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all right Tech family today's video is
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brought to you by the AI Pro Max Plus
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premium extreme North Smith ai ai ai ai
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team at this channel Jokes Aside today
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I'm going to go over some of the most
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annoying things in the laptop industry
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many of these have been on everyone's
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Minds throughout 2024 but really just
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boiled over at CES this year let's start
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with how confusing buying a laptop is
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there are so many different processes
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many of which have names that no human
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can remember I certainly can't and
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others just have very similar names yet
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perform completely differently how does
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the average person who just walks into a
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store to buy a laptop know which is the
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right one for them this isn't new back
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in 2023 AMD buried important information
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in their processor naming two of amd's
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7000 series processors could be from
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entirely different Generations an AMD
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CPU with a three in the3d digit meant
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that you were buying a zen3 processor
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not their latest zen4 tech clear as mud
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last year Intel join the club selling
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multiple generations of processors under
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their core Ultra branding we had
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processors from their meteor Lake
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architecture as well as those from their
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new Al Luna Lake pricing of laptops with
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these processors overlapped to add to
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the confusion intel was still selling
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their older rap toate chips in high
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performance laptops under a completely
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different naming scheme 14th gen would
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your average buyer know the difference
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between two laptops that have a core
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Ultra 7 processor one with an H at the
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end and one with a V would they know
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that the core Ultra 7h performs well but
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has poorer battery life while the core
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Ultra 7v performs medoc but has
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excellent battery life where did the
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days go folks where it was just i5 and
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i7 well at CS this year things got a lot
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worse Intel showed this slide it seems
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like they're now only selling Arrow Lake
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and Luna Lake processors at least two
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different types of processors not threee
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and it appears like they are offering a
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processor for different types of buyers
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kind of like a good better best this
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seems like an improvement but it's
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actually not a lake U is really a
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slightly improved metake processor and
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there is now a new set of core
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processors without Ultra in the name
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these are where Intel is selling much
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older rapto Lake processors just
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rebranded for Budget Shoppers said
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another way they are selling processors
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from four different Generations that
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perform vastly different with very
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similar sounding names look a good
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better best strategy sounds excellent in
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theory but in reality AO processor is
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sold as part of a laptop due to how
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different laptops are prices of laptops
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with these processors are going to
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massively overlap so you could find a
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budget laptop with a great processor
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that will cost you less than a more
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premium laptop with a poorer performing
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one confused yet in 2024 for around
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$11,000 you could buy an Asus mbook 14
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from Walmart with an AMD processor you
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could also buy one from Best Buy with an
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Intel processor or an Asus Vivo book 14
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from Amazon also with an Intel processor
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all of these are 14-in laptops from Asus
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that all look and feel very similar and
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cost around the same in fact the
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supposedly cheaper via book actually
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cost more the reason this confusion
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occurs is the way that most Windows
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laptops are designed you see they are
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designed to be sold at retail stores or
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bought by corporations the buyers for
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these organizations are the
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manufacturers primary customers not you
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so a lot of laptops come with a gazing
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different variations so that they can
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please whoever is buying them at these
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companies and for a big retailer they
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want to buy laptops that they think they
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can sell obviously and this leads to
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situations where a laptop is designed to
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be sold rather than to be used you see a
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retailer knows that Shoppers browsing
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their aisles are going to buy based on
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the aspects of a laptop that they can
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see in touch the screen may look bright
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in the stores dim lighting but once you
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get it out you may find it's not bright
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enough and that display that looked
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Vivid and stunning in the store ends up
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just being too reflective and
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distracting this type of product design
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can also lead to manufacturers putting
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the wrong processes in their laptops
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retailers know that one of the main
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pieces of information that people have
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at the time of purchase is a laptop spec
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sheet and for those buyers who are Savvy
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enough to actually understand the
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confusing processor names many will want
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a powerful one so manufacturers and
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retailers often put processors in
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laptops that the laptop just can't
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properly call that means it won't run at
