Your phone is a computer.

It’s a small computer that fits in your pocket. After years of refining, we should expect our pocket computers to be capable of accomplishing more work (and play) with every successive phone generation.

Sadly, we’ve seen a cottage industry of tech reviewing amplify a lazy refrain of “specs don’t matter”. It’s disappointing to see.

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I’m a mobile junky.

I’ve been trying to push mobile devices absurdly hard since I was in grade school. At ten, I got a Texas Instruments pocket rolodex and organizer. It had a little QWERTY keyboard. I took notes on it in class with my thumbs.

In college I started playing with Palm Pilots and Windows Mobile PDAs. I got to the point where I could get most of my class work done on a PDA instead of using a desktop or laptop. I had a little fold out keyboard for my iPAQ, a bunch of productivity apps, and a handful of CF and SD cards (HUNDREDS of MEGABYTES of storage).

I could get a ton of work done. I played through games like Age of Empires on a 3.5” display. For a short time, I held the bench-marking record for overclocking the HX2750. The XScale CPU was rad. (The key to overclocking it wasn’t in boosting CPU clock speed, but in adjusting memory timings, but I digress…)

My entire life, I’ve wanted to squeeze every ounce of compute power that I could from the smallest possible computers.

I do not make videos for “avuraj cunzoomers”.

I want an audience of EXCEPTIONAL tech consumers. I want the BEST consumers!

I’m desperate to chat with other enthusiasts. They might not be exactly like me, in ruthlessly driving every gadget to its limits, but I am hoping for fun conversations with folks who are at least curious about their tech. I’m always hoping to find the “NERD” in every family who helps their family make future gadget purchases, and who’s responsible for running tech support over the holidays.

I’m viscerally disappointed that this lazy idea of tech reviewing is taking root in the communities of nerds I hope to reach.

Our tech is getting more expensive, and that should mean we hold it to higher standards. As prices climb, so should our expectations. Consumer products used to get less expensive as they matured.

Phones keep getting more expensive, so I expect to see better cameras, better screens, faster chips, bigger storage, larger batteries, and faster charging.

Unfortunately, reviewers seem to have tapped out on those expectations.

If a phone is popular, and the manufacturer is dumping a horrific amount of money behind the marketing, then reviewers seem fine with a “good enough” phone. As long as influencers get traffic to their videos, and they don’t rock the boat with the manufacturer, then they make more money.

“Really, aren’t all phones basically good enough now?”

It’s just easier to NOT test these devices. Those reviewers can hide behind a shield. They can say “avuraj cunzoomers”, and that absolves them of any obligation to test a device more thoroughly.

There are consumers out there who buy the most expensive devices and don’t use any of the potential performance of that device. We should not be crafting reviews aiming for that tiny sliver of an audience.

People like that do not represent anywhere near a “majority” or “average” of the consumers buying devices, especially in AndroidLand. From what market data we can track, it still seems to hold true that the vast majority of Androids sold are priced under $600. Roughly one out of every ten phones sold might climb north of that price.

No one should ever hold up a phone that costs a thousand dollars (or more), and talk about the most basic possible use of that phone, just because SOME people might spend the most on a gadget and not use it to its potential.

The majority of people regularly watching tech commentary videos are not “avuraj cunzoomers”.

The biggest YouTube channels in this space might clock 2-5 million views on a new video. The global phone market moves roughly 1.2 BILLION new devices a year. These influencers are not influencing “avuraj cunzoomers”. Those influencers aren’t even REACHING consumers outside the bounds of tech enthusiasts.

Why do techies want to be “average”?

I’ve commented on this trend a lot. Saying “avuraj cunzoomer” is an empty vessel statement. There is no way to define what is “average” in a market as complex as portable electronics. It’s hollow. An influencer can say “avuraj cunzoomer” and the audience will fill in any meaning they want.

[As a thought exercise, drop a comment on this article. Don’t read any other comments before you do. Define “average consumer”. What does that mean?]

