HUGE Upset Victory - $1500 PC Secret Shopper 3 Part 4

[Shahrad]

Thanks to UGREEN for sponsoring this series! Check out the Ugreen Nexode Pro Series, with up to 15% off until December 31st, at the links below:

 

Ugreen Nexode Pro 100W: https://bit.ly/3TkaQmF

Ugreen Nexode Pro 160W : https://bit.ly/3TjuO19

Ugreen Nexode Pro Series: https://bit.ly/46SPwbi

Ugreen official Store: https://bit.ly/3GJbzpX

 

It's finally here, Secret Shopper Part 4! Where we tested all of our $1500 prebuilts and crown the winner. Who could the most winning-est system integrator be?

 

Check out where we shopped!

Dell: https://lmg.gg/biUia

CyberPowerPC: https://lmg.gg/vbaVv

HP: https://lmg.gg/yaMa5

iBUYPOWER: https://lmg.gg/9bTM8

MAINGEAR: https://lmg.gg/BnQRA

NZXT: https://lmg.gg/ZgAhD

OriginPC: https://lmg.gg/cwz5d

Starforge Systems: https://lmg.gg/1HwMI

 

Purchases made through some store links may provide some compensation to Linus Media Group.

[djenson]

Interesting to see the polarizing "I love the HDR" vs "The HDR has made the video unwatchable" in comments. What a disaster HDR has been - Should have had WAY stricter requirements for what was actually HDR compliant. 

[saintlouisbagels]

I feel like I'm taking crazy pills.

A lot of comments are saying they love the HDR options, but I think it looks ugly as hell on my iPhone 14 Pro (YouTube Premium if it matters). Does not look any better on the Apple Studio Display (it does fake HDR).

 

Their color grading is SO dark.

[Edzel Yago]

55 minutes ago, saintlouisbagels said:

I feel like I'm taking crazy pills.

A lot of comments are saying they love the HDR options, but I think it looks ugly as hell on my iPhone 14 Pro (YouTube Premium if it matters). Does not look any better on the Apple Studio Display (it does fake HDR).

 

Their color grading is SO dark.

Hi! What version of iOS and YouTube app are you running? Do you have low battery mode on? Any display settings like Truetone or night shift?

 

We checked on a few iPhones (including my iPhone 12 Pro Max) and iPad (my iPad Pro 12.9 on M2) and they’ve looked fine so I’m trying to figure out what’s causing it.

 

Thanks!

[chrsharvick29]

HDR is looking great on my LG C1 OLED and iPhone 15 Pro Max.  I’m curious what export settings were used.  I’ve experimented uploading an HDR video on YT but the SDR conversion was too dark on whites.  I saw an option to embed a LUT for the conversion but didn’t get that far.

[FlyingPotato_is_taken]

I like GN apporch to benchmark like the arrive. Enabling XMP changes the prebuild/product as most customers probably will never touch the bios.

 

Btw. In the conclusion this was called part 4 out of 4.

[leftcoastfunk]

53 minutes ago, FlyingPotato_is_taken said:

I like GN apporch to benchmark like the arrive. Enabling XMP changes the prebuild/product as most customers probably will never touch the bios.

Couldn't agree more with this! Many buyers of pre-built systems don't even know what a "BIOS" is, much less what "XMP", "Re-Bar", or "drivers" are! For the overwhelming majority of them, it will never even cross their minds that they should have to do anything other than plug the system in, turn it on, and start using it. All systems should be tested 100% as they were shipped with no updates or changes

[savagemadman]

The conclusion from this is all the more relevant to non-US customers. HP and Dell are probably the only two brands evaluated that wont have massive shipping fees and import taxes attached to them.

[saintlouisbagels]

6 hours ago, Edzel Yago said:

Hi! What version of iOS and YouTube app are you running? Do you have low battery mode on? Any display settings like Truetone or night shift?

 

We checked on a few iPhones (including my iPhone 12 Pro Max) and iPad (my iPad Pro 12.9 on M2) and they’ve looked fine so I’m trying to figure out what’s causing it.

 

Thanks!

Thanks for the response!

 

I think I'm just willing to admit that I don't like the color grading and lighting choice of the Secret Shopper pt4, and I'm not necessarily complaining about the HDR aspect itself. I'm wondering if the similar YouTube comments are complaining about the same thing.

 

In my opinion, it looks like you guys tried to find a reason use HDR instead of making content that benefits from HDR.

Having a bright vertical light bar right next to the PC is so visually irritating and lazy.

