WEBVTT

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with its Factory tuning and data center DNA an Intel 730 series SSD is an

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amazing choice for gamers and performance

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enthusiasts now I've never reviewed a Chromebook for a couple of reasons

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number one is that no one ever offered me a sample and number two was that I

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didn't care about them enough to even bother to ask for one well Acer managed

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to address Point number one for me by offering to send over their P 720p

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touchscreen Chromebook and while I still didn't really care the spec on this $300

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device surprised me it's got a 1.7 GHz dual core haswell-based processor and 4

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gigs of DDR3 RAM on top of that I guess

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I kind of owed them one for being super late on returning some other samples so

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I was like sure what the hey I'll check it out now this won't be a review per se

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since I don't have any other Chromebooks to compare with so it'll be more of a

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disjointed of my thoughts as I fumbled my way through Chrome OS for the first

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time with some specific comments about this exact model but mostly focus on the

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general stuff so first up the build quality of this unit is better than I

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expected it's quite solid but very plasticky and not nearly as sexy and

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slim as Acer's premium offerings booting up is lightning fast the 16 gigs of

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solid state storage takes care of that and the setup process only takes a

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couple of minutes if you already have a Google account I'd say it's even faster

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than Android it logs you into your junk Imports your profile picture and all

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that which is great and yes I know Windows has similar functionality if you

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use Sky Drive and Hotmail I mean uh Outlook but who does so that's great

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speaking of Windows though some stuff feels a touch borrowed there's a status

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tray down here instead of the system tray there's a handy Chrome apps

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launcher in place of the traditional start menu um I wish the launch could be

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moved back and forth on the taskbar like it can on Windows but it's stuck in the

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traditional start menu spot um but other than that it's pretty familiar to use

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the launcher contains all of your apps but not your extensions the distinction

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between which is a little confusing to the user because the list of extensions

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in the browser contains both and the search within the launcher at the top

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actually finds everything too but a

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really cool thing about the search is that it finds stuff that you've installed both both apps and extensions

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and it also finds available stuff and suggests Things based on what's

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available in the store but that you don't have yet all right so navigation

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time let's start with the mouse double click and drag like tap tap tap hold

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drag is not available and the touchpad is generally not super configurable some

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gestures are supported like swiping back and swiping forth in a browser but

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really not much I mean that didn't bother me that much but the absence of a

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hardware rightclick is a big problem for me I use it for everything from uh you

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know right click copy rightclick paste to correcting spelling errors within

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emails and a two-finger soft touch is

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just not as fast as being able to use two hands to operate the touchpad at the

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same time so left hand for tracking right hand for right and left click and

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that's pretty ridiculous to me for the keyboard This Arrow key layout is a pet

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peeve of mine but the keyboard is otherwise actually a very strong point

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of this notebook it ain't satisfying to type on and it sounds really thin and

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kind of crappy but I'm really fast and

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accurate on it even though I can't quite put my finger on why get it put my

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finger on it because it's a keyboard I put all my finger anyway I'm sorry uh

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anyway the F keys are gone and that weirded me out a little bit but if they

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don't have any functionality in chrom OS Beyond being media keys and shortcuts

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then good riddance to the function mod modifier I suppose um immersive mode and

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overview mode are both quite cool and allow you to basically Go full screen or

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um expose style have everything sort of pop up on the screen and allow you to

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select it something that I ended up using the touchcreen for a fair bit and

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there's a couple other interesting things that are gone so uh caps lock the

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scourge of the internet is gone replaced by a dedicated search key but don't

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worry you can rebind search and not only that but control and ALT to other stuff

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if you want so you can bring back caps lock if it's really important to you and

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finally there is no delete key but you

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can use alt backspace if you want I would have personally preferred a

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hardware delete key instead of power up here um and then like a non-keyboard

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based power button but I guess there's always trade-offs and no one's going to be happy with everything so we'll close

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the usability with the killer app of this Chromebook the 1366 X 768

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touchcreen yes it's a TN panel so

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there's nothing really special about it in terms of colors or viewing angles and

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touch screens with plastic fronts always feel a little bit janky to me but at

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this price the plastic front is more solid than some of the ones I felt and

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it's a miracle that we're getting a touchscreen at all let alone a glass

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covered one the main stuff like accuracy is fine and I honestly did find myself

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using it I have a touchscreen Windows 8 notebook and I'd say the experience is

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probably pretty similar unlike Android and iOS it's not like can do everything

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with the touchcreen but for stuff like you know um casually scrolling through a

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list or you know zooming in and out or

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selecting which app you want with the multitasking button it offers um finer

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control than touchpad gestures and it's faster than just using the touchpad to

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point at things so two thumbs up for having that functionality two thumbs up

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so now let's move into some of the general observations I made about Chrome

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OS minimize maximize and then dock left

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and dock right control control could be better you can snap to the sides like in

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Windows Vista onward but pulling

