The Best Budget Gaming Laptop PERIOD

- This video is sponsored by Squarespace, whether you need a domain,
online store, or website, make it with Squarespace. Hey guys, this is Austin. Recently, I did a video on this guy. A six-hundred and fifty
dollar gaming laptop entirely powered by AMD Ryzen.

That got me thinking how would it stack up to
an Intel and Nvidia option. That's where this comes in. This is the Acer Aspire Five. Not only does it have Core i5
processor and MX150 graphics, but impressively, it comes
in with an even cheaper 600 dollar price tag.

On paper this guy looks
very similar to the HP Envy. So we're getting a 15.6 Inch display and it's actually reasonably thin considering it is a gaming laptop. I will say at first
glance, the build quality does not match up to that HP. It's all plastic.

While it doesn't look bad, it sort of lacks that
premium feel of the Envy. However, what it lacks in feel it makes up for in actual functionality. Not only are we getting a
full-sized ethernet jack, but we also get USB-C, HDMI, a USB 3.0 Port, as well
as an SD card reader, and on the other side we're
also getting two more USB ports. You're getting a
full-sized keyboard layout in addition to the number row.

And even though most of
the laptop is plastic, it does have this metal
shell on the inside which does feel pretty
nice as a palm rest. Inside this guy has
eighth gen Core i5-8250U. So it's going to be one of
the new quad core chips. You're getting those
Nvidia MX150 graphics, 8 gigabytes of dual channel DVR 4, as well as a 256 gygabyte SSD.

However, all it takes is for
you to fire up the Aspire Five before you realize that there
is one major thing missing: a decent looking screen. So on paper, it's not bad. We're getting a 15.6 Inch
panel with a 1080p resolution. The issue is...

It is a very very unimpressive looking TN panel; Color is okay, but the contrast
is straight up terrible. And specially with the viewing angles, the screen just doesn't look that great. I get it. Acer wanted to cut some costs to be able to get this much performance in such a cheap laptop, but the screen is a little
bit tough to deal with.

Thankfully though, it's not all bad. So they keyboard is classic Acer. It's not the most tactile
thing in the world but specially for gaming you're
going to be totally fine. And thankfully this guy also is using a Windows precision touch pad.

I love to see these, as
they are pretty much always not only track more accurately, but specially have those
multi-touch gestures. When you put the Acer
side-by-side with the HP Envy you're going to see that this
guy has a much nicer display. Sure, it might not be quite
as bright as I would like, but compared to the TN panel
over here, it is night and day. Plus, this guy is going
to be a touch screen, it's convertible, and built quality-wise not only is this side going to be thinner but also just feels a lot more premium.

One thing the Acer
definitely has going for it is upgrade-ability. So underneath a couple
of flaps on the bottom you'll see not only do you
have access to your memory if you wanna upgrade that, but over here if you
pop up this little cover you're going to see that we have full two and a half inch drive
bay that's completely empty. So if you want you can upgrade
with a bigger hard drive. We can even throw in a
second SSD in this guy.

When it comes to performance, the Aspire is just in a different league. So sure, the Envy does
have that nicer screen and better build quality, but in return, you're getting not only an
SSD but you're also getting just a potent combination with the Core i5 and dedicated graphics. The i5 8250U delivers good
quad core performance. It's right up there with a lot
of higher end gaming laptops and a fair bit above the
Ryzen inside the Envy.

The graphics is where
things really take off. So with an Nvidia MX150
GPU, while it might not be the most powerful graphics
card in the world, you're getting enough performance to play some pretty decent 1080p games
as you guys will soon see. And when you compare it to
the Ryzen chip inside the HP, the vague graphics are just not
going to be able to compete. However, the real test is, of course, what it's like to play
in real-world games.

First off, we have CS GO. Now as a game that even though it might be a couple years old, it is still incredibly popular this is one of my favorite
ways to test PC's. And here on 1080p settings at high We're getting near 80 to
a 100 frames per second. Super super playable.

(Happy music) What's not playable is
my shotgun right now. Oh, did I get it?! Did I get it?! Ohhh! The game I just got my
goal in is Rocket League. So, just like CS GO, it's not
really difficult thing to run so we're getting between
40 to 50 frames per second on high settings at 1080. And again, this is
another great example...

Well that's not a good idea. Another good example of a
game that is (laughs)... It's kind of perfect
for a 600 dollar laptop. It's nice that we're getting
this kind of performance out of something that is
relatively affordable.

Next up, for something a
little bit newer we have PUBG. Now, obviously we're
just in the opening area but on 1080 low we're getting
like 35 frames per second. Man, this game has come a long
way now that they don't have 300 thousand people spawning in one area. I will say one thing.

Even though the screen isn't
that bad on this laptop just having to angle it down a little bit to get a better camera angle means that it looks a little
bit washed out right now. I really wish that they had spent just a little bit more
money on a nicer paneling. Man, this thing would be perfect. So yeah, 1080p low is
definitely very playable here.

So we are averaging around
30 to 35 frames per second. If you wanted to really
optimize those frames you could probably go down to 720p. But with a game like PUBG. I feel like on a 600 dollar laptop I'm not really complaining
about low settings.

To really put this to the test, we have Middle-earth: Shadow of War. Now this is not only a
much nicer looking game, but also a more technically demanding one. And here at 1080p on low
settings we're getting right around 30 frames per second. So if it's going to be me,
I'm probably going to turn on the dynamic resolution to get that frame rate up just a little bit.

But again, a very playable game. So as you guys can see, the
gaming performance is not bad. Specially given this
600 dollar price point. Something else I like is the standard SSD.

Now sure, it's easy
enough to add another SSD. Or another hard drive if
you want some extra space but having Windows and
everything fully ready on an SSD out of the box is nice. I can't tell you how many
hours of my life I've wasted waiting for slow old laptops with normal hard drives to update. This makes everything so much faster.

The Aspire Five is a seriously
killer little gaming laptop. Now this is very rare for me to say, but I don't really have
a lot to complain about. They made a lot of really smart
decisions on the components. There is a ton of
performance for 600 dollars.

