Apple wishes they made THIS! - Samsung Smart Monitor M8
ShortCircuit
·ShortCircuit
·2022-05-05
·
3,310 words · ~16 min read
0:00
- Monitor TV, monitor TV. Monitor TV, monitor TV.
0:04
Neither. Get both. Samsung Smart Monitor M8.
0:08
And from here, I'm gonna call it the mate, 'cause you can't not, at that point.
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This is a smart monitor. And I know you've probably used a lot of smart TVs over the years,
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but you probably haven't used a lot of smart monitors. There's actually not that many.
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The M7 is the predecessor to this guy.
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I'm actually not too sure on what's new about this one, but we've got a 32 inch screen, it's 4K.
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I think it's a 60 Hertz refresh rate panel. They're using Samsung TIZEN in or TIZEN,
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it's their own operating system, it's not Android TV.
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Terrible. I miss just a little bit of tape. Ooh, it's like Christmas.
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Well, like I said, there's an operating system, so you can actually have this on its own,
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and then use a few very simple programs. Like I think it comes with Office 365,
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so you can like open emails and write Word documents, and all that stuff, open Excel, whatever.
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And it should be able to handle that. So, there is some processing power going on, and so I'm not too surprised
0:59
that there's a beefy external power brick. Ooh. Yeah, it looks like herring bone.
1:04
Herring bones when you've got those like two pieces of wood, and they go like this, and then this, and then this.
1:08
You've probably seen it in floors or like a wall, or something. So, this goes in like that,
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but this bottom part here should go on like this. So, then, one minor complaint that I have already
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is this doesn't use the handy dandy tool list screw
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that a lot of monitors on the base have. I haven't had to use a screwdriver for a monitor review
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in like, or unboxing in forever, so let me get something.
1:31
It's a nice screwdriver, but not as nice as the LTT screwdriver. It's not out yet, and it's taken its sweet time.
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But I tell you when it comes out, it's gonna be great. It's sign up and get notified,
1:39
same with a backpack. (laughs) It's actually pretty light.
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Okay. That was fine. Are you ready for the unveiling?
1:49
♪ Ta-da, da ♪
1:52
Look at that? I haven't even seen any of it, does it look nice? Yeah, it looks pretty nice. Yeah, actually kind of, they're pretty thin, ay?
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If you are into Apple products- - [Andy] Ha.
2:01
- You'll probably like this. - [Andy] Ha, this is better than the Apple one.
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- You think this is better? - Yeah. - I guess the chin's smaller, ay? Who would've thought that such a minor feature
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that's been around for ages, would all of a sudden, be worth like what, $400?
2:15
Is that what you have to pay to get the height adjustable stand, 400 bucks?
2:18
(Andy laughing) Come on, gimme a break. This thing is super thin.
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It's 11.49 millimeters at the thinnest point.
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Honestly, here check it up from the side. It's all in the stand, like where it connects to the stand,
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where it gets a little thicker. What's this? - Dude, look at that?
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Is that a power connection? - I have no idea.
2:35
It's like hard and flat. Oh, it's the webcam. Okay, so that's what the magnets' for,
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so you connect it from here and then it goes somewhere. I'm not sure where, it just magnets right to the back here.
2:45
I actually really like this. This is the slim fit webcam
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and it's 1080p for video conferencing and stuff.
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1080p is perfectly fine, like no one's gonna complain. This is super neat.
2:56
I found the connector that goes with this, so it's a little like USB-C to whatever this connection is,
3:02
I actually don't really... It's like a mag safe connection or something. You can actually adjust it a little bit too.
3:07
Not a ton, but it can like move around and stuff, and you can even, or slide it down a tiny bit.
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It also has face tracking. So, if you're one of those kinda people who wiggles around in your seat a lot,
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or you get up and you're doing like a more active presentation
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and you're moving around and stuff, it'll track you a little bit as you go. So, I unboxed all the power cables and stuff.
3:23
And obviously, this isn't gonna work for us, so Jono went to get a new cable.
