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Trion Phoenix Gaming Laptop review

Trion Phoenix Gaming Laptop

CHOICE Expert Rating

63%
What is the CHOICE Expert Rating?
Good points

Good Points

  • Can upgrade or replace some components (SSD, Wi-Fi, battery)
  • Very good screen luminance
  • Very good viewing angles
  • microSD card slot
  • Large touchpad
Bad points

Bad Points

  • Did not ship with a legitimate Windows 11 Pro product key
  • Short battery life (average under 3 hours)
  • Poor storage read and write speeds
  • Poor audio quality
  • Fingerprint reader is a raised surface on the touchpad and can get in the way
  • Poor webcam quality
  • Long time to charge to 80 per cent
  • Shipped with a foreign power adapter
  • HDMI port is not full size and will need an adapter
  • Charger is not USB-C
  • Short power cord

Type

Ultraportable
Ultrabook
Tablet mode
Operating system
Windows 11 Pro without a legitimate product key

Recommended products

Recommended
Not recommended
Recommended for tablet use

Test results

CHOICE Expert Rating
63%
Performance score
50%
Tablet use score
N/A
Ease of use score
67%
Battery life score
65%
Display score
78%
Audio score
41%
Wi-Fi score
60%
Storage write-speed (MBps)
405
Storage read-speed (MBps)
480
Wi-Fi speed (MBps)
21
Average battery life – heavy usage (hours)
2:50
Charging time to 80% full (h:min)
2:21
Expert tester comments
The Trion Phoenix Gaming Laptop was purchased from the Big W marketplace. It's not really a gaming laptop. The configuration features an Intel Core i5 CPU from three generations ago, which is fine for many everyday tasks; there is 16GB of RAM, so lots of web browser tabs can be open at once; the storage, while generous at 512GB, was very slow, and this affected the way the laptop felt when loading applications, accessing and writing data. Battery life was well under three hours in our tests, which is not good for a modern laptop, and it took a long time to charge as well. The laptop shipped with a power adapter that did not have an Australian plug, and that alone should be enough to give this one a miss, but there was another issue: the system did not have a legitimate Windows 11 Pro digital product key. We were asked to activate Windows after a reset, and were told we had to buy a product key. After contacting the seller, they emailed a working product key and told us they would ship out an Australian power adapter.

Sustainability

Shop Ethical rating
Warranty (years)
1
Replaceable battery
Replace/upgrade RAM
Slots for additional RAM
Replace/upgrade storage
Slot for additional storage
Replace/upgrade Wi-Fi
Country of origin
China

Related products

Availability
Discontinued model

Cost

Price
$849.00

Specifications

Screen size (inches)
13.5
Native screen resolution (pixels)
2256 x 1504
Processor (CPU) type
Intel Core i5-1035G1
CPU frequency (GHz)
1
RAM (GB)
16
Video graphics type
Intel UHD Graphics
Storage capacity (GB)
512
Available user space (GB)
442
Storage type
SSD
Wi-Fi version
5
Weight of laptop (kg)
1.4
Weight of power supply (kg)
0.19
Size (mm, H x D x W)
19 x 226 x 297

Features

Screen finish
Glossy
Touchscreen
USB-C
USB 2.0 ports
0
USB 3.0 ports
2
USB 4 as USB-C port
0
USB-C (USB 3.2 Gen 1 or 2, not Thunderbolt 3 or 4) ports
1
Thunderbolt 3 or 4 (as USB-C) ports
0
SD card slot (full-size)
SD card slot (micro)
HDMI port
Gigabit ethernet port
Rear camera
Backlit keyboard levels of brightness
2

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