Craigsup
Silver Level Poster
To start off, I’d like to say a big thanks to Pc Specialists for getting my laptop built so quickly and perfectly!
Production Dates
Processed Date 07-06-2012
Pre-Production Date 12-06-2012
Build Date 12-06-2012 - Ben Alderson
Test Date 13-06-2012 - Carl Auckland
Packed By 13-06-2012 - Adam Kirb
Awaiting Dispatch Date 13-06-2012
Collection Date 13-06-2012
The Specs:
Chassis & Display
Vortex Series:17.3" Matte Full HD LED Widescreen (1920x1080) (£79)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Mobile Processor i7-3610QM (2.30GHz) 6MB
Memory (RAM)
16GB SAMSUNG 1600MHz SODIMM DDR3 MEMORY (4 x 4GB)
Graphics Card
AMD® Radeon® HD 7970M - 2GB DDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 11
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
Crucial 128GB Solid State Drive
Memory - 2nd Hard Disk
500GB SERIAL ATA II 2.5" HARD DRIVE WITH 8MB CACHE (5,400rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
8x SATA DVD±R/RW/Dual Layer (+ 24x CD-RW)
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 (£9)
Sound Card
Intel 5.1 Channel High Definition Audio + SPDIF/MIC/Headphone Jack
Network Facilities
GIGABIT LAN & KILLER™ 1102 WIRELESS GAMING 802.11N NETWORK CARD
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)
Price: £1,343.00 including VAT and delivery.
To begin with, it is fairly heavy for a laptop; however given that it has the components in it and the capabilities it is fine. If you plan on walking miles with it each day on your back or in your hands then I would recommend you go for a lighter one, however for short distances e.g. to college/university and back you'll be fine. It is fairly bulky, at roughly 4.2cm thick. For me, this does not matter as I would rather have the high specs rather than a thin laptop but for some you may have requirements.
The chassis design: The design is a mix of modern and simple looking. It is not slim with fancy, intricate curves. It's got more of a "block" feel to it. And by that, I mean that it won't win first prize at a beauty contest - maybe Apple will win that. A positive feature of the design is the lid. I love the texture. When you shine light onto it, or look closely you can see small lines from left to right which I think looks fantastic. It almost looks a bit like granite. It is a solid build that will probably put up with a few bumps and knocks but I wouldn’t want to drop it at all. Even though it feels rigid it is too expensive to risk.
Upon opening the lid, you will notice that the keyboard actually fills the whole width of the chassis. The keys are large which makes typing so easy. In addition, they are spaced out to aid it even more. The only fault I have with the keyboard is the size of the enter button. It is the size of two normal keys width but only one key tall. So you will begin by pressing the # key a lot as it is directly above it. The keys are fairly easy to press, but not too easy that you'll be typing gibberish sentences. A nice feature is the back lit keyboard. There are multiple options such as Wave, Dance, and Flash. They are a bit of fun but will get distracting if you are doing some serious gaming. To turn them off it only takes a few clicks so it’s no hassle. The touch pad has the same design as the chassis which is nice as it doesn’t stand out like a sore thumb unlike many laptops. The finger scanner is located in between the left and right click button.
As you can see in the photos in the top right hand corner of the chassis is the on/off button. There is also a strip of different lights with symbols. These are for things like Wifi, CPU / HD usage but also the standard things; Caps lock, Num lock and Scroll lock. The lights are a bright white which matches well with the black chassis. The strip of black reflective material carries on all the way to the left hand side until it stops where the ONKYO logo sits. Above this is a mesh looking area which is one of the speakers built into the laptop. They are sat at an angle to propel the sound towards the user rather than up at the ceiling like most laptops.
Performance: Once set up with most drivers updated, my Windows Score is 7.3 out of 7.9. The processor is 7.6, the RAM is 7.7, the Graphics is 7.3, the Gaming Graphics is 7.3, and the hard drive is 7.9. The laptop loads up in roughly 10 seconds and ready to use instantly once logged in. Installation of programs takes seconds rather than minutes and response times are minimal. The only game I have tried so far is Counter Strike: Source. I get 300fps and the game play is 100% smooth. There is nothing to fault with the performance of the laptop, I feel it is amazing and worth the amount I paid. The screen is crystal clear and the detail is outstanding. I have always used Glossy screens before, however I would highly recommend Matte screens now. They are much clearer, especially when under light. People criticize the colours however I see no problems with them. Everything looks beautiful and I am very happy.
