The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
My experience differs quite significantly from yours. I've owned about 15 notebooks from Sharp, Sony, Apple, MSI, Acer and Clevo. Among them only the Sony 505TS never got noticeably warm to the touch and that's because the case is a magnesium alloy that distributed and dissipated heat remarkably well.
I guess in the end everybody's definition of what constitutes an "uncomfortable" temperature differs.
From my perspective, machines like the AW17 R1 remain cool to the touch even under load. Seriously, find the coolest spot on the 750ZM - that's how hot the keyboard on the AW17 R1 is under load. So from that point of view, I know it is possible to make a machine that remains cool and quiet. Which is why I get annoyed when other laptops aren't. I know it can be done, so why didn't Clevo do it? They did a great job in cooling the components and keeping noise levels down, I would've appreciated going the extra mile and keeping keyboard temps lower.
Also, our experiences differ greatly indeed. Pretty much all the laptops I've had have been from ASUS, Clevo, Alienware. In other words, gaming-focused brands. Most of the brands you've listed aren't known for cutting-edge and thermally-efficient gaming laptops (Clevo being the exception). That being said, brands such as Gigabyte and Razer are indeed amongst those that get really hot to the touch. So somebody having only experienced Gigabyte, Razer and MSI laptops would have an experience with gaming laptops quite different from mine. You can cook an egg on older Razer Blades.
If you want to know what a gaming laptop should feel like (in my opinion of course), go find a ASUS G751 in a store (or an AW17 R1 if you can find one). That's how cool and quiet a thicker gaming laptop can, and should, be.
For some reason, after re-installing the OS from scratch, my surface temps dropped a bit. Much more comfortable now. Still a bit on the warm side to my liking, but I'll try and mod the bottom of the keyboard tomorrow with some thin cardboard and foil tape and see if that helps.
At load the hottest temps on the keyboard were under 40C which is 104F which is not hot nor uncomfortable, and considering it's housing a CPU at double the TDP of a mobile GPU I think it's respectable.
After wiping the SSD and re-installing the OS from scratch, my keyboard temps dropped significantly. Still not sure why.
It's now around 40C under load, which is, I agree, acceptable given the Xeon I'm running in this machine. Still a bit warm for my tastes, but acceptable.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.
