Gadgetory

hey how's it going guys this is Dave - Dee so I've done a couple of videos in the past comparing my top picks for laptops one of the videos was on thin and light ultra books and then I did a second video comparing 15-inch gaming laptops that were around $1000 this video we're looking at 15 inch premium gaming laptops so the focus is on performance pricing tends to shoot up but it's the same idea we're going to look at some categories I'm going to show you my top pick for that category and show you a runner-up or two all right so in no particular order the devices that are in this video first is the Acer predator 15 this is a sirs first attempt at a top-tier gaming laptop and they did a really solid job it's a little big and the aesthetics aren't for everyone because it's clearly a gamer inspired design but performs a solid and pricing is pretty good you can configure them with either 970m or a 980m the next is the msi GSC this unit is from iBUYPOWER they're a company that sells desktops and laptops but they let you customize and spec them out more than the factory options so if you're looking for a particular drive or a memory configuration or a specific video card on a laptop they can configure that for you and they also do other stuff like thermal pasting and color calibration for laptops there's a link to their website below next is the ARS x5 s v5 so ARS is a subsidiary of gigabyte and they make their own line of laptops they're not as well known in North America but they make some fantastic devices at competitive pricing this one here is they're thinner laptop and it comes with either a 970m or a 980 M then we have the 2016 razor blade this laptop is pretty well known it's thin and light and this year's model is a nice skylake refresh from last years it has a new keyboard Thunderbolt 3 some new thermal management but it's still equipped with a 970m fortunately pricing has dropped down from last year so it's a better value next up is the Alienware 15 highly configurable you can get this thing equipped with various CPUs video cards storage options it's a little thick but it uses carbon fiber plastics and it's built like a tank it has awesome thermal management and it can connect with the Ellie more graphics amp to bump up performance if you want ok the next two are a little different I would consider them like bonus entries because there's still premium but they're premium in a different way alright the first one is the Asus GL 5:02 Asus built something thin light and very powerful but to keep pricing down the build quality is only good it's better than a cleave o or a Sager but when it's compared against some of the other devices here it's not as well built but a laptop this thin with a 980 M and an awesome screen for $1,700 is pretty impressive and lastly the Dell XPS 15 so in terms of raw performance this is the weakest of the bunch it technically shouldn't have made the cut because it's only packing the 960 m but the thing is depending on what kind of games you play 960 m might be more than enough I've included it because it's still a very premium laptop but in this case your money is going into other features like the build and the display alright first category is build quality as I mentioned earlier aside from the GL 5:02 the build quality on all of these are very good the 5:02 isn't bad it's just not as good but the best of the bunch I'd say is the razor blade it has a design obviously inspired by the Mac books but it's also really well built good material choices very little flex good screen hinge one hand open a bowl they did an awesome job on this my only concern with the build is the black anodization the a no job is good and it looks super cool but because it's black and the metal underneath is silver if you Nick the surface it's very obvious get a skin to protect it the matte black one from D brand looks just like the stock surface honorable mentions the XPS 15 has some kick-ass build quality and so does the Alienware 15 that's a device that at first glance you might not think anything of it because it's not metal but the fit and finish on this thing is fantastic carbon fiber reinforced with surprisingly little flex on the materials so because these are gaming laptops they tend to have lots of ports and good upgrade ability all of them have replaceable storage options the x5 s has four storage bays these two laptops have three storage bays these two have two storage bays and then these two on the upper room for one storage stick now in terms of RAM they're also all upgradable except for the razorblade the 16 gigs of ram there is soldered on but if you're gaming you seriously don't need more than that they all have Thunderbolt 3 connectivity except for the GL v 0 2 in the ARS x5 s technically all of the laptops with a Thunderbolt 3 port can connect to the external GPU the Alienware 15 can obviously connect to its own graphics amp the razor blade is the only one that has official support for the razor core and that's actually the only external GPU I have at the time of this video now I've tried connecting it with all the devices here and if you fiddle around enough you can get a connection with the core but none of them are super solid the XPS 15 the Alienware 15 and the msi GSC probably have the best connection with the core but none of them are reliable enough for me to just openly recommend I think it's going to change soon BIOS updates and drivers are coming out every day I think it will change very soon I will address it in a future video but right now if you're looking to connect to razor core stick with the razor blade for 100% reliability now in terms of my top pick for overall expandability it's the Acer predator 15 it's got four USB 3s plus a few display output options Thunderbolt 3 and 3 drive bays