- Update
This news will further clarify important aspects of XMG OASIS, our external laptop liquid cooling system, and will go over some of the changes we have made on the product since launch at the beginning of the year. Finally, it will provide a timeline for the upcoming weeks and when to expect media reviews.
Content
- Announcement Feedback
- Survey Results
- Product Updates since CES Samples
- Clarification on Water-carrying pipe in XMG NEO 15
- Clarification on Warranty Terms
- Launch & Review Timeline
- Your feedback
Announcement Feedback
On January 4th, we introduced our high-end gaming laptop XMG NEO 15 and our external laptop liquid cooling system XMG OASIS and received an overwhelming amount of feedback and goodwill from the community. We want to say thank you to everyone who chimed in to share some encouragement and additional suggestions for improving the product.
Survey Results
We posted this survey in a couple of forums and it was also linked under Jarrod’s Tech CES report video. We have a good number of submissions from different regions, so we are confident that these results are fairly accurate. Thank you everyone for participating!
Question #1: What is your impression of XMG OASIS in various aspects, rated from 1 to 5?
Question #2: If you were in the market to buy the new XMG NEO 15 with Intel Core 12th Gen and RTX 3060, 3070 Ti or 3080 Ti, would you consider to also buy XMG OASIS as an accessory? (Please also consider the current price.)
Question #3: What would be your preferred chassis color? At the moment, wo do not plan to offer alternative colors besides Black, but your choice is good to know for the future.
Question #4: Assuming almost daily intensive usage (gaming and high-load working) and spotless handling (good liquid, proper refills, no spills, no contaminations) – what do you think how long XMG OASIS is going to last you before you’d see serious signs of wear & tear?
Question #5: XMG OASIS is 20cm long and 18cm high. There are no immediate plans for a successor yet. Still, it is worth asking: would you prefer a potential successor product to be similar, smaller or bigger?
Question #6: If you already have some experience with water cooling, which type or brand of cooling liquid would you prefer or recommend for XMG OASIS and XMG NEO?
(The answer options were shuffled randomly for this one. Multiple choices were allowed.)
Product Updates since CES Samples
Since the sample you saw in our unboxing video for CES, a number of adjustments have been made:
- Reservoir (water tank) has been redesigned to avoid bubbles entering the pump, slightly reducing the pump’s operating noise.
- Connection of 2-in-1 connector has been tightened for a better fit than what you saw in the unboxing video.
- Structure around the water port in XMG NEO 15 has been partially redesigned for better sealing and structural stability.
- Rubber seal of the water port has been improved: now it has only a single ventilation hole. Will serve as pressure valve but keeps liquid inside.
- The rubberized portion of the refill port on top of XMG OASIS has been improved for a much tighter fit of the closing cover.
- PCB in XMG OASIS has been improved to avoid electromagnetically induced acoustic noises.
- Firmware in XMG OASIS has been improved and will now allow OTA firmware updates.
- The chassis of XMG OASIS is now all black with the XMG logo on top.
- Size of shipping box has been reduced to save shipping cost.
- Accessories have been added with still more to come.
Delivery Contents of XMG OASIS
- XMG OASIS cooling unit, incl. water tubes with 2-in-1 connector.
- Small funnel to aid with refill operation.
- Silicon Dust Covers for the USB-C and HDMI ports in XMG NEO.
- The drainage adapter can be used either on the laptop itself or (in reverse orientation) on the tubes of XMG OASIS.
- Micro-fiber cloth and brush to help with long-term cleaning of the water ports and connectors.
The drainage adapter can be used either on the laptop itself or (in reverse orientation) on the tubes of XMG OASIS.
In this position, the drainage adapter is able to unlock the self-sealing mechanism of the 2-in-1 connector, allowing you to easily drain XMG OASIS and its tubes. A short video demonstration of how the adapter locks into the connector can be found here.
Also, every unit of XMG OASIS will be shipped with a 1 litre bottle of distilled water. Other liquid solutions that are specifically made for PC liquid cooling are not recommended because their chemical additives might accelerate the wear and tear of some of the materials used in XMG OASIS, especially some of the plastics. Further information and guidance on where to buy distilled water can be found under this link: https://bit.ly/xmg-oasis-liquids_de
All these accessories are planned to be inside the planned “below 200€” (incl. 19% VAT) price tag. Two accessories are still being worked on:
- A custom fitted ball pump as an alternative for draining XMG NEO.
