfing.
It's been a long time.
Is that a thing?
Do people still say that?
I don't think so.
Oh, man.
OK.
Web surfing.
It seems to be happening a lot lately.
Like someone, I forget who it was.
But, and this is, OK, look, it's a direct quote.
And I'm sorry for that.
I have to say it.
But it was like someone said something.
And someone replied with, well, your mom's gay.
And I was like, I had this like, OK, you know Breath of the Wild
when you find the memories?
And it's like, Link's like, whoa, whoa.
I was like transported back to the locker room in grade eight.
You know?
Yeah.
I was like, those are words that I haven't heard together
and didn't miss, by the way, in 15 years.
And so I feel like this is part of aging.
Because I'm experiencing it a lot lately.
Surfing the web.
So the more you get older, the more you become like new Link.
And just, oh.
No, right?
Have you finished that game yet?
No.
I am close.
Really?
It's going to take me a long time.
I don't go on as many trips anymore.
And I only play on trips.
I was horrified to discover that the Switch has
a feature that tells you how many hours you've spent in a game.
And I looked at that feature.
How much is it?
And there's some idling.
OK, sure.
But not much.
OK.
My total play time for that game is over 130 hours.
Whoa.
I have officially spent more time
playing Breath of the Wild in the last six months
since I got a Switch.
I didn't even get a Switch until I had my wisdom teeth out.
That's probably more than all games you've
played in the last few years.
Combined.
Yeah.
Yeah, probably.
Whoa.
And I'm not counting when I'm benchmarking or whatever.
Yeah, yeah.
That doesn't count.
So I have almost literally every armor in the game,
except the Zora helmet.
I'm not sure where you get it.
It might be like you have to find the 10 things,
and I didn't feel like doing it or something like that.
Like, there's a couple of quests I haven't finished.
I have my Champion's Tunic completely upgraded,
which is a real pain in the butt.
And I have only looked up two things.
Have you done the challenge islands and stuff?
Do you have a little DLC?
Yeah.
Oh, wait.
No, I haven't done the DLC.
I've only done the one challenge island that's already there.
So I haven't done any DLC at all.
And I've only looked up two things so far.
And one of them I feel like a complete idiot about.
So in the, whatever the clan's called,
Haiga clan or something, Higa clan or something like that.
I can't remember what it's called.
But in the clan's headquarters, I did that dungeon,
like, nine times, getting to the end where, have you done it?
Don't think so.
OK, well, whatever.
There's a dungeon where you're supposed to use.
I might have a long time ago.
Yeah, you're supposed to use Magnesis to open a secret door.
And the hint is that the room has a bunch of treasure chests
like buried embedded in the ground.
That by that point in the game, I think they've assumed,
you know, that you can grab them out with Magnesis.
So you're supposed to turn it on and see the hidden door.
I had not figured out that game mechanic yet.
And I just didn't think to turn it on.
Even though I'd done a bunch of shrines,
like I knew that like it was probably
a matter of just something like that.
So I did it all these times.
And finally, I was just like, screwed.
I looked up, felt like a complete idiot.
And then the other one I looked up
was the Xenoblade Chronicles, like crossover quest
or something like that.
And the hint is you got to go to the top of the snow,
the split snowy mountain peak.
And there's a snowy mountain peak
that has a huge sword embedded in it.
And I went to that one and I stared into the night sky
like you're supposed to for a very long time.
I was like, this is really stupid.
I need to know if this is right.
And it turns out it was another one
where the peak was like kind of split with a thing.
And I was like, you know what?
I don't even care because I solved that riddle.
Your riddle was bad.
Yeah, no, I'd agree with that.
No, so I don't even feel bad about that one,
but that's it.
Like everything else I have figured out on my own
for better or for worse.
So it has taken a very long time.
And then sometimes I'll drop in.
I'll spend an entire flight just accomplishing nothing,
just like going around
and finding Korok seeds and crap like that.
