Schenker VIA 15 Pro review – AMD office laptop with long battery life

Schenker offers a fast office notebook with the VIA 15 Pro, which uses a matte IPS panel with a 165 Hz refresh rate in addition to good input devices. An AMD Ryzen processor is responsible for the performance and both RAM and the SSD can be configured according to one’s needs. The starting price for the configuration with the Ryzen 7 5700U, 8 GB RAM and a 512 GB SSD is 1,149 Euros; our test unit with 32 GB RAM and a 1 TB SSD costs 1,298 Euros without the operating system.

The dark case is made of an AZ91D magnesium alloy (lid and top of the base unit, rest aluminum), which is why the 15-incher weighs just 1. 446 kg and is thus noticeably lighter than its competitors. The stability of the base unit is very good, only the lid is a bit more flexible (but we could not provoke any image errors).

The hinges allow a maximum opening angle of about 145 degrees, but cannot prevent a certain bouncing. Overall, the design is very restrained and the VIA Pro can be used in the office without any problems. You can even remove the logo on the lid for a surcharge of 29 euro.

Fingerprints are not a big problem on dark surfaces. The test device collects points in the upgrade options because there are two slots each for RAM modules and M. 2-2280 SSDs.

The WLAN module can also be replaced, but the antenna configuration does not support 6 GHz networks. Nevertheless, WLAN 6 and Bluetooth 5. 1 are supported with the Intel AX200.

The transfer rates were good in our test. A microSD reader is also installed on the left side, but it is not particularly fast with about 30 MB/s. The 720p webcam is also only the most necessary and the picture quality is not particularly good.

All the important ports are represented, whereby one of the USB-A ports still corresponds to the old 2. 0 standard, which is no longer up-to-date. However, the device can also be charged via USB-C in addition to a power supply port.

A Gigabit Ethernet port is also available for wired networks. The VIA Pro 15 offers a large backlit keyboard with a very comfortable typing feel, which makes it easy to write longer texts. However, you have to get used to the layout, since there is an additional column with special keys on the right (e.

g. dedicated keys for Page Up/Page Down). However, you have to do without a number pad.

The large ClickPad also works flawlessly and can be pressed down in the lower half, which is accompanied by loud clicking noises. The 16:9 display offers WQHD resolution (2,560 x 1,440 pixels) and a fast refresh rate of 165 Hz. Thus, movements are very smooth and the subjective picture impression of the matte panel is also excellent otherwise because even bright surfaces do not look grainy.

The response times are pleasantly fast and no PWM is used, but there are visible halos in high brightness and dark backgrounds. Schenker specifies a brightness of 300 cd/m², which is surpassed by our test device with an average of 330 cd/m². However, the black value is elevated at 0.

41, which is why the contrast ratio is only just under 900:1. There is a minimal blue cast in the state of delivery, but this does not bother us in everyday office use. However, we can improve the display with our own calibration, and you can even edit pictures thanks to the full sRGB coverage.

The viewing angles are okay, but we would have preferred a brighter panel outdoors despite the matte surface. Schenker relies on the somewhat dusty AMD Ryzen 7 5700U with 8 Zen 2 cores for the VIA 15 Pro, but it still offers decent performance. The power limits are 40/35 watts in Enthusiast mode (or 25/12W in Ultra-Silent mode), which gives it a very high and stable multi-core performance.

In the multi-core tests, it even beats current Intel Raptor Lake U-series chips like the Core i7-1355U in the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Yoga G8 . In the single-core tests, however, the old Ryzen suffers. Overall, the performance is completely sufficient for everyday office use, which is also due to the fast PCIe-SSD.

The laptop is responsive at all times and we could not identify any problems during the test. The graphics performance of the Vega 8 iGPU is also perfectly sufficient for everyday use and rendering high-resolution videos also works flawlessly. The performance is even slightly better than that of the rivals with the Iris Xe Graphics G7 .

On battery power, the performance is slightly lower overall, especially in multi-core applications (deficit of ~25%). With its two fans, the VIA 15 Pro is usually very quiet in everyday use. It only gets louder when the CPU load increases and you can also hear the fans very clearly with ~42 dB(A) in extreme cases.

If you want to be on the safe side and don’t need the full CPU performance, the ultra-silent mode is recommended, since we could only determine a maximum of ~28 dB(A) even in the stress test, which can hardly be heard. There were no other electronic noises. The surface temperatures remain pleasantly low in everyday use and even in the stress test, we could measure a maximum of 41 °C in the upper middle area of the base unit after one hour (~43 °C on the bottom).

Thus, there are no restrictions even in this extreme scenario. The two stereo speakers are a weak point because the overall sound is quite quiet and very thin. At least trebles are rendered cleanly, which benefits the reproduction of voices.

With the 91-Wh battery, the VIA 15 Pro achieves very good runtimes even at 165 Hz. We determine 11 hours with an adjusted brightness of 150 cd/m² and still 8 hours at full brightness. Schenker’s Via 15 Pro is an interesting office notebook that primarily stands out from the direct competition due to the high-quality casing and the good WQHD panel.

The sRGB color space is completely covered and even moving pictures are very smooth thanks to the high refresh rate as well as fast response times. Despite the matte surface, even the bright content is not grainy. Furthermore, Schenker takes a different approach in terms of upgrade options, as two slots each for RAM modules and M.

2-2280 SSDs are by no means a matter of course. The keyboard leaves a good impression, as does the battery life, and there are enough ports for everyday use, although the USB 2. 0 port is no longer up-to-date.

The Via 15 Pro is an interesting office machine with a light case, good keyboard and good 165 Hz display. Battery runtimes and upgrade options are equally convincing, but the old Zen 2 processor from AMD is disappointing in view of the rather high entry price. The entry-level price of more than 1,100 Euros is certainly a hurdle, especially in view of the old AMD processor.

However, it has to be said here that the multi-core performance in particular is still competitive and also turns out better than that of the rivals. Another weak point is the poor speaker system. The VIA Pro 15 can be configured at Bestware starting at 1,149 euro .

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