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Venom BlackBook Zero 14 Phantom G9 Platinum Edition (Model L360) review

Venom BlackBook Zero 14 Phantom G9 Platinum Edition (Model L360)

CHOICE Expert Rating

77%
Recommended
What is the CHOICE Expert Rating?
Good points

Good Points

  • Very good keyboard
  • Excellent touchpad
  • Very large touchpad
  • Very good screen
  • Excellent viewing angles
  • Very good screen luminance
  • Very good storage read speed
  • Very good storage write speed
  • Full-sized HDMI port
  • SD card slot
  • Can upgrade or replace some components (SSD, RAM, Wi-Fi, battery)
  • Very good Wi-Fi speed
  • Ships with a spare charger
Bad points

Bad Points

  • Extremely long time to charge to 80 per cent and 100 per cent
  • Has two USB-C ports, but only one is Thunderbolt 4
  • Fan noise can be noticeable, especially under heavy CPU load
  • Charger is not USB-C

Type

Ultraportable
Ultrabook
Tablet mode
Operating system
Windows 11 Pro

Recommended products

Recommended
Recommended
Recommended for tablet use

Test results

CHOICE Expert Rating
77%
Performance score
69%
Tablet use score
N/A
Ease of use score
81%
Battery life score
73%
Display score
87%
Audio score
60%
Wi-Fi score
81%
Storage write-speed (MBps)
4644
Storage read-speed (MBps)
6876
Wi-Fi speed (MBps)
44
Average battery life – heavy usage (hours)
8:06
Charging time to 80% full (h:min)
5:54
Expert tester comments
Aussie vendor, Venom, has many BlackBook Zero 14 Phantom G9 configurations to choose from, mainly if you're after plenty of speed, RAM, and storage capacity. The Platinum edition we've tested comes with a 13th Gen Core i7 CPU that's surrounded by 32GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD. It's a beast for multi-tasking and working on large files, and is therefore more suited to a professional user than an everyday consumer of content. Also present is a very good, high-resolution 14-inch screen, a keyboard that's very comfortable to use, and a useful array of ports (although of two USB-C ports, only one is Thunderbolt 4). Worth noting that all this is packed into a small chassis that is highly portable, and which features a high-capacity battery that lasted over eight hours in our rundown tests. The downside is that it can take an extremely long time to recharge, but you do get two chargers, so you can keep one at work and one at home, for example. Note that performance management software is installed and performance results are based on that software's default setting (it can run a bit faster).

Sustainability

Shop Ethical rating
Warranty (years)
3
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
Tested model

Cost

Price
$3,099.00

Specifications

Screen size (inches)
14
Native screen resolution (pixels)
2880 x 1800
Processor (CPU) type
Intel Core i7-1360P
CPU frequency (GHz)
2.2
RAM (GB)
32
Video graphics type
Intel UHD Graphics
Storage capacity (GB)
1024
Available user space (GB)
906
Storage type
SSD
Wi-Fi version
6
Weight of laptop (kg)
1.2
Weight of power supply (kg)
0.34
Size (mm, H x D x W)
20 x 213 x 308

Features

Screen finish
Matte
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
1
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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