jakjawagon
Member
I don't normally do reviews, so I don't know how helpful this will be, but I guess the best way would be to go through all the options and make whatever comments I deem appropriate.
Chassis & Display
Optimus Series: 15.6" Matte Full HD LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
The screen is wonderful. Fairly good contrast, great colour. There is a small amount of backlight bleed at the left, but this is easily ignored. The chassis lid is very fingerprinty, but the laptop feels solid. Kind of boring to look at, but it's what's inside that counts.
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Mobile Processor i7-4710MQ (2.50GHz) 6MB
I probably could have got away with an i5, as I have a desktop for serious gaming, and this laptop is mainly for internets and videos. I wanted quad core though, so I got quad core.
Memory (RAM)
8GB KINGSTON HYPER-X IMPACT 1600MHz SODIMM DDR3 (1 x 8GB)
More than sufficient.
Graphics Card
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 860M - 2.0GB DDR5, 640 CUDA Cores - DirectX® 11
Maxwell GPUs man. So efficient. Even maxed out, it ran cool. I haven't bothered to check actual temperatures yet. but the laptop itself didn't feel at all hot.
1st Hard Disk
1TB SEAGATE HYBRID GEN3 SSHD Drive, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (5400 rpm)
I'm planning on adding another one of these when I can afford it. Big and fast.
M.2 SSD Drive
120GB INTEL® 525 mSATA MLC SSD (upto 550MB/sR | 520MB/sW)
This is my first computer with an SSD, and now that I've experienced it, there's no going back. Starts up so fast.
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
6x BLURAY ROM, 8x DVD ±R/±RW & CYBERLINK SOFTWARE
PowerDVD 13 included (I think 14 is the latest version). It's a shame there's no decent free blu-ray playing software. I'm not fond of Cyberlink software, but I appreciate it being included, unlike other system builders where it costs extra. I don't know if the alternatives are any good or not.
Memory Card Reader
Internal 9 in 1 Card Reader (MMC/RSMMC/SD: Mini, XC & HC/MS: Pro & Duo)
Haven't used this yet.
Thermal Paste
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND
Like I said under the GPU, the laptop runs cool even when playing demanding games.
Sound Card
Intel 2 Channel High Definition Audio + MIC/Headphone Jack
The sound is surprisingly good here, through headphones at least. I have a feeling it's mostly software processing, but it doesn't matter where it comes from, it sounds great. The laptop doesn't have very good built-in speakers, but what laptop does?
Wireless/Wired Networking
GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® AC-7260 (867Mbps, 802.11AC) + BLUETOOTH
Capable of streaming blu-ray quality video over a network, if your router's fast enough.
USB Options
3 x USB 3.0 PORTS + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT AS STANDARD
The hybrid USB/eSATA port is weird. I'll probably get used to it.
Battery
Optimus Series 8 Cell Lithium Ion Battery (5,200 mAh/76.96WH)
Haven't used it on battery much, but seems good so far.
Power Cable
1 x UK Power Lead & 120W AC Adaptor
Power brick is kinda huge. Not a problem for me.
Keyboard Language
BACKLIT OPTIMUS UK KEYBOARD WITH NUMBER PAD
Doesn't have the best feel as laptop keyboards go, but by no means bad. Low backlight sufficient for most situations, high backlight too bright most of the time. Would be nice to have finer control, but not a big deal.
Operating System
Genuine Windows 8.1 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence
I much prefer Windows 7, but after some customisation, not actually that bad.
DVD Recovery Media
Windows 8.1 (64-bit) DVD with paper sleeve
It's been a while since I last bought a laptop, but my last laptop didn't include a Windows DVD, it just had a recovery partition on the hard drive. This is much more flexible, and leaves more space on the hard drive for me to use.
Office Software
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Not sure if this is relevant, but I'm using LibreOffice, which despite being fairly bloated, is the best free office software I've found. It took a good half a minute to start up on my last laptop, but starts in about three seconds here due to the SSD.
