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Bright Spark
This review is a little long coming but I've finally got around to doing one for my Optimus IV, hope you enjoy it!
Firstly the specs:
Chassis & Display Optimus Series: 15.6" Matte Full HD LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor (CPU) Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Mobile Processor i7-3630QM (2.40GHz) 6MB
Memory (RAM) 8GB SAMSUNG 1600MHz SODIMM DDR3 MEMORY (2 x 4GB)
Graphics Card NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 660M - 2.0GB DDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 11
2nd Graphics Card NONE
Memory - 1st Hard Disk 120GB KINGSTON HYPERX 3K SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 555MB/sR | 510MB/sW)
2nd Hard Disk NONE
RAID NONE
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive 8x SATA DVD±R/RW/Dual Layer (+ 24x CD-RW)
Memory Card Reader Internal 9 in 1 Card Reader (MMC/RSMMC/SD: Mini, XC & HC/MS: Pro & Duo)
Thermal Paste ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND (£9)
Sound Card Intel 2 Channel High Definition Audio + MIC/Headphone Jack
Network Facilities GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® N135 802.11N (150Mbps) + BLUETOOTH
USB Options 3 x USB 3.0 PORTS + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT AS STANDARD
Battery Optimus Series 8 Cell Lithium Ion Battery (5,200 mAh/76.96WH)
Power Lead & Adaptor 1 x UK Power Lead & 120W AC Adaptor
Operating System Genuine Windows 8 Standard Edition 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)
Office Software NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Anti-Virus NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Laptop Cooling Stands NONE
Carry Case NONE
Monitor NONE
Keyboard & Mouse INTEGRATED UK KEYBOARD WITH NUMBER PAD
Mouse INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
Speakers NONE
Webcam INTEGRATED 1.3 MEGAPIXEL WEBCAM
Headsets NONE
Surge Protection NONE
Printer NONE
External Hard Drive NONE
Warranty 3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)
Home Installation NONE
Dead Pixel Guarantee NONE
Insurance NONE
Data Recovery NONE
Delivery SCOTTISH HIGHLANDS & UK OFFSHORE ISLANDS / N IRELAND (£12)
Build Time Standard Build - Approximately 9 to 11 working days
Pricing Information
Price (excluding VAT) £689.17
Price £827.00
Production Dates
Processed Date 17-10-2012
Pre-Production Date 23-10-2012
Build Date 30-10-2012
Test Date 30-10-2012
Awaiting Dispatch Date 30-10-2012
Dispatch Date 31-10-2012
So firstly the ordering:
After a few intial questions which were replied to quickly by PCS forum members I was ready to order. After some serious though I went ahead and ordered my Optimus IV and happily breezed through setting the spec for it. Then the dreaded wait...
Which actually turned out to be not so bad because I was expecting it to be a lot longer as there had currently been a shortage in the Optimus IV chassis.
Score: 10/10
Delivery:
I did ask initially for the parcel to be delivered to the back door, but was deliverd to the front, (I got my laptop, I didn't care.) Also the DPD van wasn't marked which confused me a bit, but to be honest the box was immaculate so I had no qualms with that, as long as a product is delivered safely then that's all that matters.
Score 10/10
Initial Inspection:
I carefully took everything out and checked it, everything looked perfect. After a few stories of people having some bad experiences of recently delivered items I thought I'd quickly open the access panels to make sure everything was still connected properly and everything was fine.
I have to admit, I wasn't really keen on the sharp edges around the case as my wrists rest upon them and get bloody sore after a while and the cheap feel of the plastic certainly represents the price of the laptop. Though niggly points aside, that isn't actually PCS's fault and I've grown used to the physical aspects of the laptop. Flex isn't an issue for me either as I always have the laptop on a flat surface.
