RECOIL II Review (Updated BIOS too)

Last month I purchased the RECOIL II and I didn't want to post until I had enough use of it to write something meaningful.

For a full video overview you can see my video here: https://youtu.be/657idjxxlys (pictures appended are taken from this video)

I was looking for a slim-line top of the range gaming laptop for about £1,000. I soon found out that was near-enough impossible... The closest I found was £1,800 for a similar spec; however, my last laptop was by PCSpecialist and therefore I decided to see if any new chassis had been added - Sure enough, new slim-line gaming laptop chassis were available! Amazing, I now just had to choose between the Optimus VII XS and the RECOIL II. I don't even think the optimus is available anymore, but it was a 15.6" clevo shell (all plastic) at a slightly thinner thickness (18.6mm compared to 19.9mm), it also had a built in fingerprint reader. I decided to get a £10 USB fingerprint reader from eBay which has served me very well.

I chose the RECOIL in the end for a few reasons - The thin bezels make the laptop look modern, the keyboard is mechanical (which is bloody awesome, and it is in fact a very good keyboard, but you may want to be a little bit weary of the noise if you're in a library) and the chassis is aluminium.

Where do I go next? Well, I figure the screen is good enough at the lower spec than is available as I can always use a monitor with a higher refresh rate etc, but also the battery is only 46Wh, which isn't big at all (about 3-4 hours of life), so paying an extra £150 for an upgraded screen which will just drain the battery wasn't really an option for me. The battery really hasn't been an issue for me yet.

Next the i7 processor is just a beast, I use my laptop for video editing so I wanted a good processor. The RAM I opted for the slightly faster RAM (didn't even cost more!), and then for the graphics card, picking the 6GB GTX1060 was a no-brainer. It is truly a beast and my laptop has not had any problems playing any games at ultra 60fps so far. A fast HDD with a big storage was a solid choice, and the SSD for the OS is good (booted up in ~10sec). I got the better thermal compound as I knew that a laptop of this size is bound to get pretty damn hot. The fan has a 'Fan Boost' button which is helpful, and inside 4-heatpipes which lead to two fans with a 4 vent system out the sides and rear. In addition to this at the bottom is aluminium mesh to aid cooling too, thoroughly impressed. Webcam and microphone are nothing special, but they're not bad at all. I decided to save some money by installing windows 10 myself.

The laptop still does get hot under intensive use, but only really at the bar where the power and turbo-fan button are, elsewhere is normally nice and cool, so it doesn't actually affect the use of the laptop.

The mechanical keyboard is really good, but the keys are quite squished together so it takes some time to get used to that (but that's the same with any laptop tbh). Speakers are average as you would expect form a laptop.

My only issue is that when playing intensive games the laptop all of a sudden turns off (had happened 4x) with no error messages etc. I've called PC Specialist up about this and they said it was to do with the BIOS and they will send me an update today, so hopefully I can update this review to let you know how I got on. But basically this is apparently due to the components inside being quite powerful, so the BIOS isn't distributing the power correctly, thus under strain causing the laptop to safely turn off as some of the components don't have enough power to run.

20-Aug update: (Since updating the BIOS I haven't had any further power issues, so I think it fixed it!)
5-Sep update: NEW UPDATE 05-Sep, the random powering off has appeared to return... I was playing Fortnite yesterday and it randomly turned off, and again today with Fallout 4. I'm getting in contact with PCS to hopefully resolve.
15-Sep update: Waiting for a higher powered charger to arrive, no issues since I last posted but will update if it happens again.

The service of PC Specialist has been really good and they were very kind to me through communications and sorting a deal. However, one thing to note is I got an upgrade to a 3 working day build; however it took 4 working days (didn't bother me), when asking them about this they say that it is an estimate and not a guarantee, so I would not advise buying this unless you physically can't wait.

Hope this helps! If you have any questions just ask! I might reply quicker if you comment on my YouTube video (link at the top of this post).

Chassis & Display
Recoil Series: 15.6" Matte Full HD 60Hz 72% NTSC LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™ i7 Six Core Processor 8750H (2.2GHz, 4.1GHz Turbo)
Memory (RAM)
16GB Corsair 2400MHz SODIMM DDR4 (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1060 - 6.0GB GDDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 12.1
1st Hard Disk
1TB SEAGATE 7mm SERIAL ATA III 2.5" HARD DRIVE WITH 128MB CACHE (7,200rpm)
1st M.2 SSD Drive
256GB ADATA SU800 M.2 2280 (560 MB/R, 520 MB/W)
Memory Card Reader
Integrated 2 in 1 Memory Card Reader (SD, MMC)
AC Adaptor
1 x 150W AC Adaptor
Battery
Recoil II Series 46WH Lithium Ion Battery
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre Cloverleaf UK Power Cable
Thermal Paste
Mastercooler Thermal Gel
Sound Card
2 Channel High Def. Audio + SoundBlaster™ Cinema 5
Bluetooth & Wireless
GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® AC-9560 M.2 (1.73Gbps, 802.11AC) +BT 5.0
USB Options
1 x USB 3.1 PORT (Type C) + 2 x USB 3.1 PORTS + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
Keyboard Language
PER-KEY RGB BACKLIT UK MECHANICAL KEYBOARD
Operating System
NO OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIRED
INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
Webcam
INTEGRATED 1MP HD WEBCAM

Price £1,116.00 including VAT and delivery













(Blue = Fan, Red=Speaker)

Thank you. Great review.

