1zikki
Bronze Level Poster
Hello everyone, as the title says I literally just purchased my new system for my birthday (20th July *hint hint PCSpecialist get it delivered before or on the day*) to take with me to University
I thought this would be useful for everyone else if I wrote down my experience as I haven't seen anything review wise from customers for AIO's yet, I plan to take a few pictures and make an unboxing video when I receive it
Pre-Build
Everything has run smoothly as far as ordering expect 1 thing that annoyed me, I had heard about there being a £15 off promo code available, couldn't find it anywhere so I opened up a live support chat to ask PCSpecialist directly whether this offer was still around, 30 minutes went by and not a single response from anyone on PCSpecialist's end so still undeterred I rang up and got through straight away to a customer service Representative who when I asked him if there was any promotions going on at the moment to which he replied that there wasn't. Completely fine just why couldn't someone respond in that 30 minutes to tell me that if you appear to be free?
Build Timeline
Processed Date 04-07-2012
Build Date 06-07-2012
Test Date 10-07-2012
QC Date 10-07-2012
Awaiting Dispatch Date 10-07-2012
Dispatch Date 10-07-2012
Expected Delivery Date: July 11th!
Expected Delivery Time 12.31-13.31: Delivered at 12.35
Who Worked on this Order?
Built By Sanjit Ghosh
Tested By Garnet Heller
QC'd By Garnet Heller
Packed By Anthony Cunliffe
Without further ado, here is the review:
Delivery from DPD & Packaging
Unfortunately I was on the phone when the delivery man called (Doh!) but from what my dad told me the delivery man was friendly and even offered to carry the box into my room (he didn't accept because we're men in this house and we do our own lifting) the box was quite heavy and required both myself and my dad to lift it up the stairs
here is the box & views from inside the box/the size of the boxes inside the box, as you can see it is a behemoth even next to my old tower which I consider to be quite large
Inside the big box were two smaller boxes, inside these were ofcourse the AIO and in the other box a welcome pack containing the 3 180w adapters, my other HD which is hot swap able into the top of the chassis a booklet, manuals, nvidia graphics disc and some parts (not a clue what some of them are for?)
here is a picture of the powerbricks, they are HUGE and weight wise there heavy, in my videos there is a few comparison shots compared to other household items
Chasis
This thing is quite heavy around 10kg is what I heard from PC Specialist but your not going to be carrying it around so it's not a big matter of importance,, width wise it's the same as my flat screen TV which is hanging up on the wall. The design is all black, I was expecting the PCSpecialist logo on the front which isn't the case (was kinda happy about that, sorry
).
From the front it's pretty basic but stylish, the speaker panel is the only thing that doesn't look great but the rest of the machine makes up for that. Also the HD sticking out of the top of the machine is a bit of an eyesore as it has no cover and noticeably sticks out. There is a cartridge top that you can attach to the HD but that makes it look even worse and you can see it over the top of the screen, just looks out of place in my opinion but it is completely optional to have it attached.
here are a few pictures of the chassis & HD:
Screen
The glare you get when its light outside is pretty noticeable I could see myself in the screen all afternoon but it is a thing of beauty. The touch screen element is completely unnecessary but I enjoyed forcing myself to use it all afternoon, the W7 keyboard isn't brilliant but it was enjoyable as I spoke to my friends on facebook and used chrome to browse the web on the touch keyboard (even used it to buy my new basketball shoes). The touch screen is really sensitive & reactive to touch, I had a fly land on the screen and knock the cursor off this article as I was writing this review which shows the great technology of this screen. A con with the touchscreen is that 75% of the time I couldn't get the cursor to use the scroll on the left hand side of the screen to move the webpage up and down, here is a picture of the screen from the front (it was hard to get good lighting against it so this is the best I could get on my Iphone):
Set-up, Webcam & Sound
Wow this thing loads up quick, as you can see in your video it took 23 seconds from start to the user screen with Windows 7 installed on my SSD, All the drivers were installed for the speakers & graphics card when I turned it on. The front speakers on here are poor, there is little to no bass from them but the speakers weren't the reason I purchased the system. The sound the system gives off with basic internet use and music is so quiet, unfortunately I haven't had time to play any games on here to test system noise but once I have I will update this section with my opinion. Tested the webcam on facebook video chat earlier, picture was clear and stayed in real-time throughout the 5 minute conversation I had with a friend with about 2 lag jolts in that space of time.
