Defiance II 15,6" review

luispdm

Member
Spoiler: not an English native speaker, keep it in mind ;)

After a month of use I am able to write down a full review of my brand new Defiance II 15". This computer has been bought to accomplish developing purposes (I always use Android Studio and when it's time to build an app, CPU goes 100%, with a quad core this is not a big deal) and some good (but not often) gaming. Some virtual machine use required me to go for the 16GB of RAM.

I would like to say that I spent lot of time (maybe too much) to look for a new laptop, I came across Acer, Asus, HP, MSI and Dell. In the end I've opted for PC Specialist because... well I read tons of reviews, watched videos and I can say that they're reliable, cheap (saved around 250€ w.r.t. other brands) and there's a pretty big choice among components. The laptop arrived straight on time, 4 days only. The customer service is awesome: they fulfilled all my questions before, during and after buying the laptop.

Design looks incredible: matte black aluminum (and bit of plastic) finish, IPS FHD display and backlit keyboard. Thought a gaming laptop is thick and heavy, but it's not. I come from a 13" 2Kg MacBook Pro, PCS one only weights half Kg more and feels pretty handy while carrying it around. Display looks very vivid and I noticed backlit bleed only when pushing the lad towards me, but I guess this is a normal behavior.

Never tried the fingerprint scanner, so no feedback at all; typing on this keyboard is really satisfying; trackpad is ok, slightly better than the rest I've ever tried.

Since I am a student I got Windows 10 for free, I have installed it on my own. That's where I got some issues: often I've had webcam not found, control center program downloaded from PCS website solved this one; sometimes when plugging HDMI, the laptop did not forward the audio to the TV and I've run into few BSOD while unplugging the cable. Solution (provided by PCS team) was re-installing the driver.

Performance are astonishing, incredibly fast laptop. You can see it from the 3DMark image :) 970M allows me to play recent games with a mix of high-ultra (with some games just ultra) settings at 1080p. Samsung M.2 SSD is quick! 15 seconds to boot up (I guess I need some driver to boost it up because my previous 850 EVO gave me same performance).
As you can see from the images, thermal paste works fine: PC is really quiet while browsing and listening to music, same while watching a movie. The core temp image shows temperatures around 39-40 degrees, but while idling, it goes around 32-35. Of course it turns hotter and noisier in gaming sessions: around 57 C maximum in these situations.

If you really care about fingerprints on the pc body, prepare to deal with that if you plan to buy it :surrender:

Specs here:

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)
16GB HyperX IMPACT 2133MHz SODIMM DDR4 (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 970M - 6.0GB DDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 12
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 & WIRELESS INTEL® AC-8260 M.2 (867Mbps, 802.11AC) +BT 4.0, vPRO
USB Options
4 x USB 3.0 PORTS AS STANDARD
Battery
Defiance Series 4 Cell Lithium Ion Battery (60WH)
Power Cable
1 x European Power Lead & 180W AC Adaptor
Keyboard Language
DEFIANCE SERIES BACKLIT ITALIAN KEYBOARD WITH NUMBER PAD
Operating System
NO OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIRED
Operating System Language
Italy/Italia - Italian Language
DVD Recovery Media
NO DVD RECOVERY MEDIA REQUIRED
Office Software
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
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)
Dead Pixel Guarantee
30 Day Dead Pixel Guarantee Inc. Labour & Carriage Costs
Delivery
4 - 5 DAY DELIVERY TO FINLAND (50 €)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 6 to 8 working days
Promotional Item
FREE USB Cable for Intel WiDi Adapter!
Promotional Item
FREE TOM CLANCY'S: THE DIVISION with select GTX 9 Series GPUs!
Promotional Item
FREE Intel Wireless Display (WiDi) Adapter!
Quantity
1
Price
1629€

Production date: (processing date was on Friday, that's why 4 days between processing and processed)

Processed Date
15-04-2016
Pre-Production Date
19-04-2016
Build Date
20-04-2016
Test Date
22-04-2016
QC Date
25-04-2016
Awaiting Dispatch Date
25-04-2016
Dispatch Date
25-04-2016
Delivered
28-04-2016
 

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kenmystro

Member
The weight of the machine is not bad but you fail to consider the weight of the plug which is a brick!!
The fingerprint scanner is crap too
I like you spent a lot of time looking but am really disappointed. Are you having any issues with HDMI? tried it with an HDMIethernet cable?
I cant test the mini display ports, have you had a chance?
How often have you done a sfc /scannow to reveal corrupt files?
 

Tony1044

Prolific Poster
When I ordered my Defiance II last year, with the then relatively newly released Windows 10 on it, the fingerprint scanner was junk...it simply refused to enrol.

However, with the next rollout of Windows 10 it worked (using the software supplied on the build by PCS).

With anniversary edition, it works natively within Windows Hello without any additional software, and I have to say, it works well.

Agree on the power supply - it's huge.

Must confess I've never tried the HDMI as yet.


The weight of the machine is not bad but you fail to consider the weight of the plug which is a brick!!
The fingerprint scanner is crap too
I like you spent a lot of time looking but am really disappointed. Are you having any issues with HDMI? tried it with an HDMIethernet cable?
I cant test the mini display ports, have you had a chance?
How often have you done a sfc /scannow to reveal corrupt files?
 

luispdm

Member
Hi sorry for the late reply I haven't checked the forum for a while.

BTW... yeah I agree, the charger is a brick. But the laptop itself is not that heavy (wrt its performance).
Fingerprint scan tried the first week only, dunno if it works now. For my usage, password is more than fine.
YES! I am having issues with HDMI. Sometimes, the audio does not work and I tried downloading drivers and stuff, but the problem persists. Either you need to be lucky to have the audio working or you should restart the PC.
Mini display port works perfectly actually.
I did it a few times honestly, no worries at the moment.

The weight of the machine is not bad but you fail to consider the weight of the plug which is a brick!!
The fingerprint scanner is crap too
I like you spent a lot of time looking but am really disappointed. Are you having any issues with HDMI? tried it with an HDMIethernet cable?
I cant test the mini display ports, have you had a chance?
How often have you done a sfc /scannow to reveal corrupt files?
 
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