Venom BlackBook 13 Zero Review - More than meets the eye...
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2016-05-06
·
1,608 words · ~8 min read
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Venom is back. Last time around with the BlackBook 15, I told them I loved the
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performance and loved the aluminum chassis, but I felt like the price was
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pretty expensive. I also confessed that
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13 to 14 in is my ideal size and that no
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15-in really had a fair shot at stealing
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my heart. So, now they've come back swinging with the BlackBook 13, which
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targets a more aggressive price point and looks, at least on the surface, like
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an absolute stunner. Let's see how it fares.
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Cooler Master's new Master Keys ProL and Pro S keyboards provide 16.7 million
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color RGB backlighting, genuine Cherry MX switches, and an industryleading ARM
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Cortex processor. Learn more in the link in the video description. Now, I could
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say that zero means something like zero compromises or so thin and light as to
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feel like you're carrying nothing. But
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based on that, I know that the Venom guys are a bunch of gamers with a focus
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on selling gaming laptops. I suspect it means zero dedicated graphics card. So
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the zero, whether it carries Intel's Ultrabook certification sticker or not,
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is pretty much an Ultrabook. Sorry gamers. With that said, it's clearly a
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better than average Ultrabook from the outset. It's available in a variety of
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configurations all the way down to a very attractive
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$999 model with a Core i5 and a 120 gig
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SSD OS drive with a 500 gig hard drive
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all the way up to the topofthe-line
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$2500 midnight edition with a Core
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i76500U 8 gigs of RAM a top-of-the-line
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512 gig Samsung 950 Pro M.2 2 PCI
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Expressbased SSD and a 2 terbte Samsung
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850 EVO SATA SSD for storage. It's got
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an Intel 8260 2x2 AC wireless card that
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managed over 20 megabytes per second sustained transfers in my tests. It's
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got Windows 10 Pro and a healthy 45watth
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lithium ion battery. It features an all
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aluminum chassis design with perhaps a greater propensity for picking up greasy
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fingerprints and a little bit more flex
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than I'd like. Not to mention that the hinge isn't the premium one finger
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style, but it makes up for at least some of all of that by being crazy light,
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right around 1.4 kilos or 3 lb. Overall,
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I'd say the device feels pretty darn good. IO is a pretty good mix with a
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single type-C port and a headphone jack
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and nothing else. Sorry, I was thinking of the MacBook. That's right. No, it's
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got power in a USB 2.0 port and a
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headphone microphone combo jack on the left with a USB 3.0 port, an HDMI port,
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a type C 5 GB USB 3.0 port, not
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Thunderbolt unfortunately, and an SD card reader on the right. I love the SD
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card reader. I mean, the number of times I have needed one of those in the field,
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let me tell you, not good. Flipping this puppy open reveals something that may
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feel like a compromise to some, but that I don't actually mind. I actually
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ordered my customuilt XPS15 with a 1080p
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display because I don't feel like at this size the higher DPI makes enough of
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a difference to justify the battery life that I'm giving up. And apparently Venom
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agrees because every model of BlackBook
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130 is equipped with a 1080p IPS
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display. But while the resolution spec
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of this panel is not that impressive in
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other ways, it's among the best that I've seen. The blacks are midnight black
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and there is astonishingly little
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backlight bleed even though Venom has the guts to ship it with a black desktop
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background. As a communications device, the 130 is a bit of a mixed bag. On the
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one hand, the microphone actually sounds pretty good, but on the other, the one
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megapixel camera doesn't perform particularly well in either back lit
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or even front lit scenarios with the
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subject ending up quite washed out and pale looking. So, while the speakers are
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okay, about all you'd expect for a notebook this size, making it fine as a
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casual movie watching device on the couch, it is not ideal for regular video
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conferencing. The keyboard is what I would characterize as pretty good. The
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key caps wobble more than I'd like on a truly premium device, and the stroke
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action is a little bit mushy. But for me, there are really more important
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things on a thin and light. The adjustable backlight is great, and the
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130 delivers on typing speed and accuracy, as well as the overall layout.
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The arrow keys have that annoying up down combo close together thing that I
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think Apple started. But it's otherwise bog standard with
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function modifiers available for pretty much anything that I would need to do,
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including one to disable the touchpad.
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Which leads us to that, I guess. The touchpad has some high points and also
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some low points. From a things that I like perspective, it's got the full
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range of gesture controls which can be set up within the Elant control panel.
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It's got a satisfying pad click with no discrete buttons, and it does a pretty
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darn good job of rejecting both palms and my click finger when I'm operating
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it two-handed. But it comes with what is
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for me a bit of an annoying flaw. Hopefully, one that can be addressed
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with a driver tweak or something along those lines. There's a for me
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perceptible lag between moving my finger across the trackpad and seeing my
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actions on the screen. This is true with the notebook plugged in or running off
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battery. And I even went as far as to reinstall Windows using the included 16
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gig USB drive, which is nice to have by the way. I prefer that to a recovery
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partition as an enthusiast, which resolved this issue when I encountered
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it on the Blade 14 2015. Moving on,
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though, there is more good stuff. The bundled software package is very
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Spartan. Basically, some alternate browsers and not much else. Norton is on
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there, but it's a full year subscription rather than a 30-day subsidized trial.
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So, I'll give that a a neutral rating, leaving really only a few things to talk
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about in the part of this video where I would normally talk about gaming
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performance. Haha. Acoustics are better
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than I expected with the 130 managing to run fanless quite frequently, even with
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the i7 installed. So, you'll do better with an i5 skew. And while the battery
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takes over four hours to charge, which is agonizing when you're waiting around
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for it to run a battery life benchmark, the good news is that in PC Mark 8's
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productivity suite, it managed to run for well over 3 hours continuously,
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which is a pretty darn solid score. Leading us finally to the conclusion. In
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a market that did not contain the Razer
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Blade Stealth, the BlackBook Zero would be a savior to folks who wanted a great
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Ultrabook experience without dealing with the hassle of running Windows on a
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MacBook Air. There are some minor quirks. In the real world, it's a less
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obvious choice, but not an entirely invalid one. While the Blade Stealth
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features an undeniably stronger, thinner
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industrial design, Thunderbolt, an RGB
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backlit keyboard, and a higher resolution display across all SKUs. Its
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thinner fans will work harder to control CPU thermals. And it's much less
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configurable spec-wise with a maximum of 8 gigs of RAM soldered to the main board
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and only the M.2 drive being upgradable.
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The BlackBook 130, by contrast, and this
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one hits pretty hard for heavy Google Chrome Tab users like myself, manages to
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cram the same capacity battery, a 2 and 1/2 in drive bay, which is pretty nice
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if your Ultrabook is your primary machine, as it is for so many people
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these days, and a so dim memory socket
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into its only marginally thicker shell. And while Venom doesn't advertise the
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capability of the 130 to run a single 16
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gig DDR3L sodium, I tried it with a 1333
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MHz intelligent memory branded stick that I had lying around and it worked
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perfectly. That right there is a huge
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win from my perspective on what is already a very compelling little
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product, provided that they can quickly sort out the touchpad lag. So, thanks
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