Lafite III Review - First Impressions

So firstly the bad (which has little to do with the actual laptop now):

Unfortunately the Lafite arrived with two stuck pixels on the screen and a slightly bent lid. Whilst to some degree I get the stuck pixels passing QC as it is still within tolerances it seems daft not to check when a customer has paid for the guarantee and add the faff of it being returned. It is possible the could have appeared post being shipped, but unlikely.

The distorted lid should have been picked up in QC, whilst it wasn't very obvious it didn't look right to me when closed. PC Specialist probably have some work to do on their QC.

Returning the laptop was a nightmare with DPD, it got stuck at the delivery office because the couldn't work out whether it was coming back to me or going to PC Specialist, in the end I kept having to chase PC Specialist to get it moving, whilst they were great on the phone it meant the RMA took nearly two weeks for two thinsg that probably should have been picked up before it left. At one level the DPD problem isn't PCS fault, but it is their courier, for the distance I could have put it in a taxi for the £35 that DPD get paid!

Anyway after the RMA the laptop arrived in excellent condition.

The Laptop itself works wonderfully, with excellent benchmarks for it's spec. At first the fans were quite loud, but once all the initial windows stuff had gone through they have basically turned off. For other people's benefit, they are quieter on performance rather that quite mode in CC! It idles in the low 40's and when I'm typing this with a few tabs open and another program it's at 47 - the fans are off and it's silent. To that end I have managed to get a stable undervolt of 0.140 which knocked a good few degrees off and seems to have stopped the fans being necessary for all but intensive tasks.

The keyboard is pretty good to type on, some flex in the deck but not excessive, the trackpad is much better than the original Lafite, not quite Apple standard but no complaints. The wireless is infinitely better too and has good range and solid speeds.

The screen is lovely and other than in direct bright sunlight works well in all conditions. Battery life (bear in mind the undervolt here) is somewhere between 4 and 6 hours depending how intensively I'm using the machine, pottering with a couple of tabs open and word nearer the 6,
 

Attachments

  • IMG_20190603_110937.jpg
    IMG_20190603_110937.jpg
    920.8 KB · Views: 340
  • IMG_20190603_110951.jpg
    IMG_20190603_110951.jpg
    752.7 KB · Views: 318
  • IMG_20190603_110958.jpg
    IMG_20190603_110958.jpg
    746.9 KB · Views: 321
  • IMG_20190603_111020.jpg
    IMG_20190603_111020.jpg
    819.1 KB · Views: 332
Top