Podcast Ep. 3: Our Take on the New MacBook Pros, Yogas, and Gaming Laptops

[00:04] And boy, do we have a big show for you guys. And I've had a ridiculous amount of energy drinks, so I'm so hyper. >> [laughter] >> Um we are actually on Spotify now. Um I will post the link below.

[00:17] We heard that people also want us on like Apple Music and things like that. this is as I said, going to be a big show. What we're going to cover today is posted our video on it. Uh we're going to cover the other MacBooks. We've got a

[00:32] going to release actually before this one, but we'll give us some quick about the MacBook Pros. We've done a huge amount of work on testing the MacBook Pros. In fact, we actually, I think, bought pretty much every stock

[00:46] config with every different type of CPU and every different size to really go, hopefully, very far deep and really tell you which one should you actually buy. laptops we've got coming in. There's some really exciting ones. Mhm. And I

[01:00] will talk a little bit about the the processors, the Arrow Lake refresh, um one. Yeah. So, big big episode. And we're trying to do it in the next, what, half an hour to 45 minutes? Yeah, we'll see.

[01:14] today, Josh? That's a good question, Sierra. Forgot to mention that. That's a >> I am using the MacBook Air, and I think this summarizes uh my thoughts on the Air. It's so much better than I thought it

[01:28] much of a look cuz I do find the keyboards a little bit low travel compared to the Pros. And I like a really nice keyboard. But I must admit, I'm really enjoying how portable this laptop is. And with the M5

[01:41] chip, it's so fast. Even the M4 one is very fast. I just hadn't really given thing I don't like about it is I certainly notice that the IPS panel, it isn't It's a great IPS panel, but it's certainly coming from an OLED or a

[01:55] mini LED. Yeah. It doesn't have that kind of vibrancy to it, but I'm really liking it. That's awesome. I mean, I know that you You had like kind of warmed up to the M4 Air like just before we had returned it or something

[02:08] like that. But um I I'm glad you're getting to give it a a good try. Here. >> Yeah. And what about you? Um I'm on the Surface Laptop 13, which is the cheaper one, not the Surface Laptop 7. And that's because I'm looking for a 13-in

[02:21] laptop that fits into my new bag that I bought. So, um we're going to try it out and see if I like it. Otherwise, I'm sure we have other options that I them. Um it's funny cuz I think this leads nicely into the Neo because this

[02:36] laptop was the one or both of these, actually, were the ones that we said buyers should be seriously looking at buying instead of the Neo. Mhm. Um Especially if someone's budget had that extra like one to $200, I think these

[02:49] were generally better options in our opinion. Yeah, that's right. I mean, this one I certainly used it and I used the Neo. It just doesn't It just feels a little bit faster, doesn't the Neo? There are times and maybe if the

[03:02] notice the the slowdowns. But certainly, when I use lots of different laptops, the Neo certainly, at points, felt I just didn't have that snappiness. I mean, how did you find it? Yeah, I actually I didn't really have an issue

[03:15] with it. Um at least for the things I was doing. Um you know, my office work. And I do I would say like mid-range intensity Excel work here uh with like lots of pivot tables and lots of rows of data. I mean, we have like 600, 700 rows

[03:31] of data. So, it is a little bit bigger for Excel. Didn't have an issue at all. for Excel. Didn't have an issue at all. Um I I really liked it. I thought um I honestly I just don't like the color you guys got it in, but um I would have

[03:44] taken like the the lavender or the or the blush or whatever it was. But I did [clears throat] that kind of use. >> Yeah. Yeah. And I think this is great Cuz that's what what we wanted to talk about. And I think what Sierra is

[03:59] really about the first point I wanted to mention is argument in the office about >> for sure. Yeah, about is this a good laptop or not? And Ethan and I absolutely hated it, which is really

[04:14] weird because Ethan uses the MacBook Air. He uses the M2 MacBook Air, guys. always I wouldn't say never wants to upgrade, but we've offered him the M3 they're all all the same. They all You know, for his kind of stuff, it doesn't

[04:27] really matter. For him to not like the Neo, that's like wow. And I obviously didn't like it because for me, I felt for that kind of money, you're just running such a huge risk. And I remember when we went and gave laptops away at

[04:42] ASU, our university here in Arizona, um we met a young lady who had, funnily couple of years ago, which was very underpowered. It was like a U chip from like 12th or 13th gen Intel, that is. And

[04:56] she was really She She She really struggled with it for performance tasks for students in in a university setting. So, I felt very much at risk. And I think then when I spoke to you and Seth, who were very positive on the Neo, Yeah.

