Specs:
I ordered this laptop because I needed something portable for my work, but since I'm not home a lot, I also wanted it to have sufficient performance to do whatever I normally do on my desktop. (work, gaming,...) I ordered the laptop without an OS as I mainly use Linux, so this review is mostly from a Linux' user perspective.
Processing and customer support: The laptop was dispatched withing 6 days, and I was kept well informed about the building process. When I had questions or extra requests, they answered me pretty fast.
Look & feel: The build quality is good, although the plastic chassis feels less premium than most other laptops of its price category. However this was completely expected so I have no problem with it. The laptop has a soft touch finish on the back of the screen, which feels nice. Due to its canted edges, it fits great in a backpack.
Hardware: I was most impressed with the screen. It is very crisp, has excellent viewing angels and brightness and doesn't reflect too much in the sunlight. I had to get used to the high DPI screen, but I'm happy that I took the 1080p screen instead of the QHD screen. The keyboard looks great, but the plastic used feels 'different' than usual. I like the touch response though. The keyboard backlight has two settings. The Onkyo speakers surprised me coming from such a small notebook. They give an excellent sound quality and can be boosted quite a bit above maximum volume (through PulseAudio) without crackling. Only real drawback is the touchpad which just sucks. The edge seems to have a dead zone so scrolling with it is kind of a hit and miss. It doesn't really bother me though, as I navigate mostly using either the keyboard or a mouse.
Performance: With the SSD, quad core i7 and 860M there is no doubt that this is a pretty fast notebook, especially considering its size. When I'm not gaming with the discrete graphics, the notebook stays very cool and quiet. It can run some older games on the Intel graphics too. when using the GTX 860M it gets pretty loud and hot, but even with the sub-par Linux drivers, the results were great. (see Heaven benchmark below). Temps while idle are between 40-45°C without cooling pad, 50-55°C while gaming.
Linux issues: To get the WiFi working, I had to recompile the driver code with a small fix which I found over at the kali forums. Keep in mind that the code is now here and the line you need to change has moved, but it looks the same so you can ctrl+f for it. To get Optimus working you might need to play around a little with Bumblebee, but I've had no issues so far. Battery time wasn't that great at about 3-3.5 hours, but since I forgot to install the laptop-mode-tools, that might improve.
Overall I'm very happy with this laptop, I've had none of the issues some other reviews mentioned.
Pics:
Unigine Heaven 4.0 benchmark on Linux Mint with Nvidia 3.13 drivers, Preset Extreme:
I ordered this laptop because I needed something portable for my work, but since I'm not home a lot, I also wanted it to have sufficient performance to do whatever I normally do on my desktop. (work, gaming,...) I ordered the laptop without an OS as I mainly use Linux, so this review is mostly from a Linux' user perspective.
Processing and customer support: The laptop was dispatched withing 6 days, and I was kept well informed about the building process. When I had questions or extra requests, they answered me pretty fast.
Look & feel: The build quality is good, although the plastic chassis feels less premium than most other laptops of its price category. However this was completely expected so I have no problem with it. The laptop has a soft touch finish on the back of the screen, which feels nice. Due to its canted edges, it fits great in a backpack.
Hardware: I was most impressed with the screen. It is very crisp, has excellent viewing angels and brightness and doesn't reflect too much in the sunlight. I had to get used to the high DPI screen, but I'm happy that I took the 1080p screen instead of the QHD screen. The keyboard looks great, but the plastic used feels 'different' than usual. I like the touch response though. The keyboard backlight has two settings. The Onkyo speakers surprised me coming from such a small notebook. They give an excellent sound quality and can be boosted quite a bit above maximum volume (through PulseAudio) without crackling. Only real drawback is the touchpad which just sucks. The edge seems to have a dead zone so scrolling with it is kind of a hit and miss. It doesn't really bother me though, as I navigate mostly using either the keyboard or a mouse.
Performance: With the SSD, quad core i7 and 860M there is no doubt that this is a pretty fast notebook, especially considering its size. When I'm not gaming with the discrete graphics, the notebook stays very cool and quiet. It can run some older games on the Intel graphics too. when using the GTX 860M it gets pretty loud and hot, but even with the sub-par Linux drivers, the results were great. (see Heaven benchmark below). Temps while idle are between 40-45°C without cooling pad, 50-55°C while gaming.
Linux issues: To get the WiFi working, I had to recompile the driver code with a small fix which I found over at the kali forums. Keep in mind that the code is now here and the line you need to change has moved, but it looks the same so you can ctrl+f for it. To get Optimus working you might need to play around a little with Bumblebee, but I've had no issues so far. Battery time wasn't that great at about 3-3.5 hours, but since I forgot to install the laptop-mode-tools, that might improve.
Overall I'm very happy with this laptop, I've had none of the issues some other reviews mentioned.
Pics:
Unigine Heaven 4.0 benchmark on Linux Mint with Nvidia 3.13 drivers, Preset Extreme:
Last edited:
