Pretty controversial opinions ahead, but hear me out:
Corbin is a really engaging lecturer--he knows his stuff so well he is able to go full speed into his lecture barely referencing his notes. He's really funny and straightforward. You really go deep into understanding mechanics in this class.
His tests are hard, but not in the way you think they are. They don't have numbers, which often freaked me out because I was always scared I algebraically did something wrong. They are also only 50 min long, which means you have to think quick. However, the actual content isn't terrible---very doable if you've mastered the homework. Yes, it isn't the plug and chug you do in other physics courses and you often leave the exam uncertain rather than confident, but when you get your test back you often did better than you thought. I think I could've gotten an A if I did homework more consistently (which he frequently warned us about), but since it wasn't collected, my laziness took over.
My one complaint was that office hours were directly after class MWF, which didn't work for a lot of us because we had 20B that time.

Brent Corbin is a legend and is undoubtedly one of the best Physics professors out there . His test were so well written and his explanations were just amazing . I have always loved physics but the way Brent Corbin "preaches" the subject is paranormal . His Office Hours are always worth going . I used to sit in each of his office hours and I didn't regret a minute of it . Believe me folks , you are a bruin which implies you are intelligent and so don't run behind grades because what matters is how good you learn and I am hella sure that no one can make you learn Physics better then this godly person does .
JUST GO FOR IT .... YOU WILL HAVE THE BEST TIME OF YOUR LIFE

Corbin is the best lecturer I have had in my time here. His midterms don't test how good you are at physics, but how well and how intensively you have done the practice problems from the textbook. After taking this class, I found 1B much easier than those who hadn't taken Corbin's 1A.

For those who are wondering how Corbin grades: I got 60/90 on the first midterm (~20 points above median), 28/90 on the second midterm (~10 points below the median), and felt I did really well on the final to pull off an A-.

I was sure I was going to get a B after seeing my score on the second midterm, but Corbin assured us that he looks at individual scores on the final, and rewards improvement. The final has a lot of derivations related to gravitation, which if you study beforehand, makes the final very doable.

Overall, doing well in this class is achievable with hard work.

I have the exceedingly unpopular following opinion: Corbin is great!
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However, before I even go into why I hold such a radical opinion, some important concessions to the majority:
• If you don't have physics experience going into this class (AP Physics 1 is what I had), you will with a high certainty be in a tremendous amount of pain. This holds for any Physics 1A professor, since it's quite a conceptual leap for a single quarter, but like, Corbin isn't the most beginner-friendly.
• Even if you do have physics experience, if you didn't enjoy that physics experience or didn't grasp it that well, you may, again, enjoy taking the class with another professor more.
• Corbin's tests *are* quite hard. Corbin *does,* however, highly curve. If seeing a final exam average of just over 40% stresses you out beyond belief, that's very understandable; this may not be the course for you. If you recognize Corbin recognizes the tests almost always fail to exceed a 70% average, and thus curves (in the good way) highly, and you're OK with this grading scheme, then you'll do just fine here.
• Corbin is not very accommodating. We initially were online and thus the class was recorded, but after about two lectures in person he claimed the recording wasn't working and stopped moving the camera to follow what he was writing on the chalk board. His mic also died a record number of times during lecture, something I've never seen elsewhere. He either has a curse with technology or has cursed technology, but whatever it is he'd rather you show up in person and likely won't negotiate.
• The homework (Mastering Physics) is often pretty painfully long and complicated (HIGHLY recommend doing it with a friend or friends), but well prepares you for exams. I couldn't make it to office hours, but he won't go over homework there (likely due to the problems' drawn out natures), instead focusing on concept discussion.
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If that hasn't turned you away, let's talk about the good side of this mischievous man! First and foremost, Corbin's been around for a while, so he knows what he's doing. He has his lectures pretty well curated; he always knows what he's talking about and lectures on the fly, solving physics problems in depth but skipping a bunch of mathematical steps. It's at a reasonable enough pace to write down everything he does, although you will likely have to look back over notes to fully understand what he wrote (and fill in the missing mathematical pieces). This style leaves time for more examples and clarifying discussion. Sometimes the math gets a little bit challenging, bringing in concepts from calculus that you may not have (fully) learned yet; these mostly don't come up in homework and exams, but are good to try and understand if possible. But generally I'd say he lectures well and gives ample examples to discuss the topics he's covering. You'll see that exams often have problems very similar to examples given in class.
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And why I enjoyed the class most: on top of clearly knowing what he's talking about, Corbin has a fun time lecturing! Every once in a while he'll throw in a fun, short story about when he was younger, or make a joke that wrestles a smile out of your sleep-deprived soul struggling to recover from whatever bad decisions kept you up the night prior. He sometimes wears entertaining t-shirts and has no trouble really letting you know how he feels. I'm sure if you get him in a fully in-person quarter, you'll have entertaining physics demonstrations, too (we only heard stories). Some fun quotes from him I wrote down over the quarter include "each of you is right in your own interesting way"; (in addressing a common misconception) "total absolute pure sheer unadulterated bullshit"; and "[My wife] is always trying to tell me 'I'm not dignified' in lecture. Like what the hell does that mean??"
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I'd say Corbin is an endearing a**hole; I love this, but it's not everyone's piece of cake.
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The short and quick of it is if you want a fun time, but not necessarily an easy time, and you've enjoyed physics in the past, take the class. If you have a lot of calculus experience, that helps too. If anything in my review or someone else's review terrifies you, that's also perfectly reasonable; probably avoid Corbin.

