QuoteFor example, the X1E-80-100 in its direct competitor, the Samsung Galaxy Book4 Edge 16, was slightly slower during the multi-core tests, but the X1E-78-100 inside the Asus Vivobook S 15 was slightly faster in standard mode.
No, X1E-78-100 inside the Asus Vivobook S 15, 15-20% slower in CBR15 and let's not forget about Arm's poor compatibility with the x86 code base.
Also consider that the X1E-78-100 consumes more than 35W in PL1 mode, instead of 28W for the AI 9 HX 370.
Quotecomfortable keyboard
It's a shame for NB to list the cut-down keyboard as a plus for the laptop. Obviously, for a 16" model, this is a shameful keyboard without a classical numpad, which excludes effective work in the office and at home. Well, except for those who just write texts...
Quotebrilliant 120-Hz OLED
For IPS, even if it is semi-matte, yes. But for AMOLED, where "super" contrast of 1M:1+ is advertised, this is a shameful panel.
Note that the laptop screen does not even have a True Black HDR certificate - precisely because of the shameful contrast of 20,000:1, instead of 1M:1+ minimum.
I wonder how the manufacturers managed to raise the PWM frequency on AMOLED to 480Hz+ (240x2, which immediately leads to some bad thoughts), instead of 200-240Hz? What new achievements in AMOLED panels allowed to improve the frequency exactly 2 (two) times? The authors of NB need to explain this change in the last year in the reviews.
Although, as I already wrote, the minimum PWM frequency, which is considered safe, is 1.2 kHz according to the international standard.
CPU part:
Compared to 7945HX with Zen4 cores "5/6nm" (4900-5000 points in CBR15 at 85W in PL1 from www.notebookcheck.net/Minisforum-AtomMan-G7-PT-review-Compact-gaming-mini-PC-with-AMD-Ryzen-9-7945HX-and-Radeon-RX-7600M-XT.859693.0.html) the real increase in energy efficiency is approximately +40-45% for Zen5 cores (~2380@28W in PL1), which is quite good. It is clear that this is a thin and extremely light laptop (for 16") with a weak cooling system, but to get the performance of Zen4 7940HS again, albeit with minus 7W of consumption in PL1 (2330@35W from www.notebookcheck.net/Geekom-A7-with-0-5l-case-in-review-Premium-mini-PC-with-AMD-Ryzen-9-7940HS-32-GB-DDR5-RAM-and-2-TB-SSD.811438.0.html) - this is just boring and not impressive...
The real leap (for AMD) is finally a much more efficient memory controller with the same boring LDDR5 7500, which was finally fixed (as they previously claimed - supposedly there were problems with Zen4 with 7500, but in reality there were models in which it worked, it's just that other manufacturers, like Lenovo, were not qualified enough at the level of development departments to make motherboards with working LDDR5 7500 + Zen4 Phoenix). Finally, we see numbers close to 100 GB / s. Although from the point of view of the efficient operation of DP2.1 (UHBR20) and igpu, this bandwidth is obviously not enough, you need 3 times more, at least. That is why this junior line of Zen5 Strix does not support DP2.1 with UHBR20, because there is not at least a 256-bit memory controller with twice the bandwidth. We are waiting for Zen5 Strix Halo, the release of which was postponed, as usual - another "paper" AMD family, to its shame. Although it should be the most popular in business laptops without dGPU, but with real support for 8k monitors and igpu at least at the level of GTX1650.
I still naively expect that they will finally unsolder the HBM3 in SoC with a 512-1024 data bus and 8-32GB as VRAM. This will be a real breakthrough for AMD igpu...
But the memory latency is again depressing - more than 100ns even for the HX series 9
I don't like that the hot air exhaust on the screen exceeds 47C - this can have a bad effect on the AMOLED panel, although I did not look at the critical temperatures for it, but most likely they also do not exceed 50C.
Battery life with Wi-Fi (and this is an openly fake test, the time in which for real surfing should be immediately divided by 1.5-2 times) is not impressive. There are no stable 8 hours+ with real work and load.
Considering the stated price, 32 GB of soldered RAM is too little - there should be at least 64 GB (and they are 100% supported in Zen4/Zen5, as we have already found out earlier).
Because even taking into account the novelty, but taking into account all the shortcomings and slightly high performance of last year's 7940HS with slightly lower consumption at -7 W, not a very good offer for more than $2200. What are the extra 800$-900$ for, Asus?
If there were 64GB/4TB here, it could still be justified somehow, but as it is... until there is a 30-40% discount, it is unlikely that there will be many people willing to buy the already flawed series, both in terms of the keyboard and the glossy flickering screen without real support for HDR10 and 8k monitors on USB-c ports (where we were waiting for USB40 V2 at 80Gbps)...
Thank you for your attention.