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this glitter bombed Dell Optiplex is not

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only a real product you can actually buy but it's just a small part of an entire

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hidden and plain sight industry of refurbishers who seem to be bulk buying

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retired office PCS dazzling them up and

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then offloading them to wannabe Gamers I have so many questions right now are

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people actually buying these who are the companies building them is it possible

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that they're a legit good value and why

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is it taking so long to tell you this message from our sponsor the ridge it's

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time to ditch that bulky wallet because the ridge wallet can hold up to 12 cards

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comes with a cash strap or money clip and is available in tons of colors check

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them out at ridge.com line us now and save up to 40 through December 22nd the

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treasure box first popped up on our radar and a back to school flyer earlier

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this year but other than having a little chuckle about the creative idea of

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throwing glittery lipstick on Pig computers to blow away debtstalk we

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didn't pay them much attention that is until we saw them in the next week's

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flyer and the one after that and the one after that and then upon further

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inspection we realized these things are everywhere in some shape or form Amazon

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Walmart Newegg Best Buy some site called you buy based out of the country of

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Jordan now most of them aren't explicitly marketed as gaming PCs but

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given the aesthetic and the imagery it's pretty clear what Market they're going

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after and truthfully why not we've shown

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multiple times that a cast off office

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computer with some strategic upgrades can be an unbeatable value for Budget

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Gamers maybe these are too so to find out we bought a couple of them starting

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with the best treasure box brand unit that we could find 4th gen core i7 32

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gigs of RAM a one terabyte SSD RGB

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lighting and a fully licensed copy of

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Windows 10 for the low low price of just

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300 US dollars Secrets will be fine

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inside your head I actually really like the way they've done this finish I

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assumed it would be like spray bombed or something like that but it actually

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appears to be like almost like a grip tape type of texture

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pretty good in person oh it's not sticking very well here but you got to

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give them credit for being completionist about it they not only do the top and

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front but also the sides and bottom actually looks kind of sharp doesn't it

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oh wow that is the genericist memory

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ever just bear dims no stickers whatsoever with SK hynix packages on it

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it even looks like very clean like

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almost too clean to the point where they might even be sourcing this stuff new

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that doesn't make any sense I would think given that it's older like there

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is so much used DDR3 on the market that they wouldn't bother to Source new

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sticks but it might be as simple as they're just peeling the stickers off

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whatever it is they happen to find and then throwing them in to genericize them

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why would they do that because then they would have difficulty claiming warranty

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from whoever they're getting these sticks from what about our SSD okay it

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may be a terabyte but it is certainly nothing special King fast not exactly

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um the leader in performance ssds

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oh okay there we go

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oh mother are you bleeding oh yeah it

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was here and it was so sharp that I didn't even

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slide be right back this is great though even

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a cheap SSD can make a world of difference to the responsiveness of a

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system the SSD that I paid in blood to identify turned out to be a king fast

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F10 one terabyte not the world's fastest

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SSD and because it doesn't have a dram cache there are cases where it could

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actually end up being slower than a mechanical hard drive but

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with light desktop use those cases would be few and far between and it would be a

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substantial upgrade over whatever mechanical storage might have been in the system also because many businesses

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shred their storage devices when they donate or liquidate PCS it's likely that

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there wasn't anything in here in the first place since we've got a better look at the

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motherboard now seems like a good time to look at that there is a PCIe 16x slot

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down here that could be used for GPU expansion but because this is a slim

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chassis you'd be limited to cards that are half height but full length as long

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as they don't have a bulky dual slot cooler that would interfere with your SATA ports over here that's curious

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there's an RGB strip in the front but I don't actually see what's powering it oh

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wow it's two separate RGB strips in there hey wait a minute

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the front of the case only has two cutouts for USB ports but the system

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itself has four oh crap I just powered it on they stick it over them as best as

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we can tell the only reason to do this might be because there are versions of

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this chassis that only have two front USB ports and this way they would only

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have to stock one version of this front bezel sticker but then we found listings

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for treasure box PCS that do have all four ports cut out so we're really

