Corsair announces the VOYAGER a1600 AMD Advantage Edition

In a move that took us by surprise earlier this week, Corsair announced their first laptop, the VOYAGER a1600 AMD Advantage Edition. Corsair is touting it as a “gaming and streaming laptop,” which is probably one of the ways Corsair is trying to distance itself from the legion (get it?) of gaming laptops already in the market.

Corsair VOYAGER a1600 — flexing their Elgato acquisition

I would say that Corsair at least tries to back up their claims of this being a “streaming laptop,” by integrated some of Elgato’s ecosystem into the VOYAGER a1600. I mean, it’s probably a lot easier borrowing from another company’s IP library, when you own the other company. A key differentiator is definitely the row of S-key shortcut buttons powered by the Elgato Stream Deck software right under the display.

A 1080p30 webcam is surely nothing to shout about, and I doubt any self-respecting streamer will rely on it for their face cam. However, in an era when gaming laptops can omit a webcam entirely, the inclusion of one is probably already quite noteworthy. A quad-microphone array with ambient noise cancellation rounds off the streaming-oriented features.

Corsair’s own input include integrating CAPELLIX LEDs under Cherry MX Ultra-Low Profile switches for the keyboard. Corsair has always enjoyed a close partnership with CHERRY, with them debuting the first Cherry MX RGB switches, so this probably comes as little surprise. All of this is controlled by Corsair’s robust iCUE software, which is probably a welcome departure from some of the clunkier software that some laptop vendors employ.

Further enhancing the overall experience is an integrated SLIPSTREAM WIRELESS receiver. This allows for up to three compatible peripherals to be connected without using up any of the ports, which is a really nice touch.

Speaking of ports, we have two USB4 ports with Thunderbolt 4 functionality, one USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C port, one USB 3.0 Type-A port as well as a high-speed SDXC 7.0 card reader. With that out of the way, let’s get into why this is an AMD Advantage Edition laptop.

Corsair VOYAGER a1600 brings the AMD Advantage

At the heart of the Corsair VOYAGER a1600 AMD Advantage Edition are the latest and greatest from AMD — the Ryzen 6000 HS-series mobile processors and Radeon RX 6000M series graphics. Keeping everything cool is a vapor chamber, which appears to be the go-to cooling technology now, succeeding traditional heatpipes with their ability to wick heat away quicker. The AMD combo allows Corsair to implement a suite of AMD technologies including AMD Smart Access Memory, SmartShift MAX, and FreeSync Premium.

In terms of display, we have a pretty great one, at least on paper. Aside from supporting FreeSync Premium, it’s a 16″, 16:10 WQHD panel that runs at up to 240Hz. Aside from that, we get DDR5 memory and PCIe 4.0 storage support, courtesy of the Ryzen 6000 series processor, and Corsair isn’t shy to take full advantage of them in the Corsair VOYAGER a1600 AMD Advantage Edition.

If you want to take advantage of this laptop and its exquisite cocktail of Corsair, Elgato and AMD features be prepared to shell out at least $2700 (approx. RM11,871) for a configuration with the Ryzen 7 6800HS, Radeon RX 6800M, 32GB of DDR5 RAM and 1TB of PCIe 4.0 SSD storage. An additional $300 will net you an upgrade to the Ryzen 9 6900HS and double the memory and storage, coming in at $3000 (approx. RM13,190). That’s definitely not cheap, but I guess you can make it back in subscriptions on Twitch/stars on Facebook?