Disappointing Right Out of the Box

From the moment I placed the order for the MECHREVO Aurora X Pro, I was quite looking forward to it. However, the courier didn’t arrive before my trip to Hong Kong, and by the time I got home and unboxed it, the novelty had already worn off. When I tried to install another SSD, I found the M.2 screw was stripped, so I had to make do with some electrical tape—my fondness for the new laptop instantly halved.

Specs and Price

i9-14900HX + RTX 5070 Ti, and at 8,699 yuan after subsidy, the price is fairly reasonable. As for peripherals, to put it simply, I’ve happily used a Hasee before, so there’s really nothing I can’t get on with.

• Screen: 2560x1600@300Hz, 100% sRGB colour gamut, with decent colour accuracy. When playing Cities: Skylines 2, the red of the brake lights in traffic jams is even more vivid than in real life.
• Keyboard: The key travel is rather short and the feel is average, but since I mostly use an external keyboard, I don’t really mind.
• Wi-Fi Card: The AX201 is rather stingy, and the antenna design seems poor—you can clearly tell the speed is much slower than wired, even when right next to the router.
• SSD: Comes with a 1TB Zhiti drive, which is average; the 2TB Crucial I added myself is the main workhorse.
• Battery: The 80Wh battery is fine for emergencies on a gaming laptop. I usually keep it in workstation mode to prolong battery life.
• Discrete GPU Direct Connection: Supports hot switching, which is great—no need to reboot to change modes.
• BIOS: The AMI BIOS is far better than previous versions.

User Experience

Cities: Skylines 2—even with a population of 120,000, simulation speed could still be kept at 3x, though the fans were roaring by then. Cyberpunk 2077 runs with ray tracing on Ultra, and Forza Horizon 5 as well—but honestly, the actual gaming experience feels much the same as with my old RTX 3060. Sure, reflections are more realistic and details richer, but just for the sake of improved visuals, I doubt I’d spend more time on these games that have already kept me entertained for over a hundred hours.

The skin-like coating on the palm rest does feel nice, but with peripherals connected, I’m mostly just touching the external keyboard. Nahimic audio effects have serious latency—turning them off actually makes osu! more responsive, a textbook case of negative optimisation.

The Meaning of Tools

I’ve used this laptop for two weeks—no surprises, good or bad. The Wi-Fi card is so rubbish I’ve had to use wired, the fan is extremely loud in turbo mode, and the southbridge gets very hot due to lack of cooling. Apart from that, it’s just a machine that lights up when it should and makes noise when it must.

Perhaps that’s how good tools should be: as I write this, I realise I’ve been staring blankly at the battery icon in the bottom right corner for five minutes, and it’s quietly holding at 98%—just sitting there, like a mute brick.