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really not sure what the deal is with that time for some USB port surgery and

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ideally I won't cut myself again this is a very sharp knife Jerry rig

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everything lttstore.com uh Brandon just don't get too close to this hey yeah

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sure oh failed the second one though

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look at that clean almost as clean as

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the Windows install on the treasure box PC I was actually really impressed to

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see that outside of VLC and the games and applications that we've installed

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this machine contains no bloatware like antivirus or freemium games or anything

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like that uh does this ever load like is

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this no I'm surprised it's still up honestly unfortunately this is about as

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far as we get Beyond light games from like 10 years ago this thing is going to

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struggle to do pretty much any gaming and given the marketing there are almost

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certainly parents or grandparents who have ended up with disappointed kids

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when their new computer can barely run Minecraft

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but if we adjust our expectations a

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little bit the treasure box is actually looking like a pretty okay value I mean

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sure it's based on an older platform and it doesn't have the latest bells and

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whistles like USB type-c but

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as long as you're not trying to run applications it doesn't support day to

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day the responsiveness of the system is actually pretty okay thanks to that

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basic SSD boot drive now you could build

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one yourself for cheaper we ended up pricing out all the pieces inside for

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anywhere from 185 to 240 dollars

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depending on promos and availability but

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not everyone has the technical know-how or the desire to do that and for peace

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of mind it comes with a one year warranty I had some doubts about that

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warranty actually being honored but if user reviews are anything to go by these

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guys mostly stand behind their product I

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would be interested to test that ourselves though can we give it a shot maybe post a little note in the video

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description with how it goes yeah we'll do that okay cool but as we showed

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before these machines are everywhere and not all of them come from that same

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company meat the techdale PC for

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um Dale this one doesn't have a catchy name

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like treasure box but they've certainly gussied it up a little bit we've got

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this uh what appears to be like a blue vinyl sticker whatever this is I guess

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we'll figure that out later they've also added a like a some stickers on the top

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oh interesting that's just to make the

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case look less scuffed and beat up there's a little lip here

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see there's a sticker and you can actually see the like beat up case in

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there I was wondering why they would bother to do that and they've got a cut out for where the original Windows KOA

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went

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paddle too they actually vinyl the whole thing it's just way more subtle maybe

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there's treasure anyway um

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now there's dust it's a sort of uh but dead skin cell

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treasure I think only 256 gigs but this

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one was cheaper I have never heard of hajjan Apparently that is a house brand

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for techdale um they call this the most powerful SSD

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I think not we've got not one not two

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but three different types of RAM in here I have no idea what the meaning of these

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two x's wiped into the dust are but

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we've actually got a GPU in here

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n30 not the most powerful thing in the

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world but it should manage CS go at the very least more compact RGB controller

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but oh there's definitely RGB let's go

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ahead and fire this thing up not as nicely put together as the other one

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but I gotta say even if it's only a GT 1030 it's probably going to make a

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pretty big difference to have a discrete GPU of some sort in here oh that's cool

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look at that RGB strip here and an

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infinity mirror RGB strip only 16 gigs

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of RAM this time third gen processor and

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only a 256 gig SSD but we also have a

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500 gig hard drive and this machine was only 300 Canadian dollars

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it's not strictly advertised as a gaming PC but it comes with this

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multifunctional RGB backlit gaming three in one combo so I think it's fair to say

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that CS go should probably at least launch on it oh wow I have never seen a

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keyboard whose RGB is controlled via remote before

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first time for everything we're actually not 100 sure of the price for this one

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because since we ordered it the page has completely disappeared and the guy who

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has the invoice isn't here right now so you're going to see an on-screen correction if I didn't get it right

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what is this is this a is this a USB thumbstick oh this is a wireless

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dongle for what oh it's Wi-Fi and Bluetooth yeah there's the WPS button

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okay that makes sense okay yeah sure that can go in the front why not oh that

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actually looks pretty cool not bad and it turns out that the remote

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is actually for the oh wait oh for the oh for that oh okay

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wow it's all RGB

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oh do like the shiny lights oh this is not

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a good keyboard in case you were wondering but I'm

