Enigma VI Review

[tom6561]

Updated 18/12/15

So I've had my Enigma VI for just over a month now, so I'm just updating this and changing a few words here and there. I don't believe there are any other reviews of this as of yet so hopefully this will be of help to people! I'll stick the photos below for you to have a look at, but first impressions were that the laptop was very well packaged, extremely light and thin. Bear in mind when you read through that I am a bit picky, and I tend to gloss over things that I'm happy with and focus on things I'm not. For the money I think it's a very capable machine.

Specs:
Core M 5Y10C
8GB RAM
128GB SSD

For some reason the photos won't upload, so here's a link to the album externally: http://imgur.com/a/llAII

Screen

The screen is very crisp and seems pretty good quality, the colours are nice and whites very white, which is all very good. With it being Full HD the text can be small at times, but you can fiddle with the settings if you need to, but I did get used to it. My only minor niggle is that it could be a bit brighter; I only notice this occasionally, but there's never an issue with seeing the screen, it could just be a bit more vibrant. I think that's a symptom of a matte screen though. The fact it's a Full HD screen for under £500 is pretty fantastic.

Update: The brightness is definitely fine, I think it's just in comparison to my glossy desktop screen it can seem less bright, but I've not found any issues using it.

Keyboard

The keyboard is alright, about what I expected. Absolutely nothing wrong with it, would be nice to have a bit more travel on the keys but that's not happening in this form factor. I'm still getting used to typing on it so make a few mistakes here and there, but it's a lot better than any tablet keyboard and I have typed up a few thousand word report on it which wasn't painful, so I'm happy.

Update: Not much to say here, still working fine and the travel no longer bothers me.

Portability/Battery Life

So this is the main reason I got this laptop and it's pretty perfect in this respect. Very light and small - I can easily pick it up with one hand by the corner and carry it round without straining my hand, or use it whilst standing up if I have to. The battery life will most likely hit the claimed amount, I've not managed to drain it before having access to the charger so it should last a full day without that much trouble.

Update: Battery life is great, manages a whole day at uni without any trouble.

Performance

Something I am picky about here, and I wasn't expecting that much, but it's surprisingly rapid. Boot is obviously quick with the SSD, not quite as fast as my Samsung 830 in my desktop but pretty negligibly slower. Internet browsing performance is solid, again a little slower than the desktop but really not much at all. Video playback is fine and it really doesn't heat up much. It can't quite cope with streaming games through Steam which is a bit disappointing, but to be expected from the lower processor. For everything I do on it though, internet, word processing/Excel it is absolutely fine, although I would recommend getting adblock as pages with an excessive number of ads can actually cause an issue. (I do mean excessive though...)

Update: Somebody else with this laptop noted that the clockspeed on battery is locked to 800Mhz and won't use the turboboost functionality, presumably to save battery or because the battery cannot handle the current draw. It does slow down the laptop noticably, but not enough to be annoying in most cases. There apparently a fix by using the program Throttlestop (v800), but I'm not recommending this to anybody that doesn't know what they're doing, and I don't know what effect this may have on the warranty if any.
I've tested the laptop under load, and it does get pretty hot if you're running something intensive for a sustained period. It's not hot enough to be uncomfortable and the CPU will hit about 75C which is fine, but once you stop loading it the temperature does struggle to dissipate with passive cooling. Usually temperatures stay below 50C, but after load they hover around 45-60C as the metal has heated up. Again, it's not an issue but more out of interest.

Touchpad

Perfectly standard to me, the only thing I actually don't like is that the touch surface extends over the two buttons, so sometimes it won't register a click properly as it is moving the mouse when you try to do so. I'm sure that'll just be getting used to it too though.

Update: Very annoying that the touch surface extends over the two buttons, I'm not sure quite how you're meant to use it and why that would be seen as a good thing, if anybody can help me here I'd appreciate it. It also sometimes stops responding for a couple of seconds, but not that often. I'm not sure if there's power saving setting or something that kicks in when you haven't touched it for a while, but that is also a bit of a pain.

Overall

A solid laptop for the money and does exactly what I want it to. I wouldn't expect to be using Photoshop, or doing anything intensive at all for that matter, but for web browsing, word processing and netflix, you can't go far wrong. The Full HD screen is impressive at this price point, and the overall package is pretty well rounded.

Update: I would definitely still recommend this, I'm really only nitpicking and there isn't anything particularly bad wrong with the laptop. I would definitely make the purchase again.

