Let me just say that this is my first Custom build laptop. I have read and read extensively to decide the best budget vs performance balance. I am writing on it now
It arrived 11:00 am by the friendly delivery man. I immediately and carefully cut the tape and emptied the contents. A lovely PCS manual, Model manual and Installation disk and drivers. The packaging and material made sure the parts were secure and there were no scratches on it.
The keyboard is nice and responsive. Not too soft as often found in laptop keyboards, and not too hard as found in office keyboards. You hear a "clack clack" as you type, but personally I find that satisfying. THe keys are evenly spaced out on the 17 inch and arranged closely together. The advantage is that you have plenty of room to rest your palm into it. The disadvantage is that it there comes a bit of a sacrifice to keyboard layout. As in previous reviews, the Enter button is the size of two keys, and lacks a lower third key size. Initially this has presented problems but now i am getting used to it. The arrow keys are adjacent to the numbers and the --> key takes a bit of space from the 0 numpad key. Again, these are minor changes that I don't really mind getting used to but may bother some users who like an office keyboard. ONE ISSUE THOUGH: The keyboards are not closed off. They have holes in between them for the backlight to shine. DO NOT EAT anything crumbly like toast in front of it as it will be a nightmare to get rid off.
The interface is easy to understand, and the Fn command plays a large part in the controls. Holding Fn plus F5 or F6 changes the volume. Among other commands include Touchpad lock, muting sleeping switching contrast, controllingg the webcam and wifi. This clevo model comes with its own options by pressing Fn + Esc. From there you can change things such as the LED back lit keyboard, changing your power saving settings etc. I am deeply impressed with the back lit keyboard. It's easily customisable, with a number of soothing colours to choose from. From there you can choose 3 parts of the keyboard to colour. From tab to T. Y to @. Enter to the rest. I personally prefer a greeny blue blend.
The screen is sharp and beautiful. You can stare at it all day and admire the 1920 x 1080 hd quality. There were no dead pixels present to my relief, the parts were all in working order so i am pleased with that. I did pay £12 to have 30 day dead pixel, but i guess that is a waste of money. PCS ensure quality so i don't think you need it. But i'm a guy who wants to be extra safe.
The ONKYO speakers are sharp and clear. The speakers have a kickass extra speaker at the bottom of the laptop for that real bass vibe. I highly recommend getting the 17.3 for these speakers as they don't distort even at a high level of sound.
The thing i don't like the most is the charger. It is one big f'ing brick. It also tends to spark when you plug it in whilst the power is on so you have to be extra careful. compared to other laptop chargers i've seen, i think that there could be a more compact supply for it. Also the annoying thing about it is the cable part leading to the power is long, but from the brick to the laptop is quite short - which means you often have to carry the brick on your bed or your desk (otherwise it just hangs in the air The laptop charge time whilst in use is about 3 hours.
Now it is important to mention that this laptop is BIG. Some would say sturdy, but it is very large. The hardware chassis makes the screen dwarf in comparison. My family asked me to compare my screen size to theirs as the chassis made the 17.3 look small hehe.
On to the actual turning on. Installation is nice and easy. PCS (and i called them to make sure
) install everything from the get go. You just need to type in your cd key and youre ready to go. apart from the finger print scanner and one other driver, everything was installed fine. IMPORTANT: The synaptics 2 Touchpad needs to be installed manually from the website. Just go to the Synaptics website and download the latest drivers for this model and you will be able to customise scrolling, zooming and sorting functions on the touchpad.
The computer is responsive. The 750gb Scorpio black hd is fairly quiet and responsive. SSD is a bit too dear for me for the time being and so i'm happy to be patient for a price drop. the 7200rpm more than makes up for the 250gb extra space you get on the 1tb Scorpio Blue (5400rpm). Except when reading something extensive, the laptop is very quiet. Barely a hum can be heard, although after 3- 4 hours on your lap you will hear a slight sound of spinning drives.
Man o man am i glad I got the Radeon 7970 HD graphics card. It runs crisis 2, bf3, l4d2, rage, on full settings at 60 fps for bf3, and >90 fps on the others (l4d2 was a whopping 110 lol). The control centre has switchable graphics - one for power saving and one for high performance. It is definitely worth the bump up in price compared to the GTX675.
So far I have not installed much, and I will mostly use this laptop for gaming and work. I work at a bank so i don't need anything extensive apart from databases and spreadsheets. I'm not exactly sure how it would fare for those who use photoshop, movie making programmes etc.
If you have any questions on this laptop do not hesitate to ask on this post. I will do so to the best of my ability.
I would also like to thank the lads at PCS who made this laptop for me. I got it in 9 working days, and am satisfied with the product. I look forward to ordering my next custom built pc/laptop from you guys.
