Origin EON17-X (2021) review

I didn’t know what to expect when a massive wooden crate arrived at my doorstep. What I got was sheer, unadulterated power. The Origin EON 17-X ($2,423 starting, $4,215 reviewed) is the Ingenuity rover of laptops — it has everything. And although I have yet to find which key launches the drone, I’m pretty sure it’s in there somewhere. 

All I know is, when you hit the power button, there’s not much that can stop the laptop, apart from its heavy frame, short battery life and high price tag. But if you can overlook those shortcomings, the EON17-X is ready to go full speed ahead.

Origin EON17-X pricing and configurations

Our review model costs $4,215 and comes with an Intel Core i9-11900K CPU, 32GB of RAM, a 1TB SSD, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 with 16GB of VRAM, with a 17.3-inch, 1920 x 1080-pixel at 300Hz Nvidia G-Sync display. There is also a 4K G-Sync display option available. 

The $2,423 base model comes with a 17.3-inch, 1080p IPS G-Sync at 144Hz display, Intel Core i5-11400 CPU, 16GB RAM, an Nvidia GeForce GTX 3060 GPU, and a 256GB SSD

The great thing about the Origin workstation is that it is highly customizable. The user can choose to have a personal logo or name HD-UV printed or even custom painted onto the rear display casing. If that wasn’t enough, customers can choose from seven different CPU options, three GPUs, three display options, and four different memory choices. Not to mention, the drive options seem limitless with fourteen to choose from.

Origin EON17-X design

If Bentley designed and built a luxury monster truck, it would be the Origin EON17-X. That’s not meant to be derogatory, it’s just a fact. It’s an obnoxiously huge laptop that replaces your desktop in every way, and it does it with style, panache, and enough power to jumpstart a stealth bomber. 

Before you even open the lid, you notice the cool Origin logo on the back of the display casing and also the aggressive vents on the side and rear. It feels as if at any moment the Origin EON 17-X could launch into the wild blue yonder and into battle. When you finally open the lid, your eyes meet a massive black-brushed aluminum deck that contains a gorgeous RGB keyboard. When your eyes come in contact with the 17.1-inch, 1080p at 300Hz panel, you will find it hard to turn away. Just beneath the panel, you will find another Origin logo. I just wish the bezel were smaller. At the top center of the panel is the webcam with a small notch. 

The notebook measures 15.7 x 12.5 x 1.7 inches and weighs 8.3 pounds. Yet, it’s still not the heaviest laptop in our competitor group -- that honor goes to the MSI GT76 Titan which comes in at 9.9 pounds and measures 15.6 x 12.9 x 1.7-inches. The Alienware m 17 R4 (15.7 x 11.6 x 0.9 inches) comes in at 6.6 pounds and measures 15.7 x 11.6 x 0.9-inches followed by the Razer Blade Pro 17 which comes in at a tiny 6.1 pounds and measures  15.6 x 10.2 x 0.8 inches.

Origin EON17-X ports

The Origin Eon17-X comes with a plethora of ports to get you connected to all your favorite peripherals. On the right, you have two USB Type-C ports, a USB Type-A port, and a Kensington lock.

On the left side, we find another two USB Type-A ports, an SD card reader, jacks for headphone, microphone, and S/PDIF.

On the rear, we find one USB-Type-C port, two Mini Display ports, one HDMI port, one Ethernet port, and two AC power ports. Yes, it comes with two power supplies.

Origin EON17-X display

The Origin EON 17-X arrives with a 17.3-inch, 1080p at 300Hz display that is bright with vivid colors. The one thing I immediately noticed while playing games and watching videos is how immersive an experience it is. 

The unit gorgeously rendered Borderlands 2’s animation-style color palette. When using explosive bullets to finish off my enemies, a red-orange trail traveled from my weapon to my target. When the shot connected, the explosion was a full bouquet of oranges, reds, blacks, and browns. It was so lovely, I went into full-on sniper mode. 

When watching the Top Gun Maverick trailer, a scene where the fighter jet just barely dodges a missile and there’s an explosion behind the plane looks fantastic. The clear blue sky was filled with yellow, orange, and black explosions with grey plumes of smoke.

