Display and Sound
The Schenker P503 Pro has the option for either a matte or a gloss display, as well as a high-gamut model again with a matte finish, all of which pack in 1,920 x 1,080 pixels. Our model has the standard matte option and all told it’s pretty decent. Being a TN panel vertical viewing angles aren’t all that good, with a noticeable washing out when viewed from above, but the sweetspot is wide enough that you're not constantly having to adjust it. Horizontal viewing angles are also excellent while we saw no evidence of backlight bleed and the backlight was very even. All this said, for such an expensive machine we would really have liked to see an IPS display.
Click to enlarge
When is comes to audio performance, a 2.1 arrangement is used, with a ‘sub’ driver on the bottom and two full-range drivers on the top above the keyboard. They provide a surprisingly engaging sense of stereo and can kick out quite a volume but there’s little real quality here and next to no bass. The speakers are apparently designed by Onkyo and the audio is powered by a Sound Blaster X-Fi MB3 but considering the size of this machine we did hope for a little more.
Keyboard and Trackpad
Judging the quality of the P503 Pro’s keyboard was made a little difficult by the fact our sample uses a German layout but with the UK keyboard of the P502 to hand we were able to get a reasonable sense of things.
Essentially it’s pretty decent with not too much flex or wobble while typing and a reasonably defined action that makes it easy to tell when you’ve pressed a key. However, there are a number of issues. For a start it doesn’t use a true UK layout, lacking the large Enter key we’re used to, as well as a number of other key-placement differences. Also we’re not keen on the offset position of the labels that in combination with the wide flat keys meant we made more mistakes than we’d expect. Then there’s the fact the keyboard is rather tall.
We first noticed this when gaming as it felt like more of a stretch than usual to reach the left Ctrl while holding WASD. Comparing to the Logitech G710+ and an Ultrabook we had to hand, the P503 has around 5mm more distance between the top of the WASD and the top of the Ctrl keys. It’s a small thing, and we’re sure there’s plenty of variation across different keyboards and laptops elsewhere but it was enough of a different feel for us to think to measure it.
Click to enlarge
On a more successful note, the trackpad is excellent. Its matte surface has just the right balance of friction and smoothness, it’s nice and large and the touch sensing makes multi-touch gestures accurate and easy to perform. We could probably do without the fingerprint reader but otherwise we have no complaints.
Software
As mentioned earlier, you can configure these XMG notebooks with no operating system, saving you £70 or so if you have a license you can transfer across. This do-it-yourself approach also extends to the installed software with very little bloatware cluttering up the install. You get the essential drivers and configuration utilities – and a trial of Office – but that’s it. So rather than spending your first half hour with the machine uninstalling crud you don't want you can get right on with installing programs you do want.
The Schenker P503 Pro has the option for either a matte or a gloss display, as well as a high-gamut model again with a matte finish, all of which pack in 1,920 x 1,080 pixels. Our model has the standard matte option and all told it’s pretty decent. Being a TN panel vertical viewing angles aren’t all that good, with a noticeable washing out when viewed from above, but the sweetspot is wide enough that you're not constantly having to adjust it. Horizontal viewing angles are also excellent while we saw no evidence of backlight bleed and the backlight was very even. All this said, for such an expensive machine we would really have liked to see an IPS display.
Click to enlarge
When is comes to audio performance, a 2.1 arrangement is used, with a ‘sub’ driver on the bottom and two full-range drivers on the top above the keyboard. They provide a surprisingly engaging sense of stereo and can kick out quite a volume but there’s little real quality here and next to no bass. The speakers are apparently designed by Onkyo and the audio is powered by a Sound Blaster X-Fi MB3 but considering the size of this machine we did hope for a little more.
Keyboard and Trackpad
Judging the quality of the P503 Pro’s keyboard was made a little difficult by the fact our sample uses a German layout but with the UK keyboard of the P502 to hand we were able to get a reasonable sense of things.
Essentially it’s pretty decent with not too much flex or wobble while typing and a reasonably defined action that makes it easy to tell when you’ve pressed a key. However, there are a number of issues. For a start it doesn’t use a true UK layout, lacking the large Enter key we’re used to, as well as a number of other key-placement differences. Also we’re not keen on the offset position of the labels that in combination with the wide flat keys meant we made more mistakes than we’d expect. Then there’s the fact the keyboard is rather tall.
We first noticed this when gaming as it felt like more of a stretch than usual to reach the left Ctrl while holding WASD. Comparing to the Logitech G710+ and an Ultrabook we had to hand, the P503 has around 5mm more distance between the top of the WASD and the top of the Ctrl keys. It’s a small thing, and we’re sure there’s plenty of variation across different keyboards and laptops elsewhere but it was enough of a different feel for us to think to measure it.
Click to enlarge
On a more successful note, the trackpad is excellent. Its matte surface has just the right balance of friction and smoothness, it’s nice and large and the touch sensing makes multi-touch gestures accurate and easy to perform. We could probably do without the fingerprint reader but otherwise we have no complaints.
Software
As mentioned earlier, you can configure these XMG notebooks with no operating system, saving you £70 or so if you have a license you can transfer across. This do-it-yourself approach also extends to the installed software with very little bloatware cluttering up the install. You get the essential drivers and configuration utilities – and a trial of Office – but that’s it. So rather than spending your first half hour with the machine uninstalling crud you don't want you can get right on with installing programs you do want.
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