Tech companies have, I think, reached

peak levels of deception. You will see

incredible headlines everywhere you

look. But as soon as you peel back the

clever wording, you take away the hidden

asterisks and you remove the sneaky

manipulation of data, you realize that

never in history has such little change

been sold to us as if it's so much. So,

I've teamed up with Marquez from MKBHD

to show you how they get you. And I feel

like we have to start with the magic new

catch all term of the tech industry up

to what we need to see and what we used

to see a lot more of is this new product

is x% better than the last one. This

very simple idea basically doesn't exist

anymore. Practically every single tech

company quotes every single change as up

to

>> up to two times faster gets up to eight

more hours

>> is up to two times faster.

>> You'll notice they don't even write it

as up two. A lot of the time they'll

just like mutter it quickly under their

breath like it's some sort of pedantic

footnote that you don't need to pay

attention to. But if you think about it,

any stat that starts with an upto

doesn't mean anything. I can say this

video is going to reach up to a billion

people. And if it only ends up reaching

my parents and then like one cousin in

India, I was still right. And you could

argue, well, you know, workloads are

more complex now. It's harder to

estimate exactly how much better

something is. But the real reason this

is being used is very clear. It's to be

able to stick a massive number on your

web page and not be sued for it. So if

you see up to followed by a percentage

improvement, honestly just disregard it

and go search up specifically how much

better that product is in exactly what

you're planning on doing with it. But

I'll leave the next one up to you,

Marquez. Okay. So, in announcement

keynotes and a lot of advertising

specifically, a lot of companies like to

do this thing where they combine a bunch

of different specs from different

versions of the same product into one

page, creating what I like to call the

imaginary spec. So, like one of the most

common versions you'll see is a company

will put uh like the maximum up to

performance number alongside the minimum

starting at price and they'll put them

next to each other in a product where

you can't actually get the maximum

performance for the minimum price.

Here's Rivian for example on the R1T

website. You'll see, wow, 420 mi of

range and a 0 to 60 in under 2.5 seconds

starting at under $74,000. but not

exactly because the one with 420 mi of

range is the dual motor which has a 3.4

seconds 0 to 60. Still quick, but the

2.5 second version costs $30,000 more

and has 40 mi less range. And for

$73,000, you don't get either of those

things. So, yeah, this here is an

imaginary spec. Oh, and by the way,

that's another one while we're at it. EV

range claims. Now, there are laws around

how accurate your range claims actually

have to be, just like with gas mileage.

And some companies are a little more

optimistic about that range claim than

others. Fine. But the fact is, we are

still pretty early in this battery tech.

And the tiniest, even seemingly

insignificant things can make a pretty

significant difference to your range.

And so even when you break it all the

way down to specific Rivian models, the

one that does the 2.5 second 0 to 60,

you can see that 374 mile range claim

right here. Well, when you actually

click in, that's when you realize that's

on a specific wheel with a specially

designed sticky Michelin tire. And then,

oh, look at that. You're actually

getting 338 mi of range. You'll have to

switch down to the standard sport wheel

and tire to get the 374 mi of estimated

range. So yes, even this here was an

imaginary spec. And I promise you,

Rivian is far from the only offender in

the world of cars and in tech. And if

you thought that companies exaggerating

their specs to seem better than others

is a problem, then how about when

companies just invent entirely new specs

so that you can't even compare them to

others? When companies start to build

loyalty, they want to be able to charge

more for the same stuff. But how do you

get away with that in a world where a

comparison is just one quick chat GBT

search away? Well, make it so confusing

for customers to compare you that the

easiest thing then becomes for them to

just take your word for it that you're

better. One of the most prolific

examples of this right now is RAM. Any

computer, any phone, any laptop, even

your smartwatch needs RAM to be able to

juggle tasks. And this is true no matter

which company's product it is. But Apple

now refers to their RAM almost

exclusively as unified memory. They can

say this because their RAM is actually

part of their chip as opposed to a

separate component, which does make that

RAM a little more efficient in some

ways. But it glosses over a very

important detail that Windows laptops

often have dedicated graphics cards that

have their own additional pool of RAM.

