MECHANICAL KEYBOARD in a Laptop! XMG Core 16 Review

This XMG Core 16 has one rather unique optional extra – a full Cherry MX Ultra-Low Profile mechanical keyboard. While this isn’t the only mechanical keyboard on a laptop, and it’s technically not the first laptop I’ve tested with one (although the last one I tested was the absolute behemoth of the GT80 Titan with a full size mechanical keyboard), it’s the first with Cherry’s newer MX ULP switches, and I must admit that I’m impressed. Let me show you around, and we’ll see if the rest of the machine is worth buying too! 

These keys are Cherry MX Ultra Low Profile Tactile switches, which means they’ve got a rather distinctive click to them – here’s an example. 

While the noise might be off-putting to some, the tactile feel really makes up for it. You have a pretty impressive amount of travel for a still relatively thin laptop – that being 0.8mm of pre-travel, and 1.8mm of total travel. It takes 65 centinewtons to actuate, which feels like the right balance for a switch like this. For typing, I really like it. The tactile feedback and positive actuation make it a great experience, although where it really shines is when you’re gaming. The fast reaction time it affords you is hard to beat, and the tactile bump makes moving a really enjoyable experience. If I was gaming full time on a laptop, I’m pretty confident I’d want these switches to do it on. It is worth noting that these aren’t actually the clicky switches – Cherry does make a louder set – but in a public setting like school or work I don’t think this would fit in all that well. The customisable – in German – RGB LEDs might be a bit of a giveaway too… It’s also worth adding that the mechanical keyboard is a 95 euro option on this machine, although personally I think that’s well worth it. 

So, the keyboard is great, but what about the rest of the machine? Well as with all XMG machines, this is customisable. I went with the RTX 4060 Laptop GPU – and I’ll have a video up very soon to explain exactly why that is – paired with a Ryzen 7 7840HS, 32GB of DDR5-4800 RAM, and 1TB of Samsung 980 PCIe Gen 4×4 storage. That config comes to just shy of 1,900 euros, or a bit over £2,000 once you factor in import tax and shipping. For that, you get quite a lot though. Performance is pretty good – starting with the gaming results, at the native 1600p resolution on generally medium settings you can expect an average of around 130 FPS, with the more esports titles hitting over 250 FPS. CS2 in particular hits just shy of 300 FPS average on the low preset, whereas Fortnite on the high preset with no TSR hits just 60 FPS average. Starfield on low settings manages over 70 FPS though, so that’s pretty good!

At 1080p for the sake of comparison, the Core 16 performs remarkably well in Cyberpunk, matching the admittedly thinner XMG Pro 15 with its RTX 4070 Laptop chip. Results like this are what I’ll be covering in the video next week on picking the right spec for your gaming laptop. In Shadow of the Tomb Raider we get a bit more of a realistic result where the 4060 laptop chips are generally grouped together, then the higher end chips extend their lead. Fortnite has the Core 16 on par with the Focus 16, although a decent bit behind the Helios NEO 16. Flight has the Core 16 in a similar position, this time matching the much more expensive Zephyrus G14 with it’s 4090 Laptop chip! Hitman 3 has the Core 16 on par with the Focus 16 again, and at the top of the 4060 pack. Lastly in Rainbow 6 Siege the 7840HS CPU seems to be a fairly strong bottleneck, hampering the Core 16’s performance down to a measly 300 FPS… oh wait that’s still perfectly fine. Nevermind! 

Speaking of the CPU, performance there is decent, if not exactly ground-breaking. As you’d expect, in Cinebench it runs just behind the Ryzen 9 7940HS, although it actually has better single threaded performance. It’s a similar story in Blender, with the 7840HS running somewhat embarrassingly behind the very much last gen 6900HX in the Zephyrus Duo 16. What might explain that though is the exceptional efficiency. At peak the 7840HS only drew 65 watts, and stabilised at 54 watts under load. Compare that to any of the higher power Intel chips – or that 6900HX, and you’ll see how impressive this thing is. 

When it comes to the display, it’s fine, but somewhat underwhelming. XMG claims just 95% coverage of the sRGB spectrum, although I measured more like 97%, and 78% of the DCI P3 colour space. That’s pretty decent, as is the 400 nits of peak brightness, the 1230:1 contrast ratio, and the DeltaE average of 1.66 is pretty good too! The disappointment comes in the response times. Despite being a 240Hz panel, my Open Source Response Time Tool reported it could only manage 10.6 milliseconds on average. That’s just 94 hertz equivalent. That means you get multiple frames of ghosting on screen at any one time. That’s disappointing, and more so as it’s clear the panel has no overdrive – something it clearly could do with. I hope that’s something XMG can add in a software update, or at least for future models. The input lag results were pretty good – although a number of results were slower than one frame, so not perfect. 

One other gripe I have is with the trackpad. This was honestly an infuriating experience. Much like the Chromebook I tested recently from Acer, this trackpad failed to register my finger movements somewhat regularly, and more often than not wouldn’t register mouse clicks – both taps and the physical click style. I couldn’t open programs from the desktop without exaggerated elevated taps, and trying to accurately aim the cursor to something was a pain. Since this was a back-to-back problem, I got my wife to check for me too since her hands have a whole lot fewer callouses than mine. Still, she had the same problems – albeit generally not as bad as my fairly thick skin on my fingertips doesn’t exactly facilitate the best connection anyway.

On the IO front I’m happy to report this is pretty well equipped. You’ve got three USB A ports, one Type C on the back alongside DC in, MiniDisplayPort and HDMI, and ethernet. You’ve also got an SD card reader and unlabelled headphone and microphone jacks on the left hand side. Inside you’ll find the largest capacity battery you are allowed in a laptop at a hair under 100Wh, alongside two M.2 slots and two DDR5 SODIMM slots. The cooling package is mighty impressive too – although what impressed me was the metal frame beneath it all. That speaks to the build quality and rigidity of the Core 16, along with the heat dissipation which all felt great. It’s nice to know you’re buying a quality machine.

All in all I’m a bit torn on the Core 16. The keyboard is fantastic, it’s an excellent typing and gaming experience and something I’d like to see on more models. The display is pretty mid, and as a small gripe – why do we have 240Hz 1600p displays on laptops that can’t even break 100 FPS in most games on medium settings? I’d much rather have 1080p here personally, especially since you’ll end up using Windows scaling to make everything legible, negating the screen real estate argument. Anyway, I’d describe the performance as pretty mid too – although I’d note that the cooling package does an excellent job at keeping the hardware cool and quiet even under load. The trackpad issue might be a deal breaker for me, although since you’ll probably have a mouse plugged in the whole time it might not be so big a deal for you. Overall I’d say this is a decent, if slightly flawed package, and the keyboard is certainly the highlight.