Powerful, affordable but LOUD!!!
I bought this in 2018 so there may be updates to the manufacturing since then. With that caveat in mind, here's my review: This has been a powerful machine and it came at a great price for the specs. I don't regret the purchase and it has served me well the past several years. However, there is one major flaw, which is the noise. The fan noise is SUPER LOUD and there's an additional whining noise that turns on sometimes - my guess is it starts up when the HDD is in use. I guess you have to expect some level of noise when you pack so much high-powered machinery into such a small package, but this build seems like the noisiest possible outcome. This has been an issue for the following reasons: 1. I produce music on the computer. I used to use headphones so the noise didn't bother me as much, but now I'm using speakers more (to protect my hearing) and the noise is really disruptive. I've taken to putting the laptop in my closet and running extension cables to my monitor and mouse/keyboard so I don't have to hear it. 2. I do performances for my job and in 2020 we had to switch to all virtual, which meant I was using my laptop for video calls and webinars every day. The noise from my laptop gets picked up by my mic and this became a serious problem that impacted my work. I subscribed to a noise-cancelling software service (Krisp) to solve this - but since I can't use this in all situations, the noise from the computer is still occasionally an issue. Even when I'm not working on music or doing a video call, I still sometimes choose to wear noise cancelling headphones because the sound is really annoying and I worry about it aggravating my tinnitus. It's possible that for different configurations, the noise won't be as much of an issue, or that you will be in a situation where having a noisy computer won't be a problem, but if your situation is anything like mine, you may want to consider other options - I think name brand laptops might be much better in terms of noise levels.
