Gigabyte Aorus 16X Review

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this is Lisa from mobile tech review and

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this is the gigabyte AR 16x their 2024

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edition of their well obviously 16in

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gaming laptop and they figure it's good

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for Pro apps creators as well in fact it

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comes with Nvidia Studio drivers

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pre-loaded on it the price here is sort

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of upper mid-range and it's an

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interesting laptop that competes with

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the likes of the Lenovo Legion 5 Pro for

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example of the Acer Nitro 16 and the

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price is not shockingly expensive it's

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not top tier expensive we're going to

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look at it now so after you buy that new

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now back to our video so gigabyte well

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known for making high quality

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motherboards is still in the laptop game

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their arrow is probably still their

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claim to fame in laptops that thin and

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light laptop for gamers that well back

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when that was a rare thing they were

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doing that sort of thing the AOS is a

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more affordable line and thus you can

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get with in Nvidia RTX 460 or

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470 140 watt D gpus and Intel 14th

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generation that's Raptor like refresh

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processors core i7s and there is a core

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I9 model so that puts it in sort of the

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upper end of the mid-tier gaming laptop

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there's no 480 there's no 490 obviously

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it's not super highend but it has a lot

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of the things that you would see on a a

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solid better than average offering like

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perky RGB keyboard it also has WD

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extended area that has translucent key

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caps and by default you better change

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the lighting on those cuz at first it

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looks like oh that is so cool and then

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you realize in ambient room lighting

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when the back liting is on you can't see

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those key maskings at all so good thing

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it's programmable and you should do that

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anyway it also has RGB piping on the

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back obviously you can turn this off if

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you want to look chill at the office or

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something like that and it even has a

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little aorus the word a projector that

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projects on the desk about 1 inch out

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and sort of like cars you know the door

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cills you open them up and they project

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the the brand of the car that sort of

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thing it's kind of cool it's obviously a

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little bit more gamery than it is

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Creator oriented for these kinds of well

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Creature Comforts we have 165 HZ IPS

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display on board unfortunately it feels

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a little bit more low tier I mean 165 HZ

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well that's fine 16 in nice it's 16x 10

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aspect ratio QHD plus 25 60 x600 those

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things are good uh brightness is also

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quite good they don't even claim it to

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be this bright but we measured it at 567

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nits nice that's right up there with

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razor blade high quality IPS displays

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where it falls down is the black levels

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aren't that great which means the blacks

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don't get very black it's IPS but even

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still and the color gamut on this is

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only 80% of P3 so games by today's

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standards if you're looking at some of

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the nicer displays look okay but not woo

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we going to have fun on this now if

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you're going to use this with an

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external monitor most of the time then

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you're probably like that's fine with me

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I get that that's where some of the

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little bit of potential cost savings go

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the Intel Core i7 here is a full HX

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processor you can also get it with the

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14900 HX processor if you want the core

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I9 configuration I think the i7 is

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probably going to be enough for most

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people here and the gpus do really well

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you know why because we got 140 watts

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and because the cooling is very good on

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this unit it somehow looks and feels a

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bit old school it's pretty beefy you

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know chunky by today's standards and as

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a result there's plenty of room for

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coing you have two large fans in there

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this thing can really run those gpus

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well and the CPU too so the performance

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is better than you might expect for a

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4060 or 4070 here certainly the 4070 is

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going to pass some 4080 super slim in

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light gaming laptop so now way that's

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good stuff noise also isn't that bad

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either the fans move a large volume of

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air so it sounds like that it's not

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shrill it's not shrieky or anything like

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that but you know you've got a bunch of

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performance settings you can set on this

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thing it depends on where you put it but

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I ran it in performance and you'll hear

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it in the room you'll hear it sounds

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like somebody's running a fan literally

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in the room it's not horrible but it's

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you know you're looking at 45 to 50 DB

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but of non-annoying sound the surface

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temperatures are remarkably only warm

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the cooling is efficient that's

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something I do like here obviously the

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display is something I don't the

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software is something I still continue

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to complain about with gigabyte

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um please just hire some decent

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localization people the translations are

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still something like look at this here

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screenshot just after I booted the thing

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up it's almost Mad Lib level of words

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that just really don't go together as

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nicely as they should it doesn't give

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you confidence in the product it makes

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you feel like you're buying a bargain

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rate brand or something like that and

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gigabyte isn't that so they're doing

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themselves a disservice by not just

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hiring better translators

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and then there's gigabyte control center

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which used to be a hair raising mess 5

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years ago and now at least is stable and

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it's compact you know for those you who

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hate things like ausa's Army crates

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bloat and stuff settings everywhere this

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at least has stuff in a fairly organized

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compact way but

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um they've before AI was a big buzzword

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like it is in 2024 they were pushing AI

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which basically means intelligent

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management of the cooling system is the

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thing plugged into AC power do this you

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know versus is it game running run the

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CPU and GPU higher that sort of thing so

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there's still pushing the AI thing here

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with the different performance settings

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which for some people might seem a

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little baffling at first but just go

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like with performance it's fine it won't

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be too

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L there's no setting it does have

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advanced Optimus it does have a mck you

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have to go into the BIOS to actually

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activate the MX there's no explanation

