Defiance II Full Review (After 10 days)

dancol

Member
Hi All,

So I posted my first impressions of my Defiance II last week and now after having it for a little longer and having more time to play with it, get used to it, get things set up and such here's a more complete full review:

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Decision to Purchase
Having started my first full time job after finishing university a few months ago I had been looking at treating myself to a new laptop for a little while. In the past I had always been in a financial position that had meant I could realistically only afford to spend around £400-450 on a laptop meaning that I had never had anything capable of playing high end games or of playing games on high settings. This time around however I set my initial budget at around £1000 and was looking for a gaming laptop capable of playing the games I had already with higher settings and also to allow me to play more demanding and more modern games with ease. I also wanted something relatively future-proof so that I wouldn't find myself in a situation as previously where a couple of years down the line I will be wanting to think about upgrading again.

PC Specialist were recommended to me by a friend a couple of years ago and since hearing about them I had for some time quite liked the idea of configuring my own computer and buying exactly what I wanted. Knowing a reasonable amount about computers but certainly far from being an expert it was something I wasn’t too sure about at first however after speaking with friends and looking on the PCS forums I decided to go with it and spent a fair while looking around the different options, looking for any upcoming hardware releases and found that the 6th generation Intel processes were launching soon. With this in mind I decided to put off buying a laptop temporarily and wait for the new processors to be released before ordering.

Once released I was a little torn between the 15” Optimus and Defiance models, with the Optimus being closer to my budget and the Defiance having a higher specification and in my opinion being a nicer looking machine. Having read a few reviews of the two and doing some research on components I opted to fork out the extra money and go with the Defiance, mostly as a result of the better graphics cards available. I upped my budget then to around the £1250 mark and decided to get going.

Specification/Final Price
I initially ordered my Defiance II with the standard Full HD display, i7-6700HQ processor, Geforce GTX 970M graphics, 16GB RAM, Killer Wireless, 240GB SSD and 1TB HDD. This all came to just over £1200 and seemed to be a reasonable option given my new budget and the specification I wanted. After reading some comments about the 240GB SSD however I chose to pay a little more to upgrade the 250GB Samsung SSD for peace of mind. I also chose to upgrade to 32GB RAM as although this is something that I definitely don’t need right now I came to the conclusion that whilst I had enough money to make that upgrade it was worthwhile doing so. I also figured that it doesn’t harm to have more than I will realistically need in the lifetime of the laptop as realistically this is better than having less than I need towards the end of its lifespan. Whilst I’m aware that this is an upgrade I could have made relatively easily at a later time this is something that I’m not familiar with doing and so once again for peace of mind I preferred to go with the upgrade now option to reduce the need for this at a later date.

The final price then came to just under £1300 slightly over my budget however I was confident with this that I was getting a lot of machine for my money and a machine that will see me a good number of years into the future. This seemed to me to be a good price for what I was getting although when looking around for direct comparisons I found very little to go on. I found very few machines available off the shelf with specifications nearing this and those that did come close to matching these specifications were generally more a; t I was paying. Although it’s difficult to establish a direct comparison then it certainly seems more than reasonable and I’m happy with my purchase, even if it is the most I’ve ever spent on a single thing in my life! Edit: Annoyingly it now seems my specification adds up to £1258 which is almost £40 less than I paid. Although it's a risk you take and have to be willing to take when ordering from PCS it is a little infuriating that had I waited longer I may have got it cheaper (particularly given the delays mentioned later in the review)

First Impressions, Looks and Build Quality
The laptop came very well packaged in polystyrene within a box within airbags within another (very very big!) box. When the package arrived I was rather shocked by it’s size but that being said it was very well protected and I’d much rather that than a small package that offers no protection at all. Upon opening the boxes and unpacking them ther was the laptop, the charger cable and (also very very big!) power brick, instruction manuals and CDs (seemed odd really as the laptop has no CD drive bot oh well, I digress). Everything you need is there and the instructions seemed to be clear and concise. There’s also a booklet with information about the laptop, how to take care of it, packaging labels for should a return be required and places to take notes if required-it’s quite a simple thing but it’s a nice touch and could be very useful indeed at times.