So it's like my brain off travel mode thing.
I only play on flights and yeah,
pretty much only flights actually.
I almost never play when I'm actually there.
But so when the game first came out,
I got a good amount of time on it.
And then almost immediately it was like, nope.
I have traveled so much this year.
Yeah, no.
It's been stupid.
Anyway.
Speaking of which, if you're at IEM Chicago, say hi.
Trusted Reviews pays a million pounds
after Red Dead Redemption 2 leaks.
So this is where I need to plead ignorance and say,
look, we're gonna walk through what we have in our notes
and I'm gonna tell you my knee jerk reaction
and it might be wrong, okay?
Trusted Reviews has pulled an article
published in February, 2018.
That was earlier this year
that revealed unannounced gameplay details
about Red Dead Redemption 2
and they have donated a 1 million pound settlement fee
to charities of Rockstar's Choice.
At the time, the website said it received the documents
in August, 2017, but decided not to share them
as they were unsubstantiated.
However, in February, 2018,
after the information was validated
by official promotional material,
Trusted Reviews went ahead with the story
stating it had contacted Rockstar for comment, okay?
The link to the article has now been replaced by an apology.
We published an article that was sourced
from a confidential corporate document.
We should have known this information was confidential
and should not have published it.
We unreservedly apologized to take two games
and we have undertaken not to repeat such actions again.
We have also agreed to donate over a million pounds
to charities chosen by take two games.
What?
Am I missing something here?
I'm really lost.
Because if they had illegally obtained the documents,
which they haven't said that they did,
and in fact, it's not in our notes,
but I believe they said that they were provided
by an anonymous source for free,
which is how sourcing for rumor mill stories happens.
What exactly is going on here?
So yeah, Twitch chat?
Why don't we talk to Twitch chat?
Everyone else seems to be confused.
I like, and yeah, yeah.
So what did you call a cat or whatever your name is?
I don't know.
I think you're a prime subscriber, so cool.
That's neat.
If someone leaked a confidential document,
that's on them, not the reporter.
Yes.
As far as I'm aware, it works the same way in the UK,
which is where this whole thing took place
as it does here, where if you don't have an NDA
and you don't have any other kind of confidentiality
agreement or legal obligation,
it's completely not your problem.
So like, did they have some partnership agreement
of some kind or something?
Like there must be something else going on
that we don't know.
Yeah, because if they, like if they stole the documents,
like if reporters from,
ah, shoot, who was it again?
Trusted reviews.
Yeah, if reporters from trusted reviews,
like literally donned Ninja outfits
and snuck into the Red Dead Redemption 2
like development studio and stole documents, that's illegal.
If somebody else stole the documents
and provided them without them buying stolen goods,
you don't wanna pay for stolen goods, okay?
But if someone just provided them free of charge,
to my knowledge, that's not illegal for trusted reviews.
So I am not getting anyone,
yeah, see, this is another thing.
Brubient says, I'm more surprised that trusted reviews
has a million pounds to donate.
I've been trying to figure out who they are.
Yeah, trusted reviews is owned by,
crap, I can't remember,
but I was doing a little bit of research into this
before the show actually.
Wow, it does happen from time to time.
Cause I was just like, what is going on right now?
I do not understand this.
I just, what?
If it was confidential,
there could have been something in their terms of service
putting, making them liable if it wasn't for their eyes.
Yeah, but that's not enforceable.
Like I remember having this argument with Luke
where I was like, look, on all of our email signatures,
we need to have that confidentiality for your eyes only,
if you're the unintended recipient, please delete this.
And he's like, those are completely unenforceable,
this is stupid.
And I'm like, look, I don't care.
Sometimes it's about scare tactics
rather than the actual law.
We did it anyways, but yeah, it's useless.
Fine, look, I'm not digging this debate back up.
I mean, I put it on my new email anyways.
From time to time, I'm correct.
