RubberDolphin
Member
So This is my first proper review on the internet, which is a shame as I always look around and make use of other reviews and find it a shame when there either aren't enough or aren't any reviews of products. Well here goes.
My previous computer was a Samsung NC10 netbook, its a great computer and runs linux very well, depending on the distro. But it had several limiting factors, the main one being the screen size and resolution. With a resolution of 1024 x 600 programs don't handle this too well and there would be a certain amount cut off the screen. Also the low powered processor and lack of graphics mean intense programs or games are out of the question. There was however a nice upgrade to allow HD video playback, but I digress from the main point of this post.
I was looking for a new laptop that would tick all boxes. I was relatively sure on the specs and had the following on the short list:
Vortex III 15.6"
Dell XPS L521X
Lenovo Y580
The dell although nice was an additional £200 premium over the Vortex and was was a lower spec machine. The dell also had inherent problems that are still being sorted, including processor and graphics throttling due to temperature and wifi issues. Although a nice looking machine, it didn't quite work.
The Lenovo was a step up in performance from the Dell and was cheaper at £999 from Lenovo. But with only a gloss screen available and potentially weak cooling I decided on the Vortex III.
It took a while to finalise the specs for the Vortex, and I mulled over it for a week or so before finally ordering. I had hoped to order fast track, but this is only available if delivery is to the registered card address, and I was ordering to work.
Before I ordered I contacted PC Specialist a few times to enquire over component availability, due to the delays for the i7-3610QM processor. I found that the online chat could be variable and ended up waiting a while for anyone to answer, but once on with an agent they were very helpful. I also sent them an email one evening and had a reply before 09:00 the next morning.
I decided rather than waiting for everything to be in stock, to go ahead and order – this it turns out worked very well with the speed it all happened at, see below.
Below are my specs and order details of times and who worked on it:
Chassis & Display
Vortex Series: 15.6" AUO Matte 95% Gamut Widescreen (1920x1080) (£79)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Mobile Processor i7-3610QM (2.30GHz) 6MB
Memory (RAM)
8GB SAMSUNG 1600MHz SODIMM DDR3 MEMORY (2 x 4GB)
Graphics Card
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 675M - 2.0GB DDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 11
Memory - 1st*Hard Disk
750GB WD SCORPIO BLACK WD7500BPKT, SATA 3 Gb/s, 16MB CACHE (7200 rpm)
1st*DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
2nd HDD HARD DRIVE OPTICAL BAY CADDY
Memory Card Reader
Internal 9 in 1 Card Reader (MMC/RSMMC/SD: Mini, XC & HC/MS: Pro & Duo)
Thermal Paste
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND (£9)
Sound Card
Intel 2 Channel High Definition Audio + MIC/Headphone Jack
Network Facilities
GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® ADVANCED-N 6235 (300Mbps) + BLUETOOTH
USB Options
3 x USB 3.0 PORTS + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT AS STANDARD
Firewire
1 X 1394a FIREWIRE PORT
Battery
Vortex Series 8 Cell Lithium Ion Battery (5,200 mAh/76.96WH)
Power Lead & Adaptor
1 x UK Power Lead & 180W AC Adaptor
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Professional 64 Bit w/SP1 - inc DVD & Licence
Office Software
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Keyboard & Mouse
INTEGRATED BACKLIT UK KEYBOARD WITH NUMBER PAD
Mouse
INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
Webcam
INTEGRATED 2.0 MEGAPIXEL WEBCAM
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 6 to 8 working days
Quantity
1
Processed Date 26-07-2012
Pre-Production Date 31-07-2012
Build Date 01-08-2012
Test Date 01-08-2012
Awaiting Dispatch Date 01-08-2012
Dispatch Date 01-08-2012
Who Worked on This Order?
Built By Ben Alderson
Tested By Carl Auckland
QC'd By Carl Auckland
Packed By Anthony Cunliffe
I have to say I wasn't expecting it to process so quickly given it sat in processing for the majority of the order, and I was suprised it was built, tested and dispatched in the same day, but given that it dispatched on the 5th working day and delivered the next day I am very impressed with this turnaround.
When I got it the package was undamaged and it had been packed well, see photos.
In the box was, not surprisingly another box with the laptop, power adapter, manual, and software and driver discs.
The first boot went quickly and windows 7 was up and running ready for action. I did find that the driver / software for the backlight keyboard did need installing if you wanted to use anything but the default blue, this was easy from the driver disk and was the hotkey program, and also the driver for the touchpad to enable scrolling and multi touch support. The bluetooth driver needed installing to enable all the features of the card. I've yet to find which other drivers need installing from the cd, but all appears to be working well.
The keyboard:
Overall very nice and I like the numberpad and seperate page up and down buttons. It types well. I have found that the tab, caps lock and left shift take a firm press to use, perhaps because they are the larger buttons on the keyboard and may just take some getting used to. The keyboard has a good sound to it as you type.
Performance:
So far I've installed a few games which this easily walks over on maxed out settings:
The list currently stands at:
Arma II Combined operations,
Left 4 Dead 1 & 2
and Half Life 1 & 2.
I've now also installed Call of Duty MW3 and Battlefield 3. Both of these play fine. Battlefield 3 is on the Ultra settings preset, it's very playable, don't know the FPS.
I've also installed an SSD in the primary drive bay now and have the original HD in the optical bay housing. I went with the Vertex 4 128GB from amazon, was discounted to £90, I've put Ubuntu on the ssd and a seperate partition for games in windows. This has significantly boosted game loading times. Very pleased.
