Vortex Series: 15.6" Matte Full HD LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Mobile Processor i7-4710MQ (2.50GHz) 6MB
8GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS 1600MHz SODIMM DDR3 (1 x 8GB)
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 870M - 6.0GB DDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 11
750GB WD SCORPIO BLUE WD7500BPVX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 8MB CACHE (5400 rpm)
240GB Kingston SSDNow mS200 mSATA (upto 540MB/sR | 530MB/sW)
-Changed to 120GB Kingston SSDNow mS200 mSATA (upto 550MB/sR | 520MB/sW)
8x SATA DVD±R/RW/Dual Layer (+ 24x CD-RW)
Internal 9 in 1 Card Reader (MMC/RSMMC/SD: Mini, XC & HC/MS: Pro & Duo)
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND
Intel 2 Channel High Definition Audio + MIC/Headphone Jack
GIGABIT LAN & KILLER™ 1202 WIRELESS GAMING 802.11N + BLUETOOTH 4.0
I have the laptop now just under a week and have had a chance to run it through its paces a little.
I'll start of by saying the service from PCS was excellent, when I first placed the order the 240GB SSD was out of stock so I gave it a few days to see if it would come back in. After a few days I rang up and was informed it would be at least another week so I changed to the 120GB and was able to fast track the order with the money I saved. After that the laptop took 4 days to be dispatched (3 not including the day I amended the order). The only negative I could say is that it took 5 days to reach me from the dispatch date, although I am in Northern Ireland and the Monday was a bank holiday so I guess it can be excused.
Now on to the laptop. It is amazing. After opening I powered it up and within seconds the setup screen came up, rifled through all the initial set up, installed the drivers (although some of the more essential ones were already installed), restarted for the changes to take effect and again withing seconds the laptop was fully on and able to use. This thing powers up from being turned off to fully functional faster than my old laptop would come on from standby.
The chassis is very sturdy and feels well built and the screen is excellent, I use it on the train for work and even with all the angles the sun hits in on the journey it is still very easy to see. The only thing I will say is this laptop is pretty big, and heavy, and along with the power pack(which is also pretty big, I included an Xbox 360 power pack in the pic for comparison) it gets even heavier. If like me you plan on carrying this around a lot, be prepared for a sore shoulder at the end of the day.
The back-lit keyboard is great especially as its customisable, although it bright light its pretty hard to see and may as well be turned off, which can be done at the press of a button. The track pad and mouse buttons work well, pretty much like any other laptop, although anyone buying a laptop of this spec will be using a separate mouse anyway. What I particularly like is the fingerprint scanner, which works great, I was worried about it because any other experience I have had with fingerprint recognition has been useless, but this one works very well. The speakers on this laptop are excellent, most laptops produce nothing more than a tinny sound and need a good headset or external speakers, but these along with the SoundBlaster software are great when watching films or when gaming, during games the software will differentiate which side voices or footsteps are coming from and play through the appropriate side of the speaker.
The fans on this work great at keeping the CPU and GPU cool, the cooling tray its on isn't really necessary even when gaming, but I already had it and it lifts the laptop up to a good angle. Although the CPU fan can be pretty loud as it doesn't stay on low constantly but rather fires up on full spin for a while then shuts off again once the CPU has cooled. The battery as you would expect for a laptop with this much power is nothing special, but you will get about 3-4 hours of normal use or watching videos, although for gaming, keep it plugged in.
As this is my first proper gaming rig (previously being an Xbox user) I haven't got many games to test out the hardware on but any games I have played (Skyrim, PayDay 2, DOTA) run fluently in ultra level and full HD res. The GeForce Experience is great, you don't have to filter through all the game settings to get what you need, just click one button and your done. When I get a chance to play something more demanding on the hardware I'll add to this.
Below are pictures of the laptop and my set up. Please ignore any clutter and also the fact that I am using a cardboard box as a mouse pad.
All in this laptop is brilliant, well worth the money for both the excellent hardware installed, build quality and the service from PCS.
