Samsung's expensive Notebook Odyssey with i7-8750H and RTX 2060 will likely struggle against dedicated gaming brands

The Samsung Notebook Odyssey has a unique appearance. (Image source: Samsung)

Samsung’s new Notebook Odyssey gaming laptop (NP850XBC-X01US) is now available for pre-order. The somewhat distinctive-looking device features a display that seems to sit precariously on a large central hinge. Featuring an i7-8750H and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 GPU, Samsung is optimistically charging US$1,999.99 for its latest laptop.

Daniel R Deakin, 05/19/2019

Samsung’s Notebook Odyssey is a gaming laptop with a decent Coffee Lake mobile processor and an advanced Turing graphics card in the form of a GeForce RTX 2060. The 15.6-inch device comes with a Full HD screen (144 Hz), 16 GB memory, and offers a 512 GB PCIe storage solution. Samsung promises an efficient cooling system made up of five heatpipes and involving “83 individual jet blades”. The new Notebook Odyssey has an all-metal case and starts shipping by May 28, if you’re willing to part with a cent under US$2,000 for such a system.

It’s very difficult to say if Samsung’s Notebook Odyssey is going to sink or swim, but initially it seems the former is more likely. Samsung is a huge manufacturer with a very loyal customer base – when it comes to smartphones. The laptop market is a whole different business, and the pricing for a rather run-of-the-mill gaming laptop seems a little ingenuous at the very least. For instance, a very quick browse through Alienware’s configurator brings up an m15 thin and light laptop with the same CPU, GPU, 144 Hz display, and SSD but with 32 GB memory for basically the same price.

It’s also important to point out that Alienware is a dedicated gaming brand. If you take a look at MSI’s products on NewEgg you can soon dig up an MSI GL63 8SE-054 premium gaming laptop that has the same i7-8750H CPU and also comes with Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 2060. 16 GB RAM, 512 GB SSD, 120 Hz panel – similar specifications for US$1,999. But it also features a 1 TB HDD, backpack, and MSI loot box as well, which makes up for the slightly lower refresh rate on the display. Plus it's a gaming laptop by MSI, a company renowned for its products in this sector.

For the same amount of money, gamers can select a laptop from either of these two very well-known gaming-dedicated manufacturers and even get slightly more bang for their buck. Samsung has priced its Notebook Odyssey in a rather optimistic fashion and may be hoping to attract buyers from its legion of fans who aren’t as concerned about specifications or hardware as they are about their preferred brand name.