pumaknight
New member
For years I have shied away from laptops for both gaming and for photo editing...in simple terms, because the power to cost to quality ratio was just so bad that any serious consideration was always defeated at the first hurdle….oh and I suppose it is fair to admit that the laptop love fest was tarnished by my work provided laptop always seeming to a better impression of a brick than a workable computing solution.
Well, those per-dispositions towards laptop equaling slow or heavy have been well and truly banished by this shiny new PC Specialist provided Vortex III. My work commitments mean that my home Desktop PC gets very little use now and I needed a powerful laptop to allow me to do photo editing and play my games (yes, I still play games…do you ever grow out of that phase I wonder…ahem!!)…and I needed to carry it with me without the need for a contracted Sherpa…
Granted I was quite nervous when I built the specification on the website, taking a similar route as I took for my desktop solutions – powerful graphics card oh so much powerful graphics card. But I was pleasantly surprised to see that the offered GPUs were rather more powerful than I imagined could be contained in a 5” chassis…no SLI, but a card with enough kick to at least run Crysis 2 at 60 fps with most of the shiny eye candy turned to the max…
So my laptop specified and ordered. Now I don’t know about the rest of you but when this particular magpie sees a new shiny, a 2-3 weeks wait is borderline torture….one swift tick and I had super turbo express build option selected. True to their word, the laptop was delivered only 3 days later…
And it is GOOD. I cannot find one fault that is worth a serious mention. The build is solid both software and hardware wise. The performance is exceptional and far more than I expected to get. The screen, nice and matt with excellent colour rendition…perfect for those photographic moments that I will have. The performance is demonstrably robust enough to mean that I can expect to play the latest games for at least a few years at full settings. The weight…well, it is not light, but certainly not a huge mark heavier than my work laptop that it now replaces. The colour is suitably sedate and stylish to mean that even those with style iconic iMacs or the like cannot mock you for your lack of taste…. They keyboard sized for even banana fingers such as me to hit each key with confidence…although the slash being on the other side of the space bar has meant I do hit slash rather than space sometimes…a nominal adjustment in my hand position required…
The only two things that I feel I should mention here that shy away from the positive are a dead pixel on the screen and the hotkey tool. I have pixel cover as an option, but as the pixel is up in the top left, it is not worth bothering about, that is more luck than judgement but I will take it!! And the bespoke custom tool for keyboard lights and power settings….erm…nope, that does not show all features and required a little bit of searching in the forums here to work out how to see all options…not a show stopper, but still….shame given the quality of everything else.
And lastly, the external power pack...oh dear!! It is huge!! It is actually quite heavy and certainly picks the weight of this beast up from the advertised kg to a little bit more than expected. This is not a real issue, but might be worth a mention in the website specification in future, just in case the un-laptop wise are as surprised as me. For a desktop replacement, this is a non-issue…for those wanting portable and rechargeable in-field battery options, the external power pack is enough of a size to warrant consideration.
But who cares….this laptop rocks and I have nothing but praise for PC Specialist…Thank you!!
Well, those per-dispositions towards laptop equaling slow or heavy have been well and truly banished by this shiny new PC Specialist provided Vortex III. My work commitments mean that my home Desktop PC gets very little use now and I needed a powerful laptop to allow me to do photo editing and play my games (yes, I still play games…do you ever grow out of that phase I wonder…ahem!!)…and I needed to carry it with me without the need for a contracted Sherpa…
Granted I was quite nervous when I built the specification on the website, taking a similar route as I took for my desktop solutions – powerful graphics card oh so much powerful graphics card. But I was pleasantly surprised to see that the offered GPUs were rather more powerful than I imagined could be contained in a 5” chassis…no SLI, but a card with enough kick to at least run Crysis 2 at 60 fps with most of the shiny eye candy turned to the max…
So my laptop specified and ordered. Now I don’t know about the rest of you but when this particular magpie sees a new shiny, a 2-3 weeks wait is borderline torture….one swift tick and I had super turbo express build option selected. True to their word, the laptop was delivered only 3 days later…
And it is GOOD. I cannot find one fault that is worth a serious mention. The build is solid both software and hardware wise. The performance is exceptional and far more than I expected to get. The screen, nice and matt with excellent colour rendition…perfect for those photographic moments that I will have. The performance is demonstrably robust enough to mean that I can expect to play the latest games for at least a few years at full settings. The weight…well, it is not light, but certainly not a huge mark heavier than my work laptop that it now replaces. The colour is suitably sedate and stylish to mean that even those with style iconic iMacs or the like cannot mock you for your lack of taste…. They keyboard sized for even banana fingers such as me to hit each key with confidence…although the slash being on the other side of the space bar has meant I do hit slash rather than space sometimes…a nominal adjustment in my hand position required…
The only two things that I feel I should mention here that shy away from the positive are a dead pixel on the screen and the hotkey tool. I have pixel cover as an option, but as the pixel is up in the top left, it is not worth bothering about, that is more luck than judgement but I will take it!! And the bespoke custom tool for keyboard lights and power settings….erm…nope, that does not show all features and required a little bit of searching in the forums here to work out how to see all options…not a show stopper, but still….shame given the quality of everything else.
And lastly, the external power pack...oh dear!! It is huge!! It is actually quite heavy and certainly picks the weight of this beast up from the advertised kg to a little bit more than expected. This is not a real issue, but might be worth a mention in the website specification in future, just in case the un-laptop wise are as surprised as me. For a desktop replacement, this is a non-issue…for those wanting portable and rechargeable in-field battery options, the external power pack is enough of a size to warrant consideration.
But who cares….this laptop rocks and I have nothing but praise for PC Specialist…Thank you!!
