I finally ordered my Defiance V on the 16th of October after a lot of deliberation! Delivered on the 24th.
First Thoughts: Amazing quality, fast build/delivering time with notifications throughout the build process! Performs like a dream!
Spec:
Chassis & Display Defiance Series: 17.3" Matte Full HD 144Hz 72% NTSC LED Widescreen(1920x1080) + G-Sync
Processor (CPU) Intel® CoreTM i7 Six Core Processor 8750H (2.2GHz, 4.1GHz Turbo)
Memory (RAM) 16GB Corsair 2133MHz SODIMM DDR4 (1 x 16GB)
Graphics Card NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1070 - 8.0GB GDDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 12.1
1st Hard Disk NOT REQUIRED
1st M.2 SSD Drive 500GB SAMSUNG 970 EVO M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 3400MB/R, 2300MB/W)
Memory Card Reader Integrated 6 in 1 Card Reader (SD /Mini SD/ SDHC / SDXC / MMC / RSMMC)
AC Adaptor 1 x 230W AC Adaptor
Battery Defiance Series 4 Cell Lithium Ion Battery (66WH)
Power Cable 1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Thermal Paste STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
Sound Card 2 Channel High Def. Audio + MIC/Headphone + Sound BlasterX® Pro-Gaming 720 ̊
Bluetooth & Wireless GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® AC-9260 M.2 (1.73Gbps, 802.11AC) +BT 5.0
USB Options 4 x USB 3.0 Ports + 1 x USB 3.1 Type C Ports
Keyboard Language RGB BACKLIT UK KEYBOARD
Operating System NO OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIRED
Notebook Mouse INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
Webcam INTEGRATED 2.0 MEGAPIXEL WEBCAM
Warranty 3 Year Standard Warranty (1 Month Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Dead Pixel Guarantee 1 Year Dead Pixel Guarantee Inc. Labour & Carriage Costs
Delivery STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time Standard Build - Approximately 5 to 7 working days
Promotional Item FREE Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 & More w/ select Intel CPUs!
Promotional Item FREE Assassin's Creed: Odyssey with select SAMSUNG NVMe SSDs!
Full Review:
Background
I've been looking to make the move to something a bit more portable for quite some time.
I am a game developer, specializing in 3D art & Level design predominantly using programs such as Autodesk Maya, Unreal Engine 4, I also work with photo, video & sound editing tools as well!
Until this point I've been working between my home PC; a well used 2500 i5 paired with a 4GB GTX 770, which is starting to show its age but does the job & my office PC an i7 7700k paired with an 8GB GTX 1070.
As my home PC is due for an upgrade I thought it more efficient to invest in a laptop with the best of both worlds hence arriving at PC Specialist as I'm a sucker for custom builds rather than off the shelf.
After reading A LOT on here about other peoples experiences & opinions the Defiance, with many threads complaining about heat issues & thermal throttling I was a little skeptical but I took a chance on the Defiance, after seeing some comments about Bios updates & fixes. I'm so glad I took the chance! It's been nothing but a dream. Whatever PCS have done to rectify these issues, or if it was just a select few who were unlucky, but for anyone looking at this laptop I wouldn't worry.
Sadly I think people who have had good experiences have either been too busy enjoying their new laptop or slipped their mind to even bother leaving a review.
Running Temps:
No issues what so ever...
Idle Temps: 30's
Full Load Temps (Games, Benchmarking & 3D work): 70-80
No throttling or slow down to speak of!
Chassis Quality:
Faultless... Its a beautifully sleek design with a premium feel, however is a fingerprint magnet as you can see in the photos
(Not an issue at all).
Weight is nice; heavy enough to feel sturdy but light enough to stay in your backpack all day without giving you back pain!
It actually runs cooler than a friends Razer laptop of equal spec which surprised me, seen as its was literally more than twice the price!
It can feel warm to touch, some people might use the word hot but in no way could it burn you and its only at the top left next to the exhaust, which is a good thing as its clearly expelling all that hot air.
Keyboard is nice to use, good feel when typing and for gaming. LED customization is a nice touch!
Noise:
It's silent until I boot an intensive program then its has a slight noise. Gaming it does wind up to the point it can drown the built in speakers out a little, but its actually quieter than my desktop on full chatter. With headphones in it's unnoticeable.
Screen Quality:
The 144hz is a pleasure to the eye. Colour's are vivid and have a good range, though in a darkroom and black screen there is a slight bit of bleed near the hinges, where I imagine there is more pressure due to clips/screws. Though nothing that hinders use at all, another non problem.
Gaming performance:
I've actually been very surprised at its performance in games, online I'd read the 10 series cards are meant to perform with around 30% difference to their desktop alternatives (Not including the MaxQ versions) which I was taking with a pinch of salt, but it actually is very close and even on par in a lot of cases in the games I've tested.
Assassins Creed Odyssey: 50-80 FPS.
Call Of Duty - Black Ops 4: 90-120 FPS.
Rust: 90-140 FPS
MGS5: 60-90FPS.
All graphical options maxed out!
Thickness
AC Odyssey FPS
Idle Temps
Load Temps
To cap it off, if you can't already tell I'd highly recommend this chassis and PCS.
I'm normally a DIY'er and have always built my own systems, but I can happily say I'd use PCS in the future!