[05:10] we ended up taking a re-look at the whole video. We actually the video you see live, we kind of canned the original video. We're not canned it, but massively adjusted. Yeah. >> Um and I think I think that's because

[05:22] bases. And I think that's what we went with in the video is there who the Neo is great for. And um I I

[05:34] think that might even be most people, right? Like the average person. But when Neo is heavily marketed towards with discount, I do agree with Josh that you are running a bit of a risk because I

[05:49] know the kinds of applications I used to have to run at university. Some of them were tougher than you would expect. I know sometimes there's like monitoring tests. Like there's There's more than the normal office and um Yeah. Chrome

[06:04] usage. Like what I was talking about works really well on it. There is a lot a university, even for basic disciplines. I really want to jump in on this one. When I was doing my MBA, and and this

[06:19] computer science degree. And I was at MIT. The MBA that I did for the business course, Mhm. for our rudimentary statistics or one of our courses for on

[06:31] business major, Mhm. we had to use um we had to do have 16 needed to run, which [clears throat] obviously won't work on the Neo. So, to your point, it You don't need to be in computer science. Even as a business

[06:45] major, I couldn't use the Neo. Now, And yeah, for for my aunt or my grandma or >> maybe great. >> Yeah. But But I I do worry about the university advertising specifically. And this is where there's a difference. You

[06:59] before, right? This is where there's a difference in the office, and that's why I think for you guys, we try to weave that now into our videos to say, "Hey, there's there's alternative opinions here." Like for me, I think I agree a

[07:13] good number of people the Neo, if that's your max budget, is probably better than >> qualifier is in my head when I'm saying that. If that's your budget, for the But I do think there's a lot of people that are going to be tripped up, and I'm

[07:27] very worried We've gone to like the floor of Best Buy or Apple, and I buyers there are. That certainly, even if if anyone's buying it at Apple Store, generally speaking, you probably

[07:40] because if you go to like a retailer, you can discount, which aren't at discounted at the Apple Store. So, even by shopping at already a problem. >> Yeah. And um not not saying I don't

[07:54] It's nice that people can try out the laptops and all that. But the average knowledgeable. And I think there is a lot of people who are going to be sold one of these Neos kind of thinking they're getting a MacBook,

[08:07] and they're going to be tripped up. And I, you know, I know you and I were kind of And it's nice that we can talk about this Yeah. Um um here, but I think I was for us some peo- I think these are going to generate a lot of e-waste, me

[08:19] personally. Right. And I understand what you're saying with that. I do think there's going um I think we disagreed on the e-waste point specifically just because I think there will be a second life cycle of these devices for people

[08:31] who have lower computing needs, right? Like university realizes it's not good enough for them. Maybe they do let, you know, a family member who doesn't have heavy computing needs. So, in my mind, I'm thinking that

[08:44] there there still will be a life cycle for these. But I still agree with all of your hesitations, right? I agree with the way it's being advertised, the fact that it's MacBook, like all of these things

[08:56] really could trip people up. And And And I think that's where we landed with the video was that as long as that warning is there, as long as like you know, if your needs change at all or if you're not sure at all, it is not the

[09:10] right choice. >> got it. Yeah. And this, I think, um be really transparent with folks about cuz I'm trying to improve here. Mhm. negative about the Neo from day one, right? I want to explain myself here.

[09:25] When I see a product, particularly in our space, Mhm. that is so overhyped to the cows come home. I mean, this thing was I've termed this thing I was telling our friends at Best Buy this, hype tubers. Yes. That what I'm referring to

[09:40] as a hype tuber is someone who's like, "Oh my gosh, the Geekbench results are 20 or 30% faster. Oh, this is crazy." Like the people who do that, that even have any benefit to what you're doing on a laptop to begin with. But to

[09:53] doing on a laptop to begin with. But to see so much of that with the Neo, I felt that just to pull the to give people like a balance I had to pull things back a bit. So I had to be a bit tougher that like let's say the pendulum

[10:05] swung here with these hope tubers I had wanted to be here which is a more negative to try to pull things back. And I've heard that feedback and I think I need to be when I present to be just truly my

[10:18] opinion and ignore that kind of noise. Yeah, I think having the blinders on is because we want to try to educate people beyond our videos, right? And you're trying to help people