So overall very pleased with my Vortex III and would definitely recommend both this and PC Specialist to family and friends. A great product and very good service.
Here endeth my first review
My previous computer was a Samsung NC10 netbook, its a great computer and runs linux very well, depending on the distro. But it had several limiting factors, the main one being the screen size and resolution. With a resolution of 1024 x 600 programs don't handle this too well and there would be a certain amount cut off the screen. Also the low powered processor and lack of graphics mean intense programs or games are out of the question. There was however a nice upgrade to allow HD video playback, but I digress from the main point of this post.
I was looking for a new laptop that would tick all boxes. I was relatively sure on the specs and had the following on the short list:
Vortex III 15.6"
Dell XPS L521X
Lenovo Y580
The dell although nice was an additional £200 premium over the Vortex and was was a lower spec machine. The dell also had inherent problems that are still being sorted, including processor and graphics throttling due to temperature and wifi issues. Although a nice looking machine, it didn't quite work.
The Lenovo was a step up in performance from the Dell and was cheaper at £999 from Lenovo. But with only a gloss screen available and potentially weak cooling I decided on the Vortex III.
It took a while to finalise the specs for the Vortex, and I mulled over it for a week or so before finally ordering. I had hoped to order fast track, but this is only available if delivery is to the registered card address, and I was ordering to work.
Before I ordered I contacted PC Specialist a few times to enquire over component availability, due to the delays for the i7-3610QM processor. I found that the online chat could be variable and ended up waiting a while for anyone to answer, but once on with an agent they were very helpful. I also sent them an email one evening and had a reply before 09:00 the next morning.
I decided rather than waiting for everything to be in stock, to go ahead and order – this it turns out worked very well with the speed it all happened at, see below.
Below are my specs and order details of times and who worked on it:
Chassis & Display
Vortex Series: 15.6" AUO Matte 95% Gamut Widescreen (1920x1080) (£79)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Mobile Processor i7-3610QM (2.30GHz) 6MB
Memory (RAM)
8GB SAMSUNG 1600MHz SODIMM DDR3 MEMORY (2 x 4GB)
Graphics Card
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 675M - 2.0GB DDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 11
Memory - 1st*Hard Disk
750GB WD SCORPIO BLACK WD7500BPKT, SATA 3 Gb/s, 16MB CACHE (7200 rpm)
1st*DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
2nd HDD HARD DRIVE OPTICAL BAY CADDY
Memory Card Reader
Internal 9 in 1 Card Reader (MMC/RSMMC/SD: Mini, XC & HC/MS: Pro & Duo)
Thermal Paste
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND (£9)
Sound Card
Intel 2 Channel High Definition Audio + MIC/Headphone Jack
Network Facilities
GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® ADVANCED-N 6235 (300Mbps) + BLUETOOTH
USB Options
3 x USB 3.0 PORTS + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT AS STANDARD
Firewire
1 X 1394a FIREWIRE PORT
Battery
Vortex Series 8 Cell Lithium Ion Battery (5,200 mAh/76.96WH)
Power Lead & Adaptor
1 x UK Power Lead & 180W AC Adaptor
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Professional 64 Bit w/SP1 - inc DVD & Licence
Office Software
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Keyboard & Mouse
INTEGRATED BACKLIT UK KEYBOARD WITH NUMBER PAD
Mouse
INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
Webcam
INTEGRATED 2.0 MEGAPIXEL WEBCAM
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 6 to 8 working days
Quantity
1
Processed Date 26-07-2012
Pre-Production Date 31-07-2012
Build Date 01-08-2012
Test Date 01-08-2012
Awaiting Dispatch Date 01-08-2012
Dispatch Date 01-08-2012
Who Worked on This Order?
Built By Ben Alderson
Tested By Carl Auckland
QC'd By Carl Auckland
Packed By Anthony Cunliffe
I have to say I wasn't expecting it to process so quickly given it sat in processing for the majority of the order, and I was suprised it was built, tested and dispatched in the same day, but given that it dispatched on the 5th working day and delivered the next day I am very impressed with this turnaround.
When I got it the package was undamaged and it had been packed well, see photos.
In the box was, not surprisingly another box with the laptop, power adapter, manual, and software and driver discs.
The first boot went quickly and windows 7 was up and running ready for action. I did find that the driver / software for the backlight keyboard did need installing if you wanted to use anything but the default blue, this was easy from the driver disk and was the hotkey program, and also the driver for the touchpad to enable scrolling and multi touch support. The bluetooth driver needed installing to enable all the features of the card. I've yet to find which other drivers need installing from the cd, but all appears to be working well.
The keyboard:
Overall very nice and I like the numberpad and seperate page up and down buttons. It types well. I have found that the tab, caps lock and left shift take a firm press to use, perhaps because they are the larger buttons on the keyboard and may just take some getting used to. The keyboard has a good sound to it as you type.
Performance:
So far I've installed a few games which this easily walks over on maxed out settings:
The list currently stands at:
Arma II Combined operations,
Left 4 Dead 1 & 2
and Half Life 1 & 2.
I've now also installed Call of Duty MW3 and Battlefield 3. Both of these play fine. Battlefield 3 is on the Ultra settings preset, it's very playable, don't know the FPS.
I've also installed an SSD in the primary drive bay now and have the original HD in the optical bay housing. I went with the Vertex 4 128GB from amazon, was discounted to £90, I've put Ubuntu on the ssd and a seperate partition for games in windows. This has significantly boosted game loading times. Very pleased.
So overall very pleased with my Vortex III and would definitely recommend both this and PC Specialist to family and friends. A great product and very good service.
Here endeth my first review
