Hey guys, just doing my review of my Optimus V, the 15,6 inches edition. Specs are below.
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
2nd Graphics Card NONE
Memory - Hard Disk 500GB SERIAL ATA II 2.5" HARD DRIVE WITH 8MB CACHE (5,400rpm)
2nd Hard Disk NONE (Here, I inserted my own Samsung 840 Pro Evo 128Gb)
RAID NONE
mSATA SSD Drive NONE
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 STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
Sound Card Intel 2 Channel High Definition Audio + MIC/Headphone Jack
Bluetooth & Wireless GIGABIT LAN & KILLER™ 1202 WIRELESS GAMING 802.11N + BLUETOOTH 4.0
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)
Notebook Mouse INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
Webcam INTEGRATED 2.0 MEGAPIXEL WEBCAM
I have had the laptop for about 10 days, and I have to say I am pretty satisfied with it. The main areas I was worried about was the build quality, keyboard, touchpad and the screen. I was very satisfied with these apart from the touchpad, which is of pretty low quality, admittedly. The main gripe is that it is not functional in the whole area that is designated as touchpad on the casing. Two vertical lines of about 0,5-1 cm each on both sides of the touchpad are not functioning, not receiving any input at all. I am assuming this is not a defect of my machine specifically, but that the actual input area under the case is smaller than the touchpad size on the case itself. Which is really annoying. Nevertheless, I was always going to use a mouse most of the time, and I expected it to be of low quality, but if you are interested in a good touchpad, this is definitely not it. Mouse clicks are also pretty cheap, but they work better and more reliably than the touchpad itself
On the other hand, build quality is surprisingly good for a hunk of plastic, it seems pretty sturdy, and it doesn't give in anywhere, from what I've seen so far. Keyboard is pretty nice too, for my tastes at least, not giving in with hard presses of the keys, and with adequate spacing in-between keys for comfortable typing. Key layout is a bit different from what I'm used to which leads to often errors, but I guess it just needs some time to get used to it. Screen is also surprisingly good. I expected a bit worse for a matte screen, but it holds up surprisingly well in most occasions, although I have to admit I haven't watched a movie or show yet, only played one game, and worked for uni. Brightness is sufficient, but I would like for it to go 10% brighter sometimes in daylight. Temperatures are superb so far (I am checking with HWMonitor), and fan noise is definitely noticeable when running something more demanding, but nothing out of the ordinary, or unexpected when you put these kind of specs in a budget laptop. If you use ear/headphones it won't be noticeable at all.
As far as performance is concerned, I am more than satisfied with the machine. I haven't tried anything particularly demanding yet, only a 2d/3d indie game, that initially ran like crap because it ran with the integrated gpu, but when I turned on the 860M it ran like butter. I am not expecting the world from the 860M but I am expecting some good things. I will add some more to the review after I try some more games.
The Samsung SSD that I added my previous machine however, makes the laptop really fly, booting in less than 5 seconds, and shutting down in 1-2 secs. I didn't try it with the original HDD, so I can't really compare, but I strongly recommend you get an SSD with any laptop/desktop you get, it makes a world of difference.
One more point, it is clearly stated that the card reader is a 9in1, but I think the one on this casing is a 3in1, only taking SD, MMC and MS. Not bothered by it as I don't use these things that often, but a pretty bad thing if it is false information on the website. You can see the port in the pics and judge for yourselves. Again, I am NOT sure if this is indeed the case, I might be missing something here.
Finally, PcSpecialist buying and support experience. I have to say I was really really frustrated with the delay in the delivery of my laptop. It took 16 working days (22 calendar days) for it to actually get delivered. Communication during this time was subpar. After a lot of days in pre-production I contacted them and they stated that it would arrive by a date, but in the end they didn't even make that day for the delivery. I understand they have a lot of orders this time of year, but imo they can do a lot better as far as communication and customer involvement is concerned. Everything else from them was really good though, from initially making the purchase, to informing you exactly when the laptop would arrive, to including the CD with all the appropriate drivers and extra utilities (in my experience even some big companies fail with this simple task).
