• 3 hours ago
Transcript
00:00Hey, how's it going? Dave 2D here. This is the third and last CES video that I'm going
00:08to do this year. Again, apologies for the not normal image quality being shot on a phone.
00:12Checked out the Asus event. They didn't have any amazing laptops. I mean, they had some
00:16refreshes and stuff, but nothing that I was like really amped up about. But they did have
00:20this really cool bezel remover thing. So for triple monitor setups, you know, you can normally
00:24see the bezels in between each monitor. Now they have these plastic bars that serve as
00:29lenses to basically hide those bezels. And it's actually very effective. You wouldn't
00:33think that something that was just a piece of plastic could look this good, but they
00:36put them on and it actually looks like a bezel free display. There's a little bit of distortion
00:40from the plastic lens, but it actually looks quite good. And it's weird how inexpensive
00:44this thing is going to be because it's just a piece of plastic and how effective it is.
00:48They also have this external GPU that looked really slim and sleek. It's just like a very
00:51narrow box for what external GPUs often are. But the thing that made this thing special
00:56was its price tag. This thing is going for $330 and it's actually one of the better looking
00:59external GPUs out there. So I think that's going to be cool. Now in regards to laptops,
01:03there were two laptops that stood out at CES for me. The first is actually an XPS 15 Tune
01:091. So it's not replacing their regular XPS 15, they're still going to have those. But
01:12this is the first Tune 1 that they've had for the XPS 15 lineup. Here's the thing, when
01:17I first heard about this thing, when I first saw the press release, I wasn't impressed
01:20because I'm not a big user of Tune 1 devices that are big, like a 15 inch Tune 1 device
01:26is going to be big. And when it's in tablet form, I thought it'd be pretty uncomfortable
01:30to hold and just not a great device for me personally. So I'm going to check this thing
01:34out with not particularly high hopes. But this thing is awesome. It's not great as a
01:39tablet, it's still not going to be a comfortable thing to hold. But this is excellent as a
01:43laptop and really, really good in like presentation or tent mode. It has this maglev keyboard
01:48that uses magnets to keep the keyboard really thin. So this thing has 0.7 millimeter key
01:53travel, which is really, really shallow. And you'd expect something with that short key
01:57travel to feel crappy, but it doesn't at all. It's not the best keyboard, certainly not.
02:01But when you type on this thing, it actually feels like a one to a 1.2 millimeter key travel.
02:05It feels really nice. It also has lots of USB-C ports with four lane Thunderbolt 3 support
02:09finally, which is great. The micro SD slot is a bit of a buzzkill. I feel like on a device
02:14like this, that's obviously geared towards creatives, it's weird to put a micro SD instead
02:18of a regular SD slot. It has pen support and because the whole XPS lineup tends to have
02:23a stiffer hinge, you can just write on it without the screen wobbling too much. Now
02:26I was only able to test it in 3D paint, which isn't the most optimized program. The thin
02:31strokes were fine. There's no latency. It's actually felt really good. But the thicker
02:34strokes with more complex textures and bigger brushes had some lag to it. They're running
02:39the new Intel chips that have 8th Gen CPU combined with the Radeon Vega M GPUs. It's
02:44pretty cool. I think that those will have performance similar to a 1050 Ti. I'm not
02:50sure exactly yet. We weren't able to benchmark it, but I'm excited to test that thing out.
02:54And I think one of the big advantages of this thing is thermals. The way that they've designed
02:58and engineered this chip should definitely help with thermal output. So overall, it's
03:02a pretty cool device. I have to test this thing more thoroughly to really give a final
03:05opinion on it, but I think it should be pretty good. They also have this Thunderbolt 3 external
03:09drive, which is, I mean, it's a really, really fast drive for people that need it. There
03:12aren't that many options out there for Thunderbolt 3 external SSDs, so it's nice to see them
03:16in the game. The last booth I got to check out was LG, and they have a couple monitors
03:21that are pretty neat. I mean, the one that stands out for me is the 4K Thunderbolt 3
03:25capable one. So now you're able to connect two displays, daisy chained to a single MacBook
03:31Pro, which is pretty neat. They also have a 5K widescreen panel that isn't curved and
03:35also uses Thunderbolt 3, so you can have that single cable setup, which is nice. Now, the
03:39star of the show was this thing, the new LG Gram. So if you follow my channel from earlier,
03:44I did one of the early reviews of the original LG Gram 14. It's such a cool idea, like a
03:50super, super thin laptop, super lightweight laptop, but I hated it. I felt like the thermals
03:54were bad, the build quality was poor, it just wasn't a good product. And this was like,
03:58what, 2015? 2016? They've improved on it year upon year, and it's gotten really good, but
04:05this iteration is frickin' amazing. So I feel like they changed so much on this thing, and
04:10basically listened to everybody who had anything to complain about the LG Gram, and made it
04:14what people wanted. It's still the same kind of design, but they improved on the build
04:17quality again, and this time it feels extra tanky. So this thing's actually been certified
04:21by the US Department of Defense or something like that, and it's surprising to see a device
04:26this thin and this light with that kind of certification. It also has a 72-watt-hour
04:31battery, and just to put this into perspective, XPS 13, Razer Blade Stealth, those have batteries
04:36in the 60-watt-hour range, just like the previous LG Gram, but this new one is 72-watt-hours.
04:40I mean, quick math, that's like, what, 20, 25% better? That's a significant improvement
04:46in battery life. It has Thunderbolt 3 support, although I'm not sure if it's 2 or 4-lane.
04:51They've improved the webcam location, like instead of being in the middle and the hinge
04:54looking up your nose, it's now at the top in the more traditional spot. They have slightly
04:57better speakers, they have a better location for the fingerprint sensor, and they now have
05:01two drive bays inside, so for people that want extra storage, you now have that option.
05:06Visually, it doesn't look that different, but in the short amount of time I get to spend
05:09with it, I think it's going to be a great laptop. I think it's a significant improvement
05:12from the previous generation. Okay, last video at CES. Hope you guys enjoyed them. Thumbs
05:16if you liked it, subs if you loved it. See you guys next time.