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  • - Hey guys, this is Austin.

  • Inside this box is either one of the best laptop deals

  • that I've ever seen,

  • or something that you should avoid at all costs.

  • So, you may remember a video I did last year

  • on the Walmart gaming laptop.

  • It was a decent laptop with some issues.

  • However, there was a huge backlash

  • and it got severely slashed in price.

  • Now, this time around, Walmart's like,

  • "Oh no, that's fine, everyone forgot about that."

  • So, they've created their own brand of gaming laptops

  • called Motile, Motile, mottle? (beeps)

  • So, if you take a look at the specs,

  • there's a lot going for this.

  • But what really makes it interesting is the price.

  • So, when this launched, it came out at $500.

  • Not bad, but also not particularly great.

  • However, recently, this is available for $300,

  • which is a pretty excellent deal,

  • except that a few days later,

  • when I purchased it, it was $400.

  • So, I dunno exactly how to review this thing.

  • If it's a $200 laptop, it's amazing, it's great.

  • $300, it's awesome.

  • At $600 or $500 though, it's a little bit harder to say.

  • What I'm really curious about

  • is what exactly have they done this time around?

  • Because there's a lot of stuff

  • which looks very cool on this.

  • So, you can see, Motile is a trademark of Walmart Apollo,

  • which I'm not sure exactly what Apollo is,

  • but this is definitely a Walmart-specific brand.

  • What was the last one,

  • Overpowered is what they called their gaming laptops?

  • So I guess they've, OP, yeah, of course.

  • So, now they've moved onto Motile.

  • So, it's got a decent power brick.

  • It does have an old school barrel plug,

  • but whatever, that's not important.

  • What I'm curious about is the laptop,

  • which is immediately very thin.

  • So, they advertise this as a performance laptop.

  • And with the Ryzen inside,

  • it is actually supposedly a pretty powerful laptop,

  • given that they spec it out right.

  • There are a lot of things you can do here,

  • which will negatively impact for performance.

  • It seems like it's got a decent selection of ports at least,

  • USB-C, USB-A, HDMI.

  • We've got another couple of USB ports, as well as ethernet.

  • All right, that's cool.

  • Oh, oh that's, (laughs)

  • in case you're curious, (laughing) it comes with THX.

  • You know what, it actually looks pretty unique though.

  • I mean, I actually like the black surround.

  • It also does have a Windows Hello IR camera.

  • The keyboard, it looks nice, let's see.

  • (keys clacking) Oh, that's not bad.

  • It's a little bit low travel,

  • but something that's really jumping out to me

  • is this feels incredibly lightweight.

  • Supposedly, this is also a backlit keyboard.

  • So far, even at the $400 I spent on it,

  • I'm actually really happy with this.

  • There we go.

  • All right, see what's inside our Walmart mystery laptop.

  • Wow, that is, that's metal (clanging)

  • Oh, what, there's a few things that jump out to me.

  • First of all, is the fact that we do have an M.2 drive,

  • although actually, is that?

  • That might be SATA. I'm not sure if that's SATA.

  • No, that is SATA.

  • Okay, so we have a 256 gig SATA drive, fine.

  • It is nice that we have a secondary M.2 slot,

  • but beyond that, there's some really questionable decisions.

  • First of all, there's this huge gap here,

  • which seems like it's meant for something like an SSD

  • or another hard drive, but it's empty.

  • There's no port to actually plug it in, which is bizarre.

  • The cooling seems to be maybe not the greatest,

  • just a single heat pipe

  • to what looks to be a fairly small fan.

  • But the bigger problem is if I lift up this little flap,

  • you'll see that there's only a single eight gig DIMM here.

  • I just realized something.

  • So, we have our eight gigs of RAM right here,

  • perfectly fine, no problem.

  • But if you wanna install more memory in dual-channel,

  • which as it's a Ryzen system, you should absolutely do,

  • the SSD's in the way.

  • So, you actually can't run

  • dual-channel memory and dual SSDs.

  • You have to pick one or the other.

  • I'm actually gonna double check this,

  • but if I uninstall our standard SSD.

  • These are the world's cheapest screws.

  • They're all stripping. Well, I would love to be able

  • to pull that SSD out and show you,

  • but I think the idea is that if you wanna upgrade this,

  • you need to take advantage of an NVMe SSD on this side

  • and put in extra RAM.

  • That's, I've never seen something like this.

  • That's such a dumb decision,

  • 'cause there's no way

  • the extra channel of memory would fit there.

  • - [Ken] So, I found something on this laptop.

  • - What do you mean, you found something?

  • - [Ken] So, try to change the wallpaper on it.

  • - Okay, Windows isn't activated.

  • Are you, are you serious right now?

  • You're trying to tell me that Walmart is selling a laptop

  • without a real copy of Windows on it?

  • I refuse to believe that.

  • No, that's not, that's not a real thing.

  • Detecting activation problems.

  • Wait, wait, wait, you might just be wrong, Ken.

  • It might just activate.

  • What's the problem, huh?

  • What's the problem?

  • We've activated, see, you got me all excited.

  • You're like, "Oh, it's not real,"

  • and then it just, it was one click.

  • That being said, it is very strange that

  • that was not done out of the box.

  • However, Windows is fine.

  • We've also got eight gigs of single-channel,

  • 2400 megahertz memory, which as I've already discussed,

  • is pretty much the absolute bare minimum,

  • especially with a Ryzen.

  • Not only does that make a difference to the graphics,

  • obviously, you're almost halving your performance there,

  • but it also slows down the CPU.

  • Generally speaking, Ryzen definitely needs

  • dual-channel memory and the fastest stuff you can get.

