Enigma II owners - what are your impressions?

R

Rich

Member
Hi,
My Dell notebook's 7950 GTX died the other day and I am looking to replace it. I was just wondering if any of the Enigma II owners on this forum could post up some opinions and possibly pictures of the laptop?

Obviously the specs of the thing speak for themselves (though benchmarks would be nice if possible). But really the main things I want to know about are:

1. Build quality
2. Noise
3. Heat
4. Battery performance
5 (and most importantly) reliability

I'm particularly interested in reliability - there are a lot of high end components going into a relatively small chassis and I'm just wondering how long these things are built to last. Of course that's hard to comment on due to the fact these laptops are relatively new, but it's still useful to know if anyone has any issues.

Also, how do these things look in person? I'm not 100% keen on the sample pictures, especially given that other PC specialist laptops such as the Genesis II look (in my opinion) that much nicer.

I'm basically weighing up whether to get this or a new Thinkpad W510 (with similar specs only less ram, no blu ray drive, 9 cell battery and a Quadro 880m graphics card).

Thanks to anyone who responds! If I do end up getting this I assure you I'll at some point post some kind of review with benchmarks etc.
 
PCS

PCS

Administrator
Staff member
Here's some previous feedback:

http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/forum...-buying-Enigma-II-i5&highlight=enigma+battery

http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/forum...hase-an-enigma-II-i7&highlight=enigma+battery

http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/forum...-on-the-market/page2&highlight=enigma+battery

Battery life:

1. With normal settings, it goes into hibernation when it is 5% left of the battery. We measured the battery life from 100% to 5% when it hibernated.
Idle (50% brightness, wlan and bluetooth on): 3h 40m

2. DVDrip on vlc (50% brightness, wlan and bluetooth off, headphones with 50% volume): 2h 40m

3. 1080p, x264, DTS-HD audio on Media Player Classic (same as above): 2h 10m

It is actually possible to watch a full 1080p movie with standard length.
 
R

Rich

Member
Just read Randomthom's mini-review on the third link. All sounds good though the keyboard sounds worrying, especially given that he said it's occasionally unresponsive about the middle. Is this an isolated case or a known issue? If it's an isolated case, would it be easy to replace?
 
PCS

PCS

Administrator
Staff member
It's an isolated case - I was trying to give you balanced feedback based on what our other members have said. If you read some of the other reviews customers have commented on how nice the keyboard is. I guess it's all down to personal choice at the end of the day...
 
R

Rich

Member
Yeah I see that - pretty much everything is positive, just wanted to check that it's not inherent in all of them. Well I'm pretty much sold on the system - the price is simply unbeatable it's just hard to say no. My original post still applies though - if anyone has any benchmarks or actual photos of the system that would be great! I should be making my buying decision in the next couple of days.
 
S

Saivishal

Bronze Level Poster
Yep.. Its an excellent system... My specs are below...
The screen is Fabulous,the Build quality is excellent and the performance rock solid and super fast.

I have tried playing a lot and I mean a lot of 2010 Games on it and it easily handles them on 1600x900 res on High settings...
This is one of the better Laptops you will find on the market today and the Camera is 2 MP and not the flimsy 1.3 you get on some Popular models :p

Although not tried running solely on the battery but im sure itll be a great performer there as well.

As for the Service.. PCS is one of the best and most responsive of the companys you can get. Any probs.. theres the forum or the PCS number.

Hands down if you are looking to buy a good Laptop for Med gaming & Work.. look no further :)
 
G

Gra

Member
Rich said:
Yeah I see that - pretty much everything is positive, just wanted to check that it's not inherent in all of them. Well I'm pretty much sold on the system - the price is simply unbeatable it's just hard to say no. My original post still applies though - if anyone has any benchmarks or actual photos of the system that would be great! I should be making my buying decision in the next couple of days.
Click to expand...

I might get in get into trouble for this, but this link has pictures in it at the bottom of the first page (not PcS).

Soon to order an Enigma myself. :)

http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?650-new-laptop
 
R

Rich

Member
Well, I ordered it :D Here's my spec:


Chassis & Display
Enigma II: 15.6" Full HD LED Backlit Widescreen (1920x1080) Super Clear Glossy
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Mobile Processor i7-720QM (1.60GHz) 6MB Cache
Memory (RAM)
8GB SAMSUNG 1333MHz SODIMM DDR3 MEMORY (2 x 4GB)
Graphics Card
1GB ATI® Radeon™ HD 5650 PCI Express - DirectX® 11
Memory - Hard Disk
500GB WD SCORPIO BLACK WD5000BEKT, SATA 3 Gb/s, 16MB CACHE (7200 rpm)
DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
SONY BD-5730S 6x BLURAY WRITER & CYBERLINK SOFTWARE(£129)
Memory Card Reader
Integrated 3 in 1 SD Card Reader
Network Facilities
ONBOARD GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS 802.11N CARD (AS STANDARD)
USB Options
4 x USB 2.0 PORTS AS STANDARD
Bluetooth & Infrared Options
INTEGRATED BLUETOOTH ADAPTER (£7)
Battery
Enigma Series 6 Cell Lithium Ion Battery (4,800/5,200 mAh)
Power Lead & Adaptor
1 x UK Power Lead & 90W AC Adaptor
Operating System
NO OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIRED
Office Software
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Notebook Mouse
INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
Webcam
INTEGRATED 2.0 MEGAPIXEL WEBCAM
Insurance
1 Month Free Laptop Insurance inc. Accidental Damage & Theft
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 4 to 6 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £890.00 including VAT and delivery.