3:27
But I noticed the remote that comes with the box, it's a smart monitor,
3:30
so you're not gonna usually have something hooked up to it. But you get a remote for it so that you can,
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you know, put it on your counter and chill and use a remote to do stuff. It's got like Netflix button, Samsung TV Plus,
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Prime Video, and Disney Plus. Other than that, it's pretty basic. You got a home button, you got a back button,
3:46
you got a play button. If you buy this in north America, it's gonna come with the right cables, don't worry.
3:50
It's just, we tend to get a lot of products shipped directly from China or Korea, wherever.
3:53
The other cables are pretty nice. They're these off white gray kind of.
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I don't know if the other colored one come with colored cables.
4:01
I really hope they do. This gray kinda works with everything admittedly.
4:05
But, oh my God, if I bought a blue monitor and then it came with the blue cables, oh!
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We've got a little bit of IO here. Micro HDMI
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- [Andy] Micro? - Yeah, Micro. - Why? - Actually, yeah, it is micro.
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I don't know why they couldn't fit it, there's plenty of space here. Two USB-C, I think one also gives you
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45 Watts of power delivery. That's another minor complaint. I really wish it was 60.
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45 will do most like notebooks and stuff. A heftier laptop is gonna want 60,
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even 90 would be really nice. I really wish they'd been able to fit USB-a port.
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They were probably just a little dead set on getting this thing to be super duper slim.
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This thing does have speakers. Like it does work like a smart TV. Like you can go to Netflix and watch TV on it,
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and it has its own built-in speakers, so you don't have to worry about having an external stereo setup or anything like that.
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On top of the IO, it's well, I guess underneath the IO,
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it's got this handy dandy navigation nipple that we've been liking on pretty much every monitor.
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Honestly, if they use the buttons, at least a point off. Like you gotta use this navigation nipple.
5:01
It's just handy, it goes in any direction, easy to press, easy to navigate, love it.
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There's this little bar down here, and I think it's for the remote. I think it's like an IR thing,
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but I'm not a 100% sure. - You need to stop this. - Whoa. You need to stop, it's time for tech.
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Screw ShortCircuit. - Whoa, whoa, whoa. It's TechLinked time. (panel booing)
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- [Riley] I work so hard here. - And screw TechLinked.
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- Plus, subscribe. Describe - Yeah, Subscribe though. There's lots of news, you'll never miss anything.
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I mentioned that it's got a micro HDMI port, and we're like, "Who the hell has a micro HDMI cable?"
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Well, they do include one, which is nice. So, it's got HDMI regular on one side,
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and then micro on the other. So, don't, you're totally set.
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They're not gonna make you go and buy a $20 cable as soon as you've paid.
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How much does this thing cost? I mentioned that it's 4K and I mentioned the camera,
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but I haven't mentioned the price. It's $729.
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That's not bad for a 32 inch 4K display, it's only 60 Hertz, but you know?
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- This is really beautiful. They have great design. - Height adjustment, not $400.
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'Cause it's 32 inches- - 32-inch, 4K panel 4K is what? 180 PPI or a 100- - It's like 130.
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- 130 PPI. - And MacOS looks horrible
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at a reasonable desktop scaling with- - I wouldn't say it looks horrible.
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- I remember when Apple did stuff like this. (Jono laughing)
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- Yeah, I thought it looked like an Apple charger. It looks like a Mag safe charger, right?
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- It's so easy to put on. If you're security minded, like it has a cap,
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like whatever, you just pop it off. Oh, you got a web call?
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- Boom! - Subscribe. Yeah, subscribe to Mac Address. - Hey, Jonathan, if this thing has high adjustment,
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then the panel is only $300. (Jonathan laughing)
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- Oh they're like smart TV, but monitor- - Yeah, smart monitor. You did them seven last year.
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- Someone finally did a magnetic webcam. - Yeah. - When did I first ask for that?
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In like a laptop review of some sort? - [Jono] think so.
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- It makes so much sense. - I know. Its even got a little privacy cover. - Look at that? - Yeah.
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I'm doing everything the hard way today. Yeah, backwards, does that turn on?
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(exclaims) Samsung. "Hi," "Ola," "Pozdravl," "Perdhendetjel," "Salut."
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Sure. Let's try the smartphone. How do I do this? "Check your notification with a QR."
