Savannah
Member
I ordered my Cosmos II notebook on the 25th of May as a birthday present for myself - I planned to use it as a balance between my gaming needs and uni work. It arrived two days after my birthday on the 17th of June, and while I wasn't happy about the wait, the laptop itself has been amazing. I bought it to replace my Fujitsu Lifebook (which was quite literally falling apart) and the Cosmos has performed amazingly well.
SPECS
Chassis & Display
Cosmos Series: 15.6" Matte Full HD LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i5 Dual Core Mobile Processor i5-4210M (2.60GHz) 3MB
Memory (RAM)
8GB KINGSTON SODIMM DDR3 1600MHz (1 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 850M - 2.0GB DDR3 Video RAM - DirectX® 11
1st Hard Disk
1TB 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
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
Sound Card
Intel 2 Channel High Definition Audio + MIC/Headphone Jack
Wireless/Wired Networking
GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® N-7260 (300Mbps, 802.11BGN) + BLUETOOTH
USB Options
3 x USB 3.0 PORTS + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT AS STANDARD
Battery
Cosmos Series 6 Cell Lithium Ion Battery (48.84WH)
Power Cable
1 x UK Power Lead & 120W AC Adaptor
Operating System
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Insurance
1 Month Free Laptop Insurance inc. Accidental Damage & Theft
COST: £622 - 5/5...In addition to the laptop cooler I ordered.
For my budget, this price was really great. I only found PCSpecialist after scouring the internet for cheap gaming laptops, as my parents couldn't afford to pay for a super-high range one. PCSpecialist offered a fantastic graphics card in the GTX 850M for a much lower price than anywhere else; I saw Alienware laptops with the same card going for between £800-£1000. :wacko: I already had Office 2013, AVG anti-virus and I installed a free copy of Windows 8.1 [Embedded Industry Pro] I got from Dreamsparks. I did worry that the Embedded OS would be completely different than the standard 8.1, but I haven't found anything strange, though my previous laptop ran Windows 7 so I wouldn't notice different features anyway.
TIMING - 3/5
As I mentioned earlier, I wasn't too happy about the production timing. It took 17 working days to be made when the length had initially been advertised as 12 working days when I made my order, and I didn't have the money to pay for the fast track. This meant that I didn't get the laptop until after I'd turned 18, which was a little annoying. But, I suppose that long waiting times are simply the price to pay for getting one of the cheapest and best made laptops on the market.
PERFORMANCE
Gaming - 5/5
As I said, the laptop is for gaming and uni work, but as I don't start uni 'til October and it's summertime now, I've been mainly testing out my games on it. I ran Sims 3 (after fixing EA's bad programming for which I have a few choice words
) for the first time ever without lag on max settings; Dragon Age Origins, Kingdoms of Amalur and Mass Effect also run perfectly on highest settings. The most demanding games I've tried are Tomb Raider and Sleeping Dogs; the first ran well on high settings + Tress FX and the second perfectly with the HD pack on a mixture of high and ultra settings. Tomb Raider does occasionally lag on all the ultra settings but not much and not too noticeably. Sleeping Dogs lagged pretty badly once, when I was playing for around 10 hours straight, but I haven't been able to replicate that lag since. I haven't yet tried my copy of the Witcher 2 but I'm confident it'll run well, and I think I might even be able to run the upcoming Dragon Age Inquisition on medium or high settings. The underside of the laptop doesn't heat up too much, with most of the heat being dissipated by the fan (with not much noise) when I'm playing games. If it does heat up, I use the cooler fan. The part of the chassis besides the keyboard does get a bit warm, but it is never hot/uncomfortable and doesn't impact gameplay. The full HD display really brings out all my games; it looks bloody amazing to me. I don't have an FPS program, so I apologise to you guys because I can only guess, but I would guess that Tomb Raider and Sleeping Dogs ran at between 40-50 fps and dropping to upwards of 30 when they lagged, while all the other games I've listed (not exhaustively) all ran at the very least upwards of 50.
