Category: Laptop

Asus ROG Strix XG17AHPE 240Hz Portable Monitor Review: Expensive Innovation

Having a portable monitor is a lifesaver. Whether your laptop’s screen just doesn’t give you enough space or you’re looking for something to connect to a smartphone or tablet, having an extra screen can instantly boost your productivity. But what if that lightweight screen wasn’t all business? What if it had a fun side too? 

The Asus ROG Strix XG17AHPE is just that, bringing a pro-level 240 Hz refresh rate to a portable screen for the first time. The 17.3-inch monitor (DisplayPort Alt Mode over USB Type-C or HDMI) delivered most of what I wanted and needed for both work and gaming and made its mark as a one-of-a-kind product. But that innovation comes at a $500 price tag that leaves us wondering if you’re better off just buying one of the best gaming monitors instead. 

Design of Asus ROG Strix XG17AHPE

With speedy specs, there’s no doubt that the Asus ROG Strix XG17AHPE is for gamers, but with portable monitors offering little space to work with, gamer aesthetics are only embodied by a pair of watchful eyes that are the Asus ROG logo. With black the dominating color, the overall look here is pretty mute, but Asus found subtle ways to include premium touches. 

With its subtle placement, smooth feel and silver look, the Asus ROG logo actually looks good in a bottom bezel that also manages to fit in two 1W front-firing speakers without taking up too much room. The back of the Asus ROG Strix XG17AHPE is its fanciest looking part. A diagonal line starkly divides two contrasting brushed finishes that makes one half look darker than the other. Here lies another ROG eye that glows when the monitor’s on. I’m not usually a fan of massive branding, but when the logo looks this good and gives out a vibe this creepy, I can’t help but appreciate it. 

The 17.3-inch Asus ROG Strix XG17AHPE will naturally take up more desk space than the 15.6-inch MSI Optix MAG161V (15.7 x 9.9 x 0.4 inches for the Asus versus 14.05 x 8.94 x 0.43 inches with the MSI), but it’s still comparably thin and even thinner than the Lenovo ThinkVision M14 (12.7 x 8.2-8.7 x 3.8 inches). However, with its larger size, the Asus is also heavier than those non-gaming portable displays (2.3 pounds versus the MSI’s 2 pounds and the Lenovo’s 1.3 pounds). But if you want larger screen size, which is handy for immersing yourself in the game as much as possible, the extra screen real estate will be worth the extra pound, and pixel density is still fantastic at 127.3 pixels per inch. 

A small way the Asus ROG Strix XG17AHPE starts earning its price tag is through versatile connectivity options. If you have a laptop or desktop with a USB-C port that supports DisplayPort Alt Mode, you can connect to the monitor that way. If your computer’s USB-C port can charge other devices, you can even use the ROG Strix XG17AHPE without ever having to worry about it running out of battery. Through USB-C, the monitor can receive up to 12V at 2A (with USB Power Delivery 3.0). With my laptop’s Thunderbolt port, I was able to use the ROG Strix XG17AHPE with a single (included) USB-C to USB-C cable for hours without its battery life ever dropping. USB-C also serves to connect tablets and smartphones, including a Samsung Galaxy S10 I connected to it effortlessly.

Either of the two USB-C ports can power the monitor, so if none of your system’s ports can’t do that, you can use one to connect to your device and the other to supply it power. The Asus ROG Strix XG17AHPE comes with a USB-C to USB-A adapter, which plugs into an included power brick. That adapter also means the monitor can connect to your system’s USB-A port and receive power. 

In addition to USB-C or USB-A, you also have the option to connect to a device’s HDMI port via a MicroHDMI to HDMI cable. This opens up possibilities in the world of Raspberry Pi, gaming consoles and even cameras. If you use HDMI, it’ll either run on battery (see the Battery Life section) or you could simultaneously give the monitor power through a USB-C cable. There’s also a 3.5mm headphone jack for plugging in your best gaming headset. 

The panel’s left side holds all the ports and controls. Controls come in the form of a power button located higher than the rest of the inputs and lights up when on or charging, plus three additional buttons. They’re all pretty shallow but worked on the first try.

Origami Stand on Asus ROG Strix XG17AHPE

Like with many portable monitors, the Asus ROG Strix XG17AHPE uses an origami-style stand that you must fold a certain way to prop up the monitor. It felt a little more intuitive to fold than the one found on the Optix MAG161V, and the Asus has a magnetic hard bit that secures under the bottom bezel for added stability. But the stand was still a pain in the butt. 

The origami stand does allow for different levels of back tilt, but I sometimes wished I could get the monitor closer to 90 degrees to better line it up with a connected laptop. If my table started shaking due to aggressive typing, I’d notice the XG17AHPE wobbling too. But the monitor never came crashing down, even if I slid it across my desk (putting pressure on the top bezel was a different story though). 

In portrait mode, the stand never failed me, but I felt nervous the whole time. The stand just doesn’t provide enough of a foundation for me to feel safe using it that way long-term or with a wobbly table. But I have to admit that having this much vertical screen space is fantastic for reading and something missed with the vast majority of laptops. 

We wish more monitors would employ a reliable and sturdy kickstand like Lenovo does with the ThinkVision M14, which has not one, but two built-in stands. Portable monitors are just too delicate and, in the XG17AHPE’s case, expensive to bet it all on thin, bendy stand-sleeves. The monitor will eventually be available as a different SKU (XG17AHP) with a tripod stand, (plus the same sleeve and a bag), but that ups the monitor’s price to $600.

As bad as this thing is as a stand, it’s even worse as a protective case. While the cover makes a debatably safe stand, it’s an undeniably flawed protector that leaves the sides and back of the monitor exposed. Since this monitor’s meant for traveling, we expected Asus to provide a sleeve that covered all bases without easily sliding off.

