**Samsung Chromebook Review**
One thing I will give Samsung: this is very easy to open up. So if you'd have a little like knife or something just to pop these feet up, what you'll see that there are only four screws holding the back panel on. I'll just say there's almost definitely zero reason to ever do this. There's no way there's anything upgradable inside a Chromebook.
Inside, the grand reveal is - (laughs) So this is our logic board. This is just an extension for the two ports here. We have two little speakers, and what is a 39-watt-hour battery, so a very small battery. This is 100% meant to be a smaller device that's like that wide, and they just, (snickers) they just designed it to fit.
**Gateway Laptop Review**
Now, we weren't originally planning on talking about this in the video, however, if you can stretch your budget just a little bit by about $100 or so, you could potentially get this. So this is a little bit of an unusual laptop. It is a Gateway laptop that, as far as we're aware, is exclusive to Walmart online. However, at $350, take a look at these specs.
It is night and day difference compared to something like the Chromebook or the HP Stream. We've got a full Ryzen 5 processor. (bell dinging) We've got 256 gigs of storage, (bell dinging) eight gigs of RAM, (bell dinging) 1080p, USB-C. (bell dinging) I mean, there's a lot going for something which, yes, is certainly more expensive, but considering the trade-offs you have with those cheaper systems, is it worth spending another $100 to get what could potentially be a far, far better system?
**Gateway Laptop Keyboard and Trackpad**
I think we all know the answer to that. All right, I haven't seen this yet. It's green! (plastic rustling) You know what, I'm a fan of the green, although the logo looks kinda weird because it's like white on silver, so based on how you're looking at it.
Oh, I like that, though. It actually looks kind of like Aston Martin Green, except it's just plastic. (knuckles tapping) Oh, geez, that keyboard looks terrible! Wow, hang on, let me try this. (keys clicking) It's not quite as bad as it looks, but that is definitely bottom-tier of laptop keyboards I've ever used.
**Upgradability and Cooling**
So to put this in context there is a very popular Acer Aspire 5 that for a very long time has been one of if not the best-selling laptops on Amazon, and that has a worse processor and is typically $50 to $100 more expensive than this. So we can forgive some of the flaws, whoo! (screwdriver whirring) All right, first question: what is under this? I am assuming it's an empty M2 drive.
It's probably full, actually, realistically. Oh, it's empty! Is it gonna be that easy to upgrade this with a second SSD? 'Cause if so, I am super-impressed. All right, let's pop open the rest of these screws. Oh-ho, boy, that's empty. (laughs) Oh, wow, wait a minute!
Yo, yo, yo, some good stuff in here! So obviously, they could fit a bigger battery, but not only do we have our empty M2 slot, we also have one extra SO-DIMM. You can easily bump this from eight gigs to 16 and probably even 24 gigs of RAM if you want, and you have the one SSD here, which is already installed, but you've got the easy access to the second slot here.
As simple and as basic as this is, for $350, I'm very impressed with the upgradability. Now, one concern I have is cooling. So a Ryzen 5 processor is not super-demanding, but that is one very small heat pipe and very minimal-looking fan. I would not be surprised if we run into some issues.
Yeah, let me see if I get really close, I can hear it. (relaxed rock music) Where is the speaker? This is max volume! So this is what the webcam looks like on the Gateway laptop, and I think the less said, the better. This is (oof) terrible!
I'll say immediately, plug in a mouse, this feels so much better. This trackpad is just not good. Like, it's just not good. Let's see what we can do with some hardcore Minecraft gaming. (laughs) Look, man, Minecraft is still fun.
