Some of you may or may not heard of the gaming laptop brand, ILLEGEAR. Little did you know that ILLEGEAR is actually a 100% Malaysian brand. They offer performance gaming laptops and the options to customise them before having them to ship out to your doorstep.

Today what we have in our labs is the ILLEGEAR Selenite, which they have recently refreshed with NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 graphics. Let’s have a look at what you can expect from our local company.

ILLEGEAR Selenite Specs

The all-black ILLEGEAR Selenite has a minimalist design throughout the whole laptop. Once the RGB lighting effect is turned off, it is essentially a stealthy gaming laptop that can easily blend into other business or workstation laptops.

Display

Review: ILLEGEAR Selenite Gaming Notebook (i7-8750H, RTX 2070, 16GB, 256GB + 1TB) 9

The 17.3-inch IPS display has a 1080p Full HD resolution. At 144 Hz refresh rate, games perform extremely smooth on this laptop, given that the RTX2070 on this laptop is very capable of pushing games to that frame rate.

Due to the slim bezels, that actually makes the laptop seem smaller than it actually is. Most of my colleagues thought it is a laptop with 15.6″ display instead of a 17.3″.

Speakers

Review: ILLEGEAR Selenite Gaming Notebook (i7-8750H, RTX 2070, 16GB, 256GB + 1TB) 11

The 2W stereo speakers are accompanied by a 3W subwoofer. The volume is slightly on the lower side but overall it provides a pretty solid sound quality for media consumption. Gaming-wise, you’re better off with a pair of good headphones because the noise of the cooling fan will definitely get in the way.

Keyboard

The octagonal keycaps have a translucent letter cutout to support per-key RGB backlit. Aesthetically, we don’t often see this kind of keycap shape and we have bad experiences over those fancy looking keycaps. My doubts are being cleared off after using the laptop for over 2 weeks. Typing experience has been pretty consistent and I particularly like the wide key surface area for comfortable key presses.

The Selenite’s keyboard is armed with the low-profile mechanical key switches by GENESWITCH. The switch variant we have here is claimed to have the same traits as Cherry MX Browns – tactile and silent. In a way, yes, the switches have a delicate tactile feel for each keypress, but not that I would agree with them being completely silent due to the moving mechanism underneath the thin keycaps.

Trackpad

Review: ILLEGEAR Selenite Gaming Notebook (i7-8750H, RTX 2070, 16GB, 256GB + 1TB) 18

The trackpad has a generous surface area. While the surface material is not made of glass, the coating is just about right for finger tracking. Not too rough which is not comfortable, not too glossy smooth which may become sticky or oily. It uses the Microsoft Precision Driver hence the user experience is pretty much kept consistent. On the other hand, the physical click mechanism underneath the trackpad only works when you’re exerting force at the bottom half of the trackpad surface.

Fundamentally, it is a pretty standard trackpad for everyday use. Gamers who don’t use the trackpad may disable it by double tapping on the top left corner of the trackpad.

IO

Review: ILLEGEAR Selenite Gaming Notebook (i7-8750H, RTX 2070, 16GB, 256GB + 1TB) 20

  • SD card reader
  • 2x USB 3.1 Gen1

Review: ILLEGEAR Selenite Gaming Notebook (i7-8750H, RTX 2070, 16GB, 256GB + 1TB) 22

  • Gigabit Ethernet
  • USB 3.0
  • 3.5mm microphone & headphone jacks

Review: ILLEGEAR Selenite Gaming Notebook (i7-8750H, RTX 2070, 16GB, 256GB + 1TB) 24

  • 2x Mini DisplayPort
  • HDMI 2.0
  • USB-C USB 3.1 Gen1
  • Charging port

Performance Benchmark

ILLEGEAR Selenite RTX 2070ROG Strix SCAR II RTX 2070
Cinebench R15
OpenGL82.91 fps79.61 fps
CPU10541080
GeekBench 4
Single-Core45594662
Multi-Core1725318306
OpenCL244483238174
3DMark
TimeSpy67606807
FireStrike1595315934
Port Royal39333964

The Selenite has exactly the same hardware configuration as our recently reviewed ROG Strix SCAR II (RTX 2070). Both are not just sharing the same i7-8750H CPU and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 GPU, even the RAM configuration is the same at single-stick 16GB DDR4-2666. Hence it is not a surprise that their performance is just about the same.

Gaming

ILLEGEAR Selenite RTX 2070ROG Strix SCAR II RTX 2070
Unigine SuperPosition Extreme 1080p
Avg FPS3333
Min FPS2525
CPU Max (°C)9184
GPU Max (°C)8185
Battlefield V (DXR OFF; DLSS OFF)
Avg FPS6974
Min FPS5055
CPU Max (°C)9999
GPU Max (°C)8787
Battlefield V (DXR ON; DLSS OFF)
Avg FPS5055
Min FPS4146
CPU Max (°C)9999
GPU Max (°C)8787
CS: GO (Very High)
Avg FPS110124
Min FPS6076
CPU Max (°C)9786
GPU Max (°C)8371
GTA V (Very High)
Avg FPS10798
Min FPS5042
CPU Max (°C)9688
GPU Max (°C)8287
Overwatch (Epic)
Avg FPS9569
Min FPS5945
CPU Max (°C)9988
GPU Max (°C)8787
Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey (Ultra)
Avg FPS4040
Min FPS79
CPU Max (°C)9788
GPU Max (°C)8787
F1 2018 (Ultra High)
Avg FPS6869
Min FPS5454
CPU Max (°C)9897
GPU Max (°C)8786
FFXV (High)
Avg FPS6186
Min FPS3722
CPU Max (°C)9788
GPU Max (°C)8687

Gaming on the other hand, we have observed quite a number of differences after comparing it with the data we kept from the ROG Strix SCAR II. Some games perform similarly but some have significant differences in terms of frame rates & CPU temperature.

What remained consistent throughout both laptops is the GPU temperature where it maxes out at 87-degree Celcius. The Intel Core i7-8750H CPU, however, is a difficult beast to tame. It manages to reach a scorching hot 99-degree Celcius under heavy load. I mean, what are you Intel guys doing?

Under The Hood

Opening up the frame, and we are greeted with a user-friendly layout. Upgrading the RAM, SSD, HDD and the network card is just a few screws away. What surprises us is the dual M.2 slot for that extra stick of NVMe SSD and perhaps RAID action.

Final Words

What ILLEGEAR has to offer for the RTX refreshed Selenite has caught us off-guard. Our custom configuration of i7-8750H, RTX 2070, 16GB RAM, 256GB NVMe SSD + 1TB SSHD normally goes for RM8656. As of the time or our review, they are currently having a special promotion where the 16GB DDR4 RAM upgrade is free-of-charge. Which means you can get the same spec t the lower price of RM8357, for a very limited time. That is considerably more affordable than the other international famous gaming laptop brands.

ILLEGEAR as a local brand may not be known by readers who are not from Malaysia. To those who are surprised by hearing a local gaming laptop brand, there is no limitation in this open market as long as you have what it takes to source a reliable manufacturer and provide outstanding after-sales service.

Pros:

  • Compact form factor
  • Classy RGB lighting with per-key RGB keyboard
  • Tactile typing experience
  • Slim display bezels
  • Fast & responsive display
  • Dual M.2 slot
  • Great performance
  • Excellent gaming experience
  • Great cooling for RTX 2070
  • A more affordable price tag

Cons:

  • Normal key caps, please
  • USB port placement should have be at the left or rear
  • Noisy fan at high loads
  • high CPU temp at loads

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