Whereas unified memory means that both

the CPU and the GPU share from one small

pool. So, you're pretty much always

getting less RAM. And yeah, I mean,

Apple executives have famously boasted

about how their unified memory is so

efficient that just 8 GB of it is

equivalent to 16 gigs on Windows, but

it's not really true. There just will be

a hard cap on how much multitasking

you're able to do, cuz 8 gigs is 8 gigs.

But even so, can you see how this whole

concept of unified memory still helps

Apple? It makes something as simple as

RAM feel like some sort of gray area,

which means they can give you a lot less

of it and they can charge you more to

upgrade it than any other company. I'd

say to be honest though, the worst

example of the invented spec is the TV

market. TV makers will try absolutely

everything to make you feel like you're

getting the real deal apart from

actually giving it to you. Like when

Highense tells you that a TV has a

motion rate of 120, it doesn't actually

mean that the TV has a 120 Hz refresh

rate like you'd think. And like clearly

many other people have been led into

believing, motion rate is another

invented spec that just means the TV is

running High Senses motion smoothing

software. Or let's say that you tell

your less techsavvy buddy to make sure

you get a TV that has OLED tech. What

are the chances that they accidentally

end up buying a Highense ULED or a

Samsung QLED or a LG QED? I'd say pretty

high. Even though all of these are in

fact invented specs designed, I think to

camouflage as OLED, even though they're

actually much cheaper LCDs. Now, okay,

maybe you're not convinced. All right,

maybe you're watching this thinking, you

know, it's fine if they make up specs as

long as they're technically true.

But I'll do you one better. What if

there's madeup specs that are actually

numerically factually false? I actually

made an entire separate video all about

this, but 1 in camera sensors are not 1

in in any dimension. And 1.5K displays

are actually not 1500 pixels in any

dimension either. How is that possible?

Well, it's because the way we measure

things has changed. Like something like

this camera, for example. This is a Sony

ZV1. A lot of cameras like it. This

camera has a 1 in sensor. It says so on

their website. And that sounds amazing.

A 1 in sensor in this little camera.

Have you ever looked inside like a pro

DSLR or mirrorless camera at the size of

that sensor? That looks like about a 1

in sensor. So this must also have a huge

sensor like that.

But it's not. It's way smaller.

Why is that? Well, turns out this is a 1

in sensor because in 2026 that's what we

call a 1 in type sensor. See, before

digital cameras, cameras didn't have

sensors at all. They actually used

vacuum tubes. And so, the size of the

tube was actually what they measured.

So, a 1-in vacuum tube would create an

image area inside it closer to about 16

mm diagonally. And that is actually

about the size of the 1-in type sensor

in this camera. So, it's 2026,

but we're calling this a 1-in sensor

because that is the size of the

theoretical vacuum tube that would be

required to produce an image the size of

this sensor.

Why? Why? Turns out 1 in sensor is a

marketing name more than it is an actual

measurement. And I have the same beef

with uh displays because you've probably

already heard a lot of smartphones

recently have uh like 1.5K displays.

You've heard this. You've seen a lot of

these floating around. But none of them

have 1500 pixel measurements. So what's

going on here? See, this is where it

gets weird. Okay, so intuitively we all

agree that 4K, for example, is referring

to the horizontal resolution, right? So

this video is 4K because it's 4,000

pixels across roughly. It's 4096 x 2048.

Sometimes it's 3840 x 2160, but it's

roughly 4,000 pixels wide. And 8K would

be 8,000 pixels wide. But at some point,

for some reason, we started calling

2560x440

2K,

which is close but a little bit off. And

then for some reason 1080p, which is now

referring to the vertical resolution, is

1K, which is weird because 1080p is

actually 1920x 1080. So it should be 2K,

but now we're calling 1080p 1K. And so

now smartphone companies are using 1.5K

to refer to a measurement somewhere in

between 1080p and 1440p.

So, it's not actually 1500 across or

1500 tall. It just means somewhere in

between 1K and 2K. And that's super

annoying to me, but it's how we talk

now.

