Optimus V - 15.6 inch - bang for buck.

I ordered the Optimus V 15.6 inch laptop with specs of:

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 HYPER-X IMPACT 1600MHz SODIMM DDR3 (1 x 8GB)
Graphics Card NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 860M - 2.0GB DDR5, 640 CUDA Cores - DirectX® 11
Memory - Hard Disk 120GB KINGSTON V300 SSD, SATA 6 Gb (450MB/R, 450MB/W)
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
Bluetooth & Wireless GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® N-7260 (300Mbps, 802.11BGN) + BLUETOOTH
Wireless Router/HomePlugs NONE
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 Lead & Adaptor 1 x UK Power Lead & 120W AC Adaptor
Keyboard Language BACKLIT OPTIMUS UK KEYBOARD WITH NUMBER PAD
Operating System NO OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIRED
Warranty 3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery PCS EXTRA-CARE DIAMOND DELIVERY - MON-FRI, PRE-NOON
Build Time Standard Build - Approximately 8 to 10 working days

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I ordered on the 24th of September 2014 and received the laptop on the 15th of October.
One thing I was surprised about, was the fact that pre-production only started from the 30th of Septemeber, that's 7 days or 5 working days after order made.
Other than that, I did expect building time to take long, so wasn't surprised here.

Now when it comes to packaging I did get the PCS extra care Diamond Delivery - and that really is a very good service to use.

The Laptop itself:

Build quality - it's very sturdy and is is tough whilst it has that slight bend feature if you put pressure on (especially on the screen area) which is good so it withstand accidental bashes against something. The laptop is thicker than I though, but it's not too much of a big deal, as I will be mainly using it at home.

Screen - This is my first 1080p laptop, I didn't realise how good a screen can be just with extra resolution, colours are magnificent and on point. only slight issue, maybe because i'm not used to it, but due to the resolution tiles and icons are a lot smaller than on my previous laptops.

OS - I didn't order the laptop to come with pre-built OS, I have a windows 7 genuine Pro CD, so instead used that. however, PCSpecialist did provide a trial version of windows 7 home, so I could have easily used there installation and just grab an activation code from somewhere. Now when installing drivers, the CD was useless, it didn't work, it said it's incompatible with my OS for some odd reason. however, all drivers provided online functioned properly.

Sound - At first sound on these were terrible, literally unbearable. then I realised there was an issue with the home cinema v2, as it didn't recognise my sound driver. so I uninstalled all audio driver including the home cinema, and then reinstalled, and voila, the sound was much, much better. at first the sound at 100% was so low that you had to have everyone in the room not breath to hear it. now, quality is there and is much louder, there is no bass though. I like the fact that speakers are facing you, which is better than having it underneath.

Hard-drives - I just added an SSD 120GB for the OS, as the chasis had space for another harddrive, I added my old 1TB hdd and it functions fine. boot up speed are between 14-17 seconds. which is very good especially as I didn't get the best SSD.

Graphics - the GTX 860m is a very good medium end graphics card - plays nearly all games at ultra. and I like the fact that I can set different programs to either use the GTX card or the built in intel one. Only issue with graphics is the nVidia controller, it is no where near as useful as the AMD Catalyst Control Center - that one just has so much more features and is much easier to use.

Keyboard and trackpad - the kayboard lights up which is nice but I doubt I'd use it a lot. the keyboard is sturdy which is nice but also has that nice spring feeling about it. the trackpad quite large compared to my previous laptops so this is a plus, but the buttons are not as good, they lack that springiness in them. I do however, use an external keyboard and mouse at home so it makes no difference to me.

Buttons - One thing I dislike is the power button and the others actually - they don't click, you can't feel that you've clicked the button, unless the laptop turns on or if you press the graphics button, only time you know it registered correctly is if the graphics ui comes on.

Network - i found it quite weird that I had to install two seperate drivers for the wifi and the lan connection. I don't know if I have not installed the bluetooth drivers correctly, but when I tried to connect my ps3 controller via bluetooth, the ps3 connecting program said I had to prepare my bluetooth feature to pick up the ps3 controllers signal, but I didn't know how to.

Others - The camera functions properly with no issues. I have not tested the SD 3 in 1.

Battery - It's small compared to other laptops, but as of yet I have not used it, it's always been plugged in to the mains socket, so can't comment on this yet.

Price - I got all this for £766 including VAT, so for me its bang for buck, and I know for a fact that there is no better priced laptop elsewhere with my specs.

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EDIT -
Fan noise - Currently I've only played Fifa 15, on high settings, and the fan can be heard, its quite loud, however when browsing or watching videos its quite silent.

CD Drive - i think it's quite rubbish, it makes so much sound when you put in a cd/dvd and is not the fastest. I won't be using it much.
 
Last edited:

mrducking

Bright Spark
im really interested in a similar configuration, can you please post temperatures when fully using GPU and CPU, like playing a demanding game, pretty please :) :) :)
 

mrducking

Bright Spark
there ae a lot, i use HWmonitor, you just open it, play/whatever and it will record max temps, actual temps and min temps, it's really easy
 
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