Robert Kao is a horrible grader.

But I got a 3% on one of the quizzes and I still got an A

I purely survived off my AP Physics 1 knowledge in this class, because I often did not understand Corbin's lectures at all. He goes deep into derivations that only physics majors would enjoy. Studying barely even matters in this class, moreso perseverance and critical thinking, because he'll end up giving you the toughest possible problem for each concept on the quizzes/tests. You don't really know your grade until the end because he curves everyone's final grades, so just try and be above average. I was about average if not slightly below and got a B, but I probably deserved a B-. Homework was on MyLab for correctness and took a long time to do. All the homework was due just before the final, but don't procrastinate and try to do 1 chapter a week.

If you like a good challenge this class is for you. Corbin is a fantastic lecturer and a great guy. You can tell he's extremely qualified to be teaching the subject, and all of his lectures are engaging and pretty easy to follow (I took AP Physics 1 in high school). He doesn't teach straight from the textbook. I'm pretty sure he just teaches from his notes and great knowledge of physics. I really enjoyed being in his lectures.

HOWEVER!! Corbin's quizzes (which are every 2 weeks) and final were unlike any tests I've ever taken in my life. I would study for hours on end and end with a C at best on each quiz. Be prepared to work extremely hard in this class and have a F-C average throughout the quarter. BUT!! At the end of the quarter, Corbin takes each student's raw score from each of the 5 quizzes and the final (+ 10% homework) and ranks the class. From there, he decides the cutoff for A, B, and C based on your scores and how well he feels people have "mastered physics". Your grade will likely be much higher than your raw average, which is reallyyyy nice :).

So, taking Corbin's class is well worth it, as you learn a LOT of physics and your grade will end up much higher than you think (IF you work really hard and go for lots of partial credit on the quizzes :) ). It is very stressful and discouraging at times, but if you're willing, I say go for it.

Corbin is a fantastic lecturer but his tests will make you question your sanity. They're extremely hard and you will most likely not get above a 50% unless you're one of the physics demons who ruin the curve. Don't feel too bad about doing poorly on his tests because everyone else is doing just as bad as you. I pulled off a B even though I got 40-50%v on every quiz and a 52% on his final so his curve is very generous. Just do your best, get as many partial points as possible, and you'll pass. (He rarely fails people)

Wow...this class was hard to go through but the curving made up for it.

I still have trouble believing that I really did get an A in this class, but I suppose the curving is really that forgiving. I have no idea how close to borderline B I was, but for a rough idea I consistently scored at least half a standard deviation higher than the average for each quiz (after Corbin does his thing where he replaces your lowest quiz score with a copy of your 2nd lowest quiz score). For the final exam, I got a 56% (w/ an average of 48.6%)

The 5 quizzes are quite difficult, to say the least, except for maybe one or two which were drastically shorter and easier from the rest. It all seemed a bit unbalanced to me. The first one definitely shook everyone to their core and made people question whether they should change majors!

Corbin is very funny, casually swearing, cracking jokes, and telling amusing stories about his injuries from demonstrating physics before the pandemic. His lectures are pretty entertaining, until he suddenly (and quite frequently) pulls out a confusing math-heavy derivation of a formula and goes off tangent to material he says is not covered in this course, which is great cause it shows his passion and pretty much fool-proof understanding of physics, but...not great for a complete beginner like me just trying to survive to major in computer science...

I'm taking Wang next quarter for 1B though I'll surely stop by his in-person lecture every once in awhile just to admire his great energy and enthusiasm!

I would strongly advise taking this class with another professor. Tests are unnecessarily hard