I love how bloat free the PC is compared to some other brands (you can’t escape Microsoft bloat anymore and may not even want to depending on what you want anyway), no spending time figuring out how to completely uninstall an antivirus I don’t want and using figuring out how to disable automatic updates that want to reinstall the bloat I remove.
I love the design of the laptop, simple minimal and looks great. No RGB on the outside to attract attention. It is also pretty light for it’s gaming chops. This isn’t a super thin forget its even in your backpack laptop, but it also fits nicely and is a lot nicer than other gaming laptops I’ve used. The white on the keyboard looks amazing in my opinion. There is a blue blacklight on the keyboard as well, but the white makes the keys stand out even without that in lowlight. There is a num pad as well. I would say the only disadvantage is that the keyboard feels cramped compared to other keyboards. If you have small hands this may not be a problem at all and I quickly adjusted to the travel between keys for typing but it isn’t the most comfortable to type on, an external keyboard of course fixes this so I think that if you have a monitor and keyboard you use at home this is a fair trade off, if this is the main keyboard your planning on using it may be worth it to try it in store to see if you really want to use this one 100% of the time. The touch mouse isn’t the best, but every gamer and high-power user should have a good external mouse anyway; it gets the job done for small tasks when you’re not gaming though.
The specs: They look awesome, now if you’re really into all the specs around gaming, there are better and more expensive graphics cards out there that look better in every way. I compare it to looking at TVs in the store, there are a very small group of people that really want the OLED as it absolutely looks better than the other TVs when sitting right next to them, but if you didn’t see the OLED you’d think the other TVs looked fantastic. This makes games look great, it performs great, and overall is an awesome gaming PC. It is more than sufficient for my needs. The 32GB of RAM help it not stagger either if the I happen to have a few other applications or browsers open as I tend to us my PC for a few different tasks, I could be doing some programming, CAD work, or gaming, and sometimes I don’t always close things out. The RAM seems to be what limits me and stops my computers from fully functioning when I only have 8 or 16 so having 32GB has really opened up the ability of the laptop, I could even upgrade it to 64 if I wanted as taking of the back and swapping the memory is quite doable with the laptop. The screen is just over 1080, which I happen to think works great on a laptop especially for gaming and the refresh rate keeps the games looking their best. The sounds is loud and sounds good out of the laptop speakers which is nice if your sharing a movie with a friend or something, but a good headset is always more helpful than any speaker.
The port density isn’t terrible but isn’t great either; on the left side it has an AUX and USB A port; on the right it has a USB C with power (I tested a 130W USB Charge which worked but a 30W one did not) and a USB A; on the back is a USB C with display port, charging port, HDMI, and ethernet port (I love that it has one built in).
Pros:
Excellent graphics value play
32GB RAM
1TB SSD
Design
Keyboard backlight and white outline
USB C charging (this type of charger not included; other kind is)
Ethernet port
Num pad
Bloatware is minimized
Large screen for how compact it is
Cons:
Keyboard is cramped
USB C missing on left side and USB A missing on back (just my preferences on where they should be)
Touch mouse could be better
Overall, this is an awesome gaming/engineering/programming machine that works allows me to work and play with ease.
Bonus:
This took me a min to figure out apparently so I’ll make it part of the review as it maybe something you may find the value to learn from. The sound wasn’t functioning properly, if I unplugged my USB wireless headset the sound would just fail until I restarted the computer, I was troubleshooting the computer trying to figure out why and I thought it was a computer problem… my headset was on the Xbox setting, changing it to PC made everything function perfectly… So, if you have a gaming headset that has an Xbox/PC setting, make sure to have it in the right setting otherwise the onboard sound can screw up once you unplug the headset, but a restart will also fix this issue.