When deciding what laptop to buy I read tons of reviews and information which was incredibly helpful, and now I have my PC Specialist Laptop I thought I should give something back, so here is a long and detailed review of the process and machine
Intro - my requirements
SInce 2009 I’ve been using a Macbook Pro and although the hardware and OS were lovely, I didn’t really use any Mac-specific functionality. I mainly used it for games, and it became unable to run most of the 3D games that were released. Even strategy games like Europa Universalis IV were unplayable, so I decided to get a new gaming PC.
My priorities were:
I love the way the website allows you to mess around with the specifications until you find what you need. You can also save specifications for comparison with other machines/vendors. It gives a great sense of being able to take your time over an important purchase and get it right.
My main criticism is that there isn’t enough “plain english” explanation of the variation between machines. You need to spend a good amount of time playing with the configurator to understand that - for example - some machines can only have Radeon GPUs, whereas others can have GeForce but only up to a certain level. I still don’t think I fully know what the fundamental differences between a Vortex, an Optimus and a Skyfire are.
The forums were very helpful, with the ‘check my spec’ people suggesting that I didn’t need to spend so much on the processor, but should get more then 4Gb RAM.
I ordered with the 5-day fast track delivery option on 18th Feb, and had my laptop in my hands on 25th Feb - exactly 5 working days. It’s also great to be able to see who worked on it - thanks Ben, Harry, Mark and James!
My final spec was this:
Chassis & Display: Vortex Series: 15.6" Matte Full HD LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor: Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Mobile Processor i7-4700MQ (2.40GHz) 6MB
Memory: 8GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS 1600MHz SODIMM DDR3 (2 x 4GB)
Graphics Card: NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 780M - 4.0GB DDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 11
1st Hard Disk: 120GB KINGSTON HYPERX 3K SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 555MB/sR | 510MB/sW)
2nd Hard Disk: 750GB WD SCORPIO BLACK WD7500BPKX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 16MB CACHE (7200 rpm)
Wireless Networking: GIGABIT LAN & KILLER™ 1202 WIRELESS GAMING 802.11N + BLUETOOTH 4.0
The SSD runs Windows, the HDD runs games and applications. I was (and still am) cynical about stuff like “Hyper-X RAM” but the difference was £8 or something so I couldn’t resist!
Unboxing
The packaging is hilariously OEM - terrible 80s box art saying “Notebook Computer - Enjoy With Me!”. It’s a very minor point - irrelevant to some - but when you have bought an expensive and high spec laptop the initial impression is that it feels cheap. There’s certainly no wow factor like when you open an HTC or Apple product. It was securely packaged and reached me on time though, which is far more important.
Inside, there is a good quality PC Specialist “Quick Start Guide”, an OEM manual, a disc of drivers and manuals, and the Windows reinstall disc. All you need, really. I am still a little confused by the drivers disc - it seems like the drivers are all installed but on inspection I find out the touchpad ones weren’t. Not sure why as they enhance its functionality greatly (scrolling, gestures and so on). I can’t work out if there are any other drivers I should install.
Chassis & Hardware
The first surprise is that the machine lid and control surface feel sort of rubberized. They are certainly not the gloss plastic I was expecting, more a soft matte finish. This is a pleasant surprise and although it’s a little more prone to collecting dirt, I much prefer it to a cheap looking and feeling hard plastic. The only downside is that it seems to attract dust like a magnet! Seriously, it needs to be wiped clean twice a day. Look:
The keyboard is one of the nicest surprises - backlighting in a variety of colours if that’s your thing, really quiet typing, very responsive keys. As others have said, the enter key being a single key height means you’re prone to typing # when you mean to hit return. It’s something to get used to, certainly.
The trackpad has the same rubberized surface as the rest of the touch surfaces and at first it felt like it was too sticky, but it’s already becoming smoother though and isn’t bad to use. Not even close to the quality of the glassy Mac touchpad but larger and better than the other PC’s I’ve used recently..
