Pilgrimage to Paradise
Member
So my order arrived today, and after much faffing around I've finally got things in order so thought I'd post to share my experience.
Ordering and communication with PCS
What can I say? I've ordered from PCS before and knew from experience how easy to use the config builder is, so when I was approached by my folks asking what options they had when going away in terms of being able to check emails and general web browse in the mornings I knew exactly what to do. I'd been putting off ordering a laptop for some time, I have a decent desktop (spec in sig) and wasn't convinced I could justify it. Then of course the above request came in and I was straight on the PCS website.
Of course I only spec'd up a completely reasonable option that was of course only designed to be able to check emails and browse the internet (as if! I'd be rubbish putting a business case together... "We need to open word documents" - "32GB RAM!!!"). Of course I ended up going far and beyond the original specification, the laptop is primarily for myself so of course I would. With the help from some lovely people on these forums I put together a laptop that would comfortably meet my personal needs in gaming and music development, and be able to cater to my folks need without even needing to be switched on (note: probably will need to be switched on).
There was very short notice given so I had to opt for the 3 day rush job option to make sure it was ready and setup in time for the trip, midway through day 1 it was built but awaiting the blu-ray drive (for browsing!), it was great. Midway through day 2 and the status was the same, I admit I got slightly concerned that the drive may delay the laptop past the 3 days so I called PCS up and someone helpfully informed me the part was installed and the laptop was off to testing and to ignore the online status. Slight relief and I took their word for it. It was dispatched on the 3rd day and arrived today. So nothing but positives towards PCS.
The Laptop and the (nightmare) setup
Here's the (closed) laptop (because I don't want this to be a wall of text):
I'll open this up by making it very clear, the setup was purely down to myself and my personal preferences, PCS did nothing wrong.
I ordered Windows 8 with the Laptop, I figured it'd be nice to have a copy, it looks nice I'm sure it'll be fine.
Approximately 10 minutes after booting up the Laptop and trying to navigate the nightmare that is Windows 8 using a trackpad, I was formatting and re-installing Windows 7. Then the slight problems hit, apparently my Windows 7 license had ran out of concurrent uses, fantastic. So I took a leap, I upgraded my desktop to Windows 8 (much better with a mouse), and then used the last remaining activation of Windows 7 on the laptop, however this didn't work. Luckily I could phone Microsoft's automated service and got the Laptop activated on Windows 7.
Now all the rigmarole is out of the way, I could test the Laptop a bit, here are the spec's I ordered:
Chassis & Display: Optimus Series: 15.6" Matte Full HD LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor: Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Mobile Processor i7-3630QM (2.40GHz) 6MB
RAM: 8GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS 1600MHz SODIMM DDR3 (2 x 4GB)
Graphics: NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 660M - 2.0GB DDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 11
HDD: 750GB SEAGATE MOMENTUS XT HYBRID, SATA 6 Gb/s, 32MB CACHE (7200 rpm)
BLU-RAY Drive: 6x BLURAY WRITER, 8x DVD ±R/±RW & CYBERLINK SOFTWARE
Sound Card: Creative Sound Blaster® X-Fi™ HD-Audiophile-Grade Sound External
Plus the silver warranty and the 1 year dead pixel guarantee. As you can see, it might be able to scrape by opening the odd email.
Initial impressions
It boots to log in at around 15 seconds (rough count, literally just now) and one little niggle I have with it is that the numpad is always off when I boot it up, I want it to stay on at all times!
I was a tad disappointed in the Windows Experience Index score after hearing so many good things about the Hybrid HDD, it brought my score down to 5.9. I was happy enough with the rest:
Processor: 7.0
RAM: 7.6
Graphics: 7.2
Gaming Graphics: 7.2
Otherwise I adore it, it's quick, it now has a familiar OS I know how to use. I just need to test a game or two on there I think. The laptop looks far better than I thought it would, seems solid and wasn't as thick as I thought it would be. The screen is sharp and detailed, colours look nice and the keyboard is lovely to type on and the track pad is responsive.
My only real gripe, and it's one I was aware of before purchase from other reviews, is the sound. The speakers are awful, I didn't expect great things from them as they're laptop speakers, but I definitely couldn't bear listening to music on them. But as I said, I knew it would be the case hence why I bought:
Which will be useful when I have it at a desk, if I'm out and about I'm sure the on-board sound will be fine through headphones.
I'd recommend the laptop to others, and I've caught the bug now so I imagine it won't be too long before I'm looking at a new desktop
But for now, couple more pics:
Current set up, two monitors at the back are for my desktop, have a third just to the right which can be used on desktop but may be used when laptop is at the desk.
Laptop with the external sound card in action (very nice sound through my Sennheiser HD 212Pro's)
And another shot of the laptop (there's only so many types of photo you can take of a laptop!).