[10:32] that and I understand where it's coming from. >> So so I do get it and I think I think again where we landed ended up fine, right? Having a warning about it watch out for reviews like this but here's our

[10:46] opinion and we're actually quite even-handed about this. I think I think >> Yeah. Yeah. I think the only thing we're missing and I think talking about that before and then putting together some of the comments is

[10:58] Chromebooks that in the case that that you were referring to which is really you know your basic use people and particularly students of high school and junior school is that what you call

[11:10] it in the US? Uh elementary school here. There we go. The Australian in me. For them going from a Chromebook to a Neo is probably a pretty nice step up, we should have probably mentioned in the video and we I just honestly forgot

[11:23] about it because we don't really cover Chromebooks yet we'd like to but we it in our article actually because we had discussed it at one point. So in our article online you'll see that I say this is really compelling

[11:37] outside of that it's a little less compelling and here's why whatever but that we forget about in the videos on our articles online as well. Yeah. So covered the Neo at length now. >> Yes,

[11:52] going to give a little bit more depth because as I said probably going to be out by now but I would say there's a couple of key takeaways here. The Air M5 to the what surprised me most was if you jump up to the MacBook Pro with a base

[12:05] M5 chip, right? There isn't that much difference for most performance cases to because that the MacBook Pro has a fan to keep it cool it actually performs better but what I found when testing this thing in a variety of different

[12:18] circumstances you hit the kind of the max performance of the M5 before you need the fan in this. And yes having the fan running it at at almost double the watts

[12:30] it's less helpful than I would have thought. And I think the difference I was actually originally thinking the reason the same chip cuz I know some people are

[12:42] comparing the two is that the MacBook Pro 14 has can perform better and it has some other things that are better like the ports and the display but having and seeing that the M5 is kind of it's not that well suited even in the MacBook

[12:55] Pro in that you should be deciding between this and based on stuff like do you want the better screen of the Pro and the ports. That's how you should be doing it not the chip. So that surprised me.

[13:09] about this actually I'm going to tell you about the thing that didn't surprise me. Okay. This is the best I think all round laptop that most this is what I think most people should buy this one. >> Right. I think that the base model is

[13:23] better this year. Funny enough the difference between M4 to M5 not that big where M5 actually really does better than M4 tends to be on the GPU side not like programming or casual web browsing guys you can save some money if you can

[13:36] find an M4 Air on sale basically the same thing for you. The other benefit of the M5 Air being the Wi-Fi 7 not that different to the Wi-Fi 6 if Wi-Fi 6E in the M4 Air before reason

[13:48] being that Apple didn't fully implement Wi-Fi 7. They're missing that 32 hertz band which means that the fastest Wi-Fi 7 you're just not going to get that with much difference with Wi-Fi 7 to 6E on the Macs.

[14:01] Air which I think actually matters quite a lot is previously the cheapest model of storage. What would happen is for $100 more you get a get it as a custom config through Apple.

[14:16] almost never discounts their laptops but at a retailer you could often find these Airs for $200 off. However to get 512 gig of storage you were forced to buy a MacBook Air which had the 10 core GPU not the 8 core and that additional

[14:30] storage and that was $200 more. So you were bundled stuff that you didn't need. Where now because the base model comes with 512 gig of storage it by itself is perfect for most people and now you can find that config with and it's got the 8

[14:43] core GPU for $200 off. So you're not forced a lot of people just didn't need using an Air they're just using it for basic office tasks or student work. They don't need that GPU. And so I think allowing people to get

[14:57] our recommended config now as as I said as a stock one that you can get a discount on that's actually going to help quite a lot of people. Yeah, I I would agree with that and and we've even seen them go like on sale pretty

[15:09] frequently from what I remember. Like our little price tracker probably shows infrequent thing to find a MacBook on sale. Yeah, on that note actually just people mentioned how you can you compare an Air on sale or an older Air to a Neo?

[15:24] an Air on sale or an older Air to a Neo? Well pretty simply A the MacBook Air is about $1,000 or $1,100 right? At least the config I like which is the base config. We at that price range we often see laptops going on sale for $200 off.