Well, if you've seen our \
WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: en- Today, I am buying thecheapest laptops I canto answer one simplequestion: should you go outand buy something that's super-cheap,or does it make sense tospend just a little bitmore money and get amuch better experience?Spoiler alert: yes.(air whooshing)So this is the HP Stream.(bubble popping)This laptop cost me $220,but I've done videoson previous versions of the Streamthat cost as little as 180 bucks.My biggest question, takinga look at this laptop,is a really simple one: whydoes such a terrible laptopthat is so old still sell so well?This is one of the mostpopular laptops in the world,and yet, is it really that differentthan that laptop I took alook at seven years ago?I don't think so.I forgot how long it takes toset these things up. (laughs)It's okay.Look, when you'respending $200 on a laptop,patience is something thatyou definitely require.Do you see this?Like, can you get really close here?There's a group of dead pixels right here.You see that?- Yeah.- Well, that's a great first sign.(relaxed music)(adhesive hissing)You know, one of the interesting thingsis the battery is actually fairly large,but it's super, super-narrow.I mean, like, that's a pancake battery,and then underneath here would be our CPU,which does have a littlecopper heatsink on it.That's it. There's nothing going on here.There's literally no reasonI can think of whatsoeverto ever take apart your HP Stream,but science.(tool clattering)To better understand wheredevices like the HP Streamcome from, I think it'simportant to take a look backat where these all got their start,the dark days of netbooks.(person screaming)This is an ASUS Eee PC,and if you were aroundin the late 2000s, youknew that these netbookswere absolutely everywhere.They offered a couple of thingsthat no one else couldreally touch at the time.First of all, they wereincredibly affordable.This was one of the latermodels back from 2012,but even the earlier modelswere only around $300,which was far and away cheaperthan any other full Windowslaptop you could buy.The other benefit they really had goingfor them was the size.With a 10-inch display,they were absolutely tinyand really quite portable.Now, there were otherultra-portable laptops backin the day, but the problem was was thatif you wanted something thatwas around the same sizeas an Eee PC, you're spending a lot more.Instead of a few hundred dollars,you're spending $1,000, $2,000.Think about like that earlyMacBook Air, some of the VAIOs.They were very expensivesystems, so there was certainlya contingent of people whoreally just wanted somethingthat was ultra-portablethat could fit in a bag,but I would say, thevast majority of peoplewho were buying netbookswere doing it purelybecause of the price.They weren't really good at anythingbesides being a very cheap computer,and when you look atthis beside the HP Streamof today, there are a lot of parallels.So what exactly can youdo with the cheapestnew laptop you can buy?Well, you have to put itto the test, of course.The thing with HP Stream,well, we're lookingat a 1,366 by 768 display, which meansit's essentially just barely above 720p.Let's see if the HP Stream can stream 4K.(key clicking)Hello, and welcometo Wishtery Tech.Let's buy some dumb stuff on Wish.The item I see are both-I'm actually pretty impressed!We're playing back 4K YouTube no problem!(bell dinging)(hands swishing)Let's get some Minecraft action.Just trying to, like, look around slowly.Minecraft for phones runsmuch better than this.Oh, God, no, we, no, no.(buzzer blaring)I actually don't evenknow if this will run.We may have just installedValorant for zero reason.I'm getting a few secondsper frame right now. (laughs)I think the game just crashed. (chuckles)(hand thudding)(alarm buzzing)We are now recording usingOBS on the HP Stream.I'm gonna just take a guessand say that the qualitythat you're looking atright now is terriblebecause I look at the screen,and it looks terrible,and we're also using the microphone builtinto the HP Stream, which I'mgonna guess is also subpar.At this point, it ispretty clear: the HP Streamcan handle some very basic tasks,but ask it to do anythingremotely demanding,and it falls apart quickly.I think the real benefitto buying somethinglike an HP Stream is less sofrom the consumer standpointand more from the Intel, the Microsoft,the HP standpoint because when you lookat some of the decisionsthey've made with the HP Stream,I really think that this is a laptopwhich is designed to bejust barely good enoughto fight off something like a Chromebook,but not too good to thepoint where it eats into someof the higher-end laptopswhere they actually make money,and this is not a laptopthat is designed for 2021.This is a laptop that is less powerfulthan a smartphone from 2015, right?I mean, that is not acceptablefor a full Windows laptop.I don't care what the priceis here in the year 2021.This video is sponsored