I always hope MY audience is interested in these topics, and they use this hobby knowledge to help their families. Sadly, too often, I see techies in comments who seem to lump themselves in WITH the idea of a lowest common denominator “BASIC” tech user, while that person is also motivated to watch tech videos AND comment on those videos.

“I’m SO NOT BOTHERED by performance and I DON’T DO stuff on MY phone, so I NEED to let other people know how not bothered I AM!”

That person makes no sense to me. I don’t get them. Why would you care SO much about telling people you DON’T care about what makes tech better?

This stuff matters a great deal…

The launch of the Pixel 10 series of phones highlights this trend with disturbing clarity.

Google’s “pro” prices are at the top of the market.

Google’s prices are now in the ULTRA brackets, directly paired against iPhone Pro and Samsung Ultra pricing. Google often charges more than brands like Oppo, Vivo, and Xiaomi, while those companies deliver better performance and are on the bleeding edge of camera and battery tech.

There’s a steady stream of people on social media whining about how the Pixel 10 Pro’s performance doesn’t matter, and it “works for them”, and people need to get over “specs”.

The problem is, those folks are kind of telling on themselves. If the performance was really so good that we shouldn’t care about differences in performance between brands, we wouldn’t need to continuously proselytize the brand like missionaries, trying to convince others that specs don’t matter anymore.

“I bought this expensive thing, and I certainly didn’t fall for marketing, so no I need people to know I’m a discerning consumer who made the right choice FOR ME, because I DO NOT care about things like performance or battery life. I’ll go spread the word for a Trillion dollar corporation to let others know!”

Performance should not be graded in a vacuum. We should always balance performance against price, and the manufacturer should set an expectation with claims about the price-to-performance they offer. Google seems desperate to convince everyone that phone performance no longer matters. This strategy seems damning, as they can’t deliver a competitive phone in terms of performance.

HUGE data centers pumping out Cloud AI solutions at a massive cost and an incredible scale, will make up the differences in how poorly the new Pixel Pro phones perform!

That’s just not how this works though.

Back in 2022, I wasn’t shy about condemning the Galaxy S22.

I felt that phone was a miserable performer, at a high price, and that consumers would do well to skip it. Consumers who skipped Android phones from 2022, were in for a treat! The phones from 2023 performed noticeably better, and got significantly better battery life. Those specs matter. They matter a great deal, especially for all the “average” folks out there who really want things like better battery life, and phones that don’t get nuclear hot in their pockets.

Anyone who tried to pass off the terrible performance of the S22, because Samsung is a popular phone brand (and that means they make more money on popular brand videos), should be ashamed of themselves, but that would require influencers to have shame.

I was extremely vocal about the iPhone 12 lineup.

Apple was conflating camera specs between the 12 Pro and 12 Pro Max cameras. Battery life was so abysmal in Apple’s first year of 5G, that carriers regularly recommended consumers turn off 5G so their phones would last a full day. Consumers who skipped the iPhone 12 Pro were in for a treat! The iPhone 13 was one of the single biggest improvements in performance and battery life the iPhone has seen in the post iPhone X era.

If companies like Apple, Google, and Samsung faced more scrutiny and practical criticisms from a better educated base of consumers, we’d probably see more progress in phone performance. Instead, these companies can keep squeezing consumers for more money while delivering tiny iterations (or sometimes out right regression), because they know they have a largely ignorant and captive consumer market.

The specs matter. Performance matters. Consumers DO care about what the specs deliver, even if they don’t know all the fancy “megapickle” and “giggleflip” words to describe phone performance.

We nerds are SUPPOSED to help consumers understand this stuff. We are NOT supposed to just roll over for Trillion Dollar brands and cluck along with astro-turfed marketing points.

At its best, this “specs don’t matter” idea has some merit…

A lot of reviewers are horrifically lazy, and most will try to make big news out of a Geekbench or Antutu score, because then THEY don’t have to do any real work. A handful of better reviewers will at least jump into some games and show comparable performance. A smaller slice of those reviewers will also comment on power draw or performance per watt.

