The BMAX S15 is here and I’ve had a bit of time now using it here are the first impressions so far. Now if you were one of those lucky ones that got it for $199.99 USD or about 170 Euros it’s a great deal at that price but not perfect. The BMX S15 has the Celeron N4100 (Gemini Lake) with 8GB of dual-channel DDR4 RAM (Confirmed) and 128GB upgradable M.2 SSD. Intel’s wireless AC 9461 and BT 4.2. But now it’s selling for $254.99 with coupon BGBX15SP here over at Banggood.com no longer that $199 deal.
Big bezels from 2012 around a decent 1080p IPS matte screen
Build & screen
The screen is 1080p, IPS Matte coated anti-glare one which is great. It’s bright enough and the bezels are quite large and look nothing like the laptop I ordered! Yet again more misleading faked press images out of China, this practice has to stop. So it is defiantly making this laptop look dated like it was from 2012, not late 2019/2020. The build is completely plastic and the keyboard is okay with a little bit of flex and bounce. Full-sized one with number pad which you expect with a 15.6″ laptop. The touchpad is really huge, but not a very good one. The finer movements don’t register or track well and sometimes two-finger scrolling isn’t detected unless I press quite hard. So a poor touchpad overall, what a letdown.
Speakers, battery and thermals.
Since this laptop was selling for just $199 the best price ever for the N4100+8GB DDR4 seen, some corners had to be cut of course. And one area I’ve spotted is the thermals. Just looping Geekbench 4.0 a few times has seen the thermals hit 90 degrees C, this isn’t even taxing the GPU so I expect this one to get close to throttling and need a thermal copper heatsink mod of mine to improve thermals when gaming for example.
No surprises on the audio. Poor speakers and also a bad 480p webcam. The battery is reported to be 35Wh not 37Wh but this does sometimes happen it might need a few cycles or just a slightly lower capacity. Still, the runtime is looking good around 8+ hours.
Pros:
- Has sold for super cheap 170 Euros/$199 USD, but now $259…
- The screen while it has huge bezels is actually quite good for the price
- The screen is a matte anti-glare one (Need more screens like this!)
- Number keyboard and it’s a full-sized keyboard so far good to type on.
- The bios is fully unlocked
- Linux runs great will full support since it has no touch screen
- Battery life is looking good so far 7 hours maybe 8 (Final results in the full review after a good 3-4 battery cycles)
- The speakers are a bit louder than most (but the sound flat)
Cons:
- Fake misleading press images. The real bezels are super large dated-looking bezels
- Poor 480p webcam & mics
- Speakers aren’t great no bass, but they are louder than most
- Thermals aren’t looking the best if push really hard (over 90 degrees C just taxing the CPU)
- The Touchpad isn’t very good for finer movements and gesture detection. In fact terrible at it
So far:
I’m glad in a way this is the last Gemini Lake laptop I plan to review, while the initial price was an amazing deal for the spec, now at $269.99 I wouldn’t pay that for it and especially with those misleading bezels. Now with all of those cons so far you’re better of with the 13.3″ models like the BMAX Y13, Chuwi Aerobook, Chuwi Lapbook Pro, Teclast F6 Plus or if you want a 15.6″ laptop the Teclast F15.
BMAX has released a big let down of a laptop, that should only be sold for $199.
BMAX S15 Gallery