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Currently using BitDefender. I really appreciate the option not to have anything pre-installed, even if I'd rather that that was the default.
Mouse
INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
The only problems I've had with this are probably due to Windows 8(.1) rather than the touchpad itself. I hated all the new Windows 8 touchpad gestures, and some of them were easy to disable, but others involved fiddling about in the registry.
Webcam
INTEGRATED 2.0 MEGAPIXEL WEBCAM
I've never once used a webcam. A nice thing about this one is that you can disable it with a keyboard shortcut. Properly disable it too, so the system forgets it's there unless you switch it back on again with the keyboard shortcut.
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
I hope I will never need this, but three years is plenty. Given the amount of maintenance information available online for Clevo laptops, I'll probably be able to fix most things myself after it runs out.
Dead Pixel Guarantee
1 Year Dead Pixel Guarantee Inc. Labour & Carriage Costs
Not noticed any dead pixels yet, but once you notice them, you can't not notice them, so it's nice to know that I'm covered.
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Laptop was delivered by DPD, who are great. The tracking website even has GPS information for the truck containing the relevant parcel.
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 8 to 10 working days
It was in 'pre-build' for ages, but I can't hold that against them. It's not their fault if they had a backlog or something.
Other stuff
One very minor complaint is that you can't properly turn the screen off. There's a keyboard shortcut to turn the screen (or possibly just the backlight) off, but it comes back on if you press anything, or even do anything remotely. Really not a big deal, but it was something that I liked about most of my previous laptops that isn't on this one.
I am getting some lag weirdness with flash player in Firefox, but as it isn't happening in other browsers, it probably isn't the laptop's fault.
The desktop background was set to plain black, rather than the default Windows background. This isn't really a plus or a minus, just a bit unusual compared to other laptops I've bought.
Overall
A fine laptop. Even though the process was slow, PCSpecialist kept me informed throughout. Build quality is great. Generally very pleased with my purchase and experience.
Aforementioned fingerprinty lid
Aforementioned huge power brick
Side view
Chassis & Display
Optimus Series: 15.6" Matte Full HD LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
The screen is wonderful. Fairly good contrast, great colour. There is a small amount of backlight bleed at the left, but this is easily ignored. The chassis lid is very fingerprinty, but the laptop feels solid. Kind of boring to look at, but it's what's inside that counts.
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Mobile Processor i7-4710MQ (2.50GHz) 6MB
I probably could have got away with an i5, as I have a desktop for serious gaming, and this laptop is mainly for internets and videos. I wanted quad core though, so I got quad core.
Memory (RAM)
8GB KINGSTON HYPER-X IMPACT 1600MHz SODIMM DDR3 (1 x 8GB)
More than sufficient.
Graphics Card
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 860M - 2.0GB DDR5, 640 CUDA Cores - DirectX® 11
Maxwell GPUs man. So efficient. Even maxed out, it ran cool. I haven't bothered to check actual temperatures yet. but the laptop itself didn't feel at all hot.
1st Hard Disk
1TB SEAGATE HYBRID GEN3 SSHD Drive, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (5400 rpm)
I'm planning on adding another one of these when I can afford it. Big and fast.
M.2 SSD Drive
120GB INTEL® 525 mSATA MLC SSD (upto 550MB/sR | 520MB/sW)
This is my first computer with an SSD, and now that I've experienced it, there's no going back. Starts up so fast.
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
6x BLURAY ROM, 8x DVD ±R/±RW & CYBERLINK SOFTWARE
PowerDVD 13 included (I think 14 is the latest version). It's a shame there's no decent free blu-ray playing software. I'm not fond of Cyberlink software, but I appreciate it being included, unlike other system builders where it costs extra. I don't know if the alternatives are any good or not.
Memory Card Reader
Internal 9 in 1 Card Reader (MMC/RSMMC/SD: Mini, XC & HC/MS: Pro & Duo)
Haven't used this yet.