 

[daavee]

Glad to finally read a review of the Enigma VI and to see some pics! I'm close to pulling the trigger and from your review the laptop sounds pretty good although I'm a bit concerned about it apparently struggling to stream steam as this will be one of my primary uses for the machine.
Can I ask if you have hardware decoding with Intel Quicksync enabled on it when you stream and if you have a fast router as the Core M 5Y10C is more than capable of full 1080p 60fps streaming as it has built in H.264 decoding? So I'm thinking that it's either something maybe not configured on your end or that the wifi card/antenna is not up to the job. If it's the latter then I may have to look elsewhere for a laptop unless the wifi card is accessible and changeable...

 

[javism1]

Hi Tom,

I recently bought this same laptop. I'm a bit disappointed though with the laptop as the CPU stucks to 800Mhz when it's unplugged. I tried changing the power settings and other tweaks. I also made sure to put enough load on the CPU however the CPU will stay on 800Mhz when it's on battery.

Please could you let me know if you are having this same behaviour?

Thanks,

 

[daavee]

Hi Tom,

I recently bought this same laptop. I'm a bit disappointed though with the laptop as the CPU stucks to 800Mhz when it's unplugged. I tried changing the power settings and other tweaks. I also made sure to put enough load on the CPU however the CPU will stay on 800Mhz when it's on battery.

Please could you let me know if you are having this same behaviour?

Thanks,

That sounds worrying. I take it that you've tried changing the cpu to max clockspeed 100% when on battery in the windows power settings? What is the CPU clock speed when plugged in with full load? Also are you able to access the bios?

 

[tom6561]

I'll have a look at the settings for the processor and graphics in a few minutes. The router is the stock one from Virgin Media for fibre which I assume would be fast enough. I have only tried this on battery, so this could be related to the 800MHz issue which I will also look into I shall also look into and report back.

 

[tom6561]

So it does seem the CPU sticks to 800MHz on battery, had it under load on Prime95 as well as just browsing the internet etc. On AC power it'll happily boost up to 2GHz, but sticks around 1100MHz on Prime95 presumably due to temperatures (gets up to only about 55C though). Steam games are still a bit choppy even when plugged in, so I'll have a deeper look into the wireless card and the router to rule that out. I'm not sure how to get into the BIOS as of yet, tried spamming ESC, F1, F2, F6 and F12 on boot through the PCS screen, but haven't had any luck.

 

[daavee]

Great work looking in to this Tom!

First off bit disappointing on the CPU front. It sounds like access to the bios is locked which from what I've read is the usual case for these Core M laptops, which likely means no way to change that 800mhz max clock on battery. It may mean that battery life will be a bit longer and temps a bit cooler when running on the battery but it seems to me that with temps of 55c and a clock speed of around 1100mhz in Prime95 it sounds like it's just unnecessarily artificially limited with regards to clock speeds and temps. I'd happily take core temps of 70-80c with a higher clockspeed. On both mains and battery. Oh well.
Thanks for the info on the steam streaming as well. It sounds like it may be the card/antenna. Or possibly a software issue. I should imagine that the router is more than fast enough.

 

[tom6561]

I was surprised with those temperatures as well, I'd like the option of my battery life rather than being forced to have long life and low performance. I had a look at the card and it's an Intel AC-3160 from device manager, it's rated speeds are easily high enough but whether or not it hits those I can't tell. I would try with an ethernet cable but there's no port for it. I've just updated the graphics drivers and will give another update when I've had another go.

 

[daavee]

I'd like the option of my battery life rather than being forced to have long life and low performance.

My thoughts exactly.

And that's interesting the wireless card being that model as the only option that I get for the wireless card when configuring a build is for a wireless N one. Do you know if you specifically chose an AC card?

 

[tom6561]

No I stuck with the default option for wireless card, so it is most likely a mistake on their part. They did list the wrong battery capacity as well which has now been corrected. I would query it with them if you're bothered.

 

[daavee]

Ok thanks. If I do end up ordering the laptop I will get in touch with PCS beforehand to check. I'd rather have an AC card so hopefully the card that you got is standard and they just listed it wrong.

 

[javism1]

Hi all,

I was able to access to the BIOS. I tried a few things I read in forums about disabling iest, p-states, etc. But nothing worked. I set the windows power settings to be the same when it's plugged and when it's on battery. The same thing, CPU stucks to 800Mhz.

At the end I've got to the conclusion that the problem is actually the battery. It seems to have only 7.5 volts and 5100mAh which will provide around 38Watt. I'm guessing this is not enough to keep up with the power needs of the computer so it automatically locks the CPU voltage to a lower value.

