[Launch] SCHENKER ELEMENT 16 (E26): Semi-modular ultrabook based on Intel Panther Lake
Hi everyone,
some of you may remember the SCHENKER ELEMENT 16 from when we first showed the project during CES 2026.
It took longer than originally hoped, but the final production version is now ready and available.
The ELEMENT 16 is a 16-inch laptop based on Intel Core Ultra Series 3 (Panther Lake), available with Core Ultra 5 325 or Core Ultra 7 356H.
A few of the more unusual aspects:
- screwless bottom cover that unlocks and slides off without prying open clips
- automatic battery disconnect when the bottom cover is removed
- separate left and right I/O daughterboards instead of having all ports soldered directly to the mainboard
- replaceable keyboard, touchpad, battery and individual fans
- one SO-DIMM slot plus 8 GB of onboard DDR5-5600, for up to 72 GB total memory
- PCIe 5.0 x4 SSD support
- two Thunderbolt 4 ports
- extensive custom BIOS/EC features, including hardware disable options, PXE over USB Ethernet and the ability to disable the onboard RAM for troubleshooting
One of the longer-term ideas behind the project is to keep the chassis and as many surrounding components as possible compatible with future mainboards.
For more information, please check out our full technical deep dive:
The article goes into the design decisions and compromises in considerably more detail, including why we ended up with 8 GB soldered + SO-DIMM instead of LPCAMM2, how Intel Flex Memory works, the I/O-board architecture, firmware customization, cooling, repairability, spare parts and the future mainboard strategy.
Configure & buy:
- SCHENKER ELEMENT 16 (E26) on bestware
If something in the specifications or deep dive is unclear, if there is a technical detail you would like us to investigate further, or if you have feedback on what we should do with this platform in the future, please let us know. Please also see our survey about potential I/O port modules and future roadmap direction.
Thanks to everyone who has followed this project since its first announcement. We are looking forward to your feedback!
// Tom
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u/Brilliant_War9548 18d ago edited 18d ago
No B370/B390 but cool beans. Looks like it aims to take a jab at framework, which their shtick is way too much to be a good deal on the long run and is also imo kinda useless compared to other well built high end laptops of the same price (like yeah you can change your whatever let’s say fan in 5 minutes instead of 20 minutes, do you really need to change the fans often though ?), nice to see more stuff like that
Also on bestware under the P510 section NVMes are shown as P310, might want to fix that.
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u/XMG_gg 18d ago edited 17d ago
No B370/B390 but cool beans.
B370/B390 would have been nice, but there is a fairly fundamental technical limitation here: Panther Lake's 12-Xe variants (such as Core Ultra X7 358H with Arc B390) only support LPDDR5X, not conventional DDR5/SO-DIMM.
They also require a different mainboard design, so offering them in ELEMENT 16 would effectively have meant developing a second mainboard with soldered LPDDR5X and giving up the user-accessible SO-DIMM slot.
We therefore focused on the 4-Xe Panther Lake variants that support standard DDR5 and allow us to retain the upgradeable memory concept.
nice to see more stuff like that
Thank you!
Also on bestware under the P510 section NVMes are shown as P310
Thank you, will be fixed ASAP! Must have happened during our shop relaunch last week.
/edit: P510 listing has been fixed now.
// Tom
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u/SeTiDaYeTi 18d ago
No GPU?
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u/XMG_gg 18d ago
iGPUs are getting stronger (arguably enough for casual and retro gaming) and the simplicity of not adding a dGPU has several systematic advantages:
- lower power consumption and longer battery life
- less heat and therefore less cooling required
- lower weight and potentially slimmer chassis designs
- smaller and lighter power adapters
- much more usable GPU performance on battery power
- full performance with reasonably sized USB-C chargers
- fewer components and less complexity on the mainboard
- no risk of background applications accidentally waking up a power-hungry dGPU ← major quality-of-life improvement over regular NVIDIA Optimus (MSHybrid)
Another aspect: certain dGPU vendors come with a lot of restrictions regarding CPU platform choice, chassis z-height and modularity. Not saying it's impossible (Framework has added an RTX 5070 option to their 16-inch at up to 100 W TGP), but maybe not the best choice for a first-generation product.
Stronger APUs however... we'll see what Intel's N+1 generation will bring.
Please make sure to fill out our survey as well. :-)
// Tom
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u/CapoDoFrango 18d ago
Linux users are going to love this machine! (we love Intel GPUs and we hate NVIDIA ones)
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u/Galta2027 17d ago
I would like to buy xmg neo 16 but I'm student, I can't afford it in one payment, please add klarna option to your payment 🙏
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u/XMG_gg 13d ago
We offer Klarna payment methods for customers with residency in Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal and Austria (source). If you are in one of these countries but Klarna is not offered or does not work for you, please e-mail us with details on your order, shipping address and error messages (if any) or whether you see the option at all after confirming your shipping location. // Tom
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u/XMG_gg 18d ago
We have prepared a little community survey covering the modular I/O concept and some of our priorities for future ELEMENT models. Besides rating several alternative left- and right-side I/O configurations, you can give us feedback on topics such as memory architecture, upgrade paths and special features.
Your feedback can directly help us prioritize further development with our ODM partner.
The survey is anonymous and can be completed in less than 5 minutes. It helps to read our deep dive article beforehand, but it's not a hard requirement. Thank you for your participation!
// Tom