Origin Eon 11s [Retro Review]

[Theguywhobea]

The whole story started when I saw someone on the NotebookReview forums selling a Clevo W110ER. They were asking for like, $400 but I was confident I could get it for $300 due to the length of time it had been listed on the site. So I message the guy but he's taking DAYS to respond. My curiosity gets the best of me and I find myself googling reviews at work. Then I start looking for them on Ebay, no results. After searching for a bit I found this machine was rebranded by Origin, Sager, Eurocom, XMG, and Maingear. Back when it was released in 2012 it was very popular, as this was right after the end of the netbook era, and the demise of the reigning netbook champ, the Alienware M11X. This still might very well be one of the most powerful laptops you can get in an 11.6in form factor, especially at higher end specs (i7 3820QM).

 

After searching Ebay for all the other rebrands of this machine, I found someone selling the Origin Eon 11s, and holy shit did they have it for a good deal. This thing is maxed out with an i7 3820QM, 16GB of RAM, and a 120GB SSD, basically what I was thinking I would end up having to upgrade any other model to. The one downfall of this machine however has to be the rather limiting GT 650M, and it's unfortunately the DDR3 model. I can't see why they would choose this other than to keep the initial MSRP under $1200. I wish I could see this GPU fully stretch it's legs with the GDDR5, but that's a thread for another time.

 

I pulled it out of the box when I got home from work today and was greeted by this:

Spoiler

Little bit dirty, and the hinge on the right side is pretty loose, but all things I plan to fix. It comes with Windows 7 but I'm not sure if it's going to stay that way. I'll probably check out Windows 10 on it in a few days, but I keep getting the feeling that this is going to be a little linux beast. Just need to be sure the driver support it there.

 

Keys are a little worn but they don't feel bad. A lot of review list this keyboard as hard to get used to, and I can understand that but I don't fully agree. Maybe it's just because I use a small wireless bluetooth keyboard at work, but I found the key spacing to be pretty normal. The only odd thing was the key size, they are quite short, but they feel average in width, they also have some nice deep travel.

 

With a screen resolution of only 1366x768 it's nothing to write home about, but honestly at this screen size it seems just right. This model has the glossy screen, which I would normally be bummed about, but seeing as how it's already not that bright, I think the glossy panel is the right way to go. I haven't verified but judging by the poor viewing angles I'd assume this is also a TN panel. Again, something that seems disapointing now, but I think IPS displays were much less common in 2012, so I'm sure it was a concession many people were willing to make to keep the price down.

 

Trackpad is terrible, just plug a mouse in. It's not that it tracks poorly, but the tracking surface feels like the a table in a mall food court.

 

Inital thermals were reallllllllllly bad. I'm talking thermal throttling withing 1 and 1/2 minutes, and fan noise that would make my Blade 14 cover it's ears. This was under full synthetic load on the CPU and GPU in AIDA64, so it's admittedly an unrealistic load. Here is a picture of what I was seeing:

Spoiler

As you can see, I only ran it for just under 4 minutes, the CPU hit 98C, and the GPU already throttled itself back at 81C.

 

I was pretty sure at this point that it must still have the stock paste so it seemed like a natural first order of business to remove it.

Spoiler

The stock paste was hardened to a clay like substance, and I'm fairly sure the heatsink wasn't even making very good contact with the CPU anymore, as you can see some exposed die where there must have been no contact with the copper heatsink anymore.

 

Spoiler

Also it was pretty dusty. 

 

Some canned air and 99% alcohol took care of the dust and stock thermal paste quickly. Reapplied some Arctic Silver 5 and screwed everything back in.

 

Booted the machine backup and saw an immediate improvement. Idle temps were now at 43C, where they had been at 60C before. Fired AIDA64 back up to see some results.

 

Spoiler

 

As you can see I ran the test for much longer this time. No throttling at all, although the CPU still got pretty toasting capping out at around 91C. However the GPU maxed at 71C so a huge improvement there.

 

 

I've only had the machine for a few hours and I'm already flush with ideas of how I can push this little device. However I think I'll try repairing the hinge first, and ordering a new battery as this one is currently at 48% wear.

 

 

 

Initial Verdict:

 

Yeah pretty good. I'm happy with it so far, and at only $400 it seems like quite the steal. I'll try to post a part two where I include some gaming benchmarks or test to see how well it holds up to today. Mainly I'm just hoping it runs League of Legends and Borderlands 2 well.

 

 

Thanks for reading!

[Theguywhobea]

---- Part 2 Soon (TM) ---

[genexis_x]

Just curious: Why use AS5? From what I heard they are not the best paste for laptops.

[Theguywhobea]

13 minutes ago, ZM Fong said:

Just curious: Why use AS5? From what I heard they are not the best paste for laptops.

That just happens to be what I have. What paste would you recommend? IC Diamond?

[genexis_x]

4 minutes ago, Theguywhobea said:

That just happens to be what I have. What paste would you recommend? IC Diamond?

IC Diamond (best for uneven surfaces), Gelid GC Extreme, TG Kryonaut. Avoid MX-4 in laptops.

[D13H4RD]

I'm keen to see more retro reviews

 

I owned a Lenovo Y410P with a 4700MQ, GT 750M 2GB GDDR5, 16GB DDR3L and a 1TB SpinPoint 5400RPM HDD

 

It was fun while it lasted, but it lately developed ethernet and audio issues. When the service point wanted a mobo swap for it (NOPE), I basically just got a whole new laptop instead.

 

With all that said, I've given it to my dad, and have performed a major clean and repaste alongside swapping out the slow-as-molasses HDD with an 850 Evo.

[Theguywhobea]

1 minute ago, D13H4RD2L1V3 said:

I'm keen to see more retro reviews

 

I owned a Lenovo Y410P with a 4700MQ, GT 750M 2GB GDDR5, 16GB DDR3L and a 1TB SpinPoint 5400RPM HDD

 

It was fun while it lasted, but it lately developed ethernet and audio issues. When the service point wanted a mobo swap for it (NOPE), I basically just got a whole new laptop instead.

 

With all that said, I've given it to my dad, and have performed a major clean and repaste alongside swapping out the slow-as-molasses HDD with an 850 Evo.

Hey, thanks for reading!