Origin Eon15-X Review

Don't let the cute Steven Universe print on our custom Origin Eon15-X fool you; this thing is an absolute savage beast. For $3,579 (starting at $1,972), the Eon15-X will crush your foes with an 8th Gen i7 processor and a full Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 GPU. Once you've brought your enemies to their knees, you can pulverize them with these triumphant Sound Blaster-tuned speakers. Unfortunately, your role-playing fun will suffer under the Eon15-X's poor display, low battery life and crazy-loud fan. Despite all that, the Eon15-X boasts a comfortable keyboard and zero bloatware, making this machine a strong pick among high-end gaming laptops.

Design

Our Eon15-X features a quality custom print of Steven Universe peacefully playing his ukulele in a grassy field (one of many customization options Origin provides). This lovely image on the elegantly curved and cut lid disguises the monstrous beast lying underneath it.

Once I worked my way toward the back, I stared into the Eon15-X's roaring hell mouth -- aka, the giant, glossy vent grills on either side of the chassis. Above that, you'll find a cutout in the lid for a sick-looking soundbar. Toward the lip of the laptop, you'll see a light bar just under the seams, which is somewhat obstructed by the beefy upper chassis.

The internal chassis feels incredibly smooth. With the RGB-lit keyboard's cute, chubby keys; the glossy LED indicators above it; and the sleek soundbar, the interior looks pretty slick. And while the bezels are a little on the thick side, they're not too distracting. The touchpad has a pair of discrete mouse buttons as well as a fingerprint reader embedded in the top left.

At 7.9 pounds and 15.2 x 10.3 x 1.5 inches, the Eon15-X is slightly slimmer and lighter than competitors despite its thick nature. The MSI GT75 Titan (2018) is the colossal one among the group, at 10.1 pounds and 1.2~2.3 inches due to its 17.3 inch display, while the Asus ROG Zephyrus is the most petite, at 5 pounds and 0.7 inches. The Alienware 15 R4 falls in between, at 7.8 pounds and 1-inch thick.

So many USB ports! Starting on the left, there's an RJ45 port, a Thunderbolt 3 port, a USB Type-C port, a pair of USB 3.1 ports (one with always-on charging) and a 6-in-1 card reader.

On the back of the laptop is the power jack, two Mini DisplayPorts and an HDMI port. Meanwhile, the right side features a secure lock slot, one USB 3.1 port, one USB 2.0 port, and a headphone and S/PDIF combo jack.

Display

I thoroughly enjoyed the crisp and colorful imagery from the Eon15-X's 15.6-inch, 1920 x 1080 Nvidia G-Sync panel, but competitors have better displays.

I've never seen Middle-earth: Shadow of War look grittier or more detailed than the moment I viciously pummeled several orcs into a muddy cliffside on a bright, rainy day on the Eon15-X. The sun's rays burst through the clouds and painted a noir-esque scene for my brutal stealth kill. The red accents on Talion's clothes and his gold-trimmed weapons popped as I front-flipped over a bulky orc and lopped his green, mushy head off.

In the trailer for Goosebumps 2 (the sequel nobody asked for), Jeremy Ray Taylor and Caleel Harris rolled up to R.L. Stine's spooky house in blue and green sweaters, which came off as bold and sharp. Even when Harris reached for a trunk in a dark room, the screen was bright enough for me to capture the ridges in the walls and the different shades of the rustic floorboards.

While the Eon15-X's panel covered 114 percent of the sRGB color gamut and matched the Zephyrus, it came up short of our 132 percent average. The Alienware 15 R4 did slightly better, at 119 percent, but the Titan covered a whopping 175 percent.

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At 265 nits, the Eon15-X trails behind the 281-nit average for brightness as well as the Alienware 15 R4's 311 nits. The Eon's panel is brighter than those of the Titan (257 nits) and Zephyrus (253 nits).

Keyboard and Touchpad

The Eon15-X's keys are meaty and satisfyingly smooth, and their carved-out design looks chunky and cute. The keyboard's three weak RGB backlighting zones are somewhat disappointing, however, considering the Eon15-X's exorbitant price.

The Eon15-X's island-style keys travel at 1.6 millimeters and require 69 grams of actuation force. We typically look for travel in the 1.5mm to 2.0mm range and a minimum force of 60 grams. I nailed a solid 63 words per minute on the 10fastfingers.com typing test, slightly above my 60-wpm average.