The machine has a fingerprint reader between the touchpad mouse buttons. At first I thought it was a gimmick, but I am now using it exclusively instead of a password and it works very reliably.
Regarding power - I was shocked by the size of the power brick - it’s not nearly the size of the Xbox 360 one but still would be pretty tedious to carry around. The cable is a good length. I can’t say I have tested the battery as this machine is almost always plugged in, but I did accidentally play a 45 minute game of League of Legends and only used about 25% of the battery, so it seems acceptable.
Performance and Gaming
Performance is exceptional - a huge step up from my Core 2 Duo Macbook Pro, and at times I have been genuinely shocked by the speed. The first time I booted and clicked the Internet Explorer icon and it instantly appeared made me yelp with delight.
So far I’ve been playing Metro Last Light, DayZ Standalone and League of Legends. Metro is the best testbed for what this machine is capable of, as DayZ is alpha code and not optimised, and LoL is fairly undemanding - however both of them look great and perform well.
A neat innovation with the GeForce cards is pre-installed software called “The Nvidia GeForce Experience”. It sounds like dreadful marketing nonsense but apart from being the key way to update your drivers it actually has a central database of the most popular games and applies what it judges to be “Optimal Settings” for each one. This machine can largely handle max settings
When gaming the only issue I sometimes identify is screen tearing - for example if you whip your mouse around for a 360 degree turn in Metro Last Light, you can sometimes see a horizontal line across the screen where the card is drawing faster than your monitor can. Perhaps I need to much about with vsync? Not sure, but it is an occasional and minor point when the rest of the game looks so damn good. Here’s a short Fraps of Metro running at around 50 FPS. Crap res but you can see the depth of detail.
[video=youtube_share;f8RsJ5mDNrs]http://youtu.be/f8RsJ5mDNrs[/video]
Heat and Noise
Playing games on your lap in the lounge means heat and noise are your main enemies. Although it certainly heats up when you’re gaming, this laptop handles temperature better than I expected due to two factors. Firstly, the fans are channeled backwards out of the machine, so although it throws out hot air it doesn’t go straight onto your lap. Secondly, the machine uses Nvidia “Optimus” smart switching so if you don’t need your GPU it powers off and the machine is cool and mostly silent.
The noise isn’t as good - on full blast they do make a fair noise, and unfortunately even when idle there is a slight irritation which you notice when the room is quiet - instead of keeping the CPU fan on constantly at a low speed, it tends to switch it on periodically. I find I tune out a constant noise quite easily whereas a fan that comes on for 30 seconds every few minutes is a touch more annoying. Not sure if this can be addressed in any way.
I don’t think I will ever be truly happy with the amount of noise a lounge PC makes - even my NAS drive has a low hum which is annoying. This PCS laptop is not as good as I hoped, but not as bad as I feared.
Summary/tl;dr
Going back to my original requirements, I wanted the following:
Powerful - definitely achieved, a proper desktop replacement.
Quiet and cool - it’s cool but not whisper quiet - 50% pass here. It is far quieter than my Xbox 360 so I am not upset.
Good looks - Yes. It is chunky, and doesn’t have the sleek “cool factor” of a Dell XPS or Lenovo Yoga - or even my previous Mac, but I think it looks cool in a ‘stealth bomber’ sort of way.
Good value - 100% yes. The only way I could be happier is if it came with £100 of free Steam credit so I can try all the games I desperately want to play!
Overall, a great match to my needs and a machine I am very pleased with.
I would not hesitate to recommend PC Specialist - they seem to offer top quality components that you can configure to your needs but at a price that makes other retailers look like they are profiteering.
Pros
Intro - my requirements
SInce 2009 I’ve been using a Macbook Pro and although the hardware and OS were lovely, I didn’t really use any Mac-specific functionality. I mainly used it for games, and it became unable to run most of the 3D games that were released. Even strategy games like Europa Universalis IV were unplayable, so I decided to get a new gaming PC.