EDIT: Skyrim and ESO also run well on highest settings, and for those who use it, Dolphin emulator runs great.
General Performance - 4/5
The Intel HD graphics the ordinary programs use, plus the i5 processor performs very well. I can open multiple applications like 3+ browsers, Origin, Steam, AVG, Word, etc. without it slowing down at all compared to by old laptop with a low-end i3 (where things would slow down, some apps would stop working and in some instances things would even crash). All of this + Windows 8.1 means the laptop is really responsive and fast which will be ideal come October. [I am, however, still getting used to Windows 8 a bit.] One huge problem I've found though, which I can't blame PCSpecialist for, is that many applications don't scale correctly to the high-DPI screen. Chrome was so blurry when I first opened it that I thought something was wrong with the monitor, and when I finally got it to scale everything (icons, text, etc.) was far too small, which means I'm kind of forced to use Firefox as my main browser even though I don't like using it. I suppose I just have to wait and hope that the companies behind it update their programs. Moving on, the battery life is also very good, lasting between 3.5 and 4 hours unplugged and on a reasonably bright setting. It's a bit worse for gaming, where it lasts maybe 1.5 to 2 hours, but that's to be expected and I'm not at all worried about that.
KEYBOARD - 4/5
I just thought I'd mention, considering I've seen it on other Cosmos II reviews, my feelings about the keyboard. I've found that it's not too bad. It took me a few days to get used to the spacing of the keys, and I still make quite a few accidental mistakes due to it, but I like how soft the keyboard is now. I've also found that it's a lot easier to clean than my old one because the keys aren't raised so much, so I'm pretty happy about that.
CONCLUSION - would definitely buy again
Overall, I really love this laptop and I'd encourage anyone to order hardware from PCSpecialist in the future, as their service is both really good and cost effective. It was also kind of a nice touch to see who worked on my laptop. However, I'd definitely tell anyone who wants to order from here to get the fast track delivery service if possible, and I'll be doing that when I next order from here. As a new PC gamer, I definitely know I'll be ordering a desktop from here after university. If anyone has any questions I haven't already answered, feel free to ask!
SPECS
Chassis & Display
Cosmos Series: 15.6" Matte Full HD LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i5 Dual Core Mobile Processor i5-4210M (2.60GHz) 3MB
Memory (RAM)
8GB KINGSTON SODIMM DDR3 1600MHz (1 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 850M - 2.0GB DDR3 Video RAM - DirectX® 11
1st Hard Disk
1TB 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
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
Sound Card
Intel 2 Channel High Definition Audio + MIC/Headphone Jack
Wireless/Wired Networking
GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® N-7260 (300Mbps, 802.11BGN) + BLUETOOTH
USB Options
3 x USB 3.0 PORTS + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT AS STANDARD
Battery
Cosmos Series 6 Cell Lithium Ion Battery (48.84WH)
Power Cable
1 x UK Power Lead & 120W AC Adaptor
Operating System
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Insurance
1 Month Free Laptop Insurance inc. Accidental Damage & Theft
COST: £622 - 5/5...In addition to the laptop cooler I ordered.
For my budget, this price was really great. I only found PCSpecialist after scouring the internet for cheap gaming laptops, as my parents couldn't afford to pay for a super-high range one. PCSpecialist offered a fantastic graphics card in the GTX 850M for a much lower price than anywhere else; I saw Alienware laptops with the same card going for between £800-£1000. :wacko: I already had Office 2013, AVG anti-virus and I installed a free copy of Windows 8.1 [Embedded Industry Pro] I got from Dreamsparks. I did worry that the Embedded OS would be completely different than the standard 8.1, but I haven't found anything strange, though my previous laptop ran Windows 7 so I wouldn't notice different features anyway.
