Machenike F117-7 Laptop Review

When purchasing a laptop, top-of-mind brands are Lenovo, ASUS, MSI, ACER, and the like. Unknowingly, there is a variety of PC gaming brands in China as well. One of the more popular brands in the country is Machenike. What we’ve got here is the Machenike F117-7 laptop, and let’s see if this is worth getting.

Design and Construction

On initial look at the Machenike F117-7, what you’ll see is the logo smack in the middle of the upper part of the chassis with two LED strips. The chassis is built with plastic which isn’t surprising considering its price range. Though for most this may be an instant deal-breaker, users find that sometimes it doesn’t matter depending on how well units are being taken care of.

Moving to the rear of the chassis, we see two vents. Inside the vents are copper heat pipes with two bottom-facing fans along with a miniDP, HDMI, and power port in the middle.

On the left side, is one USB 3.2 Gen 1 (Type A) and a USB 2.0 port with an earphone and microphone combo port.

While on the other side, we see an extra USB 3.2 Gen 1 (Type A), a USB 3.2 Gen 2 (Type C) port, a LAN port, and a card reader.

Going down to the keyboard, we see a full layout setup for the Machenike F117, and as with most gaming laptops, it of course has RGB that is customizable. This RGB can be synced to the two strips and on the lids.

Bringing it to the functions of the keyboard, it does have a decent key travel and very, very little actuation. Though these two things may not necessarily be a bad thing for users, since Machenike has equipped the laptop with a Numpad, there would be a slight adjustment for users as it would seem like it is left aligned as opposed to naturally typing on the center of the chassis.

Despite the plastic build, the Machenike F117-7 is a nice-looking laptop that exudes ‘gaming’.

Display and Multimedia

Further, we see a 15.6-inch 144hz FHD IPS  panel that claims to have a 45% NTSC color reproduction which is not the best for photo edits and videography work but can be managed.

In terms of backlight bleed, there seems to be a big blotch on both sides on the upper part of the Machenike F117, and a majorly disturbing one right in the center. Gaming in the dark will make it quite apparent, but shouldn’t be too concerning in a well-lit room.

Performance, and Benchmarks

On to the important part of the article, we dig deeper into the performance of the Machenike F117. Just to be transparent, the unit that we got is equipped with Intel’s 11th Generation Core i5-11260H, Nvidia RTX 3050Ti, 8GB DDR4 3200MHz RAM, a 512 GB SSSTC CL1-8 SSD. In terms of performance, we didn’t expect much but got a decent wave since it isn’t the top-of-the-line configuration but it does the job with the specs it has.

Though at the beginning of our tests, the Machenike F117 seems to have run into some heating issues as it automatically shut down after reaching 85 degrees while running Cinebench R23 on it. It did happen while we had our room at 21 degrees so quite an issue for most despite the vents at the rear and bottom blowing fans.

Here are some test results we’ve run:

Cinebench R20: Multi-core – 3004 | Single-Core – 529
Cinebench R23: Multi-core – 7727 | Single-Core – 1283

PCMark 10 Extended:
Essentials – 9325
Productivity – 8115
Digital Content Creation – 7302
Gaming – 9982
Overall – 6721

3DMark:
Time Spy Extreme  – 2053
Time Spy – 5311
Fire Strike Ultra – 3198
FireStrike Extreme – 6126
Fire Strike – 12066

As for the SSD performance, it gives decent speeds and meets the rated speeds, so no questions or doubts here. Would have been a great option to have an SSD configuration with 1TB.

Nevertheless, there is an open slot for a 2.5-inch mobile HDD on the lower-right part of the internals for those looking at upgrading their storage for all those games.

Speaking of upgradeability, we checked out the RAM slots and it seems they aren’t soldered as well and as an extra RAM slot which could essentially be used to upgrade the memory to 32GB.

One big win on this laptop is that it comes with a Windows 11 Pro 64-bit as opposed to regular laptops having the Home version. Though it isn’t particularly a big deal, security functions are better, and Business Management Deployment is important to some.

Connectivity

The Machenike F117-7  has all the basic connectivity features needed in a laptop. Alongside the earlier mentioned ports, we have WiFi 6 which means that it has a faster potential data rate transfer which could be as high as 40% higher compared to WiFi 5 connectivity. Aside from this, normally, with previous WiFi generations, if users are in a crowded area, speeds are generally affected as a result of congestion due to the fact that many devices are trying to connect to a few access points.

Battery Life

Moving on to the battery life, the laptop is equipped with a 49Wh battery which should be enough for users to be able to utilize during entertainment runs for at least 4 hours, and then it would be completely drained.

Generally, renders and gaming shouldn’t be done unplugged as this would mean that users do not render with their discrete graphics cards but with the shared one from Intel. It isn’t particularly wrong to render with the use of the CPU, but essentially, to get better FPS in gaming, use the Nvidia RTX 3050Ti on this laptop.

Conclusion

To wrap it all up, at the price of PHP 55,990, it does pretty well considering the number of laptops we’ve tested at this price range. Regarding the earlier bump we encountered, that could be a one-off thing since it didn’t happen more than once.

The thermals on the Machenike F117 could be a deal-breaker considering the sheer size of the laptop and the amount of cooling it already has in it. Though it doesn’t affect the overall use at all, it might cause bigger issues in the future. Considering the RMA situation at Lazada and how long it takes to get something repaired since Machenike doesn’t have a local presence, it might take a while before your laptops get repaired.

These things aside, overall the laptop is capable of getting day-to-day tasks done along with some mid-level gaming. Should you consider getting one of these, wait for the next double-digit sale on Shopee or Lazada for further discounts.

For purchase of the Machenike F117-7, you may head to this link.

Machenike F117-7 specs:
15.6-inch FHD (1920 x 1080) IPS Display, 144Hz,  45%NTSC, 300 Nits
Intel Core i5-11260H
Nvidia GeForce RTX3050Ti
8GB DDR4 3200Mhz RAM
512 GB SSSTC CL1-8 Storage
Windwos 11 Pro
M.2 2230 Wlan Module, Intel Wi-Fi6 AX201
Bluetooth v5.1 Ethernet 10/100/1000 Base-T
Number Pad Card reader
1 x USB 2.0 port
2 x USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports (Type A)
1 x USB 3.2 Gen 2 port (Type C)
Mini Display port 1.4
2-in-1 Audio jack (Headphone/Microphone)
HDMI RJ-45
LAN port
DC-in jack
Audio Sound Blaster Cinema 6
Security TPM 2.0
1.85KG
359.5 x 238mm x21.9mm
Silver

Source: Yugatech