Month: July 2022

The first ever Windows foldable is due this summer for $2499, and Lenovo has gone all out to prove that the ThinkPad X1 Fold won’t follow in Samsung’s footsteps

Foldable phones have been grabbing headphones for so long that they almost feel like old news, but folding PCs have gotten a lot less attention.

That makes a certain amount of sense – computers haven’t made the same transition to full-screen devices that phones have, and regular laptops have technically covered folding pretty well for a decade or two anyway. That won’t stop companies from wading in and doing their best anyway, and the first to actually bring a foldable PC to market looks to be Lenovo with the ThinkPad X1 Fold.

We got the chance to play with it at CES 2020 to find out whether Lenovo is ready to raise, or if it’s time to fold.

Price and availability
The X1 Fold is due out in summer 2020 – which is still pretty vague – and will cost the princely sum of $2,499. That’s undeniably an awful lot of money, but with foldable phones like the Galaxy Fold and Motorola Razr hovering around $2000 themselves, dropping two and a half grand on a PC-sized equivalent begins to sound almost reasonable.

Design and build: A Fold that won’t fail
If there’s one thing that Lenovo is keen to push with the X1 Fold, it’s essentially that it doesn’t want to be associated with Samsung’s phone of almost-the-same-name.

That made headlines for all the wrong reasons when it launched, promptly broke, and had to be re-launched a few months later. By contrast, Lenovo’s message is clear: this thing is sturdy, it’s safe, and it’ll last.

That’s part of why it’s a ThinkPad (Lenovo’s business line) and not a Yoga (the consumer side of the business). ThinkPads are designed for durability, and so the engineering team was able to leverage that expertise here.

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This Fnatic-branded PC is a little expensive and can’t match some rivals in games, but it’s still consistently fast and is very well-built

Price When Reviewed
Unavailable

This PC is one of the most exciting additions to the market in some time – because it’s the official desktop of Fnatic, one of the world’s biggest esports teams.

The PCs have Fnatic’s famous branding, and they’re built by PC Specialist, which has won plenty of awards in the past for its systems. Conversely, branded products are often too expensive when compared to rivals – and that might be the case here.

Price
The model reviewed here is the flagship of this new range, and it uses an AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT, a Ryzen 7 3700X processor and 16GB of memory. It’s the system that Fnatic will be sending to its own pro players. It costs £1,599, and is available from both PC Specialist and Currys PC World.

It’s not the only branded system available though. The cheaper Fnatic Elite costs £1,240 and drops down to a Ryzen 5 3600X and a Radeon RX 5600 XT.

The £1,660 Fnatic Pro pairs the RX 5700 XT with a Ryzen 7 3800X, and the Fnatic Ultra costs £2,190 and deploys a Ryzen 9 3900X alongside the same GPU.

Check out our chart of the best gaming PCs to see what else is available.

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The Chillblast Fusion Sorcerer is a solid system with great 1080p and esports gaming power and a generous warranty, but it’s expensive when compared to quicker competitors

Price When Reviewed
Unavailable

The Chillblast Fusion Sorcerer is a mid-range gaming rig that serves up a new Nvidia GPU, a powerful AMD processor and loads of RGB LEDs for a price coming in just over a grand.

That doesn’t make it the cheapest Nvidia-based gaming PC we’ve seen lately, but the slightly higher price does give this machine some advantages over its rivals.

Design & Build
The Sorcerer uses a Kolink Observatory case. It’s a good bit of kit: robust and smart, with RGB LED intake fans, an illuminated exhaust and side and front panels made of tempered glass.

The Kolink’s build quality compares well to the AlphaBeta i5 RTX‘s bespoke chassis, but that machine was more eye-catching – it had larger RGB LED fans and more tempered glass.

The Kolink is 435mm tall and 201mm wide, which means that it’s narrower but taller than the squat, square-shaped AlphaBeta rig.

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Can this GTX 1660 Super gaming and eSports PC undercut pricier competition?

The PC Specialist Sabre MK1 is one of the most affordable gaming rigs on the market right now. Go much cheaper than this and the specification will start making too much compromise to be worthwhile.

The desktop builder undercut its closest rivals at the checkout, but can it keep up the quality and performance levels?

Design & Build
PC Specialist has built this system around its own Wraith chassis. It’s a good-looking bit of kit: the meshed plastic front panel looks smart and contains three intake fans with bright RGB LEDs.

This chassis has top- and bottom-mounted dust filters and a single USB 3.0 port on the roof alongside two slower USB 2.0 ports.

The Wraith has a tempered glass window that swings open smoothly and sits on hinges for easy removal, and the front panel is magnetic, so it’s easy to remove.

On the inside, the Wraith is basic but serviceable. There’s plenty of space, which makes building and modifying easier, and PC Specialist has done a great job keeping cables neat around the front and at the rear. You get room for a spare 2.5in drive, but sadly there’s no 3.5in hard disk bay.

The biggest issue is build quality. That mesh front panel and the top panel are both sturdy, and the glass side window is rigid. However, the rear side panel is weaker and the internal PSU shroud is flimsy – and the case also has some sharp edges and corners, so you’ll need to be careful.

The Kolink chassis used by Chillblast is undoubtedly stronger, and with more room for storage space. AlphaBeta’s bespoke case is sturdier, with better USB connectivity and more upgrade room.

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The ROG Strix G15 offers huge CPU power and gaming speed – so it’s ideal for work and play. The case has decent features, but this PC suffers from middling build quality and limited upgradability

It’s all too easy to dismiss desktops like the Asus ROG Strix G15DH. Big-brand, high-street hardware has a reputation for being slow, expensive and badly-built – especially when compared to PCs from specialist firms like Chillblast and PC Specialist.

The latest Asus rig looks to buck that trend by including a high-end Nvidia RTX graphics card and an eight-core AMD Ryzen CPU for £1,400. Well that’s the model we’ve tested although there are other models available we’ll cover in the price section later.

Design & Build
The G15DH (also known as the GA15) looks unmistakably like a Republic of Gamers product. The front panel is decorated with a huge ROG logo, and it has jutting angles of plastic and a huge slash of RGB LEDs across the centre.

There’s more angled plastic on the roof alongside a useful handle, and the front panel has a handy headphone hook. At the front, you’ve got a full-size USB 3.2 port alongside a Type-C connection; at the rear, there are six USB 3.2 ports but no Type-C and only three audio jacks.

The G15DH’s 10kg weight isn’t bad, and this machine is only 189mm wide – so it’s not too difficult to move around. It’s a good start, but hands-on time reveals issues. On the outside, there’s poor build quality: the plastic front and roof panels and the metal side panels are both flimsy.

On the inside, there’s little to excite. The plain metal is not painted and the wires are untidy throughout, which is partly why the side isn’t transparent.

The CPU cooling is basic, the graphics card is a reference model with no ornamentation and there’s no side panel window. You don’t get any upgrade room from the case, with no 2.5in or 3.5in drive mounts.

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