Review of Optimus II - Clevo W150HRM

[darkspaceinvader]

I couldn't find many reviews on this product so I thought I'd write one in the event it helps someone decide on whether or not to buy it.

First of all the service I received with pcspecialist was superb. It took a little over a week to have the laptop sent out to me. The inclusion
of a pcspecialist manual explaining the parts in the pc etc is a nice touch and demonstrates good customer care and attention to detail.

Ok so the laptop!

This is what I ordered:

Chassis & Display Optimus II: 15.6" Matte 95% Gamut LED Widescreen (1920x1080) (£79)
Processor (CPU) Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Mobile Processor i7-2670QM (2.20GHz) 6MB
Memory (RAM) 4GB SAMSUNG 1333MHz SODIMM DDR3 MEMORY (1 x 4GB)
Graphics Card nVIDIA® GeForce® GT 555M - 2GB DDR3 Video RAM - DirectX® 11
Memory - 1st Hard Disk 500GB WD SCORPIO BLACK WD5000BPKT, SATA 3 Gb/s, 16MB CACHE (7200
rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive 8x SATA DVD±R/RW/Dual Layer (+ 24x CD-RW)
Memory Card Reader Internal 9 in 1 Card Reader (MMC/RSMMC/SD: Mini, XC & HC/MS: Pro & Duo)
Thermal Paste ARCTIC COOLING MX-3 HIGH THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND (£9)
Sound Card Intel 2 Channel High Definition Audio + MIC/Headphone Jack
Network Facilities GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS 802.11N CARD INC. BLUETOOTH 3.0
USB Options 2 x USB 3.0 PORTS + 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS AS STANDARD
Battery Optimus Series 6 Cell Lithium-ION Battery - 48.85WH
Power Lead & Adaptor 1 x UK Power Lead & 90W Adaptor (GT 540M) / 120W Adaptor (GT 555M)
Operating System Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)
Office Software NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Anti-Virus NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Mouse INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
Webcam INTEGRATED 1.3 MEGAPIXEL WEBCAM

£873 Total

First impressions were obviously of the outer shell of the laptop itself. Now comes the only real negative I have with the laptop: on the outside it looks and feels like used sandpaper. It's definitely not going to win any awards
for style or elegance. It's also easy to mark due to the abrasive rough texture of the material (I scuffed it very slightly when I moved the laptop on the table against the wall. Although the paint scuff/mark came out).
Opening up the laptop the interior looks and feels much better. I love the keyboard. The keys have nice spacings between them and feel smooth, well rounded and chunky. Best laptop keyboard
I've used and I've used everything from a mac to a sony vaio. The touchpad is slightly textured and feels just ok. It works fine of course but it just doesn't feel as good as others I've used.
The material around the keyboard and touchpad looks like brushed metal but is in fact plastic.
Overall the build quality is a mixed bag. Outside she aint pretty, inside is a little better. Keyboard is great, touchpad less so.

I ordered the Matte screen for my laptop. I'm glad I did. It is astounding! Better than any desktop/laptop screen I have seen period. Perfect for video/photo editing.

Some people have mentioned heat problems. If you're surfing the net or typing in word there are no heat problems. The thing stays lukewarm.
For games I use a cooler master notebook cooler. To not do so would be idiotic since there isn't any laptop out there that has truly sufficient cooling for long gaming sessions.
It just makes sense to use one if you want to prolong your laptop's life.

Battery life is pretty limited as you would expect. This is a powerful machine and really needs the power brick plugged in. And what a brick it is, the thing is enormous! Looks
like the old xbox brick! Seriously do not drop this on your foot.

I installed a few games to test the Nvidia 555m as well as the Optimus technology. Games included Battlefront 3 and Batman Arkham Asylum.
I played Arkham Asylum 1600x900 everything on highest setting. Runs smooth and fast looks as good as that game can. I play Battlefront 3 1368x768 with a mixture of settings
including ultra textures and effects and 4x msaa. I think everything else was on medium. Game runs smoothly and looks awesome.
I think 1368x768 is probably the optimal resolution for this card on taxing modern games. Overall I was really happy with the gaming performance of this laptop. Until now I didn't think decent gaming was possible on laptops much below the £1000, I've happily been proven wrong! On a side note I have not encountered any problems with the optimus switch. Some people on the net have reported issues (with games not recognizing the graphics card) but so far I haven't (fingers crossed I wont in the future either!).

(Update: Shogun 2 is broken with Optimus. Desperate to play this game but refuse to do so because I'm forced into using Intel's onboard graphics which make the game look awful and run slow. Hopefully Nvidia or Creative Assembly will sort this out soon because it's dishonest to sell consumers a game that will not work with their hardware and not advertise the fact.)

The Optimus II is blazingly fast for simple tasks as is probably obvious given it's gaming prowess. Windows boots up speedily in a matter of seconds.

Noise levels are kept to a minimum and are better than I expected. You can only really hear anything when the hdd/cd is being accessed.

In-built speakers are underwhelming but I use headphones or external speakers anyway so for me this is a non issue.

To sum up the Optimus II I'd have to say that the laptop has more than lived up to expectations despite the rough plastic used in its construction. And you can always get a gelaskin to spruce up the laptop exterior.
Overall I don't believe there is a laptop to compete with this for anywhere near the same price range. I'd go so far to say that I think a desktop would struggle to come in at the same price point if you factor in the fact that in order to compete you'd have to buy a monitor that covers the same colour gamut and is matte. It really is an incredible laptop at an incredible price with only one real flaw which is its looks. For the record, I'd prefer to have a laptop that looks like a beast and performs like one than one that looks like a work of art but performs like a turd.

Kudos to pcspecialist for great service and a great machine. My one request would be could you start offering custom cases for laptops? Sometimes it is nice to have something that looks like a work of art but performs like a beast

Updated: Links below for images of battery and of outer casing.

https://www.sugarsync.com/pf/D7867121_2399865_66692https://www.sugarsync.com/pf/D7867121_2399865_66694
https://www.sugarsync.com/pf/D7867121_2399865_66690
https://www.sugarsync.com/pf/D7867121_2399865_66601
https://www.sugarsync.com/pf/D7867121_2399865_66609