Really, the only thing I can
complain about is the screen. Now, no, it's not a deal breaker, but it would've been nice if they had put just a little bit of a
better display in here. However, besides that,
this is a close to perfect gaming laptop considering the budget. And you know what else is perfect? The wonderful sponsor for
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Anyway, hopefully you
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so much for watching and I will catch you on the next one..

The Best $200 Laptop

- Hey guys, this is Austin. This the $188 HP Stream. So when I did the video on this recently, I was impressed with just how much laptop you're able to get for that kind of price. However, lots of you guys
commented some other options for around $200 on the laptop side.

One of the main things people suggested was to pick up a Chromebook. And you can see that there's
a lot of appeal here. What you're getting is
a very cheap computer that while it's going to be lightweight, it's only running ChromeOS. That's actually not going
to be a big problem.

However, even more people
suggested to pick up a used laptop so that is where I
found this HP Elitebook. Which, you know, it's
a couple of years old. Still comes in at around $200. Ever since Chromebooks
were first announced, they've actually kind of been
pretty much the same thing.

So what you're getting here
is a very very basic laptop. However, when you're just
needing to run a web browser, that kind of actually works out okay. Especially considering
just how cheap it is and especially how easy it is to set up. Stuff like schools and
different like places that are kind of constantly
going through hardware actually really do get a big advantage out of using a Chromebook.

So this is a fairly small laptop. With an 11.6 Inch display. So I will say it actually does
feel reasonably well built, even though it is all going to be plastic. And if we open it up.

We'll see lots and lots
more plastic inside. The design is about as safe as it gets. So, to be fair, Chromebooks
actually do have a lot of the basics figured out. So the keyboards are
pretty much always fine, the track pads are pretty decent.

The screens are going
to be kind of mediocre. But you're going to be getting decent WiFi as well as just enough ports for, well, whatever you're gonna do on a Chromebook. What you're getting here is a
stripped down operating system that is entirely built around Chrome. Now for a lot of people
you can't do most things inside the browser.

However. There are also some other options that happen to run full Windows. When you get into the
world of used laptops, there are options absolutely everywhere. And they try to keep things
at least somewhat even, I went on Amazon and
tried to find something that was going to be refurbished.

At least you get some kind of warranty and you know it's not going
to be completely beat up or whatever. At least, I hope it won't be super beat up and terrible in the box. Oh, well, okay. That's quite the unboxing experience.

We get the giant old school power cable. There's also a laptop and
this giant cardboard thing. Whoa that's actually really heavy. As you can see, things have definitely
evolved in the last few years.

And you're $200 laptop
is much, much thinner and lighter than it used to be. There are advantages to using
something a little bit older, thought, including a ton of ports. So in addition to a full DVD drive, we also have an SD card reader. A pair of USB 3.0 Ports, we got fire wire.

Around back you're going
to be getting VGA, a modem, Ethernet, and is you flip
it over to the other side, we're getting a full sized display port, another USB port, as well as eSATA, and you're headphone and microphone jacks. So you know, don't complain
about your single port MacBook anymore. This guy for 200 bucks has you covered. You also have the magical
experience of being able to remove your batteries.

When inevitably you're
old laptop has a terrible 35 minute battery life. It's easy to just grab
another one off eBay and throw it in. They're definitely
advantages in going with a little bit of an older design. But what I'm curious about
is one of the trade offs.

Is this really going to be
your best option for $200? When it comes to the Chromebook 3, use it for about 30 seconds
and you will immediately appreciate just how small
and lightweight it is. It's just over a kilogram, or about 2.5 Pounds. It's so lightweight it
kind of feel likes a toy. However, with the exception of the bezzles which are shiny and
look a little bit cheap, it actually is reasonably well built.

Take a look at the screen. And you'll see it's rocking and 11.6 Inch 1266x769 panel. And while it's not incredibly sharp, it's going to be totally
usable for something especially at this price point. I'm kind of impressed with
how bright the screen gets.

A lot of the time when it
comes to a budget laptop, the screens are a little
bit on the dim side. But it's actually pretty impressive here. Although it's not impressive
at a viewing angles, but I mean, for less than 190 bucks, what do you expect? The biggest consideration
when you're picking up a Chromebook though, is whether or not you're
ready for ChromeOS. Now for a lot of people, it's going to be more than enough and completely fine.

But for a lot of other people, they're gonna want the flexibility of something like Widows. It really does just depend
on what you're using it for. The basic idea is that ChromeOS. Is a stripped down version of Linux that is focused around the Chrome browser.

Now while that might sound crazy, especially if you live your
life in a lot of web apps such as Google Docs and Office 365. It is usable. Some newer Chromebooks, though, including the Chromebook 3, do support Android apps. And while it's an option, it's not exactly a great
one on this system.

For starters, most apps expect a touch screen. Which is fine when you're
using and Android phone, but not so great when you're
using and 11 inch laptop. So when it comes to actually
clicking to say jump in Super Mario Run, it's not the greatest experience. And on top of that, a lot of other games just
won't run all that well even completely ignoring the controls.

And performance really is
an area where you notice the low price of the Chromebook. It's powered by a Celeron N-3050 processor which is about as low end as it gets in a laptop in 2018. To be fair, for basic web browsing, which is what most people
are going to be doing with the Chromebook
anyway, it's totally fine. Maybe not the fastest thing in the world, however, once you start
loading up a few tabs it does noticeably slow down.

And keep in mind that I'm
using the upgraded model with four gigs of RAM. There is another model of the Chromebook 3 which only has two gigabites of RAM. If you know, you're really all
about that single tab life. As a Chromebook, you don't exactly need a lot of storage.

Which is good, because the Chromebook
three only has 16 gigs of storage on board. Now while that might not be enough to get you a full copy
of Windows 10 on board, it's actually fine for ChromeOS. It gives you about 9 gigs or so free to install other Android apps or whatever kind of stuff
you wanna actually download. One thing that is decent
is the battery life.

