XPG Xenia 14 Ultrabook Review

XPG stuns us with an amazingly lightweight ultrabook with its Intel 11th Gen Tiger Lake-based Xenia 14. Join us as we explore it.

Published
Manufacturer: XPG (XENIA14I5G11GXELX-BKCUS-BN)
5 minutes & 51 seconds read time
TweakTown's Rating: 92%
TweakTown award

The Bottom Line

The Xenia 14 is a class-leading lightweight ultrabook that's backed by the performance of Intel's 11th Gen Tiger Lake.

Introduction, Specifications, and Pricing

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The 14" Ultrabook has quickly taken over as the preferred form factor for office and productivity use as it solves the portability problem often associated with 15" platforms that are, for the most part, considered too big for travel. Adding to this, technology has allowed the 14" form factor to be increasingly lighter and thinner while offering more screen real estate to the consumer over 13" platforms that have been the go-to for decades.

For XPG, their newest ultrabook platform lives in this market; the Xenia 14" has been designed from the ground up to be both ultra-portable with its lightweight coming in at 2.1lbs, while keeping the performance we have become accustomed to with Intels 11th Gen Tiger Lake platform.

Specifications

Hardware for the Xenia 14" comes in two SKUs; a Core i7 1165G7 platform and Core i5 1135G7. Both are equipped with 16GB of DDR4-3200MHz memory and 512GB NVMe.

Intel Iris Xe is the graphics solution, and depending on SKU, you will either have 96 EUs with the 1165G7 or 80 EUs with the 1135G7. The integrated panel uses the 1920x1200 16:10 resolution over standard 1080p and is a near bezel-less solution with 3mm on either side of the screen.

I/O is another "selling" feature of the Xenia 14 as its carries Thunderbolt 4, as most TGL platforms do. Still, XPG included an additional two USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports alongside an SD card reader and a 3.5mm audio port. Additional connectivity is offered via the Intel AX201 Wi-Fi 6 chipset that includes Bluetooth 5.1.

Pricing

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MSRP for the Xenia 14 with the Core i7-1165G7 should hit around $1349 while the Core i5-1135G7 comes in at $1199. Market pricing is expected to be much lower, likely around $1200 for the 1165G7 platform and $1100 for the 1135G7.

ADATA is also running a promotion alongside this platform launch that will give you an additional $50 off while throwing in some goodies that include a headset, backpack, and deskpad; the image can be seen above. This will last until August 20th, 2021, at both Newegg and Amazon; links below.

- Newegg

- Amazon

Packaging, Accessories and Overview

Packaging and Accessories

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Xenia 14 will come in a red box with an image of the ultrabook on the front.

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Unboxing, the Xenia includes the power adapter, guide, and sticker sheet.

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The power adapter is an FSP model, 65W.

XPG Xenia 14 Overview

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The Xenia 14 takes some of its styling from the Xenia Xe we reviewed earlier in the year. This includes the metal XPG badge seen above. The colorway is an almost gunmetal color, plastic to keep weight down.

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The bottom shares the same plastic material with ventilation cut through the upper. We have four silicon feet to keep it up off your desk and a total of 7 screws to get inside.

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The left side of the Xenia includes the Kensington lock, Thunderbolt 4, and USB 3.2 port. We also have the SD card slot and 3.5mm audio output on this side.

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On the right side, we have the barrel connection for power, HDMI, and the USB 3.2 and Thunderbolt port.

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Notebook open, the chassis inside shares the same gunmetal color. The keyboard is full-size for a laptop with a silent membrane keyboard that offers two-level white backlighting, while the touchpad uses a glass surface for precision.

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Above, you can see the backlighting.

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Opening the Xenia 14, we do have an upgradable platform using SO-DIMM slots for the memory alongside two m.2 for storage and network. The battery is a custom design 53Wh for those interested.

BIOS/UEFI and Software

UEFI

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The setup for the Xenia 14 is pretty basic but includes information about the system on the main tab and operating mode that can be switched from office to gaming in the advanced menu. The boot menu allows you to configure all sorts of devices to boot from USB to network and optical. The Xenia 14 also does meet Windows 11 requirements.

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For this review, we were sent the Core i7-1165G7 platform.

Software

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The software for this platform is XPG Prime Lite. This includes options for configuring everything from general settings to performance and battery life.

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General settings include options for touchpad toggle, key locks, and OSD functionality.

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Display settings allow you to calibrate the screen to your liking.

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The battery gives you the ability to tune the charging performance alongside enabling or disabling Type-C mode that allows you to charge from two sources simultaneously.

