Eurocom Raptor X17 laptop review: The MSI and Asus ROG alternative

[Redaktion]

The Raptor X17 incorporates a brand new design with some of the fastest 13th gen Raptor Lake-H CPUs and Nvidia Ada Lovelace GPUs currently available on any laptop. However, it's gonna have to do a bit more on other fronts to better differentiate itself against more well-known makers.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Eurocom-Raptor-X17-laptop-review-The-MSI-and-Asus-ROG-alternative.715961.0.html

[RobertJasiek]

Typo: In 3DMark, the "2560x1440 Time Spy Graphics" headline is double (again!).

The keyboard layout is pretty good but a full size numpad would have been better. Of course, a notebook with good keyboard layout always has the most serious other disadvantages because, of course, why not? ;)

- ultra-greedy price
- very loud
- 16:9
- weak hinges
- no German mechanical keyboard
- display not bright enough outdoors
- unclear: Can the fans be removed despite the air flow guidance walls?

Divide the price by 2, eliminate these drawbacks and I can buy the notebook. With its drawbacks, I would not even pay 1/4 the price.

[Neenyah]

I agree with everything else but I will never understand why is this a problem, Robert:

- 16:9

Here we have 2560x1440, 16:9; would it be better to have 256 less pixels in width to make it 16:10 at 2304:1440?

Or let's bump the vertical to standard 16:10 of 2560x1600... Would 2844x1600 make it so much worse and less usable just because it's 16:9?

I know that such custom panels don't exist but I'm putting numbers here for example and perspective. I definitely agree that 16:10 (or 3:2 ideally) is superior to 16:9 with small screens but once you go 16"+ I legit can't see the benefit; otherwise what's the point of (ultra)wide external monitors (24:10, 32:9, 21:9)?

[RobertJasiek]

Monitors are a different topic, just short: some view several windows next to each other.

16:9 is unusable for everything I use. 16:10 is the bare maximum for which notebook displays become usable. For me, it does not matter in which direction you change numbers of pixels as long as the ratio is at most 16:10.

In the old ages, 4:3 notebook displays were great and at that time nobody complained about bezels. Now that bezels must be thin by alleged popular demand, 4:3 notebook displays have become a bit unrealistic due to chassis stability (except maybe for some convertibles). So with thin bezels and ordinary chassis construction, 3:2 is sort of ideal indeed.

[Neenyah]

16:9 is unusable for everything I use. 16:10 is the bare maximum for which notebook displays become usable. For me, it does not matter in which direction you change numbers of pixels as long as the ratio is at most 16:10.

But it's a matter of screen resolution and pixel density more than aspect ratio, no? I understand your points but I still fail to see how would 2560x1440 16:9 be unusable for you but 2304:1440 16:10 wouldn't 😐 

In the old ages, 4:3 notebook displays were great and at that time nobody complained about bezels. Now that bezels must be thin by alleged popular demand, 4:3 notebook displays have become a bit unrealistic due to chassis stability (except maybe for some convertibles). So with thin bezels and ordinary chassis construction, 3:2 is sort of ideal indeed.

That's true and I'm yet to find the true purpose of thin bezels except "omg, omg, it looks nice"; sure, looks nice, but usability (and repairability) on the other hand... yeah. I wouldn't mind having some nice 4:3 with 4096x3,072 resolution, it would be a dream to work with. But 4:3 with 1280x1024, thanks but no.

[Neenyah]

But 4:3 with 1280x1024, thanks but no.

I mean, 1920x1080 is 16:9 and is far more usable than 1280x1024, despite only 56 pixels more vertically.

[RobertJasiek]

If the resolution is at least ca. 70 ~ 80 ppi, it is good enough for me. Sure, 200+ ppi would be nicer but does not affect my rejection of 16:9 or larger.

No matter what the pixel numbers are, I cannot use 16:9 because all my contents demands smaller ratios. In particular, I have frequent 1:1 contents and viewing it on 16:9 is unusable. As are text, webpages and images in portrait orientation.

My desktop monitor is 4:5 (portrait position) 99.5+% of the time. There you see that I never accept 16:9. If I win a 16:9 gaming notebook, I sell it and buy a 16:10 or 3:2 notebook...

[LL]

16:10 is advantageous for text processing, spreadsheets, portrait art,

[Neenyah]

16:10 is advantageous for text processing, spreadsheets, portrait art,

Yes if different resolutions where 16:9 has less vertical pixels. So 1920x1200 is clearly much better than 1920x1080.