So Samsung claims up to
11 hours on a charge. And while that might be
a little bit ambitious, this is a laptop that I would
feel totally comfortable going for a full day
without taking the charger. I know I sound pretty negative,
but don't get me wrong. There is definitely a
market for Chromebooks.

However, if it's my money, I'm gonna spend my $200 elsewhere. Like for example, with this
giant used HP Elitebook. Look, this thing is absolutely enormous. And sure, you're getting
a lot of extra ports and features that you're not
getting on the other laptops, but you're also getting something that weighs over five pounds.

It's like basically
both of those combined. They're also some really weird
quirks with the Elitebook. So beside the webcam, there's a little light button. Press it, and a tiny LED pops out to illuminate the keyboard.

So, you know, if you're
heavily working in the dark or you're need to sign
some incredibly important legal documents on your keyboard, this tiny light has got you covered. A quirk that I'm not as big of a fan off is the track pad. Now sure, you're going to have a left and right click buttons on top and bottom, but even for 2012, this
one's a little bit rough. Now it does support two finger gestures, but my big problem is just the tracking.

Sure, once you crank up the sensitivity, it's not that bad. But especially compared
to even low end stuff like on the stream in the Chromebook, it's just not in the same league. On the plus side though, in the middle of the keyboard, is a little track pad nipple. So, you know, who's ever gonna complain about having an extra
nipple in their life? Performance wise, you're getting a core i5-3360 M.

Now that is a third gen Ivy Bridge part. It is definitely a little
bit on the older side but it actually holds up
surprisingly well today. Run it through Geekbench
and there's no contest. It absolutely destroys both
the Chromebook and the Stream.

It's not just for benchmarks, either. You really do notice the
difference when you use all three of these laptops back to back. The Elitebook just feels much faster. And to be fair, I'm not going to want to
do a lot of gaming on this, for example, but for normal use, it stays very snappy
pretty much throughout.

Which is definitely
not something I can say about the Stream, especially
when it starts doing something like an update in the background and everything grinds to halt. That core i5 is backed up
by eight gigabits of RAM. And a 320 gigabit hard drive. While four gigs of RAM
is fine on the Chromebook and decent on the Stream, it is really nice to
have that extra memory when you load more than just, say, two things up at a time.

And something that I'm
really surprised to say is, the 320 gigabit hard drive
actually isn't terrible. Screen wise, we're
looking at a 14 inch panel with a resolution of 1366x768. And that's actually pretty
mediocre these days, to be totally honest, but when you compare it to
these other two laptops, at the very least you're
getting a nicer looking panel. It's low res, but it's
not gonna, you know, make your eyes bleed or something.

Something else is
slightly behind the times is the 802.11 In WiFi. Now keep in mind this is actually a pretty solid implementation
with 2x2 WiFi antennas and I was actually able to
get around 200 megabites per second on the download. But, it doesn't quite match
up to the latest AC solution. Still though, for under 200
bucks, I'm not complaining.

And speaking of price, this laptop was originally
over $1000 five years ago. Considering that it's now
about 20% of that value, it's actually not too bad, and you do see a lot of the
advantages of having something that was much more expensive
when it first came out. However, everything comes crashing down when it comes to the battery life. So as you would expect from a
five year old business laptop it's not exactly the strong suit.

I'm meaning somewhere
between two to three hours of fairly basic use on this guy. A big part of that is because
it has a pretty small 55 watt hour battery, so even though it is swappable, in theory you could carry a couple around, I feel like, especially when
you put this side by side with the newer laptops like the Chromebook and the Stream, which are getting well over
double the battery life, it really is kind of
hard to justify carrying this huge big of a laptop around. And of course, the other big wild card is the fact that you're
buying a used laptop. So like I said earlier, I picked up a refurbished
model from Amazon which does come with a warranty, and at least someone
in theory went over it to make sure everything works.

And thankfully, I lucked out. Everything actually does
work pretty much flawlessly. Now there are a couple of
very very minor blemishes on the outside of the laptop. But honestly, I'm surprised
with just how clean this thing is.

But of course, your mileage will definitely
vary depending on where you find a laptop, whether it's been refurbished or not, whether someone took care of it or not. For me, it really comes
down to two things. You can either go with the safe option and get a brand new laptop
with good battery life it's gonna be small and portable, which you're going to
be losing performance. Or do you wanna take a
chance on an older laptop that might have a couple of problems, but is going to deliver
a lot more performance and a lot more features.

If it's my money, if you
find the right used laptop, I think it's totally worth considering. Even something that's five years old is still going to be good
enough for 99% of people. And the good thing is, a lot of the upgrades
that you might wanna do, like more memory or an SSD
are fairly cheap these days. But I'm curious.

What do you guys think is the best option for a $200 laptop today? Let me know in the comments below and I will catch you in the next one..

Tablet vs laptop

- You might have seen a recent commercial where a kid is using an iPad and at the end of the ad she
asks, "What's a computer?". - It's sparked a lot of conversation in our corner of the internet. - Because it's a good question. And personally I think some people attach the word computer to certain form factors.

- And I think that if you look
at computers philosophically, there's something that
just lets you do the thing you need to do and that
certain form factors, frankly, are a lot better for that. - Is that fabric on your laptop? This is an iPad Pro. - And this is a Surface Laptop. - You're probably thinking
that this is some type of Apple versus Microsoft
episode of Versus.

Because of these products. But we're not really talking about-- - Arguing over. - We're not really talking
about specific brands. We're talking about the differences between using a tablet versus a laptop.

- Right, a lot of people are probably wondering if they can get away with just using a tablet as their main computer especially if as the chip sets in tablets get to be comparable to
desktop computing power. And my opinion is, likely not. Tablet's not gonna do it. - And my take is that this thing is so easy to use and as you mentioned, so powerful that for a lot of people, all they really need
is a tablet like this.

- You really like Apple stuff, don't you? - One of the reasons I
really like using a tablet as my main computer is just because of how thin and light it is. I mean, I take this with me everywhere. I throw it in my bag. I take it to work.

I take it out to dinner. I take it into bed with me at night. It's not like carrying a clamshell around. - You realize that a 12.9 Inch iPad is still really big, right? - There's a 10 inch one too.

