The spec in question:
Upgrading from an MSI GE63 7RE (i7-7700HQ / GTX1060), so that is what I'll be comparing this to.
My first purchase from PCSpecialist. Purchased mostly for the playing of games. TL
R I am 85-90% certain this was a good purchase for reasonable money.
Took delivery of this at the beginning of March. Packaging was fine, although the outer box was quite large; large enough for the box containing the laptop to move around in. Inspecting the laptop revealed no damage.
EXTERIOR
The Recoil appears to be well made. The lid and screen housing is made of metal (aluminium?). I believe the underside of the main body is also metal, while the upperside is plastic.
The centre-placed hinge is reassuringly sturdy, a certain improvement over MSI's old (and frankly malicious) hinge design.
After almost a month of owning it, the screen lid is alas undoubtedly a fingerprint magnet, but this should be easy to clean off.
The laptop is pleasingly un-gamerish in it's appearance. It's all black, with no obnoxious logos or RGB, and would pass as a business laptop easily. There is an RGB light bar around the rear vents but this can be switched off.
Important ports are at the back - power, HDMI, ethernet, and Thunderbolt 4 - a very sensible place for these things. My old MSI had it's power socket on the right hand side, at the back, near where right-handed people would put their mouse.
The keyboard is membrane based. Fine to type on, but will inevitably fail as the keycap hinges wear out (unless they are substantially beefier than my old MSI). Hopefully spares and repairs will be forthcoming from PCS should it be needed.
Apparently there is a Recoil VIII model with Cherry MX switches out there somewhere (googling this laptop led to some headaches and misplaced hopes about what I was getting - see later).
The keyboard has "4-zone RGB", which is a downgrade from the per-key RGB my old MSI had (normally I don't care for RGB, but the MSI could highlight keys based on which game you were playing, useful for remembering which key does what).
Apparently there is a Recoil VIII model with per-key RGB out there somewhere (over-googling is always a mistake).
The keyboard RGB is controlled by the included "Control Centre" (which I think comes from Tongfang), which appears to be slightly forgetful at times of what lighting setting you've picked - I often see a previous setting come up when I'm playing a game, or waking up the laptop.
Rather annoyingly (to me), a pure white colour option for the keyboard isn't possible, if you want something neutral. The best you can do is a bright blue colour.
The mousepad is gigantic. Positively a football field. I have no real complaints, might even be suitable as a back up input for digital artists (which I'm not). There are two touch toggles in the corners to turn off either the whole mousepad, or just half of it.
If I do have one criticism, it's that the left-click and right-click positions seem to be off-kilter and not consistent. It's difficult to tell where you should be putting your fingers to do either. This might be simply down to a lack of practice. But as I use a mouse at every opportunity, this point is moot.
The screen is 17 inches corner to corner, but it's not a standard 16:9 ratio - it's "taller" than what I'm used to - 2560 x 1600 pixels. The default colour set up feels "warmer" than my old MSI.
Chassis & Display
Recoil Series: 17" Matte QHD 240Hz sRGB 100% LED Widescreen (2560x1600)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™ i9 24 Core Processor 14900HX (5.8GHz Turbo)
Memory (RAM)
32GB PCS PRO SODIMM DDR5 4800MHz (2 x 16GB)
Graphics Card
NVIDIA® GeForce® RTX 4070 - 8.0GB GDDR6 Video RAM - DirectX® 12.1
1st M.2 SSD Drive
512GB SOLIDIGM P44 PRO GEN 4 M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD (up to 7000MB/sR, 4700MB/sW)
Memory Card Reader
Integrated SD Memory Card Reader
AC Adaptor
1 x 280W AC Adaptor
Power Cable
1 x 1.5 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Battery
Recoil Series Integrated 99WH Lithium Ion Battery
Thermal Paste
LIQUID METAL PERFORMANCE COOLING
Sound Card
Nahimic by SteelSeries 2 Channel HD Audio
Wireless Network Card
GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® Wi-Fi 6E AX211 (2.4 Gbps) + BT 5.3
USB/Thunderbolt Options
1 x THUNDERBOLT 4 PORT + 3 x USB 3.2 PORTS
Keyboard Language
RECOIL 17 SERIES RGB BACKLIT UK KEYBOARD
Operating System
NO OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIRED
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Windows Recovery Media
NO RECOVERY MEDIA REQUIRED
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft 365® (Operating System Required)
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Browser
Firefox™
Keyboard & Mouse
INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
Webcam
INTEGRATED IR+FHD Hybrid Webcam Windows Hello 4.0
Warranty
3 Year Gold Warranty (2 Year Collect & Return, 2 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Dead Pixel Guarantee
1 Year Dead Pixel Guarantee Inc. Labour & Carriage Costs
Chassis
TongFang GM7IX7N (8GB RTX-4070, i9-14900HX, 240Hz QHD)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 3 to 5 working days
Price: £1,723.00 including VAT and Delivery