And that's if there's even a hardware

change at all with new products. What's

becoming increasingly common these days

is this focus on vaguely defined new

software features. So, if you're

launching a new smartphone, let's say

you're holding a big event and a live

stream to tell people what's new about

it, then the thing that is useful to see

is what specifically is new about that

product. A good example of this is the

privacy display on Samsung's Galaxy S26

Ultra. It's a software feature, but it's

one that actually required them to

physically change the way they built the

display to work. So, it's made for this

phone. But unfortunately, the vast

majority of new features that we

actually see marketed here are not that.

Like if we pull up the Galaxy S24 event,

they spent this much time talking about

the new Samsung AI features and then

literally just as long talking about

Circle to Search. They talked about it

like it's this revolutionary new feature

that's only made possible thanks to

Samsung's deep partnership with Google.

Our partnership continues to go strong

as we create new ways to do more with

Google on Galaxy devices.

>> But Circle to Search is also on Google

phones. It's on Xiaomi phones. It's not

really got anything to do with Samsung

apart from just them being the first to

show it. And they do this every year to

buff out their presentations and try to

make you associate those Google features

with Samsung. And it's not just

confusing which features are also coming

to other brands. Where I think it gets

really intentionally confusing at these

launch events is which features that

you're talking about are also coming to

your own older phones. Don't get me

wrong, it's a good thing that big

companies support their older models. I

mean, they kind of have to. They did

promise you when you bought them. But

the thing that's misleading is spending

60% of the next phone's launch event

talking about how it's the coolest phone

in the world and you should upgrade

because it has all these nextgen

features, but then never mentioning that

those features are also coming to the

phone that you're watching the event on.

>> We added a brand new capability that

goes beyond device control.

Now Bixby can bring you up-to-date

information directly in the

conversation. So, you see how this new

Bixby is being positioned as one of the

perks of the Galaxy S26 series, but

actually it can run on even a Galaxy

S23. And this kind of stuff is genuinely

most of these launch events now. And

speaking of older products, what's with

companies now who launch a new product,

but then only compare it to another

product that came out like 3 plus years

ago? Apple is the worst for this. Like,

take the latest MacBook Pros. So we go

to the performance section and the

headline number is oh would you look at

that up to eight times faster AI

performance. So they got the up to in

there. They've got the specific use case

all to make sure that they have this

super impressive quotable eight times

number but then also it's eight times

faster than the M1 family. What?

>> These are the M5 generation chips

released in 2026 and they're comparing

them to the M1s released across 2020 and

2021

5 to 6 years apart. And what they would

say is, well, you know, many users will

be upgrading from an M1. We're just

being helpful. To which I would say, if

I was using a worn down, slightly busted

6-year-old M1 laptop, my decision is not

do I upgrade. It's actually do I upgrade

to the M5 or do I instead buy the last

gen M4 and save a bunch of money? How

much difference is there between those

two choices? I don't know. Apple won't

tell me. All this is is a thinly veiled

tactic to help take what is in most

instances like 5 to 10% of real world

improvement all the way into these

astonishing sounding numbers like eight

times. But let's be honest, this is a

joke. It's a bit like if you were a

world class runner, but then the way

that you prove you're a world-class

runner is by comparing your speed to

when you were 8 years old.

>> Now, there's another funny way companies

compare to their previous selves.

Specifically, smartphone companies when

talking about the glass and how tough

the glass is. Surely you've heard this

before. This new smartphone or this new

glass is twice as shatter resistant as

the previous year. Wow. and then the

next year it'll come out and say this

new glass is now twice as scratch

resistant as last year. That is amazing.

How are they making such massive

improvements in the quality of the glass

every time? But it's not as insane when

you realize that scratch resistance and

shatter resistance are inversely

related. So the more of one you have,

the less of the other you have. Think of

it like this. If you want something to

be super super scratch resistant and

super super hard, that makes it more

likely to be a little bit brittle and

shatter. But if you want it to be less

likely to shatter, you make it a little

bit softer, which makes it more likely

to scratch. So instead of making some

huge improvement every single year, like

the headlines might have you think. It's

actually more two different graphs, one

for scratch resistance and one for

shatter resistance. And they kind of do

this. you know, scratch resistance does

this every single year and shatter

resistance does this every single year

but in the opposite phase because

they're not able to do huge improvements

of both at the same time. There is some

material science and they're both

getting slightly better, but that's an

easier way to understand that it's not

as crazy as it sounds. It's no

coincidence that, you know, the first

generation of this dramatic new ceramic

shield for the iPhone was four times

better in drop resistance than any

previous iPhone. And then when they

finally got to ceramic shield generation

2, it was three times more scratch

resistant. Specifically, every single

one scratches at level six, deeper

grooves at a level seven because it's

still glass.

