Hi All,
So I posted my first impressions of my Defiance II last week and now after having it for a little longer and having more time to play with it, get used to it, get things set up and such here's a more complete full review:
Decision to Purchase
Having started my first full time job after finishing university a few months ago I had been looking at treating myself to a new laptop for a little while. In the past I had always been in a financial position that had meant I could realistically only afford to spend around £400-450 on a laptop meaning that I had never had anything capable of playing high end games or of playing games on high settings. This time around however I set my initial budget at around £1000 and was looking for a gaming laptop capable of playing the games I had already with higher settings and also to allow me to play more demanding and more modern games with ease. I also wanted something relatively future-proof so that I wouldn't find myself in a situation as previously where a couple of years down the line I will be wanting to think about upgrading again.
PC Specialist were recommended to me by a friend a couple of years ago and since hearing about them I had for some time quite liked the idea of configuring my own computer and buying exactly what I wanted. Knowing a reasonable amount about computers but certainly far from being an expert it was something I wasn’t too sure about at first however after speaking with friends and looking on the PCS forums I decided to go with it and spent a fair while looking around the different options, looking for any upcoming hardware releases and found that the 6th generation Intel processes were launching soon. With this in mind I decided to put off buying a laptop temporarily and wait for the new processors to be released before ordering.
Once released I was a little torn between the 15” Optimus and Defiance models, with the Optimus being closer to my budget and the Defiance having a higher specification and in my opinion being a nicer looking machine. Having read a few reviews of the two and doing some research on components I opted to fork out the extra money and go with the Defiance, mostly as a result of the better graphics cards available. I upped my budget then to around the £1250 mark and decided to get going.
Specification/Final Price
I initially ordered my Defiance II with the standard Full HD display, i7-6700HQ processor, Geforce GTX 970M graphics, 16GB RAM, Killer Wireless, 240GB SSD and 1TB HDD. This all came to just over £1200 and seemed to be a reasonable option given my new budget and the specification I wanted. After reading some comments about the 240GB SSD however I chose to pay a little more to upgrade the 250GB Samsung SSD for peace of mind. I also chose to upgrade to 32GB RAM as although this is something that I definitely don’t need right now I came to the conclusion that whilst I had enough money to make that upgrade it was worthwhile doing so. I also figured that it doesn’t harm to have more than I will realistically need in the lifetime of the laptop as realistically this is better than having less than I need towards the end of its lifespan. Whilst I’m aware that this is an upgrade I could have made relatively easily at a later time this is something that I’m not familiar with doing and so once again for peace of mind I preferred to go with the upgrade now option to reduce the need for this at a later date.
The final price then came to just under £1300 slightly over my budget however I was confident with this that I was getting a lot of machine for my money and a machine that will see me a good number of years into the future. This seemed to me to be a good price for what I was getting although when looking around for direct comparisons I found very little to go on. I found very few machines available off the shelf with specifications nearing this and those that did come close to matching these specifications were generally more a; t I was paying. Although it’s difficult to establish a direct comparison then it certainly seems more than reasonable and I’m happy with my purchase, even if it is the most I’ve ever spent on a single thing in my life! Edit: Annoyingly it now seems my specification adds up to £1258 which is almost £40 less than I paid. Although it's a risk you take and have to be willing to take when ordering from PCS it is a little infuriating that had I waited longer I may have got it cheaper (particularly given the delays mentioned later in the review)
First Impressions, Looks and Build Quality
The laptop came very well packaged in polystyrene within a box within airbags within another (very very big!) box. When the package arrived I was rather shocked by it’s size but that being said it was very well protected and I’d much rather that than a small package that offers no protection at all. Upon opening the boxes and unpacking them ther was the laptop, the charger cable and (also very very big!) power brick, instruction manuals and CDs (seemed odd really as the laptop has no CD drive bot oh well, I digress). Everything you need is there and the instructions seemed to be clear and concise. There’s also a booklet with information about the laptop, how to take care of it, packaging labels for should a return be required and places to take notes if required-it’s quite a simple thing but it’s a nice touch and could be very useful indeed at times.
The laptop itself is a beautiful looking machine. It’s black metal all around and has a very premium look to it, making it feel much more solid than other laptops I’ve had which have always been plastic. It really does hammer the point home that this isn’t a budget machine but a very high spec and powerful machine. It also feels very sturdy and well-built without too much flex, and the whole thing is very nice to the touch. The design of the laptop is where things become a little more unusual though: - compared to a number of other gaming laptops I’ve seen this one looks more subtle and unassuming which I personally think is a good thing. That said, the slightly unusual shape and angular edges do give the game away to some extent and from a design point of view these probably won’t be to everyone’s taste. Personally though I like the look and think it’s a nice combination of looking like a gaming laptop without going completely overboard on any unnecessary bells and whistles.
One thing that must be mentioned about this laptop however is the size. Although it is a 15” laptop and it is quite thin it is certainly somewhat heavier and also wider and deeper than I’m used to. There’s a very thick frame around the screen which almost makes it feel like it could have managed a 16” screen if someone had put their mind to it. Whilst this isn’t necessarily a bad thing it does mean that to me at least this feels like it’s a desktop replacement laptop that can be put in a laptop bag and taken away with you from time to time when necessary rather than a laptop that you’ll want to keep with you all of the time and take with you everywhere you go. For me personally this isn’t an issue as that’s exactly what I was looking for but I can quite see that if what you’re looking for is portability then this maybe isn’t going to be the best option out there and you might want to consider something else.
