Review of COSMOS VII laptop purchase and Mint 19.1 compatibility

I purchased a COSMOS VII laptop (CLEVO N871EJ1) 17.3" with SSD and no hard disk, and saved £100 by not including Windows.



The laptop took 8 days to prepare and deliver, and I could see the order progressing day by day on the PC Specialist website.

The laptop arrived very well packaged. Before it arrived I wondered what the quality of the case/keyboard/display would be and I'm pleased to say the quality is excellent. The case is very tough and the keyboard is comfortable. The matte display is very clear with excellent contrast.



The laptop is quiet and feels very light for its size.

The 1 metre power cable is a little short so I recommend the 2 metre cable. The only thing I would improve on the laptop is the built in speaker, which has very little bass sound. I am ordering a Bluetooth speaker which should sound really good, so it has worked out fine.


Within 20 minutes I had Linux Mint 19-1 installed and everything works perfectly. The laptop is very responsive. The processor runs at around 42c, and the cooling fan works to keep the temperature down in Mint.

I can recommend Linux Mint 19-1 as a free alternative to Windows. It works 100% on the COSMOS VII. I just had to enable booting from USB in the BIOS, and reboot the laptop with a Linux Mint Live 19-1 USB stick inserted. The laptop came with Windows installed even though I did not order it (PC Specialist use it to test the laptop). To access the UEFI BIOS I completed the registration pages (but never replied to the registration email) and then used the Windows restart settings, but I believe holding F2 down at start-up will work as well, although you need to be quick.




I definitely recommend PC Specialist, and would buy from them again.

Chassis & Display Cosmos Series: 17.3" Matte Full HD IPS 60Hz 72% NTSC LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor (CPU) Intel® Core™ i7 Six Core Processor 8750H (2.2GHz, 4.1GHz Turbo)
Memory (RAM) 8GB Corsair 2666MHz SODIMM DDR4 (1 x 8GB)
Graphics Card INTEL® HD GRAPHICS 630 - 1.7GB Max DDR4 Video RAM - DirectX® 12
1st Storage Drive NOT REQUIRED
1st M.2 SSD Drive 500GB WD Black™ M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD (up to 3400MB/s R | 2500MB/s W)
Memory Card Reader Integrated 6 in 1 Card Reader (SD /Mini SD/ SDHC / SDXC / MMC / RSMMC)
AC Adaptor 1 x 90W AC Adaptor
Battery Cosmos VII Series 6 Cell Lithium Ion Battery
Power Cable 1 x 1 Metre Cloverleaf UK Power Cable
Thermal Paste COOLER MASTER MASTERGEL MAKER THERMAL COMPOUND
Sound Card 2 Channel High Def. Audio + SoundBlaster™ Cinema
Bluetooth & Wireless GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® AC-9260 M.2 (1.73Gbps, 802.11AC) +BT 5.0
USB/Thunderbolt Options 1 x USB 3.1 PORT (Type C) + 2 x USB 3.0 PORTS + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
Keyboard Language SINGLE COLOUR BACKLIT UK KEYBOARD
Operating System NO OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIRED
Windows Recovery Media NO RECOVERY MEDIA REQUIRED
Anti-Virus NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Notebook Mouse INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
Webcam INTEGRATED 1MP HD WEBCAM

Very many thanks for the detailed review and photos!

Reviews like this are very helpful to others looking at a similar setup. +rep deserved and give.

A quick update.

I went for a Pioneer XW-LF3 Portable Bluetooth Speaker and it is working fine with Mint on this laptop. There have been no connection problems. Really great sound as well from this speaker.