Optimus V 15.6" Review

After having my laptop for more than a week now, I can say that I am very impressed with my purchase.

The laptop is very fast, and noise due to fans is hardly noticable. I have had no temperature issues as of yet. All games played so far (Sniper Elite v2, Civilisation 5, Far Cry 3, Kerbal Space Program) load super fast on my ssd, and I can handle very high quality.

Boot-up time is a matter of seconds. I've updated from Windows 7 to 8 and, while initially finding the change quite disorientating at first, have got used to the system and can navigate it with ease.

I'm very pleased to say that the building period was handled excellently by PCSpecialist. I was kept updated throughout building, testing etc. Production time was 12 working days, and it was worth the wait.

Only negative things that I can think of is that PCSpecialist are slow to reply by email, which was annoying when I was unable to phone at the time. It seems that I missed the Watch Dogs promo that came out on the same day as my purchase. I received the £90 game code promo fine though.

Images (apologies if potato quality) and Spec attached. If anybody is considering making a purchase for this laptop, feel free to ask me questions and I'll try my best to answer as soon as I can.

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Chassis & Display
Optimus Series: 15.6" Matte Full HD LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Mobile Processor i7-4710MQ (2.50GHz) 6MB
Memory (RAM)
8GB KINGSTON SODIMM DDR3 1600MHz (1 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 860M - 2.0GB DDR5, 640 CUDA Cores - DirectX® 11
1st Hard Disk
500GB SERIAL ATA II 2.5" HARD DRIVE WITH 8MB CACHE (5,400rpm)
M.2 SSD Drive
120GB Kingston SSDNow mS200 mSATA (upto 550MB/sR | 520MB/sW)
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 MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND
Sound Card
Intel 2 Channel High Definition Audio + MIC/Headphone Jack
Wireless/Wired Networking
WIRELESS INTEL® N135 802.11N (150Mbps) + BLUETOOTH
USB Options
3 x USB 3.0 PORTS + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT AS STANDARD
Battery
Optimus Series 8 Cell Lithium Ion Battery (5,200 mAh/76.96WH)
Power Cable
1 x UK Power Lead & 120W AC Adaptor
Operating System
Genuine Windows 8.1 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence
DVD Recovery Media
Windows 8.1 (64-bit) DVD with paper sleeve
Office Software
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Browser
Firefox™
Keyboard Language
BACKLIT OPTIMUS UK KEYBOARD WITH NUMBER PAD
Mouse
INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
Webcam
INTEGRATED 2.0 MEGAPIXEL WEBCAM
Warranty
3 Year Standard Warranty (1 Month Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 11 to 13 working days
Miscellaneous
FREE £90 IN-GAME VOUCHER with GTX 650 / 750 /7000M / 8000M Series GPUs

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Hi there,

Was very interested to read your review as I'm looking to get something very similar (if not, the same) spec-wise, and I just had a couple of questions. How does the keyboard feel? I do a fair bit of typing and am looking for something fairly solid. Also, I'm a Windows 7 user currently and am thinking about how I would cope with Windows 8.1. Do you have a preference, and why?

Many thanks in advance

Edit: how is the heat when gaming?

his nibs said:

Hi there,

Was very interested to read your revue as I'm looking to get something very similar (if not, the same) spec-wise, and I just had a couple of questions. How does the keyboard feel? I do a fair bit of typing and am looking for something fairly solid. Also, I'm a Windows 7 user currently and am thinking about how I would cope with Windows 8.1. Do you have a preference, and why?

Many thanks in advance

Edit: how is the heat when gaming?

Click to expand...

Hard to describe how to keyboard feels, but I really like it. Fast and easy to type using it. Loving the white backlight to the keys as well!

Windows 8 was weird at first... But I'm liking it. When you're buying a new machine, getting Windows 8 over Windows 7 is a must in my opinion. I used a Windows 7 computer yesterday and it just felt old in comparison. Windows 8 is certainly a preference for me now.

Heat while gaming isn't a problem for me so far... Reaching about 70 degrees. Haven't installed the most demanding games just yet, so I may have yet to find out. If you game a lot for long periods of time, I would expect that you need to make sure you place your laptop in a well ventilated area. You may want to consider a cooling stand. However for me, I can game quite fine without having to worry about heat just yet.

I have noticed that when ejecting memory sticks, the metal is very warm. This is probably just my new experience with laptops, but it's an indicator of how warm the machine can get internally.

Thanks for the review, it was very helpful!

I'm strongly leaning towards ordering an Optimus V myself - what do you think of the screen? I'd be interested to hear anything you can say about and colour quality in terms of vivid colours, milkyess, etc.

It's a shame that there is no IPS option...