Then again, here with this laptop, we have 1440 vertically; is 1440 enough vertical pixels for a 17.3" gaming laptop? I'm pretty sure it is because 100% scaling at that resolution is tiny but readable where 1600 is borderline unreadable unless one is a literal hawk or an owl. So the laptop would be better for text processing, spreadsheets and portrait art with 256 less in width but the same height, so with 2304:1440, just because that is 16:10? And what if it was a 2560x1600 panel inside? Would there be anything wrong with having that same 1600 height but +284 pixels in width for a 2844x1600 16:9?

I understand Robert's point of view and usage so I respect that (but 16:9 can still be used as literally 1:1), but for 99.99% other people I can't understand how is more usable workspace bad just because it's 16:9 and not 16:10.

I work as a graphic designer and video editor, with some animation (After Effects and a bit of Blender, eGPU ofc. for those) and I'll use my X1 Carbon's 14" screen with 2560x1440 16:9 any day over 1920x1200 16:10, because 1440 is more than 1200 despite "sh*t aspect ratio".

Same as I would always take 2560x1600 16:10 laptop over 2400x1600 3:2 laptop - same vertical, more horizontal. No one can tell me that 2400x1600 is better here because that makes no sense at all. But of course that 2400x1600 16:10 is better than 2560x1440 16:9.

Then again, 2880x1620 laptop with its "sh*t 16:9" is by clear logic better than a 3:2 2400x1600 laptop - it has more vertical and horizontal pixels.

[Neenyah]

Btw, I'm talking here strictly about aspect ratios and resolutions if everything else is the same or equal (so panel quality, colour accuracy and so on).

[LL]

What is the minimum physical size you can read an A4 document comfortably in a screen regardless of resolution?
I don't want to do it in either in 16:9 or 16:10 in a 17.3 screen - i am about 45cm distant from screen- but 16:10 is better.
The point is unless you can put a whole A4 document in portrait mode that you can read comfortably without scrolling it always be advantageous to have more real estate vertically. 
For a 24" screen it already can be tolerable but there are no 24" laptops yet. Maybe when we will get foldable extendable screens.

[Neenyah]

What is the minimum physical size you can read an A4 document comfortably in a screen regardless of resolution?

But it can't be regardless of resolution because for text you need sharpness AKA pixel density - more PPI makes text sharper and easier to read and give you way more variety and options to use different scalings according to your own comfort and needs.

Compare that PPI with DPI that's used in print, as they are fairly similar in essence as one is Pixels Per (physical) Inch and another is Dots Per (physical) Inch - newspapers are printed most often at 100 DPI and that text is pretty grainy and not really comfortable to read for long periods due to its lack of sharpness. Regular documents, brochures, books and such are printed at 200-240 DPI and high quality print such as magazines are at 300 DPI in 95% of cases.

Then let's turn back to laptop screens - 127.34 PPI is really comparable to newspaper print quality of 100 DPI and that is exactly what you get for PPI on a 17.3" screen with 1920x1080 resolution. I legit can't read sh*t comfortably for a long time at such screen, like reading an A4-sized book. Or put that to more extreme example - is 83.86 PPI of a 1920x1200 27" 16:10 monitor going to make it sharp and easy to read just because it is 16:10?

Meanwhile, on my X1 Carbon with 14" 2560x1440 with 210 PPI Google Docs sample page A4, Roboto at 11 pt text size, full A4 page set to fit the screen height, looks like this at 55-60 cm distance 👉 imgur.com/xz7qPk9 👈 Say what you want but that is perfectly readable and comfortable to the eyes and I took that photo with a cheap phone and shaky hand as I just woke up.

The point is unless you can put a whole A4 document in portrait mode that you can read comfortably without scrolling it always be advantageous to have more real estate vertically.

Yes, exactly, I agree. Which is why I fail to understand (and at this point I'm starting to assume that I'm just being slow or borderline dumb) - how can more width with the same or greater height be worse just because it's 16:9? I don't get it. How can Acer Swift X SFX14-51G with 14" 16:10 2240x1400 be better than a random 14" 16:9 with 2560x1440 when that Acer has less pixels both vertically and horizontally (assuming same/similar panel quality)?

Or how can a random 16:10 1920x1200 laptop be better to use than a 16:9 2560x1440 just because it is 16:10 when there is insane PPI/sharpness difference and PPI is all it matters for text and general usability. I simply don't understand.

Or let's put it this way in following example; how can a laptop with

• 2880x1800 16:10 screen

be better to use than a laptop with

• 3200x1800 16:9 screen

? They both have almost the same screen size, they both have the same amount of vertical pixels but the latter has 320 more pixels horizontally, so why is it that bad to have more width? Why is 16:10 so much preferred here in that example?

I apologize in advance, my intention is not to sound cocky or to troll or provoke anything, I'm just genuinely curious as I can't understand that (but clearly 1920x1200 16:10 laptop is always better than a 1920x1080 16:9 laptop because it has more vertical estate, I'm not denying not arguing that).

