Especially after last weeks’ reveal of Razer’s Blade Pro light and thin gaming laptop, it’s easy to tell what the trend is these days. What was just an inkling of convincing the consumer public that yes, indeed, capable gaming machines can be in laptop form in addition to PC, is now the new official competition on the table. Further, because the device PC gamers desire is more about performance than anything else (that’s why they’re willing to sit at a desktop for hours on end), it turns out major gaming companies are building powerhouses in smaller form-factors than most would have ever imagined just a few years back. Perhaps even just a year back we wouldn’t have seen this coming.

The good thing about technology constantly changing is it is usually changing for the better, adapting to the needs of both the machine, and human being outside of it. You see, once PC gaming became laptop-ready, the reality was, “okay, we can do this, but the body is going to be bulky, and it’s weight will surely be a hefty 6-7 pounds”. The reason being, of course, is the hardware driving the power needed to game, game, game. Hardcore gaming requires the use many moving parts- you know- the regular CPU and GPU, but amplified to handle the crazy frames per second (fps) in quality gaming.

So despite the plentiful population of gaming laptops you wouldn’t dare lug around, things have quickly changed, making it possible for big names in PC gaming to make their laptops boast thinner and lighter designs, and with the very best graphics and performance on the market. The latest from Origin PC is a nice new update to its EVO15-S, which has all the lovely bells and whistles it should, now offering VR-ready capabilities, something particularly comparable to Razer’s latest iteration of its Blade notebook.

At just 9.8 x 15.0 x .69 inches thick (the Blade Pro measures in at a slightly thinner .66-inches), the EVO15-S sports a gorgeous 15.6-inch 1920 x 1080 anti-glare IPS display, and weighs just 4 pounds (wow, that’s a whole new level of light for a gaming laptop). Origin’s new PC also offers Intel's Core i7 6700 HQ Skylake CPU, which is actually a downgrade from its latest Kaby Lake processors recently released; in addition to Nvidia’s GTX 1060 GPU, with 6GB of GDDR5 RAM, plus 16GB of DDR4-2400 RAM, a 256GB M.2 NVMe SSD, and a 2TB hard drive. That’s more than plenty of space for all your pictures, movies and music, plus all the apps and games you install should be running speedily with updated Nvidia graphics.

Finally, networking includes an Intel Dual-Band Wireless AC 8260, and Killer E2400 Gigabit LAN, For ports, there are 3 USB 3.0s, a USB 3.1 Type-C, a USB 2.0, Headphone in /Mic out, SD card reader, HDMI 2.0, and a mini DisplayPort 1.2. The Origin EVO15-S starts at a healthy $2,099, and allow yourself to guess why this is not a shocking price for a gaming notebook of this caliber. The supermodel-styled chassis of the EVO15-S is not only built to be extremely portable (such a new notion in the PC gaming niche), but with some seriously fast transfer and boot speeds, gaming is going to be next to perfect. This notebook is made to compete, and possibly win, especially with that 6GB of video memory, which particularly suits either the Oculus Rift or HTC Vive (are you remembering it’s VR-ready, which also a relatively new concept for any laptop?). The only thing we have left to worry about is battery life, which in the case of Nvidia Pascal GPUs, there could be an apparent issue on that front. Let’s just wait and see benchmark results in the very near future.