Tech Reviewer, YouTuber & Professional Ultimate Frisbee Player

MKBHD's Apple Watch: When the World's Most Trusted Tech Reviewer Chooses a Watch, It Means Something

He started at fifteen with a laptop webcam, made a hundred videos to get seventy-four subscribers, and built the most trusted technology review channel on the planet. Over 20 million subscribers rely on Marques Brownlee — known as MKBHD — to tell them whether a product is actually worth buying. The Apple Watch on his wrist is not a sponsored placement. It is what the most credible tech reviewer in the world chose for himself. That distinction matters more than any advertisement Apple could run.

Marques Brownlee — MKBHD — Apple Watch on wrist

Apple Watch — worn by the tech reviewer 20 million people trust

Marques Keith Brownlee was born December 3, 1993, in Maplewood, New Jersey, where his father worked in finance and his mother in IT — an upbringing that installed an early fluency with technology as something to be understood rather than simply used. He attended Columbia High School and joined YouTube on March 21, 2008. His first video went up on January 1, 2009, when he was fifteen years old: a review of the Media Center Remote that came with his new HP laptop, recorded through screencasting because that was the equipment he had. His first hundred videos attracted seventy-four subscribers. He kept going anyway.

By the time he enrolled at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey — where he would major in business and information technology — his channel was already growing beyond what most people could have predicted from those early screencasts. He graduated in 2015 while already commanding a substantial audience, and returned in 2024 to deliver the commencement address and receive an honorary doctorate of business administration. In August 2013, Vic Gundotra — then a Senior Vice President at Google — called Brownlee "the best technology reviewer on the planet right now." At the tenth Shorty Awards in 2018 he was named Creator of the Decade. In 2024 Time magazine placed him on its list of the 100 Most Influential People in AI. As of 2025 his main channel alone has passed 20 million subscribers and accumulated billions of total views, with five additional channels — the Waveform podcast, Auto Focus, The Studio, Waveform Clips, and MKBHD Shorts — operating alongside it.

His interview subjects have included Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Barack Obama, Kobe Bryant, Apple's Craig Federighi, and Satya Nadella. He co-hosts the Waveform: The MKBHD Podcast with Andrew Manganelli and David Imel, covering industry trends and product launches in depth. He joined accessories company Ridge as a board member and chief creative partner in 2024. He is also, separately, a 2022 WFDF World Champion in Ultimate Frisbee in the Open Category with New York PoNY — a detail that surprises most people and probably shouldn't, given that the same discipline that built a world-class YouTube channel from scratch at fifteen is exactly the discipline that produces a world champion at anything.

"I talk about things from the perspective of the consumer — mostly because that's what I am. A guy going out and buying things and sharing that experience with the viewer." — Marques Brownlee (MKBHD)

The Reviewed Choice

There is a particular weight to what a technology reviewer chooses to actually wear. Most people who write about or film gadgets are, by profession, agnostic — they rotate through devices, test everything, and form views they express in reviews rather than in personal choices. MKBHD operates differently. His stated philosophy is explicit: he reviews from the perspective of a consumer, not an insider. He buys things, uses them, and reports on the experience. When a product earns a permanent place in his daily life, that is a signal of genuine quality — not gifted to him in a press box, not lent for a week, but chosen and worn.

The Apple Watch has appeared on MKBHD's wrist across countless videos, interviews, and public appearances — a continuous, unremarkable presence that is more persuasive than any single dedicated review could be. It appears in the background when he is filming other products. It is on his wrist when he interviews Bill Gates or Barack Obama. It is visible during Ultimate Frisbee coverage. It is, in the most literal sense, the watch that MKBHD — who has held and reviewed virtually every watch Apple has made — keeps coming back to. For the 20 million people who trust his verdict on smartphones and laptops and cameras, this is useful information.

A Series of Apple Watches

We have now spotted the Apple Watch on the wrists of a biotech dropout who built YouTube's biggest cooking channel, a billionaire who sold the internet to Yahoo!, the man who designed every Tesla, and one of the world's most respected television actresses wearing it as a character choice on a prestige drama. In each case the argument is the same and the conclusion is different — because each person brings a different set of needs and a different relationship to what technology is supposed to do for them. MKBHD's case is the most direct of all: he is the person whose professional purpose is to answer the question "is this worth buying?" He wears the Apple Watch. Draw your own conclusions.

And at Spot.Watch — that's always worth noticing.