 

_{(part 3 versus part 4 - 4K and 4K HDR screenshots downscaled to 1600x800)}

[manikyath]

18:24 - summoning asmongold

 

 

[dogwitch]

10 hours ago, djenson said:

Interesting to see the polarizing "I love the HDR" vs "The HDR has made the video unwatchable" in comments. What a disaster HDR has been - Should have had WAY stricter requirements for what was actually HDR compliant. 

it does.

issue is cost of display and  etc.

 the market is really small for a full spec hdr compliant display.

where talking stuff for science and such.

its a nich market with a double digit if your going to do a 65 inch display.

then you have the studio lvl display which are also really costly and is another niche market.

then you have the wild west consumer market.

 

[Yesat]

While I guess you might want to do your testing of sponsors in a specific video, but I feel like Build Redux should have been included in the Secret Shopper round up.

[overbuilt_gaming]

This year's secret shopper was a complete bust.  First it took nearly 4 months.  The results people were waiting on for the holiday shopping season never materialized.  The white glove starforge treatments were absurd.  Had those issues came up with Dell or anybody else they just would have been DQ'd and move on. 

 

In the future just report the news as it happens, instead of reporting the news then allowing everything to get put on hold so they can change the outcome. 

 

Starforge is a garbage PC mfg, and always will be.  Nothing more than a rebranded Artesian Builds (who also sucked btw!) with a new CEO and entitled rich streamers funding it.  One of the ambulance chaser lawyers should sue Starforge for claiming they are the best PC's in the universe, when they can't even run a simple benchmark.  Sponsoring rich streamers with the upper echelon of pc builds is not an indication of the average user experience.   If it were, you wouldn't be doing $1500 secret shopper, instead you would be doing $5000 secret shoppers.

[TheHolyLancer]

Kind of wish that in the performance section at the end, the system specs were shown, or have its own section, since as other have said this part 4 kind of arrived super late.

 

IE, a little recap where we can jump to and remind us what the actual specs were.

 

 

I personally think they should be tested as configured (IE no bios mucking), but automatically updated (IE if it comes with old drivers, let windows handle it).

 

it would simulate what a proper end user would be, they would likely let updates happen, but enabling XMP or rebar is likely not possible unless it was done in an automated update of sorts.

 

[Nup]

Nice video. Happy to see you guys testing out the HDR waters. 

[wouter284]

On 12/28/2023 at 2:47 AM, Edzel Yago said:

Hi! What version of iOS and YouTube app are you running? Do you have low battery mode on? Any display settings like Truetone or night shift?

 

We checked on a few iPhones (including my iPhone 12 Pro Max) and iPad (my iPad Pro 12.9 on M2) and they’ve looked fine so I’m trying to figure out what’s causing it.

 

Thanks!

Hi there, 

 

Wanted to chip in here.

I'm a big fan of you guys trying to be on the front lines and trying these things, so i hope you can quickly learn from this.

 

As i have 2 screens which support HDR and both were too dark. 

The first is my LG smart tv. I didn't buy this for the HDR option because it's just not up to it. But i cannot turn off HDR and watching on this TV is a pretty bad experience. Besides just being too dark, it constantly turn up or down the brightness depending how much white there is on screen. Like a too slow AUTO brightness setting. Must admit I did not try every setting yet to remedy this. 

 

The second is my S22 Ultra. Which should do a fine job of HDR content. Still it is VERY dark in this video. And i cannot get it brighter. (using revanced, so an older youtube version). The "Enable auto HDR brightness" function does not help.

Testing with an youtube video made to showcase HDR does look great.

This issue is the same with the HUGE TV video.  The problem is mostly Linus standing in front of a TV, like he needs about 2kw of extra lighting on him. 

 

Hope this helps. 

 

 

[Failure 101]

30 minutes ago, wouter284 said:

Hi there, 

 

Wanted to chip in here.

I'm a big fan of you guys trying to be on the front lines and trying these things, so i hope you can quickly learn from this.

 

As i have 2 screens which support HDR and both were too dark. 

The first is my LG smart tv. I didn't buy this for the HDR option because it's just not up to it. But i cannot turn off HDR and watching on this TV is a pretty bad experience. Besides just being too dark, it constantly turn up or down the brightness depending how much white there is on screen. Like a too slow AUTO brightness setting. Must admit I did not try every setting yet to remedy this. 

 

The second is my S22 Ultra. Which should do a fine job of HDR content. Still it is VERY dark in this video. And i cannot get it brighter. (using revanced, so an older youtube version). The "Enable auto HDR brightness" function does not help.

Testing with an youtube video made to showcase HDR does look great.

This issue is the same with the HUGE TV video.  The problem is mostly Linus standing in front of a TV, like he needs about 2kw of extra lighting on him. 

 

Hope this helps. 

 

 

I personally didn’t notice anything