Gaming Performance of Asus ROG Strix XG17AHPE

A 240 Hz monitor opens up a world of potential for first-person shooters and other eSports. While even the best graphics cards for gamers can’t always push AAA titles at a frame rate of 240 frames per second (fps) and high settings, eSports games look extra smooth at 240 fps with low latency and the elimination of disastrous distractions, like ghosting. The Asus ROG Strix XG17AHPE’s FreeSync fights off screen tearing, which happens when your GPU’s frame rate doesn’t match up with the display’s refresh rate, but that only works with AMD graphics cards.

Unfortunately, with New York City in lockdown we couldn’t use our lag tester on the Asus ROG Strix XG17AHPE; however, I put it through its Overwatch paces, paired to a gaming laptop running an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 mobile GPU. I used the monitor’s out-of-the box settings, so overdrive was set to Level 3. 

As I played Overwatch for a few hours, I didn’t notice any input delay with the monitor with the game set to run at 1920 x 1080 at 240 Hz, but with a GTX 1060 GPU, I was only able to hit a frame rate of about 63-85 fps. To maximize the screen’s potential, I’d need a more-powerful GPU that can push out 240 fps with this game. 

Still, images on the ROG Strix XG17AHPE appeared smooth, even during Sigma’s most intense and fastest moments of battles or when enemies filled the screen. Trotting around felt very smooth and realistic. Ocean waves in the distance moved smoothly without stuttering. I’m used to gaming on a 17.3-inch 144 Hz screen, so I didn’t notice a grand improvement in quality when graduating to a 17.3-inch 240 Hz display. But if you’re moving from a standard 60 Hz screen, your experience may differ. 

On-Screen Display, Calibration on Asus ROG Strix XG17AHPE

The Asus ROG Strix XG17AHPE’s on-screen display (OSD) is surprisingly navigable for a portable monitor settings menu. Pressing the menu button on the side brings up icons on the display that align with the corresponding buttons for activating. This makes it easy to know where the buttons for scrolling, selecting and back are. It’s no joystick, but the pop-ups are large and proved helpful in navigation. 

Asus also surprised me with a large number of calibration options on the ROG Strix XG17AHPE. The Gaming menu features overdrive (five levels of overdrive, plus off), an option for toggling FreeSync and the GamePlus menu, which has a crosshair, timer, FPS counter and display alignment. In the GameVisual section, you can pick from eight image modes. Racing is the default, but there’s also Scenery, Cinema, RTS/RPG, FPS, sRGB, MOBA and User. The Gaming section also has Shadow Boost, which, according to Asus, “clarifies dark areas of the game without overexposing brighter areas” with three levels, including 0, the default.

The Image section of the ROG Strix XG17AHPE’s OSD provides control over things like brightness, contrast and the blue light filter, depending on the mode selected. Meanwhile, the Color menu has options for Color Temp (cool, normal, warm, or user with red, green and blue sliders from 0-100%), Gamma (2.2, the logic default, or 1.8 or 2.5) and Saturation. 

Other menu sections include Power, Input Select (HDMI or USB Type-C), My Favorite, for shortcuts and customized settings and System Setup, with standards like language, volume, key lock, OSD setup and reset. There’s also an Auto Rotation feature, but to use it you must download Asus’ DisplayWidget software. 

Image Quality on Asus ROG Strix XG17AHPE

We did our testing with out-of-the box image settings, so the Asus ROG Strix XG17AHPE was in Racing Mode with contrast set to 80 and the blue light filter and Shadow Boost off. 

The ROG Strix XG17AHPE worked great as my general second display with plenty of brightness. Even when I was facing a sunny window, the screen was bright enough for productivity use at 50% max brightness, and games were playable at this setting, albeit more dull. 

Word documents were luminous enough to edit while looking at the monitor head on, and when I turned it perpendicular from me, I could still view documents and games, but with just a touch of reflection in the further third of the screen. When I boosted brightness up to 100%, that reflection was barely noticeable. Additionally, with the screen completely flat, I could comfortably view documents and movies, only sacrificing a small amount of brightness. Credit is due to Asus’ use of IPS, a panel tech known for strong viewing angles.

Overwatch, a particularly colorful game, looked properly saturated on the Asus ROG Strix XG17AHPE, and dark colors were distinct. Different shades of dark green topiaries and a yellow sunflower were apparent in shadowed corners. Colors on the movie Mission: Impossible Fallout were also strong, from green poplars that looked exuberant and vivid as Ethan and Ilsa walked past them, to differing shades of gold and rust in a club scene. Even the secretly olive green in Ilsa’s jacket was discernible on the ROG Strix XG17AHPE. 

The ROG Strix XG17AHPE proved pleasantly bright in our testing but fell short of Asus’ 300-nit max brightness claim. Still, 285.6 nits is plenty and still brighter than the next runner up by 117.2 nits, as well as the average of the comparison group by 81.6 nits.

Asus claims that the ROG Strix XG17AHPE covers 100% of the sRGB color space, but our review unit actually surpassed that slightly. Colors on the Asus should look more saturated than those on the MAG161V or the 15.6-inch Asus ZenScreen MB16AC. The Lenovo fell behind the XG17AHPE by 11.5%. When it came to the wider DCI-P3 space, the XG17AHPE hit an impressive 77.5% coverage, significantly better than what MSI’s MAG161V or Asus’ MB16AC can do here. 

Battery Life on Asus ROG Strix XG17AHPE

The Asus ROG Strix XG17AHPE runs on a 7,800mAh battery. If you have a USB-C or USB-A port with Power Delivery 3.0 support, it can provide the monitor enough power to save you from having to get a charger. When I used it with a Thunderbolt port, battery life never fell below 100%, and when I used it with a supporting USB-A port for 7 hours at max brightness, the battery life only dropped to 97%.

But if your device doesn’t have a Power Delivery port, the monitor will be running off battery power. With the Asus ROG Strix XG17AHPE running at 240 Hz and using the speakers at max volume, it lasted about 2 hours at 80% brightness. At 100% brightness and without using the speakers, it lasted about 3 hours and 30 minutes. 

