Corsair Voyager a1600 Gaming Laptop

[cadaveca]

Corsair's ground-breaking thin and light gaming laptop, the Voyager a1600 is here! The AMD-powered Voyager a1600 leverages everything Corsair knows and slams it all together into this incredible 16:10 chassis that's ready for gaming, streaming, or professional use.

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[thewan]

.I also found the Dolby Access applet installed, but that's a bit more useful for headphone users than those that use the physical speakers found on either side of the keyboard deck.

Does that mean the implementation on your particular review unit is broken? Or is it that none of the presets seem to affect the speaker sound quality?
This is because I wanted to cross check with other reviews about the speakers and all of them did mention it came with Dolby software to tweak the sound, but they never mentioned if it helped or made it worse. Could it be it doesnt affect the speakers? Or the speakers are so bad that eq doesnt change how does it sound.

btw before some1 comes in and tells me to put on headphones. not everyone wants to dunk a good pair of headphones on their head all the freaking time. There are ppl living in really hot and humid places and sometimes we just wanna netflix or play a quick game without melting our brains and feel all sticky and disgusting so we tend to do so without using our headphones unless we really feel like it,

 

[Chrispy_]

I was unaware that streamers liked laptops. I am reasonably aware of a good many streamers who whinge and whine about having to use a laptop, and avoid it wherever possible. Is this a real market that Corsair are trying to cater to, or just an attempt to throw Elgato at the laptop market and see if it sticks?

The laptop looks half decent as a regular gaming laptop, albeit the price is terrible because Corsair but hey, that's completely normal for them at this point and it doesn't seem to deter everyone because Corsair are doing pretty well, financially.

 

[Readlight]

High rarity, this brand in EU

 

[mechtech]

nice machine, however when you get into those types of dollars eurocom has way more options

High-Performance Custom Laptops – Upgradeable & Powerful

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eurocom.com

 

[cadaveca]

Does that mean the implementation on your particular review unit is broken? Or is it that none of the presets seem to affect the speaker sound quality?

The speakers themselves, like any laptop speaker, are a bit limited for 3D emulation. They do decent "out-of-phase" 3D stuff ok, but the sound isn't as "diffuse" as a laptop with down-firing speakers. Audio is good on the Voyager a1600; crisp and clear up to 100%, but that 100% is a bit lower in volume compared to some other laptops I have played with.

I personally favor Nahamic audio options; those make a huge difference, whereas Dolby and DTS implementations tend to not fare as well, and I'm not sure why; might just be my ears.

I was unaware that streamers liked laptops. I am reasonably aware of a good many streamers who whinge and whine about having to use a laptop, and avoid it wherever possible. Is this a real market that Corsair are trying to cater to, or just an attempt to throw Elgato at the laptop market and see if it sticks?

The laptop looks half decent as a regular gaming laptop, albeit the price is terrible because Corsair but hey, that's completely normal for them at this point and it doesn't seem to deter everyone because Corsair are doing pretty well, financially.

I'm aware of a tonne of users that aren't 100% what I would call PC enthusiasts, that use their laptop for streaming and podcasting. They also seem willing to pay a bit more to get exactly what they are after, so I think Corsair did really well in taking this design direction, not only in meeting demand, but also identifying that that market might be bigger than some consider. Elgato already shows how big streaming is; they wouldn't exist without it.

 

[Chrispy_]

I'm aware of a tonne of users that aren't 100% what I would call PC enthusiasts, that use their laptop for streaming and podcasting. They also seem willing to pay a bit more to get exactly what they are after, so I think Corsair did really well in taking this design direction, not only in meeting demand, but also identifying that that market might be bigger than some consider. Elgato already shows how big streaming is; they wouldn't exist without it.

Fair enough. I have a love-hate relationship with Corsair because some of their product ranges are good and well-priced (cases and PSUs) whilst other product ranges have gone to shit - price doubling as the quality halves.

For something I have no on-hands experience with, it's hard to know which category this laptop falls into - but it sounds like there's a real market for this and that it's the former. Expensive, yes, but not unreasonable.

 

[Kyaaaaaaaaaa]

This laptop is advertised to streamers, yet has fans so loud you can’t hear the speakers, and needs a quiet mode that turns down its already meagre performance. How did it end up with an editors choice badge?

 

[cadaveca]

This laptop is advertised to streamers, yet has fans so loud you can’t hear the speakers, and needs a quiet mode that turns down its already meagre performance. How did it end up with an editors choice badge?

Every laptop is loud at load, and nearly every laptop has a quiet mode.

Performance is adequate, and the best hardware AMD has is in here, so it is what it is. When you consider power use, that performance is actually quite good. Most laptops of this caliber from Intel/NVIDIA draw 230 W or more while this one maxes out at 155 W.

I really like this laptop. I'd use it as my daily driver if I didn't get it on loan.

 

[Chrispy_]

This laptop is advertised to streamers, yet has fans so loud you can’t hear the speakers, and needs a quiet mode that turns down its already meagre performance. How did it end up with an editors choice badge?

Streamers use cardoid mics almost exclusively (those that don't use headsets) so the PC or Laptop can be making hella noise and it won't matter.