Score 10/10
Initial Running:
This is where things went a little bad for me, basically there was a problem with the bios conflicting with Windows 8 which disabled audio on the speakers and HDMI. I did call PCS instantly but at the time I don't think they were well aware of those particular problems, it was only after some browsing of the forums that I found the bios problem. I did call again for a USB stick to repair it, but got no reply for a few days and after calling again found out that it hadn't actually been sent. This time the stick was delivered and I fixed the laptop.
Hopefully this is now fixed on new builds.
Score 8/10
General Running:
Fan noise if only on low power is very good and hardly audible and when gaming on full power sounds like a jet taking off, but this doesn't bother me as it keeps the CPU and GPU nice and cool.
Gaming on this 1080p screen is an absolute joy also and looks awesome, I don't want to even think about going back to a lower resolution! Also the screen brightness is crazy, I will mainly be viewing at about 25% full brightness, this'll be handy in the summer as I'll be able to use it outside in the sun with the matte screen.
Audio power initially wasn't great but again after some fiddling managed to up it, audio quality on the other hand is very clear.
The second HDD does get pretty warm, but considering the HDD isn't on constanly helps it to keep cool.
Lets put it this way, if I'm using battery on low power and surfing the web or watching Youtube most of the time the fan will be off same for the 2nd HDD, the first is an SSD so it's basically silent, not bad for a pretty beefy laptop!
Score 10/10
Conclusion:
So after having used the laptop for just over a month I'm absolutely loving it! When I need power for gaming it's there and when I need it to run for a long time on batteries I can get around 5 hours out of it.
Granted I did have a lot of problems to start off with, but after a lot of tinkering I've finally perfected the prefect set-up and is actually a very good laptop-spec for the price! If anyone is after a decently specced laptop without going over-the-top, then the Optimus IV is for you!
Overall Score 9/10
Thanks go to:
PCS for the great service.
The forum members for helping me to decide to get the Optimus IV.
Carl Auckland for personally building my laptop.
Ben Alderson for testing and QC'ing ny laptop.
Anthony Cunliffe for packing it away nicely.
I only have one pic for now, but I'll take some decent internal shots later.
Firstly the specs:
Chassis & Display Optimus Series: 15.6" Matte Full HD LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor (CPU) Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Mobile Processor i7-3630QM (2.40GHz) 6MB
Memory (RAM) 8GB SAMSUNG 1600MHz SODIMM DDR3 MEMORY (2 x 4GB)
Graphics Card NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 660M - 2.0GB DDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 11
2nd Graphics Card NONE
Memory - 1st Hard Disk 120GB KINGSTON HYPERX 3K SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 555MB/sR | 510MB/sW)
2nd Hard Disk NONE
RAID NONE
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive 8x SATA DVD±R/RW/Dual Layer (+ 24x CD-RW)
Memory Card Reader Internal 9 in 1 Card Reader (MMC/RSMMC/SD: Mini, XC & HC/MS: Pro & Duo)
Thermal Paste ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND (£9)
Sound Card Intel 2 Channel High Definition Audio + MIC/Headphone Jack
Network Facilities GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® N135 802.11N (150Mbps) + BLUETOOTH
USB Options 3 x USB 3.0 PORTS + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT AS STANDARD
Battery Optimus Series 8 Cell Lithium Ion Battery (5,200 mAh/76.96WH)
Power Lead & Adaptor 1 x UK Power Lead & 120W AC Adaptor
Operating System Genuine Windows 8 Standard Edition 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)
Office Software NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Anti-Virus NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Laptop Cooling Stands NONE
Carry Case NONE
Monitor NONE
Keyboard & Mouse INTEGRATED UK KEYBOARD WITH NUMBER PAD
Mouse INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
Speakers NONE
Webcam INTEGRATED 1.3 MEGAPIXEL WEBCAM
Headsets NONE
Surge Protection NONE
Printer NONE
External Hard Drive NONE
Warranty 3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)
Home Installation NONE
Dead Pixel Guarantee NONE
Insurance NONE
Data Recovery NONE
Delivery SCOTTISH HIGHLANDS & UK OFFSHORE ISLANDS / N IRELAND (£12)
Build Time Standard Build - Approximately 9 to 11 working days
Pricing Information
Price (excluding VAT) £689.17
Price £827.00
Production Dates
Processed Date 17-10-2012
Pre-Production Date 23-10-2012
Build Date 30-10-2012
Test Date 30-10-2012
Awaiting Dispatch Date 30-10-2012
Dispatch Date 31-10-2012
So firstly the ordering:
After a few intial questions which were replied to quickly by PCS forum members I was ready to order. After some serious though I went ahead and ordered my Optimus IV and happily breezed through setting the spec for it. Then the dreaded wait...
