Gadgetory

welcome back to hardware unboxed a couple of weeks ago you might have seen my recommendations for the best 5 gaming laptops you can get right now well in today's video we'll be covering the best laptops in general not just for gaming across five key categories if you're thinking of buying a portable productivity oriented device a beast for gaming or even something on the cheaper end of the scale this video will have you covered let's get right into the pics with the category of laptops I personally use the most the ultra portables this is a category that's really tricky to pick a winner in because there are so many high-quality ultra portable laptops on the market today every company from Dell to a sous to Lenovo to HP and more all have a fantastic top-end laptop option and to be honest for the most part you can't go wrong with many of these flagship models however when dialing down into the specs features and performance the standard option in my opinion is the soos Zen book 13 UX 331 U n in the past I've been a huge fan of the Dell XPS 13 Lenovo ThinkPad x1 carbon and razor blade stealth and all three of these options came into serious consideration for this category but the ascend book 13 offers something the other laptops are do not a proper discrete GPU it may not be a powerful GPU capable of hardcore gaming but the NVIDIA GeForce MX 150 included in this laptop is much faster than intel's integrated graphics even though it's only the slower one d12 variant of this GPU as for the cpu well would only recommend something with at least a quad core in 2018 and in the case of most high-end ultra portables that's intel's eighth generation kb lake refresh line the Zenbook 13 is equipped with either the core i5 8250 U or the core i7 8550 u depending on the price on with RAM and storage options that stone 8 gig and 256 gigabytes respectively these are standard specs for a high-end laptop and really would expect nothing less for this category other than that you get a 13.3 inch 1080p touchscreen which we prefer over higher resolution options for the extra battery life it provides speaking of battery they included a 50 watt hour battery isn't the largest we've seen but reputable reviews suggest it's on par with the other laptops we consider for this category namely the XPS 13 93 70 and the ThinkPad x1 carbon sixth generation we'd never settle for short battery life and that's not something you have to worry about with the Zenbook 13 while a really solid choice and I particularly love the discrete GPU the Zenbook 13 isn't perfect it's missing Thunderbolt 3 connectivity and the keyboard isn't as good as what you get with something like a think pad with that said it offers a highly competitive set of hardware starting at $1000 in fact it's cheaper than similarly configured options from Dell and Lenovo's high in ultra portable lines factoring the attractive value proposition and UX 331 un is a really great choice our pick for the best convertible laptop almost made into the list as best ultra portable overall however with the starting price of nearly $2,000 for a suitable configuration it's probably not the most affordable option for everyone however the 13-inch Microsoft Surface book 2 does provide an extremely compelling feature set including the best Hardware you can get in a 13 inch form factor combined with the screen that detaches from the base for those times you need a portable tablet when you choose the core i7 model you get Intel's top-end KB like refresh CPU the core i7 8650 you but on top of that you also get an nvidia geforce gtx 1050 discrete GPU which is much more powerful than the MX 150 we typically see in these sorts of devices and that extra power does help to drive the gorgeous high resolution 3000 by 2013 point five inch LCD which reaches a 3:2 aspect ratio that's awesome for productivity apps those two features doesn't stop there the touchscreen display sports the best active styles in the business the surface pen which admittedly is a $100 extra but it's definitely worth it for those who like to annotate and draw the magnesium chassis is one of the best you can get on any laptop and it now includes USB C although there is no Thunderbolt 3 support the battery life is also quite good for a laptop that's so powerful our favorite configuration of the service book 2 would be the 13-inch model at $2,500 which provides the core i7 gtx 1050 16 gig of ram and 512 gig SSD it is a very expensive laptop there are definitely cheaper convertible laptops going around but you won't find anything as powerful in fact the race really isn't that close in my opinion the surface book 2 is what you buy when you want the best it was only a few months ago the intern release their new lineup of six core coffee Lake processes for laptops so far most of these CPUs have ended up in gaming laptops but sometimes you might be after a more professional portable productivity oriented device it's not as expensive but still provides high performance Hardware ticking all those boxes is the Dell XPS 15 and 95 70 which is our current choice for those that need productivity power on the go the Dell XPS 15 has been a favorite of ours for some time now but the new 95 70 model provides such a great combination of performance Portability and price for one thousand seven hundred dollars or so you get a six core Intel Core i7 eighty seven fifty eight CPU sixteen gig of ram of 512 gig SSD and a 15.6 inch 