At 60 Hz, the display uses less battery power. With brightness maxed out, but rarely using the speakers, the Asus ROG Strix XG17AHPE lasted 3 hours. When I used the XG17AHPE at 50% brightness at this refresh rate, the portable monitor lasted about 4.5 hours. 

Asus claims that the ROG Strix XG17AHPE can get enough juice to game for 2 hours at the max 240 Hz refresh rate with an hour of charging.

Audio on Asus ROG Strix XG17AHPE

It’s not the primary reason people buy portable monitors, but the Asus ROG Strix XG17AHPE’s two 1W stereo speakers are shockingly loud and might outblast a connected phone, tablet or disappointing laptop speakers. The ROG Strix XG17AHPE’s speakers were especially handy when I played emulated N64 games off a Raspberry Pi, which, of course, doesn’t include speakers, as would also be the case if you connected the XG17AHPE to a gaming console. 

Because the speakers on my laptop are particularly bad, the Asus ROG Strix XG17AHPE’s speakers were actually an upgrade when I played Overwatch. With front-firing speakers, audio from the monitor never sounded muffled. During battle, I could make out the differences in sound effects from various weapons and still clearly hear characters’ voices and even that of my teammate, who wished something bad would happen to me in real life (I hope you live a long life, pal!). Overall, the Asus ROG Strix XG17AHPE provided fuller sound, even allowing me to hear wind blowing in the background during a quiet training session that I couldn’t hear when I toggled audio back to my lackluster laptop speakers. 

Hearing Mission: Impossible Fallout was also easy, even with the windows in my Brooklyn apartment open. Ethan and Ilsa’s whisperings were hard to make out, but gunshots were booming, and I could even follow the echo of Luther’s pained voice traveling down a tunnel. 

You can also plug a pair of cans into the display’s 3.5mm headphone jack, which uses an integrated ESS ES9118 digital-to-analogue (DAC) converter. For audiophiles, the SoC drives 24-bit, 192 kHz lossless playback that Asus promises delivers “unprecedented dynamic range and ultra-low distortion.” 

Bottom Line

The Asus ROG Strix XG17AHPE is an amazing portable monitor for gamers with the need for it. Nothing can compete for pairing with a good graphics card or gaming console or just packing up for a LAN party, thanks to its thin build and 2.3-pound weight. And with great viewing angles, it’s also a great second screen for work.

But $500 is a steep price to pay for a portable monitor considering that some of the best full-sized PC gaming monitors are available for less. 240 Hz monitors are so speedy that they’re in their own category, but our favorite 240 Hz desktop monitor right now is the Samsung 27-inch CRG5, which as of this writing is a mere $400. Looking around online, I also found a 27-inch LG 240 Hz monitor for pre-order at $279 and a 240 Hz Acer 25-inch available now for $300. At $500, then, the XG17AHPE isn’t for gamers seeking an inexpensive way to add a 240 Hz display to their setup. 

Therefore, this monitor’s best audience is those who need a monitor they can easily pick up. If you travel a lot, the Asus ROG Strix XG17AHPE will make sure you’re never stuck gaming on a lackluster screen or, even worse, not gaming at all.

If you’re just looking for a quality portable display, the Lenovo Thinkvision M14 isn’t fit for gaming, but is half the price ($250) and has a built-in kickstand rather than an annoying origami stand. That said, you can’t get this level of color saturation from Lenovo’s monitor. And the ROG Strix XG17AHPE’s port selection brings valuable versatility, including console gaming, connecting to a Raspberry Pi and getting power and data from one cable. 

If you need a gaming monitor that can move with you while delivering very high refresh rates, the Asus ROG Strix XG17AHPE is a premium option, but it’s also the only option we know of.

AMD leaks a Ryzen-powered Lenovo Chromebook

Evidence that OEMs have plans to release Ryzen-powered Chromebooks has been around for a while now, but AMD may have just straight-up confirmed it. Most recently, several listings for a Ryzen-powered 2-in-1 Pixelbook appeared on Geekbench, codenamed Zork.

Now, AMD may have confirmed that at least Lenovo is close to releasing a Ryzen-powered Chromebooks. Spotted by u/Jakel856 on Reddit, AMD has listed a Ryzen 5 PRO 3500U version of the Lenovo Chromebook C330 under “Shop AMD-powered laptops”.

Originally released with a MediaTek 8173C processor, the C330 seems an unlikely candidate for the first Ryzen-powered Chromebook. Priced at US$303.99, the embedded CDW listing is actually for the MediaTek model, pointing to AMD having made a mistake.

Alternatively, we may be looking at the specifications for a new 11-inch Chromebook. Lenovo did release the Chromebook C340-11 over a year ago, so it is overdue a refresh.

LENOVO HAS A NEW TIGER LAKE CHROMEBOOK IN THE WORKS CODE NAMED ‘MALEFOR’

Now that we are in the part of the year where we are finally starting to see some of the new Chromebooks emerge onto the scene, it is time to really begin casting our gaze towards what is next. We’ve outlined it a few times here, but when it comes to the future of Chrome OS and Intel, the new batch of next-gen hardware will be based on Intel’s 11th-gen Tiger Lake chips. These new processors bring a few great things along for the ride, but the main headline here is a 10nm process that first showed up in the Ice Lake 10th-gen chips that Google chose to skip for Chromebooks.

Shrinking the process on the chip speeds up standard functions, but also ends up using less battery, too. ARM processors have already moved past the 10nm process and are moving through 7nm and on to 5nm now. Intel and their x86 architecture is behind on this and the move to 10nm has taken far longer than originally anticipated. Regardless, it is great to see these newer processors from Intel finally hit that 10nm process as performance and battery life will be the primary benefactors. Check out Intel’s quick marketing card for the improvements we can all expect from Tiger Lake chips:

All that stuff is great news, and we’ve already tracked 3 other baseboards being developed with Tiger Lake chips on board in ‘Volteer’, ‘Ripto’ and ‘Deltaur’. Today’s new board – ‘Malefor’ – falls into the same camp as these previous devices, but because of a certain email address attached to many of the commits, it is clear that this particular device will be coming from Lenovo. Xiong Huang is almost completely attached to one device in the repositories: ‘Kodama’. If you aren’t familiar, ‘Kodama’ is the Lenovo 10e that was recently released. He also shows up on ‘Hana’ in a few places and that code name belongs to the Lenovo Yoga N23.