I've yet to post photos! But don't worry these will be all up soon!
Also a big thank you to you guys for helping me choose the right specs for my needs. I am a gamer guy at heart, and this is exactly what this laptop is.
Specs:Chassis & Display Vortex Series: 17.3" Glossy Full HD LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
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: AMD® Radeon® HD 7970M - 2GB DDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 11
2nd Graphics Card NONE
Memory - : 750GB WD SCORPIO BLACK WD7500BPKT, SATA 3 Gb/s, 16MB CACHE (7200 rpm)
2nd Hard Disk NONE
RAID NONE
SSD CACHE DRIVE NONE
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 ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND (£9)
Sound Card Intel 5.1 Channel High Definition Audio + SPDIF/MIC/Headphone Jack
Network Facilities GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® ADVANCED-N 6235 (300Mbps) + BLUETOOTH
Change to: GIGABIT LAN & KILLER™ 1102 WIRELESS GAMING 802.11N NETWORK CARD
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 & 220W AC Adaptor
Operating System Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit w/SP1 - inc DVD & Licence
Office Software FREE Microsoft® Office Starter 2010 (Limited functionality Word & Excel)
Anti-Virus NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Laptop Cooling Stands NONE
Laptop Security NONE
Carry Case NONE
Monitor NONE
Keyboard & Mouse INTEGRATED BACKLIT UK KEYBOARD WITH NUMBER PAD
Mouse INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
Speakers NONE
Webcam INTEGRATED 2.0 MEGAPIXEL WEBCAM
Headsets (VOIP) NONE
Surge Protection NONE
Printer NONE
External Hard Drive NONE
Warranty 3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)
Home Installation NONE
Dead Pixel Guarantee 30 Day Dead Pixel Guarantee Inc. Labour & Carriage Costs (£12)
Insurance NONE
Change to: 1 Month Free Laptop Insurance inc. Accidental Damage & Theft
Data Recovery NONE
Delivery PCS EXTRA-CARE DIAMOND DELIVERY - MON-FRI, PRE-NOON (£9)
Production Dates
Processed Date 08-06-2012
Pre-Production Date 12-06-2012
Build Date 20-06-2012
Test Date 20-06-2012
Awaiting Dispatch Date 20-06-2012
Dispatch Date 21-06-2012
Who Worked on This Order?
Built By Tom Davies
Tested By Carl Auckland
QC'd By Carl Auckland
Packed By Anthony Cunliffe
It arrived 11:00 am by the friendly delivery man. I immediately and carefully cut the tape and emptied the contents. A lovely PCS manual, Model manual and Installation disk and drivers. The packaging and material made sure the parts were secure and there were no scratches on it.
The keyboard is nice and responsive. Not too soft as often found in laptop keyboards, and not too hard as found in office keyboards. You hear a "clack clack" as you type, but personally I find that satisfying. THe keys are evenly spaced out on the 17 inch and arranged closely together. The advantage is that you have plenty of room to rest your palm into it. The disadvantage is that it there comes a bit of a sacrifice to keyboard layout. As in previous reviews, the Enter button is the size of two keys, and lacks a lower third key size. Initially this has presented problems but now i am getting used to it. The arrow keys are adjacent to the numbers and the --> key takes a bit of space from the 0 numpad key. Again, these are minor changes that I don't really mind getting used to but may bother some users who like an office keyboard. ONE ISSUE THOUGH: The keyboards are not closed off. They have holes in between them for the backlight to shine. DO NOT EAT anything crumbly like toast in front of it as it will be a nightmare to get rid off.
The interface is easy to understand, and the Fn command plays a large part in the controls. Holding Fn plus F5 or F6 changes the volume. Among other commands include Touchpad lock, muting sleeping switching contrast, controllingg the webcam and wifi. This clevo model comes with its own options by pressing Fn + Esc. From there you can change things such as the LED back lit keyboard, changing your power saving settings etc. I am deeply impressed with the back lit keyboard. It's easily customisable, with a number of soothing colours to choose from. From there you can choose 3 parts of the keyboard to colour. From tab to T. Y to @. Enter to the rest. I personally prefer a greeny blue blend.
The screen is sharp and beautiful. You can stare at it all day and admire the 1920 x 1080 hd quality. There were no dead pixels present to my relief, the parts were all in working order so i am pleased with that. I did pay £12 to have 30 day dead pixel, but i guess that is a waste of money. PCS ensure quality so i don't think you need it. But i'm a guy who wants to be extra safe.
The ONKYO speakers are sharp and clear. The speakers have a kickass extra speaker at the bottom of the laptop for that real bass vibe. I highly recommend getting the 17.3 for these speakers as they don't distort even at a high level of sound.
