Dream Machines Clevo G1050-15 [G1050-15UA20]

Fathers of gaming laptops

Although Clevo is not well known in our area, it is one of the trendsetters in the laptop market. They've been designing chassis for other manufacturers' gaming laptops for 20 years, and they were the ones who designed the Alienware line of laptops until it was bought out by Dell.

Today's Dream Machines Clevo G1050-15 model belongs to the entry-level segment. In the case of Clevo, this means a penultimate generation Intel Core i7 quad-core processor (frequency 2.8 – 3.8 GHz), a bunch of HDD and SSD drives, 8 GB of DDR4 RAM and an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 graphics card with 2 GB of video memory.

Upgradable facility

In general, even with such positioning, the equipment will not make you nervous due to FPS drawdown in new games. For example, in the rather demanding Far Cry 5, the laptop keeps a stable 35-40 frames per second at high graphics settings and FullHD resolution. The only thing that might complicate things in the future is 2 GB of VRAM, which is more than enough right now, but may not be enough in a year.

At the same time, the manufacturer does not force you to limit yourself to one configuration and allows you to manually upgrade laptop components without losing the warranty. For example, change the hard drive or add a bar of RAM. To do this, the disassembly procedure has been simplified to the maximum: just unscrew the screws around the perimeter of the case and remove the cover.

Bright IPS screen with a rich picture

The 15-inch display has a Full HD resolution (1920x1080 pixels) and is made using IPS technology, and the anti-glare coating will allow you to work comfortably even on a sunny day. It has a good margin of brightness, great viewing angles, and overall it's one of the best displays you'll find in gaming laptops under $1,000.

Compared to other gaming brethren, the appearance of the Dream Machines laptop can only be called restrained. The case is made of a combination of metal and grey matte plastic, which does not leave fingerprints. The layout is as close as possible to the classic one with backlighting, in which you can change the colour and brightness.

adult model

It seems that the company was targeting a more adult audience, which is unlikely to be pleased with the grille, like a racing car, or the off button in the form of a skull. This versatility is also evidenced by the presence of a fingerprint scanner, which is commonplace for business laptops, but rarely found in gaming models. And if we can’t unequivocally evaluate the appearance, then the build quality of the laptop leaves an extremely positive impression.

The only dubious engineering solution is hidden in the cooling system. It is quite efficient and relatively quiet, but one of the heat dissipation grilles is located on the right hand, and not, for example, below. This means that if you are right-handed, then the hot air from the case will go towards the right hand, which holds the mouse. In the case of a long gaming session and the laptop heats up, this can create a slight discomfort.

Also, the laptop does not have a pre-installed operating system (OS), so you have to tinker a bit with installing Windows.