- Oh, okay. One of my favorite parts
of an actual laptop are. (Keys tapping) The tactile keys. In my opinion, the keyboard
is an amazing invention that is not broken and
not in need of fixing.

I know people do it but I
personally don't understand how anyone can do all of their
work or personal documents typing on a touch screen keyboard. - Oh I don't use the touch
screen keyboard all that often. That's why I have this. Which is the smart keyboard.

It magnetically attaches. And it doesn't ever need to be charged. It's pretty great. - And it cost $169.

So add that to the thousand
dollar tablet you got there and you're in premium computer land. - I never said this
wasn't a premium product. I just said I liked the
convenience of a tablet. - Also, how well does that
thing balance on your lap when you're using the smart keyboard.

That's what I thought. With a clamshell like this, it's actually comfortable and
well balanced on your lap. Hence, laptop. - Even though I don't use the touch screen keyboard all that often, I just love having a
touch screen in general.

- This has a touch screen too. - Yeah, but not all laptops do. Like, okay, I'm not
gonna say the brand name because we're not making
this about the brands, but you know-- - Oh, my gosh, were you about to say something critical about-- - Also, this works with a Stylus. Otherwise known as pencil.

- This supports a Stylus pen too. - Again, not all laptops do. In fact, not many work with the Stylus. - Right, but just as your
tablet as evolved to be as powerful as a regular computer, laptops have evolved to
offer the best of all worlds.

If you buy a new or high end Windows PC. Or even a less expensive Chromebook, you're likely to get
things like a touch screen and yet you still have this
nice, familiar form factor. - Also, when I rotate
my tablet or just happen to pick it up the wrong way, the screen rotates with it. - Does your laptop do that? - Why in the world would I
want to rotate my laptop? - And I think a tablet like this gets better battery life than most laptops, generally speaking.

- You might have a point there. But honestly, we've argued
enough about the form factor and hardware differences
between laptops and tablets. What it really comes
down to, in my opinion, is the software. - Yeah.

It does. There's a reason why we don't
get many tech support calls from friends and family being all like, "I don't know how to set up an iPad." Right? And that's why kids are
able to pick up a tablet and immediately get addicted to it. - Uh, is that a good thing? - This is just known for its intuitive UI. And also, it runs on a
mobile operating system.

Which means that a lot
of the apps that you already know from your smart phone, you can run on here too. - So maybe laptops sometimes require a little more tech support. But that's not really what
I'm talking about here. I mean, have you ever tried
writing a 3,000 Word Document on your tablet or working
in an Excel Spreadsheet? Or editing a really serious video project? Or just manipulating folders in Windows? I mean, there's a reason
why people are so attached to their laptops and
that's due in large part to the OS and software.

- I still think mobile software is better. - Why? - Because for a smart
phone first generation, this stuff just makes sense. - We're not talking about
smart phones though. We're talking about tablets and laptops.

- How many times are you gonna
say the word form factors? Form factors, form factors, form factors. - Listen, 17 more times
we're gonna say form factors because we're nerds
and that's how we talk. Form Factors, form factors. - Those two just going at it again.

As if there isn't something in between. - This is an iPad. - [Cameraman] Pro. - Pro.

(Cameraman laughs) (Lauren laughs) I knew that. (Laughing).

AtmosfearNightmare for PCNostalgia Nerd

I'm sure you're well aware of the board game
known as Atmosfear in regions such as Europe, or Nightmare in North America & it's birth
place of Australia. After all, we already had a Nightmare at the
time, and it was goood. Upon release in 1991, it was a huge novelty,
because we got to not only play a creepy board game, but interact with the wonderful Gatekeeper
through the medium of VHS. Of course, being VHS meant that the Gatekeeper's
taunts and demands were the same on every play through, with the only difference being
who's turn it was at the time or the luck of the dice roll.

So with multimedia on the rise, and the home
computer capable of... Oooooh... Wonderful things, ramming the board game into the CD-ROM
format seemed a superlative suggestion. Not only could you all pack around a Windows
PC and join in the fun, but the Gatekeepers quips could be mixed up, no longer bound by
the linear fashion of video tape.

And so it was that Atmosfear: The Third Dimension
would appear for Windows based PCs in 1995, the same year that Atmosfear's lineage of
board game sequels was revitalised by the release of "The Harbingers"; a game with six
interchangeable "Provinces", fitting together to form a hexagon of the "other side" with
Wenanty Nosul making a welcome return as The Gatekeeper. It's actually this format that Atmosfear:;
The Third Dimension is based around. So let's begin with the box. Developed by A Couple 'A Cowboys Pty Limited
- the company behind the original board games - and published by EMG Publishing, we have
the familiar Gatekeeper's eyes to lure us into this multimedia delight.

We're told of Eye-popping 3D SVGA graphics,
multiple drop dead dazzling environments and non stop monitor-melting replayability. Each game experience is diabolically different. Yeah, they've tried to cram some appropriate
adjectives in there, but it's not really working chaps. The back greets us with a WARNING: The Host
of This Game is Not User Friendly! Although I've always found him incredibly
amicable.

There's a blurb caught between pictures of
each Harbinger of doom. Inside is a double CD-ROM. One containing the game, and the other an
audio CD you're supposed to play on a standard CD player to add atmosphere. It's also the backing music to this very video.

Obviously you can't use your computer's CD
drive whilst playing as that's tied up streaming data. This makes it feel like one of those old ZX
Spectrum titles where the music was provided on a separate tape... Mainly so you didn't
have to hear the Spectrum beeper ruin those sweet, sweet arcade tunes. Each Harbinger has a card, with a map, and
key of errr...

Keys... And of course, there's a diabolically illustrated manual... Diabolically
good, of course. We obviously need a suitable PC to run this,
but the specifications are reasonably undemanding.

A simple 486DX/33Mhz, with 4MB of RAM, 256
colour 640x480 graphics and Windows 3.1 Or higher should do the trick. So after a brief installation, here's out
the game plays out for a single player game. After setting the game time in minutes and
the maximum time for each move in seconds, you then need to pick a box to receive a character. Then you pick your greatest fear and you're
thrust into your randomly chosen character's province.