The thing i don't like the most is the charger. It is one big f'ing brick. It also tends to spark when you plug it in whilst the power is on so you have to be extra careful. compared to other laptop chargers i've seen, i think that there could be a more compact supply for it. Also the annoying thing about it is the cable part leading to the power is long, but from the brick to the laptop is quite short - which means you often have to carry the brick on your bed or your desk (otherwise it just hangs in the air The laptop charge time whilst in use is about 3 hours.
Now it is important to mention that this laptop is BIG. Some would say sturdy, but it is very large. The hardware chassis makes the screen dwarf in comparison. My family asked me to compare my screen size to theirs as the chassis made the 17.3 look small hehe.
On to the actual turning on. Installation is nice and easy. PCS (and i called them to make sure
) install everything from the get go. You just need to type in your cd key and youre ready to go. apart from the finger print scanner and one other driver, everything was installed fine. IMPORTANT: The synaptics 2 Touchpad needs to be installed manually from the website. Just go to the Synaptics website and download the latest drivers for this model and you will be able to customise scrolling, zooming and sorting functions on the touchpad. The computer is responsive. The 750gb Scorpio black hd is fairly quiet and responsive. SSD is a bit too dear for me for the time being and so i'm happy to be patient for a price drop. the 7200rpm more than makes up for the 250gb extra space you get on the 1tb Scorpio Blue (5400rpm). Except when reading something extensive, the laptop is very quiet. Barely a hum can be heard, although after 3- 4 hours on your lap you will hear a slight sound of spinning drives.
Man o man am i glad I got the Radeon 7970 HD graphics card. It runs crisis 2, bf3, l4d2, rage, on full settings at 60 fps for bf3, and >90 fps on the others (l4d2 was a whopping 110 lol). The control centre has switchable graphics - one for power saving and one for high performance. It is definitely worth the bump up in price compared to the GTX675.
So far I have not installed much, and I will mostly use this laptop for gaming and work. I work at a bank so i don't need anything extensive apart from databases and spreadsheets. I'm not exactly sure how it would fare for those who use photoshop, movie making programmes etc.
If you have any questions on this laptop do not hesitate to ask on this post. I will do so to the best of my ability.
I would also like to thank the lads at PCS who made this laptop for me. I got it in 9 working days, and am satisfied with the product. I look forward to ordering my next custom built pc/laptop from you guys.
I've yet to post photos! But don't worry these will be all up soon!
Also a big thank you to you guys for helping me choose the right specs for my needs. I am a gamer guy at heart, and this is exactly what this laptop is.
Specs:Chassis & Display Vortex Series: 17.3" Glossy Full HD LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
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: AMD® Radeon® HD 7970M - 2GB DDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 11
2nd Graphics Card NONE
Memory - : 750GB WD SCORPIO BLACK WD7500BPKT, SATA 3 Gb/s, 16MB CACHE (7200 rpm)
2nd Hard Disk NONE
RAID NONE
SSD CACHE DRIVE NONE
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 ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND (£9)
Sound Card Intel 5.1 Channel High Definition Audio + SPDIF/MIC/Headphone Jack
Network Facilities GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® ADVANCED-N 6235 (300Mbps) + BLUETOOTH
Change to: GIGABIT LAN & KILLER™ 1102 WIRELESS GAMING 802.11N NETWORK CARD
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 & 220W AC Adaptor
Operating System Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit w/SP1 - inc DVD & Licence
Office Software FREE Microsoft® Office Starter 2010 (Limited functionality Word & Excel)
Anti-Virus NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Laptop Cooling Stands NONE
Laptop Security NONE
Carry Case NONE
Monitor NONE
Keyboard & Mouse INTEGRATED BACKLIT UK KEYBOARD WITH NUMBER PAD
Mouse INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
Speakers NONE
Webcam INTEGRATED 2.0 MEGAPIXEL WEBCAM
Headsets (VOIP) NONE
Surge Protection NONE
Printer NONE
External Hard Drive NONE
Warranty 3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)
Home Installation NONE
Dead Pixel Guarantee 30 Day Dead Pixel Guarantee Inc. Labour & Carriage Costs (£12)
Insurance NONE
Change to: 1 Month Free Laptop Insurance inc. Accidental Damage & Theft
Data Recovery NONE
Delivery PCS EXTRA-CARE DIAMOND DELIVERY - MON-FRI, PRE-NOON (£9)
Production Dates
Processed Date 08-06-2012
Pre-Production Date 12-06-2012
Build Date 20-06-2012
Test Date 20-06-2012
Awaiting Dispatch Date 20-06-2012
Dispatch Date 21-06-2012
Who Worked on This Order?
Built By Tom Davies
Tested By Carl Auckland
QC'd By Carl Auckland
Packed By Anthony Cunliffe
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