My priorities were:
- Powerful enough to run anything and last 5 years before it stops meeting minimum specs
- Good acoustic and thermal peformance. This is going to sit on my lap on the sofa, and I don’t want to be frustrated because it’s too noisy or hot.
- Good form factor/looks.
- Good value - my budget when I started was roughly £1,200 but this grew to £1,500 after research. That’s a lot of money, and I wanted to make sure it was well spent.
I love the way the website allows you to mess around with the specifications until you find what you need. You can also save specifications for comparison with other machines/vendors. It gives a great sense of being able to take your time over an important purchase and get it right.
My main criticism is that there isn’t enough “plain english” explanation of the variation between machines. You need to spend a good amount of time playing with the configurator to understand that - for example - some machines can only have Radeon GPUs, whereas others can have GeForce but only up to a certain level. I still don’t think I fully know what the fundamental differences between a Vortex, an Optimus and a Skyfire are.
The forums were very helpful, with the ‘check my spec’ people suggesting that I didn’t need to spend so much on the processor, but should get more then 4Gb RAM.
I ordered with the 5-day fast track delivery option on 18th Feb, and had my laptop in my hands on 25th Feb - exactly 5 working days. It’s also great to be able to see who worked on it - thanks Ben, Harry, Mark and James!
My final spec was this:
Chassis & Display: Vortex Series: 15.6" Matte Full HD LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor: Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Mobile Processor i7-4700MQ (2.40GHz) 6MB
Memory: 8GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS 1600MHz SODIMM DDR3 (2 x 4GB)
Graphics Card: NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 780M - 4.0GB DDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 11
1st Hard Disk: 120GB KINGSTON HYPERX 3K SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 555MB/sR | 510MB/sW)
2nd Hard Disk: 750GB WD SCORPIO BLACK WD7500BPKX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 16MB CACHE (7200 rpm)
Wireless Networking: GIGABIT LAN & KILLER™ 1202 WIRELESS GAMING 802.11N + BLUETOOTH 4.0
The SSD runs Windows, the HDD runs games and applications. I was (and still am) cynical about stuff like “Hyper-X RAM” but the difference was £8 or something so I couldn’t resist!
Unboxing
The packaging is hilariously OEM - terrible 80s box art saying “Notebook Computer - Enjoy With Me!”. It’s a very minor point - irrelevant to some - but when you have bought an expensive and high spec laptop the initial impression is that it feels cheap. There’s certainly no wow factor like when you open an HTC or Apple product. It was securely packaged and reached me on time though, which is far more important.
Inside, there is a good quality PC Specialist “Quick Start Guide”, an OEM manual, a disc of drivers and manuals, and the Windows reinstall disc. All you need, really. I am still a little confused by the drivers disc - it seems like the drivers are all installed but on inspection I find out the touchpad ones weren’t. Not sure why as they enhance its functionality greatly (scrolling, gestures and so on). I can’t work out if there are any other drivers I should install.
Chassis & Hardware
The first surprise is that the machine lid and control surface feel sort of rubberized. They are certainly not the gloss plastic I was expecting, more a soft matte finish. This is a pleasant surprise and although it’s a little more prone to collecting dirt, I much prefer it to a cheap looking and feeling hard plastic. The only downside is that it seems to attract dust like a magnet! Seriously, it needs to be wiped clean twice a day. Look:
The keyboard is one of the nicest surprises - backlighting in a variety of colours if that’s your thing, really quiet typing, very responsive keys. As others have said, the enter key being a single key height means you’re prone to typing # when you mean to hit return. It’s something to get used to, certainly.
The trackpad has the same rubberized surface as the rest of the touch surfaces and at first it felt like it was too sticky, but it’s already becoming smoother though and isn’t bad to use. Not even close to the quality of the glassy Mac touchpad but larger and better than the other PC’s I’ve used recently..
The machine has a fingerprint reader between the touchpad mouse buttons. At first I thought it was a gimmick, but I am now using it exclusively instead of a password and it works very reliably.
