Last month I purchased the RECOIL II and I didn't want to post until I had enough use of it to write something meaningful.
For a full video overview you can see my video here: https://youtu.be/657idjxxlys (pictures appended are taken from this video)
I was looking for a slim-line top of the range gaming laptop for about £1,000. I soon found out that was near-enough impossible... The closest I found was £1,800 for a similar spec; however, my last laptop was by PCSpecialist and therefore I decided to see if any new chassis had been added - Sure enough, new slim-line gaming laptop chassis were available! Amazing, I now just had to choose between the Optimus VII XS and the RECOIL II. I don't even think the optimus is available anymore, but it was a 15.6" clevo shell (all plastic) at a slightly thinner thickness (18.6mm compared to 19.9mm), it also had a built in fingerprint reader. I decided to get a £10 USB fingerprint reader from eBay which has served me very well.
I chose the RECOIL in the end for a few reasons - The thin bezels make the laptop look modern, the keyboard is mechanical (which is bloody awesome, and it is in fact a very good keyboard, but you may want to be a little bit weary of the noise if you're in a library) and the chassis is aluminium.
Where do I go next? Well, I figure the screen is good enough at the lower spec than is available as I can always use a monitor with a higher refresh rate etc, but also the battery is only 46Wh, which isn't big at all (about 3-4 hours of life), so paying an extra £150 for an upgraded screen which will just drain the battery wasn't really an option for me. The battery really hasn't been an issue for me yet.
Next the i7 processor is just a beast, I use my laptop for video editing so I wanted a good processor. The RAM I opted for the slightly faster RAM (didn't even cost more!), and then for the graphics card, picking the 6GB GTX1060 was a no-brainer. It is truly a beast and my laptop has not had any problems playing any games at ultra 60fps so far. A fast HDD with a big storage was a solid choice, and the SSD for the OS is good (booted up in ~10sec). I got the better thermal compound as I knew that a laptop of this size is bound to get pretty damn hot. The fan has a 'Fan Boost' button which is helpful, and inside 4-heatpipes which lead to two fans with a 4 vent system out the sides and rear. In addition to this at the bottom is aluminium mesh to aid cooling too, thoroughly impressed. Webcam and microphone are nothing special, but they're not bad at all. I decided to save some money by installing windows 10 myself.
The laptop still does get hot under intensive use, but only really at the bar where the power and turbo-fan button are, elsewhere is normally nice and cool, so it doesn't actually affect the use of the laptop.
The mechanical keyboard is really good, but the keys are quite squished together so it takes some time to get used to that (but that's the same with any laptop tbh). Speakers are average as you would expect form a laptop.
My only issue is that when playing intensive games the laptop all of a sudden turns off (had happened 4x) with no error messages etc. I've called PC Specialist up about this and they said it was to do with the BIOS and they will send me an update today, so hopefully I can update this review to let you know how I got on. But basically this is apparently due to the components inside being quite powerful, so the BIOS isn't distributing the power correctly, thus under strain causing the laptop to safely turn off as some of the components don't have enough power to run. (Since updating the BIOS (20-AUG) I haven't had any further power issues, so I think it fixed it!) - NEW UPDATE 05-Sep, the random powering off has appeared to return... I was playing Fortnite yesterday and it randomly turned off, and again today with Fallout 4. I'm getting in contact with PCS to hopefully resolve.
The service of PC Specialist has been really good and they were very kind to me through communications and sorting a deal. However, one thing to note is I got an upgrade to a 3 working day build; however it took 4 working days (didn't bother me), when asking them about this they say that it is an estimate and not a guarantee, so I would not advise buying this unless you physically can't wait.
Hope this helps! If you have any questions just ask! I might reply quicker if you comment on my YouTube video (link at the top of this post).
Chassis & Display
Recoil Series: 15.6" Matte Full HD 60Hz 72% NTSC LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™ i7 Six Core Processor 8750H (2.2GHz, 4.1GHz Turbo)
Memory (RAM)
16GB Corsair 2400MHz SODIMM DDR4 (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1060 - 6.0GB GDDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 12.1
1st Hard Disk
1TB SEAGATE 7mm SERIAL ATA III 2.5" HARD DRIVE WITH 128MB CACHE (7,200rpm)
1st M.2 SSD Drive
256GB ADATA SU800 M.2 2280 (560 MB/R, 520 MB/W)
Memory Card Reader
Integrated 2 in 1 Memory Card Reader (SD, MMC)
AC Adaptor
1 x 150W AC Adaptor
Battery
Recoil II Series 46WH Lithium Ion Battery
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre Cloverleaf UK Power Cable
Thermal Paste
Mastercooler Thermal Gel
Sound Card
2 Channel High Def. Audio + SoundBlaster™ Cinema 5
Bluetooth & Wireless
GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® AC-9560 M.2 (1.73Gbps, 802.11AC) +BT 5.0
USB Options
1 x USB 3.1 PORT (Type C) + 2 x USB 3.1 PORTS + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
Keyboard Language
PER-KEY RGB BACKLIT UK MECHANICAL KEYBOARD
Operating System
NO OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIRED
INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
Webcam
INTEGRATED 1MP HD WEBCAM
Price £1,116.00 including VAT and delivery
(Blue = Fan, Red=Speaker)
For a full video overview you can see my video here: https://youtu.be/657idjxxlys (pictures appended are taken from this video)
I was looking for a slim-line top of the range gaming laptop for about £1,000. I soon found out that was near-enough impossible... The closest I found was £1,800 for a similar spec; however, my last laptop was by PCSpecialist and therefore I decided to see if any new chassis had been added - Sure enough, new slim-line gaming laptop chassis were available! Amazing, I now just had to choose between the Optimus VII XS and the RECOIL II. I don't even think the optimus is available anymore, but it was a 15.6" clevo shell (all plastic) at a slightly thinner thickness (18.6mm compared to 19.9mm), it also had a built in fingerprint reader. I decided to get a £10 USB fingerprint reader from eBay which has served me very well.