Beyond the knowledge that this is a Tiger Lake Chromebook being developed by Lenovo, there’s little else we can glean from the repositories right now. We’ll keep digging because as we’ve seen with the release of multiple ‘Hatch’-based Chromebooks, having the latest-gen Intel processors does not necessarily mean the device will be top-tier flagship material. The upcoming Lenovo Flex 5 is a perfect example of this. Sure, it is based on the same unibuild baseboard as the Samsung Galaxy Chromebook, but these Chromebooks are simply in different leagues.

While it is certainly possible that this is the next line of Yoga-branded Chromebooks from Lenovo, that is simply a guess at this point. We’ll need more proof that this ‘Malefor’ device will be packing all the latest specs before making that claim. As it stands right now, there’s a good chance that one of the many ‘Hatch’ variants is actually a new Yoga Chromebook, so it’s really tough to sort out at this point. Time will tell, and as always, we’ll keep digging for more clues.

Microsoft’s new Surface notebooks are a grab bag of bad decisions

Microsoft’s Build conference may still be two weeks out, but the company isn’t saving its hardware news till then. It announced a slew of new Surface devices this week, and some of these products have been a long time coming. The new Surface Earbuds, for example, are finally going to retail after being announced in October. We also got a new Surface Book at last, alongside an updated Surface Go and Surface Headphones 2. It’s Surface Palooza — and I’m here for it. Mostly, anyway.

I like that in the case of the earbuds and headphones, Microsoft managed to push down prices, offering them for $199 and $249, respectively. This means the earbuds will cost $50 less than Microsoft initially said when they were unveiled while the headphones are $100 cheaper than the previous generation. With these prices, the company’s audio products are better positioned to take on competition from Google, Apple, Amazon and Sony. 

It’s also nice to see Microsoft update the Surface Go, giving it a bigger screen and LTE connectivity while maintaining the little tablet’s cute, compact dimensions. We can’t tell how it will perform in real life yet, but the Go 2 also has a slightly faster processor than its predecessor. It still starts at $399, though at that base level you’re only getting a slow Pentium Gold processor. For a more capable Core M3, you’ll need to shell out at least $500. Throw in LTE and we’re looking at $730. And that’s not even counting the extra $100 to $120 you’ll have to pay for the keyboard attachment. Jeez, Microsoft. 

The questionable decisions don’t end there. Microsoft also unveiled the long-awaited Surface Book 3 this week. It’s a 13- or 15-inch detachable laptop that Microsoft says is the “most powerful Surface laptop yet.” The smaller version comes with Intel’s quad-core i5 or i7 with Iris Plus-integrated graphics and up to NVIDIA’s GeForce 1660, which is fine for its size. Sure, Dell was able to squeeze a six-core CPU into the dainty little XPS 13 last year, but Apple is still using quad-core processors in the 13-inch MacBook Pro, so we’ll let Microsoft off here.

In the 15-inch Book 3, though, you’ll still be stuck with four cores. You can bump the graphics to an NVIDIA GeForce 1660 Ti or even the Quadro RTX 3000. But the quad-core CPU is embarrassing when compared to the competition. The MacBook Pro 16 inch, for example, comes with six- or eight-core options, and the Dell XPS 15 has a six-core configuration. 

One of the biggest reasons Microsoft is having processor trouble lies in the Surface Book 3’s design. Since it’s a detachable tablet, the device’s processor has to be embedded behind the screen so it can keep running even when apart from the keyboard. It also needs to house some battery for power, in addition to things like speakers and connectivity components. Meanwhile the keyboard half is where the discrete GPU and more battery lies. 

Because of the limited space behind the display, Microsoft can’t squeeze in a CPU with more cores. The Surface Book’s design is unique, sure, but its entire proposition is flawed: Who’s looking for a powerhouse machine in the form of a 15-inch tablet? The larger Book 3 would be so much better if Microsoft reimagined it as a convertible instead of a tablet stuck to a keyboard, and gave it better processors. 

It’s such a shame that it’s been almost three years since the Book 2 launched in 2017, and now that it’s here the Book 3 is just a perplexing product. Yes, it’s nice that we finally have an updated model, but considering how much progress the competition has made since, the Book 3 might be hard to recommend. Of course, we’ll have to wait till we fully review the device to know how it fares, but I’m not holding my breath.

New Microsoft Leaks Confirm Powerful Surface Book 3

As well as details on the Surface Book 3’s CPUs, more information about the GPUs inside Microsoft’s high-end laptop have been leaked.

Noted tipster Roland Quant expects the smaller 13-inch Surface Book 3 to include the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 (with 4 GB of onboard memory), and the 15-inch model to include the GTX 1650 Ti (with 6 GB of memory). Those hoping for a gaming-focused GPU (such as one of the GeForce RTX 20xx family) are going to be disappointed.

That said, the latest 13-inch MacBook Pro machines from Apple ship with the interior Intel Iris Plus GPUs, so there’s already a significant performance boost for graphics in the Surface Book over the MacBook.

More details on Microsoft’s Surface Book 3 have been published, with the latest information coming from the certification of the Windows 10 powered laptop by Energy Star.

The certifications cover the top-end models of the 13-inch and 15-inch Surface Book machines, with both porting Intel’s Core-i7 processor and 32 GB of RAM. Windows Latest reports:

“According to a new certification, Surface Book 3 will feature Intel 10th-generation processors and Microsoft plans to sell both the 13-inch model and 15-inch variants.

“Surface Book 3 could be utilizing a wide range of different hardware and the firm will also sell the device with 32GB of RAM. This time both casual and professional users can get a Surface Book configurations that will be perfect for their needs.”

