Schenker XMG Neo 15 with XMG Oasis in review: RTX 3080 Ti without thermal limits

The external XMG Oasis liquid cooling unit can be purchased separately for EUR 199 (~US$ 199) and is supposed to increase performance as well as reduce noise and temperature.

We take a look at both the laptop and the Oasis, and compare the Neo 15 with and without liquid cooling in our benchmarks. For external comparison, we use other laptops with an RTX 3080 Ti alongside the predecessor. These include the Razer Blade 15, but also the Asus ROG Zephyrus Duo 16, the Gigabyte Aero 16 YE5 and the Alienware x17 R2 due to the lack of other 15-inch laptops with an RTX 3080 Ti.

For a gamer, the Neo comes across as rather plain. Apart from the keyboard, there are no flashing RGB elements, and even the otherwise obligatory colorful spec stickers are "missing" from the palm rest. The matte black design is functionally simple and unobtrusive, and pleasing exactly for these reasons. Even professionals don't have to be embarrassed about having the Neo on their office desk. However, there is a kind of bar with a lattice structure at the front, which also allows the keyboard backlighting to shine through, but not too obtrusively.

Upon initial examination of the NEO, an clearly noticeable feature is the two gold-colored pipe ports for the liquid cooling at the back, protected by a rubber cap.

The display lid and the topside of the baseplate are made of metal, while the underside is made of plastic. The base is very stable and does not make any cracking or creaking sounds when subject to torsion. This also applies to the display lid, but this is naturally easier to bend. The hinges could perhaps be a little tighter, but they are solid.

The metal surface is sensitive to fingerprints and grease stains. The build quality is very good; we did not discover any unusual or uneven gaps. 

After connecting the Oasis to the Neo, you fill Oasis with distilled water. When the two devices are connected, some of the water is pumped into the cooling circuit of the Neo and so a little more water has to be added again. Afterwards the water level should remain constant and no more refills are needed as long as you don't drain the water out of the Neo (in order to use it as a mobile laptop without the Oasis, for example). How coolant is used is thus based on your own laptop use. Mobile users will often have to drain the coolant and refill it. In stationary use, the Oasis almost never needs to be refilled, since the coolant has nowhere else to go.

The installed Intel AX201 module offers fast transmission rates in the 2.4 and 5 GHz range, but is not yet capable of using the new 6 GHz Wifi 6E network. Under testing, the device repeatedly had problems finding the 5 GHz network of our reference router, which often failed to appear in the list of available Wi-Fi connections.

Upon detection, the connection was stable and also pleasingly fast at approximately 1,600 Mbit/s.

In addition to the usual documentation, the Neo comes with a typical Schenker USB stick with drivers - practical. A large mouse pad is also included. 

The warranty in Germany is 24 months, which includes pickup and return service. This may differ in other countries and regions, so be sure to check with your supplier before purchasing.

A total of 14 Phillips screws have to be removed in order to access the interior. Fortunately all have the same length, including the three at the liquid cooling port. Afterwards the underside can be levered off quite easily by hand, preferably from the lateral rear.

Once inside, you have access to the RAM, the SSD (incl. second M.2 slot), the fans, battery, the liquid cooling circuit and the replaceable Wifi module.

The keyboard takes up the entire space of the 15-inch base, at least in terms of width. This makes for a successful normal-sized keyboard design with good spacing between keys as well as a numpad on the right. The extremely tidy layout is pleasing: even the arrow keys are of a decent size and everything seems to be exactly in the right place.

The power button is designed as an extra key above the keyboard and next to it is another key that switches through the performance modes. Oddly, the "End" key is located as a secondary function on the right arrow key, as well as directly above it on the "1" of the numpad, so the two are directly on top of each other. It took us a while to find the key for the keyboard lighting, for which the symbol is tiny and is on the upper left corner of the space bar.

The lettering is relatively small overall, but mainly kept in a dark tone, which means that it is sometimes unrecognizable during the day in suboptimal lighting conditions - brighter and/or larger lettering would be helpful here.

The optomechanical keys have a good typing feel, the travel is 2 mm and the feedback is pleasant. Typing noise is only slightly higher than on "normal" keyboards, but significantly lower than on purely mechanical keyboards. The keycaps are very thin. You can see under the caps and thus catch glimpses of the underlying mechanics.

Each key can also be individually illuminated, and any special functions of a key are also dimly illuminated.

The touchpad measures around 11.6 x 7.4 cm, so it is quite large. A white mini-LED in the upper left corner indicates whether it is (de-)activated. The surface is very smooth and does not cause stutters even during slow movements.

Schenker relies on integrated keys, which want to be pressed quite firmly, give clear feedback, are moderately loud, but sometimes simply do not execute the desired function. Occasionally, several clicks in a row did not work, but a subsequent click via a finger tap on the pad did.

In the Cinebench R15 loop, the i7-12700H consistently performs at a very high level. It also performs on par with the i9-12900H in the Aero 16 in the multi-thread benchmark, making it 5 to 10 percent faster than the average laptop with this CPU in our database. The TDP is quite constant at 95 W in test runs.

If you manually maximize the CPU limits in the Control Center, 120 W is reached in the Cinebench loop and the score is even higher (max. 2,815 instead of 2,711 points). However, despite liquid cooling, the Neo's fans rev up much more than at the 95 W performance peak. Without the Oasis, however, the Neo briefly reaches 119 W at the beginning, which then drops to 103 W before easing to 98 W in the course of testing.

In battery mode, the Cinebench R15 multi-thread performance decreases. Instead of 95 W, only 29 W is available, and the score drops accordingly from around 2700 to only 1600 points.