by stamps.com.As life starts to get back to normal,there's lots to look forward to,but one thing that canremain a thing of the pastis standing in line at the post officeand paying full price for postage.With stamps.com, you get the servicesof the US Postal Service andUPS right to your computer.Whether you're a smalloffice sending invoicesor an Etsy or eBay shopsending out orders,stamps.com has you covered.You get discounts of up to 40% post officeand up to 66% off UPS shipping rates,and with their Switch and Save feature,you can quickly compare carriersto find the best rates every time.Print official US postage24/7 for any letter,any package, any class of mail,and anywhere you want to send it.Once your mail is ready,just schedule a pickupor drop it off, so whatare you waiting for?Stop wasting time goingto the post office,and go to stamps.com instead.You can use my promo code AUSTINEVANSto get a special offer thatincludes a four-week trialplus free postage and a digital scale.Best of all, no long-termcommitments or contracts needed.Again, go to stamps.com,click on the microphoneat the top of the homepage,and type in AUSTINEVANS.Huge thank-you to stamps.comfor sponsoring this video.To get a good sense forwhat kind of systemsyou can buy at this budget,my next task was simple:how does a similarlypriced Chromebook stack up?So when it comes to a Chromebook,we actually do have more options.They have actually somefairly expensive Chromebooks.This one's 629 bucks,but I think I found it.Look, it's a MacBook Pro 15-inch.- Samsung's finest right here.- It's 249 bucks!And mind you, it has, like, no ports,and it also is very, very lightweight.Literally nothing inside, butif you want a larger display.I mean, it's certainly notfast, I can tell you that.So Celeron processor, which is fine.Four gigs of RAM, not great, fine,but you get an HD display.I really wanna open this up.I feel like it's gonnabe almost entirely emptyon the inside.So what have we gottenwith our Chrome OS money,our Chromebucks, some might say?A certainly larger device than what we getwith the HP Stream.I mean, a 15-inch display,while I'm personally a fanof smaller laptops, that is anadvantage for a lotta people.(bell dinging)Whoo! (laughs)This weighs nothing!(packaging rustling)This weighs actually nothing, wow!- It's 'cause it's all in the cloud.- (laughs) So we havea USB-A, a USB-C port,and a second USB-C portas well as microSD.I actually really like the ideaof being able to plug in on either side.It's like what you get on, like,some MacBooks and some higher-end laptops.No matter which sideof, like, the power plugyou're on, you could just plug it in.It's super-easy.The screen goes actually pretty far back,not flat, but, like, pretty far back.All right, so with ourChromebook up-to-dateand charging, a few notes.The screen is fine.So it is 1080p; however, it is clearlya fairly low-quality TN panel, pretty muchwhat you would expectfor this kinda price.It's usable, but it's onlyusable if you're dead-on.- A tense French Grand Prixwas ultimately decided by a penultimate-- Sounds a little crunchy.- But the defining momentof the race really happened- Turn it down a little bit though.- many, many laps earlier.- That's totally fine.- And amoment that surprised us-- Looks good, sounds decent.(key clicking)Okay, so so far so good.(bell dinging)There's an OEM folder,including Lightroom.Do you wanna try Lightroom?- Sure.- All yours.- So this is actually a photothat I took of my new Supra.- Flex!- Flex.I took this with portraitmode on my iPhone,and Creative Cloud actuallysunk this over the cloudinto Lightroom over here,which is kinda cool.My only hesitation here, though,is that this monitor,the TN panel, is not particularlycolor accurate at all.So I can do my photo tweaks on thisand get somewhat close to somethingthat I would call decent, but I would wantto check this on my phone tosee if it actually looks good'cause the screen onmy phone is definitelyway better calibrated than this one.Also, the graphics are definitelyglitching on me right now.- Are they really?- The UI is, it's having problems,and you kinda see, like,you see a little bitback there?- It's really hardfor me to see on camera what the screen-- Well, I mean,look at all that flicker.- Oh, yeah!- That's not hard to see at all.- So the pre-installed Lightroom app,not looking super-hot.One thing I will give Samsung:this is very easy to open up.So if you'd have a littlejust, like, knife or somethingjust to pop these feet up, what you'll seethat there are only four screwsholding the back panel on.I'll just say there's almost definitelyzero reason to ever do this.There's no way there's anything upgradableinside a Chromebook.Inside, the grand reveal is- (laughs)So this is our logic board.This is just an extensionfor the two ports here.We have two little speakers, and whatis a 39-watt-hour battery,so a very small battery.This is 100% meant to be a smaller devicethat's, like, that wide, and they just,(snickers) they just designed it to fit.Well, the more you know!Now, we weren't originally planningon talking about this in the video,however, if you can stretch your budgetjust a little bit by about $100 or so,you could potentially get this.So this is a little bitof an unusual laptop.It is a Gateway laptopthat, as far as we're aware,is exclusive to Walmart online.However, at $350, takea look at these specs.It is night and day differencecompared to something like theChromebook or the HP Stream.We've got a full Ryzen 5 processor.