Cloudflare, who was right?
Buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, okay, all right, okay.
He didn't even want to contact them.
He was like, no, that's not gonna work.
To be fair, they have failed us more than a few times,
but in general, they have been very helpful.
He was like, there is no way to fix this problem.
I'm like, I Google it.
I'm like, contact these guys, no, call them.
I had to issue like an executive order
to call from Cloudflare.
That was, yep, nope.
Now in Luke's defense,
this is an example that I love to bring up
because it was like the time that I was right
about something like super technical
and or like network administration admin like crap.
It was like my one time to shine.
So I love bringing it up,
but he's usually right about that.
I immediately looked up a way
to get around their security,
which is why I was like, what the hell?
But most of the stuff that happens in that realm
is automated anyways,
and it's very good at blocking all that kind of stuff.
And very often it's hard to get through.
Anyways.
Anyway, so in a nutshell,
we still don't know what the crap's going on
other than like the only thing
that I can really come up with
is that they're trying to avoid damaging the relationship
with take two.
But then-
That's a one hell of a-
Here's where it gets deeper to me.
How is that relationship worth a million pounds?
Yeah.
Right?
Like that's one hell of a try to fix this relationship.
Yeah.
Like I could even see, like, okay.
Let's say, pick a-
Who owns this?
How big are they?
Pick a tech company.
Like you're not talking like Intel or Nvidia.
Anyone.
Go with Gigabyte.
Gigabyte.
Okay, pick Gigabyte.
If we did something that really screwed over Gigabyte
real good.
Like, you know, they,
we somehow obtained their roadmap
for their upcoming graphics cards
that they had an NDA with Nvidia for or something.
And we did a story on it
that got them in a whole bunch of trouble.
And they were like, yo man, like, this is terrible.
You know, you basically just got us,
you got us cut off from Nvidia.
Our company's revenue is going to be down 20% next year.
What the heck, man?
Like I could see us being like, okay, here's,
no, actually I, no, I still, no.
Why would we do that?
That's stupid.
That's ridiculous.
Okay, so fine.
Who's the ownership again?
I think it's Time.
It's TI Media who I think owns like-
Okay.
Time and stuff.
Okay, so what is this?
Rugby World, Shooting Gazette.
Oh, sorry.
I screwed that up.
Wallpaper asterisk, Woman and Home, What's on TV,
Uncut, Shooting Something, Shooting Times, Now, Boat Owner.
I don't even recognize most of this stuff.
Any of this.
Home and Garden.
That's Home and Garden, is it?
Yeah, I've heard of-
Ideal Home.
Golf Monthly.
I haven't looked at a magazine in so long, but like-
It seems like old print magazines.
Okay, so that kind of makes sense.
Yachting.
Yachting.
Like 25 Beautiful Homes is the name of one of their brands.
Okay, well at any rate, okay, so I guess they're a big deal.
So they clearly have a million pounds to throw around
and apparently it was worth making this go away
to them somehow.
Yeah.
All right, cool.
So that's all I really have to say about that.
Why don't we go ahead and-
I feel like TI Media needs to use like Squarespace
or something, because their websites are kind of dirt.
Look at this tiny little bar at the top,
massive freaking image.
You have to scroll down a bit before you get past it
and then finally information.
That's kind of like a trendy thing though.
Like there was some like weird computer company
or something that I was on their website
and it just like had, all it was was like embedded videos.
And I was like, no, no, no, no.
You need to have text on your website.
Yeah.
All right, let's do a few super chats.
Dary says, Bork, Bork, I'm a dog.
What would your fursona be if you were a furry?
I'd be a goat.
I don't-
A wolf?
A wolf.
A bear?
Oh, careful.
Uncurp101 says, love the content.
Keep it up, man.
Eric says, review it.
Not sure what you're talking about anymore, Eric.
That was a long time ago presumably.
That was probably the Walmart PC.
Yes.