Thermal Paste
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND
Like I said under the GPU, the laptop runs cool even when playing demanding games.
Sound Card
Intel 2 Channel High Definition Audio + MIC/Headphone Jack
The sound is surprisingly good here, through headphones at least. I have a feeling it's mostly software processing, but it doesn't matter where it comes from, it sounds great. The laptop doesn't have very good built-in speakers, but what laptop does?
Wireless/Wired Networking
GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® AC-7260 (867Mbps, 802.11AC) + BLUETOOTH
Capable of streaming blu-ray quality video over a network, if your router's fast enough.
USB Options
3 x USB 3.0 PORTS + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT AS STANDARD
The hybrid USB/eSATA port is weird. I'll probably get used to it.
Battery
Optimus Series 8 Cell Lithium Ion Battery (5,200 mAh/76.96WH)
Haven't used it on battery much, but seems good so far.
Power Cable
1 x UK Power Lead & 120W AC Adaptor
Power brick is kinda huge. Not a problem for me.
Keyboard Language
BACKLIT OPTIMUS UK KEYBOARD WITH NUMBER PAD
Doesn't have the best feel as laptop keyboards go, but by no means bad. Low backlight sufficient for most situations, high backlight too bright most of the time. Would be nice to have finer control, but not a big deal.
Operating System
Genuine Windows 8.1 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence
I much prefer Windows 7, but after some customisation, not actually that bad.
DVD Recovery Media
Windows 8.1 (64-bit) DVD with paper sleeve
It's been a while since I last bought a laptop, but my last laptop didn't include a Windows DVD, it just had a recovery partition on the hard drive. This is much more flexible, and leaves more space on the hard drive for me to use.
Office Software
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Not sure if this is relevant, but I'm using LibreOffice, which despite being fairly bloated, is the best free office software I've found. It took a good half a minute to start up on my last laptop, but starts in about three seconds here due to the SSD.
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Currently using BitDefender. I really appreciate the option not to have anything pre-installed, even if I'd rather that that was the default.
Mouse
INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
The only problems I've had with this are probably due to Windows 8(.1) rather than the touchpad itself. I hated all the new Windows 8 touchpad gestures, and some of them were easy to disable, but others involved fiddling about in the registry.
Webcam
INTEGRATED 2.0 MEGAPIXEL WEBCAM
I've never once used a webcam. A nice thing about this one is that you can disable it with a keyboard shortcut. Properly disable it too, so the system forgets it's there unless you switch it back on again with the keyboard shortcut.
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
I hope I will never need this, but three years is plenty. Given the amount of maintenance information available online for Clevo laptops, I'll probably be able to fix most things myself after it runs out.
Dead Pixel Guarantee
1 Year Dead Pixel Guarantee Inc. Labour & Carriage Costs
Not noticed any dead pixels yet, but once you notice them, you can't not notice them, so it's nice to know that I'm covered.
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Laptop was delivered by DPD, who are great. The tracking website even has GPS information for the truck containing the relevant parcel.
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 8 to 10 working days
It was in 'pre-build' for ages, but I can't hold that against them. It's not their fault if they had a backlog or something.
Other stuff
One very minor complaint is that you can't properly turn the screen off. There's a keyboard shortcut to turn the screen (or possibly just the backlight) off, but it comes back on if you press anything, or even do anything remotely. Really not a big deal, but it was something that I liked about most of my previous laptops that isn't on this one.
I am getting some lag weirdness with flash player in Firefox, but as it isn't happening in other browsers, it probably isn't the laptop's fault.
The desktop background was set to plain black, rather than the default Windows background. This isn't really a plus or a minus, just a bit unusual compared to other laptops I've bought.
Overall
A fine laptop. Even though the process was slow, PCSpecialist kept me informed throughout. Build quality is great. Generally very pleased with my purchase and experience.
Aforementioned fingerprinty lid
Aforementioned huge power brick
Side view
Last edited:
I went for gold warranty since silver only offers cover of parts for 1 year.