Your job then is to find a key, move onto
the next province, find another key and so on. If you choose to start with an easy difficulty
level, you get no opponents and you also have all the keys already. In this case, you simply have to wander into
the centre of the board to face a fear. If the fear is the one you picked, you lose,
if it isn't you win.

I mean, that's pretty much it. Of course, if you choose a harder difficulty,
then you have to collect the other keys from the other provinces, and occasionally have
a scuffle with an AI opponent along the way. You can't see any the moves of these players,
which is a little boring, but they can challenge you to a duel at any time. Here it pays to have collected Power Points
(which you can do by landing on certain spaces), because the more you have, the more potent
your attack bar is.

If you've got 50 power points then a full
attack on your bar will take out a full attack on a player with 25 Power Points. You lose the points you attack with, so measurement
and strategy is required here. Then you can go back to collecting keys, and
getting the hell outta here. But of course, this is a game which is far
more fun played with friends, even if you do have to huddle around a desk and share
the mouse.

Thankfully Octav1us Kitten - of the superb
Youtube channel Octav1us Kitten - dropped by for a game, and we had a... How can I put
this? A NIGHTMARE of a time. Even with more players, it's no way as good
as the board game. To start with, the game says it needs at least
a double speed CD-ROM...I'm using a 24X speed one here, but even so, the loading is pretty
slow.

The game utilises pre-rendered FMV sequences
to simulate game play, and each part is streamed from the CD. Sometimes turning around is painfully slow,
or sometimes you just can't turn around, depending on possibly where you're standing. You remember we specified a timer for your
turn at the start of the game. Yeah, apparently that doesn't matter anymore.

You can take as long as you want... It won't
be the next players turn until you whack that space bar. Kinda making that selection just a little
bit redundant. All in all, it makes for a somewhat frustrating
and boring experience.

The only thing good out of this is the Gatekeeper
himself, but I can see how even he could become grating after a few games. I won't burden you with our full playthrough,
but if you're absolutely convinced you'd like to see it, then head over to my Extra channel
for 15 minutes of pure unrelenting horror. Anyway, thanks for watching. Have a great evening..

MSI GS65 - Their Best Gaming Laptop Yet!

Hey, how's it going? Dave2D here Today, we're looking at the MSI GS65 This is their latest thin and light gaming laptop It's running the new six-core CPU from Intel with the GTX 1070 Max-Q. It's a completely decked out thin and light laptop that just- It's awesome, as you could tell by the title It's been redesigned this year, completely redesigned. The previous generation and the one before that all share the same chassis They just kind of switch the internals Brand new everything this year. The build quality on this new design is good It feels slightly better than the GS63 to me.

It has no red on it at all I think this is the very first gaming laptop from MSI that wasn't black and red It's got this black and gold theme going on Very subtle, it actually looks really good You can bring it to work or a coffee shop, and no one would think anything of it. It's super stealth, it honestly looks like a premium black and gold laptop Now in case you're wondering, the logo up here is completely flush to the surface If you're inclined and wanting to mask this logo out, You could probably get a skin for it, and it'll look even more murdered-out The hinge is on each side, so it doesn't run along the whole length But it actually feels really wellbuilt, and this kind of hinge aesthetic is just not something we've seen from MSI before, I really like it Inside, we have the power button in the middle of the laptop And there was talk about how there's gonna be a fingerprint sensor This engineering sample does not have a functioning one But it might in the future. The build quality of this whole thing is good, very good It's not perfect, like this isn't a unibody build or anything like that It's like, not milled from a single piece of aluminum It's using paneling, but it's pretty good There are some panels with a little bit of flex from the perforations But it is a well built laptop. Okay, before I go any deeper into this video I feel like I should bring something up with you guys.

I really like this device It's a great laptop, and there are some issues with it, but I had to dig pretty deep to find them And I think a lot of you guys might think that I'm just like nitpicking, and I really am I feel like that's what you have to do when it comes to products that are really well built and just good... You just got to dig deeper than normal to find something that you can kind of use as a reason that some people may not like it but... You'll see. Okay, let's go with the keyboard first.

I feel like that's like a good place to start It's pretty much your standard MSI keyboard It's SteelSeries backlit But the keys have this layout that takes a little bit of time to get used to Once you do, you'll be comfortable on it The trackpad is, well technically it's a Windows Precision trackpad It's running Windows Precision touchpad, but it's using Synaptics software underneath It feels good, it's just not perfect. Gestures are on point, but there's something with the tracking that feels off to me. It's like the acceleration It's just a little bit too fast. Um, I can't really describe in words It's just- it doesn't feel like your standard Windows Precision software to me.

It's good Just not perfect. The button mechanism is a little stiff But it's tactile and I like the feel of the trackpad overall One of the first things that I didn't like about this laptop is the accessibility So MSI's thin and light laptops are never really easy to get into Like, I've never had a lot of problems, but there's just not, you know, one screw and remove it It's always a little bit of work. This one is very difficult I'm not saying it's impossible, but I couldn't get in there, and I've opened quite a few laptops See, this isn't even my unit, it's like an engineering sample And I'm already a little bit more aggressive than it would be if I purchased this with my own money but I just can't seem to get in here easily The other thing is that the drive in here is a little bit slow, and it's okay when companies put in slow drives Because like it keeps the cost down and you can upgrade it, but in this case, It's pretty difficult. I'm sure you can get in there, it's just not an easy thing The display is excellent, I really like it It's bright, it's fast.

It's 144 Hertz excellent color gamut. There's nothing I really have to complain about it. The top bezels are thin, the side bezels are really thin There is a bit of a chin But I mean if you're gonna put thick bezel somewhere, the bottom one's probably the best Webcam's up top. Image quality isn't amazing, but at least the angle is good and it's just really nice to see laptop companies put in faster screens because, Last year, we were seeing really high end laptops with something like GTX 1080s in them, but they're capped with 60 Hertz screens which just didn't make sense to me This is the way to do it.

