- I know right?
Trust me, when I first saw this thing,
I was just as confused as you.
It says Intel made it in the title of the video,
but, Intel doesn't make laptops, they make excuses,
for why AMD is making them look bad.
- [Producer] Oh, got 'em.
- But, maybe this isn't a bad look.
I mean, part of the reason that Apple's M1 MacBooks
are so good is because Apple already designed
basically everything in it themselves
and then just took it one step further
designing a processor.
Well, Intel on the other hand already designed processors.
So they just came at it from the other direction
and created this laptop.
That looks just like a MacBook.
It's a bold strategy cotton.
Let's see if it pays off for 'em.
With GlassWire you can keep track of the weird stuff
that's connecting to your PC,
even when you aren't using it.
If a strange device joins your WiFi,
you'll be notified instantly.
Get 25% off using code LINUS at the link below.
(upbeat music)
I should clarify,
Intel has actually made their own laptops for years,
just in secret.
For example, back in 2011,
Intel released their specifications
for what they called an Ultrabook.
A super thin and light Windows notebook
that didn't compromise on performance or battery life.
In order to get laptop manufacturers
started with the concept,
Intel provided them with a reference model
that they could use as a starting point
for their own custom designs.
Because let's be honest,
some of these laptop companies need help
to not design laptops that look like a Decepticon.
I've actually been hands on with a handful
of these kinds of concept devices
in what I call the secret CES sweep over the years,
and the frustrating thing for me
is that a lot of the time, the reference or concept device
looks way closer to something
that I would actually want to buy
than any of the things their partners end up building
and apparently Intel feels the same way
because in 2019, they decided to make a reference design
that was more or less ready for the consumer
and announced the NUC 9 Extreme Laptop Kit.
Like desktop NUC's, these Whitebooks came
without storage, memory or an operating system,
which were intended to be added by Intel's partners
who would also tweak the system settings
and software before releasing the laptop
under their own brand.
Giving birth to the MAINGEAR Element,
Eluktronics MAG-15 and the XPG Xenia.
Which brings us to this model.
This is the XPG Xenia Xe,
essentially a tweaked version
of Intel's new NUC M15 Laptop Kit.
While it's predecessor was based on the six core
Core i7 9750H and a discreet GPU,
this one sports Intel's latest Quad core i7-1185G7
with, as the name indicates, Intel's Iris Xe graphics.
Now the last one was designed as a straight up gaming laptop
but this model is what XPG calls
a lifestyle gaming Notebook.
While Ultrabook's were meant to compete
with the MacBook Air,
this is a reference model for Intel's new Evo brand,
which aims to take on the MacBook Pro line up
with better performance for professional uses.
I'm thinking, now there's been a few visual giveaways,
you'd be forgiven for thinking this was a MacBook Pro,
from 2015 anyway.
- [Producer] Oh got 'em again.
- And that's not the end of the world.
The minimalists in the office
can definitely appreciate the Xenia Xe's simple,
straightforward design with it's CNC machined aluminum shell
but even though I just explained it to you guys,
I still don't know what this thing is.
What is lifestyle gaming?
And how is it that Windows laptop makers
just cannot seem to capture that Apple magic?
Put this thing next to a MacBook
and it's just looks cheaper.
Not at all like our beanies from lttstore.com,
which still look great, if not even better.
But let's look a bit closer
and the Xenia Xe quickly starts to make up some ground.
I mean, for one, in addition to the two thunderbolt 4 ports,
there's actually two USB type A ports
of the 10 gigabit variety,
as well as HDMI and a headphone jack,
so you don't have to keep your bag stuffed with dongles.
XPG has supplied 16 gigs of LPDDR4X memory
and a one terabyte S50 PCR Express GEN4M.2SSD,
so it's nice and snappy and it's got Windows Hello
along with proximity sensors
that wake the laptop as you approach,
leading to one of the smoothest log in processes
that we have ever encountered.
As for performance,
the Core i7 1165G7 in here
is a step down from the early model 1185G7 powered machine
that we looked at back in September,
but the only real difference between those two chips
is slightly lower clock speeds
and sure enough, the gaming story here is similar.
The Xenia Xe managed to squeeze out three one frames
per second in Shadow of the Tomb Raider
at lowest settings and 26FPS at medium,
actually matching the performance of that early unit.
Driver updates probably helped with that,
but it's impressive.
Ultra settings had a frame read in the hundreds,
are a far off dream for on board graphics still,
but a 1080p and low to moderate settings,
competitive multi-player games,
like Rocket League, CSGO and even Rainbow Six Siege
are totally playable.
I said it last time and I'll say it again,
the fact that we're running these on integrated graphics,
from Intel no less, is astounding.