The laptop itself is a beautiful looking machine. It’s black metal all around and has a very premium look to it, making it feel much more solid than other laptops I’ve had which have always been plastic. It really does hammer the point home that this isn’t a budget machine but a very high spec and powerful machine. It also feels very sturdy and well-built without too much flex, and the whole thing is very nice to the touch. The design of the laptop is where things become a little more unusual though: - compared to a number of other gaming laptops I’ve seen this one looks more subtle and unassuming which I personally think is a good thing. That said, the slightly unusual shape and angular edges do give the game away to some extent and from a design point of view these probably won’t be to everyone’s taste. Personally though I like the look and think it’s a nice combination of looking like a gaming laptop without going completely overboard on any unnecessary bells and whistles.

One thing that must be mentioned about this laptop however is the size. Although it is a 15” laptop and it is quite thin it is certainly somewhat heavier and also wider and deeper than I’m used to. There’s a very thick frame around the screen which almost makes it feel like it could have managed a 16” screen if someone had put their mind to it. Whilst this isn’t necessarily a bad thing it does mean that to me at least this feels like it’s a desktop replacement laptop that can be put in a laptop bag and taken away with you from time to time when necessary rather than a laptop that you’ll want to keep with you all of the time and take with you everywhere you go. For me personally this isn’t an issue as that’s exactly what I was looking for but I can quite see that if what you’re looking for is portability then this maybe isn’t going to be the best option out there and you might want to consider something else.

Screen
I only opted for the most basic of the screens available, the Full HD display without 3k or 4k as that’s something that has always seemed to me a little pointless in a laptop with a screen this size. In the past I’ve always found laptop screens to be fine, just fine, nothing more, nothing less. The screen on this however is outstanding and puts other’s I’ve used to shame. I always thought the screen on my old laptop was perfectly fine but when I put the two side by side I realised just how wrong I was. Whilst I’ve never been particularly fussy about computer screens before the colours on this are much deeper, text is clearer and images and videos look crisper than I’ve been used to in the past. There’s also very little reflection and viewing angles are very good. Again, this is something that I’ve never really noticed in the past as I’ve never really found myself in a position where I need to look at a screen from a sideways angle but I found myself looking at the laptop from a near sideways angle to take a photo of it and notices I was still able to see the image on the screen very clearly. The downside of this of course is that it now means whenever I use my spare laptop or my partner’s computer the screens look rather dull and washed out and I find this far more noticeable.
 
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dancol

Member
Cont...

Keyboard/Touchpad
On the most part the keyboard is a pleasure to type on, the keys are a good size and I have found it very easy to adapt from my existing keyboard to this other than a few minor irritations: - a smaller right hand shift key, no extended 0 on the number pad and seemingly somehow out of place arrow keys. Of course, all of these are things that I will get more used to over time and will depend on the individual and what they are used to having but right now these are just minor inconveniences that cause a few typing errors here and there. Despite this though the keys feel nice and solid but they are quite soft and almost spongey to press with a good amount of travel on them. They don’t feel anything like as clicky as other keyboards I’ve used in the past other than the spacebar. I’m also a big fan of the backlit keyboard which not only looks cool but can be helpful. Personally I’m not the sort of person who normally sits and plays games in an otherwise completely dark room but it’s a nice feature to have and with a few different brightness settings it means you can change the settings to suit your needs. The backlight is only a solid white colour which whilst I initially felt I would have liked the option of other colours I’ve actually grown to quite like. It’s inoffensive, simple and does the job it needs to do allowing you to see the keys in a darker room. One slight bugbear with the typing however is that wresting your wrists on the edge of the laptop can become a little uncomfortable more quickly that with others I’ve used. I think this may be due to the sharper edges of this laptop compared to others and it’s not a major issue on the most part but it does mean I occasionally find myself having to stop typing for a little while to give my wrists a bit of a break.

Whilst I’ve not used the touchpad much as I normally use a wireless mouse with the laptop I haven’t had much experience with this. From the little time I have used it though it seems to be perfectly usable and suitable for use where required. There’s also an integrated fingerprint scanner between the mouse buttons that I’ve not yet had any need to use and if I’m being honest I maybe never will need to use it. Still though, it’s a nice to have and adds more security options should they ever become needed in the future.

Performance
As you would expect in day to day tasks this is one fast laptop. There’s never any slowdown no matter how much you’re trying to do at once and it just takes what you’ve asked it to do and does it. Gaming though is where the importance lies for me in this machine and although I’ve not had it for too long and I personally haven’t played any of the most demanding games out there I have tried it on the most demanding games I have and it gets through them with no problems at all, even on the highest possible settings. I’ve also let my partner put some of his more demanding games on the laptop as his gaming desktop is a couple of years old now and is starting to be less powerful than it once was and he seems very impressed by it. This is something that I think will prove itself more over time but first impressions are excellent and I have to say that I’m very glad I chose to pay extra and get the better graphics card in the Defiance over the Optimus. Now I finally have a laptop that can run more demanding games though I’m looking forward to being able to get involved in these myself and to being able to join the fun.