Regarding power - I was shocked by the size of the power brick - it’s not nearly the size of the Xbox 360 one but still would be pretty tedious to carry around. The cable is a good length. I can’t say I have tested the battery as this machine is almost always plugged in, but I did accidentally play a 45 minute game of League of Legends and only used about 25% of the battery, so it seems acceptable.
Performance and Gaming
Performance is exceptional - a huge step up from my Core 2 Duo Macbook Pro, and at times I have been genuinely shocked by the speed. The first time I booted and clicked the Internet Explorer icon and it instantly appeared made me yelp with delight.
So far I’ve been playing Metro Last Light, DayZ Standalone and League of Legends. Metro is the best testbed for what this machine is capable of, as DayZ is alpha code and not optimised, and LoL is fairly undemanding - however both of them look great and perform well.
A neat innovation with the GeForce cards is pre-installed software called “The Nvidia GeForce Experience”. It sounds like dreadful marketing nonsense but apart from being the key way to update your drivers it actually has a central database of the most popular games and applies what it judges to be “Optimal Settings” for each one. This machine can largely handle max settings
When gaming the only issue I sometimes identify is screen tearing - for example if you whip your mouse around for a 360 degree turn in Metro Last Light, you can sometimes see a horizontal line across the screen where the card is drawing faster than your monitor can. Perhaps I need to much about with vsync? Not sure, but it is an occasional and minor point when the rest of the game looks so damn good. Here’s a short Fraps of Metro running at around 50 FPS. Crap res but you can see the depth of detail.
[video=youtube_share;f8RsJ5mDNrs]http://youtu.be/f8RsJ5mDNrs[/video]
Heat and Noise
Playing games on your lap in the lounge means heat and noise are your main enemies. Although it certainly heats up when you’re gaming, this laptop handles temperature better than I expected due to two factors. Firstly, the fans are channeled backwards out of the machine, so although it throws out hot air it doesn’t go straight onto your lap. Secondly, the machine uses Nvidia “Optimus” smart switching so if you don’t need your GPU it powers off and the machine is cool and mostly silent.
The noise isn’t as good - on full blast they do make a fair noise, and unfortunately even when idle there is a slight irritation which you notice when the room is quiet - instead of keeping the CPU fan on constantly at a low speed, it tends to switch it on periodically. I find I tune out a constant noise quite easily whereas a fan that comes on for 30 seconds every few minutes is a touch more annoying. Not sure if this can be addressed in any way.
I don’t think I will ever be truly happy with the amount of noise a lounge PC makes - even my NAS drive has a low hum which is annoying. This PCS laptop is not as good as I hoped, but not as bad as I feared.
Summary/tl;dr
Going back to my original requirements, I wanted the following:
Powerful - definitely achieved, a proper desktop replacement.
Quiet and cool - it’s cool but not whisper quiet - 50% pass here. It is far quieter than my Xbox 360 so I am not upset.
Good looks - Yes. It is chunky, and doesn’t have the sleek “cool factor” of a Dell XPS or Lenovo Yoga - or even my previous Mac, but I think it looks cool in a ‘stealth bomber’ sort of way.
Good value - 100% yes. The only way I could be happier is if it came with £100 of free Steam credit so I can try all the games I desperately want to play!
Overall, a great match to my needs and a machine I am very pleased with.
I would not hesitate to recommend PC Specialist - they seem to offer top quality components that you can configure to your needs but at a price that makes other retailers look like they are profiteering.
Pros
- Flawless config, build and shipping
- Surprisingly ergonomic chassis which feels very robust
- No bloatware
- Incredible value given the..
- ...Ultra settings next gen HD gaming power!
- Lacks single-manufacturer design philosophy
- CPU fan changes speed in a noticeable way when the room is quiet
- Power “brick” is huge
- Chassis needs a lot of wiping to get rid of dust on it’s rubberized surfaces!
