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The XMG A722 is a 17in laptop with some hugely powerful components. There’s a quad-core Intel Core i7 processor, a 120GB SSD as well as a 500GB hard disk, and an Nvidia GeForce GTX 660M processor. In many ways it’s similar to the Scan 3XS Graphite LG10, which is also a chunky gaming laptop with a Clevo-made chassis full of powerful hardware, but Schenker’s model is a useful £150 cheaper.
Like all 17in laptops, the XMG A722 is huge, but its 3.2kg weight isn’t a disaster – it’s certainly lighter than gaming laptops from a few years ago. The large base leaves plenty of room for the keyboard and numeric keypad, and accurate typing is easy thanks to large, well-spaced keys – the keyboard is much better than the Scan 3XS’s cramped-feeling model. We weren’t impressed with the touchpad, though, with its cheap plastic surface and horrible wobbly keys. You’ll definitely want to carry a good gaming mouse with you.
Unfortunately, the cheap-feeling plastic extends to the whole of the laptop’s base; while the Scan 3XS does a reasonable job of feeling like a quality item, the XMG A722 doesn’t feel like a near-£1,000 laptop. Matters improve when you close it, though, thanks to the moderately classy textured lid.
You get a reasonable selection of ports around the laptop’s base, including HDMI, VGA, a card reader and three USB3 and one USB ports. You also get Gigabit Ethernet, for that all-important LAN party network performance.
Desktop replacement laptops like this are all about performance, and the XMG A722 is certainly no slouch. Its 2.4GHz processor can boost up to 3.4GHz when there’s enough thermal headroom, and this led to an overall score of 86 in our benchmarks. However, this is nowhere near as quick as the Scan 3XS Graphite LG10, which managed an enormous 97 from its 2.7GHz Core i7-3740QM chip. We’re seeing more and more laptops with 8GB of RAM as standard, and we can think of few situations where you’ll need more RAM than this. Thanks to the 120GB SSD system disk the laptop starts up in a handful of seconds, and there’s plenty of room on the separate 500GB hard disk for your files.
The XMG A722 has a dedicated Nvidia GeForce GTX 660M graphics chipset, with 2GB of dedicated graphics RAM. This was easily quick enough to run our Dirt Showdown benchmark at 1,280×720 with 4x anti-aliasing and the High detail preset. We saw a smooth 67.5fps at these settings, and the frame rate never dropped below 55fps. As the monitor is a 1,920×1,080 model, it made sense to really test the graphics card by running it at these native settings. At 1,920×1,080 with 4x anti-aliasing and High detail, the laptop still managed a smooth 43.6fps, and never dropped below a still-smooth 35.6fps.
However, when we put the detail level up to Ultra, so matching the settings we use to test desktop PCs, frame rates dropped to 18.6fps, which is far below what we consider playable. While these game test results are certainly impressive, they’re not up there with the Scan 3XS Graphite LG10, which managed a near-playable frame rate of 26.2fps in the Ultra detail test and a huge 57.3fps at 1,920×1,080, 4x anti-aliasing and High detail thanks to its higher-specification GeForce GTX 670M graphics chipset.
Although we were impressed with the XMG A722’s performance, we weren’t as bowled over by its 17in Full HD screen. Colours are reasonably accurate, but there is some definite light leakage at the bottom of the display. The screen doesn’t have brilliant contrast, which led to some loss of detail in the darker areas of our test images. The display’s viewing angles, both horizontal and vertical, are narrow, and we noticed significant colour shift when we weren’t in the right spot.
In many ways Schenker’s XMG A722 is a good-value desktop-replacement laptop, which packs in a large amount of application and gaming power and a Full HD screen for less than £1,000. However, we didn’t get on with the touchpad and felt the laptop’s display was below par, and the XMG A722 can’t match the Scan 3XS Graphite LG10 for performance. If you’re after a gaming laptop, the Scan 3XS’s superior power, classier-feeling chassis and better monitor are worth the extra £150.