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getting it's on dip to 30 there felt it

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about 60 FPS I mean it's

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not the greatest gaming experience though In fairness techtail doesn't

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advertise this as a gaming PC even

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though clearly that's their intent and they do have a history of selling gaming

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PCs that are in the thousand dollar range and still use a GT 1030 meaning

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that the gaming experience isn't going to be much better however yet again it's

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not technically a terrible price if you take into account things like the legit

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copy of Windows the ease of setup and the warranty through whatever platform

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you purchased it on this one would even be able to play some games at low to

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medium settings without too much hassle a fact that techtail has included in the

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description without too much Hyperbole and because both of the machines we

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looked at are using industry standard or at the very least Dell standard Parts

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either of them can be maintained or upgraded with better gpus down the line

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turning them into surprisingly competent little gaming

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boxes it's no wonder these things are so popular but we still haven't answered

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the biggest question where are these things all coming from

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China India no Toronto Ontario Canada that's right

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both Advanced skytech Global maker of

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the treasure box and techdale are headquartered within 20 minutes of each

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other and a little bit farther down the street you'll find high-tech Bay yet

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another Glam furbisher as we've started calling them we can't be a hundred

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percent sure why there's such a high concentration of these companies in that

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area but we do have a couple of guesses first up is that Toronto and its

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surrounding suburbs is the business capital of Canada so the regular supply

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of machines like this likely greatly outstrips the local demand meaning that

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they can easily export them to other regions second is that Markham in particular is

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a tech Hub that contains the Canadian headquarters of countless big names like

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ASUS AMD and also our friends over at

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infinite cables finally one of the defining characteristics of the PC

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industry is the Shameless copying that takes place between competitors so my

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best guess then is that word about how effective a quick coat of paint or

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sticker as it were got out pretty

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quickly leading to almost immediate copycatism and given a little bit more

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time I'm sure many more of these companies are going to be popping up

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near business hubs around the world as an advocate for keeping E-Waste out

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of landfills I'm actually pretty happy to see these machines finding their ways

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to new homes and I also feel like it's worth giving a shout out to Microsoft's

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role in all of this every one of these companies claims some form of legitimacy

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by being part of the Microsoft authorized refurbisher program skytech

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and high tech Bay are both listed on Microsoft's website and techdale we

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think is probably purchasing these licenses from a Microsoft authorized

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refurbisher member which makes them legit now none of that means that these

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guys won't take your money and run when it comes warranty time but overall it

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seems like there's a fair number of happy customers out there and like I

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said before I think that's a really good thing to be clear I don't think that

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Microsoft is providing cheap Windows 10 licenses to these guys out of the

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goodness of their hearts some money is probably better than the no money that

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they'd be making if refurbishers did what they used to do and simply pirated

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Windows but legit Windows adds peace of

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mind for would-be buyers keeping these things out of the landfills and honestly

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I doubt this program really moves the needle for Microsoft compared to the

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work it takes to maintain so I'm glad they're doing it the question remains though should you buy one well this is

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Linus Tech tips so obviously our first choice would be to Cobble something

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together ourselves from hand-picked used parts

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if you need a very simple PC that requires no knowledge to set up or build

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and you don't have much of a budget and maybe you need some semblance of a

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warranty this could be a good choice I would at least consider the extra 100

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bucks for something brand new like this unit from HP even if it's just to ensure

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that I'll have support for future Windows updates but Windows 10 still got

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a lot of life left in it and in this price range an extra hundred dollars is

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a lot of money that could have been used for a GPU upgrade I was expecting to

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dunk on these things for the somewhat misleading marketing and general

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cringiness of them but given that they've basically just commercialized

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but we've been advocating for for years I guess I can't go too hard on them at

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least not as hard as I go segwaying to our sponsor vesi do you ever struggle to

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Linus Tech tipsy.com Linus detectives if

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00:16:17,820 --> 00:16:23,760
you guys enjoyed this video you might enjoy some of the more detailed guides

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we've done on how to find and buy a cheap workstation on eBay and turn it

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into a sleeper gaming monster