My Vortex :D

[wigins]

Finally ordered, thanks for everyone's advice! I'll soon be filling this post with performance and a review.

Chassis & Display
Vortex Series: 15.6" Matte Full HD LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Mobile Processor i7-4700MQ (2.40GHz) 6MB
Memory (RAM)
16GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS 1600MHz SODIMM DDR3 (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 770M - 3.0GB DDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 11
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
120GB KINGSTON HYPERX 3K SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 555MB/sR | 510MB/sW)
2nd Hard Disk
750GB WD SCORPIO BLACK WD7500BPKX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 16MB CACHE (7200 rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
2nd/3rd HDD HARD DRIVE OPTICAL BAY CADDY
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
Sound Card
Intel 2 Channel High Definition Audio + MIC/Headphone Jack
Wireless/Wired Networking
GIGABIT LAN & KILLER™ 1202 WIRELESS GAMING 802.11N + BLUETOOTH 4.0
USB Options
3 x USB 3.0 PORTS + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT AS STANDARD
Firewire
1 X 1394a FIREWIRE PORT
Battery
Vortex Series 8 Cell Lithium Ion Battery (5,200 mAh/76.96WH)
Power Cable
1 x UK Power Lead & 120W AC Adaptor
Operating System
Genuine Windows 8.1 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence
DVD Recovery Media
Windows 8.1 (64-bit) DVD with paper sleeve
Office Software
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Anti-Virus
BULLGUARD INTERNET SECURITY - FREE 90 DAY TRIAL
Keyboard Language
INTEGRATED UK KEYBOARD WITH NUMBER PAD
Mouse
INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
Webcam
INTEGRATED 2.0 MEGAPIXEL WEBCAM
Warranty
3 Year Gold Warranty (2 Year Collect & Return, 2 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Dead Pixel Guarantee
1 Year Dead Pixel Guarantee Inc. Labour & Carriage Costs
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 10 to 12 working days
Quantity
1



Can't wait!

 

[Danoni]

Very nice

Ordered mine last night too, Vortex IV LE, almost the same spec

Looking forward to getting mine and will keep an eye out for your own review too.

Good luck,

-- Danoni

 

[wigins]

Yeah, exciting stuff. It's going to me nice to comfortably game and not have to go do washing or make food while my models load lol. Yeah it'll be interesting to read your take!

 

[wigins]

It'll be here tomorrow, supposedly! Review will come on the weekend, mostly about delivery and first appearances and stuff, until I have some time using the machine!

 

[moosEh]

Looking forward to the review Wigins

 

[wigins]

Can't wait!

Sooo, it's here! The review would of been up a lot sooner but I've got a new toy!


Also, I study architecture and the course is demanding (excuses)



So with some of my precious spare time:

Selecting, advice and building:

It took me some time to decide what laptop I wanted, it all in fact began in currys/pcworld (I'm not giving them capitals), and after many months of dealing with their stupid staff and idiotic managers I'd officially moved on from them to a custom built laptop from whoever could offer me something I liked! PCspecialist had always been an option, but I wanted to be able to feel and touch something I was spending 1000+ on. So this had set me back, I was unsure of if I could trust this on-line based retailer with the job of providing me with what I wanted.

Some more months passed and I actually convinced myself to buy a Macbook Pro, because of the build quality mostly (2400+ price tag) Some people in uni kindly let me load up some of my software and that stuff I intended to use, the Mac handled it with no problem, even being lower spec than what the programs desired. I liked the way the Mac looked, felt and the reputation that came with owning one. But I realised that I seemed to be completely special when it came to using them, so that was that, I was lead back to PCspecialist.

I can't even begin to write out and tell the story of my laptop selection process, but what I can say to quickly summarise it, I checked everywhere, for some time, over and over again in some cases, and PCSpecialist come out on top for me.

So I built many laptops on the configurator, it was fun, I began with £800 budget, and the optimus seemed to be best fit for that, I would built something, google it, forum it (Annoy people asking them silly questions like 'what's better, this or this?') and then make a decision based on my results. I ended up making budget increases, here is why this laptop was likely going to be with me all the way through uni, and maybe into the beginning of my professional career, why not spend a bit more on it?

As with a budget increases better components were selected, and the Vortex LE was my new choice.

So after running through my usual antics, and a couple of weeks of 'umm and arrrring' I had configured what I thought I wanted.

The process of selecting all the different configurations is excellent, and is next to nothing that physical retailers are able to offer.


Delivery: This felt it took a considerable amount of time, I was conveniently pre occupied so it wasn't much of a bother.
When the day came, I was surprised to receive an email, with details of the location of my package, where it had been or was heading, and even who it was with! (his name was Curtis!) I was greeted on the morning of the selected delivery day with a allocated time slot in which my package would be delivered, which was really helpful as I could get back from uni to be in for the delivery.

It came down to this: I was tracking him!

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Although delivered by an unmarked van, (curtis wasn't as I imagined him to be), my laptop was here! He was on time too, to the minute in fact!

Unpacking began, I had a presentation to get back to (infront of 250 people) but my laptop was here!

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[wigins]

The packaging was beautifully done, the laptop seemed safely situated in a box within a box, away from harm and the predators of the postal world? (haha)

Everything seemed present and was easily located.