Recoil Series: 17" Matte QHD 240Hz sRGB 100% LED Widescreen (2560x1600)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™ i9 24 Core Processor 14900HX (5.8GHz Turbo)
Memory (RAM)
32GB PCS PRO SODIMM DDR5 4800MHz (2 x 16GB)
Graphics Card
NVIDIA® GeForce® RTX 4070 - 8.0GB GDDR6 Video RAM - DirectX® 12.1
1st M.2 SSD Drive
512GB SOLIDIGM P44 PRO GEN 4 M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD (up to 7000MB/sR, 4700MB/sW)
Memory Card Reader
Integrated SD Memory Card Reader
AC Adaptor
1 x 280W AC Adaptor
Power Cable
1 x 1.5 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Battery
Recoil Series Integrated 99WH Lithium Ion Battery
Thermal Paste
LIQUID METAL PERFORMANCE COOLING
Sound Card
Nahimic by SteelSeries 2 Channel HD Audio
Wireless Network Card
GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® Wi-Fi 6E AX211 (2.4 Gbps) + BT 5.3
USB/Thunderbolt Options
1 x THUNDERBOLT 4 PORT + 3 x USB 3.2 PORTS
Keyboard Language
RECOIL 17 SERIES RGB BACKLIT UK KEYBOARD
Operating System
NO OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIRED
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Windows Recovery Media
NO RECOVERY MEDIA REQUIRED
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft 365® (Operating System Required)
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Browser
Firefox™
Keyboard & Mouse
INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
Webcam
INTEGRATED IR+FHD Hybrid Webcam Windows Hello 4.0
Warranty
3 Year Gold Warranty (2 Year Collect & Return, 2 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Dead Pixel Guarantee
1 Year Dead Pixel Guarantee Inc. Labour & Carriage Costs
Chassis
TongFang GM7IX7N (8GB RTX-4070, i9-14900HX, 240Hz QHD)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 3 to 5 working days
Price: £1,723.00 including VAT and Delivery
Upgrading from an MSI GE63 7RE (i7-7700HQ / GTX1060), so that is what I'll be comparing this to.
My first purchase from PCSpecialist. Purchased mostly for the playing of games. TL
R I am 85-90% certain this was a good purchase for reasonable money.Took delivery of this at the beginning of March. Packaging was fine, although the outer box was quite large; large enough for the box containing the laptop to move around in. Inspecting the laptop revealed no damage.
EXTERIOR
The Recoil appears to be well made. The lid and screen housing is made of metal (aluminium?). I believe the underside of the main body is also metal, while the upperside is plastic.
The centre-placed hinge is reassuringly sturdy, a certain improvement over MSI's old (and frankly malicious) hinge design.
After almost a month of owning it, the screen lid is alas undoubtedly a fingerprint magnet, but this should be easy to clean off.
The laptop is pleasingly un-gamerish in it's appearance. It's all black, with no obnoxious logos or RGB, and would pass as a business laptop easily. There is an RGB light bar around the rear vents but this can be switched off.
Important ports are at the back - power, HDMI, ethernet, and Thunderbolt 4 - a very sensible place for these things. My old MSI had it's power socket on the right hand side, at the back, near where right-handed people would put their mouse.
The keyboard is membrane based. Fine to type on, but will inevitably fail as the keycap hinges wear out (unless they are substantially beefier than my old MSI). Hopefully spares and repairs will be forthcoming from PCS should it be needed.
Apparently there is a Recoil VIII model with Cherry MX switches out there somewhere (googling this laptop led to some headaches and misplaced hopes about what I was getting - see later).
The keyboard has "4-zone RGB", which is a downgrade from the per-key RGB my old MSI had (normally I don't care for RGB, but the MSI could highlight keys based on which game you were playing, useful for remembering which key does what).
Apparently there is a Recoil VIII model with per-key RGB out there somewhere (over-googling is always a mistake).
The keyboard RGB is controlled by the included "Control Centre" (which I think comes from Tongfang), which appears to be slightly forgetful at times of what lighting setting you've picked - I often see a previous setting come up when I'm playing a game, or waking up the laptop.
Rather annoyingly (to me), a pure white colour option for the keyboard isn't possible, if you want something neutral. The best you can do is a bright blue colour.
The mousepad is gigantic. Positively a football field. I have no real complaints, might even be suitable as a back up input for digital artists (which I'm not). There are two touch toggles in the corners to turn off either the whole mousepad, or just half of it.
If I do have one criticism, it's that the left-click and right-click positions seem to be off-kilter and not consistent. It's difficult to tell where you should be putting your fingers to do either. This might be simply down to a lack of practice. But as I use a mouse at every opportunity, this point is moot.
The screen is 17 inches corner to corner, but it's not a standard 16:9 ratio - it's "taller" than what I'm used to - 2560 x 1600 pixels. The default colour set up feels "warmer" than my old MSI.