Given the listed speed of the i7 processor, it looks like the Surface Book 3 will be using Intel’s Ice Lake-U processors. This matches the chipsets used in the Surface Laptop 3 and Surface Pro 7 devices launched in October 2019, and there’s a certain practicality in using the same close family of chips across the full range.

One other detail that jumps out is the ‘Date Available On Market’, with both machines listing ’05/01/2020’. That doesn’t mean that they were on retail shelves on that date, but it does suggest that the hardware is ready to go on sale.

Microsoft has not confirmed a release date, but many are expecting the Surface Book 3 to arrive in June.

Galaxy Book Flex review: A pretty QLED laptop with a useful S Pen Samsung’s laptops are coming into their own.

Samsung has had a troubled past as a laptop maker. Its ATIV, Notebook and Odyssey machines were underwhelming, and in the late 2010s the company consolidated its efforts into the Galaxy Book line. Instead of competing against the usual PC makers like Dell, HP, Lenovo and ASUS, Samsung focused on making more mobile-friendly machines. It prioritized thin-and-light designs and great displays, and it added an onboard stylus, borrowing the features that made its smartphones the industry favorites they are today. 

With the Galaxy Book Flex, Samsung continues to show improved self-awareness by showcasing its superior display tech. The Flex is the first laptop with a QLED panel, which promises more colors, deeper blacks and greater brightness. It also comes standard with an S Pen and a wireless-charging pad built into the trackpad. Two models — 13 inch and 15 inch — are available, and we received the smaller version, which costs $1,349. The larger is just $50 more, and both are available today. 

Engadget Score

Pros

Beautiful build

Useful onboard S Pen

Trackpad can wirelessly charge other devices

Comfortable keyboard

Cons

Limited configurations

Middling battery life

Summary

The Galaxy Book Flex is a gorgeous, powerful laptop with a vibrant QLED display. Though its battery life isn’t as long as some of the competition, the Flex is still a capable machine with a helpful S Pen onboard.

Design

I gotta give Samsung props. The company has seriously stepped up the design of its laptops over the past few years. The Galaxy Book S and Galaxy Chromebook both had super sleek builds, and the Flex is no different. This thing is all clean lines and sharp corners, with gleaming edges that give it a polished look. The deep royal blue of my review unit is refreshing: I’m used to boring silver, black or gray laptops, so my eyes welcome this change. 

Though it’s impressively thin, the Flex feels solid and dense. It’s still pretty light though at just 1.15kg (2.53 pounds). In comparison, the new MacBook Air and the Dell XPS 13 2-in-1 are both heavier at 2.8 and 2.9 pounds, respectively. 

The Flex’s 13.3-inch screen is surrounded by minimal bezels on the top, left and right sides, with a fatter chin at the bottom. That thicker bottom bezel is still common in laptops, though Dell managed to do away with it in this year’s XPS 13 — maybe the rest of the industry will catch up soon. Samsung still managed to squeeze a webcam above the Flex’s screen, although it sadly doesn’t support Windows Hello logins. 

Along the edges, you’ll find a headphone jack, a microSD card reader, a push-to-release S Pen slot and three USB-C ports (two of which are Thunderbolt 3 compatible). That’s one more USB-C socket than the XPS and MacBook have, with the Apple laptop lacking the card slot the other two offer. As a consequence of offering more connectivity options, the Flex is also slightly thicker than both of those laptops. Still, it’s compact enough to fit in most of my work bags.

Display

I’ll be honest: I can’t tell the difference between an OLED and QLED screen of the same size and resolution. And you might not be able to either. That is to say, you won’t have any complaints about the Flex’s full HD display in terms of color reproduction and vibrance. I watched several episodes of Amazon’s new show Upload. The rich, autumnal colors in the leafy forest settings were stunning, and it was easy to make out details in even dimly lit scenes. 

My apartment gets a lot of light, so it can sometimes get hard to see any laptop’s screen. The Flex’s Outdoor Mode is supposed to combat that by bumping the brightness an extra 200 nits to 600 nits. But switching it on via the keyboard shortcut only helped a little bit. However, it was much more useful on a slightly gloomy day.

I wish Samsung hadn’t made this a mode that you switch on or off and instead offered it as a few extra levels on the built-in brightness scale. Sometimes I needed a little bit more than the built-in max, but in those situations I had to use Outdoor Mode, which scorched my retinas. Still, it probably conserves battery to only bump up brightness by that much for short periods of time rather than encourage you to use it for an extended stretch.

Outdoor Mode also added a weird yellow cast to the screen, as if it turned on a blue-light filter. This wasn’t a big deal other than when I needed to edit photos for color temperatures. In those cases, you’ll have to turn off Outdoor Mode and figure out some other way to see your display without that brightness boost.

Keyboard and trackpad

Because it’s so slim, I was expecting the Book Flex to have shallow keys, but Samsung was able to offer a surprisingly deep amount of travel here. The keyboard is well laid out, with no undersized buttons save for the right-shift key, which is a little less wide to make room for the fingerprint sensor next to it. 

My one gripe would be that the left-shift key seemed a little sticky, and too often I would try to uppercase the first letter of a word and end up getting the first two letters instead. I’d blame it on my lazy pinkie, but I haven’t encountered this on any other laptop. 

A quick note on the fingerprint scanner: It was fast and accurate, usually unlocking the laptop without delay. Since it’s Windows Hello-compatible, I also used it for authentication on programs like Google Chrome. While the placement is uncommon — most laptops place their fingerprint readers on the top right of the deck or embed it into the power button — Samsung’s choice didn’t feel too odd.

Below the spacebar sits the Flex’s trackpad, which is fairly roomy given the laptop’s small footprint. Smaller notebooks often have cramped trackpads, but the surface area here is generous. It’s not as tall as the XPS 13’s or MacBook Air’s, but it offers enough vertical space. Aside from being large, the Flex’s touchpad is also responsive and smooth, and gestures like scrolling or pinch-to-zoom worked well.