>> But hey, at least tech companies are

generous enough to upgrade the storage

on our phones and laptops every few

years.

>> The new iPad Pro comes with double the

storage, which is now 256 GB.

>> Oh, thanks, Apple.

Oh,

so we got $200 more expensive. So they

position it to you like they're doing

you some kind of massive favor when in

fact all they've really done is stopped

selling the cheaper, lower storage

model. And so you have to pay more. But

at least that one's kind of easy to see

through. The one that I find much

tougher is what I would call the

efficiency improvement trap. And it's a

specific problem with the way that

performance improvements are sold to us.

Every year we hear a very similar story.

>> Performance-wise,

we're seeing a 23% boost and 20% more

efficiency, too.

>> So, even just ignoring for a second how

they slipped in that little OP up two

behind him, even though he didn't

actually say it, this guy is very

clearly implying that this chip lets you

game with about 20% faster performance

while your battery lasts 20% longer. So,

not only you're getting smoother

gameplay, but you're also getting better

battery life while doing it.

>> But the important thing to understand is

you don't get both. If your efficiency

goes up by 20%, but then you're using

all of that extra efficiency to get this

20% extra performance, then what you're

actually getting is the same battery

life. So when you then bundle that back

in with the fact that the entire thing

is only up to 23% faster and up to 20%

more efficient and what we're really

often talking about in these kinds of

situations is an average expected

improvement of like 5% to your

performance and your end battery life.

Surgical grade stainless steel

aircraft aluminum military toughness.

Tech companies feel like they're always

super excited to sell you something that

has maybe the most premium materials on

planet Earth forged in an oven at a

million degrees that only the most

exacting customer could possibly accept.

But you know what's funny about that?

There's actually nothing super special

about any of those things. In fact,

they're actually quite common. Like most

airplanes, it's true. They use a whole

bunch of 6,000 and 7,000 series aluminum

because those alloys are super strong

and light and cheap enough for mass

production and good quality.

But that does also mean that when your

phone uses aerospace grade aluminum,

you know, it's technically true, but

that's also true about a Razer scooter.

And a whole lot of the stainless steel

you'll come across in life is just 316L

steel, which is an alloy that is one of

many that is pure enough and high

quality enough to be used in surgical

tools and in the iPhone 14 Pros rails

and in most kitchen sinks that you come

across, which technically means the

kitchen sink is also surgical grade

stainless steel. It's not lying

technically, but now you know.

>> The truth is the specs of tech products

are chosen around how those products are

going to be marketed. And that's kind of

a given. It's just business. But the

issue is that very often in today's

world, the specs that make a product the

most marketable are not the specs that

are most useful to a user. Take

thickness. The spec that matters here

really is the maximum thickness. You

want to know how thick the new phone or

laptop is at its thickest point because

that's going to determine what bags or

pockets you can fit it inside of. But

the spec that companies talk about is

thickness at a product's thinnest point.

And as soon as that genies out the

bottle, you can call it whatever you

want to. Like Apple calls the iPhone Air

the thinnest iPhone ever. And while

that's true for this section of the body

here, it's not true for the whole phone.

I've got an iPhone 7 here, which is

thicker than the iPhone 6, by the way,

but still, this is thinner than the

iPhone Air when you factor in the

cameras. And it's not like you can take

them off. It's just such dumb logic.

Like if we carry on this train of

thought, then what's to stop Apple at

the next iPhone launch event taking all

the rest of the components in the body

and shoving them into one massive block

at the end that you have to hold like a

camera grip, but then calling the phone

five times thinner than the last iPhone

because all that's left in this part is

the display. And then you've got Honor,

who marketed their Magic V5 as world's

slimmest foldable, but then people got

it in their hands, put it side by side

with Samsung's foldable, and found that

that was actually slimmer. Want to know

why? Cuz Honor in their measurements

excluded not just the camera bump, but

also the outer and the inner screen

protector. You know, the one that you're

not actually even allowed to take off

yourself. That's not the only pointless

spec, though, like screen brightness.

