Oct 9, 2026 · 1h 52m
Waveform weighs 2026’s smartphone award contenders
The 2026 Smartphone Awards Discussion Episode
The discussion captures how rising prices, foldables, camera hardware, and value are reshaping the standards for judging smartphones.
- 1Rising storage prices are forcing consumers to reconsider cloud subscriptions, capacity, and the return of microSD cards.
- 2The 2026 awards debate shows smartphone categories becoming harder to define as phones converge in size and capability.
- 3A nostalgic MMO discussion contrasts World of Warcraft and RuneScape’s enduring progression with modern ideas of completion.
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The hosts debate whether Phone of the Year should reward raw capability or a device’s innovation, cultural impact, and broader story.
The brief
Marques Brownlee, Adam, Mariah Zenk, and Ellis Rovin frame the episode around mid-Techtober uncertainty: prices are rising, Apple rumors are multiplying, and the 2026 awards are already taking shape.
The smartphone debate centers on categories that no longer have easy boundaries: value amid higher prices, small phones in an era of large slabs, and cameras shaped by both software and hardware.
Foldables expose the biggest tension in the awards: Apple’s rumored iPhone Duo could arrive late to the category, but its first generation may still reset expectations for software and polish.
The hosts then shift from judging phones to remembering World of Warcraft and RuneScape, asking why persistent progression remains compelling when an MMO can never truly be finished.
Classic World of Warcraft hardware trivia turns the nostalgia into a concrete time capsule, with guesses about the original game’s video memory, storage, and RAM requirements.