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The performance tab gives you control over the fans with a 20db and 40db mode alongside fan boost for those wanting the best available performance.

System/CPU Benchmarks

Cinebench

Cinebench is a long-standing render benchmark that has been heavily relied upon by both Intel and AMD to showcase their newest platforms during unveils. The benchmark has two tests, a single-core workload that will utilize one thread or 1T. There is also a multi-threaded test that uses all threads or nT of a tested CPU

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The Xenia 14 tested really well alongside the competition. Single thread saw 1515, a score that rivals the Xenia Xe, and multi thread landed 6303, a score higher than any other platform we have tested.

Realbench

Realbench utilizes both video and photo workloads for real-world testing.

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Realbernch gave us a score of 62.9 seconds for the heavy multitasking workload. This again was higher than we had seen from previous platforms.

AIDA64 Memory

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Memory bandwidth was lower for the Xenia 14 due to it using SODIMMs over soldered chips at 4266MHz.

PCMark 10

PCMark is a benchmark from UL and tests various workload types to represent typical workloads for a PC. Everything from video conferencing, image import, and editing, along with 3D rendering, are tested.

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Xenia 14 scored quite well here as well. Reaching 10685 in essentials, a little over 100 points higher than the Carbon Gen9.

BAPCo CrossMark

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Crossmark showed an overall score of 1347 overall. This lands it just above the Razer Book 13.

System I/O and Battery

Graphics Performance

CrystalDiskMark

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The Xenia 14 comes with the Gammix S50 Lite installed. It is a Gen4 NVMe that is rated for 3900MB/s read and 300 MB/s write. In our testing, we hit 3033 MB/s read and 2709 MB/s write. 4KQ1 hits 69 MB/s read and 180 MB/s write.

Networking

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Networking for the Xenia 14 relies on Wi-Fi 6 with the AX201 chipset. In testing, we were able to get 1209Mbps.

Battery Testing

For battery tests, we use the PCMark 10 Battery tests in Office mode with the system set to balanced power.

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The modern office battery life test ran for a total of 7 hours and 42 minutes or 462 minutes, as seen in our charts. This is the lowest we have seen from any platform but right behind the Lenovo X1 Carbon.

Thermals

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During testing, I was able to get a few images of the Xenia with our thermal camera. As seen above, the area just above the keyboard has the most concentrated heat reaching 44c. On the bottom, you can clearly see where the cooling fan is and the heat in the center of the notebook.

Final Thoughts

The Xenia 14 has been in house for two weeks, so I've been able to spend a reasonable amount of time with it. Undoubtedly, the first thing you will notice upon picking it up is the weight. I can honestly say I've not felt any 14" platform this lightweight. It rivals the Thinkpad X1 Nano in that regard, Lenovo's lightweight offering.

We have seen enough 1135G7 and 1165G7 notebooks come through to know how they typically perform in our testing. The Xenia 14 somehow defies this with even better performance. This can be attributed to the cooling capabilities, as it's the one thing that can alter performance by allowing the CPU to keep its boost clock longer during heavier workloads.

NVMe performance has me on the fence. The Gen4 Gammix S50 Lite is an in-between solution that does perform better than typical Gen3 NVMe SSDs but doesn't take the Xenia 14 to its full potential.

Software for the Xenia 14 is fantastic. I find Prime Lite to be just enough to handle all of the functionality of the notebook without all the clutter found in some apps that try to be a one-stop shop for gaming.

What We Like

Weight: At 970g, the Xenia 14 the lightest platform to hit the lab.

Platform: 11th Gen Tiger Lake comes to life in the Xenia 14.

Connectivity: XPG adds to the basic two port Thunderbolt design with USB 3.2 and SDXC.

What Could Be Better

Keyboard: Membrane design gives no life to the keys.

Battery: At 7 hours its considerably weaker than the competition.

Photo of product for sale

Performance

95%

Quality

93%

Features

90%

Value

90%

Overall

92%

The Bottom Line

The Xenia 14 is a class-leading lightweight ultrabook that's backed by the performance of Intel's 11th Gen Tiger Lake.

TweakTown award

Tyler joined the TweakTown team in 2013 and has since reviewed 100s of new techy items. Growing up in a small farm town, tech wasn't around, unless it was in a tractor. At an early age, Tyler's parents brought home their first PC. Tyler was hooked and learned what it meant to format a HDD, spending many nights reinstalling Windows 95. Tyler's love and enthusiast nature always kept his PC nearby. Eager to get deeper into tech, he started reviewing.

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