Onto the lifestyle side of lifestyle gaming,
I guess, maybe,
for us that means more traditional benchmarks.
In LuxMark, the Xenia Xe out performed every laptop
in the lineup of Notebooks from our M1 MacBooks review
and in Cinebench and Geekbench,
while it didn't beat the MacBooks,
it came real close, while beating the XPS13 2-in-1,
an excellent laptop built on the same processor.
Photoshop runs like it should,
while scrubbing 4K footage in Premier is pretty smooth
at half preview quality.
And in our Handbrake Hardware H 265 test,
while the Xenia Xe didn't beat the MacBooks,
it finished the encode in almost half the time
of the XPS 2-in-1, even though they have the same model
of CPU in them.
I guess that means Intel's thermal and power solution
is quite a bit beefier,
even if it did spike up to 96 degrees under full load
and hovered around 90 degrees once the,
thankfully quiet, fans kick in.
The Xenia Xe is thin and light enough
to be easily toteable,
it's got enough battery to last you through the work day,
into the evening and even beyond if you're nice to it
and it's got a beautiful IPS touch display
that can open all the way to 180 degrees,
with four far field mics on top,
so you can talk to either Cortana
or Alexa and see the light bar below the track pad light up
which would be great if the screen wasn't 1080p,
the integrated webcam wasn't so bad.
- And that their fancy microphone array
sounded a little bit better.
- I give it a B then for lifestyle.
But the performance story is pretty good.
I mean, we've given Intel a pretty hard time
for dropping the ball on the past year or so,
so it's a treat to see an Intel Notebook
compare so favorably to Apple's M1 machines
so soon after being put to shame.
It's also interesting that this laptop
out performed the Dell by such a degree.
Like what the heck Intel?
Why have you been hiding the fact
that you can apparently make a straight fire laptop
just like Apple.
Don't hide that under a bushel.
You gotta let that light shine, bro.
Now to be fair, Intel's already doing that
by releasing the NUC M15 through partners
like XPG and the pricing seems to reflect their confidence
in this machine.
The Xenia Xe starts at 1359 US for the Core i5 config
and 1549 for this Core i7 model,
which is actually not bad for a premium laptop.
It's cheaper than a MacBook.
We did find a couple of laptops with the same processor
for around half the price online,
but, as we saw on our benchmarks,
the processor isn't everything.
These cheaper models have half the storage,
less memory, much less battery life
and no thunderbolt.
So the Xenia Xe seems to tick a lot of boxes
for someone who wants a clean, MacBook like experience,
but with Windows.
Intel has freeloaded a couple of bloatwares,
but one of them is a simple driver update utility
with aesthetics that don't assume
you're the most bad ass gamer to ever hit the inter webs
and the other is a G Force experience style
graphics utility that let's you update drivers
and tweak global graphics settings
like Adaptive Tessellation, Retro Scaling
and Smart VSync.
So I dare say this laptop might be the Windows laptop
for MacBook fans.
Now, we've talked a lot in this video about Intel,
but let's not forget this is being released
under the XPG brand,
so it's true that Intel did the bulk of the work
designing it, but that isn't to disparage XPG
or the other companies that Intel works with
to release these models.
XPG told us that the process
of getting Intel's reference design ready
for the market is a collaborative one.
The two companies work together to make decisions
about components, the bio's and software configuration
and the packaging,
but XPG also knows that at it's core,
this is an Intel design and they think it's really cool
that Intel wants to help them
and other up and coming laptop makers
work towards developing their own
fully custom designed laptops.
I mean, this is only XPG's second laptop
they've ever released and the first one
was also an Intel NUC.
So if Intel can drive the Windows laptop market forward
with excellent, ready to go designs like this one,
while continuing to work with partners
on custom designs, who knows?
They might just be done with dropping the ball.
They might even be picking it up.
Maybe?
Just like I'm picking up the Segway 2R sponsor.
DROP at THX came together to create the DROP THX
Panda wireless headphones.
With them, audio quality is no longer reserved
for folks with wires.
They claim they're the world's most distortion free
wireless headphones and from my experience,
that actually sounds pretty darn believable,
these things are sick.
They're closed back headphones
so you won't be dealing with any distractions
and they use THX's triple A amplifier technology.
They boast 30 hours of wireless life,
dual microphones, Bluetooth connectivity,
compatibility with digital assistance
and you can even get a detachable gaming mic.
They weigh just 375 grams and you can check 'em out
at the link in the video description.
If you guys enjoyed this video,
maybe check out our coverage of,
oh yeah, ASUS's upcoming laptops.
They had some, quote, unquote, CES news to announce.
They got super high refresh rate displays,
external graphics, all kinds of cool stuff.