Joe Rogan Experience #1186 - Marques Brownlee
Joe Rogan (host), Marques Brownlee (guest), Jamie Vernon (host), Jamie Vernon (host), Joe Rogan (host)
In this episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, featuring Joe Rogan and Marques Brownlee, Joe Rogan Experience #1186 - Marques Brownlee explores marques Brownlee Dissects Smartphones, Laptops, VR, And Tech Addiction Joe Rogan and tech reviewer Marques Brownlee (MKBHD) dive deep into the current state of consumer tech, focusing on smartphones, laptops, virtual/augmented reality, and smart devices. They compare flagship phones from Google, Apple, Samsung, Huawei, OnePlus, and RED’s experimental HYDROGEN One, emphasizing camera quality, software, and design tradeoffs. The conversation also covers laptops and keyboards, smartwatches, smart-home integration, and how design priorities can undermine performance and usability. They close by reflecting on ecosystem lock‑in, privacy tradeoffs, and how deeply phones and wearables are now woven into everyday life and even fitness and sports.
Marques Brownlee Dissects Smartphones, Laptops, VR, And Tech Addiction
Joe Rogan and tech reviewer Marques Brownlee (MKBHD) dive deep into the current state of consumer tech, focusing on smartphones, laptops, virtual/augmented reality, and smart devices. They compare flagship phones from Google, Apple, Samsung, Huawei, OnePlus, and RED’s experimental HYDROGEN One, emphasizing camera quality, software, and design tradeoffs. The conversation also covers laptops and keyboards, smartwatches, smart-home integration, and how design priorities can undermine performance and usability. They close by reflecting on ecosystem lock‑in, privacy tradeoffs, and how deeply phones and wearables are now woven into everyday life and even fitness and sports.
Key Takeaways
Camera software now matters more than camera hardware in phones.
Brownlee argues the Google Pixel 3 has the best smartphone camera largely because of computational photography—HDR, image stacking, stabilization, and smart noise reduction—showing you can put the same sensor in another phone and get worse results with weaker software.
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Ecosystems and services are what keep people locked into Apple and Google.
Features like iMessage, FaceTime, AirDrop, Apple Watch integration, and Google Photos/Assistant create strong switching costs; Rogan’s failed attempt to move from iPhone to Pixel due to iMessage illustrates how hard it is to leave once all your contacts and workflows are embedded.
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Design-first decisions often compromise performance and reliability.
Apple’s very thin laptops, butterfly keyboards, under‑cooled i9 MacBook Pros, and the cylindrical Mac Pro are cited as cases where aesthetics and thinness led to throttling, poor thermals, fragile keyboards, and non‑upgradable machines that frustrated power users.
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“Premium” price tiers are drifting upward, reshaping expectations.
With iPhones normalizing $1,000+ price tags, other manufacturers like Google and Huawei have raised flagship prices and even launched $2,000 “designer” phones, while value-oriented brands like OnePlus deliberately undercut that trend with high-spec, lower-cost devices.
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Fitness tracking and social competition significantly boost workout adherence.
Rogan’s Sober October challenge and Brownlee’s Apple Watch competitions show that live metrics, points, and leaderboards (heart-rate zones, calories, activity points) create powerful external motivation to train longer and more frequently than usual.
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Mechanical and modular experiments look cool but raise durability and practicality questions.
Examples like RED’s modular HYDROGEN One, pop‑up selfie cameras, and sliding mechanisms (Oppo/Vivo) achieve bezel‑less designs or holographic effects, but Brownlee doubts long‑term reliability, broad app support, and whether such features become everyday essentials or stay gimmicks.
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VR and AR are promising but still searching for mainstream, non‑gimmicky use cases.
They praise specific experiences—Beat Saber, boxing games, archery in VR, and RED’s glasses‑free 3D screen—but note how hard it is to create full virtual worlds or useful AR overlays that people will want constantly, versus quick, impressive demos.