The Killer Wireless-N 1102 Network Adapter is a very handy feature. The program the Adapter uses allows you to monitor your internet bandwidth as well as your signal strength. It also monitors your CPU usage, RAM usage and FPS. You can limit the bandwidth given to certain tasks and cap your upload and download speed with a few clicks. Comparing it with my standard T-Link PCI network card in my old desktop computer, the signal strength is much stronger. Overall I would say it is worth the extra £50 if you are a serious gamer.
The sound produced by the laptop is actually quite low. Although I haven’t put it under too much stress yet, day to day (and light gaming) use has produced little sound. You can obviously hear the fans running but it is only as loud as any other laptop or desktop. Under moderate CPU use, it does get louder however it is not distracting or too loud. The only noisy thing about the laptop is the DVD drive. When that begins to spin, the noise increases dramatically. The speakers are of excellent quality. I have played both music and in-game sounds and they are clear and produce an accurate distribution of noise (You can tell left from right in-game).
The set-up of the laptop was more complex than I expected. Some of the drivers are confusing and one of the drivers keeps displaying a black screen with a flashing curser in the top left. It then blue screened causing a restart and then a windows check-up. I think I’ve got the main things updated and installed now which has took me the best part of 3-4 hours. The power adapter used to charge the laptop is huge. I am used to small(ish) Dell one, which is maybe the size of 3 iPhones on top of each other. However this one is 2-3x the size of that. It makes no difference to me, as I will transport my laptop in my new Slappa M.A.S.K laptop rucksack which has more than enough room but it was a surprise as I opened the packaging to literally see a brick.
Overall I am extremely pleased with my purchase and I look forward to getting to know my laptop more and use it over time! I have probably under-sold it in this review so to set it straight, this laptop is worth every single penny you pay for it, and a lot more. The performance levels are insane for a laptop and its design is gorgeous. If you have any questions or feel I can review a certain aspect which I may have missed out, please feel free to reply as I have written this fairly quickly while watching the Germany vs. Netherlands Euro football match!
Oh and heres a sneaky peak into the waiting room of the Pc Specialists Top-Secret facilities
Production Dates
Processed Date 07-06-2012
Pre-Production Date 12-06-2012
Build Date 12-06-2012 - Ben Alderson
Test Date 13-06-2012 - Carl Auckland
Packed By 13-06-2012 - Adam Kirb
Awaiting Dispatch Date 13-06-2012
Collection Date 13-06-2012
The Specs:
Chassis & Display
Vortex Series:17.3" Matte Full HD LED Widescreen (1920x1080) (£79)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Mobile Processor i7-3610QM (2.30GHz) 6MB
Memory (RAM)
16GB SAMSUNG 1600MHz SODIMM DDR3 MEMORY (4 x 4GB)
Graphics Card
AMD® Radeon® HD 7970M - 2GB DDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 11
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
Crucial 128GB Solid State Drive
Memory - 2nd Hard Disk
500GB SERIAL ATA II 2.5" HARD DRIVE WITH 8MB CACHE (5,400rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
8x SATA DVD±R/RW/Dual Layer (+ 24x CD-RW)
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 (£9)
Sound Card
Intel 5.1 Channel High Definition Audio + SPDIF/MIC/Headphone Jack
Network Facilities
GIGABIT LAN & KILLER™ 1102 WIRELESS GAMING 802.11N NETWORK CARD
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)
Price: £1,343.00 including VAT and delivery.
To begin with, it is fairly heavy for a laptop; however given that it has the components in it and the capabilities it is fine. If you plan on walking miles with it each day on your back or in your hands then I would recommend you go for a lighter one, however for short distances e.g. to college/university and back you'll be fine. It is fairly bulky, at roughly 4.2cm thick. For me, this does not matter as I would rather have the high specs rather than a thin laptop but for some you may have requirements.
The chassis design: The design is a mix of modern and simple looking. It is not slim with fancy, intricate curves. It's got more of a "block" feel to it. And by that, I mean that it won't win first prize at a beauty contest - maybe Apple will win that. A positive feature of the design is the lid. I love the texture. When you shine light onto it, or look closely you can see small lines from left to right which I think looks fantastic. It almost looks a bit like granite. It is a solid build that will probably put up with a few bumps and knocks but I wouldn’t want to drop it at all. Even though it feels rigid it is too expensive to risk.