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its best and you aren't getting what
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you're paying for wor still this can
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lead to Fan noise a warm feeling laptop
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and poor battery life but of course you
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don't know this from just reading a
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laptop specsheet what further amplifies
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poor product design is manufacturers
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insisting on drawing artificial lines in
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the sand it's a gaming laptop it's a
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work laptop or a Content creation one
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what is this even mean who buys a gaming
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laptop only to game on it and do nothing
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else most people I know cross use cases
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asus's proart p16 is designed for
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Content creators it has a 4K display but
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its display is capped at 60 Herz making
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it inferior for gaming if you want a
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fast refresh rate display you'll have to
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buy the gaming laptop which doesn't have
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an option for a 4K display we feel many
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laptops are just being held back to be
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boxed into one of these categories in
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the case I just gave you we'd prefer
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manufacturers Just build one powerful
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laptop and gave you the choice as to
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which display you want in it and this
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leads very nicely to my next point that
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there are just too many products and it
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divides a manufacturer's research and
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development resources this results in
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poorer products for example does a
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company the size of MSI really need to
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have six different 18-inch gaming
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laptops no kidding folks that's what
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they were actually showing at CES
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meanwhile many of their laptops have
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this awful keyboard layout where the
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page up and down key are pressed right
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up against the arrow keys this can cause
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really annoying Mis presses I think that
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they should should have rushed out a fix
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for that vers launching another 18in
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gaming laptop now there is one company
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that does get their product management
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mostly right Apple of course they keep
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it simple they ask you how powerful do
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you want your laptop m m Pro or M Max
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how big do you want it each comes in two
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sizes and it's clear whether you're
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buying older Tech or newer M1 versus M4
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plus they recognize that people are
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shopping across retailers so they keep
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their offerings and prices consistent
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surprise inly enough if you design a
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laptop for the end buyer you don't
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confuse them and you consolidate your
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R&D to deliver higher quality products
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guess what people are willing to pay
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more and that's a big reason why Apple
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has the highest margins of any laptop
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manufacturer look I'm not saying apple
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is perfect of course not they don't
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allow users to upgrade King components
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and they aren't good for gaming but
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Apple they get the fundamentals of
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product management and marketing right
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now we did see one company try to
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simplify their lineup this year Dell
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they flew a bunch of tech press to New
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York City to unveil their new branding
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they dropping much Lov names like XPS
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and other brands such as Inspiron
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precision and latitude and going with
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Dell Dell Pro and Dell Pro Max sounds
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simple but it's not rather than three
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performance levels like apples each of
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Dell's tiers themselves has three tiers
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within them so there are at least nine
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options but it gets worse let me give
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you a perfect example if I saw saw this
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I think that I need to buy the Dell Pro
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Max as that's the one that seems to have
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the most performance but Dell Pro and
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Dell Pro Maxes are for business
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customers the consumer laptops are the
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Dell Range so I'd have to buy a Dell
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premium with a high spec configuration
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and this brings up another very clear
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issue the terms Pro and Max they are
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well known in the laptop space Apple has
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trained consumers over many years with
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what these terms relate to Dell are
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using them differently everyone in the
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room who heard this just side when D
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announced it it's just clearly coping
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Apple but doing it badly no surprises
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the reporting on this Rebrand has been
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pretty
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scathing anyway it's not just confusing
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processes and product naming that we all
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have to deal with it's outright
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deceptive marketing at CS Nvidia put up
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a shock and all slide showing huge gains
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in gaming performance of their new 50
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Series gpus but it only took 5 Seconds
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of reading the slide to realize that a
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good chunk of these gains were due to
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dlss multiframe generation not real
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frame rendering not all games support
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this and this can lead to weird issues
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when up to 75% of the frames are AI
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generated obviously we'll have to test
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this when these laptops arrive at the
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studio but it wasn't just Nvidia that
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did this check out this slide from Intel
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touting huge performance gains from
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their new Arrow Lake range that's
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compared to processors from AMD and
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Qualcomm after reading the fine print we
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discovered that Intel were feeding their
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CPUs around three times the power not