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Notable Quotes
“My priorities in a phone are pretty much along those lines: I need a great camera, and then I want a great display. I want good software, and then the rest kinda follows.”
— Marques Brownlee
“Apple has been…a victim of their own desire to make great design. They often make compromises, sometimes to the detriment of how good a product can be, to make it look better.”
— Marques Brownlee
“I feel like [Apple is] running on the momentum of Steve Jobs’ maniacal vision.”
— Joe Rogan
“If I am gonna have like this Google Assistant on my phone…I know you are, ’cause you’re Google, then give me something back for it.”
— Marques Brownlee
“I never would have imagined 20 years ago that we would be all addicted to our phones…and one of the big issues would be like one of the new features in the iPhone shows you how much screen time you have.”
— Joe Rogan
Questions Answered in This Episode
How should an everyday buyer realistically prioritize camera quality, battery life, and ecosystem when choosing their next phone?
Joe Rogan and tech reviewer Marques Brownlee (MKBHD) dive deep into the current state of consumer tech, focusing on smartphones, laptops, virtual/augmented reality, and smart devices. ...
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
At what point do design-driven tradeoffs (thinness, minimal ports, high prices) stop being acceptable to power users and professionals?
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Will any Android manufacturer ever replicate Apple’s level of ecosystem lock‑in and polish without sacrificing openness and choice?
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How far are we willing to let AR, smart assistants, and always‑listening devices penetrate our privacy in exchange for convenience?
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Are rising flagship prices sustainable, or will value-focused brands like OnePlus eventually force a market correction back down?
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Transcript Preview
(clears throat) Here we go. Four, three, two, one. Boom. First of all, before we get started, I wanna say, I love your reviews.
Thank you.
You are my favorite. You, you have the ... Well, you and Lou. I love Lou too, but you, you, you're so good at covering all the bases of whether it's cellphones or any kinda weird technology that's coming out, and you just, you just nail it. You just, y- you're so ... I ... You're my go-to guy, man.
Well, thank you. That's quite an intro.
(laughs)
(laughs) I appreciate that.
I really wanna tell you, like, whenever a, a new cellphone's out ... Like, I saw that you walked in with the RED, but that's ... You're n- ... That's not your daily driver?
No, I thought you would like this. This is ... I mean, every phone now is-
Mm.
... is glass on glass and everything.
Yeah.
Uh, but this, this RED HYDROGEN One has a lot of weird stuff about it. Uh, it's ... First of all, it's about twice as big as it has to be, but it's, it's from RED, which is a camera company.
Wow, all these buttons-
Yeah.
... everywhere.
So they really get it-
Oh, this is a grip.
Yeah.
This is not buttons. This is just a grip, this texture on the outside.
Rubberized side grip. You could probably drop it from 45 feet and it'd be fine.
(laughs)
Throw it across the room. But the weird part is it's made by RED. So RED's-
Mm-hmm.
... a camera company. They're, they ... I use their cameras. I love their cameras. But then they come out with this, which is a phone, which is kinda weird. But-
There it is right there on the screen.
... they do ... Yeah, that's my photo actually. So-
Ah.
That's next to the, the iPhone 8 Plus, which is already a huge phone and it's much bigger.
What is this, um, metal thing on the back, the brass-looking with dots?
So it's got these pins, and it's supposed to next year support modules that will connect to it. So potentially-
VR?
... a better camera, bigger battery, uh, VR, whatever RED decides to support or make-
Hmm.
... will attach to it.
So-
But it's also kinda ... It may or may not happen for a while.
Yeah, because Jamie ordered one. When did you order one?
I think I paid for it last ... (smacks lips) I don't know, right when it went on sale.
Yeah.
So like the last August maybe. I don't know.
Vaporware.
Yeah. Mine, my official one just shipped. That's a prototype.
Mm.
And-
This is the prototype you have here?
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