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So after going to uni to present and then come back I began further unpacking the laptop.

One thing I instantly figured was that it was a lot lighter than I expected. Even with battery.

The laptop was nice and plain, a sought of matte finish with a flick of glitter in it, I began poking and prodding things and found that there was no where near any flex in the keyboard, or speakers which you normally find in laptops (normally because a standard case is used and some have a lot less in than others, Sony,Samsung, Toshiba and all major laptop brand do it, use same shells in a range) But this was nice, it felt like it had been well fed!

Turning it on:

So this part was inevitable, I turned it on...


...and it turned on just fine, a sort of initial boot and then requested a serial (for windows) I was like, hmmmmm where would this be? looked everywhere, and it was where I looked last funny enough, under the laptop. So a quick snap of that on the phone and I typed it in, the windows 8 set up is boring so I won't go through that. I had a disk of drivers to install which were all ready present on the laptop, but Windows had some updates to do so I was prompted to retard the laptop, I was sat at my desk, and I agreed to the restart, turned to grab my drink and I was greeted by the windows splash screen (where you log in) it had booted sooooo fast.


A quick note to PCS here is, although the generic Clevo handbook is supplied (which caters for the range of laptops, maybe you guys should create your own little booklet, or even a range of pdf's on your website specific to models and builds, only something short.

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As for the use of the laptop:

I'll type this up sometime in the week after I use it for some more serious things. But it's good, loads fast, internet speed has been boosted, good quality and so on


More to come....

 

[rav007]

I got the Vortex IV LE, been 3 months since I first unwrapped, installed my SSD and set up everything. Your laptop out-specs mine but you had a more generous budget, I only have the 765m but wrapped up for around £840 without OS with the silver package and 5 day fast track. I did have a post on the forum but it went dead pretty quick not sure if it was boring or if people just weren't interested in the LE, but I love this beast. After 3 months I still open it up everyday and think "This 15.6inch laptop can run any game and on respectable setting!", I know its sad but I always wanted a laptop like this.

I also do various CAD and photoshop projects and sketchbook and 3DSMax here and there, when they are installed on the SSD it boots up in seconds and the programs are so smooth its incredible! I also like how nvidia allows you to choose programs that can use the dedicated GPU or not, and with the dGPU off you can get 4hours+ battery life which again is also incredible!

 

[sean495]

Very good review so far.

Another architect here (revit, sketchup, cad, photoshop, vray, etc) , who's looking at getting this laptop. just about ready to click order but want to know how the noise - especially from the cooling is.
My last pcspecialist laptop was amazing except for this issue so if you could include that in your review it would be great

 

[rav007]

Very good review so far.

Another architect here (revit, sketchup, cad, photoshop, vray, etc) , who's looking at getting this laptop. just about ready to click order but want to know how the noise - especially from the cooling is.
My last pcspecialist laptop was amazing except for this issue so if you could include that in your review it would be great

Sean, I wish I had seen this comment sooner I guess you already ordered. When on max fans it is pretty loud, not as loud as a hairdryer, you may struggle to hear audio but will know its on whereas if it was as loud as a hairdryer as people have suggested in other threads and forums, it would be ridiculous. The sound will break the silence in a room for sure, may be distracting if you like to be in complete silence when you work.

However, that is max fans, 3 months in I have only had it go on max fans with my own input. I ran various stress tests which put the CPU on max fans, and the GPU almost max and that was over half an hour stressing which is completely unrealistic to normal operation. Currently I have 6 windows of around 10 tabs of Chrome open, Steam (gaming client) running on dedicated gpu, a movie, streaming on the internet, flash players everywhere, 7 word documents, 3 excel spreadsheets, a powerpoint presentation, itunes, listening to radio and watching youtube intermittently on my second screen (so thats additional cpu/gpu requirement for screen 2) both in full HD and the cpu fan is on the lowest setting above off, gpu fan comes on to lowest setting every now and again. It sounds like gentle wind in the trees, its nothing. When I game, the cpu will go up to speed 2 usually and the gpu to speed 1 or 2, the gpu is incredibly efficient not sure if its my own build or not, I opted for OEM paste rather than arctic silver - its made to work so why mess with a good thing?

It makes a difference how you vent your laptop though, the intake at the bottom is very sensitive so laying the laptop flat on a desk will not do you any favours, it wont impact you too much either though, but if you want a really good solution for if you want to use your laptop on your lap or in bed etc, I recommend: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Targus-Lap-...389698528&sr=1-2&keywords=chill+mat+targus+15. I have this chill pad, had it over a year now, you may get it cheaper elsewhere though I think I paid 20 for it last year. It is second to none, the material wraps around the full body of the pad and is comfortable on your legs, it is like a rubber with a fabric weave over the top of it, has some degree of compression/sponginess. The massive openings at either side mean as long as one end is open you will have no problem with air flow. It supports a nice incline up to around 40degrees before the laptop starts to slide a little (I usually sit with my knees up in bed and its quite accommodating), and if you use external portable HDs and USB cables for a variety of stuff, I tied my cables into the gap on the chill pad. I know it says 17 inch, im sure this is the exact one I bought, I think it means the dimensions of the chill pad is 17 inches, not that its for 17 inch laptops, but my Vortex LE sits flush. Just thought I would market that as it has made my like so much easier.