Corbin is the best for 1A/B/C. Why?
No BS: no textbook required, none of that "Mastering Physics" nonsense - and he makes sure to call out that BS for what it is
Engaging lectures: it's entertaining and you're gonna *want* to go, which is good, because lecture is incredibly central to the class

Other notable features of his classes, which are good for some people but not others:
Optional homework: so awesome! but with great power comes great responsibility - basically you could save a lot of time by not doing the homework, but if you don't already have the experience to be sure you do well on his tests, you're gonna need the practice
Challenging tests but generous curve: it's a learning experience in itself
Super popular office hours: obviously they must be good, like the lectures, or they wouldn't be so popular - but I basically never went just because of how packed they tend to be. The man needs a bigger office. If you want individual attention, you might want to look to other resources

You're gonna learn, you're gonna like the lectures, and you're not gonna have to put up with BS. Take his class.

The main reason I would recommend taking him above others is that his classes are pretty much always entertaining, In addition to cracking jokes, the one thing he does that I have seen no other teacher really be able to do is that he brings in many cool examples and anecdotes from real life that make the class just much more lively in general.

(For example, while he was showing the theory on how Faraday shielding works, he brought in some electrical thingy that made a static-y noise in the presence of unshielded electromagnetic radiation. He brought it close to his phone, and it started ticking at a very constant rate! He explained that this had to do with the fact that the phone is constantly sending out signals to try to communicate with nearby cell towers. Very neat.)

Combine this with a very flamboyant personality, a little bit (sometimes a lot) of cussing, and this means that lectures will almost never be boring, (even at 8 AM).

However, this is where the good things I have to say about him end. While I mostly like his teaching style, his testing style is just a bit... mean. This is the only professor I've seen that's been able to make a reputation for himself outside of the classroom, and I was able to see why firsthand.

First off, I'll just say that even if it's as a joke, ANY professor that talks about how hard their tests are should be an immediate red flag. Heck, I'm still not sure why many professors even do this, but the reasons don't really matter. If you know the professor is making the tests hard on purpose, with intention, that's never a good sign.

I'll be the first to agree with what many others have said about the whole "take him if you want to be challenged to grow even more" stuff, which is that it's overall not true for most people. Even as someone regarded as a bit smarter than average throughout high school, I will say I felt pretty hopeless looking at the answer key to the midterms. He has severely damaged my own passion for physics, and undoubtedly for many others as well. He say the midterms are where you "learn from your mistakes", but what is there to learn from when you had no idea what to do in the first place? I'd love to go into more specifics but my resources are limited in a text-only review.

The final does seem to be a bit of a place to redeem yourself though, to me, it was quite a bit easier (with one problem being the exact same as an example shown in lecture), and it's worth more of your grade.

Either way, if you have already decided to take him, some more concrete advice: be prepared to study by just doing practice problems and examples over and over again. I'm tempted to say to make a list of the examples gone over in class and other good ones you find and just do them over and over again until you can do them perfectly without hesitation or even really thinking (it's what worked for me). It saves time, prevents lots of errors, and is often the basis for most of the tests actually. It lets you get onto the harder stuff on the midterms, which, I'll be honest, you can't really study for.

His office hours are fun and interesting where he talks a lot on how the concepts extend, but if you want more concrete practice for tests, go to the TA's office hours.

TL;DR - I overall recommend this guy as he is a great physics teacher, but be ready to study in a very particular way because he is not the best tester. His own office hours are interesting, but useless overall if you want to actually prepare for exams (go to TA OH for that).

Best professor in physics ever, though I'm not a physics major. Corbin is so nice and funny and accessible to students. He definitely cares about the students and the test are doable and a little hard.

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

By far the worst instructor I've had at UCLA. The physics postdocs, who are primarily doing research, teach the physics 1 series far, far better than this guy. This guy's only job is to teach, so its sad that he can't even outdo the overworked and underpaid postdocs.

The so-called "handouts" that he occasionally uploads throughout the quarter are hastily written, short, and pretty useless. He may as well just not upload anything onto CCLE. He just lectures off the board and his lectures are very average. Office hours are so packed that often one cannot even see properly. His office hours are a real pain to attend.

If you look at the grade distribution of other instructors teaching this class, you'll notice that Corbin's grade distribution is harsher. In other words, despite teaching this class in a mediocre fashion and giving tests too long to finish in the allotted time, he goes on to punish people with his curve.

Avoid this instructor and retain your peace of mind. Take it with anybody else.

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.