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Mobile Processor i7-4710MQ (2.50GHz) 6MB
8GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS 1600MHz SODIMM DDR3 (1 x 8GB)
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 870M - 6.0GB DDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 11
750GB WD SCORPIO BLUE WD7500BPVX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 8MB CACHE (5400 rpm)
240GB Kingston SSDNow mS200 mSATA (upto 540MB/sR | 530MB/sW)
-Changed to 120GB Kingston SSDNow mS200 mSATA (upto 550MB/sR | 520MB/sW)
8x SATA DVD±R/RW/Dual Layer (+ 24x CD-RW)
Internal 9 in 1 Card Reader (MMC/RSMMC/SD: Mini, XC & HC/MS: Pro & Duo)
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND
Intel 2 Channel High Definition Audio + MIC/Headphone Jack
GIGABIT LAN & KILLER™ 1202 WIRELESS GAMING 802.11N + BLUETOOTH 4.0
I have the laptop now just under a week and have had a chance to run it through its paces a little.
I'll start of by saying the service from PCS was excellent, when I first placed the order the 240GB SSD was out of stock so I gave it a few days to see if it would come back in. After a few days I rang up and was informed it would be at least another week so I changed to the 120GB and was able to fast track the order with the money I saved. After that the laptop took 4 days to be dispatched (3 not including the day I amended the order). The only negative I could say is that it took 5 days to reach me from the dispatch date, although I am in Northern Ireland and the Monday was a bank holiday so I guess it can be excused.
Now on to the laptop. It is amazing. After opening I powered it up and within seconds the setup screen came up, rifled through all the initial set up, installed the drivers (although some of the more essential ones were already installed), restarted for the changes to take effect and again withing seconds the laptop was fully on and able to use. This thing powers up from being turned off to fully functional faster than my old laptop would come on from standby.
The chassis is very sturdy and feels well built and the screen is excellent, I use it on the train for work and even with all the angles the sun hits in on the journey it is still very easy to see. The only thing I will say is this laptop is pretty big, and heavy, and along with the power pack(which is also pretty big, I included an Xbox 360 power pack in the pic for comparison) it gets even heavier. If like me you plan on carrying this around a lot, be prepared for a sore shoulder at the end of the day.
The back-lit keyboard is great especially as its customisable, although it bright light its pretty hard to see and may as well be turned off, which can be done at the press of a button. The track pad and mouse buttons work well, pretty much like any other laptop, although anyone buying a laptop of this spec will be using a separate mouse anyway. What I particularly like is the fingerprint scanner, which works great, I was worried about it because any other experience I have had with fingerprint recognition has been useless, but this one works very well. The speakers on this laptop are excellent, most laptops produce nothing more than a tinny sound and need a good headset or external speakers, but these along with the SoundBlaster software are great when watching films or when gaming, during games the software will differentiate which side voices or footsteps are coming from and play through the appropriate side of the speaker.
The fans on this work great at keeping the CPU and GPU cool, the cooling tray its on isn't really necessary even when gaming, but I already had it and it lifts the laptop up to a good angle. Although the CPU fan can be pretty loud as it doesn't stay on low constantly but rather fires up on full spin for a while then shuts off again once the CPU has cooled. The battery as you would expect for a laptop with this much power is nothing special, but you will get about 3-4 hours of normal use or watching videos, although for gaming, keep it plugged in.
As this is my first proper gaming rig (previously being an Xbox user) I haven't got many games to test out the hardware on but any games I have played (Skyrim, PayDay 2, DOTA) run fluently in ultra level and full HD res. The GeForce Experience is great, you don't have to filter through all the game settings to get what you need, just click one button and your done. When I get a chance to play something more demanding on the hardware I'll add to this.
Below are pictures of the laptop and my set up. Please ignore any clutter and also the fact that I am using a cardboard box as a mouse pad.
All in this laptop is brilliant, well worth the money for both the excellent hardware installed, build quality and the service from PCS.
