The perfect Linux laptop for gaming ? - Neptune 15 FULL REVIEW: performance, battery life...
996After using this big boy, the Juno Computers Neptune 15, as my daily driver for a few weeks, it's time for a full review.
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## The Laptop
Specs-wise, this machine is pretty powerful. My review unit came with an intel core i7, 10875H, with 8 cores and 6 threads, 16Gb of DDR4 RAM, a 256Gb M.2 NVMe SSD, and an Nvidia RTX 2060. You could even configure it with 64Gb of RAM, 4Tb of SSD, and an RTX2080 Super Max Q. The display can't be tweaked, it's a 15.6'' Matte Full HD IPS panel *that was a mouthful*, and it's not fantastic, we'll talk about it a bit more later in the video.
I/O is excellent, with 3 USB 3.2 gen 1 ports, an microphone jack AND a headset jack, a gigabit ethernet port, as well as a thunderbolt 3 port, an HDMI and a mini display port, and a 6in1 SD card reader. There is also the plug for your barrel charger, which is the only sore spot here, I'd have prefered USB C charging on a recent device. Barrel chargers are, well... old and impractical, so you'll have to travel with the sizeable power brick and cable instead of being able to justuse cables and powr bricks you already own.
You also get the mandatory webcam, which only goes up to 720p.
## Build Quality
It's definitely a nice build, although it is still a big boy, It's fully made out of black aluminium, apart from the bezels around the screen, and the hinge cover. It's not the heaviest of laptops, at around 2kilos, or 4.4 pounds.
Generally, this laptop feels really nice. It feels sturdy, sturdier than the Huawei Matebook I have been using for a while. It doesn't creak, or flex much, apart from the top of the laptop, and the center of the keyboard.
## Keyboard and trackpad
Speaking of the keyboard, after a few weeks of use, I can say it's good, but not great. First, let's talk about the elephant in the room: the windows key. This might seem like a small detail, but that's a big oversight IMO: if you're going to sell a laptop with Linux preinstalled, to Linux enthusiasts, you should definitely remove the Windows key.
The typing experience is good, with good key travel, a good clicky sound that is not too loud, but satisfying enough, and key stability is OK as well. I do feel that the keys lack a bit of bounceback, they sometimes feel just a bit too mushy, but generally, that's a pretty good experience, at least for me, who's used to laptop keyboards.
That keyboard also is backlit, with multi coloured RGB that you can control from a small utility Juno Computers ship, or directly from the function keys on the numbers pad.
The trackpad itself is very good. It's one of the most precise I've used on a laptop running Linux.
At first, I thought this display looked great. Awesome viewing angles, and even though it doesnt go super bright, it's a matte display, so isn't too vulnerable to reflexions, even in bright daylight.
The 144hz refresh rate felt like a gimmick at first, but once I got used to it, moving to a 60hz display was a big step back.
The real problem here: color accuracy. If you work in any kind of media production and you need to make sure that your colors are going to be accurate, this probably isn't the laptop for you. Colors are way too saturated, going towards the red end of the spectrum.
## Performance
On geekbench, the Neptune 15 got 1279 in single core, and 6992 in multi core. This is higher than my Ryzen 5 2600 on my desktop, which reached 1022 and 5335 respectively. My Matebook 13, with its i7 8565U, got 1156 in single core, and 3180 in multi core.
And this brings us to another problem with this machine: the chassis is still small, for that kind of hardware, and you can hear it. The fans kick in, as soon as the nvidia graphics card starts up, and they are LOUD. Really, really loud. I couldn't see myself using the graphics card at work, near my colleagues, the sound was way too loud. Under heavy CPU load, like running Geekbench, you can hear the fans ramping up to very, very loud levels of noise.
Now, for battery life, it's ok. I used the laptop in "nvidia on demand mode", so basically using the Intel iGPU al the time, but with the nvidia card on, ready to be used by just right clicking any program and telling it to use the dedicated GPU.I unplugged the laptop at 9:30 AM, and it shut down at 1:20PM, so about 3hours and 50 minutes hours of intensive usage.