A 15-inch Thin Laptop For The Road: No More Dongles With The XMG DJ 15
by Dr. Ian Cutress on October 1, 2020 8:00 AM EST
As a journalist and an editor that in any given year travels around the world to attend events, having the best device that helps me write news and generate content is always on my mind. Having a device with more battery life, or more performance, or can deal with dodgy Wi-Fi connections, or can process photos and video while having a good display at a nice price are all factors. Weight is also an important one, as it gets lugged around for 12+ hours a day, and I don’t want to be carrying around too many dongles for everything. The new XMG DJ 15 might be a contender for one of the best devices to do this with.
The XMG DJ 15 is a 15-inch notebook that is designed to be light but also has an array of connectivity unlike any other notebooks I’ve seen in this segment. Despite the size, there is no discrete graphics card in this design, saving space and also allowing the cooling system to be reduced from a typical gaming notebook. This keeps it thin, measuring only 19.9mm at its tallest point, but the use of aluminium keeps it light, weighing in at only 1.6 kg.
For connectivity, the unit has two USB 3.1 Type-A ports, a Thunderbolt 3/Type-C with 60W fast charging, a full-sized HDMI port, a mini-DisplayPort, an SD card reader, a gigabit Ethernet port (!), two 3.5mm jacks for headphone/microphone, and a USB 2.0 Type-A port for legacy.
Inside is an Intel 10th Gen Comet Lake processor, with the base specification using the Core i5-10210U, 16 GB of DDR4-2666 memory, and a 1 TB Samsung 970 EVO Plus PCIe 3.0 x4 NVMe storage drive, all for a pre-tax price 1052 Euro / $1237. The memory is SO-DIMM and the storage is M.2, making both upgradeable.
That also gets Wi-Fi 5, the 15.6-inch 1920x1080 IPS thin-bezel display, a HD webcam, a backlit keyboard with number pad, a Microsoft Precision Touchpad with a fingerprint sensor, and a 54.4 Wh battery. Moving up to Wi-Fi 6 is another $5.
This device isn’t so much aimed at workers, but DJs. XMG claims the unit is built with components that minimise DPC latency, even when Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are enabled. It is pre-tested with all the major DJ software, such as Serato, Traktor, Rekordbox and Virtual DJ. This makes it suitable even for simple DAW projects. It will ship with an optimized installation of Windows 10 Pro, and XMG quotes a maximum DPC Latency of a millisecond. XMG will also work with DJs that have custom needs and offers a bespoke service for those that might need additional features.
The XMG DJ 15 will be available in a traditional silver color or a more striking red design. Even in the base configuration, that price seems great for a workhorse machine on the road, and hopefully the display quality is decent. The version I’d be interested in, with the i7-10510U, Wi-Fi 6, and 32 GB of memory, runs at €1,337 (incl. tax). That can’t be a coincidence.
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Srikzquest - Thursday, October 1, 2020 - link
Appreciate the port selection. Only knock against it is not using latest processors (Tiger Lake or latest AMD Zen APUs). Also, personally I am against having a Num Pad.niva - Thursday, October 1, 2020 - link
Personally, can't live without a Num Pad, at least for work.Srikzquest - Thursday, October 1, 2020 - link
I understand that lot of people use Num Pad, specifically people in Number crunching jobs. For me, I never used it probably because I got used to not lifting my palm position. For lot of people though, its probably the symmetry of the touch pad being not in the center.Kaggy - Thursday, October 1, 2020 - link
If it is 15-inch then there's real estate for numpad, why not make use of the unused space.It is easier to sell more features than to justify the lack of it.
DanNeely - Friday, October 2, 2020 - link
Having a numpad puts the rest of the keyboard off center. If you never use it, this is a usability decline.You also either have to chose between a touchpad that's off center of the laptop which looks odd, or is off center with the main keyboard which is another minor usability hit.
Even aside from increasing the cost, that having the numpad is a nuisance to those of us who don't use it is enough of a reason to guarantee that laptop makers won't go all in on number pads; just like the demand from people who do use them is enough to guarantee that some larger laptops will always include them.
Revv233 - Monday, October 5, 2020 - link
SMH complaining because too many features.Please companies charge us more for less!
yankeeDDL - Thursday, October 1, 2020 - link
I have a ROG Zephyrus with WiFi 6. For $5, it is a no brainer. It is immensely convenient when hollering large files over the WiFi (for example, photos to archive).Teckk - Thursday, October 1, 2020 - link
It has more port varieties than all Apple devices ever released!Anyway, that's seriously impressive for that price range, could've done with a more recent processor though.
damianrobertjones - Thursday, October 1, 2020 - link
No. Just... no. $1237, for a machine that looks like it should be $349 on sale.All you need is usb c, as well as a small little dock that offers hdmi, sd, 2x usb etc and probably ethernet. Done.
Srikzquest - Thursday, October 1, 2020 - link
If you are staying put at a desk, yes you might be right but Dock can't help when you are traveling. So, we need those ports and lot of people (I'm one of them) are against Dongle life.