Which actually turned out to be not so bad because I was expecting it to be a lot longer as there had currently been a shortage in the Optimus IV chassis.
Score: 10/10
Delivery:
I did ask initially for the parcel to be delivered to the back door, but was deliverd to the front, (I got my laptop, I didn't care.) Also the DPD van wasn't marked which confused me a bit, but to be honest the box was immaculate so I had no qualms with that, as long as a product is delivered safely then that's all that matters.
Score 10/10
Initial Inspection:
I carefully took everything out and checked it, everything looked perfect. After a few stories of people having some bad experiences of recently delivered items I thought I'd quickly open the access panels to make sure everything was still connected properly and everything was fine.
I have to admit, I wasn't really keen on the sharp edges around the case as my wrists rest upon them and get bloody sore after a while and the cheap feel of the plastic certainly represents the price of the laptop. Though niggly points aside, that isn't actually PCS's fault and I've grown used to the physical aspects of the laptop. Flex isn't an issue for me either as I always have the laptop on a flat surface.
Score 10/10
Initial Running:
This is where things went a little bad for me, basically there was a problem with the bios conflicting with Windows 8 which disabled audio on the speakers and HDMI. I did call PCS instantly but at the time I don't think they were well aware of those particular problems, it was only after some browsing of the forums that I found the bios problem. I did call again for a USB stick to repair it, but got no reply for a few days and after calling again found out that it hadn't actually been sent. This time the stick was delivered and I fixed the laptop.
Hopefully this is now fixed on new builds.
Score 8/10
General Running:
Fan noise if only on low power is very good and hardly audible and when gaming on full power sounds like a jet taking off, but this doesn't bother me as it keeps the CPU and GPU nice and cool.
Gaming on this 1080p screen is an absolute joy also and looks awesome, I don't want to even think about going back to a lower resolution! Also the screen brightness is crazy, I will mainly be viewing at about 25% full brightness, this'll be handy in the summer as I'll be able to use it outside in the sun with the matte screen.
Audio power initially wasn't great but again after some fiddling managed to up it, audio quality on the other hand is very clear.
The second HDD does get pretty warm, but considering the HDD isn't on constanly helps it to keep cool.
Lets put it this way, if I'm using battery on low power and surfing the web or watching Youtube most of the time the fan will be off same for the 2nd HDD, the first is an SSD so it's basically silent, not bad for a pretty beefy laptop!
Score 10/10
Conclusion:
So after having used the laptop for just over a month I'm absolutely loving it! When I need power for gaming it's there and when I need it to run for a long time on batteries I can get around 5 hours out of it.
Granted I did have a lot of problems to start off with, but after a lot of tinkering I've finally perfected the prefect set-up and is actually a very good laptop-spec for the price! If anyone is after a decently specced laptop without going over-the-top, then the Optimus IV is for you!
Overall Score 9/10
Thanks go to:
PCS for the great service.
The forum members for helping me to decide to get the Optimus IV.
Carl Auckland for personally building my laptop.
Ben Alderson for testing and QC'ing ny laptop.
Anthony Cunliffe for packing it away nicely.
I only have one pic for now, but I'll take some decent internal shots later.
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