One Notebook ONEXPLAYER - Intel Core i7-1195G7

I would like to thank Geekbuying for providing the sample.


While the Steam Deck managed to really drive the conversation and bring portable PC gaming into the spotlight, it is far from the only capable brand out there to deliver a solid product. The One Notebook brand and its lineup of ONEXPLAYER devices focus on providing a genuine Windows-based portable gaming system while giving you the choice between Intel or AMD. On top of that, you can pick between a Mini variant that mimics the Steam Deck in size and dimensions or a larger variant with higher resolution, bigger battery, and bigger screen size. We received the ONEXPLAYER with the Intel i7-1195G7 for review, but you can also get it with an AMD 4000 or 5000 series APU instead.

Contents and A Closer Look

The ONEXPLAYER ships in a cool black and orange box with a bit of branding and a sticker with the serial number on it.


Within the box, you will find the unit held in place securely by a foam cutout and slim package for a charger underneath.


The charger is rather compact, but delivers a solid 65 watts using USB-C PD. Considering its compact dimensions, odds are it is a GaN-based charger. The included cable is braided and sufficiently long.


On top of that, a dual-language manual (Chinese and English) gives you a general overview of the general functionality and buttons. There isn't much more as this is essentially a very efficiently packaged PC.


Out of the box, the ONEXPLAYER is slightly larger than the Nintendo Switch or Valve Steam Deck, but that additional size is well-used, providing a much better 8.4" IPS screen than the 7" variant on the Steam Deck. On top of that, this display provides a massive 2560 x 1600 resolution, which is certainly not what you would want to run your games at, but it could come in handy in the Windows environment (Editors Note: to make the most of it, reduce the default 250% scaling in Windows). The larger dimensions allow for additional cooling and a bigger battery, too. In terms of button layout is an analogue trigger on either side and a 4-way rocker on the left, as well as the usual assortment of four buttons on the right. Besides that, the ONEXPLAYER comes with a few unique buttons. On the left is a button to trigger menus and an orange one to easily get back to the Windows desktop. On the right of the screen is a menu button at the top as well as a keyboard trigger to pull up the Windows virtual keyboard and turbo switch, which toggles the TDP setting of the system between 20 and 28 watts. Thus, by hitting the turbo switch, you get some additional performance at the cost of battery life and higher temperatures.


On the rear are large cutout above the two fans. These are set to pull air in and push it out the top of the housing. A fingerprint sensor that also acts as a power button can be found on the center as well. This is a nice touch as you could secure your unit without having to pull up the onscreen keyboard. If you look closely, you will see a pair of +/- buttons behind the right triggers and a mute button behind the left triggers. The ONEXPLAYER also comes with a built-in kick stand, so if you happen to use a Bluetooth controller or keyboard, you can easily prop the unit up.


As mentioned, the top provides the two exhaust vents for the fans. In the center is the audio jack, general USB-C port, USB 3.0 Type-A plug, and another USB-C PD port. Lastly, there is also a MicroSD slot in case the internal 1 TB drive is not enough. On the bottom is a connector to snap on a keyboard and make this a fully fledged notebook. That magnetic keyboard costs around $60, which is actually quite reasonable.


The built-in stand feels solid enough, but you should still handle it carefully. It has enough friction to set the angle as you like with confidence. As such, the unit won't collapse no matter how far you go.


Both top edges sport dual triggers much like those on gaming console controllers.


Speaking of weight, the ONEXPLAYER clocks in at just over 800 grams, which is considerably more than the sub-700 grams of the Steam Deck, for example.

Performance, Noise, And Battery Life

Battery Life
Before we dive into the use of the ONEXPLAYER, let's take a quick look at its specifications and some performance numbers, starting with the battery. ONEXPLAYER is a bit cheeky and mentions a massive 15.300 mAh battery, which is technically correct. However, that number is at 3.85 V, which is the input voltage. However, its output voltage is 13.2 volts. As such, the battery is 5100 mAh, or 589 Wh. That is substantially more than the 40 Wh of the Steam Deck, but the ONEXPLAYER also uses a system platform that requires more juice. Charging the unit takes just under 3 hours and running 3DMark Time Spy at 100% screen brightness on a loop drains the battery completely in just under 2 hours without Turbo mode enabled. As such, you can probably see around 2–3 hours of gaming use with reduced screen brightness. Running that same benchmark in Turbo mode resulted in a battery rundown time of around 1.5 hours, so a realistic gaming session in such a scenario should be around 2 hours. While all those battery rundown numbers aren't the greatest, you are able to juice it with any PD-capable battery pack to alleviate things a bit.

Noise
The ONEXPLAYER seems to have 4–5 steps, and the loudest setting is certainly noticeable with around 48 dBA from 10 cm away. The upside is that there is no high-pitched sound, just the swoosh of the fans, making it very similar to that of any notebook you would be gaming on. Choosing not to run in Turbo mode also makes a difference, with the fans not kicking into overdrive as often, leaving you at an RPM setting generating around 43 dBA.

