There are so many things to consider when choosing a laptop. Performance and
battery life, the brightness and clarity of the screen, the durability and the
feel of the materials. Though, if Amazon's best sellers list is anything
to go by, the main thing people care about is the price. Meet the topelling
laptop, the HP14 laptop. a $169 machine that is so
forgettably mediocre that HP couldn't even be arked to give it a real name. So
with that in mind, why the shuck is everybody buying this thing?
Well, maybe because it's not that bad. With a 4.1 star rating, maybe buyers
know that the 14 laptop will at best be suitably adequate. So, to more
thoroughly answer our question and find out what it is that you guys care about,
we also picked up the second and third
most popular laptops on Amazon. Can we trust the wisdom of the crowd? Or should
they have watched a bit more LT before hitting buy now? What you definitely
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Right out of the gate, my impressions for the HP14 laptop were not terrible,
which is a big surprise because every other time we've looked at a sub $200
laptop, it has been comically bad. I mean, yeah, the chassis is plastic and
it feels the part, but it looks decent enough with a white color scheme and a
brushed texture on the palm rest. And to HP's credit, the rigidity is okay. I
mean, yeah, it's a little flexible, but it's no worse than laptops we've seen
that are three or four times the price. And it even has better IO than many of
those laptops. And the good news keeps coming. The keyboard on the 14 is
shockingly usable. I mean, it bounces
like a trampoline if you push on it, but not in a way that actually impacted use
much. It took me just seconds to get up to full speed. And if I'm being honest,
I think I would choose this over the trendier zero lattice keyboard on the
much more expensive Dell XPS. The trackpad also has excellent tracking and
click feel, but there are times where size matters more than how you use it,
and this is one of them. The screen also
isn't great, but at least it's in ways that align with my expectations for a
$169 laptop. It's only 768p, which
leaves text noticeably blocky, and you can adjust the contrast ratio by simply
tilting the screen. But if all you plan to do is write in Google Docs and watch
YouTube videos, it really isn't too bad for that. In fact, this video was
largely written on the HP14 laptop.
Where things fall apart, though, is performance. We've got 4 GB of RAM at a
time when 8 really isn't enough anymore. We get 64 gigs of very slow eMMC storage
to go with our even worse than that dual
core Intel Celeron N4020. Now, if that model number doesn't
mean anything to you, I don't blame you. That's on purpose so you won't realize
that this thing was built using technology from
2016. Want to open a folder? Hope you're
ready to wait. Want to watch a video? You get to wait for that, too. There
were times in our testing where we could write out an entire sentence before the
first letters would start appearing on the screen. Not always, but catch it
during a background Windows update or something like that. And it really is
that slow and forget about any sort of
gaming. So, with that in mind, what happens if you pony up for the second
most purchased laptop on Amazon, the Lenovo Idea Pad 1? Well, right out of
the gate, the $280 Idea Pad fixes some
of the key failings of the HP. You get 12 GB of RAM and enough storage for more
than half of one modern video game. And while the description of the TN display
might border on false advertising, at least it's 1080p now, which helps a lot
with text readability. Like with the HP, we actually get a very decent assortment
of ports. And as a cherry on top, we even get Wi-Fi 6, which
um unfortunately is where the nice things I can say about this hot pile of
ass end. Unlike the HP, the typing
experience suffers badly from the flex
in the all plastic chassis. And while the trackpad itself is quite decent, big
enough to be usable with adequate tracking and click feel, the second you
put your palm on the palm rest, you know, the place for resting your palm,
the trackpad gets noticeably more difficult to click, turning the Idea Pad
1 into this constant, irritating reminder that you didn't choose a better
laptop. And you know what the worst part is? It isn't even noticeably faster than
the HP. Yep. In episode 5, the Celeron
Strikes Back, we get another dual core 2.8 GHz Abacus emulator. Now, this one's
a bit more modern at 4 years young, but in practice, it doesn't really matter.
It's so slow that even the extra RAM can't improve the experience. Here, look
at this. I'm going to show you how to max out this processor. You start by
opening task manager
eventually. Okay, let's go to the performance tab. And
tada. Okay, in fairness, it's only at 20% right now. But to exceed that, we
merely need to open an explorer window. Or to generate another spike, just
rightclick to open a context menu. To really drive home how slow this thing
is, we need something to compare it to. How about the third most purchased
laptop on Amazon, the MacBook Air 13-in M3 with 16 gigs of RAM? I immediately
love this thing by comparison. Watch.
Finder. No available Windows. Well, yes,
I know. It's macOS. Here we are side by
side. Okay. Wait, wait, wait, wait. Web browser. Web browser. Okay.
