Is a $650 Gaming Laptop Worth It? #Helpful Post

hey guys this is Austin is a $650 gaming

laptop worth it so this is the new HP

Envy x-360 now while it might not look

like a gaming laptop inside it is

rocking the brand new AMD rise in mobile

if you've bought a laptop in the last

few years more than likely it was

powered by Intel however AMD has stepped

it up in a big way with rising mobile

not only does this have a much more

powerful CPU but the graphics should be

good enough for actual gaming so it is

definitely a larger laptop with a 50

inch display but as part of their x360

line or getting here is a fully

convertible design which actually isn't

too thick either however wise it feels

pretty nice so we're getting a slightly

sharp angular design which a lot of HP

laptops have had these days but

considering the 6m $50 price point it

looks and feels pretty premium open this

guy up I'm going to see the full-size

keyboard as well as number oh as well as

the Bang & Olufsen speakers something

you won't find however are any stupid

Intel stickers all over the laptop

actually there are no AMD stickers at

all are they reports there's a pretty

decent selection including HDMI a USB 3

as well as your headphone jack and on

the other side you're going to be

getting one more USB 3.0 a USB C that

supports charging as well as a full size

SD card slots HP doesn't claim that this

is a gaming PC but with horizon 5 inside

it should be capable of some decent

gaming so not only are we getting a quad

core Xen processor we're also getting 8

Vega GPU cores now that's not going to

be able to blow away some proper

dedicated graphics but the idea is is

that for $602

especially considering that this is a

very battery focused sort of lightweight

laptop it should give us decent gaming

performance

Rison has proven to be pretty impressive

on the desktop side offering a lot of

fast cores at a reasonable price

thankfully that comes across to rise in

mobile so in Geekbench while it's not

quite on par with Intel's latest 8 gen

15 watt processors it actually performs

really well compared to slightly older

Core i5 definitely plenty of performance

for pretty much any kind of normal usage

where things get really interesting is

with those Vega graphics so it is a huge

step up over something like Intel

integrated graphics and it's even on par

with some of the lower end dedicated

graphics options now this might not

sound that impressive beacons

that this is all in a 15 watt chip it

nearly matches until the latest and

greatest on the processor side and

completely destroys them on the graphic

side and again this is from AMD to put

this to the test we have csgo now here

running at 1080p on medium where she's

getting pre decent frame rates so we're

averaging somewhere between the high 40s

to mid 50s and that is definitely very

playable obviously ideally you're

running it like three hundred thousand

frames but considering that we've got a

6m 5000 laptop I'm definitely I'm

complaining next up we have rocket

League now this is a game that is pretty

popular and it's also not that hard to

run and yet again here running at 1080p

this time on quality settings now the

frame rates actually really impressive

here where's pretty much staying above

sixty frames per second at all times

while I was terrible so in theory we

actually could bump the settings up all

the way up to a high quality if we

wanted to move over to GTA and we're

actually getting pretty decent

performance so on normal settings at

1080p we're getting between 30 to 40

frames per second for less demanding

areas like this we're actually in the

mid 40s or so we get a lot of explosions

sometimes the dips around 30

but again pretty playable to really put

things to the test we have pub G and

well this is not so great so I had low

settings at 720p we're barely getting

like 27 28 frames per second I mean this

is a little bit more of an open area but

you can't really walk beside this

building we're still barely touching 30

it's kind of usable it's not the worst

experience I've ever tried but um maybe

not the best pub G machine in the world

things aren't all perfect and normal use

either so his first thing out this

laptop I had some weird driver issues

where the screen would go really dim and

I would have no control over it and

sleep mode just completely disappeared

thankfully if you windows updates fix

that but still not the best out of box

experience now it's not a huge surprise

considering that this is one of the very

first rising mobile products to actually

go on sale so there might be a few kinks

to be worked out I will say though the

envy x-360 is a nice piece of hardware

and of course you do have that fully

flexible hinge and while it is nicely

weighted I don't like how much wobble

there is when you actually touch it

although again this is a very common

complaint with pretty much any of these

sort of convertible designs the keyboard

also isn't too bad it's not like do I

like the spacing in the layout with

having the number oh but it also has a

nice feel and importantly especially

considering the price it is going to

backlit with the screen issues patched

it's a good panel so if 15.6 inches with

a 1080p resolution it looks pretty good

and especially with this kind of size

and price point I feel like 1080 is a

totally reasonable sweet spot for gaming

as well as productivity now the actual

display itself the color is nice and the

contrast is pretty impressive however it

just doesn't get that bright so you're

looking at a dead on it's okay but that

combined with the fact that it's really

reflective means that if you get this

guy even slightly off access it is

really hard to see anything so like a

lot of other HP laptops recently it does

have Bang & Olufsen branded speakers

especially considering that's a pretty

big speaker oh that's directed straight

at you not only does it sound pretty

good but it gets surprisingly loud

however it's not all great so the

trackpad is just kind of okay now I

really wish it did have Windows

precision drivers as is the tracking is

okay and it does support most of the

major gestures but the tracking could be

a lot better and especially the trackpad

size feels a little bit small for a

laptop in 2018 there's also Windows

hello support for facial recognition

which is a nice feature except that for

me it really only works when I get my

face very very close to the laptop the

webcam isn't much better so it is at

least 1080p so as you guys can see even

this quality team crispy this is

definitely not the biggest issue though

is the hard drive so while the rest of

the system is pretty well inspect out

with Verizon five dual Channel eight

gigs of memory however having a

mechanical hard drive and a laptop in

2018 just feels slow it would be so nice

if they had actually configured this

with an SSD on one hand rice and mobile

is seriously impressive look mat just a

few months ago and Intel was selling

15-watt laptop processors with

lackluster graphics and only two cores

yeah they've stepped it up to quad-core

now you look at AMD who has come out of

nowhere with an impressive park core

design and some seriously powerful

graphics again this is from AMD I know

it keeps saying that but it is really

impressive what AMD has been able to

pull off especially coming out of

nowhere like this now sure this is not

going to be a super high-end gaming PC

that's going to work for everyone but it

does have enough power to play some

pretty decent games on the other hand

the ndx 360 is good but not perfect I

feel like the guy had about 85 percent

right with a better trackpad a couple of

tweaks and especially

standard SSD I would like this thing a

lot more what gives me really excited is

that this is forced Intel Nvidia to

price some gaming laptops in this sort

of $600 price range so if you guys want

to see a video on one of those

definitely be sure to let me know in the

comments below and I will catch you in

the next one