I do like the look of these things but I am just not sure the click of the keyboard would be too much for a working environment.

Tony1044 said:

Thank you. Great review.

I do like the look of these things but I am just not sure the click of the keyboard would be too much for a working environment.

Click to expand...

If it's anything like my mechanical keyboard which by reviews I think it may be, then that's probably a worthy worry in a work environment.

SpyderTracks said:

If it's anything like my mechanical keyboard which by reviews I think it may be, then that's probably a worthy worry in a work environment.

Click to expand...

I saw two video reviews of the keyboard. It's not like my mechanical keyboard at home - the Recoil II keyboard seems to have an additional click added to it. Not sure I explained that right but the best analogy I can think of right now is that my mechanical keyboard (external USB) will click louder the harder I tap a key (very satisfying to type a rant-o-gram on!) but under normal use isn't actually all that loud.

This one is more like switching a light switch on and off - there's a very definite "click" sound regardless of how hard the key is pressed.

Of course, that could equally be wrong, given that, as I say, I've only seen the two videos.

Hello,

Thank you for your review. I am looking at the Recoil 2, too and was wandering if you can give some input (I am doing video editting & content creation, as wel las casual gaming (nothing too extreme)):
How is the screen? I was thinking of getting the 60Hz, too but am considering if the 144 is worth it?
I see you have gone with the HDD 7200 rpm, I am wondering why you did not take the SSHD?
Is the keyboard "mushy" as described in a review?
Some people say it is running hot, some say it is cool, do you have problems with temperatures over 90c?
With the bottom being a mesh doesn't a lot of dust get into the system?

Thanks!

Sam77 has their own topic here: https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?60266-RECOIL-II-Components-Questions

If anyone has very detailed comments on Sam77's questions, perhaps they could post it in that topic to help keep things together.

No point having answers to the same questions split up across 3 different topics

Screen is really good quality imo, no problems at all with it. Personally I wouldn't go for the 144 as I think the reason to get this laptop is to get the most bang for your buck, and at that price you may aswell go for another laptop - especially as it would drain the already small battery.

HDD's have a greater lifespan than SSHD's I believe, and I looked at the reviews of both and just seemed more reliable. The stuff I store on it I'm not too worried about saving negligible load time.

I love the keyboard, I wouldn't call it mushy. Check out my video that I linked at the top, it has a keyboard test.

My laptop runs hot, but the internals actually stay very cool, the laptop feels hot (where the heat pipes run) but the actual CPU and GPU has never gone above 80c, even with intensive use.

I keep my laptop in a bag-thing that was provided with the laptop, when I'm not using it - Therefore haven't had any dust issues.

Power issues

Hi Benkep,

Have you managed to get the issues with the sudden powering off resolved?

Benkep - it's great that you're keeping us updated with how the powering-off issues are going. I might suggest you provide updates in a new post in this topic, or just post to say you've updated the topic again as just editing your topic doesn't make the topic visible for people looking at "new posts"

I do hope it gets sorted soon!

@mikedw - he says:

5-Sep update: NEW UPDATE 05-Sep, the random powering off has appeared to return... I was playing Fortnite yesterday and it randomly turned off, and again today with Fallout 4. I'm getting in contact with PCS to hopefully resolve.

Click to expand...

So I assume PCS are still looking at this. It is possible there might be a fault with his unit and PCS may want to RMA it.

The Recoil II has had pretty positive reviews from what I've seen so if there is a fault it seems to be with his unit rather than a design flaw. Are you considering getting a Recoil II yourself?

Any update about this problem?

I haven't had any powering issues since my previous update on the 5-Sep, but I assume the issue is still there. PCS are sending me out a high powered charger as apparently that resolves it too when the issue is caused whilst the laptop is on charge.

I also can confirm this issue happend to me once so far, laptop shutdown whitout any errors whille playing a game. It can be power related issue, i do use undervolt on CPU and normaly temps are around 80* in hardcore tasks. When i play games with V-Sync On and are not that power hungry CPU stays around 70* so i doubt are any thermal problems even though sometimes CPU hit Power Limit and start throttle on power. With default CPU setting the proc would go to 90* very fast and would not go over 3.3ghz on full load. After the undervolt (-0.120v with Intel Extreme Utility Software) CPU now hit max 3.85ghz-3.9ghz on all 6 cores on full load but sometimes still trigger power limit throttling. I strongly recommend to undervolt this CPU it will run colder and more power efficient. It can be related to the charger and looking forword to see if your issue is solved with the new charger.