Disassembly

Given XMG not only does not void the laptop warranty if you disassembly it, but even encourages it as part of its support for the right to repair movement, I disassembled even before all testing was complete. This is the kind of transparency and customer service I want to see from more companies going forward. Helping the process is the use of nothing but 14 Phillips head screws keeping the bottom panel in place—11 on the bottom and another three on the back after removing the silicone cover on the two ports for the OASIS system. A precision screwdriver is handy thus, and the back panel simply lifts off, revealing a composite construction, which explaining the "predominantly aluminium" description for the chassis, and shielding.


We now get to the meat of the laptop, and the engineer in me appreciated the logical chaos here. There is more shielding on relevant items, including the reinforced barrel plug connector for power and battery charging, isolation around the two dynamic speaker drivers on the bottom corners, and relatively large 93 Wh lithium polymer battery, which is just shy of the magic 99 Wh mark allowed for carry-on luggage items on airplanes. Given we rarely see 99 Wh batteries on even 17" screen laptops, having a 93 Wh battery is very good, but we will soon see how battery life fares, and whether the larger battery makes sense or not. The battery is screwed in place and can be replaced by an official XMG replacement battery, which improves product longevity.


The warranty seal is for the motherboard, which is more involved than just taking the back panel off to clean the fans and removing or upgrading some of the more accessible components, unlike the Realtek audio hardware on board. These are not going to be any audiophile's dream—you are better off getting a portable DAC/amp as seen here. This particular laptop configuration included the excellent Samsung 980 Pro 1 TB PCIe 4.0 NVME drive, and there is another M.2 2280 slot for storage expansion. It's backed by 32 GB of 4800 MHz Samsung B-die DDR5 through 2x16 GB SO-DIMM sticks, and XMG states either Crucial or Samsung is chosen depending on what is in stock. These are user-replaceable too, so you could chose the minimum RAM configuration and add a compatible kit. Rounding off this upgradable pathway is the NIC with an Intel AX201 WiFi 6/Bluetooth 5.0 add-in card. Having the AX210 WiFi 6E/BT 5.2 as an option on the product page would have been nice, and you can't just swap over to it given the NEO 15 antennas don't support WiFi 6E either.


The reason this article even happened is the more novel cooling system, which builds upon the praised heatpipe and fan assembly in the previous NEO 15 (E21). Plenty of copper heatpipes are still both dedicated to and shared by the CPU—the Intel Core i7-12700H—and GPU—the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti (150 W TGP + 25 W Dynamic Boost), which in turn have heatsinks and thin blower fan assemblies blowing hot air past aluminium fins and out the vents. But what makes the E22 version of the XMG NEO 15 special is the new heatpipe, which is a flat coolant tube going from the ports we saw on the outside. The heatpipe is soldered to and opened into brass connectors, with capillary pressure overcome by a pump before coolant enters the heatpipe from one end and exits the other, which removes heat from other heatpipes via conduction, and we will discuss heat dissipation with the XMG OASIS later in the review. As it stands, the NEO 15 (E22) still seems to self-sufficiently cool itself—it does not require the OASIS to function any differently from a directly competing product.