Upon opening the lid, you will notice that the keyboard actually fills the whole width of the chassis. The keys are large which makes typing so easy. In addition, they are spaced out to aid it even more. The only fault I have with the keyboard is the size of the enter button. It is the size of two normal keys width but only one key tall. So you will begin by pressing the # key a lot as it is directly above it. The keys are fairly easy to press, but not too easy that you'll be typing gibberish sentences. A nice feature is the back lit keyboard. There are multiple options such as Wave, Dance, and Flash. They are a bit of fun but will get distracting if you are doing some serious gaming. To turn them off it only takes a few clicks so it’s no hassle. The touch pad has the same design as the chassis which is nice as it doesn’t stand out like a sore thumb unlike many laptops. The finger scanner is located in between the left and right click button.
As you can see in the photos in the top right hand corner of the chassis is the on/off button. There is also a strip of different lights with symbols. These are for things like Wifi, CPU / HD usage but also the standard things; Caps lock, Num lock and Scroll lock. The lights are a bright white which matches well with the black chassis. The strip of black reflective material carries on all the way to the left hand side until it stops where the ONKYO logo sits. Above this is a mesh looking area which is one of the speakers built into the laptop. They are sat at an angle to propel the sound towards the user rather than up at the ceiling like most laptops.
Performance: Once set up with most drivers updated, my Windows Score is 7.3 out of 7.9. The processor is 7.6, the RAM is 7.7, the Graphics is 7.3, the Gaming Graphics is 7.3, and the hard drive is 7.9. The laptop loads up in roughly 10 seconds and ready to use instantly once logged in. Installation of programs takes seconds rather than minutes and response times are minimal. The only game I have tried so far is Counter Strike: Source. I get 300fps and the game play is 100% smooth. There is nothing to fault with the performance of the laptop, I feel it is amazing and worth the amount I paid. The screen is crystal clear and the detail is outstanding. I have always used Glossy screens before, however I would highly recommend Matte screens now. They are much clearer, especially when under light. People criticize the colours however I see no problems with them. Everything looks beautiful and I am very happy.
The Killer Wireless-N 1102 Network Adapter is a very handy feature. The program the Adapter uses allows you to monitor your internet bandwidth as well as your signal strength. It also monitors your CPU usage, RAM usage and FPS. You can limit the bandwidth given to certain tasks and cap your upload and download speed with a few clicks. Comparing it with my standard T-Link PCI network card in my old desktop computer, the signal strength is much stronger. Overall I would say it is worth the extra £50 if you are a serious gamer.
The sound produced by the laptop is actually quite low. Although I haven’t put it under too much stress yet, day to day (and light gaming) use has produced little sound. You can obviously hear the fans running but it is only as loud as any other laptop or desktop. Under moderate CPU use, it does get louder however it is not distracting or too loud. The only noisy thing about the laptop is the DVD drive. When that begins to spin, the noise increases dramatically. The speakers are of excellent quality. I have played both music and in-game sounds and they are clear and produce an accurate distribution of noise (You can tell left from right in-game).
The set-up of the laptop was more complex than I expected. Some of the drivers are confusing and one of the drivers keeps displaying a black screen with a flashing curser in the top left. It then blue screened causing a restart and then a windows check-up. I think I’ve got the main things updated and installed now which has took me the best part of 3-4 hours. The power adapter used to charge the laptop is huge. I am used to small(ish) Dell one, which is maybe the size of 3 iPhones on top of each other. However this one is 2-3x the size of that. It makes no difference to me, as I will transport my laptop in my new Slappa M.A.S.K laptop rucksack which has more than enough room but it was a surprise as I opened the packaging to literally see a brick.
Overall I am extremely pleased with my purchase and I look forward to getting to know my laptop more and use it over time! I have probably under-sold it in this review so to set it straight, this laptop is worth every single penny you pay for it, and a lot more. The performance levels are insane for a laptop and its design is gorgeous. If you have any questions or feel I can review a certain aspect which I may have missed out, please feel free to reply as I have written this fairly quickly while watching the Germany vs. Netherlands Euro football match!
Oh and heres a sneaky peak into the waiting room of the Pc Specialists Top-Secret facilities
Last edited:
