Newshot Colorful Hidden Star P16 Pro Star Wind Edition gaming laptop review: turning water cooling into a cooling base, game temperatures drop by 20°C
External water cooling for laptops is nothing new, but many users have two concerns: first, it is basically only offered on top-spec models; second, with the laptop, tubes and water tank laid out, it directly takes up most of the desktop space. For people living in dorms or renting small rooms, this setup is both space-consuming and not cheap.
But the water-cooled laptop we are talking about today is an exception. It is no longer a separate external water tank that takes up space; instead, it is made to look like a cooling base, and the laptop starts to "cool down" as soon as it is placed on top. The configuration is also more down-to-earth: a combination of Core Ultra 7 251HX + RTX 5060, and the laptop has also been made thinner and lighter. This is the Colorful Hidden Star P16 Pro Star Wind Edition.
IT Home recently got hands-on experience with this machine. Out of curiosity, we want to share with you how it actually performs.
1. Exterior design
The Hidden Star P16 Pro Star Wind Edition continues the signature design elements of the Hidden Star series, but the overall mold has a stronger visual sense of unity, and some adjustments have been made to the details.
First, the iconic "Sky-Piercing Wing" is still there, but the decorative lines around it have been simplified. Set off by the Misty Island White color scheme, the 2 gradient "light strips" are full of recognizability and also make the A side look more lively. The vertically arranged COLORFUL Logo is sandwiched in the middle, and the layout is very neat.
In terms of dimensions, after abandoning the previously somewhat exaggerated, hardcore-lined mecha-style tail, the Hidden Star P16 Pro Star Wind Edition has a thinner and lighter body. The thinnest part of the body is only 19.6mm, the thickest part is 21.3mm, and the weight is only 2.05kg, which has already entered the category of thin-and-light gaming laptops.
The drop-down hinge design has also been retained, and a new RGB light strip has been added at the junction of the A and C sides, making it more visually symmetrical and more distinctive.
The screen of the Hidden Star P16 Pro Star Wind Edition can be opened and closed with one hand. It retains a black matte outer frame, a three-sided narrow bezel design, and the bottom bezel has also been further narrowed. The screen uses an IPS matte panel. At the top center is a long camera module that includes a 1080P camera and a pickup microphone, and the COLORFUL Logo is printed on the bottom bezel.
This 16-inch 16:10 esports screen fully takes into account the needs of gamers, with a 2560*1600 resolution, an ultra-high 300Hz refresh rate, 100% sRGB color gamut and 500nit brightness.
The C side still uses the same warm white color scheme as the A shell. The power button is independently arranged at the top center of the keyboard and comes with a white indicator light.
The keycap spacing of the full-size keyboard has been optimized to be more spacious, and the typing feel is naturally better. The 0 numeric key in the numeric keypad area has been reduced to 1U length, giving its position to the right Ctrl key. The arrow keys use a drop-down full-height design, and both the centered light-transmitting keycap characters and the RGB keyboard backlight are available. The adjusted keyboard looks more impressive.
The touchpad area has been further increased, and the surface treatment is smoother. The touch and press experience has improved a lot, which is worth praising. Other areas of the C side have also been treated with a stain-resistant skin-like coating, so your wrists stay dry even after long periods of use.
The D shell is still black-coated. The large-area air intake grille design and tough line decorations remain as before. There are 2 speaker openings at the lower left and right edges, and the four sides have been chamfered and tapered.
In terms of accessories, the Hidden Star P16 Pro Star Wind Edition has upgraded the adapter to 280W this time (the old model was 230W), and it is also a gallium nitride unit. Obviously, it is prepared for unlocking higher performance release after connecting to water cooling.
In terms of ports, the Hidden Star P16 Pro Star Wind Edition has 2 USB3.2 Type-A + 2 USB3.2 Type-C ports (supporting video output) on the left and right sides of the body, as well as a 3.5mm audio jack, meeting the connection and expansion needs of peripheral receivers and external storage.
In addition to the power connector, RJ45 wired network port and HDMI2.1 port, the rear of the body also adds a 3-hole water cooling connector, which can connect to the exclusive water cooling base accessory to unlock stronger performance release.
To this end, Colorful has specially launched a Star Wind S1 water cooling base. This accessory is obviously prepared for groups with tight desktop space, such as college students and office workers renting apartments.
It adopts a modular design, and the overall color scheme is consistent with the Hidden Star P16 Pro Star Wind Edition. Its size is relatively close to the Hidden Star P16 Pro Star Wind Edition laptop. Its dimensions and weight are 357.227028.8mm + 1.1Kg respectively. The overall unit is thicker to make room for the internal cooling module and air duct.