TIMING - 3/5
As I mentioned earlier, I wasn't too happy about the production timing. It took 17 working days to be made when the length had initially been advertised as 12 working days when I made my order, and I didn't have the money to pay for the fast track. This meant that I didn't get the laptop until after I'd turned 18, which was a little annoying. But, I suppose that long waiting times are simply the price to pay for getting one of the cheapest and best made laptops on the market.
PERFORMANCE
Gaming - 5/5
As I said, the laptop is for gaming and uni work, but as I don't start uni 'til October and it's summertime now, I've been mainly testing out my games on it. I ran Sims 3 (after fixing EA's bad programming for which I have a few choice words
) for the first time ever without lag on max settings; Dragon Age Origins, Kingdoms of Amalur and Mass Effect also run perfectly on highest settings. The most demanding games I've tried are Tomb Raider and Sleeping Dogs; the first ran well on high settings + Tress FX and the second perfectly with the HD pack on a mixture of high and ultra settings. Tomb Raider does occasionally lag on all the ultra settings but not much and not too noticeably. Sleeping Dogs lagged pretty badly once, when I was playing for around 10 hours straight, but I haven't been able to replicate that lag since. I haven't yet tried my copy of the Witcher 2 but I'm confident it'll run well, and I think I might even be able to run the upcoming Dragon Age Inquisition on medium or high settings. The underside of the laptop doesn't heat up too much, with most of the heat being dissipated by the fan (with not much noise) when I'm playing games. If it does heat up, I use the cooler fan. The part of the chassis besides the keyboard does get a bit warm, but it is never hot/uncomfortable and doesn't impact gameplay. The full HD display really brings out all my games; it looks bloody amazing to me. I don't have an FPS program, so I apologise to you guys because I can only guess, but I would guess that Tomb Raider and Sleeping Dogs ran at between 40-50 fps and dropping to upwards of 30 when they lagged, while all the other games I've listed (not exhaustively) all ran at the very least upwards of 50.EDIT: Skyrim and ESO also run well on highest settings, and for those who use it, Dolphin emulator runs great.
General Performance - 4/5
The Intel HD graphics the ordinary programs use, plus the i5 processor performs very well. I can open multiple applications like 3+ browsers, Origin, Steam, AVG, Word, etc. without it slowing down at all compared to by old laptop with a low-end i3 (where things would slow down, some apps would stop working and in some instances things would even crash). All of this + Windows 8.1 means the laptop is really responsive and fast which will be ideal come October. [I am, however, still getting used to Windows 8 a bit.] One huge problem I've found though, which I can't blame PCSpecialist for, is that many applications don't scale correctly to the high-DPI screen. Chrome was so blurry when I first opened it that I thought something was wrong with the monitor, and when I finally got it to scale everything (icons, text, etc.) was far too small, which means I'm kind of forced to use Firefox as my main browser even though I don't like using it. I suppose I just have to wait and hope that the companies behind it update their programs. Moving on, the battery life is also very good, lasting between 3.5 and 4 hours unplugged and on a reasonably bright setting. It's a bit worse for gaming, where it lasts maybe 1.5 to 2 hours, but that's to be expected and I'm not at all worried about that.
KEYBOARD - 4/5
I just thought I'd mention, considering I've seen it on other Cosmos II reviews, my feelings about the keyboard. I've found that it's not too bad. It took me a few days to get used to the spacing of the keys, and I still make quite a few accidental mistakes due to it, but I like how soft the keyboard is now. I've also found that it's a lot easier to clean than my old one because the keys aren't raised so much, so I'm pretty happy about that.
CONCLUSION - would definitely buy again
Overall, I really love this laptop and I'd encourage anyone to order hardware from PCSpecialist in the future, as their service is both really good and cost effective. It was also kind of a nice touch to see who worked on my laptop. However, I'd definitely tell anyone who wants to order from here to get the fast track delivery service if possible, and I'll be doing that when I next order from here. As a new PC gamer, I definitely know I'll be ordering a desktop from here after university.
If anyone has any questions I haven't already answered, feel free to ask!
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