Fast screens with fast processors and fast GPUs. Good stuff all around One thing to note though, this display does not have G-Sync And I think for some people they're just like ''hey dealbreaker, no G-Sync?" But the truth is I actually like that it doesn't have it Here's why. Number one: it keeps the price down. If they had a display that was licensed for G-Sync, this would be like an extra 100 or 200 bucks The other thing is battery life.

By not having G-Sync, you get to use Nvidia Optimus So you can use the onboard graphics to keep your battery consumption down when you're just not playing games and stuff But the main reason for me is that G sync is only really useful at like 60 frames per second or slower the moment you bust like six seventy eighty frames per second it just doesn't it's not as useful I'm not saying it's not useful It's just not as useful as it would be when you're at lower frame rates at 144 Hertz this thing can shoot way beyond the frame rates Where g-sync is clutch in terms of connectivity the port selection is quite good There's nothing I feel like this thing's missing it even has an Ethernet port if there's one thing I would add it would be like an extra Thunderbolt three USB-C port, but that's basically it now I don't love that the location of the AC adapter Hole is just kind of in the middle of the side here, and I think some people won't care but it just doesn't look as clean to me when it comes out the middle and the cable can kind of cover the exhaust in Some circumstances, it's a minor issue, but I thought I'd put it out there the speakers are located on the bottom And I wish they weren't located on the bottom because they actually sound okay They get really loud just the location is really poor when you have these things playing in a normal position the audio gets really flattened out by the table or the desk or whatever you have your laptop sitting on it just Loses so much clarity because of its position that I just wish it was positioned elsewhere the battery inside here has been Significantly upgraded from the previous generation it's now 82 watt hours It's a six hour battery for regular use with the screen at 150 nits. The AC adapter is 180 watts Nothing special kind of like your standard MSI adapter the performance on this laptop is straight-up excellent It's the six core i7 8750H. And you're gonna see great performance numbers if you want more details on this particular CPU you can check out the video that I'll link Below, but for multi core applications, it's a big step up from last gen the GPU is awesome 1070 Max-q really good performance for basically any kind of game at 1080p and you'll be able to take advantage of that 144 Hertz screen It's a really good combination The fans can be controlled in Dragon Center like you can crank up the fans if you're doing with a 3d render Or if you want like the best gaming performance possible you can crank it up It'll be loud, but you'll get great performance or you just leave it on auto and just let it do its thing on idle its silent and On load, it gets a little bit louder, but you get great performance You can slow down manually if you want But on a thin and light laptop like this with a six core processor and a 1070 max-q you kind of wanna let the fans do its thing and I think they do a really good job with the thermals the Exterior temperature is also pretty good on the top surface. It gets a little warm on the bottom, though I'd play games on a table or a desk and not so much on your lap so overall I feel like MSI did a really Good job on this device There's some one about this thing that I feel like people would appreciate there's so much they did right about this thing um The only real complaint to have about it is seriously the accessibility.

That's something I really wish they just I don't know why they made it so difficult to get in there But it is the pricing at eighteen hundred dollars in the base model is Fair it's not great. This is never gonna be cheap a six core desktop replacement. It's never gonna be cheap right now, but It's reasonably priced I feel like there's gonna be way more expensive models that do something similar to this As for whether you should upgrade if you're running a 7700 HQ and all you do is play games and probably not But if you do anything that can take advantage of the multi-core stuff like the six core CPU. This is a good one Okay, hope you guys enjoyed this video! Thumbs if you liked it, subs if you loved it! See you guys next time!.

Is The Best Selling Laptop on Amazon Worth It

- Hey, guys, this is Austin. A few months ago, we took a look at this, the $350 Acer Aspire E15,
which just so happens to be the best-selling laptop on Amazon. But for 350 bucks, what
are you actually getting? Well, at first glance, it
doesn't look all that special, so for $350, you're
getting plastic on plastic with a side of plastic. Nowhere is this more
obvious than the screen, which flexes, well, a lot with just a little bit of pressure.

However, if you can look past a few of these smaller nitpicks, you'll find that this is actually a surprisingly solid laptop. What really makes this guy stand out is the level of specs and features that you're getting for the price. Inside, you're getting a 7th-generation Intel Core i3-7100U processor, 4 gigabytes of RAM, as well
as a one terabyte hard drive. Definitely the slowest part
is going to be the hard drive.

It's 2018, and you know, SSDs are a thing. However, what really
helps to save this laptop is the Core i3. This is gonna be a lot more powerful than pretty much any other
laptop in this price point. Luckily, it's really
easy to upgrade this guy.

Remove three screws on
the bottom of the laptop. You get access to not
only your hard drive, but also to your memory as well
as to install a full M.2 SSD. And it just so happens that
I have an M.2 SSD right here. For $45, you can get
this ADATA 128 gig drive, which, once you install on this, is gonna make a huge difference.

If you've never installed
an M.2 Drive before, it's about as easy as it gets. Remove this single screw from the bottom, and then all we need to do
is line it up with the slot, make sure it's fully inserted, and then we take that same screw and use it to hold it into place. Now while a 128-gig drive
might not sound too impressive, the idea here is that
this is going to be enough to install Windows as well
as a few games and apps, but you still have your full
one terabyte hard drive, which means that you're gonna have over a terabyte of
capacity inside the laptop, and if you want to get even crazier, you can remove the optical drive to install yet another drive inside. I said the word drive a lot,
but hopefully you get the idea.

Something else I was able
to pick up for just over $40 is another four gigabytes of RAM. Now this is okay as it
is, but especially if you want to get into anything like gaming, or just want more than four gigs of RAM. For, like, you know, six
or seven Chrome tabs, this is gonna be really helpful, and again, super simple to upgrade. You can literally do all this
stuff in, like, 10 minutes.

And so, with that, we have
eight gigabytes of RAM, a 128-gig SSD, and an
upgraded $440 laptop. But, is it actually any good? With these upgrades, we're
ready for a bit of gaming, and starting out, we have CS:GO. Now with integrated Intel graphics, you shouldn't expect a ton. I should really turn my volume down.

