My specs
Order process
The time from order placed to dispatch is provided below:
I received the laptop on the 21st of Feb 2019.
No complaints here, this was a reasonable time-frame. My order was placed on a Friday, so I will exclude that day as a "working day". In total, the order took 9 working days from my order being placed to the laptop being delivered.
The laptop was received very well protected so I had no concerns about damage on delivery.
My thoughts
I've now been running this laptop for just under 6 months, and have been meaning to write a short review for a while. When I ordered this laptop I had no intention of using Windows, and promptly removed the trial version of windows already installed on the SSD, to install my Linux distribution of choice, Arch Linux.
I ordered the laptop with one NVME drive and the first thing I did was install an SSD drive from my ancient 1st gen i3 laptop. Thankfully, PCS supplied the bracket and screws required to fit it myself.
By default, PCS had set the CPU undervolted (I can't remember by how much now!). Having done my tests, I decided to undervolt it slightly more as my CPU was throttling when placed under heavy load (gaming/benchmarking). This undervolt has not impacted my experience of using the laptop in any way. I still get the occasional throttle now and then:
Would be interesting to hear from other linux users what settings they use.
In terms of hardware compatibility, everything that I have used works. I have had no issues with WiFi, Bluetooth or the touchpad. The "boost" button appears to set the fans on max, I'm not sure if this serves a different purpose under windows. They keyboard backlight brightness controls work, and more recently an opensource project allows some control over the colours of the RGB keyboard. The webcam works fine. I messed around with the IR cam for windows hello, but haven't actually tried to use it for anything useful. HDMI output works fine also, tested by plugging into my TV for media consumption.
EDIT: I forgot to mention what doesn't work! At this point in time, there is no way to control that front LED strip on the laptop under linux.
I have not tested the displayport interfaces, as there has been no use-case for me, yet. I've also not tested the SD card reader.
The battery life is abysmal, as expected. I get anywhere from an hour to an hour and a half of use on the battery. It's worth noting though that I am not making use of the intel graphics as optimus under linux is still terrible, so I use the nvidia card for desktop rendering too.
I've opened up the laptop and cleaned the fans once, as there was some considerable amount of dust gathering there. The laptop is also a bit of a fingerprint magnet.
Closing thoughts
I cannot comment on PCS post-sales support as I've not had to interact with them, I take that as a good thing though! I'm very impressed with the performance of the laptop. The laptop itself is well built and feels sturdy. Overall, I'm very pleased with my purchase. In terms of gaming, the performance has been flawless and I've had no trouble running games that are compatible with steamplay/proton.
Code:
System: Host: hostname Kernel: 5.2.6-arch1-1-ARCH x86_64 bits: 64 Desktop: KDE Plasma 5.16.4 Distro: Arch Linux
Machine: Type: Laptop System: PC Specialist product: Recoil III v: Standard serial: <root required>
Mobo: TongFang model: GK7CP7S v: Standard serial: <root required> UEFI: American Megatrends v: N.1.03
date: 01/07/2019
Battery: ID-1: BAT0 charge: 46.7 Wh condition: 46.7/46.7 Wh (100%)
CPU: Topology: 6-Core model: Intel Core i7-8750H bits: 64 type: MT MCP L2 cache: 9216 KiB
Speed: 4091 MHz min/max: 800/4100 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 4084 2: 4100 3: 4065 4: 4103 5: 4025 6: 4001 7: 4100
8: 4087 9: 4095 10: 4037 11: 4041 12: 4100
Graphics: Device-1: Intel UHD Graphics 630 driver: i915 v: kernel
Device-2: NVIDIA TU106M [GeForce RTX 2070 Mobile] driver: nvidia v: 430.40
Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.5 driver: modesetting,nvidia resolution: 1920x1080~144Hz
OpenGL: renderer: GeForce RTX 2070/PCIe/SSE2 v: 4.6.0 NVIDIA 430.40
Audio: Device-1: Intel Cannon Lake PCH cAVS driver: snd_hda_intel
Device-2: NVIDIA TU106 High Definition Audio driver: snd_hda_intel
Sound Server: ALSA v: k5.2.6-arch1-1-ARCH
Network: Device-1: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet driver: r8169