Clarification on Water-carrying pipe in XMG NEO 15
We would like to make a clarification on the water pipe inside the XMG NEO 15. In our CES launch material, we announced that the water pipe would be made from aluminum in order to use only a single material inside the whole water loop. This is now to be corrected: the water pipe is made from copper, while the rest of the liquid cooling loop (especially the radiator) is made from aluminum. We wish to apologize for this inconsistency in our communication and we would like to explain why in the end we chose copper instead of aluminum.
Reasons for the choice of copper
- It is structurally stronger than aluminum, making the system more robust.
- It has higher thermal conductivity, making the system more effective.
- Most importantly: it increases the strength of the bond between the water pipe and the air cooling heat pipes.
The water pipe is soldered across its whole length to the air cooling heat pipes. Soldering works much better if the materials that are being soldered together have the same melting point. Using aluminum for the water pipe would potentially have caused weaker soldering joints, reducing thermal conductivity and stability. The combination of aluminum and copper inside the laptop would have also increased the price due to lower yield rate and potentially increased the risk of future RMA cases.
Therefore, together with our ODM partner, we chose a straightforward, industry-standard solution where the thermally relevant parts inside the laptop are made from copper, while the rest of the loop (especially the radiator) is made from aluminum.
How exactly is the water pipe put together?
The cross-section of the water pipe is 0-shaped and hollow inside. The structure of the interior walls of the pipe is flat, i.e. the water pipe is not grooved. A grooved pipe would have involved additional complexity in manufacturing, reduced water flow rate and made cleaning/flushing of liquid more difficult. While a grooved water pipe might have been able to increase thermal conductivity, the system is already effective enough as it is.
The water pipe is manufactured from a single piece of metal, including both ends that stick out of the back of the laptop to form the ports for the 2-in-1 connector. These ports are housed in a structurally reinforced assembly which includes a drainage hole and air pressure release.
What about Galvanic Corrosion?
Mixing metals such as copper and aluminum in a closed-loop water cooling system is a standard industry practice that is being applied in many, if not most Desktop AIO and various server/datacenter liquid cooling solutions. Contrary to popular belief, the commonly feared galvanic corrosion is not simply caused by mixing those metals but by introducing additional contaminants into the water supply.
One famous example is discussed in this video by Gamer’s Nexus: X-Ray Analysis: Nasty Enermax Slime in New Threadripper Liqtech II Coolers. The link jumps to the conclusion at timecode 19:15, which reads as follows:
“Mixing metals is common in Liquid Coolers – in Closed-Loop Liquid cooler especially – and millions of them exist in deployment to both mainstream consumers and to business enterprise divisions like in data centers. Asetek’s got a big data center arm and they’re all mixed metals for the most part. So it’s not as simple as just “mixing metals is bad” because clearly it works just fine if you know what you’re doing.
And in the case of a company like Asetek or CoolIT – or one of them – in the server world or even the consumer world (where they’ve been successful for years) it’s a common deployment. The companies have heavily refined the process (an expensive process, mind you) to get high quality metals and specific formulations for coolant that often includes biocide along with the normal propylene-glycol mixture. So the fact that Enermax mixed metals but had ruinous chemical reactions suggests to us that this is more of an issue with the coolants used since the coolant is what’s basically responsible for keeping these things alive when they mix metals.
This puts us in agreement with our contact Mr. Fahrenheit whom we greatly appreciate and it also puts us in agreement with some off-record liquid cooling engineering contacts we have in the industry who couldn’t be named here. But we have a couple (3 total) independent sources, including Mr. Fahrenheit, in agreement that it seems the coolant choice is the most suspicious out of all of the options. One of our contacts went on to suggest that Enermax used a contaminated water supply. But we can’t get into details today on that.”
– quoted from Steve Burke at Gamer’s Nexus, 29 February 2020.
Usage & Maintenance
To protect your system from galvanic corrosion and other long-term wear, it is important to use industry-normed, high quality, uncontaminated distilled water.
Every unit of XMG OASIS will be shipped with a 1 litre bottle of distilled water. Other liquid solutions that are specifically made for PC liquid cooling are not recommended because their chemical additives might accelerate the wear and tear of some of the materials used in XMG OASIS, especially some of the plastics. Further information and guidance on where to buy distilled water can be found under this link: https://bit.ly/xmg-oasis-liquids_en
Additionally, we advise to apply the following usage tips:
- Replace all liquid in the system in a regular interval, for example once every 3 months.
- Keep the 2-in-1 connector and ports on the laptop clean – use the micro-fiber cloth and brush to clean all the connectors.