[15:37] probably only going to see discounts of like 50 or $100 right? Because it's a much cheaper laptop. So this one will get closer to the Neo I believe than than you'd expect. The other issue of course and the reason we compared the

[15:51] an older MacBook Air that you can buy. There's many of them. Whereas the Neo Yeah, I mean how much did you pay for the M3 like 650 7? Yeah, I got the M3 last year. This was when the M4 was the latest so before the M5 was released of

[16:06] course. I got it with the 16 gig 512 gig of storage. So yeah for about about 650 7 I can't remember. Right and and so we're speaking from that perspective but that regard is maybe we won't be seeing those sales as

[16:21] much. I don't know if they're like moving away from that base on the price of everything. So I mean we're hopeful that those sales continue but I guess that maybe they won't be as frequent as they used to be.

[16:34] same price which is from a lot of what we're seeing this. Windows laptops are just through the roof. Yes, yeah. I I was telling someone today that I think based on Apple only going up about $100 or $200 or whatever and everybody else

[16:49] going up like 50% their prices have almost kind of come down in the mark in scheme of things. Um obviously they have not come down but if you consider the fact that the price of everything is going up Apple not changing at the level

[17:03] I think they become a better value than they previously were. fantastic. >> not even a big fan of Apple or whatever but I do agree with you that the Air is probably best for most people. I think

[17:16] earlier when I was speaking on the Neo I again had that for the budget in my mind or like good enough, right? Not so much that it would be my recommendation. So >> Yes, yeah. So hopefully I think this

[17:30] review. So I've got breaking news here. I'm going to summarize what we found and talking a lot in this video. I did most of the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro reviews and Sierra's doing most of the kind of some of the Windows laptops at

[17:44] bit later. So here's the thing. First of all as I which was extremely expensive and we bought like the M5 Pro the 15 core or the 18 core the Max chip in the 14s the 16s we bought three of them. So we can

[18:00] really compare them. The moral of the story is this. I personally think the 15 core is by far the one to get and that's the base M5 chips and I think most people are going to find that plenty powerful perfect for

[18:15] it's pretty good for video editing all that And by the way I just want to say this is different to my recommendation last year. Last year and the prior year I was always recommending the higher of

[18:28] because it came with 1 terabyte of storage not 512 gig and a lot of people using Pros need a bit more storage. Now about for the Airs that you would previously have to buy that as a custom

[18:42] config from Apple which would mean that you know that you a retailer but if you buy it from the retailer you're forced to pay there was models. Now there's only a $200 difference

[18:55] between the and I'm pointing to this one but a MacBook Pro with the 15 core chip the difference you're paying for. So you can actually find that base model with a config I like 24 gig of memory and 1 terabyte of storage

[19:10] you can find that as a stock config at a retailer and get it on sale. So a lot of people buy that will save $200 where they were forced to kind of spend more before. So that I think is a positive.

[19:22] higher tier models with the Max chips they now come with 2 terabytes of have to order them as a custom config and with those Max chips MacBooks by the way guys the sales at retailers were very considerable like $400 off and I

[19:37] remember when I bought the Max chip in the MacBook Pro 16 the M4 Max the higher I was like I really want 2 terabytes of storage because if you're buying that kind of computer you're probably doing high-end creator work Mhm. video files

[19:51] you need more than 1 TB of storage. And I really wanted two, but I'm like, I can't forego losing that $400 discount at a retailer to do a custom config at Apple. Right. So, I think it's particularly good that the these Max

[20:05] standard, so you can get that discount. That's a beaten dead horse for that one. Now, for programmers and anyone who's heavily using the CPU, not GPU, so people like that, um for you guys, there is no point going

[20:21] higher than the 18-core Pro chip. The reason is those Max chips, they really use the same 18-core CPU component, which you guys need. It's the GPUs that are different. The only thing that those have that you might want is the faster

[20:36] task you're doing, it's a rounding error of difference. but but I think for programmers in particular, and speaking, I was a programmer for myself for a lot of my career, the M5 Pro with the 15-core, the

[20:49] base one, is more than enough. You don't need to step up to the 18. In fact, I that the M5 Pro 18-core, particularly in the just shouldn't be bought. I don't think there's a reason to get it. In the

[21:03] MacBook Pro 16 this year, that is the starting CPU, so you just don't have a choice that for of which M5 Pro to get. Now, for video editors, here's what I found. For our videos, you can edit pretty smoothly off them M5 Pro 15-core

[21:20] so long as you run at half resolution. If you run at full resolution and you're doing playback from the timeline, it can be a bit stuttery. Just to be clear, we Our timelines, I would say our videos are probably medium complex in the grand

[21:34] stitching together a family video, pretty simple. complex. We're probably about middle of If you move up to a Max chip, there's no issues at all. It it was completely

[21:46] smooth even at full resolution, but I think, as I said, M5 Pro good enough for stick. Which the 14 did better than we thought it would, Yes.

