Awaiting Dispatch!

Having spent a lot of time researching the market for a new laptop to handle gaming with decent settings, I initially decided to take a plunge for the original Vortex back in Feb, but it turned out the chassis was out of stock when I ordered. I waited for a bit (took a lot of patience!) and got a Vortex II 17 when the day they were put up. After a few delays (changed the GPU once and the SSD/HDD combo twice), it's finally awaiting dispatch! Will post some pics when i have it. Thanks a lot to Carl Auckland who built, tested and QC'd this thing, and to Matthew Griffin who offered prompt advice via the online support.

Specs:

Chassis & Display
Vortex II-17: 17.3" Full HD LED Backlit 16:9 Widescreen (1920x1080) Super Clear Glossy
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Mobile Processor i7-2720QM (2.20GHz) 6MB Cache
Memory (RAM)
8GB SAMSUNG 1333MHz SODIMM DDR3 MEMORY (2 x 4GB)
Graphics Card
2.0GB nVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 485M - DirectX® 11
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
120GB INTEL® 320 SERIES SSD, SATA 3 Gb/s (upto 270MB/sR | 130MB/sW)
Memory - 2nd Hard Disk
500GB WD SCORPIO BLACK WD5000BEKT, 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)
Network Facilities
INTEGRATED GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS 802.11N CARD (AS STANDARD)
USB Options
2 x USB 3.0 PORT + 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS AS STANDARD
Battery
Vortex Series 8 Cell Lithium Ion Battery (3,800 mAh)
Power Lead & Adaptor
1 x UK Power Lead & 90W AC Adaptor
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)
Office Software
FREE Microsoft® Office Starter 2010 (Limited functionality Word & Excel)
Anti-Virus
NORTON ANTI-VIRUS 2011 - 1 Year Licence for 1 PC (£13)
Mouse
INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
Webcam
INTEGRATED 1.3 MEGAPIXEL WEBCAM
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 5 to 7 working days

Nice spec, looking forward to pics & brief review

Enjoy!

So it arrived this morning! And wow, this thing is a beast. With the OS on the SSD, booting up just takes a few blinks. Installed a flight sim that i have been playing on my other laptop so that i could have some sort of performance comparison, and this just blows my old dell out of the water. I won't go much into performance here because this thing has left my jaw in a dropped state from which i have not yet recovered.

I was surprised the laptop isn't heavier than it actually is, it might be lighter than the Inspiron 1720 that I used before this. The laptop was well-packaged, and it took a few mins to get it out and turned on. A few pictures:

Laptop w/ welcome pack (larger packaging box excluded):


Laptop w/ plastic covers attached:


Front view:


Side view:


Running Eagle Dynamics' DCS A-10C (excellent 'study' sim) @ an average of about 50-60 FPS with max settings and native resolution:


When I am running a game, the fan noise is perceivable but not nearly as loud as older laptops I have heard. I have yet to feel any change in temperature, and even placing my hand under the laptop just makes me feel a cool breeze, so initial cooling impressions are good. The keyboard is nice, the keys are neither too 'soft' nor too 'hard'. There are no awkwardly-positioned keys, so anybody that uses a standard UK laptop keyboard should be able to transition with ease. The screen is also great. Haven't tried out the integrated camera yet. The finger scanner is also a nice addition and its been working great so far (no need to enter passwords on startup, woohoo!!!)

The only two downsides that I have encountered so far are: (1) the left mouse button on the laptop has varying degrees of 'pressability' depending on where i press it. The right mouse button doesn't have this issue. Since this is a desktop replacement, i won't be using the built-in trackpad and mouse buttons so this is hardly a real issue for me. (2) no volume control buttons on the chassis (that i can see, at least!). My old laptop used to have this and i always had the first impulse to control the volume via these buttons if something was too loud or too silent, particularly while playing a game (as some games do not have a volume control option in the pause menu). This means i will have to alt-tab out of some games to play around with the volume. No biggie, but if i were playing online then it might get annoying!

Aside from those two things, the laptop is superb. To anybody currently in the order queue for the Vortex II, this thing is well worth the wait!

I give PCSpecialist an A+ on this, taking into account quality, cost, build time and customer service

If anybody wants specific pictures of anything (like key layout, cooling vents etc) feel free to ask!

TDar

Looks a nice laptop + rep for pics

Great pics and a very nice looking piece of kit. + rep

Nice job on the pics, and very nice rig. +Rep for you.

The volume thing...on most laptops I have used, the volume control thingy is on the keyboard as a function of an F key usually.

Maybe a Mod could comment on this particular chassis?

DED

DeadEyeDuk said:

Nice job on the pics, and very nice rig. +Rep for you.

The volume thing...on most laptops I have used, the volume control thingy is on the keyboard as a function of an F key usually.

Maybe a Mod could comment on this particular chassis?

DED

Click to expand...

Silly me - yes, Fn+F5 and Fn+F6 are volume down and up respectively. :smartass:

Thanks!