Karthal
Bronze Level Poster
Vortex IV 15.6" Laptop Review
Hey everyone, so I got my new gaming laptop from PCS last week and I've been setting everything up so that i could use it to it's full potential and I thought I might as well make a review. Just to note, if you want an in-depth review then just read from the top however if you just want to go over the basic pros, cons and my conclusion, then skip until after the Were my wants fulfilled section. Anyway, here we go:
My Finalized Specs:
Chassis & Display:
Vortex Series: 15.6" Matte Full HD LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor (CPU):
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Mobile Processor i7-4710MQ (2.50GHz) 6MB
Memory (RAM):
8GB KINGSTON SODIMM DDR3 1600MHz (1 x 8GB)
Graphics Card:
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 880M - 8.0GB DDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 11
1st Hard Disk:
1TB SERIAL ATA II 2.5" HARD DRIVE WITH 8MB CACHE (5,400rpm)
mSATA SSD Drive:
128GB Plextor PX-128M5M mSATA SSD (upto 540MB/sR | 320MB/sW)
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
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 & 180W 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:
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft® Office® 365
Anti-Virus:
BULLGUARD INTERNET SECURITY - FREE 90 DAY TRIAL
Browser:
Google Chrome™
Keyboard Language:
INTEGRATED BACKLIT UK KEYBOARD WITH NUMBER PAD
Mouse:
INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
Carry Case:
Trust 15.6" Notebook Carry Bag Classic
Mouse Pad:
ROCCAT™ Taito Mini Gaming Mouse Mat
Webcam:
INTEGRATED 2.0 MEGAPIXEL WEBCAM
Warranty:
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery:
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time:
FAST TRACK 5 WORKING DAY DISPATCH
Miscellaneous:
FREE £90 IN-GAME VOUCHER with GTX 650 / 750 /7000M / 8000M Series GPUs
Quantity:
1
Total Order Price:
£1,458.00
What I wanted in my new laptop:
Ordering:
So, I already knew of a couple of websites that did custom-built computers but most of them didn't build laptops or were way too specific and complex in their selection of the parts, so I kept looking through Google until I came across PC Specialist. I looked through the website and found that the selection process was quite simple but did require you to have very basic computer knowledge, which you should already have if your looking for a custom-built laptop/PC. I came across the Vortex IV 15.3" and found that the best graphics card they had to offer for it was the GTX 880M which I found out was actually the 13th best graphics card available on the market for laptops (this comes from www.Notebookcheck.net BTW) and that it could run almost all games (except ones that heavily focus on graphics such and Crysis 3 and Far Cry 3) at max settings and resolution at around 55-60fps which was good enough for me. After the process of finalizing my spec, I placed the order for it.
Processing, Building and Testing:
So, after looking around online to see just how long general delivery was without a fast track delivery and to my slight surprise, most got theirs about 20-30 days after ordering so after 2 days of staying in processing, I changed to the 5 day fast track at around 12:30pm and to my pleasant surprise, I discovered that my laptop had been build and was going into testing by about 4:30pm. The following day, it was tested by around 2:30pm and was in quality control. The day after that, it was out of quality control and was dispatched by the end of the day. I was really pleased with the amount of time I saved by paying that additional £30 for the fast track as it was so worth it. Thanks to Mark Bradley for building, Jonathon Brown for the testing, Ben Alderson for the Quality Control and James Dransfield for the packaging, you all did a great job as I've had no problems after a week's use.
Delivery, Unpacking and First Time Usage:
When it was dispatched I got an email saying that it would be in my hands by tomorrow and sure enough, the following day at around 9:30am, it was at my door. The first thing I noticed about it was that the box was very large and well reinforced, the laptop was inside another box that was inside the original box (a box within box, Inception anyone?). Once I unpacked everything and booted the laptop up, it asked for my product key and after a little bit of confusion I found the key on the bottom of the laptop's casing and after putting the key in and setting up a windows profile, I was in.
Were my wants fulfilled?:
Pros:
Cons:
Conclusion:
The Vortex 15.3" is a very good laptop in general. Exceptional performance, long battery life, cool temperature, quiet fans, it's slick design and the ability to customize it to your whim (changing keyboard back-light color for example). My only regrets is not getting the 17" as I could get the exact same specs for only around £100 more and not getting the 5 day fast track straight away (seriously, unless you want to wait from 2 weeks up to about a month for your laptop, get it). As a result of this, I will definitely be buying all future PCs and Laptops from PC Specialist.