Unpopular opnion, that Corbin is an amazing lecturer, and that if you understand what he says, and understand his way of thinking, his tests are not the killers people say they are...He is amazing at explaining the theory, he derives most of the formulas, and his examples show how one can derive stuff.
Honestly I never opened the textbook in this class, I just looked over my notes, learned to derive the equations, and learned to understand the material/think his way, and I got above average on the midterms. That is why no cheat sheet, no scratch paper, no calculator, nothing but a pencil is required, because if you can think his way, you can just derive all the equations on the spot, and thus remember all of them, if you truly understand the material, you don't need to write any of it down.

while the averages were a 39%(35.8/90) on the first midterm, and around a 32% on the second midterm(29/90), the problems offered quite a bit of partial credit
usually part C depends on part B which depends on part A, so if you got part A, B is easy, and C is basically free pts, if you don't get A...well that is not to good. His questions are a true test of your knowledge, can you apply all that you learned, to derive a solution to a problem you haven't seen before, can you go the extra step or two. The subparts asking about limits really helps give you a reality check, and forces you to think what your answer means.

So how to suceed on the exams(or beat the average at least, cause no one really suceeds), master one topic(be it doppler, be it circuits, be it current in a field), be able to derive all the equations, think of weird twists, etc etc, so you can get a question right, then the other ones you will know a decent amount through the mastery of the first topic, and then you'll get 50-55/90 which is more then enough for a good grade.

I really wish I took him for 1A. I would have had an amazing understanding of mechanics. I am honestly hoping he teaches 1C in the spring, because while I might be getting 50% on midterms, I understand the material quite well, much better than 1A.

Physics 1B with Corbin shouldn't be difficult if you took and did well in AP Physics C in high school.

Corbin is an extremely divisive professor and very hard to evaluate. For context, I had him for Physics 1A also. Before I start griping, Corbin is definitely good at explaining physics. He explains concepts well and breaks things down so that everything is understandable. That being said, while I feel I had a very strong conceptual understanding, as Corbin did a lot of derivations, I often felt unprepared for the quizzes and tests. Also Corbin could go on long tangents about radios, which was often only slightly related to the content he talked about.

Corbin did biweekly quizzes, as this quarter was partly online. Those quizzes could be very brutal at times, with concepts he talked about for a few minutes, coming back to bite you. The average scores on these quizzes ranged anywhere from 40-70%, even though he is pretty generous with partial credit. During this quarter of 1B, Corbin also set up Mastering Physics to deduct points for every incorrect attempt. This made the homework a lot more stressful to do, as with the multiple choice questions, you essentially only had one or two attempts to get it right.

Corbin also does curve, however I was one of the unlucky ones. Corbin basically gives the top third of the class A, middle third B, and bottom third C. He sets cutoffs for grades based on putting people into these three categories. I was a few people below the cutoff for A, so I got a B. This was frustrating, as Corbin also does not do + or -.

All in all, Corbin is a mixed professor. I didn't enjoy the subject much, and Corbin didn't particularly help with that. If you really enjoy physics and don't mind the strong possibility of a B or C, you'll like Corbin.

I absolutely loved taking this class with Corbin. Prior to the start of the quarter, I had heard so much about how he's a great lecturer but has difficult tests. Safe to say I was nervous for the class, but I can without hesitating say that I will take any class with Professor Corbin again if I get the chance.
I had never been very interested in physics. Before the summer, I hadn't taken a physics class with a professor who could actually get me excited about it. Corbin getting me excited about physics is putting it lightly. I cannot begin to explain how much I loved having him as a teacher. I think I could safely say that throughout my experience at UCLA, he has been one of my favorite professors.
Every day, I would go to lecture excited to learn. Obviously, with all his years of experience, Corbin is a great lecturer, but he went above and beyond just being great. I didn't have to look at the textbook once, because he was just that good at teaching us about everything relevant to the course. He would teach us the concepts flawlessly while also connecting it to the real world and diving into the applications of the topics we learned. For example, I have never been so interested in a concept such as the frequency of radio waves until he spoke about it. Him explaining his hobbies of tuning radios and listening for satellites at different frequencies made me want to pursue hobbies relating to physics outside of class. As someone who hadn't previously been interested in physics, I would sometimes walk out of class feeling like I was interested enough in it to pursue a career in physics. I think a professor who can lecture and get students this excited to learn has such a special power.
Of course, it isn't all fun and games. Professor Corbin is very well-known for his difficult exams, and unfortunately, I will say that the final exam I took for this class was the hardest test I've ever taken. So yes, it's safe to say that his exams will challenge his students. Yet again, I have to say that I wasn't upset by this. Yes, the exam was difficult, but I felt like after all I had learned from his lectures, I wanted to face challenging problems to see how well I could perform the skills I'd learned. The best part? Corbin doesn't grade based on how many problems you get right. He grades based on how well you've shown your mastery of the skills, which helps out a lot with your final grade in the class.
In conclusion, this is an interesting class, but in my opinion, Corbin is what makes it incredible. It may not have been the easy-A class I'd hope for, but I loved the experience of taking his class and I would do it again every single time. I definitely recommend taking a class with Professor Corbin if you get the opportunity to, because it is such an incredible experience. Having a professor like him could be life-changing for your education and career path.