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I try to be unbiased I really do but the truth is I came into this review

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desperately wanting this notebook to be the one my Neo because it promises

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something that's never been delivered before a teaser for the upcoming Yeti

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Pro review no we do that all the time no

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I'm talking about the full portability of like an ultra class type form factor

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device with the gaming capability of a desktop and even some upgrade ability to

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boot putting it in the tough position where the only possible results are the

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Deep satisfaction of the longtime desire being finally fulfilled or the

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disappointment that follows when said desire rips a gigantic fart right in the

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middle that kills the whole mood so which one is it

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we'll have to start with a physical tour of the portable components by itself

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because while alone it doesn't redefine a product category anything and it

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certainly doesn't justify the price tag by itself it's a pretty darn fine little

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notebook packed into this thin astonishingly light magnesium aluminum

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blend chassis is a core i7 4870hq quad

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core processor 16 gigs of RAM 256 gigs

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of raid zero SSD storage Intel Iris Pro 5200 Graphics a really nice 13.3 in

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matte finish IPS 1080p display which only needed to be touched to be perfect

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for me and a 47w hour battery that lasted for 2 hours and 25 minutes in the

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PC Mark 8 work battery life test on the left of the unit is a lock ventilation

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Port USB 3.0 and discrete headphone and microphone jacks a nice touch for a

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gaming notebook around the front is this kind of weird

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illuminated strip thing that I personally think looks pretty cool but I

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think should be possible to turn off since the rest of the notebook is so

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professional and non- gamery looking by comparison on the right is an SD card

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slot another USB 3.0 Port an HDMI 1.4b

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port a killer gigabit Ethernet Jack and a power input for the unremarkable but

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reasonably sized included power brick the only Improvement I'd probably make

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to I/O would be mini DisplayPort instead of HDMI and maybe another USB 3

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Port if it could be done the keyboard is

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white LED back lit with a stiffer than

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usual tactile feel to it but reasonable key travels I rate it okay uh the layout

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is solid with no cardinal sins committed and my only real complaint is that while

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somehow it bothered me less than on the Dell X ps13 I reviewed recently you can

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watch that here by the way there is a lot more Flex in the deck than I like to

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see giving it a mushy feel when you bottom out your keystrokes improving

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this might add some weight to the chassis but it would make this notebook

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feel much more premium under my fingers while working on it and while Ms SI at

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it $22,000 notebooks need glass touchpads the XPS 13 taught me that too

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flipping the unit over we find not a whole lot some vent holes and a metal

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bottom plate that reveals unfortunately downward firing speakers and fortunately

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easy access to two sodum slots and the storage upgrade slot while we've got it

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open seems like a good time to show off the obnoxiously loud cooling solution I

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really wish a better job had been done of this even under light loads this

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notebook is not very quiet and the proprietary interface connector that

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sticks out the back and makes the whole desktop Graphics thing possible because

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that's right we missed the back of this notebook where there's another vent and

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these plastic flaps that fold back to plug this baby into a desktop Graphics

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box now total biscuits initial reaction to

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this thing on Twitter is one that I bet a lot of you share I mean wtf man it's

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basically the size of a single GPU gaming desktop anyway so what's the

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bleeding point and the point of it is that this is pretty different from any

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other gaming desktop or notebook out there for someone who wants to buy one

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device that they carry around with them a lot and then normally only use for

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lightweight tasks but then can without actually owning two full computers dock

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for the full desktop gaming experience this is a pretty compelling little piece

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because with how little development there's been in CPU performance of late

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and how little is on the road map most of this machine will actually keep up

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fine possibly for years to come with only graphics needing a shot of

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adrenaline now and then and that's what this box does and a bit more too just

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like a normal notebook dock you get ample data connectivity for the right

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side iio over here so next to that 92 mm intake fan is a four port USB 3 hub gigb

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Ethernet and audio jacks that you can just leave permanently plugged in

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there's a power button over here and a plug for the 450 W included power supply

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that powers everything inside and the doc's notebook so you don't need to fuss

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with your power adapter on the other side but you also get a PCI Express gen