It's become an arms race to just be the

one quoting the highest number of knits

possible. But the more the companies

focus on just reaching a really high

peak knit number, the less that number

actually tells you about how bright the

screen is dayto-day. They could

literally be describing how bright one

pixel on the screen could go while

playing HDR content in direct sunlight

for like 3 seconds. So this, for

example, is an Honor Magic 8 Pro. The

company makes a pretty big deal about

how this has a 6,000nit peak brightness.

That's the figure that's marketed. But

if we pull up a plain white image on

this phone and put it next to a Samsung

Galaxy S25 Ultra, which only advertises

a 2,600 nit peak brightness, you can't

actually tell the difference at all in

this day-to-day scenario. These are both

on max, by the way. So, when you're

looking at brightness numbers, just get

rid of peak brightness. Look at typical

brightness. And when it comes to phone

cameras, what mostly matters is sensor

size. The bigger the sensor, the more

light and the more real detail that your

shots have. What most companies spend

far more time talking about is

resolution, which beyond a certain point

doesn't matter at all on a phone. Like

the last four generations of Samsung

phones have had a 200 megap resolution.

They're still shooting their actual

photos in 12. And don't even get me

started on maximum zoom magnification.

Look at this page for the Nothing Phone

4a Pro. The headline feature, the number

one thing being used to sell this phone

is world's first 140 times ultra zoom.

Oh my goodness. I mean, my iPhone only

has 40 times max zoom. So, it's going to

get cooked, right? Okay. Zoom all the

way to 40 times on the iPhone, 40 times

on the Nothing. Oh my god. Right. Yeah.

So, it's exactly what we expected. The

nothing phone, regardless of whether you

use the AI enhancement or not, just

looks worse. It's just not capturing as

much information as the iPhone. And AI

can't help you there. Let me make

something very clear. How far your phone

can digital zoom has literally zero

correlation with how good of a camera it

is. What it actually does correlate

with, though, is how low a company's

standards are for what counts as a

photo. Damn. Cuz I could literally go

back to the first smartphone I ever

owned if I wanted, take a photo, and

just keep cropping in till all I can see

is a single brown smudge. And

technically, that could be 300 times

digital zoom. Best zoom camera in the

world, everyone.

Oh my god, I can't do this anymore.

All right, so speaking of phone cameras,

last but not least is the classic shot

on a smartphone trope. First of all,

several companies have already been

caught lying about like sample images

that were supposed to be shot on that

smartphone that were just licensed from

some professional photo shoot somewhere

on a random DSLR, which is already

crazy. But even the ones that aren't

lying do feel like they're kind of

stretching the truth with the amount of

extra hardware that's being added to

shoot it on a smartphone. Like the whole

point I feel like of this, you know,

awesome piece of content was shot on a

smartphone is to sort of inspire and

empower you to shoot your own awesome

photos and videos with that tiny sensor

and lens that fits in your pocket

everywhere you go. But when there's a

massive external stabilization rig and

huge lenses and filters and all sorts of

other things added to the phone and

millions of dollars of lighting and set

design to make that all possible, I

guess it's still impressive, but it also

kind of defeats the purpose a little

bit. I can almost guarantee there are

features disabled on those phones to

make those accessories work. Like if I'm

shooting with all that stuff, I'm

disabling the built-in stabilization if

I have a five figure jib to shoot with.

Like if the only thing from the original

phone that you're still using to shoot

is just the sensor technically, then is

it still shot on a smartphone? I guess

technically yes. But I'm now actually

way less impressed.

So treat everything that these tech

companies tell you with a heavy dose of

salt. You don't need to upgrade every

other year. Nothing's actually getting

eight times better. And when you see a

company bragging about their maximum

zoom, run for the hills. If they can

spot you, at least you'll be super low

resolution. Thanks to Marquez for

joining forces with me here.