Defiance II Full Review

Defiance II 15.6"


Chassis & Display
Defiance Series: 15.6" Matte Full HD IPS LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™ i7 Quad Core Processor 6700HQ (2.6GHz, 3.5GHz Turbo)
Memory (RAM)
32GB HyperX IMPACT 2133MHz SODIMM DDR4 (4 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 980M - 8.0GB DDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 12
1st Hard Disk
1TB WD SLIM BLUE 2.5" WD10SPCX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 16MB CACHE (5400 rpm)
M.2 SSD Drive
512GB SAMSUNG SM951 M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 2150MB/R, 1550MB/W)
Memory Card Reader
Integrated 6 in 1 Card Reader (SD /Mini SD/ SDHC / SDXC / MMC / RSMMC)
Thermal Paste
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND
Sound Card
Intel 2 Channel High Def. Audio + MIC/Headphone + SoundBlaster X-Fi MB3
Wireless/Wired Networking
GIGABIT LAN & KILLER™ 1535-AC M.2 WIRELESS GAMING 802.11AC + BLUETOOTH 4.0
USB Options
4 x USB 3.0 PORTS AS STANDARD
Battery
2 x Defiance Series Battery (One Spare, Requires Assembly)
Power Cable
1 x UK Power Lead & 180W AC Adaptor
Keyboard Language
DEFIANCE SERIES BACKLIT UK KEYBOARD WITH NUMBER PAD
Operating System
NO OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIRED
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
DVD Recovery Media
NO DVD RECOVERY MEDIA REQUIRED
Office Software
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Browser
Microsoft® Edge (Windows 10 Only)
Mouse
INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
Webcam
INTEGRATED 2.0 MEGAPIXEL WEBCAM
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 9 to 11 working days
Promotional Item
FREE GAME BUNDLE with select INTEL® CPUs!
Promotional Item
FREE RISE OF THE TOMB RAIDER with select GTX 9 Series GPUs!
Quantity
1

This is my review of the Defiance II 15.6" laptop from PCSpecialist.co.uk.



First of all I chose PCSpecialist's to order my laptop from due to price and the many positive reviews on websites and personal recommendations from friends\colleagues. I spent a couple of weeks determining what spec I wanted and checking various other vendors. PCS were a couple of hundred pounds cheaper than the equivalent laptop from at least half a dozen other suppliers. So I eventually went with them.

My reason for choosing this spec was to be a portable gaming machine, also setup some VM's for when I'm doing my CBT's.

I placed my order on the 30th January 2016 the laptop took three weeks to arrive. It was in pre-production for 12 days which was a worry, however when I contacted PCS Chat Support they were fantastic and gave me an estimated date of dispatch which they did adhere to of the 19th Feb 2016. I received the laptop on Monday the 22nd Feb 2016.

The packaging box the laptop arrived in was larger than I expected, this was to cushion the actual laptop box.

The laptop itself, what can I say. I'm very impressed with both the design and build of the Defiance II. Is pure matte black and feels like a very solid build, there no loose sections of note. I've read a review which stated the casing around the screen seemed loose and cheap. But I haven't found this to be true with my Defiance II.

Fans on the left hand side and back, with the power socket at the back in the middle.


There are two USB ports on the right, one on the left and one at the back. NIC on the right hand side too. Its is slimmer than I imagined, with my spec slightly heavy but not too much that it may fall. Only downside you get loads of grease\fingerprint marks on the laptop, however they are easily cleanable.



Only issue I have is with the fingerprint scanner, not sure if its me or the scanner but isn't always the most responsive. I've download the fingerprint software from PCS and this got the fingerprint scanner working again for a while anyway.

The 512GB Samsung m2.SSD i chose for my OS and to install Steam\Games on is lightening quick. From powering on to the desktop takes approximately 10 secs. Dependant on the fingerprint scanner confirms my ID quick enough.

I went for the newest NVidia GTX card the 980M. I'm running Steam and have installed several games so far including new Tomb Raider and FM2016. I've been constantly getting 60FPS on Tomb Raider and it looks spectacular. I'm using a Xbox One controller and it plays great, but the graphics (I've been mostly a console gamers for the past several years) are immense. Also Football Manager 2016 runs a lot quicker than I have ever managed, it is at least four times as quick to process in between games than any previous machine I've used. I installed a couple of older games (Two Worlds & Freelancer) that required the NVidia Legacy drivers to be installed for them to work.

The IPS screen is perfect for a mobile laptop, light reflection is not noticeable at all.


When full gaming there is a little heat nothing too hot to handle but I've purchased an adjustable laptop cooling pad more so I can sit on my lap and desk than actually a need to keep it cool.



The power supply is a brick, but that is expected from a high spec laptop.

Buying from PCS was also relatively pleasant, all the things you'll need such as drivers as easily available from their website. I also found their support to be excellent, was able to chat with someone within minutes from requesting a chat. They also send you meaningful emails as to the status of your order, also they dispatch using DPD couriers which you can always track your order on line.

Overall the Defiance II 15.6" is an excellent bit of kit, with loads of customisable options. Its a great well built portable gaming laptop, that will keep me going for many a year.

Thanks for the review, I'm looking at the 14" version of the Defiance II, so this review is especially helpful for me. I'd only be getting the 970m graphics card, so not as powerful as yours, but I'd still expect it to pack a punch! I'm really interested to see how you get on with the m2 SSD, I'll be looking to get the exact same model because the benchmarks on the thing of phenomenal, but it costs a ton, so I'm really hoping the performance benefits are substantial. It's encouraging to hear about how quick the laptop starts up with the drive in question, but how about general performance, loading applications and game levels etc, have you noticed they're much quicker?

Can you provide us with some temperatures after running Tomb Raider or Unigine Heaven lets say since they're pretty demanding apps. I'm curious if the CPU or GPU are throttling. (Clocking down the frequency in order to protect themselves). A small usefull app you can use to monitor temperatures, clocks, freqs is CPUID HWmonitor.
Unigine - https://unigine.com/en/products/benchmarks/heaven
HWmonitor - http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor.html

For some reason no one on this forum is making a review regarding these aspects.

Hi Laubla

General performance is excellent, from booting up and logging in is very quick using the m2. SSD. About 10 secs in all.

I've installed OS and Steam on the m2.SSD as I want these to perform at their max. And installed other apps such as Office, WinRAR, ComicRack on the 1TB WD as Im not too worried about their performance.

The areas I've noticed that have been a lot quicker are installing a game, loading a game\saved games and loading inbetween sections of games, loading maps or other areas of maps (such as in Skyrim\fallout) which add fluidity to your characters movements. I know if i power up the laptop i'll be playing a game a minute later.

I play a lot of Football Manager too and have noticed that the processing in between matches is also a lot lot quicker but that's likely to be the processor.

My main reason for paying the extra for the m2.SSD was not only increased performance also that it would (I believe) slightly future proof my laptop as it is pretty likely that SSD or a type will become standard in the next few years.

Awesome, thanks for detailing all that sukhyrai, I'm a big football manager player myself, so that's encouraging to here! I've just gone ahead and ordered my machine, and your review was a big help in making that final decision, so thanks again for writing this up, I hope the process goes as smoothly for me as it did for you!

Hi tzak

I will look to get some stats this week if I get the time.