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Okay. So, location, my home. Room, living room. Sure.
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Next. "If the screen is off, turn it on using the remote." Well, it's on.
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So, how do I go to the next step? Oh, I just tap it. "Connecting your screen.
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"Make sure your phone or tablet is near your screen, so they can connect." Okay. - Look at that- - Ooh.
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It's doing it. Yeah, "Your screen is being registered
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to your Samsung account." What do we name our device?
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But I'm calling it the Monitor Mate, 'cause it's your mate. Right, mate?
7:32
"Choose which a voice assistant you would like to help control your smart monitor." So, you can use...
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I'll spell it like Linus does. So, you know actually activate any of your stuff at home.
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It's got big- - [Jono] Bixby - Dammit, Jono. It's got B-I-X-B-Y.
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I forgot about the Y, A-L-E-X-A, I'll choose later option,
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so you can just choose later. I'm gonna go with BIXBY 'cause we're using... (beep) I just said the name.
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(panel laughing) - [Jono] Does it have "Hello (beeps)"?
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(panel laughing) - "After you finish setting up your smart monitor,
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(phone beeping) the settings you choose will be backed up
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to the Samsung Cloud." Okay, to identify an external device such as a cable box
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connect it to your smart monitor, and turn it on. That's cool, you can connect this thing to a cable box.
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I mean, it kinda makes sense. It's basically a smart TV in a monitor.
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Enjoy music on Spotify, so you can add apps and stuff to it if you want to like Spotify,
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I don't have Spotify, so sorry. (whispers) 696969, all done.
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- [Jono] Really? - "Enjoy your Samsung smart monitor."
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(bright upbeat music) "Enjoy your smartphone on your TV simply by tapping."
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Oh yeah, you tap it. I saw Linus do this in the other video. (phone tapping)
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(smart monitor beeping) - Oh, my God, it worked. - Okay, tap it.
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(phone tapping) That didn't do anything. Where did it go?
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Netflix. Hit the Netflix button. Hey, "We'll be right back after this break."
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What break? I don't want to go on a break. Like I said, it's a smart monitor, right?
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So, there's a bunch of stuff just built-in. You've got like Netflix, Disney Plus, Samsung TV.
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YouTube's already installed, Prime Video, Apple TV, Spotify.
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DAZN, Internet, Plex, (tape fast-forwarding)
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BritBox by BBC. Okay, that's it. I thought that list was gonna go way further.
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That's still a ton of apps, honestly. ♪ Check the web cam out ♪
9:12
Oh, cool. Here, what if we put it over this way?
9:15
Oh, my God, you're seeing the secrets of our set design.
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That's pretty good. - [Jono] It actually kinda looks better than the Apple one. - You think so?
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- [Jono] I'm just really biased right now. - So, that's maxed up.
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(upbeat music) It's probably doesn't sound good for you guys,
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because it's going from here to a mic, and then to your own personal speakers,
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but like that's a lot of volume. For a little display like this,
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that's more than enough for your kitchen, or your office, or your bedroom,
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or honestly, even your living room. (upbeat music)
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There's like zero base, unfortunately. So, it's the one complaint.
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But honestly, like who cares? You're not not using this for a big music experience, right?
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You want it for news audio or like here's your TV show,
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or here's your cooking show that's on at the moment. You just wanna hear them clearly.
10:03
And that's gonna do this for you every time. That looks pretty good if you ask me.
10:07
it's HDR 10+ support, and that supports up to like 4,000 nits brightness.
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This doesn't do 4,000 knits brightness, it just has support for it.
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Even with our studio lights on, like it was nice and bright. We're turning stuff off now
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to kinda give a better representation of what your own living room or kitchen
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would actually look like. Obviously, it's not OLED, so the blacks aren't gonna be like as black
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as they could be. Yeah, it's got adaptive picture modes. If it gets too bright, like it senses light around you,
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and then it'll be like, "It's really dim. We can like dim the lighting as well." There's a Home button which will take you to home.
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There's no... Like I wanna see the settings. It's got a filmmaker mode?
