Origin EVO15-S Review: Thin, Powerful NVIDIA Max-Q Gaming On The Go
Battery testing is performed using Battery Eater Pro and a custom 1080p HD video loop test we developed here at HotHardware. We conduct the tests with Windows 10 quiet hours enabled and display brightness calibrated as close to 115 lux on meters as possible. This was around the 40-percent brightness setting on the Origin EVO15-S. This model has an reasonably bright display such that when at 100% brightness it produces over 350 lux.
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Brightness calibration is vital to ensure a fair comparison with other notebooks in our group, since it greatly affects battery life. However, every notebook has different brightness ranges so it’s critical to rely on a light meter instead of the Windows brightness setting percentage.
Gaming notebooks never impress when it comes to battery life, so we weren't expecting much from the EVO15-S. When not connected to a power supply the EVO15-S has roughly an hour and a half of productivity under heavy load. Under more traditional use, you're going to get nearly three hours of up time. Honestly, it's not the worst we have seen from a gaming laptop but some folks may have wanted a bit more up-time for light duty use. And of course, if you're going to a LAN party, or gaming on the go though, keep that AC power adapter handy.
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You're not going to find a gaming laptop on the market that doesn't make some noise while gaming and the EVO15-S is no exception. However, the fan noise was never obnoxiously loud. By default, the fans ramping curve is controlled by Nvidia's Max-Q algorithm. When not using the Max-Q setting the fans could actually get pretty loud.
During our testing, GPU temperatures never exceeded 79°c, but when both the CPU and GPU were running at close to 80°c things really heated up, especially the keyboard. This is common in gaming laptops though, especially one as thin as the EVO15-S. The problem though is most of the heat is concentrated at the upper left side of the keyboard, exactly where many primary gaming keys are located like W,A,S,and D. The keys never got uncomfortably hot to the touch, but your left hand might be a little more sweaty than usual after a long gaming session.