Uh, anytime now, buddy. Anytime now, buddy. Okay. Okay, in fairness, this
didn't actually have to load a page, but uh yeah, I think you get the point. Even
if it didn't fit perfectly in our off-site laptop bag,
ltstore.com, using this after those other machines is like drawing your
first breath of fresh air after smelling nothing but farts for the last 6
minutes. I mean, sure, the Air might not have a cooling fan for its wimpy 10 watt
processor, but thanks to the magic of Apple silicon, it completely destroys
our other two options on the track. Like, by an amount that is not even
funny and not even proportional to how much more it costs. I am talking about a
73% increase in speedometer versus the HP, 11 times the speed in Cinebench. Uh,
Jetream and Web Expert 4 are more enormous leads for Apple. And you might
be thinking, "Sure, Linus, I I get the point. I get the point." But no, you
don't. Look at this result for Motion Mark. The MacBook Air, which I remind
you is not a particularly fast machine, posts a score that is 55 times faster
than the Celeron. Incredible. Now, we
paid $850 for this, which is a lot more
than these other machines, but at that price, it is just an awesome all-around
experience. You get Apple tier material quality, so exceptional with the
aluminum chassis exhibiting basically no flex, even when you're pushing hard or
twisting it. The screen hit 500 nits in our testing while being color accurate
enough to not only consume content, but even create it. And the keyboard would
stand out as pretty great if it wasn't next to a giant force touch trackpad
that is one of the absolute best on the market. I mean, look, I don't need to
continue praising the MacBook Air. We've already made multiple videos about it.
So, instead, I want to talk about something else. I want to talk about why
Apple stands out so much here next to the competition. Looking down the rest
of the best sellers list, there wasn't a single Windows machine that came even
close to the $850 price of the MacBook
until we got all the way down to number 32, the Asus G16. And that might not
seem like a huge problem, but I think it does a lot to explain the perception
that many people have that Macs are just plain better than PCs. Like seriously, I
know so many people in my life that will swear up and down that MacBooks are just
faster and better quality than Windows laptops. But this often comes from
people who spend two to four times as much on their MacBooks. Of course
though, we have to give Apple some of the credit here. By simply refusing
outright to sell you a laptop that will be shite, they protect the perception of
their brand in a way that companies like Dell, HP, Lenovo, and Asus could all
learn from. And they're especially doing this now that all Macs ship with at
least 16 gigs of RAM. Cuz that's the thing, right? Your brand is judged not
only on your flagship performance, but also on your entry level. Let's come
back to the bestselling laptop on Amazon, which isn't this one. and see if
it has some more redeeming qualities. Maybe it's super repairable. Framework
investment disclosure. Not really. Oh,
there are eight screws. No, we have to take off the feet to
Wait, I don't The screw is only on this side.
This side doesn't have a screw. Yep. They're not even symmetrical. And then
what about the back? Is it both sides or is it one side or what are we talking
about here? Both sides. Oh, no. all the
way up to the Oh, what? So, there there's one on this side and two on that
side. Yep. It's very logical. There's
also Is this three different screws?
Yes. What the heck? Who knows? Maybe once we get inside it, we'll be really
impressed. Uh, not a ton going on here.
They don't have soldered memory or Wi-Fi, so that's something. Where the
devil is the SSD, though? Oh, wait. Shut
up. It's soldered
eMMC with no M.2 slot. And look at this.
They've even got a spot where a 2 and 1/2 in drive probably went at some
point. But there's nowhere to put one of those either.
But did No. Did you see where the SSD could go? Oh, right here. Yeah, right
there. Wait, but they have the they have
the solder pads for it. Yeah.
I mean, at least we were able to get 6 hours of battery life out of the 41wh
hour battery. That's way behind the MacBook, but it's a lot better than the
Lenovo. Oh, no. There's also a spot for Oh, yeah. Look at that. There's a spot
for a cooler, but instead of actually having a fin stack, it's just got this
like piece of stamped sheet aluminum. With all of that said, I don't hate the
HP. If your goal is just to get a laptop for your kids so that they can do
homework or watch videos in the back seat, it's going to get the job done for
just $170. But if you're going to spend more
for something better, I would absolutely skip over the Lenovo and get something
with at least a Core i3 or a Ryzen 3 processor. I know it's going to cost a
bit more money, but please, please, if possible, don't get one of these Celeron
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atrocketmoney.com/LTT to get started for free. If you guys enjoyed this video,
why don't you check out the one that I'm working on right now, which is
uh switching to Apple. Wait, is the
Amazon bestseller one better than what I bought? Yeah. Wait, what? I paid more
than that. Wow, you got scammed, didn't I? I paid $1,000, didn't I? God. Oh,
Canadian. Oh, okay.