Corsair Voyager a1600 Gaming Laptop Hands-On: This Is Different – CNET

Corsair makes PC components , gaming accessories plus gear for streamers . It also has a line of gaming desktops . The Corsair Voyager a1600 is its first gaming laptop and it essentially combines all of the company’s product categories into one gadget. Features from its Elgato streaming hardware and software, RAM and storage from the components business, and wireless tech from its gaming keyboards, mice plus headsets all make appearances in the Voyager a1600.  

It’s an unique laptop made for gamers, creators and streamers. The Voyager a1600, with help through AMD, also has performance to spare, which is pretty great considering it’s only 19. 8mm thick and weighs 5. 3 pounds (2. 4kg).  

Great equipment

Corsair has four configurations for that Voyager a1600 starting at $2, 699 , with an AMD Ryzen 7 6800HS, AMD Radeon 6800M graphics, 16GB DDR5 memory and a 1TB NVMe solid-state drive. It runs on Windows 11 Home. For $2, 999, it can loaded along with a Ryzen 9 6900HS and twice the memory and storage space of the base model. An additional $50 with either configuration moves the OS up in order to Windows 11 Pro.  

That’s not the particular end from the options, though. Origin PERSONAL COMPUTER, a custom PC-maker owned by Corsair, also sells the Voyager a1600 . Buy from Origin and the Voyager can be configured to your liking with up to 64GB of RAM, one or two SSDs with a variety of models plus capacities to choose from, and you can even have its black lid covered with one of 11 patterns. The configuration I’m currently testing combines the Ryzen 7, the particular Radeon 6800M, 32GB associated with memory along with a fast 2TB Samsung SSD for $3, 031 (£2, 770, AU$4, 813), which includes $65 for your faux-marble lid treatment.

Although we’re still testing out all this laptop computer can do, so far is actually living up to AMD’s performance claims. Start up a game and the discrete graphics take over, driving frame rates screaming upward over 100 per second on Guardians of the Galaxy and Shadow of the Tomb Raider on high settings at 1440p in our testing. On CS: GO, the notebook can hit over 280fps according to Corsair, and that lets you take full advantage of the display’s 240Hz refresh rate.  

Under load and with the fans on full blast, the particular Voyager stays cool on the left plus right sides of the laptop, keeping your hands comfortable while video gaming. It does get warm down the middle of the keyboard, particularly toward the top. The fans are loud but that’s what a person get along with thin, powerful laptops.

The particular laptop has a large 99Wh electric battery that lasted 5 hours, 4 minutes on our own streaming video battery rundown test with both the particular display brightness and volume through earbuds set in order to 50%. Though it comes with a 230-watt adapter for gaming power and charging, the Voyager can be charged via USB-C with a 100-watt adapter.  

All configurations come along with a 240Hz, 2, 560×1, 600-pixel, 16-inch IPS display. It’s the good screen overall, especially if your main concerns are a high renew rate with regard to smooth graphics and easier target tracking with 1440p gaming. But if you need wide color gamut coverage, it only hits 75% of Adobe RGB plus DCI-P3, 69% NTSC and 97% sRGB, and lighting measured at 359 nits. For those times when you need something brighter with better color reproduction, it does have 3 USB-C slots with Thunderbolt support regarding an external display or even three.

The particular combo of the big 16: 10 screen and the oddly tall hinges give the body a peculiar appearance — and unusual dimensions intended for squeezing into a backpack’s laptop compartment. The cutout below the display is there to accommodate the particular S-Key Macro Bar, a strip associated with 10 programmable macro keys with a small color display in between them. The bar works with Elgato’s Stream Deck software, letting you create macro secrets with simple drag-and-drop programming for everything from using OBS streaming software program to opening an app or website to playing a sound effect or triggering the voice changer.  

For the keyboard, Corsair used ultralow-profile Cherry MX mechanical switches. The particular clicky switch gives you nice tactile feedback to get typing plus gaming. Even though the keys are clicky, they aren’t so loud that you’d be disturbing anyone around you. And, naturally, there are lights. The keyboard has per-key RGB lighting, completely pré-réglable with Corsair’s iCue software.

The smooth touchpad beneath it will be gigantic. So large, in fact, that will tapping the upper right corner of this a couple of times shuts down the right half of the particular touchpad thus you don’t accidentally move your cursor with your palm while gaming. A double tap within the upper left part shuts the pad straight down entirely.  

However , if you avoid want to use either, a receiver pertaining to Corsair’s Slipstream Wireless-compatible peripherals is built in. It supports as much as three devices in once so you can connect the mouse, key pad and gaming headset without having to connect 3 separate USB receivers. It can like having the convenience of Bluetooth but with the low-latency speed and stability of a 2 . 4GHz wireless receiver.  

Software to match

All of the good hardware packed in the Voyager wouldn’t be nearly as strong in case it didn’t have some handy software program to go along with it. The AMD Radeon Software: Adrenalin Edition, for instance, has several options to get the most from your CPU plus integrated and discrete images. Activate AMD SmartShift Max and the laptop will automatically balance power between the components depending if you need more overall performance from the particular GPU or even processor.  

Similarly, SmartShift Eco saves battery life by using the integrated visuals once the laptop’s unplugged plus moves back to the particular discrete graphics when connected to the power adapter. There are several other features in order to experiment with to improve efficiency on or off battery pack power, reduce input lag and sharpen image detail.  

Joining the Elgato Stream Deck is definitely Corsair’s iCue software through its gaming peripherals. This app is used for changing the keyboard lights, making key assignments and connecting Corsair wireless mice, key boards and headsets. Then there’s the Elgato Camera Hub that lets you get control associated with the built-in 1080p webcam so that you can adjust brightness, saturation, exposure and white stability. The camera’s image quality is good, the little around the noisy side, but sharp with good detail. (There’s also an IR digital camera for unlocking the laptop computer with face recognition as well as a sliding privacy shutter in order to block the particular camera entirely. ) 

Audio in plus out can be solid, too. The upward-firing speakers that flank the keyboard are supported simply by Dolby Atmos processing and have a pleasing, clean sound to all of them. They’ll be fine for casual listening or even conference calls, but for anything else, you’ll want external speakers or a headset ( a pair by Corsair, perhaps ). The particular integrated mics delivered impressive results, so streamers will certainly sound great even without an external mic.  

All of this adds up to a gaming laptop that will sets itself apart for more than its looks plus performance, although the design will stand out in a crowd, too. Is actually an all-in-one portable solution for gamers and streamers, sure. But even if you’re not planning to stream gameplay or be a creator, the Stream Porch software and assignable macro buttons come in handy for from ending the Zoom call to launching Spotify. Plus, it includes an one-year warranty plus lifetime 24/7 tech support service.  

We’ll become back soon with a full, rated review once we wrap up testing. So far, though, this is a solid initial laptop from Corsair, ADVANCED MICRO DEVICES and Origin PC.