[RobertJasiek]

how can more width with the same or greater height be worse just because it's 16:9?

Presuming we measure width - not in numbers of pixels but - in centimeters, more width of 16:9 looks stupid when displaying empty space besides the contents!

However, you argue by numbers of pixels, and then greater width as numbers of pixels due to larger display ratio results in smaller height in centimeters when the height in numbers of pixels is constant.

[Neenyah]

Presuming we measure width - not in numbers of pixels but - in centimeters, more width of 16:9 looks stupid when displaying empty space besides the contents!

All I can say is that Photoshop in 16:9 is far more usable than Photoshop in 16:10 (both same height, same scaling) 👉 imgur.com/X5XChaB

Does that look stupid when you have ability to expand everything around and not cover your content, plus having more ability to zoom in without tools being all over the image? Perhaps it really does.

Actually I can show the same with text editors, Excel and similar things where with more width you have more estate to place tools around and not obscure the main content and focus of your work but I guess this is enough.

However, you argue by numbers of pixels, and then greater width as numbers of pixels due to larger display ratio results in smaller height in centimeters when the height in numbers of pixels is constant.

Yes, correct, about 1.22 cm higher in height as shown with X1C8 16:9 vs X1C9 16:10 here: i.imgur.com/l2vFwCL.jpg

Fair point. And that is undeniably nice but that also has its cons - footprint is larger so carrying around is less ideal, less screen width for most usage (spreadsheets) and if that 1.22 cm height is so crucial you can always bring laptop a bit closer to you.

[NikoB]

Laptop without HDMI 2.1 for $6600 in 2023, with igpu/dgpu both having 2.1 built in? This is some frank meanness from the developers of the laptop.

We go further - the screen with a shameful response of 10-13ms, which gives real 75-100Hz. Forget even about 120Hz+, "240Hz" is a pure fake here, for illiterate townsfolk. But the question is - what kind of people are they who do not know about this and are ready to pay more than $6000 for it?!

Why does this screen need a DCI-P3 color coating without HDR600+ support? After all, in normal work, all colors will be oversaturated and will be poisonous, because. almost everything is done in sRGB. For accurate work with color, the screen is still not good - AdobeRGB coverage is only 85%, which is not enough.

16:9 is extremely inconvenient both for the office and for YouTube (the controls run into the picture) and for Photoshop, where professional cameras generally shoot at 3:2. But for games, this is probably the best resolution, because. minimizes the load on the 4090.

It turns out a laptop only for games for more than $6000, because. even in the office load it is wildly noisy. Well, probably the manufacturer knows exactly his target audience - rich and deaf people... =)

For that kind of money, I would expect at least a perfectly quiet operation of only the processor (turned off coolers) up to 40% of the load on the cores on average. Plus 18" 4k@120Hz with 95%+ AdobeRGB and 1000 nits brightness (HDR1000) + full auto VRR support from 24Hz to 120Hz - you don't have to switch the refresh rate - the software should do everything automatically depending on the content and situation. Of course with real contrast of 2000:1+ at the level of LG "IPS Black" panel in a semi-matte design.

And of course, in a laptop for this price, RJ45 should be at least 10Gb / s.

3x PCIe4 x4 M.2 2280 slots the 4th is missing, as in MSI Titan 2022, where a fault-tolerant and fast RAID10 is easily created from 4 SSDs. The MSI Titan 18" 2023 made the same bad decision to reduce the number of M.2 slots to 3, which led to the removal of RAID10 support.

On the right (for right-handers) there is not enough usb-a for the mouse radio transmitter. The left-handed audio port is missing on the right, on the left, it is uncomfortable for them on sofas and beds.

Well, they already said about the keyboard - again a corrupted numpad (right arrow in place of Insert, which destroys fast blind typing using it)

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For the debaters above about ppi - taking into account the fact that under Windows in the most popular Chrome browser, non-disabled muddy fonts since version 50 due to incorrect (and not eliminated for many years) black and white text smoothing, which introduces shadows around letters (and they should not be with the correct anti-aliasing version, as in Windows XP, for example), all people sitting at screens with ppi below about 220-230 spoil their eyesight in Chrome (under Linux, this incorrect anti-aliasing, as I was told, can be disabled with the command key line, but this key does not work in Windows), and these are almost all PC/laptop screens with rare exceptions. With what I "congratulate" the owners of these devices. I personally read texts only in Firefox, where incorrect anti-aliasing can at least be turned off.

Until all screens are at least 230 ppi, the problem of fuzzy fonts will haunt all browser users and especially Chrome.