Almost no reviewers can demonstrate consistent differences in CPU performance. When a phone CPU gets more powerful, what does that MEAN? A good nerd should be able to explain that to an aunt or uncle. Most “avuraj reviewers” these days seem lost explaining that to other techies.

You might not care that one phone this year can render a minute of 4K video in 26 seconds, and another phone can do it in 12 seconds. I know there are some people reading this, already rushing to the comments to trot out some hack reply like “who EVAN duz VIDYA on uh FOOOOOONNNNE!?!?!”.

[I promise you don’t need to leave that comment. Regulars on my channel already know a person making an argument like that is bad at tech. You don’t need to advertise you’re bad at tech.]

It never seems to matter how many times I repeat this, but something like video editing on a phone is a big deal. Sure, TikTok has been installed over a billion times on Android devices, but so has CapCut. A single video editing app has been installed OVER A BILLION TIMES on Android phones and tablets.

Who edits video on phones? Over a BILLION people have tried.

Sadly, a huge chunk of them probably had a bad experience trying to edit video because they listened to lazy hack reviewers who told their audiences that specs don’t matter. They might have been led to buying phones that actually couldn’t do what they wanted, because reviewers were too lazy to actually demonstrate why differences between devices are important.

Even outside that specific example of video editing, better performance is becoming the next measure of device longevity and battery life. The top of the market now sees phones that can go toe-to-toe with laptop chips, but at a ridiculously low power draw compared to a laptop. Apple TODAY compared the A19 Pro to a MacBook in terms of performance. Can you actually DO “macbook things” on an iPhone?

When a developer taps into that power, we see a radical reduction in the time it takes to complete a task.

Like my video editing example, a phone might finish a 4K video in 26 seconds and another phone might finish in 12 seconds. The phone that finished in 12 seconds likely used a little more power per second, but it also ran its chip hard for HALF the amount of time. It recovers and slides back into a sleep state in HALF the amount of time. That phone used significantly less power overall to accomplish the same task, which means it’s going to get better battery life on a single charge.

If that phone gets better battery life on a single charge, it won’t need to be charged as frequently. If it’s not charged as frequently, it can spread out charge cycles, and that phone will last longer before a battery replacement is required. The owner of that phone will get a better bang for buck, a more powerful device, and they won’t need to replace their phone as often.

I don’t expect my aunts and uncles to grok CPU core design, clock speeds, RAM and storage management, or GPU performance, but I KNOW they care about how long their phone lasts daily. I know they care about how soon they might need to spend money on a new phone. I know they HATE when a phone is “laggy” doing things like editing a photo.

I need to care about the techie stuff, so I can help THEM get the lifestyle stuff they need.

Horsepower and Torque

An “avuraj driver” probably doesn’t care about ignition timings, skidpad numbers, track braking distances, torque, or quarter mile times. We would rightfully mock any car reviewer with an audience of millions of subscribers, who started talking about cars the way tech influencers talk about phones.

“For my review of the new Corvette, I only drove 5 miles under the speed limit during morning stop-and-go commuting and through school zones, because that’s what MOST AVURAJ drivers do on the daily. Who even drives fast in a car? Why would you care about Corvette performance? Sure, like everyone takes their cars down to a track! Specs don’t matter! Aren’t all cars basically the same now?”

There’s a cultural understanding of vehicles, where people understand a lot of the basics, even if they aren’t entertained by the specifics. Still, car reviewers are expected to discuss those products with more insight and understanding. A good reviewer elevates the conversation, and can be a brilliant educational resource for consumers.

We have some high-profile tech reviewers who handle that level of insight for laptops, computers, gaming, and computer components. We need more reviewers who can bring that level of insight and consistency to mobile devices.

I meet many people who consider themselves tech savvy simply because they look at a phone screen all day.

