Samsung isn’t particularly well known for its gaming laptops, although it has produced a couple of Odyssey models in the past – with the first one revealed at CES two years ago – but the latest offering unveiled at CES 2019 is a power-packed portable designed for ‘serious gamers’ in the company’s own words.
The new Notebook Odyssey benefits from a premium aluminum design, with a slim chassis at 19.9mm (it weighs 2.36kg), and equally slim bezels surrounding the 15.6-inch Full HD display. That screen has an impressive refresh rate of 144Hz, and is equipped with Nvidia’s G-Sync tech to combat stuttering and tearing.
As for the hardware inside, we’re talking an 8th-generation Intel Core i7 six-core processor twinned with a GeForce RTX 2080 graphics card to ensure fast frame rates – particularly when you consider this will be working with games at Full HD resolution (meaning gamers should be able to get the most out of that 144Hz screen).
That dynamic duo of components is backed up with 16GB of system RAM, and for storage Samsung has equipped the machine with a 256GB NVMe SSD plus a 1TB spinning disk (there’s room for a second SSD if required).
Connectivity comprises of a single USB Type-C port, a trio of USB 3.0 connectors, along with HDMI and Ethernet ports, with 802.11ac 2x2 Wi-Fi on the wireless front.
Cool customer
Other highlights include a nifty ‘penta-pipe’ cooling system to keep that CPU and GPU from any danger of overheating, and stereo speakers benefiting from Dolby Atmos.
Gamers also get Samsung’s Odyssey Mode which allows them to save different profiles for various types of games, and Beast Mode to fine-tune performance, and presumably maximize frame rates if that’s what you’re looking for (at least this has been the case with past models).
Samsung promises that the Notebook Odyssey will be out in early 2019 in the US.
As well as gaming laptops, you may well recall that Samsung’s VR headset also carries the Odyssey brand.
- We’ve picked out all the best gaming laptops
Want more CES 2019 highlights? TechRadar is hands-on with 8K TVs and foldable, rollable displays, along with new laptops and Alexa-enabled smart gadgets. Check out everything we've seen, live from Las Vegas!
