Illegear Raven SE review

Main specs:
This is a quick review; thus, not everything will be covered in here. Also, this review will mainly focus on thermals instead of performance. Note that this model is different compared to Prodigy.

Product page: Illegear Raven SE

Part 1: Build quality, input devices
Build quality is good overall. The plastic lid has little flex when applying pressure on the middle of the lid cover. Twisting the lid is possible but the flex will be locked out at certain point, therefore not a concern. The hinges feel a bit loose, causing a bit of screen wobbling. You can open the lid with single hand.

The body uses plastic build. Despite that, there is little to flex on the entire keyboard+palm rest – areas with little flex are at the middle of keyboard, above the touchpad, below arrow keys and bottom bezel.

The membrane keyboard is clicky; however, some square sized keys have a bit of mushiness (doesn’t affect typing feel much). Key travel is ~2mm, actuation force is 50-55g (~60g for keys with a bit of mushiness). You can set the effect, brightness and speed of the keyboard lighting via Illegear Command Center.

The Precision clickpad has plastic surface but wet fingers don’t result in rough surface. Movements are a bit sensitive and jumpy, still precision is still OK. However, the L/R clicks has loud noise when pressed which feels a little cheap. Only small amount of force is needed to click. You can disable the clickpad by double tapping the left top corner of the clickpad. The clickpad is aligned slightly to the right of the keyboard space bar to make it more centered.

Part 2: Display, Audio, Battery
The display is a 60Hz IPS panel from LG (LGD05E5). Since it's a low sRGB panel, colours are less vibrant. It has quite high max brightness (above average for low sRGB panel I would say). Contrast is good. It has thin bezels. As expected, there is some ghosting due to 60Hz and IPS panel (maybe I'm too used to 144Hz?).

The 2 down firing speakers has good enough audio only if you tune the audio via Sound Blaster software:

Example of a tuned audio profile: Bass 0, treble 9, surround 80, crystalizer 70, bass 20, smart vol loud 90, dialog+ 50. 100% volume doesn't result in distortion which is good.

I don’t have time to test the battery life, however don’t expect much from the 46.74Wh battery (there is optional 63Wh upgrade which sacrifices 2.5 inch bay).

Part 3: Cooling performance
The cooling design consists of 2 heatpipes - both shared on CPU+GPU. The heatsink doesn’t stretch to left and right - no exhaust vents there. Sounds not that great on paper but we'll see how's the thermal performance later.

Notes on all thermal testing:
Undervolt profile: CPU core+cache -100mv. You can undervolt GPU if you want, but it takes time. Blue highlighted part is the undervolted result.

CPU temp - Cinebench R15 multi core - temperature taken from first run
Max 70C, 3.07-3.09GHz, 50W, ~970cb
Max 70C, 3.2-3.22GHz, 50W, ~1020cb
~36dBA

CPU temp - Aida64 FPU 60W
Max 68C, ~2.5GHz
Max 69C, ~2.65GHz
~36dBA

GPU temp - Unigine Valley (extreme HD profile)
Clock speed fluctuates: 1650+MHz
Max 61C, ~50W
~36dBA

FPU + Valley (extreme HD) with max fans
CPU: Max 72C, 2.37-2.4GHz (2.53-2.56GHz), 35W (PL1 will drop to 35W)
GPU: Max 63C, 1635+MHz, ~50W

CSGO 1080p all max
CPU: 70-73C, 2.6-3.6GHz, 30W*
GPU: Max 67C, 1710-1845MHz, ~50W
~41dBA
*PL1 will drop to 30W regardless of office/game mode and video settings

Apex Legends 1080p all max, 4GB budget, 90 FOV, training map
CPU: 68-73C, 3-4GHz, 20-25W
GPU: Max 65C, 1575-1665MHz, ~50W
~41dBA

Time Spy (1 run):
Score: 3479, Graphics: 3303

Fire Strike (1 run):
Score: 7707, Graphics: 8622

There is only minor uneven core temp. The fan speed takes a while to change while under load. You can lower power limits via Throttlestop / XTU, but increasing PL doesn’t work. There is undervolt applied out of the box: -50mv.

In Illegear Command Center, there are 2 modes to choose from: Game or Office mode. Office mode gives you access to control fan speed but has a 35W CPU power limit. There are 4 power profiles: High performance (same with Windows), Game, Equilibrium, Power saving. Basically, just keep it to game mode and equilibrium.

The included power adapter is an 120W unit from FSP. Take note that temps might be a little higher when running dual channel memory.

Part 4: Miscellaneous
The laptop is thin and light – 1.9kg and 20mm thickness. The footprint is also relatively small.

Ports (same with Prodigy):
L: RJ45, USB 2.0, mic, headphone
R: x2 USB 3.0 (might block mouse movements), full SD card slot
Rear: x2 mDP, HDMI, USB C, power

Conclusion:
Yes, CPU power limit issue had existed since the original Raven (8th gen) I tested. This is due to BIOS/firmware implemented by Tongfang (ODM) out of the box which is entirely not necessary IMO – power adapter has sufficient power output and there is thermal headroom for higher clock speeds. Moreover, Tongfang already has their own SPC technology which reduces clock speed when not needed in milliseconds of time while not affecting performance. i5-9300H model should be able to achieve higher clock speeds but this needs confirmation. If you ask, does this affect performance? I would say it depends on the games you play – if the game is CPU dependent like CSGO then yes, you’ll see some loss in FPS, but not significant IMO.

Anyway, back to topic, is this a good buy? Well, it’s impossible to find a thin and light gaming laptop at this price range. If you need a <2kg and <2cm gaming laptop but have limited budget, this is a good option – good build quality and cooling for the price.

Pros:
Cons:

Generally speaking, yes - but Raven SE has optional high sRGB panel

For a bezelless 15.6" laptop with an aluminum build, the Onyx series would still be the choice amongst our users   https://www.illegear.com/laptops/onyx/

Here's a picture of the charger: https://imgur.com/Nlb1VlK However the dimension varies according to the power adapter's wattage, depending on the GPU selected for your configuration.

The sRGB 100% is usually recommended for designers because of the wider color gamut, that is correct

Hi sw1314,

SE-R has one more heatpipe than SE.