[22:00] That's a good point. Um it did. We were expecting, guys, cuz just so you know, the MacBook Pro 16 have a much larger charger Yep. the exact amount? I think >> 140 versus 96, I think.

[22:12] And we saw it feeding that processor, the 16-in that is, around it's pretty You can raise feed it 15 watts more power thereabouts. At least this was in CPU tasks. But when we looked at, and this

[22:26] is again, the same CPU in the 14-in chassis and the 16, and we tested both the Pro chips, the the 18-core one in each of them, and then the base of the two Max chips in each of them. Mhm. We were surprised it was very few times was

[22:40] the MacBook Pro 16 faster than the 14, and if so, it was pretty de minimis. Yeah, yeah, I don't think that we we would recommend the same thing that we used to, which was avoid the Max chip in the 14 at all costs or whatever.

[22:53] >> I think the biggest difference that you should be deciding on is do you need the extra screen size and battery life. The battery life is much better in the the The 14-in with the Max chip actually doesn't do the best in battery life.

[23:07] with that much power, it's fantastic. >> Of course, yeah. >> But you do it's like the base M5 chip performs the best for battery, lasts and the Max is down here. Now,

[23:20] um and that's in the 14. The 16s do fine with battery no matter what you put in only people who do really need to consider a Max chip are high-end video video editors who can really get the advantage of that second media engine

[23:33] course, people doing anything 3D related, because those extra GPU cores Blender, whether you're gaming, something like that. But and this is so But that being said, with gaming, it was pretty still pretty

[23:49] disappointing. Yeah, I mean, ultimately, AAA gaming is not happening on a Mac in like a It's just not. Yeah, it's just not at that level. Um I I think light gaming

[24:02] is completely fine, and and even Cyberpunk does run now on these higher-end chips. But I think calling a spade a spade, guys, if you're getting a Max chip in a MacBook Pro, you're paying at least $3,000 plus. You can get a much

[24:17] better gaming laptop for that that just crushes it. Yeah. So, I think gaming is >> you could get a desktop that is Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It's just it's a it's a You know, I think the only negative I'm seeing with this year's M5 Pro and

[24:31] Maxes, um is the battery life is a little worse than it was before. Mhm. It battery life in in two categories. For light tasks, like office work and stuff doing on battery, we're seeing a little worse battery life. Now, funnily enough,

[24:47] the M5 Pro 15-core, it lasts around the same for battery as the M4 Pro with the higher of the two chips, one from last year. Mhm. But remember, the M4 Pro model, I've used that as my daily driver for a year. Right.

[25:01] battery is much more degraded than the new one. Right. So, the fact they're kind of similar says it or the M5 Pro did a little bit worse. Yes, so there's a little bit of a degradation. Where we don't see a degradation though, is in

[25:14] performance tasks. The power efficiency is almost identical Mhm. with the M4 chips series to the M5 with one exception. Mhm. On the 14s, you see the show the power efficiency graph. But with the 16s,

[25:29] power, you don't see them at the same kind of like efficiency line as when those chips are in the 14. Yes, yeah, we saw it more to come on that. I think we haven't

[25:42] to probably talk about that in the 16-in video, which is going to come a little >> Yeah, yeah. All right. So, I think you're up. Let's talk about Strix Halo. Yes. Um I have to say, I was so disappointed by

[25:55] the TUF. I think Strix Halo is a really cool concept. I it does still perform better than Panther Lake in many regards. Still super compelling for a But it's just too expensive still. It's it's

[26:09] out of the I would say average price range that I would want a creator to be shopping in or like a mid-level gamer to be shopping in. I mean, I don't think you need to spend more than $2,000 on a laptop. So,

[26:22] I think even if it came in at the same price as last year, only only a little bit more, like 1,800 or something, I think that wouldn't have um stung as much as it does at the 2,200 number. But you were saying in other regions, it's

[26:35] >> Yeah, I think there's two great comments we've seen from viewers on this. Mhm. One was that one, right? Where he said I think he was in Spain, and he's like, it's much cheaper here, and you can get the 64 gig of memory version. Okay. And

[26:49] chip, because one of the special things about them, yes, it has a super powerful GP- a CPU and super powerful integrated GP, similar to like a 4060 gaming one, special about them is you can get them with up to 128 gig of memory. You can

