Armageddon Aria
New member
Specs
Chassis & Display: Optimus Series: 15.6" Matte Full HD IPS LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor (CPU): Intel® Core™ i5 Quad Core Processor 7300HQ (2.5GHz, 3.5GHz Turbo)
Memory (RAM): 8GB HyperX IMPACT 2400MHz SODIMM DDR4 (1 x 8GB)
Graphics CardNVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1050 Ti: 4.0GB GDDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 12.1
1st Hard Disk: 500GB SERIAL ATA III 2.5" HARD DRIVE WITH 32MB CACHE (7,200rpm)
M.2 SSD Drive: 256GB SAMSUNG SM961 M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 3100MB/R, 1400MB/W)
Purpose
I bought the laptop to replace an ageing MacBook Pro and felt that I got far more bang for my buck with a Windows laptop over the current Apple product line. I mainly use the laptop for audio production, gaming and general use.
Delivery
The whole process of production through to delivery was seamless. As the laptop was hot off the press and wasn't available until mid January, I had to wait a little bit for it to be in stock. Once it was in stock, I received the laptop within a week and it was delivered within the timeframes that PC Specialist provided. DPD, as usual, were excellent at delivering the laptop.
Packaging
The laptop was very securely packaged tightly packed into the box. The box itself was undamaged and I had no concerns that the contents were damaged in anyway.
Appearance
The laptop itself looks really good- a bit of a fingerprint attractor but it still looks really sleek. It's great having a laptop that isn't adorned with company logos! The backlit keyboard looks great allowing for changing the level of the illumination to a desired brightness. My only comment on the keyboard is that the function key marking are in blue and sometimes this can be hard to read if working in the dark with only the backlit illumination for a light source.
Build
The laptop is very sturdy and I am confident that it won't get damaged in transit to easily! The hinge for the screen is a little stiff but nothing too bad- I'm sure this will become looser as the laptop is used more over time.
Speakers
They are laptop speakers- I wasn't expecting them to be anything flashy. They are perfectly serviceable but you shouldn't be using laptop speakers for audio production! I use an external Focusrite sound card with KRK Rokit speakers and they sound fantastic.
Trackpad
The trackpad is very responsive. I wasn't expecting it to be as good as my MacBook Pro's but it's still very good. I had a bit of problem with the right tap on the trackpad not working (Left tap worked fine) but an uninstall followed by installation of the latest synaptics drivers solved this issue.
Screen
The screen itself looks fantastic- crystal clear with good colour definition. The matte finish means that light sources don't cause too much of an issue. It also has allows for a wide viewing range as well.
Performance
So far its been fantastic. I installed Windows 10 on the SSD (No brainer really!) and it boots up within 6 seconds. Playing Civ VI on high settings has been flawless so far with no noticeable framerate drops at all. The CPU sometimes runs a bit hot when playing Civ but the average temperature sits at around 60°C when in a particularly intense game. The GPU is yet to top 65° at all.
Battery
With light use, the battery probably lasts for about 4 hours. I wouldn't recommend playing GPU intensive games or doing music production on the battery alone but that's standard really for any higher spec laptop. The battery is par for the course really.
Summary
Overall I am very pleased with the laptop and it delivers the power and speed that I wanted for a very reasonable price as well. It looks great and gives me more performance than I probably need currently- it should be future proof for at least a couple of years for what I need it for. I also couldn't say better about the whole experience with PC Specialist as well.
Chassis & Display: Optimus Series: 15.6" Matte Full HD IPS LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor (CPU): Intel® Core™ i5 Quad Core Processor 7300HQ (2.5GHz, 3.5GHz Turbo)
Memory (RAM): 8GB HyperX IMPACT 2400MHz SODIMM DDR4 (1 x 8GB)
Graphics CardNVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1050 Ti: 4.0GB GDDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 12.1
1st Hard Disk: 500GB SERIAL ATA III 2.5" HARD DRIVE WITH 32MB CACHE (7,200rpm)
M.2 SSD Drive: 256GB SAMSUNG SM961 M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 3100MB/R, 1400MB/W)
Purpose
I bought the laptop to replace an ageing MacBook Pro and felt that I got far more bang for my buck with a Windows laptop over the current Apple product line. I mainly use the laptop for audio production, gaming and general use.
Delivery
The whole process of production through to delivery was seamless. As the laptop was hot off the press and wasn't available until mid January, I had to wait a little bit for it to be in stock. Once it was in stock, I received the laptop within a week and it was delivered within the timeframes that PC Specialist provided. DPD, as usual, were excellent at delivering the laptop.
Packaging
The laptop was very securely packaged tightly packed into the box. The box itself was undamaged and I had no concerns that the contents were damaged in anyway.
Appearance
The laptop itself looks really good- a bit of a fingerprint attractor but it still looks really sleek. It's great having a laptop that isn't adorned with company logos! The backlit keyboard looks great allowing for changing the level of the illumination to a desired brightness. My only comment on the keyboard is that the function key marking are in blue and sometimes this can be hard to read if working in the dark with only the backlit illumination for a light source.
Build
The laptop is very sturdy and I am confident that it won't get damaged in transit to easily! The hinge for the screen is a little stiff but nothing too bad- I'm sure this will become looser as the laptop is used more over time.
Speakers
They are laptop speakers- I wasn't expecting them to be anything flashy. They are perfectly serviceable but you shouldn't be using laptop speakers for audio production! I use an external Focusrite sound card with KRK Rokit speakers and they sound fantastic.
Trackpad
The trackpad is very responsive. I wasn't expecting it to be as good as my MacBook Pro's but it's still very good. I had a bit of problem with the right tap on the trackpad not working (Left tap worked fine) but an uninstall followed by installation of the latest synaptics drivers solved this issue.
Screen
The screen itself looks fantastic- crystal clear with good colour definition. The matte finish means that light sources don't cause too much of an issue. It also has allows for a wide viewing range as well.
Performance
So far its been fantastic. I installed Windows 10 on the SSD (No brainer really!) and it boots up within 6 seconds. Playing Civ VI on high settings has been flawless so far with no noticeable framerate drops at all. The CPU sometimes runs a bit hot when playing Civ but the average temperature sits at around 60°C when in a particularly intense game. The GPU is yet to top 65° at all.
Battery
With light use, the battery probably lasts for about 4 hours. I wouldn't recommend playing GPU intensive games or doing music production on the battery alone but that's standard really for any higher spec laptop. The battery is par for the course really.
Summary
Overall I am very pleased with the laptop and it delivers the power and speed that I wanted for a very reasonable price as well. It looks great and gives me more performance than I probably need currently- it should be future proof for at least a couple of years for what I need it for. I also couldn't say better about the whole experience with PC Specialist as well.