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something up to the top doesn't automatically maximize the window and

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when a window is maximized you have to actually click the little button in the

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top right corner in order to un maximize it you can't just grab it and then drag

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it around and have it resize itself the folder structure is simplistic to the

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point of being absolutely infuriating the only file storage on the thing is

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called downloads I mean seriously I get

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you want me to use the included 100 gigs of Google drive storage that I have for

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2 years and get hooked so I can start paying but if unlike iOS I'm going to

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actually have storage that's local and you're going to let me make my own

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folder structure and stuff within it you might as well at least let me change the

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name not everything is a download um apps in the store don't filter according

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to what is compatible so that was a little bit frustrating I mean a great

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example would be the IE tab app that

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gives you better compatibility with some websites on Windows so you can have an ie tab within Chrome is only available

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on Windows where IE is separately installed but it still shows up in the

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store even when you're searching for it on here I mean most people will know for

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that one but this is just a general problem um speaking of compatibility

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playing back video files is pretty hit or miss not much can be done to update

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codec support other than just wait for Google I mean what you could do I guess

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if I was going to give you a solution Google might like is just upload the files to YouTube then watch them on the

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Chromebook from there but that that's not a great solution sometimes it's nice

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to play Things locally like if you're on a plane uh multiple instances of the

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same application pop up in a list down at the bottom when you hover over them

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just like in Windows 7 I don't think the implementation is that great though for

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example the integrated video player nests with your file explorer equivalent

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so that's not that intuitive to me um Google Hangouts on the other hand this

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is the best implementation I've seen of Google Hangouts the conversations uh

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spread out from the right across the taskbar and it's like it's all like it

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doesn't feel like it's just like bolted to your browser you don't have to use a

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third party app video calls are super seamless and uh I love I love Hangouts

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on this device I need an app like that work that works exactly this way on

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Windows um video calls speaking of Hangouts are also seamless and I guess

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this is a good time to comment on the video chat experience I was just

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randomly listening to some music on the unit getting getting a feel for it and I

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was blown away by how loud and clear it

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gets for what is a very inexpensive notebook then I figured it out this is a

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communication device Acer went balls to the wall on the microphone and speakers

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because video hangouts is going to be a huge selling point for a device like

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this uh the webcam is actually decent as well so here's a sample clip of me just

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sitting in front of it so my intention is to use this video clip to give you

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guys some idea of what a voice chat from this Chromebook would look like and

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sound

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like so overall the experience of the

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Chromebook was surprisingly good I wasn't expecting it to be this good but

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it would really take some workflow changes to make a Chromebook seamless

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for me and the biggest issue would be when I'm without internet and Google

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knows this I mean they want you online in the tutorial the work offline

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tutorial bit is at the very end and includes the words got to kick out of

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this for the rare times when you are disconnected from the internet here are

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some offline ready apps for the rare times right okay I guess I never leave

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the house um the list includes offline Gmail Google Docs and calendar as well

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as some cool thirdparty ones and that's fine but there's plenty of basic stuff

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that just doesn't work offline I disconnected temporarily on purpose to

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diagnose something and The Help menu just started behaving strangely like

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clicking on things just didn't really do anything it didn't say hey you're

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offline we can't bring anything up it just didn't do anything and it took me a while to figure out that I was offline

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and it's a live document I mean there's something to be said for live documents

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that are constantly updated but there's also something to be said for locally

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stored ones that update periodically because then you can get at them if

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you're having a problem and you actually need the help I mean neither solution is

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perfect but the biggest challenge for me wasn't what's the experience but rather

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where does this device fit into my digital life it's not a replacement for

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your desktop or your notebook so what is it I don't know like is it a tablet with

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a low price and a keyboard or is it a

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Netbook with solid battery life a usable screen size and an OS that doesn't drag

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it down like a boat anchor maybe it's both and as crazy as this might sound

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while I won't junk my tablet if I'm a very on the Move person I would probably

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go c720p over something like a Microsoft

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Surface if productivity is a priority for me they're both kind of immature

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platforms but at least if I'm going to bet on this one it's only a $300

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investment in a device that might not be cutting edge but does what it says it's

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going to do and in a competent matter and Google has Chrome's ever growing

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market share to continue to drive innovation in the Chrome app and extension developer Community Windows RT

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and Windows 8 Touch we'll see I forgot to do an outro

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guys like this video if you liked it dislike it if you disliked it leave a

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comment under the video let us know you thought about it I do read the comments

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at least I do my best to most of the time if you liked the video and just

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pressing the like button wasn't enough for you you can also support us if you

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check out the support link you can buy T-shirts and give us a monthly

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another thing that I completely forget right now that I always mention in the

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Contra all right you can change your Amazon bookmark to one with our

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thank you for watching guys and as always don't forget to subscribe for

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more more unboxings reviews and other computer videos that hopefully never end

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as awkwardly as this one did ever again