Notebook manufacturers keep creating slimmer and lighter laptops, but they often come with major limitations in terms of maintenance options and port selection. Many compact notebooks use soldered memory and Wi-Fi modules, and there are also many USB-C-only devices. Many manufacturers also followed Apple’s example in the multimedia segment (like Dell with the XPS 15 & 17), even though Apple already reintroduced some ports on their current MBP lineup.
The German manufacturer Schenker already proved that there is another way with last year’s Vision 14. It is now available with a powerful Core i7-12700H in combination with the dedicated GeForce RTX 3050 Ti GPU and the manufacturer continues this trend with the new Vision 16 Pro . It is a multimedia device with a 16-inch screen, but it only weighs a little more than 1.6 kg thanks to its magnesium-alloy chassis. You still get plenty of performance with the Alder Lake Core i7-1200H and GPUs all the way up to the GeForce RTX 3080. The laptop also offers plenty of ports and good maintenance options (2x SODIMM, 2x M.2-2280, Wi- Fi).
We reviewed the Vision 16 Pro with the RTX 3070 Ti, which is already the territory of slim gaming laptops considering the GPU power. The combination of a slim chassis and powerful hardware always raises concerns about the performance and the emissions, but the laptop surprised us in a positive way in this regard. Both the CPU as well as the GPU performance are very stable, which is also the case for the fast PCIe-4.0-SSD. The processor is limited to 45W by default to prevent unnecessary fan activity. This setting is completely sufficient for everyday tasks, but you can also increase the power limits manually to 115 Watts and the notebook can utilize this performance. The CPU even maintains more than 80W under sustained workloads, so the Vision 16 Pro is one of the fastest devices in this segment.
The fans are usually very quiet in light workload scenarios since they are always running at low speeds anyway, so they can also compensate short peak load scenarios without pulsating. If you stress the system more, however (like gaming), the fans will be very audible at 51 dB(A), so you might want to use a headset. It is also worth checking out the performance in the Balanced power profile, where the fan noise is capped at 38.5 dB(A).
The Vision 16 Pro is not perfect, though, and it even shares some weaknesses with the smaller Vision 14. The display hinges are a bit wobbly, and the antenna configuration does not support 6 GHz Wi-Fi networks. The performance is also massively reduced on battery power, and we think Schenker could at least increase the CPU performance on battery. If you need high performance on battery power, the Vision 16 Pro is probably not the right device for you. You should also switch to 60 Hz on battery power to save some energy. You can expect between 5-7 hours in practical scenarios.
Finally, we want to mention the display. The Pro version of the Vision 16 is only available with a matte WQHD screen (16:10, IPS), which offers good subjective picture quality without grainy surfaces and PWM flickering. Considering the high refresh rate of 240 Hz, however, the panel is more oriented towards gaming, but we would have preferred a different panel with more accurate colors and wider color gamut for a multimedia laptop. We are already eager to check the regular Vision 16 with the 90 Hz WQHD panel.
All in all, the new Schenker Vision 16 Pro is a very convincing package with plenty of performance in a thin and lightweight 16-inch chassis. Please see our comprehensive review for more information and benchmark results:
I grew up with modern consumer electronics and my first computer was a Commodore C64, which encouraged my interest in building my own systems. I started working as a review editor for Notebookcheck during my dual studies at Siemens. Currently, I am mainly responsible for dealing with business laptops and mobile workstations. It’s a great experience to be able to review the latest devices and technologies and then compare them with each other.
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