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of how to achieve this otherwise like

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put it in performance mode and you are

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running the D ated graphics processor uh

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you can click through the Nvidia control

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panel that's about it so

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it's not confidence inspiring it's not

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explanatory enough maybe the software as

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to what's going on and a nod to the

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popularity of AI and the fact that

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gigabyte keeps branding everything AI at

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least there is a link within the

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gigabyte Control Center Software go

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figure it to a launching stable

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diffusion so you don't have to set it up

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elsewhere and it's some of the worst

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image generation that I've seen I have

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to admit though like I asked to make an

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image of a donkey playing a banjo and I

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got a two armed donkey two-headed donkey

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I got a man singing to a donkey I got

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all these weird things so it's not the

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best iteration of AI image generation

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anyway I almost wish it wasn't

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there and as we go at the ups and downs

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and the pros and cons of this thing

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which are just all over the place

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there's plenty of ports here which is

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nice you got your HDMI 2.1 you have a

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thunderbolt four port and a USBC 3.2 Gen

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2 Port two usba a ports yay gigabit

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Ethernet we still have an ethernet port

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on board nice right a Micro SD card slot

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which was a full sizee yada yada you

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know the story but it's not and then

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there's the barrel pin 240 W charger

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that plugs in and doesn't go in all the

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way by Design which just makes people

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feel they're going to get electrocuted

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or something even though the outer edge

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of the barrel is usually just the

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grounding sleeve on it um why design it

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like that that's just not nice

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you have a 1080p webcam that's okay and

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it has Windows hello so you can do

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facial recognition login there is no

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fingerprint scanner them the speakers on

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this are excellent I mean loud full they

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have bass they're really surprisingly

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good again there's pros and there's Cons

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with this thing and they're just kind of

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all over the place speakers are

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definitely good no problem with those no

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problem with the microphone I know I've

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seen another reviewer had some problems

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with those maybe that was a bad unit cuz

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boy ours is it's one of the nicest

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things about it also upgradeability is a

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pleasant experience as you would expect

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and we'll take a look at the internals

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in a minute but do note that we have

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Wi-Fi 7 that has been available for 2024

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but we rarely actually see it

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implemented in any laptops this one has

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an Intel be2 200 Wi-Fi card with

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Bluetooth

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5.4 okay to get inside we have Torx

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screws note that these two here have

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little stickers over them so you're

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going to have to peel those off first

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not reusable rubber covers just well I

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tamper indicators so it comes off pretty

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easily the plastic bottom here you can

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see we've got some heat thermal strips

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here to help with the ssds could fit s

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double-sided ssds here so here's the one

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that's included you have a second SSD m.

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22280 slot if you want to expand that

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the Wi-Fi 7 card is here we've got

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thermal goo on that too boy I guess

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those cards must run hot it is a

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socketed card it is removable big 99.2

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hour battery there they're proud of it

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they put that in a big label to let you

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know uh good size stereo drivers there

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and are2 RAM slots and lastly the

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cooling system right here obviously a

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two- fan solution with which you're

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going up only to a 4070 that's more than

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an adequate this might look like a vapor

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chamber but I think it's just a very

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nice and tidy well heat sink plate

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really there doesn't seem to be any kind

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of chamber that I can see involved in

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here anyway obviously it's more than

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adequate because the thing does run

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plenty cool enough by gaming laptop

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standards battery is another one of the

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good parts of the story 99.2 wat hour

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battery again 240 W Barrel charger that

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doesn't go all the way in uh good

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battery life on this better than I

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expected actually given the components

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inside I was able to get 7 to eight

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hours of mixed productivity use with a

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display set at 200 nits of brightness

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for gaming laptop with these chops

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they're doing something right there with

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the AI Control the power management yada

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yada and obviously that's with Optimus

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turn on so it switches it to internal

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graphics for these kinds of tasks the

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keyboard is tactile but not very tactile

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it feels slightly mushy to me uh the the

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rigidity of the keyboard deck isn't bad

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there's a little bit of flex but

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everything other than the lid is made of

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plastics it's okay the trackpad is glass

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it's a pretty good size it seemed a

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little dense sometimes it just kind of

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missed things every once in a while it

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wasn't my favorite trackpad let's put it

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that way but it's okay the design on

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this kind of reminds me of a several

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years ago you you've got like gamer

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taglines going on this you've got some

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embossed Plastics and all that sort of

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thing I leave it up to you as to how you

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like the looks of it I think it looks

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okay it certainly looks well gamery it

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doesn't Creek it doesn't have any

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problems the plastic is actually a fine

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material and the lid is fairly rigid I

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didn't have any problem with wobbles on

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it uh but but for the price this isn't

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as cheap as you might think given the

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fact that there are some things like the

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display concession you know and the

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plastic chassis and stuff I it's

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anywhere from $1,700 with an RTX 4060

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and a core i7 up to around $2,100 if you

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want to go with the core I9 and the 4070

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we have the ineter one which is around

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19949 on Amazon right now and that's the

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core i7 32 gigs of RAM a terabyte SSD

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and we have the 470 so it's kind of it

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feels a little pricey for what you're

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getting

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here I'm Lisa from mobile tech review be

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