So I've had the machine for about 2 months now, the model looks to be retired from the website already, but I have one of the 'next day laptops' which is an Icore i7-8750h, 2.20ghz, 16gb ram, Nvidia RTX 2070 graphics card. A gaming laptop which was at time of purchase priced at £1600 (I don't have the model name, none of that detail was included in the emails I had from PCspecialist confirming order etc).
The laptop boots up quickly, takes about 5 seconds to get into windows. The facial recognition generally works well. I found the power button is very difficult to activate- I initially thought it was faulty (maybe it is) I have to press it pretty hard, and sometimes two or three times for the laptop to turn on. The backlit keyboard looks pretty snazzy during booting with the lights flickering different colours. I tend to keep the backlight on during use because the key markings are otherwise very dull. The keyboard is also very slow to respond. This can lead to some mistyping; for example, a double 'o' requires a firm double press, you can't get away with lightly tapping it twice or you'll end up with just one character.
High-spec games generally run very well. The laptop does run very hot when gaming though, so a fan underneath it is probably a necessity. Graphics settings can generally be put on highest, but for the very newest games it will lag over overheat significantly without reducing the settings significantly. The speakers however, are dire. Sound is very quiet and echoey even on the highest volume. A day after the laptop arrived I ordered a pair of logitech speakers, but it was a step down from my previous laptop's sound which worked perfectly with its Band & Olufson speakers without any form of aid.
I find where the laptop seems slow is oddly during simple functions. If I open an MS word document, the laptop will tend to hang for about 20 seconds saying 'program not responding' before loading. Sometimes it will not open a word document at all and I'll have to ctrl-alt-del to close word and reopen it- a big pain for a high-end laptop. Also, other simple things like right-clicking inside a document folder and trying to select 'create new folder' will cause the laptop to hang for about 8 seconds- I have never had this action perform in anything under immediacy before.
The lack of disk drive isn't really missed these days, but I found the positioning of the charger port on the rear of the laptop to be a bit bothersome. When at a desk I have to feel around the back to plug it in or look over the back of the laptop- every other laptop I've had the port was on the side which I think is a lot better. The laptop is not over-heavy for the size, but it feels very plasticky (because it is). The cover is also very prone to fingerprints and feels a bit cheap. The keyboard is also quite compact, further impeding typing. They keys are more closely bunched than on any machine I have ever had.
Overall, the laptop is very okay. I would say it's not worth £1600, maybe half of that considering its multiple shortcomings and although I generally use it without complaint, I find it very frustrating when trying to do anything other than gaming. It's semi-regular 'program not responding' messages for the simplest operation make me think that it'll probably barely outlive the warranty period before packing in. In summary, I'd say I would have chosen a different laptop if I had the chance again.
