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so this is an engineering sample which means that i can't do any benchmarks and

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i can't do any thermal testing or anything like that but if you guys have

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been following along with me for the last couple of years you'll probably

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know that while i wouldn't describe myself as a razor fan by any stretch of

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the imagination sorry racer i am partial to their

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laptops whether it's the blade formerly blade 14 formerly blade 14 mere 2014 or

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whatever or the blade stealth which has actually been my daily driver lately so

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when razer offered to send over their new blade

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15.6 bench whatever it is they're calling this thing

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their latest cutting edge gaming laptop

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for an early sneak preview i couldn't resist

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humble bundle lets you save money on games while supporting charitable causes

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and you can learn more at our link in the video description

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so any first look starts with the unboxing experience

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oh oh you want to see oh sure here so

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this has actually been opened up already by tyler because he had to take it out

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and put a label on it all that kind of stuff so i'm getting like that this is a

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very sub-par subpar on box this is like sloppy seconds unboxing experience

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that's okay i think i think i'll get over it so

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they have actually finally changed their packaging for the blade and i think they

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managed to make it even more bare bones which is

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a feat so you get a letter from this is

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interesting he changed his title we've dropped the chief gamer charade

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huh oh good for them you get some instruction manuals you get a microfiber

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cloth you'll need one of those and you get a shiny multi-colored razor logo

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with some other razor chroma stuff that you can stick all over your your stuff

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you also get a plea not to return the razor blade

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don't take it back to the retailer razer has revised their power brick because of

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the increased power requirements of this new blade so

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gone is the sleek small rounded 165 watt

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brick and here is the 200 watt sort of

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blockier and larger brick the one thing that they did manage to keep is my least

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favorite thing about it and it's the right angle cable that comes off of it

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like this is the problem with it this happens

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all the time it puts constant strain on it and while they've reinforced it and

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it's wow it's really thick i'm still really not a fan of that

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design so if you were hoping for type c power

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you will be sorely disappointed not only

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do you not get a standard power connector you get a new proprietary one

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from razer that i have not seen before

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fortunately it's reversible so you can plug it in either this way or that

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i'm going to go with this way so my initial impression when i first

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touched this was that it was a lot bigger than the old blade 14 even though

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razer's marketing is all about how it's a really similar size but

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what i also thought was that maybe i just felt that way because i've been

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using the blade stealth as my daily driver lately and that one really is

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a lot smaller like we're talking an inch here an inch and a change there

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but i think what makes it feel so big is not just that it is taller

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so you can see it's got a significantly higher profile

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off the table almost the entire thickness of the screen

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even though its actual x and y dimensions

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aren't that different those are really close

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but the squareness makes it feel just because of kind of

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it's it's sharpness and blockiness it makes it feel a lot bigger

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i'm really not sure if i prefer this

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new design language from them on the bottom there's another big change

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here too so while these feet

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used to hold the blade a little bit off the table that was actually one of the

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fundamental problems with its design was it had a hard time sucking air into

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these bottom fans now they're really tall like they're less um

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you know anti-slip feet and they're more like a built-in laptop stand to hold the

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thing off the table and you should be able to really see that if i put it up

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next to the other one another big change is that those two bottom fans

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are now actually metal blades as far as i can tell so they're super thin blades

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they should be more efficient and because they're jamming up to a gtx 1070

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in this thing you can also see a huge

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change to the way that they're doing the venting at the back so on the old blade

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it was just like the old macbooks where it came out from behind the hinge here

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and then the air vented up towards the screen

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now air gets sucked in here and it can go out any which way it can come out

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these holes here it can go out this way and it's like quite open in fact you can

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even see that the display cable is exposed there that is a very strange

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design choice i have never seen anybody do that before but for all the bigger

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rareness we're definitely getting some benefits so we've got Thunderbolt 3 yet

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again we've got a usb3 HDMI and been asking for this for a

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while mini DisplayPort on the one side so you can drive up to

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three displays off of this thing externally at a time that's freaking

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awesome then we've got a couple more usbs and a headphone microphone combo

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jack so we do get an i o upgrade for the size increase

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and of course all of the internal upgrades

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so they're now shipping with 8th gen core i7 processor so that's up to six

