Defiance 15" Review

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Andythescientist

Member
I've just received my new laptop as specced up below.

Chassis & Display
Defiance Series: 15.6" Matte Full HD IPS LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Mobile Processor i7-4710MQ (2.50GHz)
Memory (RAM)
8GB KINGSTON HYPER-X IMPACT 1600MHz SODIMM DDR3 (1 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 970M - 3.0GB DDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 11
mSATA/M.2 SSD Drive
500GB Crucial MX200 M.2 2280 SSD (upto 555MB/sR | 500MB/sW)
1st HardDisk
500GB Samsung 850 EVO SSD, SATA 6Gb/s (upto 540MB/sR | 520MB/sW)
Memory Card Reader
Integrated 6 in 1 Card Reader (SD /Mini SD/ SDHC / SDXC / MMC / RSMMC)
Thermal Paste
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND
Sound Card
Intel 2 Channel High Def. Audio + MIC/Headphone + SoundBlaster X-Fi MB3
Wireless/Wired Networking
GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® AC-7265 M.2 (867Mbps, 802.11AC) + BLUETOOTH
USB Options
4 x USB 3.0 PORTS (1 x POWERED, 1 e-SATA COMBINED)
Battery
Defiance Series 4 Cell Lithium Ion Battery (60WH)
Power Cable
1 x UK Power Lead & 180W AC Adaptor
Keyboard Language
DEFIANCE SERIES BACKLIT UK KEYBOARD WITH NUMBER PAD
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Professional 64 Bit w/SP1 - inc DVD & Licence

This machine has 2 purposes, 1st is work with things like office, stats packages etc. Pretty light work, for this the onboard GPU us used, and the machine runs really cool, and quiet under these conditions. Booting and loading from the SSD is really quick, a pleasure to use.

I also use this for a bit of gaming, the GTX 970M is ideal for 1080p gaming. Something like Shadow of Mordor in highest settings runs fantastically at a solid >60 FPS. While The Witcher III on high also runs @ 60FPS which is really pleasing. Obviously when this is running the fans kick in and a bit of fan noise is heard, but nothing particularly intrusive or loader than any other computer I've used desktop or laptop. So far i'm really happy with it, it does exactly what I was looking for.

Despite the issue during the build where the wrong CPU was built, I was happy to take it with the 4710 (should have been the 4720), with a bit of a discount on the price. Certainly processor power is more than enough for my needs.

Laptop.jpg
 
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Andythescientist

Member
Nothing so far, everything running spot on.

Only thing i'm watching out for is windows 10 release, something is still not win10 compatible but i'm not sure what (ie the upgrade app hasn't appeared yet). I'm happy to wait a month or 2 to upgrade anyway, which is why i went for a win7 install.

Under normal windows/office use it runs really cool ~ 50 DegC. Only gets up to around 75 in the witcher @60fps on high, pretty nice.
 
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Andythescientist

Member
The speakers are OK, not fantasic, but OK. They do go up pretty loud but the base isn't the best, but for laptop speakers they are not bad by any means, even ok for music.

I previously had a Toshiba Laptop with Harman Kardon speakers and they were better, a bit smoother. Nothing i would say would effect my choice of the defiance over say the bigger vortex, as i carry this too and from work every day.
 
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Andythescientist

Member
By the way i've been too chicken to upgrade to win10 yet so interested to hear from any other defiance owners who have taken the plunge to see how they have fared.
 
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Srscott

New member
Windows 10 is okay, definitely still squashing bugs though! it runs smoothly and games right now are a bit buggy but I like it over win 7 so far! Anything you want to ask about it? How is the battery life just out of curiosity? for movies etc?
 
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n1ghtwish

Bronze Level Poster
Have Windows 10 on mine seems fine, just make sure that Device Manager has all devices listed. You can get the Windows 10 drivers from the main PCS site after you login for anything that is missing.

If a device is missing, then go into it's properties, go to the Details tab, change drop down to Hardware Ids.

Grab one of the strings, the main thing you need is the &DEV section.

Example with highlighted useful bit:

PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_8C3A&SUBSYS_1C3A1458&REV_04

Put the 4 digit code into Device search on http://www.pcidatabase.com/ - for example here I would enter just 8C3A.

It should tell you what device it is then at least.
 
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mge0rge

Active member
Hi there! I am thinking about getting this laptop but my main concern is fan noise. I had a vortex laptop before and it was the most annoying laptop in the history of laptops . I understand fan noise when gaming but when browsing the web ,watching YouTube or playing a game of chess online it is unacceptable for me,the fans were starting even on idle every about 30s to 1 minute. The defiance looks great in terms of specs and design , it's thin and has a back-lit keyboard. I am coming from a mac now, and if you compare the dimensions there isn't much between the defiance and macbook pro 15. What I like about the mac is it's quiet operation .
How is the defiance so far in terms of fan noise ? if you don't mind give me a couple of scenarios and programs that you use and hear the fans.
 
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Andythescientist

Member
during normal windows operation the machine is silent pretty much because now the OS switches between the two GPUs automatically, which means during windows use the GTX is turned off and does nothing. Only when you launch a game does the GPU switch and the GTX kicks in, at that point the fans usually go on. They are not super noisy in my opinion, what i would say is that if you play on having it on your lap, when you run GFX intensive games it does get hot. To get over this i bought a laptop cooler (Coolermaster NotePal Lap Air 17'') which is fantastic, and the fan from that is noisier than the built in fans just for info. The laptop doesn't need the cooling so most of the time i leave it off, but it doesn help not having the exausts on your legs.
 
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Yohannas

Member
Hi Andy, I know this is an older thread but I'm considering buying this laptop and just wanted to know two things, if you wouldn't mind giving your experiences so far:

- Would you say the 15" screen as opposed to the 17" screen detracts from the gaming experience? Can it be hard to see detail at that size?
- What kind of battery life do you get for it when you're not gaming (I'm thinking about when I'll need to take this into a work setting)

Thanks in advance for any help you can give :)
 
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