Videos
[video=youtube;M0x-fpqnqgs]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0x-fpqnqgs&feature=plcp[/video]
[video=youtube;Des3tLpQmsM]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Des3tLpQmsM&feature=context-cha[/video]
[video=youtube;2IRt4qEuOjM]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IRt4qEuOjM&feature=context-cha[/video]
[video=youtube;47e83bflb1U]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47e83bflb1U&feature=context-cha[/video]
Summary
To round things up just a few points of my pros and cons on the machine:
Pros
Basic but stylish design
Touchscreen elemental is very reactive
Extremely quick load up times
System sound is extremely minimum
Service from DPD
Cons
Speaker quality
HD slot on the top is unsightly
Powerbricks are massive (And it requires 3 of them to run if you get a GTX670/680)
Here is the specification I went with:
Chassis & Display
PowerGlide Extreme: 24" Glossy Full HD Multi-Touch Screen (1920x 1080)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i5 Quad Core Processor i5-3570K (3.4GHz) 6MB Cache
Memory (RAM)
8GB SAMSUNG 1333MHz SODIMM DDR3 MEMORY (2 x 4GB)
Graphics Card
2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 680 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
120GB KINGSTON HYPERX 3K SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 555MB/sR | 510MB/sW)
2nd Hard Disk
750GB WD SCORPIO BLACK WD7500BPKT, SATA 3 Gb/s, 16MB CACHE (7200 rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
8 Speed SATA DVD±R/RW/Dual Layer (+ 24x CD-RW)
Memory Card Reader
Integrated 4 in 1 Card Reader (SDXC/MMC/MS/XD)
Sound Card
ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL (7.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Facilities
GIGABIT LAN & INTEL WIRELESS 802.11N CARD INC. BLUETOOTH 3.0
USB Options
2 x USB 3.0 PORTS + 5 x USB 2.0 PORTS AS STANDARD
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit w/SP1 - inc DVD & Licence
Office Software
FREE Microsoft® Office Starter 2010 (Limited functionality Word & Excel)
Anti-Virus
BULLGUARD INTERNET SECURITY - FREE 90 DAY TRIAL
Speakers
2 x INTEGRATED 5W SPEAKERS
Webcam
INTEGRATED 2.0 MEGAPIXEL WEBCAM
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 10 to 12 working days
Quantity
1
Price: £1,439.00 including VAT and delivery.
I thought this would be useful for everyone else if I wrote down my experience as I haven't seen anything review wise from customers for AIO's yet, I plan to take a few pictures and make an unboxing video when I receive it
Pre-Build
Everything has run smoothly as far as ordering expect 1 thing that annoyed me, I had heard about there being a £15 off promo code available, couldn't find it anywhere so I opened up a live support chat to ask PCSpecialist directly whether this offer was still around, 30 minutes went by and not a single response from anyone on PCSpecialist's end so still undeterred I rang up and got through straight away to a customer service Representative who when I asked him if there was any promotions going on at the moment to which he replied that there wasn't. Completely fine just why couldn't someone respond in that 30 minutes to tell me that if you appear to be free?
Build Timeline
Processed Date 04-07-2012
Build Date 06-07-2012
Test Date 10-07-2012
QC Date 10-07-2012
Awaiting Dispatch Date 10-07-2012
Dispatch Date 10-07-2012
Expected Delivery Date: July 11th!
Expected Delivery Time 12.31-13.31: Delivered at 12.35
Who Worked on this Order?
Built By Sanjit Ghosh
Tested By Garnet Heller
QC'd By Garnet Heller
Packed By Anthony Cunliffe
Without further ado, here is the review:
Delivery from DPD & Packaging
Unfortunately I was on the phone when the delivery man called (Doh!) but from what my dad told me the delivery man was friendly and even offered to carry the box into my room (he didn't accept because we're men in this house and we do our own lifting) the box was quite heavy and required both myself and my dad to lift it up the stairs
here is the box & views from inside the box/the size of the boxes inside the box, as you can see it is a behemoth even next to my old tower which I consider to be quite large
Inside the big box were two smaller boxes, inside these were ofcourse the AIO and in the other box a welcome pack containing the 3 180w adapters, my other HD which is hot swap able into the top of the chassis a booklet, manuals, nvidia graphics disc and some parts (not a clue what some of them are for?)