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cores gtx 1060s or 1070s and i think

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we've got that's one 1060 or one 1070

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and i think we've got more competition to thank for all of that stuff because

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razer has done hardly anything with this design over the last four years but now

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this really does look like a 2018

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notebook my biggest complaints about the last gen blade were the very outdated

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looking thick bezels the 60 hertz refresh rate which in my

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mind is unjustifiable on a gaming machine in this day and age

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and the lackluster performance being limited

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to a gtx 1060 rather than up to a 1070

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even if that 1070 is a uh a max q one so

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that's a lower TDP version and they've actually fixed some things that i hadn't

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even really complained about that much so like the blade stealth

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the regular blade now has an oversized track pad

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and really it's especially noticeable if you go and put the old one up next to it

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but one thing i have to confess i'm a little disappointed about is they've

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actually done away with the hardware clicky button something that i i really

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like and i do use in place of

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just a sort of push a push in trackpad one that

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doesn't have like it's hinged up at the top so it

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doesn't have an even amount of force required everywhere that you press on it

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you know even though it feels a little stiffer

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it's not a it's not in a bad way and there's less key wobble already

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like that's something that was a bit of an issue with the old blade definitely

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some backlight bleed i can even see it in the studio lighting but i'm not going

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to ding them too hard on that when this is a pre-production model

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the Thunderbolt connector is still on the right which is a real drag

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because that's where my mouse goes so we've got some dongle mouse interference

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and this power button

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was an opportunity to include a touch sensor

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in 2018 everything should have biometrics even if you choose not to use

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it and they've opted not to include either ir emitter Windows hello or a

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touch sensitive power button both of which make logging into the machine a lot faster so the two different

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resolutions they're shipping 1080p at 60hz so that's the one that starts at

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18.99 which to me is crazy a 2 000 gaming

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laptop with a 60hz display or 1080p with 144hz those are both meant

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to be the gaming models and then what's interesting to me is the

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4k one so the gaming one has a 100 srgb

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coverage while the 4k one has a 100

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adobe RGB coverage and because it's 4k

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only a 60 hertz refresh rate and touch

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so what's interesting about that to me is it seems like razer's actually only

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got 1080p gaming models and then the 4k one

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is positioned more like a creative or

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professional option man with the game running over 144

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frames per second this looks so smooth

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even though every machine ships with 16 gigs and i don't disagree with that

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configuration what's really cool is that it is now upgradable for the first time

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on a razer blade so i shouldn't have to be impressed by that but it's 2018 so

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i am and acoustics i mean that was the first thing brandon asked was is it as loud as

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the old one reserving full judgment for the full

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review but actually it's not bad so far

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like even though i've had this running for 10-15 minutes now so we're at full

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heat it doesn't have that shrill wine

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that the old blade did though i've yet to see how it behaves with the 1070

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max-q so on the surface the all-new blade and

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that really does seem to be what they're calling it addresses pretty much every complaint i

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had about the way that the old blade was aging it's got two more CPU cores it's

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got a bigger display it's got a high refresh rate display but

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the industry has come a long way since the original blade and the competition

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is a lot better so whether i would recommend it over

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something like an ASUS zephyrus is going to come down to raw performance as well

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as thermals and acoustics and for that we need

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a finished unit so stay tuned guys because this is going to be an

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interesting showdown

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speaking of interesting private internet access is an interesting choice for your

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vpn pia supports a variety of vpn

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protocols and types of encryption and authentication allowing you to dial in

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the exact level of privacy protection you need they've got apps for Windows

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macOS Linux chrome Android iOS and support for more

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platforms coming in the future and their apps include dns leak protection and

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ipv6 leak protection they've also got an internet kill switch which will block

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all traffic if the vpn becomes disconnected unexpectedly and you can

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check it out today at the link in the video description it is surprisingly

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affordable so thanks for watching this first impressions of the blade the

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all-new razer blade if you guys dislike this video you can

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hit that button but if you liked it hit like get subscribed or maybe consider

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checking out where to buy the stuff we featured not yet not yet wait for the

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full review in the video description also down there

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is our merch store which has cool shirts like this one and our community forum

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which you should totally join