Maingear ML-16 Gaming Laptop Review: Premium, Powerful, Customizable

When it comes to gaming laptops, many may not think of the options a custom PC builder such as Maingear might offer. However, the Maingear ML-16 gaming laptop is a compelling machine, with customization options that are perhaps not available with other laptops in the market, excellent customer service, and configurations starting at just under $1,700.

The Maingear ML-16 is part of the company’s new custom laptop lineup, and comes equipped with an efficient Intel Core Ultra 7 155H (Meteor Lake) processor and choice of an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 or 4070 mobile GPUs. It can be configured with up to 64GB of DDR5 4800MT/s RAM, and up to 8TB of T-Force A440 Gen4 M.2 NVMe SSD storage. Granted, Core Ultra Meteor Lake mobile CPUs aren’t Intel’s latest offering, but the 16 core, 4.8GHz chip on board here should offer reasonably good horsepower for gaming, creator and productivity tasks.

Maingear spared no expense in the build quality of its ML-16 laptop. It has an aluminum exterior built to ML-STD 810H standards, which Maingear adds certifies its durability against stressful extreme temperatures, dust, humidity, and shock resistance. The laptop has a nice heft to it at a little over 4 lbs, but remains light enough to carry around in a backpack all day. It feels solid in the hand, with little to no flex in the chassis and display area.

In its closed position, the silver casing of this machine is accentuated with the black trim that surrounds the display, and the keyboard area inside. The lid has a clean look with only the Maingear logo in the middle.

One of the customization options buyers can get with a Maingear laptop, that they won’t find elsewhere, is the ability to have a custom laptop lid. So, whether it is a business logo, image from a favorite game, or one from Maingear’s curated list, it can be placed on the laptop lid at an additional cost.

When it comes to ports, the ML-16 has its fair share. On the backside of the laptop is an HDMI 2.1 output, and a 1Gbps LAN Ethernet port.

On the left side users will find a MicroSD card reader, (1x) 3.2 USB-A port, and (1x) 3.5mm audio and mic combo jack.

On the right side of the laptop is (1x) Thunderbolt 4 port with Power Delivery, (1x) USB-C port with Display Alt Mode, and (1x) USB 3.2 USB-A port. The right side also houses the port for the included power brick to charge the system’s 80-Wh battery.

Once this laptop is opened to the world, its vibrant 16-inch QHD+ (2560×1600) 240Hz display is revealed. Maingear remarked the display is optimized for both gaming and creative tasks, featuring a 16:10 aspect ratio and NVIDIA Dynamic Display Switching technology that intelligently alternates between on-board Intel Arc graphics and the system’s discrete NVIDIA GeForce RTX 40-series mobile GPU.

The display performed nicely for both gaming and productivity tasks. Images were rendered crisp and clear on the X-Rite Pantone color calibrated IPS panel, with action games free of tearing in conjunction with G-Sync and the panel’s 240Hz refresh rate. In terms of brightness, the ML-16’s display was more than bright enough in any scenario it was placed, inside or outside.

The full-size mechanical RGB keyboard with Cherry MX switches was a delight to type on. Key travel felt good, providing precise movement while playing games, and not missing any strokes when banging out a long Word document. Though it’s not that large, this laptop’s trackpad provides ample space for cursor movement, and it also was responsive to multi-gesture input with good accidental palm touch rejection.

One area that might disappoint some about the RGB keyboard, however, is that it only supports a set of static colors. There are no options for having multiple colors or preset RGB effects. It is possible that third-party software could be downloaded to add some of these options.

While the ML-16 is limited to only one CPU option, the Intel Core Ultra 7 155H, that is not an entirely bad thing. With the Core Ultra processor comes the ability to use Intel’s AI Playground, which is a free to download and use AI PC starter app that makes working with AI easy. AI Playground provides a variety of easy-to-use AI capabilities to create and enhance images, or get answers from an AI chatbot, all running locally on your own PC powered by either an Intel Core Ultra-H processor or with an Intel Arc dGPU with at least 8GB of vRAM.

The app is designed with an intuitive user interface that allows users to get working with generative AI or chatbots quickly. Settings are written and designed using terms that make sense for the task, without users having to be educated on AI specifically, to get up and running. Though this wasn’t pre-installed on the machine, it was a feature that we wanted to explore on this Intel platform and it was actually pretty slick. That said, Maingear leaves the machine in a pristine state, software-wise, with only a Windows 11 Pro setup and NVIDIA RTX Studio Drivers installed.

Let’s fire this 4 pound mobile gaming beastie up for some benchmarks, next…