• 2 days ago
Transcript
00:00One of the first RTX laptops that I received for review was this device here, the Electronics
00:08Mech-17.
00:10And at the time when I got it, I didn't know the pricing, but it turns out that this is
00:13actually the cheapest RTX laptop that you can get on Amazon, and it's surprisingly good.
00:19So if you poke around on Amazon, this device has a full configurator tool.
00:22It starts at $1299 for like an RTX 2060, and if you get an RTX 2070, it bumps it up to
00:28$1599.
00:29But you can choose like your RAM, your drive, but more importantly, or just more uniquely,
00:34this device gives you an option to upgrade your thermal paste if you want.
00:37And I've made videos on this before, where if you repaste your laptop, you get significantly
00:41better thermal performance, but that process, the whole thing of like opening it up and
00:44repasting a laptop, is not for everyone.
00:47It's a little bit more of an advanced thing, so it's really nice to see a store just do
00:51this thing and have it available as like an option in the Amazon configuration.
00:56That's really cool.
00:57So I checked out their previous generation, so their 10 series laptop with the exact same
01:01chassis, and that thing has surprisingly good reviews.
01:05It's got a 4.5 star review with over 300 people reviewing it.
01:08Obviously, they're doing something right.
01:10The laptop uses a chassis from a company called Tongfang.
01:13It's barebones chassis.
01:14A lot of other companies will use the same kind of chassis to sell different configurations
01:18of the device.
01:20It's a pretty well-built device, like it uses a plastic keyboard deck.
01:25The bottom is plastic.
01:26Everything else on this is plastic.
01:27The only thing that's aluminum is the top panel, and it feels pretty good.
01:30The durability of the device is, I would say, good.
01:34There's just no real flex on the chassis or the screen.
01:36It's just a solid kind of overall built laptop.
01:39Now, it's not super thin.
01:41It's a relatively thin 17-inch gaming device, but because it's not like ultra, ultra thin,
01:46they've designed it in a way that just makes it just more durable than a lot of super thin
01:50devices out there right now.
01:52It's easy to get into.
01:53It's just a bunch of Phillips screws, and you get access to your two NVMe drives, your
01:57RAM, and your standard stuff.
01:59The port selection is pretty good for a 17-inch device.
02:02You have Ethernet, SD card slot, USB-C, and a bunch of USB-A.
02:06The USB-C port does not support Thunderbolt 3, but I'm content with the port selection
02:10on this device.
02:11Okay, getting on the inside.
02:13The screen, 17-inch screen, 1080p, 144 hertz.
02:17Now, this is a screen that I would've said was awesome two years ago, but in 2019, I
02:22would consider it very good.
02:24The refresh rate is fast.
02:25The colors are actually very good, and it gets pretty bright, but my issue with this
02:29screen is actually the response time.
02:31This is a panel that has a 30 millisecond response time, according to the manufacturer,
02:35and when you play on a 144 hertz refresh screen, and it has a 30 millisecond response time,
02:42you do notice some ghosting.
02:43Now, this is only for fast-paced games, but I can notice a difference when I'm playing
02:46on this, compared to like a 7 or 9 millisecond screen, or even like the 3 millisecond screens
02:51that you see on some higher-end gaming laptops, but it's a very, very good screen, despite
02:56the slower response rate.
02:58The keyboard is also a, okay, so when I first opened this thing up, I was like, this keyboard
03:03looks and feels weird, but once you get used to it, it's not bad.
03:06It's a little cramped, like the layout feels a little bit weird, because everything seems
03:09so boxy, but I think for most people, they'll get used to it relatively quickly, and when
03:14you do, it's great for gaming.
03:16It is a mechanical keyboard, it just doesn't feel particularly clicky or tactile.
03:20It's a pretty good keyboard overall, though.
03:22The trackpad is a plastic surface, I don't love that.
03:26It feels a little bit cheap, but considering the price of this device, I'm not surprised.