I've also noticed that the performance of the SSD drops quite a lot when on battery. Not sure if this is due to the same reason as above.

I can feel the system is slightly slower when it's on battery. It takes a bit longer to open the applications, surf on the web, etc. Movies on HD are fine though.

 

[tom6561]

The same thing, CPU stucks to 800Mhz.

I had this with my graphics card on my Skyfire II (stuck to a low frequency on battery) and it was a locked setting that I believe was impossible to alter, even with flashing a different bios.

It seems to have only 7.5 volts and 5100mAh which will provide around 38Watt

The figure would be 38Wh so we need to divide through by battery life to give the power draw available, so at 7.5 hours that's 5.06W. Processor TDP is 4.5W which leaves a small amount of screen, SSD, wifi etc. I'd suggest we need to run Prime95 until the battery dies and measure the battery life to get the power draw. It's hard to say if the battery can support drawing the max power as we don't know how much power the screen uses.

I've definitely noticed that the system is slower on battery which is slightly annoying. I'd just like options of battery life vs performance rather than being locked into low performance.

Also how did you get into the bios?

 

[javism1]

My BIOS was unlocked and had no password set. So I simply press Esc when the laptop starts up and enter the BIOS.

 

[daavee]

Hey guys. Good to hear that the BIOS can be accessed but it's a shame that the CPU speed issue still cannot be resolved. I'm still close to buying the Enigma VI as despite it being slower when unplugged it'll still capable of browsing the web, Word, listening to music, etc.

Two things still concern me though - 1) The possible issue with steam streaming. Any luck with that Tom? 2) The screen potentially not being bright enough. It looks fine in the dimly lit room shots in the review but after the comments on the brightness I'm concerned that it might not be decently bright enough for outdoor use or even on my sofa next to the window. Could anyone take a shot of it in a bright/daylight environment to please put my mind at rest?

 

[tom6561]

Steam streaming is a lot better after I updated the graphics drivers actually. Pretty much no issues now - occassional heavy stuttering which I think is my network rather than the laptop, as the CPU never passed 70% in my monitoring during usage.

I think the screen is matte so should be fine in the light, I'll have a proper look tomorrow when it's light again and take a photo. I don't know whether a photo will get it across though. I've not had an issue wherever I've used it with it not being bright enough, I've just noticed it being a bit dimmer than my old laptop screen.

 

[daavee]

Steam streaming is a lot better after I updated the graphics drivers actually. Pretty much no issues now - occassional heavy stuttering which I think is my network rather than the laptop, as the CPU never passed 70% in my monitoring during usage.

I think the screen is matte so should be fine in the light, I'll have a proper look tomorrow when it's light again and take a photo. I don't know whether a photo will get it across though. I've not had an issue wherever I've used it with it not being bright enough, I've just noticed it being a bit dimmer than my old laptop screen.

Fantastic. You're a legend Tom! I'm very close to buying one but would still appreciate a photo if it isn't too much trouble. I know the screen is probably fine but I'm a bit fussy and don't like overly dull screens. After all it's the thing that you look at almost all of the time when you're using the device so a good screen is a must have for me. It does like nice in the the pics that you posted previously with deep blacks and even back-lighting so I'm confident that it'll be good enough. The fact that it's matte is also a massive plus for me as glossy laptop screens are the work of the devil!

 

[tom6561]

Not at all, I'll get one tomorrow hopefully! I am a little fussy with screens myself, I've just never used a matte one before so I'm not sure how to compare it, but the colours are good and back lighting is fine, although there is a bit of bleed in a dark room.

 

[flostim]

Thanks, for the review. I'm currently looking at buying an Enigma VI for my wife. She'll use it mainly to browse, watch videos and do office work and for that it seems a great fit and getting a full-hd screen, SSD and good portability/battery life for under 500£ seems like a great deal.
I'm currently thinking about going for only 4GB RAM because I think for her use it should be enough and I can always get another 4 GB to upgrade if necessary.

 

[tom6561]

Sorry I've not been able to get a photo as I was out all day looking at houses which I'd forgotten about. I shone a torch on the screen and it was still pretty usable, and I did use it by the window for an hour or so which made no perceptible difference to me in usability.

I'm currently thinking about going for only 4GB RAM because I think for her use it should be enough and I can always get another 4 GB to upgrade if necessary.

I use less than 4GB in pretty much all the situations I use it for, so that should be fine. I don't actually know if this one is user upgradable in terms of RAM, and if it is you'd need 1x8GB as it will only have 1 slot.