  • So, if we were willing to kinda reorder that SSD,

  • move it over, or get a NVMe drive,

  • bump this up to 16 gigs of fast memory,

  • would cause a huge, huge bump to performance.

  • I'll say having Windows Hello

  • for facial recognition is a big plus.

  • The keyboard, I think, is fine,

  • especially considering that it's backlit.

  • Let's try that THX action.

  • We have our spatial audio demo.

  • So, they're saying that spatial audio is better,

  • but I think the spatial audio is just purely an app running.

  • Yeah, it's just headphones.

  • So, there's this thing called bass.

  • It exists, and it makes things sound cool

  • when they're actually not.

  • I know they're very happy to put THX branding this.

  • I'm sure they're very happy to say

  • that the display was tuned by THX.

  • I don't think that matters whatsoever.

  • I'm gonna move on with the rest of this wonderful laptop.

  • So, while I get a couple of things installing on the Motile,

  • let me introduce you to the best competitor to this,

  • the Acer Aspire 5.

  • Now, this is something that we did a video on last year,

  • and there's a lot going for it,

  • and it's actually fairly similar in a lot of categories.

  • So, at about $330, you're getting Ryzen 3,

  • four gigs of RAM, and a 128 gig SSD.

  • Now, that might sound like a little bit less powerful,

  • however, actually, Walmart sells a version of the motile

  • with that almost exact same spec.

  • And right now, they're selling it for $349.

  • So, it's broadly sort of similar.

  • And there are actually, obviously,

  • a lot of advantages to going with the Acer,

  • but all that being said,

  • as many problems as I found with this Walmart laptop,

  • there were definitely some things

  • which are very much a redeeming quality.

  • First of all, the screen.

  • Yes, I know, the tuned by THX thing is kind of overrated,

  • and no, it's not the greatest screen I've ever seen.

  • It's 14 inches, 1080p, it's a matte finish.

  • It gets reasonably bright.

  • Honestly, for this three to $400 price category,

  • I have zero complaints.

  • It's actually really nice.

  • Now, if you were to spec the Acer

  • to the same degree as the Walmart laptop,

  • it actually becomes a pretty decent deal.

  • So, we're talking Ryzen 5, eight gigs of RAM,

  • and a 256 gig SSD costs you $500 on the Acer side.

  • Not unreasonable, considering this is significantly cheaper

  • at the moment and has been a lot cheaper in the past,

  • it actually starts to look pretty good.

  • I mean, again, that screen is great,

  • and a lot of the hardware actually feels, to me,

  • even though it's not incredibly well built,

  • it almost reminds me slightly of the LG Gram

  • in that is a very lightweight laptop

  • that's kind of surprising.

  • I don't know what to say here 'cause I'm torn.

  • On one hand, it's from a company which Walmart may

  • or may not decide to dissolve in like 30 seconds.

  • It also has some legitimately poor decisions,

  • I would say, in its configuration.

  • But, if you were to say, pick this laptop up from cheap,

  • swap out the RAM and add an SSD,

  • an M.2 SSD as opposed to the one that's inside,

  • move things around, you actually would have

  • what I think is pretty solid system.

  • And especially considering that this thing

  • will ping pong between three and $500,

  • if you get it toward that $300 side of the spectrum,

  • it's actually a legitimately good deal.

  • - [Ken] And most importantly, no bloatware.

  • - I, personally, much prefer the sort of fit and (coughs)

  • I prefer, (exhaling)

  • I prefer the fit and finish of the Walmart laptop.

  • I will say one thing though,

  • I nearly stripped two screws while trying to open this up

  • and replace the SSD, which does not fill me with confidence

  • on the fact that while you should upgrade it,

  • you actually would be able to.

  • So, it's a little bit of a hard sell.

  • But generally speaking, it's not bad.

  • I thought I was gonna tear this thing apart.

  • I thought it was gonna be terrible.

  • This is actually a legitimately pretty decent laptop.

  • Is the fan running at 100% as I install Fortnite right now,

  • fort right, right now, Fortnite right now?

  • Yes it is.

  • Am I going to continue the video

  • as if I didn't accidentally say the wrong thing?

  • Yes, I am going to do that.

  • This is not great.

  • Okay so, this is why you want

  • dual-channel memory in your laptop.

  • So, even at 720p medium, we're struggling.

  • We're hitting 30, but it's a very jittery 30.

  • Look man, there's a lot to like with this laptop,

  • but if you buy it, you should not use it as it is right now.

  • You should upgrade the RAM for sure,

  • and realistically, you probably want an M.2 SSD

  • to fill up that second slot,

  • 'cause the way they've configured it,

  • it just doesn't make a lot of sense.

  • If you're not gaming, it's fine,

  • but what Walmart has done with this,

  • is they're absolutely taking

  • a standard white label laptop chassis,

  • they're customizing a little bit,

  • and they're selling it under their Motile brand.

  • Now, do you trust that Walmart

  • will continue to make this laptop and support it, maybe?

  • If you get it for a great price,

  • I do think that this is a no-brainer,

  • but the problem is, is whether or not you trust

  • that this company's even going to be around

  • and whether this laptop will continue to hold up.

  • It's cool, it's interesting, it's different,

  • and it could be a great price,

  • or they might double the price tomorrow,

  • so it's kinda hard to recommend.

  • However, I'm curious,

  • what do you guys think about the Walmart laptop?

  • Let me know in the comments below. I will have a link to it,

  • if I can find it, in the description,

  • if they haven't discontinued it

  • by the time this video goes live,

  • which will be not good, I guess.

  • I'd probably have to make a new video after that.

  • (upbeat music)

- Hey guys, this is Austin.

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