He’s not an organic tech reviewer. All of his devices are sponsored. He exists in a completely different world than the vast majority of his audience. Money is not an object for him and he promotes always having day 1 tech.
That’s true to some extent, I guess.
I’ve always thought his approach has remained broadly consistent to his roots (I’ve been subbed to him since he was much, much smaller) but yes, the products he reviews now are almost always provided to him rather than being bought by him personally. This becomes true of any channel of his size, but I’ve not seen his opinion change as a result.
He addresses the topic about bias in this short , but we can look to his phone of the year awards to assess his biases objectively. For every year since the awards began in 2014, an Android device has always won Phone of the Year. An iPhone has never won an award for Best design, Best Value or Best Big Phone since records began either.
iPhones have won best camera system since 2018, but he maintains that this is due to the superior video capabilities of iPhones, but still prefers the ‘look’ of a Pixel photo, or the hardware of a Samsung (20x zoom etc). Androids dominate every single category simply because there are so many companies developing and competing against each other to make better and better Android devices.
Marques is personally almost always rocking a Pixel or Samsung Galaxy device as his main daily driver (because he loves the customisation and the freedom that android devices give him), and has an iPhone in his other pocket for apple things. He calls out bad Android and Apple devices in equal measure, and he actively advised against buying a newer Mac because the M2 and M3 products just don’t give you enough of an upgrade over M1 to make it worthwhile.
I watch every single video he puts out and just don’t see the Apple shill thing. He has always come across as an Android fan to me, but I hear the Apple shill thing all the time.