3 Reasons NOT to Buy a $400 Laptop
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2018-05-06
·
1,529 words · ~7 min read
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so i signed up for dell's promotional newsletter a little while back because i
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bought something from dell and got signed up by accident thanks dell but
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every once in a while i do see something interesting in there
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a 200 laptop you say maybe that would be great for a back to
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school feature but our rep over there is a regular viewer
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so he was understandably hesitant to send us a base model of anything
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and said he'd prefer if we checked out the 400 version so
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this thing then well there are three compelling reasons
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not to buy it
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cyber power pcs lineup of gaming desktops feature Intel 7th generation
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core i7 processors check them out at the link below
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reason number one not to buy this 400
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laptop this 200 one the best part of the
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little blue inspiring p24t is the price
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the keyboard is pretty cramped the tn screen is kind of poop and it's far from
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fast but it does exactly what it needs to do
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and honestly exceeded our expectations for the price
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like come on this thing is hardly more than the cost
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of the included full copy of Windows 10
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and after a bit of practice i was able to type quickly and easily write word
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documents and forum posts with it thanks to the small but comfortable matte
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surface touch pad i mean i'm not sure that i'd want to use it to write up the
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script of my next big hollywood blockbuster but let's face it if i was
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working on stuff like that on a regular basis i would have more than two hundred
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dollars for my laptop usability wise i
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can live with the single tasking paradigm enabled by the two core celeron
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processor for the most part and i'd say the screen is the biggest bummer colors
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are pretty flat viewing angles aren't great and it doesn't get bright enough
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for use outside but if you plan on watching youtube videos
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or netflix it'll be good enough and i
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wouldn't go as far as to say it's actually terrible like other cheap
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screens i've seen before the only true disappointment came when
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we opened it up i was hoping that it would be possible
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to add a hard drive or SSD in the future and upgrade the RAM but they're both
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soldered to the motherboard with no expansion slots so i guess in a nutshell
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the best thing about this product is that there's nothing
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so bad as to make it a total deal breaker and at 200
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occasionally on sale for 150 that's all i can really ask for i can
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only really recommend it as a secondary
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computer if you spent all your money on a desktop this will work great when you
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need to go out into the real world god forbid
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but it still scrapes by with a recommendation so why doesn't its 400
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dollar cousin get the same treatment reason number two
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the inspiron p25t is pretty much more of the same
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and sits right around the amount of money that lots of people think they
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want to spend on a laptop but our problem is that we don't feel
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like they're getting twice the experience for something that costs
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twice as much upgrades on this guy include a 500 gig hard drive
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double the RAM a two in one capable touchscreen and a slightly better
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processor the issue though
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is that the 5400 RPM hard drive is slow
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as molasses and i mean maybe this is
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microsoft's fault but Windows 10 chugs
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on a mechanical drive
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simple stuff like switching modes
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hitting the start menu opening files or really anything is just such a slog plus
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with almost everything done on the internet now the need for large amounts
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of local storage is becoming
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very limited except in gaming rigs
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workstations or desktop computers with a large amount of
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storage because you put all your stuff on them so when you consider that the
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biggest problem is that we still need a
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primary computer just like the 200 laptop but without the
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practically disposable price tag to make it more palatable i mean to be clear
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tablet conversion and touch will be important to some folks and the
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performance is better but performance is
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better in a way that's only really noticeable if you compare them side by
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side like you're still buying the type of computer where you type in a web
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address and then you take a sip of coffee while it loads
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so what do we recommend then for someone who's on a budget but with more than two
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hundred dollars to spend reason number three for not buying this
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the inspiron p69g i mean sure this isn't the be-all and
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end-all of 800 laptops but it represents
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the kind of improvements in productivity that you can get by increasing your
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budget to the bang for the buck level everything gets an upgrade with a core
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i5 processor 8 gigs of RAM decent i o
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including HDMI and usb 3 an SSD and a
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full hd ips touch display
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it checks all the boxes that i would consider for a computer that i would
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actually recommend to somebody that i like provided they don't need faster
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than one by one Wi-Fi i do realize that eight hundred dollars
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is a big jump from four hundred dollars but these can regularly be found for
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under 700 and functionally speaking it's not even in the same ballpark as the
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other two it's not startlingly fast sure
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but i never got annoyed at it you don't have to worry about running out of RAM
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just from opening a few tabs and the processor is fast enough for some
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programming work some basic image editing matlab or even some light cad if
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you want to view small assemblies this kind of stuff is simply not possible on
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the cheaper laptops so for this one then the outside is simple but the keyboard
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is satisfying enough that this whole review was typed on it without annoyance
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the brushed plastic finish looks pretty smart and chassis rigidity is overall
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very good though i think the wobble on the two in one convertible touchscreen
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could be better and this model isn't available without it at the end of the
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day though the choice is yours battery life was decent across the board seems
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that problem has pretty much been solved with low-end laptops the webcams on all
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three were comparable and surprisingly good although Windows hello on the 800
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model is a really nice touch and all of them feature speakers that are
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comparable to a decent smartphone so not that great
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wrapping this up though honestly i don't really have a special
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relationship with any of these exact models from dell and the main goal of
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this video was to hopefully help you narrow down your search in terms of
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pricing and the features that we think
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matter when you're looking for a secondary laptop or a back to school
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machine so you don't want to spend too much
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but you also don't want to spend too little but then also spending even less
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might be even better than that optima is one of those brands that
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unless you've been seriously shopping for a high-end projector you might not
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have ever encountered but
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they're worth encountering now if you're looking for a high quality
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projector at two thousand dollars the optima uhd60 is not especially cheap but
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what it is is an incredible value up until now 4k projectors have been much
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more expensive and the uhd60 features an
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abundance of image quality technologies including high dynamic range
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compatibility for enhanced color and black and white
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dynamic black for amazing contrast and ultra detail for a clear crisp picture
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basically in a nutshell it's got stunning picture quality for movies
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sports and gaming with great color black
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levels clarity and detail pretty much no matter how big your
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screen is as to risk it actually does matter how big your screen is so bottom
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line it's a great bang for the buck with one of the best pictures available today
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lots of features including lens shift which makes installation super a lot
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easier and it's the best price per inch
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compared to any other 4k product tv or projector check it out at the link in
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the video description so thanks for watching guys if you
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dislike this video you can hit that button but if you liked it hit the like button get subscribed maybe consider
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checking out where to buy the stuff we featured at the link in the video description also down there is our merch
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storage has cool shirts like this one as well as our community forum which you
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should totally join