As with everything I buy that is hard to find review for, I will post some kind of review and pics when I get it. And thanks for the pics, looks nicer than the promo shots :)

Oh yeah and the screen looks great!
 
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R

Rich

Member
It arrived earlier, so far, very pleased.

However, despite the fact I have 8gb ram, Windows 7 64 bit is only showing 4gb. 8gb shows up in the bios... Also my Windows Experience Index's memory performance randomly went down from 7.4 to 7.1. Does anyone know why this would occur? I thought possibly the graphics card was stealing some of the ram but 4gb seems excessive. The fact the memory speed drops implies to me that a RAM module is dead (or just that Windows has decided it doesn't like it) as that would eliminate the benefits of dual channelling.

EDIT: It's now only showing 4gb in BIOS.. hmm
EDIT 2: Disabled the graphics card in device manager, now says 8.00gb RAM, 3.99gb useable
 
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R

Rich

Member
Best. Support. Ever. Just called, he just told me how to open it and reseat the RAM modules. I did it, and it all seems to be fine now! I'll be checking occasionally to see if it happens again, but it seems like it was just that the RAM somehow loosened itself.

Either way, I like the support from you guys. Much better than Dell's patronising series of questions. When my graphics card died they made me go through a series of diagnostics when I repeatedly explained to them that I had already gone through the entire process.

By the way - love how this laptop has full access at the bottom, will be nice and easy if I ever want to add another 8gb in the future :p
 
D

dmm

Active member
Glad you're happy with it mate :D Can't wait for mine to arrive! Any chance you can get some pics up?
 
PCS

PCS

Administrator
Staff member
Rich said:
If I do end up getting this I assure you I'll at some point post some kind of review with benchmarks etc.
Click to expand...

If you could post a review as originally intended it would be much appreciated! :)
 
B

boneill

Member
So my new Enigma II machine arrived last week finally and after playing with it for a week I thought I'd give some general feedback on the machine and its feel.

Pros:
-Amazing screen, its beautiful, watching videos on it is like watching them on a cinema, its unreflective, even though my screen faces a window.
-Its fast, really fast, really stable, even windows 7 seems to run well on this baby.
-USB ports, located everywhere and very convenient.
-Keyboard generally feels great (see below), not spoungy and feels sturdy
-approx 3hr battery life
-Fan on the side to avoid overheating on lap.
-Sound quality is amazing too.
-Runs super cool and quiet (thats the SSD for you :) )
-Web Cam is awesome, very high quality.

Cons:
-Its ugly, sorry guys, my last laptop was the HP dv6299ea and it was sexy, this is quite chunky and generally brutally plain, then again its more about the games it can handle and performance than looks, but oh well.
-Chassis is made in china.
-The control key - for some reason the bottom left key is a Fn key not the CTRL key which has been slid over one. This is enormously annoying as I always use CTRL+C etc. Also the delete key at the top right is shifted over one and there is a pause key there instead, also enormously annoying.
-if you use the touchpad it can get annoying while typing as its very sensitive, so remember to turn it off.
-That 'pcspecialist' think at the tope of the base is annoying.

I hope it doesn't put you off. I love my machine and think its wonderful, but there lacks a balanced review on the product here and this is my opinion on how it LOOKS and feels.
 
Maestro

Maestro

Guest
I would be willing to wager that 99.9% of all laptops are made in china / taiwan, even macbooks. Thanks for the review though, each to thier own.
 
D

diave

New member
Hi all

Well I order my Enigma 2 laptop on Saturday night (9th Oct) and it arrive yesterday (Wednesday 13th Oct) - Fantastic, couldn't believe it was built and delivered so quickly!

I have moved over to this from using a Macbook (4 years old, and was in a bad way!) I have to say I am very pleased, and Windows 7 just great. The price was fantastic for the spec, the spec (on processor, Ram and Graphics Card) i have is better than the current Macbook Pro's at many many hundreds cheaper.

- Build quality, very good
- Full HD screen great, watched a couple of blu rays and great
- It's fast, very
- Sound is very good
- 2-3 hrs oon the battey so far...
- = happy cusomer, thanks pcs

p.s on looks, i dont really mind how it looks lol

here is the win 7 report (highest score poss is 7.9):

Component Details Subscore Base score
Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU Q 740 @ 1.73GHz = 7.1

Memory (RAM) 8.00 GB = 7.4
Graphics ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650 = 6.7
Gaming graphics 4091 MB Total available graphics memory = 6.7
Primary hard disk 430GB Free (466GB Total) = 5.9
Windows 7 Home Premium

System
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Total amount of system memory 8.00 GB RAM
System type 64-bit operating system
Number of processor cores 4

Storage
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Total size of hard disk(s) 466 GB
Disk partition (C:) 430 GB Free (466 GB Total)
Media drive (D:) CD/DVD

Graphics
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Display adapter type ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650
Total available graphics memory 4091 MB
Dedicated graphics memory 1024 MB
Dedicated system memory 0 MB
Shared system memory 3067 MB
Display adapter driver version 8.692.1.0
Primary monitor resolution 1920x1080
DirectX version DirectX 10
 
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