So running on low settings at 900p, we're actually getting solid frame rates, so we're at anywhere between
50 to 80 frames per second. Now, it's not going to be a
perfect CS:GO experience, but this is not a bad
little gaming laptop. Next up, we have Fortnite. Now this is a game that actually scales pretty well to lower-end hardware.

Here at 720p on low settings, we are getting between 30
to 40 frames per second. Now don't get me wrong,
this is not a gaming PC. However, especially with that Core i3 and that dual-channel memory, it's not going to be too bad as long as you keep your
expectations in check. Some lighter titles are
definitely going to be playable.

I've actually gotta say, I
don't really ever play Fortnite, but this does really scale nicely. I mean, yeah, we're getting
35, 40 frames per second here, but on such a low-end
laptop, it's not bad at all. Next up, we have Rocket League, another game that traditionally runs pretty well on low-end hardware, and here at 900p on Performance settings, we're getting anywhere between
40 to 50 frames per second. It's not bad, which I know I keep saying, but when you consider just
how cheap this laptop is, even with the upgrades, I'm impressed at how much it doesn't suck.

This laptop is definitely useful for more than just gaming, though. It's rocking a 15.6-Inch 1080p panel. Now it is going to be TN, so
you're going to be sacrificing some color and especially
some viewing angles, but when you consider that
this guy cost $350 stock, the screen is much, much
better than you usually get. I can't tell you how many
laptops I've looked at that cost much more than this
with much, much worse screens.

Something you don't exactly
see on laptops very often these days is an optical
drive, but this does have it in addition to a USB 2.0
Port, but more importantly, on this side, we're going to be getting two more USB 3's, HDMI. Weirdly enough, there's a VGA port, but then you get Ethernet
as well as a USB Type-C. The keyboard is classic Acer, so it's a good thing for the most part. You're getting a pretty standard layout with a couple of odd additions, but you do get the number row, and for $350, it's pretty impressive that it actually does have a backlight.

It's not a super-bright
backlight, but again, that's not something you
usually find on a budget laptop. You're also going to be getting a Windows precision trackpad. Now, it's pretty solid. You're getting full support
for the multi-touch gestures, and thankfully, like all of
these precision trackpads, it does actually track
much, much more accurately than a lot of the third-party options.

It's almost like there's a
lot of things in this laptop that are shared with much
more expensive options. I sense a trend here. Battery life is going to be pretty solid, so especially thanks
to that Core i3 inside, you should expect somewhere
in the neighborhood of about eight hours of
light use on a charge, and if you upgrade with an
SSD and install Windows on it, that's probably going to
make things even better. So, for $350, is the
Acer Aspire E15 worth it? I've gotta say, it totally is.

I see why everyone on
Amazon is buying these. Now I will say, though,
that if you do pick one up, I think it is well worth it to spend a little bit of extra money to upgrade with an SSD and more memory. But regardless, if you're wanting
to pick up a cheap laptop, this is a solid option, and as always, links to this as well as
the upgrades I used for it will be in the description. Anyway, guys, thank you
so much for watching, and I will catch you in the next one..

Is a Used Gaming Laptop Worth It

- Hey guys, this is Austin. We take a look at a lot of budget gaming laptops on the channel. But today I have something a
little bit different in mind. So this is a 2014 Alienware 13.

And back when it came out,
it cost well over $1000.00. Today though, I was able to pick it up on eBay for only five hundred. And ignoring a little
bit of cosmetic damage, what you're getting here is a surprisingly decent gaming laptop. On the other hand, we have this.

The Acer Aspire 5. Now I am a huge fan of this laptop. I've already done a whole video on it, and the gist of it is, for $600.00, You're getting a quad-core processor, Nvidia graphics, 8 gigs of RAM. As well as a full SSD.

But, does it make sense
to save your $100.00 And get a used option? One look at the Alienware
and you'll be able to tell that this used to be a
thousand dollar plus laptop. Now it does have some minor scuffs and scraps on the outside, but importantly on the inside
it's going to be clean. And it's got all the good
stuff, including a 13.3 Inch 1080p panel that looks
surprisingly decent. And impressively this actually even has a Windows precision touchpad.

Something that a lot of
even modern computers are barely starting to adopt. Now for the most part, it's solid. I don't think it's all
that thick, or heavy. However, you are going to making a couple of compromises when you buy a used system.

Something like the Acer, well you're just not going
to have to deal with it. The idea of having a brand new laptop is definitely a big advantage. But there also are some disadvantages to having something that's a
little bit on the cheaper end. So even though Acer was able to cram a ton of high end specs into this guy, it's sort of at the cost
of some build quality and some design things.

So for example, it's very plastic-y, there's some like screen flex. And on the right side, instead
of having a USB 3.0 Ports, you have a pair of USB 2.0 Ports. Now sure, there's still going to be a USB-C. And USB 3 on the other side, but there's just little kind of cost cutting measures here and there, that do start to add up.

But, the important thing to keep in mind is that this is a brand new laptop, that comes with a full warranty. If it comes broken you can return it. Where as with something
like the Alienware, you're going to be kind of on your own if something goes wrong. On the Acer we're also
getting a 1080p panel, this time at 15.6 Inches.

However it is a lower end TN display. And honestly it's actually my
biggest issue with the laptop. I can live with pretty much
all the rest of the stuff, like slightly flimsy build quality, but the screen is barely acceptable. It would be really nice
if they had an upgrade.

And it actually makes
the Alienware display look pretty nice in comparison. Now the keyboard's going to be fine. You get a full number row,
as well as a number pad, as well as you're gonna
be getting back lighting. And it technically does have a Windows precision trackpad.

But the touchpad itself isn't so great. What you're really buying this laptop for, are the really impressive
specs of a $600.00 Price point. With the Alienware, not only
are you going to be getting three USB 3.0 Ports as well as Ethernet, there's also going to be
HDMI, mini DisplayPort, as well as the Alienware
graphics amplifier port. Now this is something
that's actually even found on current Alienware laptops.