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exactly a
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comparison now I want to drill into
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budget laptops specifically this year
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every manufacturer released new
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processors for people buying laptops on
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a tight budget some are Refreshers of
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older ones and some are cut down
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versions of new ones look we do like
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this as a whole but we have done many
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videos trying to find good laptops for
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people shopping at around the $500 MSRP
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price or less every one of these laptops
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are garbage to the point of being almost
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unusable and just ew
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they have dim panels terrible looking
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colors low resolutions making content
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look hazy inaccurate trackpads and some
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of these chassis just don't even sit
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flat on a desk the processor in these
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laptops can be a part of the problem but
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it's only part of it budget Shoppers
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should not be buying a new laptop you'll
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get far more for your money if you buy a
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prior's model or a returned laptop or a
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secondhand One Toyota doesn't produce a
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car for $88,000 as they know it would be
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utter garbage if you are shopping for a
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car with that kind of money everybody
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knows you should be buying used all
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right on the other end of the pricing
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Spectrum why is AMD continually getting
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shafted in 2024 amd's N5 STX Point
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processor was a better one than Intel's
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core Ultra 9 at every power level yet
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once again we are mostly seeing AMD
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processors in more value oriented
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laptops for example you can't get one of
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asus's high-end strect scy laptops with
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an AMD processor you have to buy their
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ch cheaper strex g16 which uses an AO
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chassis and isn't available with
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high-end Nvidia
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gpus we want to see premium gaming
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laptops with amd's Flagship fire range
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HX 3D paired with highend Nvidia gpus
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what is going on here look I've heard
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two rumors one that Intel is providing
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manufacturers with incentives to only
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use their chips in highend laptops and
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two that AMD has issues meeting demand I
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have no idea if these are true but the
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moral of the story is we are sick of the
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lack of AMD props to Raz it by the way
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for being one of the few to put an AMD
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processor in their new blade 16 plus
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apparently they've finally put in a
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decent keyboard so that laptop I can't
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wait to get in full review finally let's
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end by talking about the 1,000 gorilla
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in the room AI consumers are fed up with
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it we all agree that chat gbt and tools
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like it are game changers but those AI
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tools use huge data sets with large
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amounts of processing power these tools
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are not the kind of AI that runs on your
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laptop itself and everyone knows it AI
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that runs on your laptop has been tried
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many times before and has a bit of a bad
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stigma to it years ago gigabyte
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introduced an AI tool to control their
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laptop's Performance Based on your usage
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it was a gimmick and produced worse
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results than just changing the
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performance mode yourself over the last
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couple of weeks we have been testing
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every AI tool that we can find that runs
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on your laptop itself and not a remote
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server we have got a video coming out on
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it look several of these AI tools are
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worse than not using AI at all and
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others do offer marginal
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utility manufacturers must stop using
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their finite R&D resources to bring out
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crappy AI tools that no one is asking
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for it's tech for tech sake and everyone
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knows it and marketing departments stop
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leading with AI as a reason to upgrade
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your laptop no one is buying it both
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literally and figuratively it comes
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across as disingenuous and annoying many
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buyers associate AI with other over hyp
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Tech that they were misled on like nfts
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in conclusion I think all these factors
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are really resulting in a lack of
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interest in laptops right now and it
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just shouldn't be like this you see
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manufacturers have made huge progress
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over the last 12 months but it's been
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hidden by all this confusion and
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focusing people's attention on the wrong
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things at the end of the day here's my
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message to manufacturers simplify your
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lineup create better products not more
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stop creating crappy laptops for Budget
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users give us an option for AMD in your
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most powerful laptops and For Heaven's
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Sake stop it with AI shopping for a
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laptop just shouldn't be this hard the
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technology exists to quickly identify
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your needs and suggest the perfect
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laptop for you and that is what we are
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building on our website over 2025 we're
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working super hard to massively improve
00:13:22
it we'll be adding many additional use
00:13:24
cases with custom recommendations our
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aim is to only present you with the best
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free laptops for you and if you don't
00:13:30
like it we'll show you more finding the
00:13:33
perfect laptop and getting the best
00:13:35
price on it it's a solvable problem and
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if manufacturers and retailers don't
00:13:39
solve it guess what we'll do it for them
00:13:42
if you want to support us in our mission
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smash the like button and get subscribed
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