(bell dinging)We've got 256 gigs of storage,(bell dinging)eight gigs of RAM,(bell dinging)1080p, USB-C.(bell dinging)I mean, there's a lot goingfor something which, yes,is certainly more expensive,but considering the trade-offsyou have with those cheaper systems,is it worth spending another $100 to getwhat could potentially bea far, far better system?(lips smacking)I think we all know the answer to that.All right, I haven't seen this yet.It's green!(plastic rustling)You know what, I'm a fan of the green,although the logo looks kinda weirdbecause it's like, it'slike white on silver,so based on how you're looking at it.- Oh, I like that, though.- It actually looks kindalike Aston Martin Green,except it's just plastic.(knuckles tapping)Oh, geez,that keyboard looks terrible!Wow, hang on, let me try this.(keys clicking)It's not quite as bad as it looks,but that is definitely bottom-tierof laptop keyboards I've ever used.So to put this in contextthere is a very popular Acer Aspire 5that for a very long time has been one ofif not the best-selling laptops on Amazon,and that has a worse processorand is typically 50 to $100more expensive than this.So we can forgive some of the flaws, whoo!(screwdriver whirring)All right, first question:what is under this?I am assuming it's a empty M2 drive.It's probably full,actually, realistically.Oh, it's empty!Is it gonna be that easy toupgrade this with a second SSD?'Cause if so, I am super-impressed.All right, let's pop openthe rest of these screws.Oh-ho, boy, that's empty. (laughs)Oh, wow, wait a minute!Yo, yo, yo, some good stuff in here!So obviously, they couldafit a bigger battery,but not only do we have our empty M2 slot,we also have one extra SO-DIMM.You can easily bump this from eight gigsto 16 and probably even 24gigs of RAM if you want,and you have the one SSD here,which is already installed,but you've got the easy accessto the second slot here.As simple and as basic as this is,for 350 bucks, I'm veryimpressed with the upgradability.Now, one concern I have is cooling.So a Ryzen 5 processoris not super-demanding,but that is one very small heat pipeand very minimal-looking fan.I would not be surprisedif we run into some issues.Yeah, let me see if I getreally close, I can hear it.(relaxed rock music)Where is the speaker?This is max volumeSo this is what the webcam lookslike on the Gateway laptop,and I think the less said, the better.This is (oof) terrible.I'll say immediately, plug in a mouse,this feels so much better.This trackpad is just not good.Like, it's just not good.Let's see what we can dowith some hardcoreMinecraft gaming. (laughs)Look, man, Minecraft is still fun.Well, if you've seen our"Building the Perfect Minecraft"video, it can still bepretty demanding, right?I mean, we were flexinga 3080 Ti with Minecraft.Well, that's not a fastgeneration of a world right there.Whoo-hoo! That's a-I mean, that's okay, it's going.Whoa, all right, well, we'rein, and that looks bad.That looks really bad.Okay, so we've got 10 FPS right now!Okay, yikes.All right, we're gonnajust turn some settingsdown here (laughing) real quick.Now, we're (groans) 27 FPS.(groans) It's not great.Though to be fair, weare playing at 1080p,so if I just shrinkthings down a little bit,it will be better, but Iguarantee you if we had more RAM,which is easy to install, right?If you install more RAM, you are gonna geta significant jump to performance.In the several months it's taken usto make this video, what have we learned?Well, first of all, theHP Stream is not good.You should not buy this.This thing just doesn't make any sense(laughing) for basically anyone to get.Okay, sure, now, when itcomes to the Chromebook,thank you very much, this, Ithink, does make more sense.It is not a perfectsystem, but if you wanta very cheap system, you should realizethat there are limitations for it,and you should just live with that, right?I think the Chromebookdoes make more sense,and it belongs on the table, which meansthat the Gateway really is my best choice.For a little bit moremoney, you're gettinga far better laptop with some compromises,but the compromises you make are actuallyreally pretty reasonable,so don't cheap out,get a laptop which is actually decent,and make sure to subscribe to the channel,and ring-a-ling the ding-a-ling bell,and you'll be notifiedthe next time Ken triesto fit a laptop in his pocket,and it just doesn't fit,and then it's an awkward gagfor the end of the video.