I'm happy to post more screenshots of specific things if there is anything someone is looking to see.
First Thoughts: Amazing quality, fast build/delivering time with notifications throughout the build process! Performs like a dream!
Spec:
Chassis & Display Defiance Series: 17.3" Matte Full HD 144Hz 72% NTSC LED Widescreen(1920x1080) + G-Sync
Processor (CPU) Intel® CoreTM i7 Six Core Processor 8750H (2.2GHz, 4.1GHz Turbo)
Memory (RAM) 16GB Corsair 2133MHz SODIMM DDR4 (1 x 16GB)
Graphics Card NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1070 - 8.0GB GDDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 12.1
1st Hard Disk NOT REQUIRED
1st M.2 SSD Drive 500GB SAMSUNG 970 EVO M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 3400MB/R, 2300MB/W)
Memory Card Reader Integrated 6 in 1 Card Reader (SD /Mini SD/ SDHC / SDXC / MMC / RSMMC)
AC Adaptor 1 x 230W AC Adaptor
Battery Defiance Series 4 Cell Lithium Ion Battery (66WH)
Power Cable 1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Thermal Paste STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
Sound Card 2 Channel High Def. Audio + MIC/Headphone + Sound BlasterX® Pro-Gaming 720 ̊
Bluetooth & Wireless GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® AC-9260 M.2 (1.73Gbps, 802.11AC) +BT 5.0
USB Options 4 x USB 3.0 Ports + 1 x USB 3.1 Type C Ports
Keyboard Language RGB BACKLIT UK KEYBOARD
Operating System NO OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIRED
Notebook Mouse INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
Webcam INTEGRATED 2.0 MEGAPIXEL WEBCAM
Warranty 3 Year Standard Warranty (1 Month Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Dead Pixel Guarantee 1 Year Dead Pixel Guarantee Inc. Labour & Carriage Costs
Delivery STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time Standard Build - Approximately 5 to 7 working days
Promotional Item FREE Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 & More w/ select Intel CPUs!
Promotional Item FREE Assassin's Creed: Odyssey with select SAMSUNG NVMe SSDs!
Full Review:
Background
I've been looking to make the move to something a bit more portable for quite some time.
I am a game developer, specializing in 3D art & Level design predominantly using programs such as Autodesk Maya, Unreal Engine 4, I also work with photo, video & sound editing tools as well!
Until this point I've been working between my home PC; a well used 2500 i5 paired with a 4GB GTX 770, which is starting to show its age but does the job & my office PC an i7 7700k paired with an 8GB GTX 1070.
As my home PC is due for an upgrade I thought it more efficient to invest in a laptop with the best of both worlds hence arriving at PC Specialist as I'm a sucker for custom builds rather than off the shelf.
After reading A LOT on here about other peoples experiences & opinions the Defiance, with many threads complaining about heat issues & thermal throttling I was a little skeptical but I took a chance on the Defiance, after seeing some comments about Bios updates & fixes. I'm so glad I took the chance! It's been nothing but a dream. Whatever PCS have done to rectify these issues, or if it was just a select few who were unlucky, but for anyone looking at this laptop I wouldn't worry.
Sadly I think people who have had good experiences have either been too busy enjoying their new laptop or slipped their mind to even bother leaving a review.
Running Temps:
No issues what so ever...
Idle Temps: 30's
Full Load Temps (Games, Benchmarking & 3D work): 70-80
No throttling or slow down to speak of!
Chassis Quality:
Faultless... Its a beautifully sleek design with a premium feel, however is a fingerprint magnet as you can see in the photos
(Not an issue at all).Weight is nice; heavy enough to feel sturdy but light enough to stay in your backpack all day without giving you back pain!
It actually runs cooler than a friends Razer laptop of equal spec which surprised me, seen as its was literally more than twice the price!
It can feel warm to touch, some people might use the word hot but in no way could it burn you and its only at the top left next to the exhaust, which is a good thing as its clearly expelling all that hot air.
Keyboard is nice to use, good feel when typing and for gaming. LED customization is a nice touch!
Noise:
It's silent until I boot an intensive program then its has a slight noise. Gaming it does wind up to the point it can drown the built in speakers out a little, but its actually quieter than my desktop on full chatter. With headphones in it's unnoticeable.
Screen Quality:
The 144hz is a pleasure to the eye. Colour's are vivid and have a good range, though in a darkroom and black screen there is a slight bit of bleed near the hinges, where I imagine there is more pressure due to clips/screws. Though nothing that hinders use at all, another non problem.
Gaming performance:
I've actually been very surprised at its performance in games, online I'd read the 10 series cards are meant to perform with around 30% difference to their desktop alternatives (Not including the MaxQ versions) which I was taking with a pinch of salt, but it actually is very close and even on par in a lot of cases in the games I've tested.
Assassins Creed Odyssey: 50-80 FPS.
Call Of Duty - Black Ops 4: 90-120 FPS.
Rust: 90-140 FPS
MGS5: 60-90FPS.
All graphical options maxed out!
Thickness
AC Odyssey FPS
Idle Temps
Load Temps
To cap it off, if you can't already tell I'd highly recommend this chassis and PCS.
I'm normally a DIY'er and have always built my own systems, but I can happily say I'd use PCS in the future!
I'm happy to post more screenshots of specific things if there is anything someone is looking to see.
