A real wolf in sheep's clothing: With the XMG Neo 17 (2020), Schenker delivers powerful hardware in a moderate exterior with a mechanical keyboard

With the XMG Neo 17, Schenker offers a 17.3-inch gaming notebook that does not immediately look its part. The moderately designed, black device would not look out of place in any office. However, the rubberized palm rest might give a hint that this is not your usual office notebook, since the rubberized layer contains small reflective particles that glitter when hit by some light.

Compared to the predecessor, the exterior of the notebook did not change. However, there are some updates in the connections, and the current incarnation of the Neo 17 is able to offer a Thunderbolt 3 port, allowing you to connect an extensive docking solution or external GPU.

The test unit that was provided to us is run by a Core i7-10875H octa-core processor together with a GeForce RTX-2070 Super graphics core. This CPU-GPU combination is able to bring all the current computer games to the screen smoothly without having to make any compromises. The hardware is accompanied by 32 GB of working memory (dual-channel mode) that can be expanded up to 64 GB.

The notebook offers space for up to two M.2-2280 SSDs (1x NMVe, 1x NVMe/SATA). If both slots are equipped with NVMe SSDs, they can form a RAID-0 or RAID-1 configuration if necessary. The mechanical keyboard (with RGB illumination) left a good impression and will represent an important purchase point for many potential buyers. Those who never used such a keyboard before will first have to get used to the typing experience, though. 

You can find additional information and many benchmark results in our review of the Schenker XMG Neo 17 (2020).