XMG Apex 17 (late 23) review: a QHD gaming laptop with an RTX 4060

[Redaktion]

The XMG Apex 17 proves that gaming laptops don't have to produce excessive noise: Despite high-level performance (Ryzen 7 7840HS, GeForce RTX 4060) the computer manages to run quietly. This is accompanied by well-rounded specs and decent battery life.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/XMG-Apex-17-late-23-review-a-QHD-gaming-laptop-with-an-RTX-4060.757651.0.html

[NikoB]

Again, the numpad is completely broken, with a lot of space on the left and right for the full version. Yet another second-tier company is successfully shooting itself right in the foot already at the laptop design stage.

Again (obviously due to greed) the 2 built-in USB40s, which are extremely important in the future for the owners of the half-dead 4060, which can no longer handle any games, even 2022, at 2.5k, with stable 60fps+, are not brought out.

For that price, there should already be a 7945HX, like Asus, which is literally more than 2 times faster - this would at least explain the absence of two symmetrically routed (or rear) - USB40 - for them you would have to solder an additional controller on the board, which not in SoC HX series.

Despite the most energy-efficient Zen4 Phoenix, and not even the top version, the laptop is extremely noisy even in normal tasks.

Only patriots in Germany will buy...

ps, Asus 17.3" with the same screen and more than twice as fast 7945HX+4050 16/1TB now costs $1200, and with a full-fledged numpad, which immediately increases its potential to be purchased as a universal laptop. In both cases, they are both clearly not gaming laptops, but the second one is much more practical..

[LL]

Too much expensive for a 4060 and a non 100% sRGB screen.

[173ftw]

What is this joke of a laptop?

Why is the last column of the numpad is completely missing? Why is the 0 on the numpad is so small? What is the point of a numpad if you are going to butcher it this much? 17.3" should have enough of space for a regular numpad.

Also no USB4 in sight, even though 7840HS provides two of them.

Just two video outputs when other 7840HS competitors offer three.

The 35 mb/s sd card reader performance is just laughable, might as well not bothered with it and exposed it as a USB3 port for the user to buy their own USB sd card adapter.

Ethernet being just Gigabit instead of 2.5G is also sad to see in a premium gaming laptop for this price point in 2023.

Just 3 of USB Type-A (one of which is USB2) and 1 of USB Type-C is laughable too. Should have at least 5 USB ports: 3 of USB3 Type-A ports, 1 of USB4 and at least 1 other: USB4, USB3 Type-A, USB3 Type-C or USB2.

The screen is weird too, doesn't seem like there is a 1080p 100% sRGB option.

The network card is also kinda old, just Wi-Fi 6, not 6e or 7. Should have been Intel Wi-Fi 6E AX210 or Intel Wi-Fi 7 BE200, though the latter might have been too new.

Sad to see there being no iGPU-only option. 780M is powerful on its own to the point it's decent for gaming, so a configuration with iGPU-only would have been nice. Even if the APU was 7945HX, I would still love to see iGPU-only option as 610M is powerful enough for all non-gaming tasks.

[RobertJasiek]

Why is the last column of the numpad is completely missing? Why is the 0 on the numpad is so small? What is the point of a numpad if you are going to butcher it this much? 17.3" should have enough of space for a regular numpad.

As to the numpad, it must also be mentioned that
- the more often needed Plus and Minus are tiny while the less often needed Multiply and Divide are ordinarily sized,
- Plus is aligned with Divide and Minus is aligned with Multiply, which makes no sense as to their arithmetic meaning.

Why? An XMG / Schenker representative has explained it: the keyboard is a Tongfang white layout so providing a different layout would result in slightly higher production cost. Although this explains the origin of the problem, it is no excuse. As little as for the Neo's missing mechanical keys in the numpad. If necessary, a manufacturer must pay the extra ca. €25 of production cost and might even earn a larger margin by increasing the endconsumer price by ca. €50 (the price of a very good mechanical, AES-secured desktop keyboard with proper layout, additional batteries, receiver and charging cable). Without proper keyboard, however, the manufacturer earns nothing from me at all as I do not buy.

[Neenyah]

Sad to see there being no iGPU-only option. 780M is powerful on its own to the point it's decent for gaming, so a configuration with iGPU-only would have been nice. Even if the APU was 7945HX, I would still love to see iGPU-only option as 610M is powerful enough for all non-gaming tasks.

Why would a clearly gaming laptop, with the usual ugly teenage-gamer design, be an iGPU-only? 🤔 Why not get any non-gaming laptop with the 780M then?