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3 16x link and SATA 3 6 gbit per second

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so while I could take you on a full tour of the outside of this thing there

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frankly isn't much you haven't seen already there's an MSI logo on the mesh

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front that conceals a speaker that's functional if not particularly immersive

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since it only comes from One Direction and that's pretty much it let's take

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that piece off and find out all that cool stuff inside ah yes here it is

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inside the dock is room for officially any MSI graphics card you desire or any

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reference AMD or NVIDIA design and realistically most other ones it's not

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locked down in anyway there's also a power supply the one I mentioned before

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a 3 and 1/2 in Drive Mount so it can be plugged in here then screwed in here and

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used for up to 8 terabytes of game and mass storage um anything that you don't

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need with you when you're on the go and finally the custom PCB that powers the

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whole thing now one little trick I did find was to flip this fan control switch

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to low since it only makes a couple of degrees difference under load but I

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would like to see a more elegant solution next time around because it is

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freaking loud on high and honestly that should be speed controlled anyway by the

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system there needs to be some communication there and I mean while I'm wishing for things with how big this

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dock is maybe the option to have a single PCI e6x or split adex adex for

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some other expansion card on the next rision would be nice and maybe some

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smart ducting for a larger 120 mm fan so

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that it forces air into the laptop docked on top of it so it doesn't need

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its own cooling fan to unleash an Unholy wine upon my ears when I'm gaming which

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I guess leads us pretty well into the usage experience doesn't it

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it's loud like the CPU fan in the notebook overpowers the fan in the dock

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and the graphics card underload but with that aside the gs30 shadow is simply put

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awesome you do have to shut down

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every time you switch Graphics configs so here we'll we'll we'll do this live

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this is kind of an interesting little demo here Boop whenever you want to

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switch Graphics configs so for the first time ever I actually care about boot up

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speed and thankfully it is is shockingly

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fast and that's not the only thing that's fast about it I mean the machine

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absolutely flies even with the CPU over

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90° in some tests it turbos up to 3.5 to

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3.6 GHz in games which puts it on par with some pretty capable desktop CPUs of

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course you've got to pay to play without

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a dedicated graphics card for the dock it's over two grand and then you've got

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to buy one of those Pro tip for you guys by the way get a reference card using a

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rear exhaust 980 at the same clock speed as the MSI gaming 980 that they sent me

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resulted in higher GPU temps by 6° but still under the throttle point but 5

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degree lower CPU temps thanks to less um

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heat energy being transferred from the dock up into the notebook so much more

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reasonable CPU temperatures a worthwhile trade which leads us to the conclusion

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the gs30 Shadow from MSI is the first of its kind I mean yes there are janky DIY

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Solutions and yes Alienware also has an

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external graphics card box that works with a handful of its notebooks but MSI

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is different to me because they're the ones that I believe are doing this the

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way that I want it done with a lightweight legitimately super portable

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notebook rather than something that's already a gaming laptop and already has

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a gaming graphics card in it but it's

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got some first gen Growing Pains cooling needs to be quieter Standalone battery

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life could definitely be better and I'm sure that MSI can tune the base to be a

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bit more compact or offer some additional functionality but with all of

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that said this is a great start and I'm hyper excited about the future of a

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technology that I've been eagerly awaiting for years now speaking of the

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future of technology today's episode sponsor Ting has just reached a whole

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thing is they're a mobile carrier that's focused on customer service and customer

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satisfaction first when you call Ting customer support actually talks to you

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instead of a robot you actually get through put through directly to a person

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it's like blowing my mind right now you also pay only for what you use so the

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average Ting bill is only about $24 a month and if you're stuck in a contract

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now and want to switch to Ting they'll cover 25% of your cancellation fee up to

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75 bucks but hold on a second is it even a good idea to switch to Ting you don't

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have to figure that out on your own just go to lin.com which is linked in the

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it tells you if you'd be saving money on Ting and it takes the guesswork out of

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it so I think that's pretty much it thanks to you guys for watching thanks to our sponsor Ting like the video if

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and as always don't forget to subscribe