The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 20 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 0 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Brownlee: Engine sound is overrated for the vast majority of car buyers
“I think a lot of people overrate how much sound matters. Like, in the high-end car market, everyone cares how their car sounds. But for, you know, 90% of people who are just like... When I hit the pedal, I want to hear it working for me. Like, that's a common,…”
Brownlee: Legacy automakers' EV efforts show how far ahead Tesla is
“The more like those big companies think about answering those questions, like Ford and like Chevy and those big guys. Yeah. The more you realize how, how far ahead Tesla is, but how, how much How, how far there is to go to actually make EVs useful for most peo…”
Brownlee: Competitor phone cameras lag far behind the Google Pixel
“I'm reviewing a lot of phones right now whose cameras are just not close to the Pixel's camera in particular, and I know they could get closer. I know they could put a little more into that, but they don't, and that's their own choice and their own priority.”
Brownlee: MKBHD grew steadily over 1,000 videos without a viral inflection point
“No, I get asked that a lot about like, you know, can I point to a certain video or date or month or something? Like what happened to go from like nothing to where it is now? But it's, I've, I, from to this day, I look back and it's mainly just like a, you can …”
Brownlee: LG's touchless hand gesture controls are a gimmick
“This came up recently because I did a video with an LG phone that came out. Mm-hmm. Has this feature where you wave your hand over it and do these gestures to open up apps and things like that. It's called the G-A. Okay. And like, on the surface, like, this is…”
Brownlee: Average phone buyers do not care about high-end display resolution
“Like, I'm a, I love high resolution, really nice screens. And you can hand me a phone with a 1440 P AMOLED great display, and you could hand me a phone with a 1080 P LCD display, and I'd look and I'd immediately want the better one. But to an average person, a…”
Brownlee: Smartphone industry will not reach a permanent innovation plateau
“I don't know what that next trend is, but I feel like because of, I've observed these cycles over the past couple years it doesn't seem likely that it's just gonna, we're gonna get this end product of, like, the perfect phone.”
Brownlee: Gen-1 folding phones are unrefined proofs of concept
“Generation one folding phones are like, alright, proof of concept, like, you can technically fold it, but there's a big ugly crease in the middle on these bezels are huge, and, you know, it's not really It doesn't seem that useful yet.”
Brownlee: VR works great for gaming but is puzzling for video production
“It's awesome for games. I love it for games. I love it for other stuff, but for video, it's been sort of a head scratcher.”
Brownlee: RED cameras have poor autofocus because cinema workflows use manual focus
“The camera, essentially, it has a really, really poor autofocus system, but it's a red camera, and no one uses autofocus for red cameras, so they don't really work on it, so it's not good. So it's manual focus all the time”
Brownlee: The iPad Pro stands alone in the $1,300 tablet category
“IPad was already so far ahead in tablets. And then iPad pro took a massive step forward versus the last iPad. Like this is obscene how, how much, like there is no other. 1300 dollar tablet I would even consider. Like that's alone in its category, which is real…”
Brownlee: Publishing content at 95% is better than delaying for 99%
“And if it's 95% there and it's done, that's better than 99% there and still working on it.”
Brownlee breaks down the three categories of YouTube video comments
“I can also separate the comments section into kind of three categories. Hour one of upload, which is, like, useless. It's mainly just people saying either first or reacting to the title and thumbnail and not actually watching the video, or just, like, getting …”
Brownlee: Modern consumer tech has advanced so even low-end devices work well
“Nothing really sucks anymore, you know, like the tech we use, even at the lower end, Just kind of works pretty well.”
Brownlee: YouTube ads are 50% of revenue, while sponsors are 20%
“I'm still at a point where like the YouTube ads are probably 40, 40 to 50%. The, I don't do a whole lot of sponsored stuff. If I did, that number would be much higher, but I think right now sponsored stuff is probably about 20%. So, 4020, and then affiliate st…”
Brownlee: Advanced creator strategy lacks how-to guides or clear answers
“I think like, when you get to a certain place in this creative world, there's no longer like a, an article you can go read to figure out how to do something. Like when you're starting YouTube, you can figure out like, what's the best DSLR for a thousand bucks,…”
Brownlee: Effective tech reviews rely on competitive context and generational momentum
“Context. So, what came before it, what came next to it, what it's up against, and momentum in a way. So, let's say a new phone comes out, you naturally compare it to the phone that came before it, and then you compare it to other phones around it and how much …”
Brownlee: Tech, not personal branding, is the star of MKBHD videos
“I guess I kind of, I do less of that because I consider tech the star of the show. I think I do inject my own personal humor or perspective on occasion just because it's fun and keeps it interesting. And that's its own challenge, but I've always considered tec…”
Brownlee: An iPhone XS will probably last four years
“To peak smartphone, because your iPhone, if you buy an iPhone XS now, that phone's probably gonna be good for, like, four years. Like, legitimately, iOS has gotten better. So it's true, you can hang on to an older phone longer than you used to be able to.”