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I can't guarantee how color accurate that is. I'm not testing it. But I guarantee you, if you're gonna watch
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any kind of movie on this thing, set it to Filmmaker Mode, it's almost definitely the most accurate preset on the TV.
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Please, don't use vivid. Picture Setup, brightness, contrast, sharpness, color, tint.
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Your Filmmaker Mode is gonna set all that stuff for you. It's actually nice how it doesn't lock it.
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Normally, a lot of filmmaker modes or IMAX, they'll lock all the other settings.
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They're like, "No, we're correct. You don't wanna touch this." But, I mean, sometimes you do, just a little bit.
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Standard Sound Mode. Ooh, Equalizer. Okay. So, you can send NiQ to this thing?
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That's actually really cool. What? Yeah, you can send NiQ, so that's actually great.
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Honestly, if you wanna listen to music on this thing, don't get me wrong, the bass isn't great and everything,
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but you totally could. That's actually super cool. You don't like these speakers?
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You want something better? You want something with bass? Boom, hook it up to your Bluetooth speakers,
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and you're good to go. I'm not the hugest fan of the Samsung smart TV UI stuff,
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but it's snappy and responsive. It's a lot faster than most smart TVs that I've used.
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Yeah, learned more about it from our Techquickie. What's the Techquickie on? You can do multi view too.
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Look at this? It's got two Windows. I can do like news here, but then boom,
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you wanna keep checking stuff out? It's like a TV, and you can even change the screen size. Ooh!
11:51
- Woow - Wow. - Yeah, that's actually really cool. Listen to this sound from two screens though.
11:55
Like that's pretty cool. So, you can turn audio off or on on one of them,
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and/or have them on both. It actually comes with Office 365.
12:03
So, we're gonna plug in some peripherals. To connect your stuff, you just go to Connection Guide,
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and then there's a bunch of different input options. You go to input, we're gonna use a mouse.
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So, Input Device, go to... Not us USB mouses, but it's nice that these are all options.
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Really, makes it really handy to troubleshoot. Found it like right away.
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Pair and connect. Hey, that's super cool.
12:24
Okay. So, the mouse is clearly working. Does this have like a built in keyboard though?
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That'd be really nice. Yeah. Okay, so I mean I could search like this. Can I use the mouse for this?
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I totally can. That is actually super easy. It's not gonna get one, 'cause it's a TKL.
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- It's built-in. - Heey. All right, so that took a little bit, but it worked.
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As you can see here, if you wanna use a Windows PC, or a Mac, or deck
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to just hook up through your phone or something, you can totally do that. We don't even need...
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You don't even need a computer. We've got a keyboard and an mouse hooked up to this thing.
12:53
No problem. It does take a little bit of time to start up everything.
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You're not using a computer, you're using a smart monitor. You know, you're gonna click an app
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and it's gonna take a few seconds to load. But that did take that long,
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like that was totally fine. (typing) "Brown fox jumped"
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I mean, okay, this is really bad. (laughs) Not the monitor of my typing.
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That's pretty quick. It's not instantaneous, it is taking a second
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for like all my texts to come up on screen. But honestly, you could totally write out a document on this
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and/or work on it or something. I don't think it's that much worse than using like to remote into your PC
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or something like that, and then work remotely. (typing) "I like ShortCircuit."
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- [Jono] One word. - Two words. - No.
13:36
- (laughs) There you got it, guys. This is the Samsung M8 Smart Monitor.
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It's 4K, 60, it's got super thin design.
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It looks pretty good, and it'll do just about whatever you want,
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unless you're trying to like game on this by itself. But even then, you gotta game and PC hook it up, it'll game.
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It's $730, which is pretty fair considering all the things you're getting for it.
13:58
This was a lot of fun. I actually really like this thing. I probably wouldn't buy
14:02
'cause I don't have a need for it personally. But if I had a bigger house or something, and I wanted like a hub computer
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that I can just search stuff from and whatever, 'cause I don't like tablets very much,
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this would be a great addition to like a living room or a kitchen.
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Thanks Samsung for sponsoring this video. And if you wanna check out any other Short Circuits,
14:17
check out the G7. If you wanna look at a monitor
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that you could do a bit more gaming on instead of production and browsing the web.