S Pen

One of my favorite things about Samsung laptops is the S Pen. It’s not only fun for drawing self-portraits or scribbling down notes but also helpful for signing urgent PDFs. I just had to open the document, select “Add a Note” from the toolbar and sign on the dotted line. 

The Flex offers the same onboard stylus as the Note 10 — don’t expect the bigger, more pen-like version on the Galaxy Tab S series. Still, it’s comfortable enough to use for hours while drawing a self-portrait. Fans of Samsung’s Air Command menu on its Note phones will be pleased to know it pops up here too when you slide the S Pen out of its slot.

Performance and in use

The Flex may look like a dainty machine, but it actually packs a powerful 10th-generation Intel Core i7 processor. My review unit came with 16GB of RAM, which is double the 8GB configuration you can buy in the US. (The 15-inch model has the same CPU but 12GB of RAM.) Bear in mind that this means my experience, at least when it comes to performance and speed, isn’t going to be representative of what you can expect. 

With these guts, the Flex deftly dealt with my daily workflow of Slack, dozens of Chrome tabs, spreadsheets and the inescapable Zoom calls that permeate our lives now. The laptop also kept up with my new at-home needs, like executing my podcast-recording setup and uploading large files for review videos. I also played several rounds of League of Legends after rediscovering it, and the Flex never let me down.

That is, until I decided to turn on Samsung’s Silent mode. This is meant to keep the laptop’s fans quiet if you’re bothered by them. It’s pretty easy to activate: Just slide a switch in the Samsung Settings app. You don’t have to go into Boot mode to access it. I never found the Flex too loud, but I guess those trying to get work done in bed next to a light sleeper or just really hate white noise might.

I did notice a significant decrease in sound when I enabled Silent Mode, though it seemed to throttle CPU performance. When I tried to continue playing League afterward, the system lag made it nearly impossible: My character could barely make it to the first turret before I gave up and restarted (with Silent Mode off). This is somewhat understandable. You can’t expect high-speed performance when the fans are turned off without the computer running too hot. Silent Mode is more useful if you’re bothered by the noise and aren’t running anything intensive. 

Battery life and wireless PowerShare

Thanks to the Flex’s QLED screen and 69.7Whr battery, Samsung promises up to 20 hours of runtime. In reality though, that number is a lot lower. Our video-looping battery test drained the Flex in about 13 and a half hours, which is better than the MacBook Air but falls short of the XPS 13 2-in-1’s 14-and-a-half hour mark. In real-world experience though, I saw power levels plunge below 20 percent after five hours of heavy use. To be fair, that involved energy-sapping processes like video playback and more-frenzied League games. 

One of the new features of the Flex is its trackpad’s built-in wireless charger that can deliver power to Qi-compatible devices. It’s the same Wireless PowerShare feature that debuted on the Galaxy S10. You can’t use the trackpad while you’re charging something, which makes sense, since something is literally obstructing the usable area. I’m not sure how helpful this feature is, since wireless charging is typically too slow to be meaningful. I placed the Galaxy S20 Ultra on the trackpad (after the requisite first step of turning on the feature in Settings) and watched as its battery level climbed painfully slowly from 79 percent to 85 percent in 20 minutes. 

For something smaller, like the Galaxy Buds, I could see this being useful in a pinch (say, in an airplane when you’re running low on juice). Otherwise, wireless PowerShare isn’t something I’ll use a lot.

Wrap-up

I’m enamored with the Galaxy Book Flex. It’s a pretty machine with a nice display, powerful guts and useful S Pen. But I wish there were more configurations (for each size) to make the base price lower. Sure, $1,349 for a Core i7 processor and 8GB of RAM isn’t the priciest, considering the new MacBook Air tops out at $1,199 for a Core i5 and the similarly specced XPS 13 2-in-1 costs a lot more at $1,700. But with the competition offering options starting at $999, that’s tough to swallow. 

Still, if you’re looking for a gorgeous, beefy laptop with a good screen and don’t need it to last forever, the Galaxy Book Flex is worth considering. More important, it proves it’s time to take Samsung’s laptops seriously again.

MSI GF65 THIN 9SEXR GAMING LAPTOP REVIEW

I don’t mean to be disparaging of the MSI GF65 THIN 9SEXR, but take a look at its technical specifications and you’ll find the same parts that have been powering our machines for over a year—there’s truly nothing Super, 7nm, or 10th Gen about it. Yet its announcement has come as part of one of the few captivating developments in gaming laptops beyond AMD’s Ryzen 4000 APUs.

With the release of its Super GPU silicon for mobile, the RTX 2070 Super and RTX 2080 Super, Nvidia also promised to make its RTX 2060 GPU available in a gaming laptop for under ($999) £999. That potentially means more to parsimonious customers than high-end GPUs, and it’s not often that gaming laptops are level-pegging with their DIY PC counterparts. MSI’s GF65 is one of the first of a handful of gaming laptops to make good on that promise. In the UK, anyways.

It’s powered by an RTX 2060, marking a step-up upgrade over the GTX 1660 Ti in 2019’s top model. With that not only comes the promise of a Turing GPU fit with 6GB of GDDR6 and 1,920 CUDA Cores—with the added potential of portable AI acceleration in creative applications and Nvidia’s updated Turing encoder—but also an easier point of entry into real-time ray tracing and Nvidia’s AI upscaling technology, DLSS 2.0.

At first glance not much has changed with the exterior of the GF65 compared with its predecessor. Both feature the same inornate chassis at 21.7mm thick, and the largely plastic construction does leave a lot to be desired. It’s undoubtedly a little on the large size, too, especially as we’ve already seen some incredibly thin gaming laptops so far this year. But at 1.86kg it is at least lighter than some comparable laptops in this price bracket.