And you can think of it as an old school version of Thunderbolt 3. So back before it was
easy to be able to put an external GPU, and
connect it to a laptop. Instead Alienware made their
own graphics amplifier. Which you actually can still
find on eBay for around a hundred bucks or so.

Now I don't know if I would
necessarily wanna do it with this particular Alienware 13, but if you ever wanna upgrade with some graphics options, even an older laptop like this does have the ability to do so. Now anytime you buy something used, the price is going to be a huge factor. So, for five hundred dollars we were able to pick up
not only the Alienware 13, but it also came with some key upgrades, including 16 gigs of RAM, as well as a 500 gigabyte
Samsung 850 Evo SSD. Inside you'll find a dual-core i5-4210U.

So this is a Haswell chip from
a couple of generations ago. You can essentially think
of it as an Ultrabook CPU. Not exactly what you wanna
find in your gaming laptop. However, thankfully it
is going to be backed up by some pretty decent graphics.

The Nvidia GeForce GTX 860M. While it won't make a big
difference for gaming, that 16 gigs of RAM and SSD. Does make a big difference
for normal day to day use. But when it comes to actual
gameplay on this guy, well the CPU is going to be
a little bit of a bottleneck.

The GPU should be capable of some pretty decent modern games. Put the two side by side in Geekbench, and you'll see the new
eighth generation Core i5 in the Acer Aspire 5, absolutely runs rings
around the Alienware. However, jump over to
the GPU side of things, and it's actually surprisingly even. So not only in the Time Spy benchmark, but as well as in Fire Strike, you're going to be getting
very, very similar performance.

First up, we have CS:GO. And here we're running it high at 1080p. Now we're getting a pretty decent 60 to 80 frames per second here, and this is one of the
easy ways to be able, to tell that you're not supposed
to walk around a corner. (Laughing) CS:GO's actually a pretty
good game to test though, because while we do have that solid GPU, we're going to be missing a
little bit on the CPU side.

Now CS:GO, even though it's easy to run at fairly low frames, especially when you get up
in the like the 80's, 100's, 150 whatever the case is. It actually is really helpful
to have that solid CPU. But so far it's actually not too bad. Move over to the Aspire 5,
and on those same settings at 1080p medium, we are
getting a noticeable bump in frame rate.

So, right now actually
averaging about a hundred, which is pretty impressive. And I think something
else that's kinda nice, is that the Wi-Fi chip in this laptop actually seems to be a
little bit more robust. So especially because we're
kinda little bit farther from the normal point, it actually does smooth out
some of the latency as well. Next up, because it is 2018 after all, we have Fortnite Battle Royale.

So, again here at 1080p,
this time at medium settings, we're getting decent frame rates in the 40's to upper 30's That's not going to be the most smooth playable
experience in the world, but if you do want a
little bit more frame rate, it's easy to knock down
the graphics a little bit. Or even bump the resolution back down to something like 720p. I'm surprised that I
haven't really noticed a lot of CPU limitation yet. Now I'm sure this did
have a quad-core CPU, or even a faster dual-core chip, we'd probably be getting
slightly higher frame rates.

But it's actually not a
crazy pairing with this 860M. It does seem to be reasonably balanced. Although I'd like a little more power. Of course if you guys wanna
know more about Fortnite, I actually did do an entire video on it.

And how it can run on
pretty much everything from a super high end gaming PC, all the way down to a $200.00 Laptop. Well, if you really try hard at least. One of the nice things about Fortnite is that it does actually look nice, almost regardless of what
setting you're running on. I mean, come on, you
can run it on your phone and it doesn't look that bad.

But here at 1080p, medium
settings, on the PC, we're getting a pretty
nice looking experience. Move over to the Acer and
with those same settings and Fortnite yet again, we are seeing a slight
performance improvement. So as opposed to being in
the high 30's and low 40's, we're mostly in the upper 40's here. Not a massive change, but it is something you're going to be able to notice.

If I don't fall off this cliff. Next up, we have PUBG, a
game that is not particularly nice to lower end hardware. I think this is actually a
spot where we're going to see the dual-core CPU struggle here. Well that's not encouraging.

It's able to play the game, I mean we're seeing
somewhere in the neighborhood of 25 frames per second now, but the stuttering is really bad. It's weird, I feel like this
game should be playable, but right now, I mean
this is a stuttery mess. Technically it's running, and I mean, again my frame rate is not too bad. It's showing like 35, 36 right now.

But there's something
very, very wrong here. Yeah, even reloading the
game on very low settings, restarting everything, we're still getting that same stuttering issue. Technically this actually
is slightly below the minimum specs for PUBG, so
I guess I can't be too upset, but come over to the Acer
and we have no such problems. So I did turn the graphics
down to 720p on low, but we're getting a pretty consistent 45 to 50 frames per second.

And thankfully none of those
weird stuttering issues. This is much, much more like it. It's kind of disappointing, really. So I like the Alienware,
it's a good laptop, but at the end of the day
you're probably gonna wanna play games like PUBG.

And while, sure, the GPU's not too bad, I do feel like that CPU does let it down. Don't get me wrong. I really did wanna like the Alienware 13. But with options like
the Aspire 5 at $600.00, It makes it very, very
difficult to recommend most gaming laptops that
are going to be used.

Now this guy isn't too far off. But the lack of a higher
end CPU really does hurt it. Going new is always
going to be a safer bet. So not only do you get
that brand new chassis, but you get the warranty,
you don't have to worry about any kind of weird blemishes
on your used laptop.

It's going to be a safer bet. But if you do go used,
my main piece of advice would be, be very careful what you pick. So the idea of going something that's going to be slightly
newer versus slightly older, especially in laptop terms, can mean a huge performance difference. Pick your choice wisely.

At minimum I would go with
a quad-core processor, and don't skimp on the graphics either. Something like the 860M
inside the Alienware isn't going to be too bad, but a lot of times with gaming laptops, you can spend a little bit more money to get a lot more performance. So I'm curious, would
you actually ever want to pick up a used gaming laptop? Let me know in the comments below and I will catch you on the next one..