I chose the RECOIL in the end for a few reasons - The thin bezels make the laptop look modern, the keyboard is mechanical (which is bloody awesome, and it is in fact a very good keyboard, but you may want to be a little bit weary of the noise if you're in a library) and the chassis is aluminium.
Where do I go next? Well, I figure the screen is good enough at the lower spec than is available as I can always use a monitor with a higher refresh rate etc, but also the battery is only 46Wh, which isn't big at all (about 3-4 hours of life), so paying an extra £150 for an upgraded screen which will just drain the battery wasn't really an option for me. The battery really hasn't been an issue for me yet.
Next the i7 processor is just a beast, I use my laptop for video editing so I wanted a good processor. The RAM I opted for the slightly faster RAM (didn't even cost more!), and then for the graphics card, picking the 6GB GTX1060 was a no-brainer. It is truly a beast and my laptop has not had any problems playing any games at ultra 60fps so far. A fast HDD with a big storage was a solid choice, and the SSD for the OS is good (booted up in ~10sec). I got the better thermal compound as I knew that a laptop of this size is bound to get pretty damn hot. The fan has a 'Fan Boost' button which is helpful, and inside 4-heatpipes which lead to two fans with a 4 vent system out the sides and rear. In addition to this at the bottom is aluminium mesh to aid cooling too, thoroughly impressed. Webcam and microphone are nothing special, but they're not bad at all. I decided to save some money by installing windows 10 myself.
The laptop still does get hot under intensive use, but only really at the bar where the power and turbo-fan button are, elsewhere is normally nice and cool, so it doesn't actually affect the use of the laptop.
The mechanical keyboard is really good, but the keys are quite squished together so it takes some time to get used to that (but that's the same with any laptop tbh). Speakers are average as you would expect form a laptop.
My only issue is that when playing intensive games the laptop all of a sudden turns off (had happened 4x) with no error messages etc. I've called PC Specialist up about this and they said it was to do with the BIOS and they will send me an update today, so hopefully I can update this review to let you know how I got on. But basically this is apparently due to the components inside being quite powerful, so the BIOS isn't distributing the power correctly, thus under strain causing the laptop to safely turn off as some of the components don't have enough power to run. (Since updating the BIOS (20-AUG) I haven't had any further power issues, so I think it fixed it!) - NEW UPDATE 05-Sep, the random powering off has appeared to return... I was playing Fortnite yesterday and it randomly turned off, and again today with Fallout 4. I'm getting in contact with PCS to hopefully resolve.
The service of PC Specialist has been really good and they were very kind to me through communications and sorting a deal. However, one thing to note is I got an upgrade to a 3 working day build; however it took 4 working days (didn't bother me), when asking them about this they say that it is an estimate and not a guarantee, so I would not advise buying this unless you physically can't wait.
Hope this helps! If you have any questions just ask! I might reply quicker if you comment on my YouTube video (link at the top of this post).
Chassis & Display
Recoil Series: 15.6" Matte Full HD 60Hz 72% NTSC LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™ i7 Six Core Processor 8750H (2.2GHz, 4.1GHz Turbo)
Memory (RAM)
16GB Corsair 2400MHz SODIMM DDR4 (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1060 - 6.0GB GDDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 12.1
1st Hard Disk
1TB SEAGATE 7mm SERIAL ATA III 2.5" HARD DRIVE WITH 128MB CACHE (7,200rpm)
1st M.2 SSD Drive
256GB ADATA SU800 M.2 2280 (560 MB/R, 520 MB/W)
Memory Card Reader
Integrated 2 in 1 Memory Card Reader (SD, MMC)
AC Adaptor
1 x 150W AC Adaptor
Battery
Recoil II Series 46WH Lithium Ion Battery
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre Cloverleaf UK Power Cable
Thermal Paste
Mastercooler Thermal Gel
Sound Card
2 Channel High Def. Audio + SoundBlaster™ Cinema 5
Bluetooth & Wireless
GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® AC-9560 M.2 (1.73Gbps, 802.11AC) +BT 5.0
USB Options
1 x USB 3.1 PORT (Type C) + 2 x USB 3.1 PORTS + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
Keyboard Language
PER-KEY RGB BACKLIT UK MECHANICAL KEYBOARD
Operating System
NO OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIRED
INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
Webcam
INTEGRATED 1MP HD WEBCAM
Price £1,116.00 including VAT and delivery
(Blue = Fan, Red=Speaker)
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