Tiny But Mighty: The GoBOXX SLM 15 Mobile Workstation Review

The GoBOXX SLM falls a bit short in color coverage. It can display only 95% of the sRGB color space (lower than average) and only 74% of Adobe RGB (about average). However, it produces colors faithfully, with an average Delta-E of just 0.99. That means the colors it can produce look exactly how they should.

The display uniformity of the GoBOXX SLM is a mixed bag. On the one hand, the screen brightness varies by as much as 24% as you move around the display. Most mobile workstations come in at around 10%, and the GoBOXX is the first we’ve seen that exceeds 20%. However, the color uniformity is much better than most, with a max Delta-E deviation of just 1.9. That value is around 5 for most mobile workstations.

I/O and User Interaction: Nearly Perfect

The GoBOXX SLM provides a nice selection of connectivity ports. One the left you’ll find a Kensington lock slot, an RJ-45 Ethernet port, 2 USB-A ports, and a headphone and mic jack. On the right there’s the barrel power plug connector, both an HDMI port and a Mini DisplayPort, a USB-C with Thunderbolt, and another USB-A.

The power port on the right side is a bit awkwardly placed. Unlike most laptops, it’s not right at the top corner; instead, it sits below an air vent and just above the midline of the chassis. And since that air vent has unusually wide and inconsistent spacing, it’s tricky to plug in the GoBOXX by feel alone. It’s something you’d adjust to over time, but I always found myself fumbling whenever I tried to plug in to power.

One of the first things you notice upon opening the GoBOXX SLM is the trackpad. Not only because of its eye-catching gold trim, but because of its atypical wideness. It’s a shape I’ve not seen in other trackpads, which are usually closer to square. It doesn’t really change how I use the trackpad—my fingerprints reveal that I barely touch the far edges—but I appreciate the unique design choice. The trackpad itself is smooth and responsive, and one of the best I’ve seen on recent mobile workstations. There’s a fingerprint scanner in the top left of the trackpad, but I found it completely unreliable as a means of unlocking the computer and eventually stopped trying.

The GoBOXX SLM’s keyboard is great if you’re a fan of shallow keys. It reminds me of the keyboards on recent MacBooks, as there’s very little travel. I didn’t expect to like the keyboard—I prefer slightly deeper keys—but it really won me over with the responsiveness of the keys and the light touch they allow.

Perhaps my favorite thing about the GoBOXX keyboard is that the top row is dedicated to function keys by default. Almost every mobile workstation puts system controls (like volume, screen brightness, sleep, etc.) on the top row, forcing users to press the Fn key to access application-specific shortcuts from F1-F12. You could, of course, use Fn-lock or change the default in software, but it’s nice to see the GoBOXX put professional users first with this small detail. The volume and brightness controls are on the arrow keys and accessible with the Fn key.

Battery: Decent Lifespan, But Frustrating

The GoBOXX SLM 15 has an 82,050mWh (5620mAh) battery, which is a bit on the low side. It’s not removable, hence it’s not swappable, so you’ll want to carry the provided 230W charger with you if you’re on the go. That said, the lifetime of the battery is decent for a workstation with these specs.

On the high end, if you use the GoBOXX as sparingly as possible, the battery will last as long as 12 hours and 47 minutes. On the low end, if you’re pushing the GoBOXX to its limits without regard for power consumption, the battery will be dead in as little as 1 hour and 44 minutes. A more typical use case, bouncing between Chrome, Word, Excel, SOLIDWORKS, Fusion 360, and various other applications, will get you somewhere around 4 hours and 38 minutes (on our test, that includes a 20% drop in battery life during a 12-hour standby).

We encountered a frustrating problem with the GoBOXX SLM where the battery would be plugged in, but refused to charge. This happened a number of times, accompanied by the unhelpful message “plugged in, not charging.” This is a known problem that can affect Windows laptops, and it’s usually fixed with some combination of restarting the device, removing the battery, or uninstalling battery drivers. None of these fixes worked for the GoBOXX (the battery can’t be removed, anyways), but the problem would eventually resolve itself for no discernible reason.

Design: Sleek But Rough

The GoBOXX SLM looks better than you’d expect from a mobile workstation of its performance class. It isn’t excessively big or heavy like some of its competitors. The SLM (slim?) moniker isn’t too far off, with the GoBOXX measuring 0.75” (1.9cm) in height. A noticeable chunk of that comes from the thick rubber feet on the bottom of the chassis that give it a gap for air flow. At 4.25lbs, the GoBOXX is a shade lighter than many mobile workstations, though not the lightest we’ve seen.

The GoBOXX SLM 15 comes in a slick-looking black metal chassis, paired with touches of gold around the trackpad, power button, and ports. It’s a nice combination that makes the GoBOXX feel premium and stylish. If you look a bit closer, however, the design shows some rough edges. For example, there are fan vents on either side of the chassis which consist of overlapping black and gold truss patterns. But these patterns show no rhyme, reason, or symmetry, making the design appear haphazard. They’re also a bit rough to the touch and make the edges of the laptop feel jagged and sharp. A similar grille along the back suffers from the same problem.

Despite its metal frame, the chassis of the GoBOXX SLM feels a bit delicate. There’s an air vent above the keyboard (it looks like a grille for the speaker, but the speakers are on the underside of the device). Looking down through that air vent you can see straight through the to the air vent on the bottom, with fans visible in between. While this is undoubtedly good for thermal dissipation, it makes me a bit uneasy—you definitely don’t want to spill coffee on this computer.

Finally, while the black metal finish is nice to look at, it’s also a fingerprint magnet. Within a few days of use the shiny GoBOXX was noticeably smudgy. That’s hardly a problem unique to the GoBOXX, however, and in general BOXX made a creditable aesthetic effort with this mobile workstation.

Final Thoughts

The GoBOXX SLM 15 achieves exactly what it sets out to do: pair a high standard of compute performance in a slim and good looking package. I expected the GoBOXX to score well in benchmarks, but I was surprised at how just well it performed given its slim footprint and relatively low cost.

Yes, the GoBOXX is a bit rough around the edges (figuratively and literally). The computer has few configurable options. You can’t exceed 32GB of RAM, you can’t opt for a 4K display, and you can’t order an extra battery to swap in as you’re working. The battery itself is quirky, at times refusing to charge. The fingerprint reader is essentially useless. The chassis smudges easily and appears susceptible to dust and water damage.

But despite all that, the GoBOXX SLM 15 was a pleasure to use. The keyboard and trackpad are nearly flawless, the fan is mostly quiet most of the time, the battery lasts for a good half day of typical use, and applications are quick and responsive. For engineers in need of a mobile workstation, the GoBOXX SLM 15 is a strong option.

Update (November 26, 2019): Several readers have pointed out that the BOXX GoBOXX SLM 15 is a rebranded version of the MSI WS65. We reached out to both MSI and BOXX to confirm that the computer is designed and manufactured by MSI. BOXX adds its own brand, performs its own testing, and provides its own support for the GoBOXX SLM 15. 

The WS65 laptop with the same specs as our $3150 GoBOXX SLM 15 review unit is currently available for $2599 -- or $551 less -- through MSI. We have not reviewed the MSI WS65 so can not make any claims about its performance relative to the GoBOXX SLM 15.