PC Specialist (Service)
On the most part the service I’ve received from PC Specialist has been excellent. As mentioned previously I had PC Specialist recommended to me by a friend who has ordered from PC Specialist a couple of times before. There was however slight issue which I do think could maybe have been communicated a little better. Firstly, when I was looking to order the laptop I was told that the graphics card was out of stock ad was given the date that it was expected to be back in stock. This was a very useful feature and upon the graphics card coming back into stock I then ordered the laptop. It came as a bit of surprise then when after ordering I found a thread on the PCS Forums talking about delays with Defiance II orders due to the chassis being out of stock, something I wasn’t informed of before ordering. Whilst this would not have changed my decision to order it would have been nice to have known that this was the case and to have known about the backlog of orders before placing mine in order to help manage expectations around timescales. Despite this however when I rung PCS for more information their staff were always very friendly and helpful and highly knowledgeable and I was extremely impressed with them. They were able to provide estimated build dates and also very helpfully aided me in arranging for the delivery of the laptop to be made on one of my days off work to ensure that I could be in to take delivery. Once the laptop went into build the process was very fast indeed and I was kept up to date with progress on the order and everything went very smoothly indeed.

I have to say that despite the one slight issue I have been very impressed overall. I would definitely use PC Specialist again and certainly wouldn’t hesitate to recommend them to friends and family, particularly if looking for a higher spec computer as it seems that’s where they really come into their own and it seems that there’s also a fair bit of money to be saved or much higher specifications to be had when compared with off the shelf machines.

Conclusion
What can I say? All in all I’m very impressed and couldn’t be happier with my purchase. I look forward to getting a good few years of use out of my laptop and if my first impressions last then I hope I’ll maybe be able to come back PC Specialist for my next computer in a few years’ time. Defiance VI?
 

B Lane

Member
That's a great review thank you. I have just ordered an Octane 15.6, similar spec to yours, the only major difference being the 980m. Like you, I considered the 3k or 4k option but was put off by the fact the the GPU would struggle at high settings. Also with no gsync, with the 3k display you lose the one thing that makes slower fps tolerable. My desktop rig has twin 980s driving a 4K gsync display. This has about 3 times the power of a single 980m and even then, in complex scenes the fps is well below 60. Yet because of gsync, at 40fps it looks perfectly smooth. A 4K display has twice the pixels as 3k. With a third of the GPU power and only half the resolution, compared with my desktop, it is obvious that the 980m will struggle.

On another note, I would be interested if anyone has done a similarly detailed review of the 15.6 Octane II. Have looked but in vain.
 

Parramatta

Silver Level Poster
Maybe PCS should stop giving DVDs with its laptops seeing that hardly any laptops come with DVD drives any more. Stick the OS and drivers on a cheap 16GB USB drive. Given people are paying about £1250 on average for a new system, a 16GB USB stick should be £3 wholesale.
 

shogun1904

Active member
Maybe PCS should stop giving DVDs with its laptops seeing that hardly any laptops come with DVD drives any more. Stick the OS and drivers on a cheap 16GB USB drive. Given people are paying about £1250 on average for a new system, a 16GB USB stick should be £3 wholesale.

Just ordered a defiance myself and noticed this. I assume I can make my own backup of the OS some how onto a USB stick?
 

welshnick

Member
Question for you... Does the pc remember the setting on the backlit keyboard, or does it return to dim after you switch it back on, mine always goes back to the dimmest setting & not sure if thats the same for all the keyboards.
Any reply would be appreciated, as i have had a rebuild due to a few other issues... Cheers
 
Question for you... Does the pc remember the setting on the backlit keyboard, or does it return to dim after you switch it back on, mine always goes back to the dimmest setting & not sure if thats the same for all the keyboards.
Any reply would be appreciated, as i have had a rebuild due to a few other issues... Cheers

My Defiance can remember it. Maybe you did't use the "control center"?
 

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
Control centre is installed..doesn't help.... maybe configuration is not right?

Once control center is installed you'll need to run it by double clicking the icon in running programs, then configure the correct keyboard and trackpad setup. Until then it's not fully installed.
 
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