The 17.3" Optimus VIII

[johnnyk]

Hi all,

I'm thinking about buying the 17.3" Optimus VIII with the specs below.
I'm gonna be using it for software development, so this seems to be fit for the purpose (no fancy gaming stuff).
However, to be honest I've never bought any laptops from PC Specialist so I'm a bit skeptic about a few things.
Reason being I've bought a gaming laptop (seems like the only high performance laptops are gaming ones these days) from a well known brand while back and it had the following issues so I had to send it straight back:

* it kept freezing.
* sound kept lagging.
* keys seemed to get stuck (getting extra letters if you were typing fast).
* keyboard keys were too far apart (understandable as it was a gaming laptop, but not really good for what I'm using it for).
* trackpad multi-gesture issues (had to edit registry values to enable two-finger right click).

So basically I'm looking for a laptop with a lot of horse power without all fancy gaming stuff, thanks for any advice, or if you can tell me if this model has the above mentioned issues.

Chassis & Display
Optimus Series: 17.3" Matte Full HD IPS LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™ i7 Quad Core Processor 7700HQ (2.8GHz, 3.8GHz Turbo)
Memory (RAM)
32GB Corsair VALUE 2133MHz SODIMM DDR4 (2 x 16GB)
Graphics Card
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1050 - 4.0GB GDDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 12.1
1st Hard Disk
NOT REQUIRED
M.2 SSD Drive
1TB SAMSUNG SM961 M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 3200MB/R, 1800MB/W)
Memory Card Reader
Integrated 6 in 1 Card Reader (SD /Mini SD/ SDHC / SDXC / MMC / RSMMC)
AC Adaptor
1 x 120W AC Adaptor
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre Cloverleaf UK Power Cable
Thermal Paste
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND
Sound Card
Intel 2 Channel High Def. Audio + SoundBlaster™ Cinema 3
Bluetooth & Wireless
GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® AC-8265 M.2 (867Mbps, 802.11AC) +BT 4.0
USB Options
1 x USB 3.0 PORT (Type C) + 2 x USB 3.0 PORTS + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
Battery
Cosmos VI Series 6 Cell Lithium Ion Battery
Keyboard Language
SINGLE COLOUR BACKLIT UK KEYBOARD
Operating System
Genuine Windows 10 Professional 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Notebook Mouse
INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
Webcam
INTEGRATED 1MP HD WEBCAM

 

[Tony1044]

I have a Defiance II and between Windows 10 and Synaptics, the touchpad has never been great. Scrolling, pinch-to-zoom etc are frankly lamentable.

I don't know if things have improved since I bought mine (mid-2015) but honestly it's the weakest part of an otherwise superb laptop.

 

[Oussebon]

If you will be doing some gaming, or if some of what you are doing benefits from GPU acceleration, and/or the availability of more VRAM, you might consider the GTX 1050 ti since it's a proportionately small increase to the cost of the laptop but is a fair deal more powerful.

If you wanted to save some money you could consider either a smaller SSD or the PM961 SSD. At 1TB the PM961 is about £120 cheaper, but still faster than any Sata SSD. You can see a comparison of the PM961 and SM961 here if you want an idea of the performance difference. http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/samsung-960-evo-pm961,review-33657-2.html

I can't comment as to the keyboard and trackpad, not being an owner of one of these chassis, but in terms of avoiding fancy gaming stuff the laptop would be sold with Windows, the necessary drivers, any specific software you select, and that's it. It wouldn't have Asus AI Suite (if it were a desktop) or bloatware for laptops. By default the configurator includes free trials of MS Office and an AV product but you can unselect those when speccing up the machine (as you may well have already seen).

Clevo chassis also tend to be quite plain or understated as well, as you've probably noticed from seeing the various models on the website.

As for scepticism prior to spending hundreds of pounds on anything, that's probably healthy. You can read user reviews on the PCS Forums https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/forums/forumdisplay.php?15-Show-off-your-new-PC-Laptop! There are occasional critical reviews, the forum isn't a whitewash, but you can also consult third party websites such as Trustpilot. PCS isn't infallible, but when things have gone wrong I've always found them committed to finding a good resolution. They've never quibbled about honouring an RMA in my experience, probably going beyond what they were obliged to.

You may want to check this topic: https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?53277-Optimus-VIII-Crashes-randomly
It seems a few Optimus VIII owners recently started getting some freezes / problems. Obviously it's only affecting a fraction of those who bought that model or else the forums would be flooded, but given your past experiences you may want to check it out. I think one user said PCS were waiting for a BIOS update from Clevo relating to this. Some users are speculating a Windows update may have disagreed with that model.

 

[johnnyk]

I have a Defiance II and between Windows 10 and Synaptics, the touchpad has never been great. Scrolling, pinch-to-zoom etc are frankly lamentable.

I don't know if things have improved since I bought mine (mid-2015) but honestly it's the weakest part of an otherwise superb laptop.

That's unfortunate, I need this to work properly as I will be using the laptop without a mouse, I need to do some more digging on this, thanks for pointing this out.

 

[johnnyk]

@Oussebon, thanks for the pointers.
The reason why I chose that graphics card was because the other one was out of stock I think, otherwise the one you mentioned was my first choice.
Thanks for pointing that out, might just get that SSD.
The trackpad needs to work properly as I won't be using a mouse with it (at least not all the time).
Being plain and without bloatware is another reason I'm considering PC specialist, and as for my skepticism, it's just that I don't want to get something with some weird defect/bug/thing that I will have to live with, and quite honestly I don't have hundreds of pounds just to waste, I will be using this for both work and personal stuff.
I will keep an eye on the crashing thread, hope it's nothing major.
Thanks for your input.

 

[keynes]

That's unfortunate, I need this to work properly as I will be using the laptop without a mouse, I need to do some more digging on this, thanks for pointing this out.

I got a clevo chassis (vortex) and the keyboard is fine but the trackpad is very sensitive while typing. It would be active while doing some typing on word and move the pointer out of place. I had to use a mouse with it and disable the trackpad.