Jackfacespoon
Member
So I've had the new laptop for about a week now and thought I'd pen a quick review to outline my thoughts for the benefit of future buyers...
Overall I must say I'm very happy with the laptop itself - it is very quick and when you look at the price you absolutely can't complain with the quality of the product and level of service received. That said, let's go over my negatives....:
Spacebar
This sounds odd but the space bar is possibly the most annoying aspect of this laptop for me - it simply doesn't register all the time when pressed. You can test it by pressing down on either end and noticing that it doesn't always work, which is tedious as it's one of the most used keys when typing! It does waste time having to go back through text to add in the spaces.
I don't know if mine is just defective at all - hopefully a PCS rep or another owner could chip in to verify??
Nvidia Optimus
I understand that it's in beta and it's Nvidia's fault, but Optimus has been a major headache to set up. It didn't allow me to Optimise anything to begin with even though it recognised that I had an approved card and I had to move to a beta driver for it to work. Even then, you can't set profiles for any program you wish (anything to do with the HDMI port naturally goes through the built-in Intel graphics as (I presume) that's physically what it's connected to), which was really what I wanted this for; setting video players to use the GPU to output hi-res & DTS video to my home receiver. For others in this position, I suggest you download Nvidia Inspector, a third-party program that allows you to override the normal Nvidia settings. I'm still not certain that I have this sorted....
Drivers
I downloaded all the recommended drivers from the PCS website, and as the list was (apparently) 'customised' for my order I assumed that they would all be necessary, or at least useful. They're not. I consider myself pretty computer literate and I gave up trying to recognise what the drivers were - this was a major pain and caused many program crashes until everything was up to date. The laptop doesn't have a fingerprint reader, so why supply me with the drivers and 3 programs in order to manage that?? Took a lot of unnecessary time trying to correct errors like this and PCS should really make it simpler.
Other than this, I'm more than happy with how the laptop runs now - it is very quick and allows me to game on the (older) games I currently have very proficiently. The build quality and trackpad were two points I was worried about, but both are fine for me, multi-touch gestures work perfectly, and the look and feel of the laptop is far better in real life than in pictures I think. Bit bulky, bit heavy, but I was expecting that for this kind of laptop. I knew I wanted a backlit keyboard, and I love it. Excellent feature. Display is great, love the matte finish, colours look good. Speakers are so-so, but again, wasn't expecting much here. Another plus is how easy it is to get into the case to modify or add hardware in the future. Haven't managed to get the GPU temp above 65 C even whilst benchmarking.
So, overall really pleased. Well done PCS (on balance), communication was great for the periods of the build where things were actually happening! Would definitely recommend, and am happy to show off my laptop to anyone that sees it!
Pics:
Spec:
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 250GB Samsung 840 EVO SSD, SATA 6Gb/s (upto 540MB/sR | 520MB/sW)
DVD/BLU-RAY Drive 6x BLURAY ROM, 8x DVD ±R/±RW & CYBERLINK SOFTWARE
Thermal Paste STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
Sound Card Intel 2 Channel High Definition Audio + MIC/Headphone Jack
Bluetooth & Wireless GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® AC-7260 HMC (867Mbps, 802.11AC) + BLUETOOTH
Warranty 3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time Standard Build - Approximately 5 to 7 working days
Overall I must say I'm very happy with the laptop itself - it is very quick and when you look at the price you absolutely can't complain with the quality of the product and level of service received. That said, let's go over my negatives....:
Spacebar
This sounds odd but the space bar is possibly the most annoying aspect of this laptop for me - it simply doesn't register all the time when pressed. You can test it by pressing down on either end and noticing that it doesn't always work, which is tedious as it's one of the most used keys when typing! It does waste time having to go back through text to add in the spaces.
I don't know if mine is just defective at all - hopefully a PCS rep or another owner could chip in to verify??
Nvidia Optimus
I understand that it's in beta and it's Nvidia's fault, but Optimus has been a major headache to set up. It didn't allow me to Optimise anything to begin with even though it recognised that I had an approved card and I had to move to a beta driver for it to work. Even then, you can't set profiles for any program you wish (anything to do with the HDMI port naturally goes through the built-in Intel graphics as (I presume) that's physically what it's connected to), which was really what I wanted this for; setting video players to use the GPU to output hi-res & DTS video to my home receiver. For others in this position, I suggest you download Nvidia Inspector, a third-party program that allows you to override the normal Nvidia settings. I'm still not certain that I have this sorted....
Drivers
I downloaded all the recommended drivers from the PCS website, and as the list was (apparently) 'customised' for my order I assumed that they would all be necessary, or at least useful. They're not. I consider myself pretty computer literate and I gave up trying to recognise what the drivers were - this was a major pain and caused many program crashes until everything was up to date. The laptop doesn't have a fingerprint reader, so why supply me with the drivers and 3 programs in order to manage that?? Took a lot of unnecessary time trying to correct errors like this and PCS should really make it simpler.
Other than this, I'm more than happy with how the laptop runs now - it is very quick and allows me to game on the (older) games I currently have very proficiently. The build quality and trackpad were two points I was worried about, but both are fine for me, multi-touch gestures work perfectly, and the look and feel of the laptop is far better in real life than in pictures I think. Bit bulky, bit heavy, but I was expecting that for this kind of laptop. I knew I wanted a backlit keyboard, and I love it. Excellent feature. Display is great, love the matte finish, colours look good. Speakers are so-so, but again, wasn't expecting much here. Another plus is how easy it is to get into the case to modify or add hardware in the future. Haven't managed to get the GPU temp above 65 C even whilst benchmarking.
So, overall really pleased. Well done PCS (on balance), communication was great for the periods of the build where things were actually happening! Would definitely recommend, and am happy to show off my laptop to anyone that sees it!
Pics:
Spec:
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 250GB Samsung 840 EVO SSD, SATA 6Gb/s (upto 540MB/sR | 520MB/sW)
DVD/BLU-RAY Drive 6x BLURAY ROM, 8x DVD ±R/±RW & CYBERLINK SOFTWARE
Thermal Paste STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
Sound Card Intel 2 Channel High Definition Audio + MIC/Headphone Jack
Bluetooth & Wireless GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® AC-7260 HMC (867Mbps, 802.11AC) + BLUETOOTH
Warranty 3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time Standard Build - Approximately 5 to 7 working days