Maingear Intros Pulse 15 Thin and Light Gaming Laptop

By Kevin Parrish
published

On Wednesday, Maingear jumped on the thin and light bandwagon by launching its Pulse 15 gaming laptop, the thinnest 15-inch class notebook the company has ever launched. This laptop, when closed, measures less than 0.75 inches and weighs just under 4 pounds, making it a potentially attractive solution for PC gaming on the go.

With a starting price of $2199.00, the default configuration consists of a 15.6-inch IPS display with a hefty 2880 x 1620 resolution. This screen is backed by an Intel Core i7-4710HQ (2.5 GHz, 3.5 GHz) CPU, 16 GB of DDR3-1600 memory (2x 8 GB SODIMMs), Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 870M GPU with 3 GB of GDDR5 VRAM, and a 6-cell Li-Polymer 5400 mAh battery.

This gaming notebook also provides an mSATA SSD with 128 GB of storage, a 7200 RPM 2.5-inch hard drive with 1 TB of storage, an external 8X Asus DVD burner, and a 7-in-1 SD card reader. The audio aspect includes four premium 2.1 channel speakers and a subwoofer, and the networking aspect includes Wireless AC, Bluetooth, and Qualcomm’s Killer E2200 On-line Gaming Accelerator.

That’s the base configuration. Customers can option for an exterior finish, to upgrade the SSD to a 256 GB or 512 GB configuration (2x), and to switch out the hard drive for a 1 TB Seagate SSHD with 8 GB of caching. There’s also an external Blu-ray burner, and a choice of five operating systems spanning Windows 7 Home Premium to Windows 8.1 Pro.

"The Pulse 15 is the perfect balance of size, weight, performance in a notebook." said Wallace Santos, CEO and Founder of Maingear. "Packed with performance from Intel and Nvidia, and customized with our new Matte color paint finish, we are very excited to offer this amazing 3K notebook to our customers."

Maingear’s solution arrives after Origin PC introduced its EVO15-5. For $2,199, the default configuration includes a 15.6-inch screen, an Intel Core i7-4710HQ quad-core processor (2.5 GHz, 3.5 GHz), a Nvidia GeForce GTX 870M GPU with 3 GB of GDDR5 VRAM, and 16 GB of DDR3L-1600 memory (8 GB x 2). There’s also up to two 128 GB SSDs in RAID 0 along with a 1 TB 7200 RPM HDD, an SD card reader and more.

CyberPower recently launched its Zeusbook Edge X6, which features a 15.6-inch IPS display with a 1920 x 1080 resolution, an Intel Core i7-4710HQ “Haswell” processor and a Nvidia GeForce GTX 870M GPU with 6 GB of VRAM. The new laptop also includes 8 GB of DDR3 memory, a 1 TB hard drive, Wireless N and Bluetooth connectivity, and more.

For more information about Maingear's new Pulse 15, head here.
Maingear Pulse 15
Origin EVO15-S
CyberPower Zeusbook Edge X6

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Kevin Parrish
5 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Traciatim
    Instead of being ultra thin and light, I wish you could get a nice inexpensive 15.6" laptop with a 1080p screen and an 860M or similar. For 2200 you could probably buy a desktop that destroys this laptop in gaming and then also a laptop or tablet for your on the go stuff that needs to get done.
    Reply
  • Solandri
    Probably a MSI GS60 clone. A couple of the tech specs are off (says 2x mDP when the video on their site only says one, dimensions say 15.4" wide but you can't fit a keyboard + numpad in that space and leave as much room on the sides as in the pics), but the pics, styling, and features are a spot-on match.
    Reply
  • amk-aka-Phantom
    Instead of being ultra thin and light, I wish you could get a nice inexpensive 15.6" laptop with a 1080p screen and an 860M or similar. For 2200 you could probably buy a desktop that destroys this laptop in gaming and then also a laptop or tablet for your on the go stuff that needs to get done.

    Soon. Asus G551 is coming. Too bad the existing G550 isn't worth it due to DDR3 GTX 850M, that's not quite enough.
    Reply
  • apone
    @ Traciatim

    Instead of being ultra thin and light, I wish you could get a nice inexpensive 15.6" laptop with a 1080p screen and an 860M or similar. For 2200 you could probably buy a desktop that destroys this laptop in gaming and then also a laptop or tablet for your on the go stuff that needs to get done.

    I agree but the premise of a gaming laptop isn't to outmuscle a gaming desktop. The formality of hauling a bulky desktop PC gaming rig, gaming monitor(s), peripherals, etc. to a LAN party is already a pain in the a$$ and gaming laptops alleviate this issue so less set up time = more gaming time.
    Reply
  • BleedingEdgeTek
    Instead of being ultra thin and light, I wish you could get a nice inexpensive 15.6" laptop with a 1080p screen and an 860M or similar. For 2200 you could probably buy a desktop that destroys this laptop in gaming and then also a laptop or tablet for your on the go stuff that needs to get done.

    The Lenovo Y50 has all that and is thin and light for under $1000.

    And this is completely overpriced anyway. The CyberPowerPC laptop has the same CPU and GPU, is just lacking an extra 8GB DIMM of RAM ($70) and an mSATA SSD ($75) but costs $800 less. That's ridiculously overpriced. Hell, you can get a Sager with an 880m for $300 less. This is nonsense.
    Reply