Thermals
With normal settings, stressing the CPU to 100% and running Furmark at the same time, the ONEXPLAYER CPU cracks 90°C for a few seconds before the fans step it up, which then levels the whole thermal package to around 65°C quite quickly. Even though the ONEXPLAYER is theoretically capable of boosting to 5 GHz, the CPU levels out at around 3.2 GHz in this extended stress test setup, with the GPU frequency hovering at around 1–1.1 GHz. Turning on the Turbo button does have an effect. In the first few seconds of the stress test, it does crack 100°C before the fans cool things down to around 75°C overall. In this setting, the cores run at a constant 3.5 GHz while the GPU settles at 1.2 GHz.

Performance
As the ONEXPLAYER ships with a 1 TB 2280 M.2 PCIe 3.0 drive, you could theoretically simply exchange the drive for a 2 TB model, for example. However, just like with the Steam Deck, doing so will alter the thermal and power characteristics the ONEXPLAYER is tweaked at. Even though the SSD registers as a non-descriptive drive name and model, a quick benchmark on the drive reveals solid 2.5 GB/s read and 2 GB/s write speeds.

The Iris Xe GPU may not be as power-efficient as the RDNA 2-based GPU of the Steam Deck, but it manages to be slightly faster in turn. That said, the AMD APU probably has a slightly better overall power to performance ratio. In terms of numbers, the Iris Xe with its 96 EUs manages to score around 1700 in 3DMark Time Spy in normal mode and 1850 with Turbo enabled. A Steam Deck tends to manage around 1650 in that same benchmark.

Use

Once you get used to the size and are past the initial Windows setup, the ONEXPLAYER immediately impresses with the 358 PPI screen, whereas both the Steam Deck and Switch would have visible pixels even with their smaller displays. The pre-loaded Windows 10 is fully licensed and does not have any additional bloatware, which is really nice. You should obviously run Windows Update and download all the latest drivers. In case you are wondering, simply treat this as you would any notebook for most of the driver support. Initially, the display was set to 40% brightness, which certainly helps with battery life, but we cranked it up to 100%. That said, if you are indoors, there is little reason to go all out here.

The unique, functional buttons make it really easy to navigate core elements in Windows, which is important as you don't have a physical keyboard. The orange button takes you back home by hiding all running apps and showing the desktop. Pressing it again restores the state of applications. On the left side, pressing the keyboard button pops up the virtual keyboard, making it as easy as possible to type something in as well. That said, being a capacitive touch screen, having a stylus packed into the housing could have been helpful.


While the Steam Deck utilizes a Linux OS, the Steam library provides a big picture mode which works flawlessly on the ONEXPLAYER. I expected having to set things up or mapping buttons, but it quite literally just works, and thanks to the fully fledged button count and modern layout, all the markings are correct as well. ONEXPLAYER has done an excellent job ensuring there is proper labeling on them as well. With more and more games optimized for the Steam Deck, users of the ONEXPLAYER get to benefit as well. That said, while Steam Deck users can simply use the screen's low 1280 x 800 native resolution knowing that the embedded GPU can handle it, on the ONEXPLAYER, you need to take the extra step of going into the game launch settings and adjusting the resolution as it would otherwise try to push 2560 x 1600 by default, which the embedded Iris Xe graphics won't be able to handle.

While this is a little drawback, as these settings persist you only have to deal with this once per game. We filtered our game library down to controller-supported games and fired up the best games in recent history: Control. While you won't get ray tracing like you would on your fully fledged gaming PC and the game automatically adjusts quality settings to fit the embedded GPU, playing the game is smooth and genuinely fun on the 8.4" screen, but the weight will become noticeable after playing for a while. This is also the case for the Switch and Steam Deck, but as the ONEXPLAYER is the heaviest of the bunch, you will feel the burn earlier.

Conclusion

Overall, the One Notebook ONEXPLAYER with the Intel i7-11950G7 clocks in at around $1150, but with the Code: "NNNTECHONO1S", you can enjoy a discount to $990 at the time of writing on Geekbuying. The ONEXPLAYER is extremely well built and manages to score with a well-designed and thought out button layout that removes all barriers of entry, especially for those who are already used to the Switch, or controllers in general. On top of that, with its expansive storage and beautiful, large screen using it as an actual Windows system is certainly possible. This is further aided by the availability of such accessories as the magnetic keyboard. The downside is that the higher TDP of the core system results in a bit more noise some may not like. Those who want slightly better balanced power to performance could opt for the AMD 5800U based unit instead, but it would clock in at a slightly higher cost as well. It will be interesting to see if the ONEXPLAYER will be available with the latest AMD 6800U as well, which would essentially level the playing field in that regard compared to the Steam Deck.