[27:04] assign a su- huge amount of memory to the GPU, and it's wonderful for doing like AI AI work. Right. Can run much bigger models. But the one in the US only has 32 gig of memory, so it negates that. Right. Where this

[27:16] viewer was saying that A, yes, it's much cheaper in his lo- location, and B, it comes with 64 gig, which I think makes it we our video would have been very >> If it was cheaper than the old version with So, in that circumstance, yes, it

[27:30] would have been more positive. Um because I think making the TUF approachable for people is kind of the goal in my opinion of like a mid-range laptop. And when you say cheaper than the old one, you know, the reality here

[27:43] is the old one comes with a 5060, at least in the US. Yes. And it was so and it Exactly. It performs better, and it was $700 cheaper. the next comment that a viewer made, which I thought was very good, is like,

[27:56] laptop's just announced? They always go I want to address this. We know that, and we automatically factor in we think like this, we think something like a $400 sale is is probably what it's going

[28:12] to go. Mhm. But it's still going to be more expensive than than the 5060 model, >> Right, if it's going on sale and hitting the MSRP of the prior model, at best, that's still not very good. Right? So, I think um yes, we always consider sales,

[28:27] but I think there's also something to be said for the fact that we're putting out the people that maybe are trying to buy it before a sale happens, right? So, to person. >> would just add to that as well, that we

[28:42] are trying to, I would say, almost fight this pricing scheme that we see a lot in Windows laptops, more so than MacBooks, cuz MacBooks tend to go on sale for like $200 off for a $2,000 model, 400 for a three or four thousand. Windows laptops,

[28:55] they come out and they go on sale for like $400 to $500 off. They're basically their MSRP is a completely fake price. Anyone who's buying from it is is being misled. And we're trying to fight against that. So, by calling out laptops

[29:08] like the TUF that are coming out with a high stupidly high MSRP, we're trying to say to these Windows manufacturers, "Stop doing this. It's either tricking price, or it's just annoying people having to wait. People might want to buy

[29:24] today, but they know a sale's coming, so they're waiting." Right. Yeah, so this is probably a much bigger conversation about MSRP and misleading pricing and the way that retailers are kind of manipulating you. I mean,

[29:37] right? Advertising and all of that is is trying to make you make a decision that um makes them the most money. So, that's probably a much bigger that's probably a much bigger conversation anyway, but at the more

[29:51] micro level, I think it's our job to call out the things that we at least have control over and can help people with Yeah. as much as possible, which is, you know, the space we're experts in. So why don't we stick on the gaming

[30:04] gamers can get one big section of this video of this podcast. >> Yeah, of course. So we're seeing a Arrow Lake HX refresh, and that one we don't coming. We haven't had a laptop here with it

[30:18] getting some in. Obviously, we'll be doing a big video one about I think you come in, we go above and beyond and try to really show how it performs versus other chips, the older HX ones, and what AMD has, what what Apple has, what

[30:32] Qualcomm has, etc. We'll be doing, you know, beautiful scatter plots as well, power efficiency. Other than that, on the gaming side, we are buying the new Blade 16 with Panther Lake. I'm very excited about that one.

[30:46] Even though the Blade has been a thorn in my side, I need to be transparent with people. It is the other than the MacBook Pro 14, it is the laptop I've used the most. >> It for over the last 12 months or since

[30:58] since I got it. And it's the one that I carry to work every day. You see me using it in the office. And I need to be honest, there's a lot of things I like some thorns in my side, which are annoyances that she hears me swearing

[31:10] about a lot. Yeah. But like for instance, plugging in external monitor, that that thing particularly via a a dock, it flickers on and off, and it it really annoying, but I've put in

[31:23] swap laptops because there's so much I like about it. I like its size to power ratio. I like its keyboard. I like the display. not the ports with the dock, but the ports in general, the port selection. So

[31:37] 16 with the Panther Lake chip. The biggest issue I think with Razer other than some of their buggy software is really been battery life. Mhm. And see much better battery life. >> Yes. So I'm we're absolutely getting

[31:53] that one in as fast as possible. I think the next one and maybe you could speak a Alienware's. We're getting those in, too. Oh, yeah. So we should be getting an update to I'm actually the most excited about the 16X Aurora because

[32:07] that was kind of on the more budget mid-rangey side. And um I say that and then I'm looking at it right now, it's $3,000. >> [laughter] >> Well, um it was on on the more budget

[32:20] side, mid-range. It might go into sales in um in a more reasonable price bracket. I'm not sure. But originally, it was um a more mid-range laptop. And a little bit more power in it. They're putting the um

[32:34] Arrow Lake refresh in it. I know a lot of people are really excited about the >> Yeah. >> Um the anti-glare OLED display is a huge upgrade for both the Aurora and the Area 51's.