My original concern is that streamers usually want wired ethernet, multiple displays, and >8 CPU cores but it sounds like this is a reasonable compromise if they're forced to laptop instead of desktop.

 

[Flanker]

Any chance of testing the iGPU's gaming performance?

 

[FreedomEclipse]

Almost $4k and only one year warranty?

 

[GabrielLP14]

Great review but one thing i miss in any laptop review is coverage to see if the Laptop has a multiplexer or MUX switch that switches between the integrated GPU from the CPU and the external GPU @cadaveca

 

[cadaveca]

Great review but one thing i miss in any laptop review is coverage to see if the Laptop has a multiplexer or MUX switch that switches between the integrated GPU from the CPU and the external GPU @cadaveca

from the first page:

Combining the latest 8-core AMD Ryzen 6000-series processor, AMD Radeon RX 6000-series graphics with integrated MUX switch, and exclusive AMD Smart Technologies, the Voyager a1600 blends all these for an impressively powerful laptop that leverages the best AMD has to offer.

Any chance of testing the iGPU's gaming performance?

I'm not sure this is possible but on Sunday I'll take a look. Just got home from day job and I gotta work tomorrow too.

 

[GabrielLP14]

from the first page:








I'm not sure this is possible but on Sunday I'll take a look. Just got home from day job and I gotta work tomorrow too.

Yeah i saw that, but did you took any pictures of it? honestly i've never seen this IC? lol are they integrated in the CPU or GPU or on the motherboard lol?

 

[SOAREVERSOR]

This laptop is advertised to streamers, yet has fans so loud you can’t hear the speakers, and needs a quiet mode that turns down its already meagre performance. How did it end up with an editors choice badge?

Streamers use headphones + cardiod mic or a head set they aren't going to be using the speakers so it's a none issue. As to why streamers might want a laptop that's obvious many of them go to events. Most people in the tech arena own desktop, laptop, tablet, smart phone, often multiple. Some people try to cut that down. If you want to cut that down what goes is the desktop and the tablet.

 

[cadaveca]

Yeah i saw that, but did you took any pictures of it? honestly i've never seen this IC? lol are they integrated in the CPU or GPU or on the motherboard lol?

OH. LOL. My bad as I misunderstood you completely. I'd like to know this as well. There must be some sort of hardware that shares rendering space as the GPUs switch but im not sure if this is integrated into the GPU/APU or a seperate chip. I believe with AMD stuff its integrated, but with NVIDIA it needs to be added, as often NVIDIA GPUs don't support MUX switching.

I very purposefully do not remove cooling from laptops, so most of the PCB is still covered and many ICs are hidden. I'd love to dig deeper into this for sure, but don't want to ruin that paste application. I've had a couple of laptops that use liquid metal as TIM and that's not easy to replace.

 

[GabrielLP14]

OH. LOL. My bad as I misunderstood you completely. I'd like to know this as well. There must be some sort of hardware that shares rendering space as the GPUs switch but im not sure if this is integrated into the GPU/APU or a seperate chip. I believe with AMD stuff its integrated, but with NVIDIA it needs to be added, as often NVIDIA GPUs don't support MUX switching.

I very purposefully do not remove cooling from laptops, so most of the PCB is still covered and many ICs are hidden. I'd love to dig deeper into this for sure, but don't want to ruin that paste application. I've had a couple of laptops that use liquid metal as TIM and that's not easy to replace.

i understand thats one the doubts i always had though hhahah i didn't know this was integrated with AMD GPUs, thanks for the heads up

 

[cadaveca]

Any chance of testing the iGPU's gaming performance?

 

[Flanker]

Nice. So a bit faster than 1630 I think

 

[cadaveca]

Nice. So a bit faster than 1630 I think

The onboard iGPU is fantastic. Not only does it perform well, it does so while barely using any power at all. Corsair could have chosen the HX CPU, but that comes with a 10 W increased power usage, while offering the same level of default performance, so I feel they made an excellent choice here. With the iGPU so capable, the discrete GPU isn't needed as much; I have a couple of NVIDIA-based laptops that will use the discrete GPU for video playback, but that isn't needed with the AMD hardware.

 

[Flanker]

The onboard iGPU is fantastic. Not only does it perform well, it does so while barely using any power at all. Corsair could have chosen the HX CPU, but that comes with a 10 W increased power usage, while offering the same level of default performance, so I feel they made an excellent choice here. With the iGPU so capable, the discrete GPU isn't needed as much; I have a couple of NVIDIA-based laptops that will use the discrete GPU for video playback, but that isn't needed with the AMD hardware.

Kinda odd how this isn't mentioned much in other reviews across the internet. Especially not seeing reviews of RDNA iGPU's despite being available for quite a while.

Personally I'm definitely getting an AMD APU for my next laptop unless Intel can perform some miracle with their own graphics

 

[Dylan9709]

Hey, I understand this is an old forum and may not get much attention.

I recently grabbed a Corsair Voyager in the Black Friday sales and was wondering about the connectivity to external display via the USB 4/Thunderbolt ports. I purchased a USB C - Display Port cable and am getting a "Generic Billboard Device" error. Any ideas what cables I should be using to connect a monitor?

Or on the other hand, any idea what TBT3 docks I should be looking at to get everything connected?