Gadgetory

hey how's it going Dave 2d here so in front of me are eight laptops and I would consider these to be the best laptops right now in mid 2018 so kind of the best laptops on that premium thin and light market these are all very powerful they all have high CPU core count they all have dedicated GPUs all most of them do these are yeah these are like the premium ones so I have for gaming oriented ones and I have for content creation oriented ones but in 2018 I feel like there's a lot of crossover like a lot of stuff that gamers are looking for is the same stuff that content creators are looking for so I've kind of mixed them up but to introduce them I'm gonna go with the gaming side first so we have the GS 65 from MSI so there's no more black and red accents on this thing it's golden black it has thin bezels and it's by far the best thin and light laptop that msi has ever made we also have the Aero 15 X gigabyte did a pretty heavy refresh on it this year faster components faster screen but the chassis is pretty much unchanged from last year we have the 2018 razor blade this is razors new 15-inch thin and light gaming laptop it's got better thermals thinner bezels and it's improved all around this year we also have the GM 5:01 from ACS so this is the more reasonably priced variant of the original Zephyrus it's packed in a faster screen and a better keyboard and trackpad layout than the original zephyrus okay moving on to the devices that are leaning more towards content creation so these are for people that are into like 3d modeling or their illustrators or video editors whatever it is that you do if it's content and you're making it you can probably use one of these okay first we have the XPS 15 so this is the 95 70 this is a product ID that's on year three beautiful screen but the unchanged design and the thermal limitations are getting a little stale we also have the XPS 15 two and one so it's got the Maglev keyboard pen support tablet mode it's got an AMD Vega M GPU combined with an Intel CPU all in a very thin package for a tuned one we also have the new Zen book pro from Asus so this is a laptop with two screens to help for productivity a regular screen and then a screen and the trackpad powerful components but it's also in this somewhat dated looking chassis lastly the LG gram so this is a 15-inch Ultrabook it's not as powerful as the other devices here but it's crazy light while rocking a 15 screen so lots of room for creative projects without having to pay for a more expensive CPU or GPU which you may not need depending on the type of stuff that you're working with now if you'll notice I did not mention MacBooks at all and it's not that I have anything against mac books but right now in mid 2018 it just does not make sense to purchase a new MacBook they're still using the seventh gen CPUs and when it comes to content creation the four core CPUs and the MacBook Pros just don't compare to the six core CPUs in the Windows machines that you see here like the difference is way too big for me to just recommend this so unless you're bound to some kind of Mac exclusive program like Final Cut then I would recommend a Windows laptop for performance ok so in this video I'm gonna go through some different categories and then talk about I guess my top picks for each category and then we'll kind of choose well I will choose my overall pick for best laptops ok let's start with build quality first I know this is something that some people don't care about when it comes to buying a device I like the device to last as long as possible and build quality has a huge play in that the XPS devices are the best built here the carbon fiber chassis is really good its strong its durable this is a material that seems to last a long time for people the razor blade is also well built I think it's actually better built this year than it has been in other years it's just a really sturdy device is here the GM 5s are one from Asus is also really tanky the rest are still well-made but they don't stick out as being leaders in build quality the LG Graham is obviously not as durable it's tunnel-vision on being ultra lightweight so there's some material compromises but for a laptop that's just over a kilogram it's made quite well one other thing the msi GST 5 when i did a review of it i was using an engineering sample the retail version is better built particularly in the power button there's just way less flex on the retail version than there was on the early engineering sample units ok if speaker quality is important to you these n book pro has the best speakers of this bunch most of the gaming laptops are good as well like the GS 65 the razor blade the GM 5:01 they're all pretty good speakers the arrow does not have good speakers it's the gaming laptop in this pile that just doesn't have good speakers compared to the other ones the XPS device is also not very good same with the LG Graham but best Zenbook pro it's loud it's clean got respectable base if your speaker guy Zenbook pro all right let's talk about screens a lot of the gaming laptops here are using the 1080p 14 40 Hertz screen this is like the popular screen for 2018 they're usually made by auo and they're very good screens there's a little bit of difference between all of them like there's just I don't know if it's like a manufacturing difference or if it's driver differences but they all look slightly different but if I had to choose a winner like it's difficult I would say that the razor blade has my favorite look like it's just it looks a little bit brighter to me I'm not sure if it's the actual panel or if that's the coating they're using on the panel but it looks a little bit brighter and the colors pop out a little bit more on the razor blade screen but all four of these gaming laptops have great screens the content creator devices often have four kek options and here the resolution and color accuracy tends to be a little bit more important I've always liked the 4k screen on the XPS 15 it looks good they're still using the same screen after a couple years but yeah it's a kickass screen the webcams on these devices aren't great like if you're someone that really cares about a webcam you're gonna have to get an external one if you want to get one of these or I mean if you're just looking for webcam recommendations the Microsoft Surface product those all have pretty good webcams same with the Mac books like the MacBook Pros those are