[32:47] I would go as far as saying particularly in the 18-in Area 51 cuz the 16-in gets quite warm, but the 18-in still gets warm, but not as warm. That was not having the OLED display was probably the thing holding it back from

[33:01] being the outright best 18-in gaming laptop. Well, I have horrible news for update. >> Oh, no. Yeah. Yeah, so the only the 16 got the update for the OLED screen and the Aurora. So clearly, their

[33:16] display, whatever it is, they're probably using the same 16-in panel on those two, and they probably haven't found an 18-in panel to upgrade it with found an 18-in panel to upgrade it with yet. Ah. So why don't we move on to the

[33:29] spending you're doing the review on the two. Legion 5's have been by far one of there. Yeah. If the MacBook Air is the sweet spot for most people who are the Legion 5i from last year was the sweet spot for most value-for-money

[33:44] gamers. Yes. Yeah, and I don't think we've seen the pricing on the 5i yet. But it is still a great laptop. It performs pretty well. I kind of like the lock better, though. I

[33:59] think in this generation, I think the 5i is not as special as it was because the actually performs a little better sometimes. Um >> And the lock is smaller now. And the lock is smaller. So uh the Legion is

[34:13] still, I think, 15 I think they're both 15.3 now I'm actually wondering, is the lock like was there a 15-in lock before in some regions, and we just got the 15-in for the first time recently? >> was almost always 15.6. Ah, so it is a

[34:28] >> Yes, so 15.3. >> lock is now more compact. It has the It's going to be cheaper. They just fixed almost every part of the lock that good. >> budget Legion. Yeah. Yeah. And so I I

[34:43] think the Legion maybe just the five specifically is not as special as it used to be a little bit, but that's like my early take. We also had an issue with our 5A, and we're waiting to get another one in. So that review is going to take

[34:58] longer than we expected. >> The A is the AMD version, which much cheaper. Panther Lake versus current gen AMD, the 400 series is ridiculous. >> Yeah, we haven't gotten the testing in

[35:11] Yeah, so let's just round out what else we got coming in just to give you guys a heads-up. The Yoga Pro 9i, the new fully redesigned one is here. I'm really it's got the centered keyboard now. It doesn't have the number pad. It

[35:26] laptop. I'm still finding some things that I don't like. It only has USB-C ports on the left side, not the right. Like, come on. The MacBooks have had that for years, but I'm I am really enjoying it with Panther Lake. It's

[35:38] day or two so far. Seth's been testing it. The Yoga Pro 7i, which I think is the magic device a lot of people are going to really want. It's like if you guys are unaware, that's like the 15-in version, which is new from from Lenovo.

[35:53] So this is the Yoga Pro is really designed for creators, but I think a lot like programming, like to do a bit of video editing, or gaming it's going to quite portable. It's noticeably more portable than the lock, obviously.

[36:09] bit of a comparison. I think it's more portable, for sure, than the Legion 5, for you guys. >> very excited about that one, though. Yeah. The seven. I I think that's going to be a killer laptop this year, but

[36:22] a review. We'll hopefully have it in like probably about 2 weeks. Yeah. And that are coming in, I think it's really we've got a lot of Lenovos coming in. we've got a lot of Lenovos coming in. The famous Slim 7i Ultra Yes. which was

[36:36] year for casual users on the Windows side. We have ordered one. We haven't seen it being delivered yet or being being shipped yet. We've ordered that. available for order are not the X chip, the one with the better GPU. It's the

[36:52] CPU, which is a cut-down version of the Lake. But the reason we've still ordered that, better GPU, is because we think that

[37:04] life, and we want to have a comparison to the Dell XPS 14, which is our current The Dell XPS 14 that has that excellent battery life, it also has the less powerful Panther Lake chip, but it has like a 1920 by 1200 display, and we also

[37:18] don't like the Dell XPS 14's keyboard. Mhm. So if the Yoga can match that battery life or get close to it and have a Lenovo keyboard Bingo. Yeah. Other than that, we have the Slim 7X we've ordered, which is the new Qualcomm

[37:31] That one I'm very excited about. The Slim 7X was our best-performing Qualcomm though it doesn't have the most powerful Qualcomm chip, it still performed better than the ones that did. And it was just such a great all-around laptop. We've

[37:44] the A14 and A16 from ASUS. >> Yes, the Zenbook. >> Yeah. Um that's going to be the X 2 Elite, I think. Elite Elite Extreme. powerful of that Qualcomm one in it. Yeah.