here is a picture of the powerbricks, they are HUGE and weight wise there heavy, in my videos there is a few comparison shots compared to other household items
Chasis
This thing is quite heavy around 10kg is what I heard from PC Specialist but your not going to be carrying it around so it's not a big matter of importance,, width wise it's the same as my flat screen TV which is hanging up on the wall. The design is all black, I was expecting the PCSpecialist logo on the front which isn't the case (was kinda happy about that, sorry
).From the front it's pretty basic but stylish, the speaker panel is the only thing that doesn't look great but the rest of the machine makes up for that. Also the HD sticking out of the top of the machine is a bit of an eyesore as it has no cover and noticeably sticks out. There is a cartridge top that you can attach to the HD but that makes it look even worse and you can see it over the top of the screen, just looks out of place in my opinion but it is completely optional to have it attached.
here are a few pictures of the chassis & HD:
Screen
The glare you get when its light outside is pretty noticeable I could see myself in the screen all afternoon but it is a thing of beauty. The touch screen element is completely unnecessary but I enjoyed forcing myself to use it all afternoon, the W7 keyboard isn't brilliant but it was enjoyable as I spoke to my friends on facebook and used chrome to browse the web on the touch keyboard (even used it to buy my new basketball shoes). The touch screen is really sensitive & reactive to touch, I had a fly land on the screen and knock the cursor off this article as I was writing this review which shows the great technology of this screen. A con with the touchscreen is that 75% of the time I couldn't get the cursor to use the scroll on the left hand side of the screen to move the webpage up and down, here is a picture of the screen from the front (it was hard to get good lighting against it so this is the best I could get on my Iphone):
Set-up, Webcam & Sound
Wow this thing loads up quick, as you can see in your video it took 23 seconds from start to the user screen with Windows 7 installed on my SSD, All the drivers were installed for the speakers & graphics card when I turned it on. The front speakers on here are poor, there is little to no bass from them but the speakers weren't the reason I purchased the system. The sound the system gives off with basic internet use and music is so quiet, unfortunately I haven't had time to play any games on here to test system noise but once I have I will update this section with my opinion. Tested the webcam on facebook video chat earlier, picture was clear and stayed in real-time throughout the 5 minute conversation I had with a friend with about 2 lag jolts in that space of time.
Videos
[video=youtube;M0x-fpqnqgs]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0x-fpqnqgs&feature=plcp[/video]
[video=youtube;Des3tLpQmsM]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Des3tLpQmsM&feature=context-cha[/video]
[video=youtube;2IRt4qEuOjM]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IRt4qEuOjM&feature=context-cha[/video]
[video=youtube;47e83bflb1U]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47e83bflb1U&feature=context-cha[/video]
Summary
To round things up just a few points of my pros and cons on the machine:
Pros
Basic but stylish design
Touchscreen elemental is very reactive
Extremely quick load up times
System sound is extremely minimum
Service from DPD
Cons
Speaker quality
HD slot on the top is unsightly
Powerbricks are massive (And it requires 3 of them to run if you get a GTX670/680)
Here is the specification I went with:
Chassis & Display
PowerGlide Extreme: 24" Glossy Full HD Multi-Touch Screen (1920x 1080)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i5 Quad Core Processor i5-3570K (3.4GHz) 6MB Cache
Memory (RAM)
8GB SAMSUNG 1333MHz SODIMM DDR3 MEMORY (2 x 4GB)
Graphics Card
2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 680 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
120GB KINGSTON HYPERX 3K SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 555MB/sR | 510MB/sW)
2nd Hard Disk
750GB WD SCORPIO BLACK WD7500BPKT, SATA 3 Gb/s, 16MB CACHE (7200 rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
8 Speed SATA DVD±R/RW/Dual Layer (+ 24x CD-RW)
Memory Card Reader
Integrated 4 in 1 Card Reader (SDXC/MMC/MS/XD)
Sound Card
ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL (7.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Facilities
GIGABIT LAN & INTEL WIRELESS 802.11N CARD INC. BLUETOOTH 3.0
USB Options
2 x USB 3.0 PORTS + 5 x USB 2.0 PORTS AS STANDARD
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit w/SP1 - inc DVD & Licence
Office Software
FREE Microsoft® Office Starter 2010 (Limited functionality Word & Excel)
Anti-Virus
BULLGUARD INTERNET SECURITY - FREE 90 DAY TRIAL
Speakers
2 x INTEGRATED 5W SPEAKERS
Webcam
INTEGRATED 2.0 MEGAPIXEL WEBCAM
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 10 to 12 working days
Quantity
1
Price: £1,439.00 including VAT and delivery.
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