My New Skyfire II

[Thoth]

Well heres my new piece of shiny:

Chassis & Display

SkyFire:17.3" Matte Full HD LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor (CPU)

Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Mobile Processor i7-3740QM (2.70GHz) 6MB
Memory (RAM)

16GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS 1600MHz SODIMM DDR3 (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card

NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 675M - 2.0GB DDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 11
Memory - Hard Disk

120GB INTEL® 330 SERIES SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 500MB/sR | 450MB/sW)
Hard Disk
2nd Hard Disk

500GB WD SCORPIO BLACK WD5000BPKT, SATA 3 Gb/s, 16MB CACHE (7200 rpm)
2nd Hard Disk
DVD/BLU-RAY Drive

SONY BD-5750H 6x BLURAY WRITER & CYBERLINK SOFTWARE
Memory Card Reader

Integrated 4 in 1 Card Reader (SDXC/MMC/MS/XD)
Thermal Paste

ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND (£9)
Sound Card

Creative Sound Blaster® X-Fi™ Surround 5.1 PRO External (£69)
Bluetooth & Wireless

GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® ULTIMATE-N 6300 (450Mbps)
USB Options

2 x USB 3.0 PORTS + 3 x USB 2.0 PORTS AS STANDARD
Battery

2 x SkyFire Series 9 Cell Lithium Ion Battery (£39)
Power Lead & Adaptor

2 x UK Power Lead & 180W AC Adaptor (£49)
Operating System

Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit w/SP1 - inc DVD & Licence (£79)
Office Software

Microsoft® Office Home & Student 2010 (Incl Disc & 1 License for 3 devices) (£89)
Anti-Virus

BULLGUARD INTERNET SECURITY - FREE 90 DAY TRIAL
Laptop Cooling Stands

Zalman ZM-NC1500 Ultra-Quiet Laptop Cooler, upto 17.3 inch (£25)
Carry Case

TARGUS XL CITY GEAR 16" - 17.3" LAPTOP CASE TCG417 (£43)
Keyboard Language

INTEGRATED UK KEYBOARD WITH NUMBER PAD
Notebook Mouse

INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
Webcam

INTEGRATED 720P 30 FPS HD WEBCAM
Surge Protection

6 Socket Compact 2M UFO Surge Protector (£9)
Warranty

3 Year Gold Warranty (2 Year Collect & Return, 2 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£69)
Dead Pixel Guarantee

30 Day Dead Pixel Guarantee Inc. Labour & Carriage Costs (£12)
Insurance

1 Month Free Laptop Insurance inc. Accidental Damage & Theft
Delivery

STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time

Standard Build - Approximately 8 to 10 working days

I decided to partition the second drive with 200/300 GB (the OS is on the SSD)and have one for work and one for play

All in all this cost me £1798 which is much less than it would have been from alienware - where it would have been £2200 at the least.

So considering I got the confirmation email moments ago I will likely be waiting a while for this - But I don't mind so long as it works well :tt2:

I will be using for some serisous gaming, and then uploading videos of those, don't know what software Ill use yet but ill figure it out.

Ill do a review of it when it arrives and Ive got everything working Ill tell you how well it plays stuff like Deus Ex Human Revolution and my total war games.

Happy weekend everyone

 

[tom6561]

That looks excellent . The Skyfire is a beast, let us know what you think of it when you get it and make sure to put some pics up!

 

[westerdaled]

Hi

Yes, this is a similar spec I would be looking for professional IT developer work and social stuff ( BluRay, Music, Social et al.) Primarily, I want reasonable battery life, good build quality and a keyboard this great for lots of typing.:yes:

I have reviewed the spec and these are my comments

- I take it the matt screen finish is much better that gloss in sunlight ( and won't need so much cleaning) - I am about to replace my ailing Samsung R780 which does have a gloss screen.
- Is this a "Windows 8 spec refresh" laptop which Sales mention to me earlier in the year- I think windows 8 models have new features such as connected wake up ( which is not a reference to older marred couples !)? As opposed to an existing model which may just has windows 8 installed on it.
- I am not a gamer so I really want my graphics card to be a "value range" which should hopefully mean I could afford a larger SSD drive as my primary drive

I would welcome your thoughts/ comments.



Daniel W

 

[Thoth]

Hmm Well Ill tell you what its like when I get it!

Couple of things:

To the best of my knowlege you really don't want a glossy screen - as someone I know said "enjoy looking at your own reflection" its also as you say really hard to clean + if you have a light source near (My light is directly overhead of me) you can see better.

Dunno about the windows spec myself to be honest I am going to hedge my bets buy both Windows 7 and then upgrade to windows 8 - if I decide I don't like it I will simply downgrade. (cos I have both disks)

I suppose you would not need a really good graphics card as I think its the processor you need for any file manipulation (I might be wrong but I don't think I am) so I suppose a larger SSD is justified although I don't think this laptop really comes with a 'value range'

I shall tell this forum my opinion on its bulid quality and stuff when I get it!

According to the stats it will last 6 hours under UMA - what ever that means...dunno If I believe that we shall see...

 

[tom6561]

I'll have a go at answering some of your questions. I have the glossy screen and it is an excellent screen, however in sunlight it is fairly hard to use so I'd imagine that the matte is much better. I don't know about the "windows 8 spec refresh". The Skyfire II has been around since June time I believe. If you don't want a high end graphics card then I'd probably point you towards the Optimus IV or more likely the Genesis IV. A lot of the price in the Skyfire II comes from the graphics card. As a final note there are a few reviews floating around on the forum that you could find if you wanted something more in depth.