[37:57] And then finally you've got a phone review coming. Yes. Um so Josh asked everybody in the office if they were interested in in um reviewing the new S26 Ultra. I have

[38:11] the oldest phone in the office. I have the S22 Ultra, which is now 4 years old. And so I was like why not? Let's do it. I'll I'll try it out. Um I'm really liking it so far, but the early spoiler, I won't go into it too deep, but the

[38:25] early spoiler is that if you have an S22 and you really don't need to upgrade, and yours is fine like mine was, probably not as big of a deal as you think. It's it's still a great upgrade, but I I'm getting like a bit of a

[38:39] discount by working here. I don't think if I had that dis if I didn't have that worth the upgrade to me. I'd probably wait until security updates and all of that started dropping off, to be honest.

[38:51] Yeah. And just on that note, I want to cover two things that came to mind. Mhm. One is we're still trying to be a laptop channel and be want to be the best, right? >> yeah. That being said, I think it's

[39:05] the tech that we use and how we feel about it. I think that's helpful. So we're not right now this year trying to get into phones in a reviews are not going to be at the level of our laptop reviews. No, the testing's

[39:18] casual use. >> Yeah, like we were talking the other day battery test next to a bunch of other phones. There are already other only get into that space if we had something to add. So for now, it's just

[39:31] really about the tech we're using. And the other one I was going to mention that's more of a like a perk that we're trying to do for for for for members of of the the right? That's, you know, we're trying to help out people buy tech

[39:43] their opinions of it. >> Yeah. to keep quickly update people on it. I actually bought the Samsung S26 Plus. love them. We've been so busy with laptops, I was

[39:58] like, I can't get to it in time. I ended up returning it. Also, I must say I've liked the iPhones better than I thought. I stick by my comments about the iPhone 17 being the one to get. That being said, being transparent with everyone, I

[40:11] do find it a little bit heavy in my not for watching content, certainly the bigger screen size is better. But, I do little bit easier. I don't have to stretch my hand to different areas of

[40:25] the the phone. And also, I just feel the better battery life of the 17 Pro versus the 17. 17 is not bad battery life, just to be clear. But, the 17 Pro, if I don't safe. Mhm. I can get through a good part

[40:38] relief for me. And so, I've just found that a lot of things are working very well on Apple that my car's Apple Apple Auto Play. connects better wirelessly than Android Auto did with my old Samsung phone. I

[40:52] probably will get an S26 Plus and do a review on it, but we have so many the pipeline. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Um >> Just in time. Yeah, I think let's just

[41:06] >> Just in time. Yeah, I think let's just do our outro. Obviously, you know, check That's where you'll find all the laptops that we recommend um for different types of users. And hopefully, it's very easy to use. We've got a lot of benefits of

[41:19] the different retailers that are selling a particular laptop, the different trackers there, price drop notifications. We try to simplify the kind of filters that you're going to want to use. We make them easier, like

[41:34] CPU or GPU, we don't just give you a list, we kind of group them together based on their performance tier. And we've got some good news for you. Canada is live on the website. We are currently in the process of adding

[41:48] India, yay! And India's a big one. We're also adding, and this I think is super cool, we are working on a scoring for each laptop, which will have a score based on how we test. It'll be broken down into 10 components, like CPU like

[42:01] CPU performance, GPU, heat and fan noise, battery life. You'll be able to see how the laptop can performs across each of these components. You can even see a drill down to see, "Hey, how did we calculate that?" Mhm. Like, you know,

[42:14] have backlight or PWM? You'll be able to see all that data on the website. And then, we'll have one score, but what's super cool, depending on your use case, the score will be weighted to different components. So, it might have a general

[42:28] gaming score, we won't care as much performance. >> Right. So, that is coming soon. It'll be it. >> Yeah, I'm really excited about it, too.

[42:41] Quite good. We're very grateful for all the support. Thank you. Yeah. All right. What do you think? Should we end? I think we're good. We'll see you end? I think we're good. We'll see you in the next one, guys.