03:30The tracking is fine, and it's a good size, it's just, I would like to have seen a glass
03:34surface on this.
03:35It is a Windows Precision device, though, so I think most people will be okay with the trackpad.
03:41Top surface, I don't know about the long-term durability of this particular device, I've
03:45seen some soft-touch materials that are cheaper, that wear down quickly, but I've also seen
03:50some stuff from Lenovo that lasts, like, forever, so my guess, because, again, because of the
03:54price point, my guess is that this material will kind of show wear over time, but I can't
04:00really tell, not right now.
04:02This device is running a laptop RTX 2070, and it's the regular laptop 2070, not the
04:08Max-Q version, so the performance is actually quite similar to a 2080 Max-Q.
04:12You're gonna get really good frame rates at basically any title at 1080p, it's a very
04:16powerful GPU.
04:18Now, the thermal performance on this device is also very solid.
04:21For one, it's a, you know, it's not a super-thin device, and that's why they're able to use
04:24a non-Max-Q GPU, but you also have this option of turning on the turbo mode for the fan,
04:31and it becomes significantly louder when you do, but you just get awesome thermal performance.
04:36So this is, I don't know if this fan, if the mic can pick it up, but this is what it sounds
04:41like, yeah, if it's just kind of like idling, but if you crank up the turbo fan, it's loud.
04:50The fan noise when it's playing games without turbo mode is perfectly fine, it's just that
04:54when you kick it on, it is quite audible.
04:56Okay, I'm gonna talk about, I guess, a few things that I don't like about this device.
05:00The lighting on the keyboard doesn't have great software to do it, and it doesn't get
05:03particularly bright.
05:04It does have a light strip on the front, if you're into that, but overall, the lighting
05:07is kind of mediocre, and the software that controls all the fans and the lighting is
05:12also not great.
05:13I feel like it's something that is often overlooked, like a lot of companies just have software
05:18on their devices that just controls it, and you think it's like really easy to do, but
05:22clearly it's not the easiest because these guys are pretty bad at it, but it does get
05:26the job done.
05:27Now, there's two other things that I really don't like with this laptop, which may or
05:30may not affect you.
05:31Okay, the first thing is the speakers.
05:34They are terrible.
05:35They're located on the bottom, so positionally, they're just bad, and they also have an issue
05:39of just being really quiet.
05:40I don't know why.
05:41I don't know if it's because the hardware is poor or if the software controlling it
05:44is bad, but they're very quiet to the point where if you're just watching a YouTube video
05:48without headphones or anything like that, they don't get as loud as you need.
05:52And the other thing that I don't love about this device is the battery life.
05:54It's a very small battery, 40 watt hours on a 17-inch screen.
05:58I wasn't even able to get three hours of battery life with the screen at 250 nits, and again,
06:02I'm not sure if this is software.
06:04I have a feeling it's a bit of both, like big screen, small battery.
06:08That's just a recipe for poor battery life.
06:10But overall, for the price, an RTX 2070 laptop for 1,600 bucks base is, I think it's pretty
06:18decent.
06:19I actually think it's on the good side of things.
06:22One last thing to note.
06:24This device uses the same chassis as the Walmart OP gaming devices, so like the 17-inch big
06:31version of that.
06:32This is last year's model.
06:33They had them for, when they originally launched, they were very expensive and everyone ripped
06:37them on their price.
06:38And they dropped their price by like 40 or 50%, and they sold them out really quickly.
06:42But if Walmart decides to continue that OP gaming laptop line, and they bring these RTX
06:47GPUs into those new devices with the current pricing, it seems unlikely.
06:51But if they do, that will be an amazing price.
06:54But in the meantime, these are the cheapest RTX laptops that you can get on Amazon, and
06:58they're surprisingly good for the money.
07:00Okay.
07:01So give this video a thumbs if you liked it, subs if you loved it.
07:03See you guys next time.