I find precious few people in my circles who seem much curious about the devices they handle. Many people seem comfortable with the idea that the shape of the computers is somehow important. “Phone does phone things, tablet does tablet things, laptop does laptop things”. It doesn’t seem to register with a lot of consumers, that compute power is leveling out across all the different computer shapes.

It’s a wildly good feeling showing folks the things I do on my phones. I like the reactions I get.

I doubt MANY of them rush out and start gaming or editing 4K video, but a seed definitely gets planted. Either they start dabbling with more features and uses, OR they start looking at less expensive phones for future purchases. They do more, or they look to spend less.

I consider both outcomes huge wins.

My ire with this Pixel launch stops at the “Pro” line of phones.

There’s nothing “pro” about them. They are horribly outclassed by most other manufacturers at lower price points.

There’s little practical room to grow. I’m hoping we’ll see improvements to PC gaming and mobile content creation over the next couple years. Pixel Pro owners will be working from a serious deficit today, and that performance disparity is about to get worse in a couple months, when new chips from Qualcomm and MediaTek are announced.

Yes, Google has committed to seven years of updates, but will artificially start throttling the battery in 200 charges. This hardware is already roughly two years behind. Take a Samsung or Xiaomi from 2023. Would most people still WANT to be using that hardware in 2032? Will someone be able to run a Pixel Pro for seven years?

The Pixel 10 seems like a much more reasonable buy, and I’m hoping Google can improve on the A series early next year. I have massive concerns over Google battery technology, and how aggressively they seem to be throttling battery performance, but I’ll have to save that for a future editorial. Sufficed to say, the Pixel “it just works” experience is found almost equally well on the Pixel 10 as on the 10 Pro.

All the excuses, all the “cope”, all the people who claim they just don’t care, or that they’re “over it”. If you don’t care, why are you spending over $1000 on a phone, when the $799 phone will equally deliver all the performance you don’t care about?

I didn’t have any issues telling people they should avoid the Galaxy S22. I don’t think there are many people who will genuinely get their money’s worth with the Pixel 10 Pro or 10 Pro XL. If you care about what your phone can do, you should buy a more powerful device from a competitor. If you don’t care what your phone can do, you should save money and get the Pixel 10.

How did I arrive at this conclusion?

I installed apps on the Pixel 10 Pro XL, and I compared its performance to other phones in my collection. You can see the specifics of that here on Patreon if you really need the bar graphs. It’s not difficult to do this. You just have to be curious and care enough to put in the time to test consistently.

I’m ONE guy producing all my content by myself. It’s galling to see massive channels and sites with significantly more resources give up on their responsibilities to their audiences. The hand-wringing over demonstrating any kind of practical differences between computers, especially when it might make a popular manufacturer unhappy with their coverage. If they don’t have early access to a product, then they’ll make less money on covering that product. It’s how one large manufacturer PR team tried to freeze out Pocketnow back in the day.

Apparently, consistent testing is a bridge too far for a lot of reviewers. I guess it’s just easier for those reviewers to convince their audiences it’s not worth their time to do that work. ANY reviewer worth their salt should be able to show their work.

I expect MANY reviewers this generation will hide behind “avuraj cunzoomers”.

It might be true from time to time that specs “don’t matter”. I’ve certainly showed in the Pixel’s past where unexciting specs and underwhelming benchmark scores misrepresented what a Pixel could REALLY do.

When those situations arise though, I’m not just guessing that a Pixel is going to be “good enough” to “just work” for the “basic people”. I did the work to test the phone, and I could show how the Pixel punched above its price tag, spec sheet, and benchmark scores. The Pixel 7 Pro was a GEM in that regard.

That is not the case for the Pixel 10 Pro.

The specs matter.

Performance matters.

[Would you like to see how the Pixel 10 Pro XL compares to other premium expensive phones in REAL WORLD apps? I have those charts and bargraphs on my Patreon!]