Ordering and communication with PCS
What can I say? I've ordered from PCS before and knew from experience how easy to use the config builder is, so when I was approached by my folks asking what options they had when going away in terms of being able to check emails and general web browse in the mornings I knew exactly what to do. I'd been putting off ordering a laptop for some time, I have a decent desktop (spec in sig) and wasn't convinced I could justify it. Then of course the above request came in and I was straight on the PCS website.
Of course I only spec'd up a completely reasonable option that was of course only designed to be able to check emails and browse the internet (as if! I'd be rubbish putting a business case together... "We need to open word documents" - "32GB RAM!!!"). Of course I ended up going far and beyond the original specification, the laptop is primarily for myself so of course I would. With the help from some lovely people on these forums I put together a laptop that would comfortably meet my personal needs in gaming and music development, and be able to cater to my folks need without even needing to be switched on (note: probably will need to be switched on).
There was very short notice given so I had to opt for the 3 day rush job option to make sure it was ready and setup in time for the trip, midway through day 1 it was built but awaiting the blu-ray drive (for browsing!), it was great. Midway through day 2 and the status was the same, I admit I got slightly concerned that the drive may delay the laptop past the 3 days so I called PCS up and someone helpfully informed me the part was installed and the laptop was off to testing and to ignore the online status. Slight relief and I took their word for it. It was dispatched on the 3rd day and arrived today. So nothing but positives towards PCS.
The Laptop and the (nightmare) setup
Here's the (closed) laptop (because I don't want this to be a wall of text):
I'll open this up by making it very clear, the setup was purely down to myself and my personal preferences, PCS did nothing wrong.
I ordered Windows 8 with the Laptop, I figured it'd be nice to have a copy, it looks nice I'm sure it'll be fine.
Approximately 10 minutes after booting up the Laptop and trying to navigate the nightmare that is Windows 8 using a trackpad, I was formatting and re-installing Windows 7. Then the slight problems hit, apparently my Windows 7 license had ran out of concurrent uses, fantastic. So I took a leap, I upgraded my desktop to Windows 8 (much better with a mouse), and then used the last remaining activation of Windows 7 on the laptop, however this didn't work. Luckily I could phone Microsoft's automated service and got the Laptop activated on Windows 7.
Now all the rigmarole is out of the way, I could test the Laptop a bit, here are the spec's I ordered:
Chassis & Display: Optimus Series: 15.6" Matte Full HD LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor: Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Mobile Processor i7-3630QM (2.40GHz) 6MB
RAM: 8GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS 1600MHz SODIMM DDR3 (2 x 4GB)
Graphics: NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 660M - 2.0GB DDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 11
HDD: 750GB SEAGATE MOMENTUS XT HYBRID, SATA 6 Gb/s, 32MB CACHE (7200 rpm)
BLU-RAY Drive: 6x BLURAY WRITER, 8x DVD ±R/±RW & CYBERLINK SOFTWARE
Sound Card: Creative Sound Blaster® X-Fi™ HD-Audiophile-Grade Sound External
Plus the silver warranty and the 1 year dead pixel guarantee. As you can see, it might be able to scrape by opening the odd email.
Initial impressions
It boots to log in at around 15 seconds (rough count, literally just now) and one little niggle I have with it is that the numpad is always off when I boot it up, I want it to stay on at all times!
I was a tad disappointed in the Windows Experience Index score after hearing so many good things about the Hybrid HDD, it brought my score down to 5.9. I was happy enough with the rest:
Processor: 7.0
RAM: 7.6
Graphics: 7.2
Gaming Graphics: 7.2
Otherwise I adore it, it's quick, it now has a familiar OS I know how to use. I just need to test a game or two on there I think. The laptop looks far better than I thought it would, seems solid and wasn't as thick as I thought it would be. The screen is sharp and detailed, colours look nice and the keyboard is lovely to type on and the track pad is responsive.
My only real gripe, and it's one I was aware of before purchase from other reviews, is the sound. The speakers are awful, I didn't expect great things from them as they're laptop speakers, but I definitely couldn't bear listening to music on them. But as I said, I knew it would be the case hence why I bought:
Which will be useful when I have it at a desk, if I'm out and about I'm sure the on-board sound will be fine through headphones.
I'd recommend the laptop to others, and I've caught the bug now so I imagine it won't be too long before I'm looking at a new desktop
But for now, couple more pics:
Current set up, two monitors at the back are for my desktop, have a third just to the right which can be used on desktop but may be used when laptop is at the desk.
Laptop with the external sound card in action (very nice sound through my Sennheiser HD 212Pro's)
And another shot of the laptop (there's only so many types of photo you can take of a laptop!).