The 15.6-inch 1080p panel is surrounded by a bezel that, while at its thinnest point extends only 0.7mm, reaches 2.7cm closer to the hinges. At least it houses a panel rated to 120Hz, which is suitably fast to make good on the promises of the RTX 2060 within. And it’s also of the IPS variety, so good marks here for an all-round decent panel pairing for the GF65’s entry-level RTX GPU.

Joining the fray is Intel’s Core i7 9750H. Despite the first wave of Intel 10th Gen Comet Lake H-series laptops starting to filter out from the rank and file of Intel’s partners—including MSI’s very own GF63 Slim in identical garb to the GF65—it’s instead made the decision to stick with the older, cheaper, Core i7 9750H. With relatively familiar specifications from the 14nm family, and an apparent price premium on the 10th Gen chips—by Intel’s own admission—I can’t help but think it made the right choice.

While the Core i7 9750H hits max velocity at 4.5GHz—quite a bit lower than its 10th Gen sibling—what matters most is whether it can sustain its rated clocks. In a single-core run of Cinebench R15, it maintained 4.4GHz for the duration, only a touch shy of the chip’s rated limit of 4.5GHz boost, and in multi-core testing that drops to around the 3.7GHz mark, but maintains it throughout.

So whatever misgivings I may have for the chassis in terms of its looks, it’s capable enough of maintaining decent performance. We saw no significant dips in performance across a lengthy three run marathon of the Metro Exodus benchmark at ultra, either. Temperatures soared to 97 degrees max for the CPU and 81 degrees max for the GPU that same run, but thankfully severe throttling was avoided with some judicious fan RPM—it’s far from the quietest laptop going.

Throughout our gaming benchmarks, the MSI GF65 performs well—if only a little shy of the Asus TUF FA506IV equipped with an RTX 2060 and AMD Ryzen 4800H. That’s true in all but Far Cry New Dawn where the TUF inexplicably, and repeatedly, soared above the rest.

What could become a boon to the GF65 (and the TUF, for that matter) is the growing prevalence of DLSS within the latest games. With DLSS offering the ability to improve frame rates, with little downside on the second-gen DLSS 2.0, the jump to the RTX 2060 nets the possibility of a large performance boon over 16-series cards of more than the silicon technically allows. You will have to put your faith in Nvidia and game developers to go above and beyond to access that performance, however, and it’s by no means a guarantee—the least bit for older games.

And while that all makes an RTX 2060 for under £1,000 sound like an alluring offer, MSI has made some sacrifices with the 2020 model of the GF65 in order to scrape in under the mark.

Both memory and storage have been stripped back in order to keep the balance sheet for parts in good stead with the shift to the RTX 20-series GPU. Unfortunately, that means replacing the 512GB SSD with a 256GB one, which after OS installation is running frightfully low on capacity with only a few benchmarks installed. That puts a hard limit on your choice of games (or game), too. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is absolutely out of the question without an upgrade.

The decision to pare back memory to single-channel will also strike fear in the hearts of many a PC builder. The 8GB of dual-channel memory is capable of getting by in most titles, especially at 1080p on a laptop such as this. But with only a single channel in play, that 8GB doesn’t get you very far. Memory bandwidth is significantly hampered, and that may find you dropping frames in demanding games or incredibly conscious of app RAM usage for the duration of your time with the GF65.

The last-gen GF65 (2019) doesn’t suffer the same fate. For a similar price tag, last year’s model comes with a GTX 1660 Ti, 16GB of dual-channel memory, and a 512GB panel. The Asus TUF FA506IV, too. Granted, £300 is no small matter more, but its Ryzen 4000 mobile/RTX 2060 combo is a great buy. And it’s got all the memory and storage you could want at that price and form factor. The GF65 THIN 9SEXR feels like a partially incomplete product by comparison, and lacking what is required to get the most out of it.

The models available in the US have seen especially harsh cuts to come in under $1,000. In order to get your hands on an RTX 2060 for $999, you’ll have to make do with Intel’s Core i5 9300H, in lieu of the Core i7 9750H found in the UK model. At least the storage has returned to a healthy 512GB SSD.

In order to hit a specification roughly analogous with the UK model at £999, you’ll have to spend $1,099. That’s actually rather favourable to the dollar when you look at today’s exchange rate, and you still hold on to that 512GB SSD, but it’s not quite in keeping with Nvidia’s $999 promise, is it?

Strangely the MSI GF65 THIN 9SEXR will be available exclusively at Curry’s PC World from May 4th in the UK. If you reside in the US, you can find that similar configuration I mentioned for $1,099 across major retailers.

With the specs list of the UK model as it is, the GF65 does leave me wanting for more. Performance is decent in today’s games, but I’m not entirely convinced how much ray tracing you’re going to get done with a spec that only gets by with the skin of its teeth without cutting-edge rendering tech helping to grind performance into pulp.

But I usually recommend overspending on your graphics card and making up for less storage capacity when you can afford it—so why should a laptop be any different? The upgrade process is at least a simple one. Pop the underside off by removing an ungodly quantity of screws and you’ll find a spare NVMe slot and a spare SODIMM slot. Both can be fitted with off-the-shelf parts as and when you have the budget to do so. Two NVMe slots also makes for an easy transfer if you do end up swapping out your boot drive.

As important as it is to point out what’s been lost in order to hit £999, it’s just as important to quantify what has been gained as a result of offering RTX at this price point. You can’t upgrade a laptop GPU yourself, after all, it’s soldered down tight. So the shift to the RTX 2060, even with sacrifice, may make the most financial sense for someone looking to buy an RTX laptop without the means to immediately buy one that’s high-end on all counts.

Microsoft’s Surface Book 3 passes through FCC

Expected in May, the imminent launch of Microsoft’s Surface Book 3 is one step closer as it’s now passed through the FCC. Spotted by Windows Latest, the filing once again shows something only called Portable Computing Device, just like when the Surface Go 2 was certified by the FCC.

Other than that, there’s not much to tell here. This is just another milestone that demonstrates that Microsoft is close to announcing the product.