All this is just my opinion, I hope it is helpful to anyone looking to purchase one. Cheers
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
2nd Graphics Card NONE
Memory - Hard Disk 500GB SERIAL ATA II 2.5" HARD DRIVE WITH 8MB CACHE (5,400rpm)
2nd Hard Disk NONE (Here, I inserted my own Samsung 840 Pro Evo 128Gb)
RAID NONE
mSATA SSD Drive NONE
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 STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
Sound Card Intel 2 Channel High Definition Audio + MIC/Headphone Jack
Bluetooth & Wireless GIGABIT LAN & KILLER™ 1202 WIRELESS GAMING 802.11N + BLUETOOTH 4.0
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)
Notebook Mouse INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
Webcam INTEGRATED 2.0 MEGAPIXEL WEBCAM
I have had the laptop for about 10 days, and I have to say I am pretty satisfied with it. The main areas I was worried about was the build quality, keyboard, touchpad and the screen. I was very satisfied with these apart from the touchpad, which is of pretty low quality, admittedly. The main gripe is that it is not functional in the whole area that is designated as touchpad on the casing. Two vertical lines of about 0,5-1 cm each on both sides of the touchpad are not functioning, not receiving any input at all. I am assuming this is not a defect of my machine specifically, but that the actual input area under the case is smaller than the touchpad size on the case itself. Which is really annoying. Nevertheless, I was always going to use a mouse most of the time, and I expected it to be of low quality, but if you are interested in a good touchpad, this is definitely not it. Mouse clicks are also pretty cheap, but they work better and more reliably than the touchpad itself
On the other hand, build quality is surprisingly good for a hunk of plastic, it seems pretty sturdy, and it doesn't give in anywhere, from what I've seen so far. Keyboard is pretty nice too, for my tastes at least, not giving in with hard presses of the keys, and with adequate spacing in-between keys for comfortable typing. Key layout is a bit different from what I'm used to which leads to often errors, but I guess it just needs some time to get used to it. Screen is also surprisingly good. I expected a bit worse for a matte screen, but it holds up surprisingly well in most occasions, although I have to admit I haven't watched a movie or show yet, only played one game, and worked for uni. Brightness is sufficient, but I would like for it to go 10% brighter sometimes in daylight. Temperatures are superb so far (I am checking with HWMonitor), and fan noise is definitely noticeable when running something more demanding, but nothing out of the ordinary, or unexpected when you put these kind of specs in a budget laptop. If you use ear/headphones it won't be noticeable at all.
As far as performance is concerned, I am more than satisfied with the machine. I haven't tried anything particularly demanding yet, only a 2d/3d indie game, that initially ran like crap because it ran with the integrated gpu, but when I turned on the 860M it ran like butter. I am not expecting the world from the 860M but I am expecting some good things. I will add some more to the review after I try some more games.
The Samsung SSD that I added my previous machine however, makes the laptop really fly, booting in less than 5 seconds, and shutting down in 1-2 secs. I didn't try it with the original HDD, so I can't really compare, but I strongly recommend you get an SSD with any laptop/desktop you get, it makes a world of difference.
One more point, it is clearly stated that the card reader is a 9in1, but I think the one on this casing is a 3in1, only taking SD, MMC and MS. Not bothered by it as I don't use these things that often, but a pretty bad thing if it is false information on the website. You can see the port in the pics and judge for yourselves. Again, I am NOT sure if this is indeed the case, I might be missing something here.
Finally, PcSpecialist buying and support experience. I have to say I was really really frustrated with the delay in the delivery of my laptop. It took 16 working days (22 calendar days) for it to actually get delivered. Communication during this time was subpar. After a lot of days in pre-production I contacted them and they stated that it would arrive by a date, but in the end they didn't even make that day for the delivery. I understand they have a lot of orders this time of year, but imo they can do a lot better as far as communication and customer involvement is concerned. Everything else from them was really good though, from initially making the purchase, to informing you exactly when the laptop would arrive, to including the CD with all the appropriate drivers and extra utilities (in my experience even some big companies fail with this simple task).
All this is just my opinion, I hope it is helpful to anyone looking to purchase one. Cheers
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