it's pretty decked out and very expandable the optical drive of them pops out so you can put in a frost core for extra cooling my second pick is the ARS x5 s it has four drive bays for RAM slots and even more ports but it doesn't have Thunderbolt 3 now if you're a video editor and you don't care about Thunderbolt 3 having 64 gigs of ram with 4 internal drives is pretty awesome for something this thin sadly none of these displays do g-sync internally but they're all very nice-looking panels the one exception is a 1080p panel on the Alienware 15 it's dim and it's not very color accurate so I highly recommend upgrading to one of the 4k panels that they offer my top pick is the 4k eggs or display on the Dell XPS 15 very bright great color accuracy and the super thin bezels bring it to a 10 it's a stunning screen all around the runner-ups are hard to choose because they're all really good displays they're all bright with good contrast and color accuracy but the 1080p panels on the Acer predator 15 and the GL 5:02 are particularly nice now I'm super picky with trackpads and truthfully none of these are as good as a MacBook trackpad a couple of them do come close the XPS 15 if you're running updated firmware and drivers it's really solid and the trackpad on the predator 15 and the GL 5:02 are also really good the alien or trackpad is also nice and it lights up and that's how as a win in terms of keyboards they're all pretty good the GS 60 keyboard is nice it has SteelSeries lighting and a nice feel but the layout and arrow keys are a little cramped my favorite is the Acer predator 15 I don't love the red accents or backlighting but it has the best typing experience of the group there's macro keys up top excellent typing response and layout and then combine that with a good trackpad it gets my top pick another surprisingly good keyboard is the ARS X 5s that's pretty thin laptop and yet the typing experience is on point okay speakers hands down the Alienware 15 takes the crown the position is nice on these but it's also the size they're big and they put it some decent base despite not having a dedicated sub so even when system fans kick in these are positioned in a way that you kind of don't need headphones when you're playing games the Acer predator 15 also has really good speakers it has a small sub on the bottom so the bass is pronounced they're not as nice as the predator 17 speakers or the Alienware 15 speakers but they're so really good everything else here has respectable speakers but they don't have a lot to differentiate between them the performance on all of these laptops are really good they're all running the same i7 6700 HQ skylake processor and for the most part gaming performance is dependent on the video card the 970m is like a 15% jump over the 960 m and then the 980 m is around a 20% improvement over the 970 m and obviously it depends on the game but that's the general idea the other thing that differentiates the performance of these laptops is drive speeds not so much for gaming performance but just system performance overall a lot of them are using the samsung PM 9 v one drives which have fast read speeds but the write speeds are kind of mediocre the predator 15 in the ARS x5 s come with faster drives which is nice and the msi GSC if you get it from ibuypower you can choose faster storage instead of the stock drives and pay almost the same price all right let's talk thermals fast CPUs and video cards produce a lot of heat and when I run a thermal cam on these laps they all have similar temperatures maybe a couple of degrees apart except for the GL 5:02 that one runs a little hot it's still a very acceptable temperature by Intel's guidelines but it's not comfortable to play games on your lap for fan noise when they're all under load they all hit mid 40s except for the ARS x5s that one is noticeably louder and if you're gaming you'll want headphones but the general theme is that thicker laptops like the Alienware and the predator tend to have bigger fans so they tend not to come on as often as the thinner laptops but when they do spin they're just as loud now none of these laptops are budget options or all premium gaming laptops and in terms of their value they're difficult to compare because there's so many variables that differ between them but there's two of them that kind of stick out as having slightly better value than the other options here and these are the Acer predator 15 and the Asus GL 5:02 these two can be configured with a nine ATM for around 17 or 18 hundred dollars now battery life on gaming laptops tend to be pretty short especially when you pack in some powerful video cards but the leader of this bunch is the Alienware 1591 watt hour battery and when I have the screen at around 80% brightness I'm getting five and a half or six hours of regular use the predator 15 also has a big battery at 90 watt hours and that gives around five and a half hours of regular use but I put it in second place because it's a noticeably bigger machine honorable mention the XPS 15 has an 84 watt hour battery that lasts around 6 hours and it's a really thin laptop but keep in mind that it's a gtx 960m okay so depending on what you need or want in a gaming laptop your top pick is probably going to be different from mine but my personal favorite it's either the Acer predator 15 or the Alienware 15 both of them are essentially perfect for playing games and editing videos I like the Alienware 15 more because of its aesthetics and its size but the predator 15 is a little bit cheaper so if your budget is tighter maybe look at that one and if you're looking for something with thin and light my top pick is the razor blade 14 hope you guys liked this video thumbs if you liked it subs have you loved it it's been nice I'll see you guys next time