The 4.2 x 2.4-inch touchpad sports a pair of clicky, discrete mouse buttons as well as a fingerprint reader.

It feels sleek and responsive, especially when using Windows 10 gestures.

Audio

The Eon15-X's bombastic soundbar brings the action to life with epic and fulfilling audio that's loud enough to spread the cries of dying orcs across a large conference room. It felt like I had headphones on when I spawned in Shadow of War and leapt from the starting tower. The warping sound effects around Talion were sharp, and when he hit the ground, it did in fact sound like a superhero landing. It was as if I was right alongside the hero, embracing the soft, rustling wind upon a snowy mountaintop as I slashed and kicked through charging orcs.

I also listened to AJR's "The Good Part," and each track was mesmerizing. From the opening violin and vocals to the chorus's percussion and lyrics, the synchronization of the bass and treble created a rich, full sound. Even after I heard enough to comment on the audio, I continued to bob my head in our conference room without regard to lurking co-workers.

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Although the Eon15-X's sound is pretty great out of the box, you can tweak it with Sound Blaster Connect. This app has a fully customizable equalizer, as well as presets for Gaming, Cinema, Concert, Neutral and plenty more. This epic sound, however, is not enough to completely overwhelm the Eon15-X's blaring fan.

Gaming, Graphics and VR

What happens when you let a beast out of its Max-Q cage? You get the Eon15-X. Packed with a full Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 GPU that has 8GB of VRAM, the Eon15-X obliterated Shadow of War at 105 frames per second. Whether I was bashing Ghûls in the face with Celebrimbor's hammer or swiftly dispatching some muddy-looking orcs in a mine shaft, each movement was fluid and without delay.

To no surprise, the Eon15-X did extraordinarily well on our gaming benchmarks. It ran Rise of the Tomb Raider at 77 fps on Very High 1080p, beating the 59-fps premium gaming average. The Zephyrus (GTX 1080 Max-Q) produced 58 fps, while the Titan (GTX 1080) ran the game at 67 fps and the Alienware 15 R4 (GTX 1070) came close to the Eon15-X, at 72 fps.

On the Hitman benchmark, the Eon15-X sailed into the triple digits with 127 fps and toppled the 88-fps category average as well as scores from the Zephyrus (68 fps), Alienware 15 R4 (92 fps) and Titan (95 fps).

While the Eon15-X averaged a high 88 fps on the Grand Theft Auto V benchmark, the Titan actually surpassed that mark, at 110 fps. The Alienware 15 R4 ran this game at 74 fps, falling under the 76-fps category average, while the Zephyrus just climbed above the average, at 78 fps.

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Not only is the Eon15-X VR-ready, but it is VR-perfect. On the SteamVR performance test, the Eon15-X nailed a perfect 11 alongside the Alienware 15 R4. The Titan was just short, at 10.9, and the Zephyrus wasn't far behind either, at 10.7, but all competitors beat the 10.2 category average.

Performance

The Eon15-X will tear through Shadow of War and still juggle over 40 Google Chrome tabs and multiple 1080p YouTube music videos at the same time. All of this is possible due to the machine's overclockable desktop 3.7-GHz Intel Core i7-8700K processor, 16GB of RAM, 512GB SSD and 2TB SSHD.

On the Geekbench 4 overall performance test, the Eon15-X scored a 25,190, breaking the 17,963 premium gaming-laptop average. The Titan (2.9-GHz Core i9-8950HK) was close behind, at 22,754, while the Alienware 15 R4 (2.1-GHz Core i7-8750H) and Zephyrus (2.8-GHz Core i7-7700HQ) fell below the average, at 16,981 and 14,289, respectively.

The Eon15-X's 512GB SSD copied 4.97GB of multimedia files in just 10 seconds, which translates to a solid 508 megabytes per second, putting the machine above the 474-MBps category average. The Zephyrus practically matched the Eon, at 509 MBps, while the Alienware 15 R4 shot out a slow 221MBps due to its 7,200-rpm HDD, and the Titan's blazing-fast SSD copied at 727MBps.

When we ran the HandBrake test, the Eon15-X took only 6 minutes and 34 seconds to transcode a 4K video to 1080p, knocking out the 10:01 category average as well as the Alienware 15 R4's time (10:28). The Titan was just behind the Eon15-X, at 7:41.

