30 Days of Use (and counting...)

In the process of testing the NEO 17, I primarily used it to replace my main laptop, one with a 12th-gen Intel CPU and a 175 W 3080 Ti. One of the first things I did was add more storage, as 1 TB wasn't enough for me, so I was really happy to see the long list of drives you can choose from when you spec out your NEO 17. That addition of the second drive was in and of itself actually a rather painless operation that just took several minutes, rather than several hours. One thing to stay aware of if you undertake such an adventure is that there are two screws near the OASIS ports that need to be removed before you can access the internals. Otherwise, upgrading memory or drives on the NEO 17 is fairly standard laptop stuff, made a bit easier due to the huge amount of space inside the chassis of the NEO 17. A mounting screw sits inside the chassis, ready to secure your drive.

The NEO 17 is actually a fairly thin laptop, so it is easily moved around, but it is still also fairly large, so you do need to be aware of its size. I have a rather small desk, and it is nearly engulfed by the large 17-inch screen. That 2560x1600 screen has great color; a factory calibration ensures that you have creator-level capabilities right from the first power on. That's really important, as the NEO 17 isn't intended just for gaming. I was not happy to see how washed out my daily laptop is in comparison. The color and brightness of the screen on the NEO 17 is really quite good.

Naturally, I did use the NEO 17 for a lot of gaming; I put a heavy amount if time into Diablo IV and Starfield, and was left impressed with the offered performance from such a thin laptop. I have to say though, the keys got fairly toasty when under gaming-level loads, even with the OASIS cooler attached and running.


This go around, the OASIS cooler is great, It is super easy to connect or remove both the water tubes and the power wire, so if you want to move your NEO 17 around, you really can move it easily. The ease of use with the OASIS goes a long way to making it more functional; as does the new fan and pump. Both are quieter than previous iterations, and both work really well. You do have control over the OASIS fan speed, so you can customize it to be louder, and offer more cooling if you like. At default settings, it is nearly silent. The NEO 17 can be fairly loud at gaming load levels without the OASIS watercooler attached; the difference is really striking.

I found the trackpad a bit on the sensitive side, yet decently accurate, and its huge size made navigating the large 17-inch 2560x1600 screen effortless. You can disable the right half, or the whole thing; and when typing I found that feature came in handy more often than I thought it would. Whoever came up with that one was really thinking ahead for sure.

As a daily driver laptop, one that is used for both work and play, the NEO 17 does really well, and a big part of that is all the connectivity it offers. It's even ready for VR, which I did try for a bit playing Star Wars Squadrons, and the NEO 17 with RTX 4090 performed really well in this title. I used a fairly standard USB-C-to-DisplayPort adapter cable to connect my Rift S to the NEO 17, and that worked without any issues at all.