Hassan says, can we have an actual blindfold build?
Actually, we are working on that.
No.
Corrupt turret says, thanks to the runner
and those working behind the scenes.
Glad to save such a worthy cause.
Put this donation towards viewers choice.
Oh, yeah, we haven't been viewers choice in a long time.
Allie says, dab.
No, D-A-B. That's not dab.
That is dab.
That is dab?
Which one is dabbing again?
Is that this one?
Yeah.
But there's some micro dab thing now
where it's like smaller or something.
I don't know.
Maybe?
I don't know.
I don't follow these things very well.
Arctic Rose says, gaming PC?
I don't even trust Walmart for food.
Ouch.
Dang.
Haymaker, hello, Linus.
This is my first stream.
It's midnight here in the UK.
You're probably not watching anymore then.
Well, at any rate, hi.
In the UK, Walmart is called Asda?
Do they have a UK like thing?
Well done.
That was a great workout, says my watch.
Brilliant.
Mike says, how you guys doing?
I'm good.
Paul says, I always thought they wanted ROG to sound like Rogue.
Nope.
It was much dumber than that.
Gorilla says, nothing.
Hi, Gorilla.
Tom says, assembling a gaming PC isn't really skilled labor.
You'd be surprised how bunged up that can get.
Dan says, build a PC blindfolded.
Sounds like a video.
Yeah, it sounds like it at this point.
Scooby Doo says, can you do wired and wireless Wi-Fi?
Wired and wireless Wi-Fi cards, please.
Can you do a wired and wireless Wi-Fi cards, please?
Probably means reviews.
Asda is owned by Walmart.
It is not technically Walmart, but it's
a subsidiary of Walmart.
We don't really review Wi-Fi cards, unfortunately.
Linus TLDR, you're knowledgeable,
but sometimes your voice annoys me
after extensive amounts of time.
I've worked on that.
What?
No, no, no, this is a thing.
This is absolutely a thing.
But work on that?
You're going to go voice coaching?
You know what?
I actually did experiment with it for a little bit.
So there was a video that I hosted
when I was really sick, and my voice was super low.
And there were a bunch of comments about it.
I was like, OK, you know what?
Why don't we try hosting my videos
like this for a little while?
And it's obviously still my voice,
but it's a little bit less shrill.
It's not like, what?
I don't like it.
Overall, the feedback was negative.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Because it doesn't sound like you.
I don't know.
Especially on a review channel, I
think the genuineness is important.
Noah says, you're awesome.
Hope to see LTX in the USA soon.
Probably not, but LTX this coming year.
Just to give you guys some idea how seriously we're taking it,
I have issued a directive as of yesterday
that the person who's going to be organizing LTX, which
will probably be Colton's wife, Steph,
needs to start full time, like now, like seven months prior.
I want it to be way better this year.
Cool.
Yeah.
Not that it was terrible.
But there was a lot of noticeable room
for improvement.
Yes.
But it was very good.
It was a very fun event, but there was a lot of, OK, yeah.
Shout out to Mike Adams.
Holy smokes.
How are there so many super chats?
Drek says, please review the Nubia X, the double screen
phone.
Oh, man.
I'm so tired of reviewing phones right now.
It is so boring.
I think that's why they're all turning into Rands.
I'll get back to you on that one.
Laser says, I love my Moto Z Force with an add-on battery.
OK.
Michael says, why don't people buy the lower end phones new
from Apple?
It's not like the new phones are much noticeably faster.
Yes, but there's the support period.
Like, I would pay an extra couple.
By the time you're paying $600, $700 for a phone
you're going to use with two years of support,
why not pay $800, $900 for one with 3 and 1
half years of support left?
There's also, like, even if it's new,
you still get the software slowdown, right?
No, only once your battery degrades.
OK.
All right.
I think that's pretty much all I got.
Thank you, guys.
We'll see you again next week.
We'll see you next time.