15.6" Optimus VIII review

meltag

New member
Type: The 15.6" Optimus VIII

Price:
£1372

Specs:
  • Chassis & Display Optimus Series: 15.6" Matte 4K IPS LED Widescreen (3840x2160)
  • Processor (CPU) Intel® Core™ i7 Quad Core Processor 7700HQ (2.8GHz, 3.8GHz Turbo)
  • Memory (RAM) 16GB Corsair 2133MHz SODIMM DDR4 (1 x 16GB)
  • Graphics Card NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1050 Ti - 4.0GB GDDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 12.1
  • 1st Hard Disk 500GB Samsung 850 EVO 2.5" SSD, SATA 6Gb/s (upto 540MB/sR | 520MB/sW)
  • Thermal Paste EK-TIM ECTOTHERM THERMAL COMPOUND
  • Notebook Mouse Microsoft Wireless Mobile Mouse 4000
  • Warranty 3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
  • Dead Pixel Guarantee 1 Year Dead Pixel Guarantee Inc. Labour & Carriage Costs
  • Build Time FAST TRACK 3 WORKING DAY DISPATCH
  • Dimensions (W x D x H) 378mm x 267mm x 24.9mm
  • Weight 2.5KG
If it's not listed, then it's default

What I use it for:
Maya, Adobe CC, AutoCad and email/web.

I've had it for a couple of weeks now, under light use (small Photoshop files, a bit of Maya). I use it for school and haven't had any issues with it so far. Last time I had a laptop, it was ages ago, and my current "laptops" were just netbooks, this is a massive improvement. I find there's almost no difference to working on my desktop, except that it's a laptop.

Screen: The 4k screen it awesome. It does eat a lot of battery, but I will almost always have an outlet while working, so it's not a problem for me. I think the additional cost was worth it, as I'd be doing graphic and 3D design on my laptop. I didn't want to have regrets later and be unable to upgrade the screen easily. The other parts I can probably upgrade myself if I want, so I felt the top option for the screen was a priority.

Keyboard: Usually I hate laptop keyboards, but this one is quite nice. The keys are pretty well spaced out and nice and clicky. Best of all, there is a num pad. I've never had a laptop with a num pad before, but I really appreciate it. I use it lot on my desktop and don't have to modify my typing as much on the laptop now. It's just one of those things that makes a laptop feel less like a laptop.

Cpu/gpu/ram: Honestly not sure how to rate this. I'm not gaming on my laptop and my design usage has been pretty light so far. Technically, the laptop is sped'd pretty close to (or better than) my desktop and I can say I don't really notice a difference in performance between the two so far. There was a bit of lag when switching viewports in Maya, but I don't know if this is the machine or Maya, as I've not used Maya in ages. I hardly notice I'm on a laptop and I'm always really pleased with how nice it is to use. My previous experience with laptops is that it takes a few minutes to get used to the reduction in speed and performance when compared with my desktop, but I don't have that issue with this machine.

Battery life: The battery life is pretty short. Even with minor photoshop/maya use and just email/web, it only lasts about 4 hours. I knew it would be like this when I spec'd it, but as I would always have an outlet at school, it wasn't an issue for me. Whenever the battery is low, I just charge it. The only issue I have is that when the laptop is on and plugged in to charge (even when it's in sleep mode), it gets hot and the fan kicks in. The fan is pretty noisy. If it's not plugged in to charge while it's on, the fan doesn't come on and it's very quiet to use. So I just use it without it plugged in and charge it at lunch while it's turned off. It does charge really fast, usually less than an hour back to full if I let it drop to 25%. I didn't think of it at the time, but I kinda wish I had gotten an extra charger so I could leave one at school and not have to drag it around everyday, as it is pretty hefty (one of those bricks) adds weight to my backpack.

Dimensions: It's heavier than I wanted, but not too bad. I was considering a macbook pro, but they were £1k more for a similar spec and far less flexible about upgrades. I think the weight trade off is ok, given this had a more sensible price, uses Windows 10 and can be upgraded if needed. The laptop itself is pretty thin and I like that it is plain and not flashy. I didn't choose one of the gaming laptops because of the increase in thickness/weight and the flashiness of the chassis. It fits into my 15" notebook backpack, but only just. I have to ease the top over the corners, so I think a 17" bag would fit more comfortably for this laptop.

3-day service: This was really impressive. I received updates daily and it was built in 2 days and dispatched on the 3rd. Given this service includes the tracked courier delivery, this is well worth the extra cost of £59 if you need the laptop asap. I even got a link showing a live (mostly live, it updates every 15 minutes) map of where the delivery van was and how long until it was expected to reach my address. A bit weird, but neat.

I haven't really used the laptop much or heavily so far, so this review isn't very in-depth. It's more of a first impressions. I'm very pleased with it so far, though. If I remember, I'll try and do an update on my impressions in the future.

Apologies for the bad pictures and even worse photoshop blurring, but I'm too lazy to clean my flat or do a nice shop job on a Saturday morning. :p

laptop_1.jpg
laptop_2.jpg
laptop_numpad.jpg
Dat numpad, tho
 
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