The Best Multimedia Notebooks

The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Extreme Gen3 2020 is a well-balanced and versatile notebook that was improved over its predecessor in various aspects. Unfortunately, fans of AMD’s silicon are once again left out as the X1 Extreme is only available with Intel CPUs.

The ThinkPad X1 Extreme is an excellent multimedia laptop combining excellent features. It is many things at once, such as a business laptop during the day and a gaming device at night thanks to its fast CPU and most importantly GPU. However, when compared to the first generation ThinkPad X1 Extreme the new device cannot keep up. Its GPU performance is lower and the GPU is incapable of utilizing its full potential.

The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Extreme is a well-made 15.6-inch multimedia notebook with good CPU performance and the best mobile keyboard that money can buy.

The processor performed admirably even if the fans are now louder than on the previous model. The biggest drawback of last year’s model, its short battery life, has fortunately been addressed in the 2020 iteration.

Prices start at around $1,700 for the base model and peak at around $3,000 for the high-end SKU. The device is available through Lenovo’s own webstore.

Dell’s XPS 17 9700 (see review here) features Intel’s Comet Lake CPUs paired with a GeForce RTX 2060 Max-Q. Furthermore, the 17-inch laptop comes with a 16:10 display, which should be beneficial to many users. Despite a complex vapor-chamber cooler the 8-core CPU got hot under load. The 130 W power supply is connected via USB-C, and the battery discharged slowly under extreme loads even with the power supply connected.

The XPS 17 9700 is a very powerful 17-inch multimedia notebook without any real competitors. However, some aspects could have been improved.

We definitely liked the high-quality IPS display with its high AdobeRGB color space coverage as well as the easily and readily accessible SO-DIMM and M.2-2280 slots. All things considered the XPS 17 9700 is a powerhouse with a display large enough to make for a decent desktop replacement.

The Schenker Vision 15 is a well-equipped 15-inch notebook able to secure a spot in our top 10 list. For 1,500 Euros you get a well-built high-quality modern case reminiscent of Dell’s XPS series or Apple’s MacBook Pro series, an extremely fast SSD, a bright high-contrast display, and last but not least a Core i7-1165G7. Combined with the rest of the hardware the latter makes for very fast system performance.

The Dell XPS 15 9510 managed to score a very high rating and make this list accordingly. Its very good total rating results in the combination of an Intel Core i7-11800H paired with a GeForce GTX 3050 Ti and a good-looking high-quality OLED display with good color accuracy, which could have been a bit brighter. We particularly like its 16:10 aspect ratio that many users will benefit from as well as its very good speakers and its fast SD card reader. Connectivity is somewhat limited as there are no USB-A ports with only USB-C available. If you want to connect your existing peripherals you might have to purchased additional dongles. Fortunately, one is already included in the box.

Dell’s XPS 15 9510 offers a great display with a much asked for 16:10 aspect ratio. The fact that it is also an OLED panel is the icing on the cake.

If you want to use the device for gaming, you should keep in mind that the built-in OLED panel’s response times are much lower than those common on IPS panels. We also found DPC latencies that while still to high have been improved over its predecessor.

The Dell XPS 15 9510 is currently only available through Dell’s own web store.

Acer’s brand-new ConceptD series is aimed primarily at power users such as designers, video, music, and photo editors. The Acer ConceptD CC314 managed a score of 86 % and thus earned its place in our top 10. At around $1,500 you get a good-looking modern device with hardware powerful enough for a gaming laptop.

The ConceptD is a sleek and well-designed notebook. It is very efficient and remained fairly cool during our tests, and it offers a decent 4K display to boot. Unfortunately, it suffered from thermal throttling and was outperformed by its competitors.

If all you are looking for when purchasing a device are specs you should definitely keep in mind that similarly equipped laptops perform better. The ConceptD’s CPU throttled under load, and performance dropped even further on battery. On the plus side it features a great 4K display with high color space coverage levels. The display is certainly the device’s major selling point.

Prices start at $1,500, and the device is available among others on Amazon.

The Lenovo Yoga Creator is a well-made all-rounder with a fast CPU and a Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 Mobile GPU, and therefore even gaming-capable. Overall, The Lenovo Yoga Creator features plentiful connectivity despite a rather slow SD card reader. However, thanks to features such as Thunderbolt 3 and its nice high-contrast display it managed to secure a spot in our top 10 list.

The Lenovo Yoga Creator offers overall decent performance and a great display.

The device comes with a 3-year limited warranty by default. It remained faily cool. Downsides include the soldered RAM that cannot be upgraded.

The Yoga Creator series is not available in North America.

The Asus ZenBook Pro 15 is a well-made multimedia notebook by Asus. It is based on an Intel Comet Lake CPU paired with a GeForce GTX 1650 Ti Max-Q and thus even gaming-capable. It also comes with a 15-inch 4K touchscreen which may or may not be useful in everyday use depending on your individual use case. By and large the ZenBook Pro 15 did fairly well and secured its spot in our top 10 list. Visually, its small display bezels and good choice of material make for a very modern and sleek look. It remained comfortably quiet under load and offers long battery life to ensure ample runtime for long days at work.

The Lenovo ThinkPad T15p is based on a fast Comet Lake SoC with 6 cores and a dedicated GeForce GTX 1060 Mobile, and therefore offers a decent hardware for the most common multimedia applications. At prices over $2,000 it may not be cheap, but it is equipped with top-of-the-line components. It features a great 4K display, excellent maintainability and upgradability, plentiful connectivity, a variety of safety features, and a robust case. It performed very well in our stress test.

The compact HP Envy 14 is based on Intel’s latest Tiger Lake CPU and features a dedicated GeForce GTX 1650 Ti Max-Q CPU. It is capable of utilizing its SoC’s turbo-boost potential to its fullest and performs very well overall, which is a huge plus considering its size. It remained comfortably quiet when idle or subjected to low load, and its comfortable keyboard is well-suited for avid typists. It also features good battery life and modern connectivity. And last but not least the Envy 14 comes with a pre-calibrated IPS display.

The Lenovo ThinkBook 15P Gen1 4K is a great business laptop and all-rounder, and while you can find better laptops at its price point the great display makes it worthwhile.

Connectivity is somewhat limited as it lacks Thunderbolt and only comes with a slow SD card reader. If you don’t mind these limitations the Lenovo ThinkBook 15P Gen1 4K is a great business laptop capable of gaming.

The laptop can be purchased through Lenovo’s own webstore with prices starting at just over $1,300.