The front is equipped with an exclusive foot pad storage slot, a circular decorative ring, a laptop connection lock, a rubber plug water drain hole, and is equipped with a black power adapter with 36W output power and a plastic measuring cup with water level markings.
Users can follow the water cooling instructions in the machine packaging and, according to the tutorial, pour 250-270ml of purified water into the measuring cup and pour it into the base. There is no need to additionally consider special coolant for split water cooling.
The left and right sides of the Star Wind S1 water cooling base each have a PUSH button used to push out the fixing buckle, and there is also a Bluetooth connection indicator light on the right side.
The back of the base provides 2 sets of air outlet grilles, with the lock connected to the laptop's water cooling port and the base power jack in the middle.
When using it for the first time, users need to use the connection button on the exclusive page of the Star Wind water cooling system in Zizaixingqiu to perform a Bluetooth connection. Then, after ensuring that enough water has been added to the Star Wind S1 water cooling base, perform a water injection mode test to expel gas from the water cooling base, and then place the laptop on it for use. After multiple uses, part of the circulating water will evaporate and be consumed, so regular water replenishment is also required.
The surface of the Star Wind S1 water cooling base uses an integrated sealed leak-proof design, with special rubber coating, quick connectors and silicone sealing rings to ensure there is no hidden danger of leakage after connecting to the laptop. Inside, it is equipped with dual intelligent temperature-controlled fans with an ultra-high speed of 3550±10 RPM + a 12V high-voltage silent water pump + a high-spec radiator. It supports four temperature control presets, namely Silent, Balanced, Full Speed and Auto, adjusted through linkage with the Zizaixingqiu software.
The Star Wind water cooling system in the Zizaixingqiu software can also monitor water pump flow rate, fan speed, and inlet and outlet water temperature information in real time.
2. Stress test and battery life
The Hidden Star P16 Pro Star Wind Edition has made a comprehensive upgrade to its internal cooling system this time to adapt to the dual needs of air cooling and water cooling. Therefore, before testing, it is necessary for us to first look at its internal cooling structure and expandability by disassembling it.
After removing the D shell, it can be seen that the interior of the Hidden Star P16 Pro Star Wind Edition uses 5 heat pipes + 1 water cooling pipe + 2 silent fans with 105 blades each. Among them, 2 D6 heat pipes and 1 D8 heat pipe cover the 2 chip cores at the same time, and another 2 D6 heat pipes can guide heat to the left and right dual fans, with 2 sets of fin grilles arranged at the rear air outlet of the machine. The water cooling pipe at the top conducts heat to the water cooling base through the water cooling connector, and a vapor chamber is also covered above the chips.
The entire Star Wind water cooling system can achieve 150W performance release for the whole machine, and with the high energy efficiency of the Core Ultra 200HX processor and dual silent fans, it achieves a high-static gaming experience. After connecting to the Star Wind S1 water cooling base, the internal dual fans can operate in linkage with the water cooling system, unlocking a stronger 210W full-blooded performance release.
Looking at internal expandability, the memory part is equipped with dual DDR5 memory slots and is pre-installed with 1 Kingston DDR5 5600 16GB memory module. Later, manual addition of 1 memory module is supported to form true dual-channel.
The measured memory benchmark data is shown in the figure. After all, there is only a single memory module, so the read/write speed and latency performance are mediocre.
Below the left and right fans there is 1 M.2 solid-state slot each, supporting user expansion. The standard hard drive is a 1TB Yangtze Memory PC41Q solid-state drive. The 1TB version is rated at a sequential read speed of 5700MB/s and a sequential write speed of 5500MB/s. The wireless network card model is Intel AX210, supporting Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3.
The measured performance is shown in the figure, and the read/write speeds meet expectations. This Yangtze Memory PC41Q solid-state drive is not a Gen4 flagship. Its main advantages lie in single-sided chips and good heat control. The bare drive temperature is only about 60°C at full load, which is very suitable for laptop usage scenarios.
At the bottom is a 60Wh battery. We tested battery life through PC Mark 10. At 50% brightness, switching to hybrid graphics output mode and silent performance mode, limiting the refresh rate to 60Hz, and turning off the keyboard light and RGB lighting effects, the final result was 5 hours 59 minutes, which is not bad.
In the actual stress test, in the 10-minute single FPU test, CPU power consumption was able to stabilize at 100W, while the CPU package temperature stabilized at 100°C and the core temperature was 95°C. At this time, the P-core frequency was 3.85GHz. The whole stress test ran at 100°C throughout, and the tuning strategy is rather aggressive.
Then came the 10-minute single GPU test. The GPU was able to run at full 115W power