Corsair, which has been a leader in the desktop field for decades, has launched its first gaming laptop. The new Voyager a1600 is AMD’s power core, powered by Ryzen 6000 series processors and AMD Radeon RX 6000 series processors. The device is Corsair’s first foray into mobile devices after acquiring Origin in 2019, the enthusiast PC builder. We still don’t know for sure what this device will look like, as the images Corsair provided us with are just a brief glimpse during AMD’s Computex keynote. However, take a look and you’ll find one feature that will likely jump out at you: there’s the Touch Bar.
A closer look at a true pirate Voyager. Screenshot by Sean Hollister / The Verge Of course, this row of shortcut buttons above the keyboard is not called the “Touch Bar”. Corsair Lee, specifically, described it as “ten accessible and customizable S-key shortcut buttons.” The good thing is that this row of 10 easily accessible and customizable S-key shortcut buttons add additional keys to the keyboard; It doesn’t actually replace the feature row, which is a choice some…other manufacturers have made for a mixed receiver. . These S keys work with the Elgato Stream Deck, which means you’ll likely use them for many of your live broadcast’s controls, including changing scenes, playing media, and adjusting audio. We wouldn’t necessarily expect a laptop to be the device of choice for many streaming devices, but it’s still an interesting and unusual idea in the gaming space, and it could also work well as a Zoom meeting controller. Also, it appears that you can access the touch controls while the laptop is closed. I like that you can see the battery indicator before you open the thing, but I’m wondering if the buttons can get bumped while the laptop is in a backpack or something. We’ll learn more about how these buttons work when we get our hands on the device (which should be sometime in July, Corsair says).
Elsewhere, Voyager will include a full-size Cherry MX compact mechanical keyboard with per-key RGB backlighting, as well as a 1080p FHD webcam. I see what looks like an actual webcam shutter in these renderings, which may be a good sign that Corsair is putting some effort into this area (something not all game makers do). Prospective Voyager buyers will be able to choose between the Ryzen 7 6800HS and the Ryzen 9 6900HS; Both configurations come with a Radeon 6800M GPU. You get up to 64GB of RAM (Corsair Vengeance DDR5, of course) and 2TB of storage. The device has a 16-inch screen with a resolution of 2560 x 1600 and 240 Hz, two Thunderbolt 3 USB 4.0 ports, a USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C port, a USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A port, an SDXC 7.0 card reader, and one audio connector.
It’s no surprise to see a hacker following in the footsteps of Razer, another gaming hardware company that has expanded into the laptop enthusiast after a flurry of builds and buys. Corsair has made a number of recent acquisitions, including Elgato, peripheral maker Scuf Gaming, and Origin, and it appears ready to extend its reach to users who don’t necessarily want to build their own systems. The quality and success of this laptop may be our first clue as to how good this expansion is. Origin has made decent computers in the past and is especially known for customizing the systems they sell. It will be interesting to see how configurable the new Corsair machine is and how well these design options work in the enthusiast space.
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