[A]

What's with the numpad obsession like everyone is accountant using Excel

[RobertJasiek]

Digits are useful for many purposes, such as file names or objects (such as images embedded in texts) identified by numbers. This is really efficient when handling millions of them; sorting is natural. (Digits have also been useful in my book of applied maths and more useful in my books on Go, because move numbers are points comprise digits, of course. Uh, and once per year for Excel for the tax calculation.) Needless to say, the numpad is much faster than a long row of digits.

[A]

Needless to say, the numpad is much faster than a long row of digits.

Difference is almost negligible if you are touch typing. Maybe it's faster for huge data entries, when you are focused on numbers only aka Excel.

[RobertJasiek]

I am afraid I do not understand you yet because I do not know what you mean by "touch typing". Please explain!

[A]

I am afraid I do not understand you yet because I do not know what you mean by "touch typing". Please explain!

wikipedia 'touch typing' )

[RobertJasiek]

Ah, ok, blind typing I understand because we use that kind of phrase in German.

Fluent typists using both full hands might be equally fast on the top row above the letters. I am not. I can partially type blindly but not including the number row. Blind or semi-blind  or fast controlled typing is possible for me on the arrow keys, the numpad, the page navigation keys and the ALT-TAB, CTRL X C V combinations.

Most time I save due to ordinarily sized arrow keys: ca. 2 full-time weeks per year. The numpad might amount to ca. another week.

[173ftw]

Why would a clearly gaming laptop, with the usual ugly teenage-gamer design, be an iGPU-only? 🤔 Why not get any non-gaming laptop with the 780M then?

What universe do you live in? Because you clearly live in some alternative reality. A laptop with similar specs but non-gaming design - a non-gaming laptop with 17.3" screen, a ton of I/O, multiple NVMe slots, extendable RAM, etc. - is a rarity. There are so few of them that you could say they basically don't exist. You ask why - because there is no alternative.

Also, I said it would be nice to have an "option" to have it be iGPU-only. Option is the keyword. You know, like you can select which GPU you want: 4050, 4060, 4070, etc. in the laptop configurator before you order? So you can have your dGPU and I can have my iGPU.

These gaming laptops make for good workstation machines but I have no use for a dGPU, so I would prefer if there was a iGPU-only version as I don't want to pay for something I won't use.

What's with the numpad obsession like everyone is accountant using Excel

You don't need to be an accountant using Excel to complain about an objectively wrong numpad layout.

[A]

You don't need to be an accountant using Excel to complain about an objectively wrong numpad layout.

I've asked why you need it at all, not why you complain.

I can partially type blindly but not including the number row.

If using numpad is just a habit, you can easily re-learn. ~68-75 keys keyboard are getting more and more popular in the last years, there's probably now more of those on sale than full keyboards, especially in expensive segment. People are going away from numpads for faster typing.

[Neenyah]

Why would a clearly gaming laptop, with the usual ugly teenage-gamer design, be an iGPU-only? 🤔 Why not get any non-gaming laptop with the 780M then?

What universe do you live in? Because you clearly live in some alternative reality. A laptop with similar specs but non-gaming design - a non-gaming laptop with 17.3" screen, a ton of I/O, multiple NVMe slots, extendable RAM, etc. - is a rarity. There are so few of them that you could say they basically don't exist. You ask why - because there is no alternative.

My universe and reality are those where such described laptop is not wanted by large enough amount of people to still be manufactured by OEMs (and such laptops used to exist before while they always were sold far less than anything else). You can still get exactly what you want with a 16" size and I doubt that 1.3" is so crucial there. Although 7x4x AMD iGPU-only is almost always with soldered RAM (I know about exactly one exception) so there is that. Other 17.3" AMD-iGPU-only options are cheap and meh laptops mostly from HP, like this: https://www.computeruniverse.net/en/p/1C50-002

Meanwhile you can get an Asus ROG Strix G17 with 17.3", plenty of ports, expandable RAM, R7 6800H + RTX 3050 for barely 1300€. Why is a dGPU bad there when it gives more power than the 780M and you can still use its iGPU (680M) if you want while fully disabling that 3050 but you still pay much less than for this laptop here where you don't need its 4060?

I mean just to put things into perspective - that 680M is about 10-15% slower than the 780M but the 3050 is a lot faster yet you still pay less for a 680M+3050 than what you pay for an average 16" 780M-only laptop.

Also, I said it would be nice to have an "option" to have it be iGPU-only. Option is the keyword. You know, like you can select which GPU you want: 4050, 4060, 4070, etc. in the laptop configurator before you order? So you can have your dGPU and I can have my iGPU.

These gaming laptops make for good workstation machines but I have no use for a dGPU, so I would prefer if there was a iGPU-only version as I don't want to pay for something I won't use.

I agree with that.