IF: enp3s0 state: down mac: b0:25:aa:2d:3e:06
Device-2: Intel Wireless-AC 9260 driver: iwlwifi
IF: wlan0 state: up mac: d4:3b:04:92:4c:85
Drives: Local Storage: total: 715.41 GiB used: 633.38 GiB (88.5%)
ID-1: /dev/nvme0n1 vendor: Intel model: SSDPEKKW512G8 size: 476.94 GiB
ID-2: /dev/sda vendor: SanDisk model: SDSSDHP256G size: 238.47 GiB
Partition: ID-1: / size: 31.25 GiB used: 14.93 GiB (47.8%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/nvme0n1p2
ID-2: /boot size: 511.0 MiB used: 74.2 MiB (14.5%) fs: vfat dev: /dev/nvme0n1p1
ID-3: /home size: 436.46 GiB used: 397.75 GiB (91.1%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/nvme0n1p3
Sensors: System Temperatures: cpu: 51.0 C mobo: 51.0 C gpu: nvidia temp: 47 C
Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A
Info: Processes: 290 Uptime: 1d 12h 34m Memory: 15.52 GiB used: 1.83 GiB (11.8%) Shell: bash inxi: 3.0.35Order process
The time from order placed to dispatch is provided below:
| Production Dates | |
|---|---|
| Processed Date | 08-02-2019 |
| Pre-Production Date | 12-02-2019 |
| Build Date | 18-02-2019 |
| Test Date | 19-02-2019 |
| Awaiting Dispatch Date | 20-02-2019 |
| Dispatch Date | 20-02-2019 |
I received the laptop on the 21st of Feb 2019.
No complaints here, this was a reasonable time-frame. My order was placed on a Friday, so I will exclude that day as a "working day". In total, the order took 9 working days from my order being placed to the laptop being delivered.
The laptop was received very well protected so I had no concerns about damage on delivery.
My thoughts
I've now been running this laptop for just under 6 months, and have been meaning to write a short review for a while. When I ordered this laptop I had no intention of using Windows, and promptly removed the trial version of windows already installed on the SSD, to install my Linux distribution of choice, Arch Linux.
I ordered the laptop with one NVME drive and the first thing I did was install an SSD drive from my ancient 1st gen i3 laptop. Thankfully, PCS supplied the bracket and screws required to fit it myself.
By default, PCS had set the CPU undervolted (I can't remember by how much now!). Having done my tests, I decided to undervolt it slightly more as my CPU was throttling when placed under heavy load (gaming/benchmarking). This undervolt has not impacted my experience of using the laptop in any way. I still get the occasional throttle now and then:
Code:
[Sat Aug 10 11:54:01 2019] mce: CPU8: Package temperature above threshold, cpu clock throttled (total events = 1)
[Sat Aug 10 11:54:01 2019] mce: CPU2: Core temperature/speed normalIn terms of hardware compatibility, everything that I have used works. I have had no issues with WiFi, Bluetooth or the touchpad. The "boost" button appears to set the fans on max, I'm not sure if this serves a different purpose under windows. They keyboard backlight brightness controls work, and more recently an opensource project allows some control over the colours of the RGB keyboard. The webcam works fine. I messed around with the IR cam for windows hello, but haven't actually tried to use it for anything useful. HDMI output works fine also, tested by plugging into my TV for media consumption.
EDIT: I forgot to mention what doesn't work! At this point in time, there is no way to control that front LED strip on the laptop under linux.
I have not tested the displayport interfaces, as there has been no use-case for me, yet. I've also not tested the SD card reader.
The battery life is abysmal, as expected. I get anywhere from an hour to an hour and a half of use on the battery. It's worth noting though that I am not making use of the intel graphics as optimus under linux is still terrible, so I use the nvidia card for desktop rendering too.
I've opened up the laptop and cleaned the fans once, as there was some considerable amount of dust gathering there. The laptop is also a bit of a fingerprint magnet.
Closing thoughts
I cannot comment on PCS post-sales support as I've not had to interact with them, I take that as a good thing though! I'm very impressed with the performance of the laptop. The laptop itself is well built and feels sturdy. Overall, I'm very pleased with my purchase. In terms of gaming, the performance has been flawless and I've had no trouble running games that are compatible with steamplay/proton.
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