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The Eon15-X also nailed our Excel test, matching 65,000 names and addresses in 31 seconds, sliding past the 0:43 average for premium gaming laptops as well as times from the Alienware 15 (0:50) and the Titan (0:34).

Battery Life

This monster was bound to soak up some juice, but it was a lot more than we would have liked. After continuously surfing the web over Wi-Fi at 150 nits of brightness, the Eon15-X survived a measly 2 hours and 33 minutes, which is significantly lower than the 3:37 average for premium gaming laptops. The Titan lasted slightly longer, at 2:54, while the Alienware 15 held out for an impressive 5:15.

Webcam

The Eon15-X offers exactly what I want from a webcam: dark and pixelated images (insert massive doses of sarcasm). In the photos I took, my beard was one solid mess and there were only a few recognizable strands on my head. The color from my red shirt was drained, and all detail from the stitching blended together.

Instead of capturing the bright and colorful environment I was in, the image appeared to have a dull, blue tint while taking a photo away from the window. Conversely, the image was tinted orange when faced toward the window. If you plan on streaming from the Eon15-X, make sure you spring for a dedicated webcam.

Heat and Noise

This beast is hot and not necessarily in a good way. After I played Shadow of War for 15 minutes, the laptop's underside reached 120 degrees Fahrenheit, way above our 95-degree comfort threshold. The center of the keyboard and touchpad hit 103 and 80 degrees, respectively. The hottest the laptop got was 122 degrees on the lower left underside.

The Eon15-X runs a little warm even when you're not gaming. After I streamed a 15-minute HD video, the underside measured 99 degrees, the center of the keyboard hit 98 degrees and the touchpad reached 84 degrees. The lower left side climbed to 105 degrees.

The Eon15-X's fans are borderline deafening. Here's some commentary on the matter from my co-workers:

"Sounds like I'm at a hair salon."

"Are you done yet?"

"It's the Origin … of tinnitus."

"Yes!" -- as I turned the laptop off

When I revealed I had to turn it back on: "I'm gonna throw it out of the window, all 15 pounds of it."

Software and Warranty

Origin has graced us by offering the Eon15-X without all of the typical Windows 10 bloatware.

While the Eon15-X comes with its own gaming Control Center, it's not as useful as I would have liked. There are preset performance options like Quiet, Power Saving, Performance and Entertainment. These control the fan speed (which did not help the sound), CPU and GPU overclocking, brightness, and keyboard backlighting. There are other options for device inputs and sleep settings as well. However, there were no indicators for how the CPU, GPU and RAM were running.

Attached to that app is GameFeet, which features customizable backlighting, macros and statistics for measuring which keys are being used more frequently. Spyder5Pro allows you to calibrate your display (only if you have access to the associated device), and Killer Control Center lets you see how much bandwidth specific apps are taking up.

The Eon15-X comes with a one-year limited warranty, upgradable to three years. See where Origin ranked on our Best & Worst Gaming Laptop Brands.

Configurations

The Eon15-X I tested cost $3,579 and has a 3.7-GHz Intel Core i7-8700K processor, 16GB of RAM, a 512GB SSD, a 2TB SSHD, an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 GPU with 8GB of VRAM and a custom print panel.

The base model costs $1,972 and drops you down to a 3.6-GHz Intel Core i3-8100, 8GB of RAM with a 500GB SSHD and a GTX 1060 GPU with 6GB of VRAM.

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The ball-till-you-fall version of this machine costs a whopping $10,401, which upgrades you to 64GB of RAM, two 2TB SSDs and two 4TB SSDs. This is made-to-order and also comes with available custom decal options.

Bottom Line

Get ready for liftoff, because the $3,579 Eon15-X's fans sound like they're ready to blast off into outer space, with the laptop's overclockable desktop 8th Gen i7 processor and GTX 1080 GPU in tow. While you're soaring above the stratosphere, you can enjoy the Eon's clicky, comfortable keyboard, and even though our sister site LiveScience says there's no sound in space, I believe the laptop's powerful speakers will persevere. I mean if you can get a gorgeous Steven Universe print like this on your laptop, anything is possible. Well, except a better display and battery life, apparently.

If you can fork over a few more dollars, check out the $3,999 MSI GT75 Titan, which will get you a more colorful display, an awesome mechanical keyboard, a blazing-fast SSD and cool temperatures while gaming, but it does lag behind in performance. Ultimately, the Eon15-X is a solid choice for when you need desktop-level gaming power on the go.

Credit: Laptop Mag

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