- Keep the refill port on top of XMG OASIS closed when you are not refilling the liquid.
- Do not re-use leftover liquid after draining. Discard the liquid that has been drained from the laptop after disconnecting.
Clarification on Warranty Terms
Our previous announcement includes the phrase: “Water damage is not covered by warranty”. We would like to expand on and clarify this statement. Schenker Technologies guarantees that your newly manufactured product will be free from material and/or manufacturing defects at the time of initial purchase.
Covered under warranty
If the water pipe inside the laptop is leaking due to normal wear and tear, this would covered under warranty.
Not covered under warranty
- If the water pipe inside the laptop is damaged due to mechanical damage (impact shock) or inappropriate servicing.
- If the water pipe inside the laptop is damaged by exposing it to excessive pressure with 3rd party devices, including air pressure gauges or 3rd party water cooling solutions, other than XMG OASIS.
- If the water pipe inside the laptop is damaged by exposing it to excessive pressure with 3rd party devices, including air pressure gauges or 3rd party water cooling solutions, other than XMG OASIS
- Any other water damage from liquid that creeps in from outside the system, including potential damage that might occur during inappropriately handled refill, drainage and disconnection operations
RMA procedures
The distinction between “warranty” and “self-inflicted damage” is broad enough and should be pretty clear in most cases. The usual process would look like this:
- If you discover any issue with your product, please contact us.
- If we come to the conclusion that your product issue might have a hardware root cause, we will offer you a free RMA shipment*.
- The service technicians in our RMA department will inspect the product. If there is a defect, we will find out the most probably root cause of it.
- If the defect or its root cause is not covered under warranty (examples see above), we will reach out to the customer and offer an alternative solution.
* Free shipping after consultation with our support applies within the European Economic Area (EEA and EFTA), i.e. within the 27 member states of the EU plus Switzerland, Iceland, Norway and Liechtenstein.
Our own ambition
Handling warranty cases that may not always have a clear root cause at first look is part of our daily business. We treat each individual case based on its own merit and we have a proven track record of a customer-friendly, direct communication where we do not reject warranty cases without due cause. For reference, check out the results of this large-scale survey run by Notebookcheck: Support satisfaction for laptops and smartphones 2021 – Who offers the best service? (translated from German Original)
The results of this survey demonstrate that customers of SCHENKER and XMG are among the most satisfied across the whole branded consumer laptop industry. We plan to keep up this reputation with the advent of optional liquid cooling in XMG laptops.
At the same time, we will make sure that the risk of any water damage from normal wear & tear is close to absolute zero. The copper water pipe inside XMG NEO is manufactured from one single piece from start to finish and has a long-lasting stability thanks to the large-surface connection with the air cooling system. The walls of the water pipe are thick relatively thick and the system is not prone to any mechanical stress such as bending. Pressure inside the cooling loop is released from a ventilation hole above the reservoir of XMG OASIS and another ventilation hole in the rubberized cover on the laptop itself. The airtightness of the liquid circuit is tested with an air pressure gauge after assembly, identical to how you would test a Desktop PC’s liquid cooling system. Leakage inside the laptop due to normal wear and tear is thus virtually impossible.
Launch & Review Timeline
This is how the next couple of weeks are going to look like:
- January 21st: ship out brand-new XMG NEO 15 samples to media outlets.
- Before January 28th: ship out brand-new XMG OASIS samples to media outlets.
- January 25th: NVIDIA’s review embargo for RTX 3070 Ti and RTX 3080 Ti.
- January 27th: Start pre-order phase of XMG NEO 15 and XMG OASIS.
- Early February: the first independent media reviews of XMG OASIS should go online.
- Early March: estimated on-shelf availability of XMG NEO and XMG OASIS.
Note on review samples from other brands: our ODM partner has already shipped a few units of the liquid cooling solution during CES in early January to various other branded customers in different global regions. Due to the changes that have made since CES, any reviews that might get published before February by non-XMG brands might not fully represent the final user experience of XMG OASIS. Those early engineering samples can be easily spotted because they all have a grey chassis. The improved product samples that are being shipped by End of January will all have a black chassis instead.
Your feedback
We plan to provide more product updates in the near future. Once we have finalized the laptop’s draining solution, we plan to post an updated unboxing / hands-on video on our own Youtube channel. Stay tuned and please consider subscribing to our newsletter. Please let us know your thoughts on the survey results, the product updates and the warranty terms.
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