Motile M142: Update

Motile M142

Motile14

A little while ago I bought the Motile M142 (14″ FHD IPS/Ryzen 3500U/8GB RAM/256GB SATA SSD) for $300. For the past few months it has been be bouncing up and down in price (it was also originally priced at $700). Much more powerful than an equivalent priced chromebook. It is a Walmart-only brand designed  by Tsinghua Tongfang Co., Ltd. The only real negative I found with this laptop in my original post was the single-channel memory. Ryzen benefits nicely from dual channel. Dual channel memory configuration can make a big difference in a CPU-limited scenario. And if you’re gaming on integrated graphics such as on a Ryzen APU dual-channel memory can increase your average frame rate in most games by 10-20 percent, or even more. But on the plus side this laptop does accept a RAM module up to 32 GB.

From my previous post... I can tell you Linux installations will have no issues with this machine. The BIOS is basic simple with the choice between UEFI (no GUI) or legacy (also no GUI) with the default being UEFI. Additional specs include AMD Radeon Vega 8 graphics, and lots of ports: 2 USB 3.0, 1 USB 2.0, 1 HDMI, 1 USB Type-C, and 1 Aux/Audio jack. 

Most of the negative that people posted about I really didn't see. The battery life is good, even with heavy use, it goes for 3 hours easily before I have to charge it. I ordered the silver model of the laptop, there are no issue with not being able to see the back-lit keyboard in the dark.  I connected it to my 38" LG tv and played a few games, more on that later. Things like YouTube, Vimeo, and Dailymotion has played video at 1080p without issue. When I do put it to charge, while in use from about 10% to 100%, it takes about an hour.

Gaming on the Motile M142

System specifications:

Ryzen 3500U 4 cores 8 threads
Radeon Vega 8 graphics
8GB* RAM (single-channel)
Rocket NVMe 256GB *

*Usable ram is only 5.8GB due to the fact that the Vega 8 graphics uses 2GB of RAM.
*Sabrent Rocket NVMe is an upgrade to the sata m.2 that was pre-installed on the Motile.

Distro tested on:

Manjaro 20 (Lysia)
Mess 20.0.5
Linux 5.6.7-1
(KDE) Plasma 5.18.4.1

Games tested:

Tomb Raider  2013 (Linux version)
30 FPS
720 medium

Life is strange 2 (Linux version)
30 FPS
720p medium preset

A Plague Tale: Innocence (Windows version GOG+Lutris)
29 FPS
720 medium preset

Predictably, the performance of a laptop built around the 3500U will not perform very well with with most modern AAA games.

Currently the price of the Motile 14 is a little higher then when I purchased it. Could be supply chain issues, I don't know.