Gaming laptops tend to be heavy and cumbersome things, so it’s nice to see PC makers attempting to balance gaming chops and portability. Origin seems to have done that with its new EON13-S, a 13-inch gaming notebook that’s packed with all kinds of hardware yet weighs a very reasonable 4.4 lbs.
Starting at $1,418, the EON13-S features a 1080p IPS display, a Core i7-4700MQ quad-core processor, 4GB of RAM, and GeForce GTX 765M 2GB discrete graphics with Optimus switching tech. The GTX 765M is based on the same GK106 chip as the desktop-bound GeForce GTX 650 Ti, but it has a few stream processors disabled, and its path to memory is cut down from 192 to 128 bits. It probably won’t let you play Crysis 3 at 1080p with everything maxed out, but it should handle modern games at lower resolutions and detail settings—and thanks to Optimus, battery drain should be minimal at idle.
Storage-wise, the EON13-S includes a 320GB mechanical hard drive by default. You can substitute it for a 2.5" SSD (up to 960GB) and supplement it with as many as two mSATA drives (up to 480GB each). The mSATA drives can run in RAID 0 or RAID 1 mode, and Origin can configure them as operating system storage, auxiliary storage, or as a high-speed cache for your mechanical hard drive. So many options…
Other perks include (optional) 802.11ac connectivity, keyboard backlighting, and choosing to have Windows 7 pre-installed instead of Windows 8. In fact, Windows 7 is the default; Windows 8 is offered as an alternative at no extra charge. Modern UI haters, rejoice!
According to the folks at Engadget, the EON13-S is based on Clevo’s W230ST reference system. We can probably expect to see similar system from other vendors, then. Of course, Origin prices this thing pretty reasonably, and the company’s lifetime 24/7 support is a nice perk.
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