I needed a light laptop for research, writing, and creating presentations and this laptop seems to do me fine. It is fast, has a good matte screen so no reflective glare and is easily portable. However, it doesn't come with a keyboard backlight, and it comes in slate grey and not any other colours (I wanted pink), which is a shame. The keyboard is fine if you can type heavily, which I can, but sometimes the spacebar really needs a strong smash with the thumb to engage it.
The customer support from PC Specialist is friendly and helpful. Sometimes they knew enough to help me, sometimes they only knew how to go so far and I later found the answers I needed online. But the kindness of the customer support is that they don't put boundaries on you, if they can help you out they try. And it may take a few goes to figure it out. Or you may figure it out yourself after getting a jump start from them. This kind of customer support is priceless, you can't get it from the major stores like PC World for example. I realise I would never buy from anyone else now, just to have this kind of customer support once you've bought a PC is everything. It can be hard to get through on the phone at busy times, but you always speak to a real person when you do get through and they always reply to emails. They'll remote connect to your PC to set things up or show you what they mean, which is great.
The audio on the laptop was not loud enough, especially for playing Amazon videos. But I found that I could install Equalizer APO to increase the sound volume using this advice for PC Alternative #2 https://toomanyadapters.com/increase-volume-laptop-speakers/ and then I had to do some searching to find out how to get the enhancements tab up in my sound settings (Windows 10 has hidden that tab). I tried a few suggestions from here: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us...d/1ed16d0a-0399-4b4c-b2ac-0c7cb8e773eb?page=2 and one of them worked, forgotten which one though. So now I have wonderfully loud sound.
The price PC Specialist charges for a Microsoft Office licence is much cheaper than major stores. They offer a Home Premium licence, where you have a bundle of 5 licences for friends/family, for the same cost that major stores charge for just a Personal licence which limits you to one user.
Altogether another good experience of PC Specialist. I am not a new customer, I bought a PC from them several years ago which was superb, never had any problems with it in 7 years. I ended up giving it away to a friend when I was forced to move house, and it was still perfect so she was delighted. So I know PC Specialist builds PCs to last, not to throw away after a year or two like many major brands. So I'll shrug off my desire for a pink laptop, because though that colour would've inspired my creative energies, I want a laptop that won't need to be continually replaced with a new version.
The customer support from PC Specialist is friendly and helpful. Sometimes they knew enough to help me, sometimes they only knew how to go so far and I later found the answers I needed online. But the kindness of the customer support is that they don't put boundaries on you, if they can help you out they try. And it may take a few goes to figure it out. Or you may figure it out yourself after getting a jump start from them. This kind of customer support is priceless, you can't get it from the major stores like PC World for example. I realise I would never buy from anyone else now, just to have this kind of customer support once you've bought a PC is everything. It can be hard to get through on the phone at busy times, but you always speak to a real person when you do get through and they always reply to emails. They'll remote connect to your PC to set things up or show you what they mean, which is great.
The audio on the laptop was not loud enough, especially for playing Amazon videos. But I found that I could install Equalizer APO to increase the sound volume using this advice for PC Alternative #2 https://toomanyadapters.com/increase-volume-laptop-speakers/ and then I had to do some searching to find out how to get the enhancements tab up in my sound settings (Windows 10 has hidden that tab). I tried a few suggestions from here: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us...d/1ed16d0a-0399-4b4c-b2ac-0c7cb8e773eb?page=2 and one of them worked, forgotten which one though. So now I have wonderfully loud sound.
The price PC Specialist charges for a Microsoft Office licence is much cheaper than major stores. They offer a Home Premium licence, where you have a bundle of 5 licences for friends/family, for the same cost that major stores charge for just a Personal licence which limits you to one user.
Altogether another good experience of PC Specialist. I am not a new customer, I bought a PC from them several years ago which was superb, never had any problems with it in 7 years. I ended up giving it away to a friend when I was forced to move house, and it was still perfect so she was delighted. So I know PC Specialist builds PCs to last, not to throw away after a year or two like many major brands. So I'll shrug off my desire for a pink laptop, because though that colour would've inspired my creative energies, I want a laptop that won't need to be continually replaced with a new version.