The Origin scored 78% of the DCI-P3 color gamut during our testing, which is below the 90% premium gaming average. The Razer Blade 17 came in first place, scoring 148.2% followed by the Alienware m 17 R4 which rounded us out with a score of 80.6%.  

Sadly, the EON17-X was last in our brightness tests, scoring a mere 251 nits in brightness and below the category average of 333 nits. The Titan led our group with 376 nits followed by the Alienware which reached 316 nits.

Origin EON17-X audio

The Origin EON17-X comes equipped with what can best be described as an integrated soundbar with two speakers behind the slanted front grill and a down-facing subwoofer. This speaker setup pumps out clear thumpy bass and room-filling sound. Throw in the RGB lighting from the keyboard and you’ve got a party. 

The Origin comes with Creative Labs Sound Blaster Atlas audio software. It does a nice job of allowing you to adjust the audio settings via its acoustic engine or by manually adjusting the equalizer. There is also an area to refine mic performance and add cool sound effects to your voice if you so choose. 

After I fine-tuned the EQ settings, I listened to Dr. Dre’s “Rat-Tat-Tat-Tat” with its smooth driving bass. Snoop dropped his silky lyrical vocals with Dre, slipping into the urban violence storyline of ‘90s Compton. The speakers on the Origin had me feeling like I was riding along in Dre’s 64 Chevy Impala as “Still Dre” creamily mixed in with the head-bopping bassline.  

I closed out my day with another round of Borderlands 2 and reveled in the sounds of explosions and gunfire. The weapons fire possessed a crisp realness with clear character vocals; I never had to strain to understand them.

Origin EON17-X keyboard and touchpad

The black Chiclet-style keys on the Origin EON17-X are RGB-backlit and you can change the zone-lighting scheme with the LED keyboard Setting application. The keyboard is hyper-responsive with each key delivering a soft bounce. However, I did find the keys a little small with the placement slightly left of center, which took a moment to adjust to. 

I took the 10fastfingers typing test and scored some of my best results ever. I typed at 91 words per minute with 87% accuracy, as the ginormous deck and keyboard are made for monster mitts like mine.  

The 5.1 x 2.6-inch touchpad is responsive and accurate when navigating websites or documents. It performed all the Windows 10 gestures, such as two-finger swipes and three-finger taps, nicely. The bottom corners give very firm and clicky feedback when using either right or left clicks.

Origin EON17-X graphics, gaming and VR

The Origin Eon 17-X comes with the latest Nvidia RTX GeForce 3080 GPU with 16GB of VRAM. We tested the Origin’s gaming chops by playing Far Cry New Dawn in 1080p and our unit delivered 126 frames per second. That blew past the 89-fps premium gaming laptop average and our competition. The Titan scored 99 fps, coming in last, while the Alienware m17 reached 105 frames per second. The Razer Blade Pro 17 rounded out our group with a score of 98 fps. 

The Origin did even better on the Grand Theft Auto V Benchmark with 131 fps, beating the 94-fps average. The Alienware m17, once again, came in second with 120 fps followed by the Titan with 64 fps. 

When we ran the Metro: Exodus (1920 x 1080, DirectX Ultra) benchmark, our unit led its group with a score of 79 fps, defeating the 59-fps average. The Alienware m17 notched 78 fps followed by Titan (58 fps) and the Razer Blade Pro 17 (54 fps) closed us out. 

Finally, when we ran the Red Dead Redemption 2 benchmark, the Origin EON17-X scored 88 fps, sailing past the 61-fps average. The Alienware m17 was way below average at 39 fps. 

On VRMark Cyan, the benchmark that tests virtual-reality prowess, the Origin EON17-X  whupped everyone, scoring 12,427 and surpassing the 6,390 category average. The Alienware m17 (10,860) placed second in our group.

Origin EON17-X performance

With an overclockable Intel Core i9-11900K CPU, 32GB of RAM, and a 1TB M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD, the Origin EON17-X is built for gaming and can handle work just as easily. 

I did some video editing to see how it would perform. I shot some 6K video and cracked open DaVinci Resolve then easily edited about 24 minutes of video before down rendering it in 4K. There wasn’t any freezing or stuttering while moving around in DaVinci and my workflow was speedily handled. The Origin was only too happy to oblige me and edit flawless clips. 