good webcams as well if I had to choose a winner maybe the XPS 15 but the camera angle looks up your nose so I'd have a tough time choosing a winner between these okay keyboard I'm picky when it comes to keyboard so and a lot of my reviews all kind of nitpick on keyboards but here's the truth most keyboards are good enough they can get used to them over time so even if if a keyboard that has a really weird layout if it's your primary device and that's like the only thing you'll ever use you'll get used to it pretty quickly the issue comes up when you have like if you have like a work keyboard like your office or whatever and you have your keyboard at work and you kind of get used to that and then you're switching between a regular keyboard and then like a weird layout for your laptop at home that back and forth can mess you up but for most people if it's your primary device and it's like you're gonna be using that keyboard over time it doesn't matter a keyboard is a keyboard you can get used to it okay in terms of the best keyboard of this bunch I would say that the GM 5:01 keyboard is my favorite it's got a good feel to the keystrokes the tiny arrow keys are a little bit weird but you'll get used to them the GS 65 keyboard is also pretty good the razor blade has a weird shift key on the right side of the keyboard but again you'll get used to it with enough time it has a really good keystroke and I think the best RGB lighting in the entire industry in terms of the content creation laptops I hate using that term content creation laptops but that's really what they're geared for I like the XPS 15 keyboard the most and I would say the LG Graham has a great layout but the keystrokes are pretty shallow looking at the ports these all have a pretty good selection of i/o except for maybe the XPS 15 two and one this has four USB see and it's not that it's like a deficiency in the number of ports or anything like that but I guess it works for the demographic like the people that are purchasing this could probably make that work in terms of just sheer number of ports the GM 5:01 has five use B so four of them type A one of them type C it's got a ton of USB for people that are like gamers that want Ethernet I think the only two here with an Ethernet port built in is that G is 65 and the arrow 15 so yeah if hard wired connection is super important for you then those two SD card slots so XPS 15 and the aro 15 have full-size SD slots and then these three have micro sd but who's using micro sd seriously like I don't know I feel like they just should have put full-sized SD on those things if it was possible okay performance the LG Graham runs a 4 core CPU without a dedicated GPU it's not for the hardcores but it's a strong device for a certain types of content creation the rest of the gaming laptops are equipped with the i7 and CPU performance is strong for all of them but under stress tests some of the devices have issues keeping up particularly the XPS 15 it's a chassis that has always had thermal limitations it's great for normal workloads but if you're putting a long render through it or if you're playing games for an extended period of time it can throttle down and it's a bit of a shame because you have a core i9 in a thermally cramped laptop which doesn't allow it to flex the way that it could it's not that it's a poor performer but if it was cool better it would be better off so thermally these are all difficult to cool the GPU puts out a lot of heat and when you have thin devices like this the whole test becomes harder the Aero 15 probably is the best maximum cooling the airflow on that device is very high it gets loud when it's cranked up but you do get a little bit of a thermal advantage on it the razor has some of the best cooling we've seen from a razor laptop today it's using a new vapor chamber it gets hot but it doesn't throttle it's right on the edge of that thermal envelope the XPS 15 throttles it's a little bit disappointing there are workarounds like you can reap aced it you can undervolt it but just coming out of the factory it's not performing at the level that I was hoping for it to but that's XPS 15 for you okay battery life none of these are gonna have amazing battery life because the strong hardware is tough to keep juiced up a few stick out is being better than the rest the XPS 15 has always had long battery life so there's that one well also the LG Graham that ones a beast but keep in mind it's a very different kind of laptop from the other ones here it's an ultrabook it's running a four core CPU doesn't have a GPU but I've included it because for a lot of content creators that's a right fit they don't need like good CPUs and GPUs that you see in the rest of the stuff they want something like that and that has really good battery life when we look at the price it's tough to draw a proper comparison between them just there's so many little differences between them that could account for massive differences in price like material choices and stuff like that none of them are value devices though like these are all in a premium segment but if you're lucky enough to be in a position where you're deciding between them it's extra hard this year devices are getting better and even though there's some differentiating features like fingerprint scanners or Windows hello cameras it's a tough choice in terms of raw value the msi ge62 5 probably has the best bang for your buck not that it's cheap but it's slightly less expensive than the other devices in this space like that thin and light premium space ok overall picks my number one pick is a razor blade they've improved the device so much this year it looks better better thermals better screen better performance like everything across the board is pretty solid except for that right shift on the keyboard I can let that slide because everything else is so good number two number three spots arrow 15 and XPS 15 I'd say they're interchangeable though depending on what you do what you're using them for I like the XPS 15 a lot across the board but the thermal limitations there they're there again and that bugs me arrow 15 also a good device all around but it's more like the overall usability I don't like the trackpad that much I don't like the keyboard all that much so yeah that's like that's my ranking okay hope you guys this video thumbs he liked it subsequent I'll see you guys next time and I hope this video was useful alright