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i know right trust me when i first saw this thing i

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was just as confused as you it says Intel mated in the title of the video

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but Intel doesn't make laptops they make

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excuses for why AMD is making them look bad oh

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got them but maybe this isn't a bad look

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i mean part of the reason that apple's m1 macbooks are so good is because apple

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already designed basically everything in it themselves and then just took it one

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step further designing a processor well Intel on the other hand already

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designed processors so they just came at it from the other direction and created

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this laptop that looks just like a macbook it's a bold

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strategy cotton let's see if it pays off for them with

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glass wire you can keep track of the weird stuff that's connecting to your pc

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even when you aren't using it if a strange device joins your Wi-Fi you'll be

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notified instantly get 25 off using code Linus at the link below

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i should clarify Intel has actually made their own laptops for years just in

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secret for example back in 2011 Intel

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released their specifications for what they called an ultrabook a super thin

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and light Windows notebook that didn't compromise on performance or battery

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life in order to get laptop manufacturers started with the concept

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Intel provided them with a reference model that they could use as a starting

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point for their own custom designs because let's be honest some of these

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laptop companies need help to not design laptops that look like a decepticon i've

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actually been hands-on with a handful of these kinds of concept devices in what i

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call the secret ces suite over the years and the

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frustrating thing for me is that a lot of the time the reference or concept

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device looks way closer to something that i would

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actually want to buy than any of the things their partners end up building

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and apparently Intel feels the same way because in 2019 they decided to make a

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reference design that was more or less

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ready for the consumer and announced the nook 9 extreme laptop kit

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like desktop nooks these white books came without storage memory or an

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operating system which were intended to be added by Intel's partners who would

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also tweak the system settings and software before releasing the laptop

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under their own brand giving birth to the main gear element electronics mag 15

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and the xpg xenia which brings us to this model

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this is the xpg xenia xe essentially a

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tweaked version of Intel's new nook m15

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laptop kit while its predecessor was based on the six core core i7 9750h and

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a discrete GPU this one sports Intel's latest quad core i7 1185 g7 with as the

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name indicates Intel's iris xc graphics

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now the last one was designed as a straight up gaming laptop but this model

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is what xpg calls a lifestyle gaming notebook while ultrabooks were meant to

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compete with the macbook air this is a reference model for Intel's new evo

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brand which aims to take on the macbook pro lineup with better performance for

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professional uses i mean other than a few visual giveaways you'd be forgiven

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for thinking this was a macbook pro

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from late 2015 anyway oh god again

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and that's not the end of the world the minimalists in the office can definitely

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appreciate the xenia xc's simple straightforward design with its cnc

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machined aluminum shell but even though i just explained it to you

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guys i still don't know what this thing

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is what is lifestyle gaming and how is it

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that Windows laptop makers just cannot seem to capture that apple magic

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put this thing next to a macbook and it just looks

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cheaper not at all like our beanies from lttstore.com which still look great if

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not even better but let's look a bit closer and the xenia xe quickly starts

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to make up some ground i mean for one in addition to the two Thunderbolt 4 ports

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there's actually two usb type a ports of the 10 gigabit variety as well as HDMI

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and a headphone jack so you don't have to keep your bag stuck with dongles

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xpg has supplied 16 gigs of lpddr4x memory and a one terabyte s50 pci

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express gen4m.2 SSD so it's nice and snappy and it's got Windows hello along

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with proximity sensors that wake the laptop as you approach

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leading to one of the smoothest login processes that we have ever encountered

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as for performance the core i7 1165 g7

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in here is a step down from the early model 1185 g7 powered machine that we

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looked at back in september but the only real difference between those two chips

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is slightly lower clock speeds and sure enough the gaming story here is similar

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the xenia xe managed to squeeze out 41 frames per second in shadow of the tomb

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raider at lowest settings and 26 FPS at

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medium actually matching the performance of that early unit driver updates

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probably helped with that but it's impressive ultra settings and a frame

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rate in the hundreds are a far off dream for onboard graphics still but at 1080p

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and low to moderate settings competitive multiplayer games like rocket league cs

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go and even rainbow six siege are totally playable

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i said it last time and i'll say it again the fact that we're running these

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on integrated graphics from Intel no less is astounding on to the lifestyle

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side of lifestyle gaming i guess maybe