I popped open 60 tabs in Google Chrome with several playing YouTube videos and one running Falcon and the Winter Soldier on Disney Plus. I think the Origin giggled at my attempt to slow it down, but it ran smoothly. It never got hot, but the jet engine-like fans did kick in loudly after about 15 minutes. However, the performance was not affected.

The Origin outscored its competition during our synthetic tests, starting with Geekbench 5.4, an overall performance benchmark. The EON17-X scored 10,575, speeding past the average score of 8,131. 

During the Handbrake video-editing test, the EON17-X outperformed the other members of its group, taking only 5 minutes and 27 seconds to transcode a 4K video to 1080p. In second place was the Titan (5:51), followed by the Alienware m17 (6:44) and the Blade Pro 17, which took 9 minutes and 31 seconds. 

Now on to our File Transfer test; the EON17-X delivered a transfer rate of 1,288.5 megabytes per second when duplicating 25GB of mixed-media files. It led our group and surpassed the premium gaming laptop average of 890.7 MBps. The ZBook Create came in second with a score of 517.2 MBps, followed by the Alienware m17 at 448.5 MBps.

Origin EON17-X battery life

The Origin EON17-X’s battery life is sad but with all the specs it’s carrying, that’s to be expected. The laptop lasted 2 hours and 7 minutes in our in-house battery test (continuous web surfing over Wi-Fi at 150 nits). It fell 2 hours and 8 minutes shy of the 4:15 premium gaming laptop average. The Razer Blade Pro 17 led the group with 4 hours and 41 minutes followed by the Titan (3:45) and the Alienware m17 (2:05). 

Gaming laptops tend to have poor battery life so keep that in mind if you’re considering using one as a workstation.

Origin EON17-X 15 heat

Due to its jet engine-like fans, the Origin is a pretty cool customer. It scored solidly during our heat tests, which consists of running a fullscreen HD video for 15 minutes. The touchpad measured 80 degrees Fahrenheit while the space between the G and H keys measured 88 degrees. The bottom of the laptop reached 100 degrees, which is slightly above the 95-degree comfort threshold.

Those were the non-gaming scores. During gaming (15 minutes of playing games), the temps were slightly warmer, but not by much. The touchpad measured 81 degrees and between the G and H keys measured 90 degrees. The underside hit a temp of 99 degrees.

Origin EON17-X webcam

The Origin comes with your standard 720p webcam, which delivers sharp images, color-accurate video, and even skin tones when the lighting in the room is right. The autofocus was accurate and quick, finding my face and following it when I moved around the frame. I cannot stress the importance of good lighting to get the best performance out of the camera. If your room isn’t well-lit, go with an external webcam for the best photo and video quality.

Origin EON17-X software and warranty

The Origin EON17-X doesn’t come with an obnoxious amount of software or bloatware. You will find an application for overclocking the CPU, the Creative Labs’ Sound Blaster Atlas audio software, and the RGB lighting Setting application. Like every Windows 10 computer, there are apps for Skype, Office 365, Microsoft Solitaire suite and Xbox console. 

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The EON17-X comes with what the company refers to as Free World Class Lifetime Warranty. As stated by Origin, you get 24/7 US-based technical support with a standard 1-year warranty.

Bottom line

It’s time for a confession. When the Origin EON17-X arrived on my doorstep, I was blown away by the entirety of it as it was a bit overwhelming. Then I opened it up and realized that this is what high-end premium gaming is all about. It’s about a laptop that has all the bells and whistles. It’s luxurious in every way possible, from its fast and vivid (albeit, dim) 17-inch, 300Hz  display to its powerful 11th Gen Intel Core i9 CPU backed by the latest Nvidia RTX GeForce 3080 GPU with 16GB of VRAM. It may be redonkulous-sized but, so am I, and I love it. 

Origin even gets the audio quality right. Nobody wants a Bentley monster truck gaming laptop with tinny speakers or a weak cooling system. Sure, it sounds like you’re on the deck of an aircraft carrier as jet fighters are being launched when it starts up, but it simmers down and you’re off to battle knowing you’re about to kick some ass and laugh in your enemy’s faces.

However, if you’re looking for something just as powerful, but not as expensive, you should go with the Alienware m17 R4. But if you want a laptop that can dominate the competition and even go toe-to-toe with some desktops, the Origin EON17-X is the way to go.