Hey everyone, so I got my new gaming laptop from PCS last week and I've been setting everything up so that i could use it to it's full potential and I thought I might as well make a review. Just to note, if you want an in-depth review then just read from the top however if you just want to go over the basic pros, cons and my conclusion, then skip until after the Were my wants fulfilled section. Anyway, here we go:
My Finalized Specs:
Chassis & Display:
Vortex Series: 15.6" Matte Full HD LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor (CPU):
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Mobile Processor i7-4710MQ (2.50GHz) 6MB
Memory (RAM):
8GB KINGSTON SODIMM DDR3 1600MHz (1 x 8GB)
Graphics Card:
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 880M - 8.0GB DDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 11
1st Hard Disk:
1TB SERIAL ATA II 2.5" HARD DRIVE WITH 8MB CACHE (5,400rpm)
mSATA SSD Drive:
128GB Plextor PX-128M5M mSATA SSD (upto 540MB/sR | 320MB/sW)
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
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 & 180W 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:
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft® Office® 365
Anti-Virus:
BULLGUARD INTERNET SECURITY - FREE 90 DAY TRIAL
Browser:
Google Chrome™
Keyboard Language:
INTEGRATED BACKLIT UK KEYBOARD WITH NUMBER PAD
Mouse:
INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
Carry Case:
Trust 15.6" Notebook Carry Bag Classic
Mouse Pad:
ROCCAT™ Taito Mini Gaming Mouse Mat
Webcam:
INTEGRATED 2.0 MEGAPIXEL WEBCAM
Warranty:
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery:
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time:
FAST TRACK 5 WORKING DAY DISPATCH
Miscellaneous:
FREE £90 IN-GAME VOUCHER with GTX 650 / 750 /7000M / 8000M Series GPUs
Quantity:
1
Total Order Price:
£1,458.00
What I wanted in my new laptop:
- A powerful laptop that could run most games (mainly 2007-2013 games) at full resolution, max graphical settings at 60fps - so since I play games pretty much at least once a day, I wanted the most out of my gaming experience (as i'm sure others would agree) and I didn't want a laptop costing over the average gaming console price to run or make my games look the same as a gaming console.
- A cool and quiet laptop - Whenever I run games on my old laptop, it was always quite loud and got very warm so I wanted a laptop that had a very quiet fan and kept at a low temperature.
- A mobile laptop - I move around a lot and I wanted to have a laptop that could move around with me, but doesn't take away performance or general power in order for this.
- A fast laptop - As someone who has only ever used pre-built laptops, they never had SSDs and as such they opened programs slowly and generally ran slowly so with this custom built laptop, I wanted to be able to boot up within a couple of seconds and be able to open my web browser within 2-5 seconds (Very precise, I know).
Ordering:
So, I already knew of a couple of websites that did custom-built computers but most of them didn't build laptops or were way too specific and complex in their selection of the parts, so I kept looking through Google until I came across PC Specialist. I looked through the website and found that the selection process was quite simple but did require you to have very basic computer knowledge, which you should already have if your looking for a custom-built laptop/PC. I came across the Vortex IV 15.3" and found that the best graphics card they had to offer for it was the GTX 880M which I found out was actually the 13th best graphics card available on the market for laptops (this comes from www.Notebookcheck.net BTW) and that it could run almost all games (except ones that heavily focus on graphics such and Crysis 3 and Far Cry 3) at max settings and resolution at around 55-60fps which was good enough for me. After the process of finalizing my spec, I placed the order for it.
Processing, Building and Testing:
So, after looking around online to see just how long general delivery was without a fast track delivery and to my slight surprise, most got theirs about 20-30 days after ordering so after 2 days of staying in processing, I changed to the 5 day fast track at around 12:30pm and to my pleasant surprise, I discovered that my laptop had been build and was going into testing by about 4:30pm. The following day, it was tested by around 2:30pm and was in quality control. The day after that, it was out of quality control and was dispatched by the end of the day. I was really pleased with the amount of time I saved by paying that additional £30 for the fast track as it was so worth it. Thanks to Mark Bradley for building, Jonathon Brown for the testing, Ben Alderson for the Quality Control and James Dransfield for the packaging, you all did a great job as I've had no problems after a week's use.
Delivery, Unpacking and First Time Usage:
When it was dispatched I got an email saying that it would be in my hands by tomorrow and sure enough, the following day at around 9:30am, it was at my door. The first thing I noticed about it was that the box was very large and well reinforced, the laptop was inside another box that was inside the original box (a box within box, Inception anyone?). Once I unpacked everything and booted the laptop up, it asked for my product key and after a little bit of confusion I found the key on the bottom of the laptop's casing and after putting the key in and setting up a windows profile, I was in.
Were my wants fulfilled?:
- A powerful laptop that could run most games (mainly 2007-2013 games) at full resolution, max graphical settings at 60fps - It entirely fulfills this, the Nvidia GTX 880M is a very good graphics card and as I was told, it runs almost all games at 60fps at max graphics and resolution.
- A cool and quiet laptop - This laptop semi-fulfills this role, whilst it stays very cool due to the extreme thermal paste the laptop does make about the same noise as an Xbox 360 does, so whilst it's not the quiet that i would like it's quieter than my previous laptop and i'm therefore happy.
- A mobile laptop - It somewhat fulfills this, whilst it is slightly heavier to my old laptop due to the components inside, it's definitely not bad enough that it's unbearable to carry around, it's suitable for mobility but not perfect.
- A fast laptop - This laptop fulfills this by a mile, the SSD speeds the laptop up significantly and is definitely worth it.
Pros:
- The fingerprint scanner makes for quick and easy access into your account.
- Slick Design
- Quiet-ish Fans
Cons:
- The Fingerprint scanner is a pain to set up
- Built-in speakers gather dust quite quickly
- The Power 'brick' is massive
Conclusion:
The Vortex 15.3" is a very good laptop in general. Exceptional performance, long battery life, cool temperature, quiet fans, it's slick design and the ability to customize it to your whim (changing keyboard back-light color for example). My only regrets is not getting the 17" as I could get the exact same specs for only around £100 more and not getting the 5 day fast track straight away (seriously, unless you want to wait from 2 weeks up to about a month for your laptop, get it). As a result of this, I will definitely be buying all future PCs and Laptops from PC Specialist.
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