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for us that means more traditional benchmarks in luxmark the xenia xe

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outperformed every laptop in the lineup of notebooks from our m1 macbooks review

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and in cinebench and geekbench while it didn't beat the macbooks it came real

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close while beating the xps 13 two in one an excellent laptop built on the

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same processor photoshop runs like it should while scrubbing 4k footage in

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premiere is pretty smooth at half preview quality and in our handbrake

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hardware h.265 test while the xenia xe

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didn't beat the macbooks it finished the encode in almost half the time of the

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xps 2 in 1 even though they have the same model of CPU in them

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i guess that means Intel's thermal and power solution is quite a bit beefier

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even if it did spike up to 96 degrees under full load and hovered around 90

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degrees once the thankfully quiet fans kick in the xenia

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xc is thin and light enough to be easily totable it's got enough battery to last

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you through the workday into the evening and even beyond if you're nice to it and

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it's got a beautiful ips touch display that can open all the way to 180 degrees

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with four far field mics on top so you can talk to either cortana or alexa and

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see the light bar below the track pad light up which would be great if the

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screen wasn't 1080p the integrated webcam wasn't so bad and

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that their fancy microphone array sounded a little bit better i give it a

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a b then for lifestyle but the performance story is pretty good i mean

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you know we've given Intel a pretty hard time for dropping the ball in the past

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year or so so it's a treat to see an Intel notebook compare so favorably to

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apple's m1 machines so soon after being put to shame it's also interesting that

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this laptop outperformed the dell by such a degree

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like what the heck Intel why have you been hiding the fact that you can

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apparently make a straight fire laptop just like apple don't hide that under a

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bushel you gotta let that light shine bro now to be fair Intel's already doing

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that by releasing the nook m15 through partners like xpg and the pricing seems

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to reflect their confidence in this machine the xenia xe starts at 1359 us

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for the core i5 config and 1549 for this

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core i7 model which is actually not bad for a premium laptop

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it's cheaper than a macbook we did find a couple of laptops with the same

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processor for around half the price online but as we saw in our benchmarks

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the processor isn't everything these cheaper models have half the storage

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less memory much less battery life and no Thunderbolt so the xenia xc seems to

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take a lot of boxes for someone who wants a clean macbook like experience

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but with Windows Intel has preloaded a couple of bloatwares

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but one of them is a simple driver update utility with aesthetics that

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don't assume you're the most badass gamer to ever hit the interwebs and the

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other is a GeForce experience style graphics utility that lets you update

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drivers and tweak global graphics settings like adaptive tessellation

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retro scaling and smart vsync so i dare say this laptop might be the

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Windows laptop for macbook fans now we've talked a lot in this video about

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Intel but let's not forget this is being released under the xpg

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brand so it's true that Intel did the bulk of the work designing it but that

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isn't to disparage xpg or the other companies that Intel works with to

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release these models xpg told us that the process of getting Intel's reference

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design ready for the market is a collaborative one the two companies work

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together to make decisions about components the BIOS and software

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configuration and the packaging but xpg also knows that at its core this

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is an Intel design and they think it's really cool that Intel wants to help

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them and other up-and-coming laptop makers work towards developing their own

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fully custom designed laptops i mean this is only xpg's second laptop they've

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ever released and the first one was also an Intel nook so if Intel can drive the

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Windows laptop market forward with excellent ready-to-go designs like this

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one while continuing to work with partners on custom designs

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who knows they might just be done with dropping the ball

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they might even be picking it up maybe

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just like i'm picking up the segway to our sponsor

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drop and thx came together to create the drop thx panda wireless headphones with

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them audio quality is no longer reserved for folks with wires they claim they're

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the world's most distortion-free wireless headphones and from my

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experience that actually sounds pretty darn believable these things are sick

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they're closed back headphones so you won't be dealing with any distractions and they use thx's

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aaa amplifier technology they boast 30 hours of wireless life dual microphones

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bluetooth connectivity compatibility with digital assistants and you can even

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get a detachable gaming mic they weigh just 375 grams and you can check them

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out at the link in the video description if you guys enjoyed this video maybe

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check out our coverage of ooh yeah ASUS's upcoming laptops they had some

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quote unquote ces news to announce they got like super high refresh rate

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displays external graphics all kinds of cool stuff