As for what the Surface Book 3 will actually be, there are still a lot of questions. We’re expecting to see Intel’s 10th-generation ‘Comet Lake’ CPUs, along with newer Nvidia GeForce GTX 16xx graphics. According to a few reports, there will be Quadro options as well. But other than the internals, not much is known about if or how the design will change.

The Surface Book has historically been criticized for its hinge gap and its poor weight balance. Both of these are due to its unique design, with a detachable display. Other than the GPU and one of the two batteries, all of the internals are stored in the screen so it can work when it’s detached. Naturally, this results in a heavier tablet portion.

Third-generation Surface products are typically where the product matures though, and typically where kinks are worked out. We’ve seen this in the Surface Pro 3, Surface 3, and most recently, the Surface Laptop 3. Hopefully, the Surface Book 3 will follow suit.

Dell XPS 2020 Line Accidentally Listed On Dell’s French Website – First Time Since 2013 That We See A 17 Inch XPS Laptop

A few days ago, we saw the 2020 Dell XPS leaked out and now we have been able to confirm the rumors with the accidental confirmation of the laptops by the France division of Dell. The laptops were listed for a short period on the website, and that was more than enough time for us to be able to look at the specification sheet (via NotebookCheck).

The Star Of The Show Is The Dell XPS 17 9700 With A 3840×2000 Touch Screen Display, Intel 10th Gen Comet Lake & Up To RTX 2060 Graphics

These laptops will be featuring offerings from Intel’s Comet Lake-S line and Nvidia’s GeForce graphics. The laptops that were shown were the XPS 15 9500 and XPS 17 9700, which are 15 and 17-inch laptops as their name indicates. The slim design and silver color seem to look to be trying to take shots at Apple’s Mac Pro 16.

Both laptops will feature the same 4 options for the processor which are i5-10300H, i7-10750H, i7-10875H, and i9-10885H. Intel has not yet announced the Core i9-10885H but it seems to feature 8 cores and 16 threads with a boost clock of up to 5.30 GHz. The Core i9-10980HK would remain the flagship but the Core i9-10885H might be a more power-tuned version that would work well with Dell’s XPS lineup.

The graphics will be powered by either integrated Intel UHD 630 graphics or NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 Ti for the XPS 15. The best option on XPS 17 is the RTX 2060 graphics card which is odd because they can both have the best processor, but not the best graphics card as NVIDIA has more powerful RTX 20 & RTX SUPER variants already out in the market. This is the first time since 2013 that the XPS line will feature a 17-inch laptop. This is one of the bigger reason on why this laptop is getting more attention.

The laptop weighs in at 2.5 Kg and is 2.5cm thick. It comes with a 16:10 aspect ratio IPS 500nits panel with a 3840×2400 resolution featuring touch support but it is unknown if any adaptive sync features would be added to the screen itself. The Dell XPS features a quad-speakers (Jack Joseph Puig) design which should provide decent sound quality. The batteries are rated at 86 Wh & 97 Wh respectively for the Dell XPS 15 9500 and the Dell XPS 17 9700. It features soldered WiFi which is not necessarily a good feature and dual NVME slots which is also exclusive to 9700.

All thought the listings may have been leaked, they did not include anything about the pricing nor the release date which is quite disappointing. It does mean that these details along with the launch are coming soon.

Leaked XPS 15 9500 listing confirms it to be a step up from the XPS 15 7590 and a step down from the XPS 17 9700

It looks like the XPS 15 2020 refresh is almost upon us, complete with a new XPS 17. As we covered separately, the XPS 17 9700 will be a new form factor for Dell and the XPS series, with up to an RTX 2060, 64 GB of RAM and dual M.2-2280 drive bays. Dell has included vapor chamber cooling too, another first for the XPS series. Sadly, it does not seem that the XPS 15 9500 has not received quite the start treatment that the XPS 17 9700 has.

While we were unable to view the XPS 15 9500 listing on Dell France some clever folk on r/Dell have given us a look at what it contained. We want to thank u/stblr for uploading multiple images on Imgur, which we have included below. The same goes for u/DerRoedie, who exported the HTML and re-uploaded it.

Thanks to u/stblr and u/DerRoedie we can confirm several aspects about the XPS 15 9500. Firstly, Dell will offer it with the same four Comet Lake-H processors that we saw with the XPS 17 9700 64 GB of RAM will be offered too, as will a 4K touchscreen. Likewise, the GTX 1650 Ti will be featuring, too.

However, the XPS 15 9500 misses out on multiple innovations that the XPS 17 9700 has, and one that previous XPS 15 machines had. Dealing with the latter first, Dell will only offer the XPS 15 with up to an 86 Wh battery this year, no doubt a disappointment for some XPS fans. Additionally, it will not be coming with an RTX 2060 GPU, as the XPS 17 will. Moreover, the spec sheet suggests that the XPS 15 will only have one M.2 2280 drive bay, compared to the two in the XPS 17 9700 Furthermore, the XPS 15 will not include the Windows Hello IR camera that Dell has included in the XPS 17. The XPS 15 also has one fewer Thunderbolt 3 port than the XPS 17 does, for some reason.

The final differences we have noticed relate to cooling, a bugbear of the XPS 15 for several generations. Nowhere in the spec sheet does Dell refer to the XPS 15 having its “Dual Opposite Outlet fan”, a fan system for which it boasted that it had filed several patents. The same applies to vapor chamber cooling. Comparing the disassembled images of the XPS 15 and XPS 17 confirms that the latter has a large element below the fan assembly that the former lacks. Presumably, this is the vapor chamber cooling system.

All in all, the XPS 15 9500 seems like it will be a step up from the XPS 15 7590 in many ways. The 16:10 display, more powerful chipsets and the inclusion of more modern ports all suggest so anyway, even if the reduction in battery capacity will draw some complaints. However, we cannot help but feel that the XPS 15 9500 is a step down from the XPS 17 9700, and an unnecessarily steep one at that. It almost seems like Dell has reserved its best innovations for its flagship XPS model, with the XPS 15 now the forgotten middle child.