1080p display with super slim bezels and of course an nvidia geforce gtx 1050 Ti discrete GPU plus a huge 97 one hour battery and Thunderbolt 3 connectivity now this isn't the cheapest laptop to include the sort of hardware you can quite easily find a chunky gaming laptop for 1,200 bucks like the seuss ROG Strix car that will satisfy your hardware craving but the key thing about the XPS 15 is its Portability and battery life the overall laptop footprint is smaller due to slimmer bezels it's more than a kilogram lighter and we're looking at a thickness of more like 15 millimeters rather than 24 millimeters all while providing a battery that's more than 50 percent larger and last of course considerably longer now there are slim and light gaming laptops out there like the msi Gio 65 and gigabyte air of 15 both of which provide an equivalent CPU and faster GPU but even though these are slim and light gaming machines the Dell XPS 15 is still more portable and several hundred dollars cheaper while preserving key productivity oriented features shortly discrete GPU is just a gtx 750ti rather than a gtx 1060 like you get with the decent portable gaming laptop but the 1050 TR will be more than enough for tasks like video editing code compiling simulations and so forth plus if you want to do more than just occasional gaming a gaming laptop might be a better option for you anyway I've recommended this laptop before and I'll recommend it again because it provides such great value for money if you're after a sub one thousand dollar laptop and just want the best hardware you can get look no further than the Acer Aspire a 15 which retails for around $600 a lot of the hardware this laptop provides you also finding top-end devices you're saving upwards of four to five hundred US dollars and that's no small amount for a budget shopper the aspire a 15 really has everything you'll want from a hardware perspective the CPU is Intel quad core Core i5 8250 you and that's combined with an nvidia geforce MX 150 discrete GPU yep you're getting a discrete GPU and a CPU that's pretty powerful in this $600 laptop but there's more you also get eight gig of ram a 256 gig SSD which are both great inclusions in an entry-level product we wouldn't recommend buying a laptop with no SSD and with less than a gig of ram but this Acer machine includes both the display is a fairly basic 15.6 inch 1080p LCD and the battery life from all reports is decent but not outstanding the key thing you don't get with this budget laptop but you do get with the more expensive ultra polish we mentioned earlier is a fancy design the aspire 15 has a basic chassis that lacks the slimness lightness and mel chassis of the best laptops at 2.4 kilograms heavy it's not the most portable 15 inch laptop going around but what this thing lacks in design and builds it makes up for in performance amazingly though the aspire 15 does include a USB C port though it is limited to just USB 3.0 engine 1 speeds and there is also an attitude 11 AC Wi-Fi solution with mu-mimo support there's even a DVD drive something you don't often see in laptops these days it's not the absolute cheapest laptop on the market you can still get atom powered Windows devices and of course Chromebooks for less but the combination of hardware and value makes this buy a 15 incredibly hard to pass up if you saw my video on the best gaming laptops this section on the best gaming laptop will probably sound a bit familiar there are lots of different categories of gaming laptops to choose on but our favorite is the portable yet powerful gaming machine and there's no better option right now than the MSI here 65 stealth in we were always a fan of MSI's previous thin gaming laptop in the chair 63 but the GS 65 is an improvement in every way there's a new Intel Core i7 8750 H CPU Plus slimmer bezel surrounding a faster 144 Hertz 1080p display which helps shrink the entire footprint of the laptop it's still very thin and light for this class of device and the new design with gold highlights looks even better than ever as for gaming performance the GS 65 comes with two GPU options a gtx 1060 or a gtx 1070 max-q either option is a sound choice in their respective price point though the gtx 1070 max-q model is better suited to gaming on the 1080p high refresh display and gives you more power in the same form factor other features like 16 gig of ram and a 512gb SSD as standard for this laptop and its competitors we open for the GS 65 over competing laptops from gigabyte and soos for a couple of reasons the GS 65 is quieter than the similar gigabyte era 15 extra in gaming and the build quality is superior with both laptops coming in around the same price it was a tough choice between the GS 65 and a soos rog zephyrus MGM 500 won the Zephyrus is more powerful with a full GTX 1017 side rather than the max q variant but it's also louder hotter and more expensive as a result the GS 65 has a larger battery and that lasts longer - and that's important for a portable gaming laptop either the g65 all the Zephyrs would be our pick depending on what you're after but if we had to choose just one the more well rounded GS 65 gets our vote in this category and that's it for this look at the best laptops if you have any other great picks be sure to let us know in the comments below consider supporting us on patreon where you can chat to us directly in our exclusive discord channel and I'll catch you in the next one