Screen
I only opted for the most basic of the screens available, the Full HD display without 3k or 4k as that’s something that has always seemed to me a little pointless in a laptop with a screen this size. In the past I’ve always found laptop screens to be fine, just fine, nothing more, nothing less. The screen on this however is outstanding and puts other’s I’ve used to shame. I always thought the screen on my old laptop was perfectly fine but when I put the two side by side I realised just how wrong I was. Whilst I’ve never been particularly fussy about computer screens before the colours on this are much deeper, text is clearer and images and videos look crisper than I’ve been used to in the past. There’s also very little reflection and viewing angles are very good. Again, this is something that I’ve never really noticed in the past as I’ve never really found myself in a position where I need to look at a screen from a sideways angle but I found myself looking at the laptop from a near sideways angle to take a photo of it and notices I was still able to see the image on the screen very clearly. The downside of this of course is that it now means whenever I use my spare laptop or my partner’s computer the screens look rather dull and washed out and I find this far more noticeable.
So I posted my first impressions of my Defiance II last week and now after having it for a little longer and having more time to play with it, get used to it, get things set up and such here's a more complete full review:
Decision to Purchase
Having started my first full time job after finishing university a few months ago I had been looking at treating myself to a new laptop for a little while. In the past I had always been in a financial position that had meant I could realistically only afford to spend around £400-450 on a laptop meaning that I had never had anything capable of playing high end games or of playing games on high settings. This time around however I set my initial budget at around £1000 and was looking for a gaming laptop capable of playing the games I had already with higher settings and also to allow me to play more demanding and more modern games with ease. I also wanted something relatively future-proof so that I wouldn't find myself in a situation as previously where a couple of years down the line I will be wanting to think about upgrading again.
PC Specialist were recommended to me by a friend a couple of years ago and since hearing about them I had for some time quite liked the idea of configuring my own computer and buying exactly what I wanted. Knowing a reasonable amount about computers but certainly far from being an expert it was something I wasn’t too sure about at first however after speaking with friends and looking on the PCS forums I decided to go with it and spent a fair while looking around the different options, looking for any upcoming hardware releases and found that the 6th generation Intel processes were launching soon. With this in mind I decided to put off buying a laptop temporarily and wait for the new processors to be released before ordering.
Once released I was a little torn between the 15” Optimus and Defiance models, with the Optimus being closer to my budget and the Defiance having a higher specification and in my opinion being a nicer looking machine. Having read a few reviews of the two and doing some research on components I opted to fork out the extra money and go with the Defiance, mostly as a result of the better graphics cards available. I upped my budget then to around the £1250 mark and decided to get going.
Specification/Final Price
I initially ordered my Defiance II with the standard Full HD display, i7-6700HQ processor, Geforce GTX 970M graphics, 16GB RAM, Killer Wireless, 240GB SSD and 1TB HDD. This all came to just over £1200 and seemed to be a reasonable option given my new budget and the specification I wanted. After reading some comments about the 240GB SSD however I chose to pay a little more to upgrade the 250GB Samsung SSD for peace of mind. I also chose to upgrade to 32GB RAM as although this is something that I definitely don’t need right now I came to the conclusion that whilst I had enough money to make that upgrade it was worthwhile doing so. I also figured that it doesn’t harm to have more than I will realistically need in the lifetime of the laptop as realistically this is better than having less than I need towards the end of its lifespan. Whilst I’m aware that this is an upgrade I could have made relatively easily at a later time this is something that I’m not familiar with doing and so once again for peace of mind I preferred to go with the upgrade now option to reduce the need for this at a later date.
The final price then came to just under £1300 slightly over my budget however I was confident with this that I was getting a lot of machine for my money and a machine that will see me a good number of years into the future. This seemed to me to be a good price for what I was getting although when looking around for direct comparisons I found very little to go on. I found very few machines available off the shelf with specifications nearing this and those that did come close to matching these specifications were generally more a; t I was paying. Although it’s difficult to establish a direct comparison then it certainly seems more than reasonable and I’m happy with my purchase, even if it is the most I’ve ever spent on a single thing in my life! Edit: Annoyingly it now seems my specification adds up to £1258 which is almost £40 less than I paid. Although it's a risk you take and have to be willing to take when ordering from PCS it is a little infuriating that had I waited longer I may have got it cheaper (particularly given the delays mentioned later in the review)
First Impressions, Looks and Build Quality
The laptop came very well packaged in polystyrene within a box within airbags within another (very very big!) box. When the package arrived I was rather shocked by it’s size but that being said it was very well protected and I’d much rather that than a small package that offers no protection at all. Upon opening the boxes and unpacking them ther was the laptop, the charger cable and (also very very big!) power brick, instruction manuals and CDs (seemed odd really as the laptop has no CD drive bot oh well, I digress). Everything you need is there and the instructions seemed to be clear and concise. There’s also a booklet with information about the laptop, how to take care of it, packaging labels for should a return be required and places to take notes if required-it’s quite a simple thing but it’s a nice touch and could be very useful indeed at times.
The laptop itself is a beautiful looking machine. It’s black metal all around and has a very premium look to it, making it feel much more solid than other laptops I’ve had which have always been plastic. It really does hammer the point home that this isn’t a budget machine but a very high spec and powerful machine. It also feels very sturdy and well-built without too much flex, and the whole thing is very nice to the touch. The design of the laptop is where things become a little more unusual though: - compared to a number of other gaming laptops I’ve seen this one looks more subtle and unassuming which I personally think is a good thing. That said, the slightly unusual shape and angular edges do give the game away to some extent and from a design point of view these probably won’t be to everyone’s taste. Personally though I like the look and think it’s a nice combination of looking like a gaming laptop without going completely overboard on any unnecessary bells and whistles.
One thing that must be mentioned about this laptop however is the size. Although it is a 15” laptop and it is quite thin it is certainly somewhat heavier and also wider and deeper than I’m used to. There’s a very thick frame around the screen which almost makes it feel like it could have managed a 16” screen if someone had put their mind to it. Whilst this isn’t necessarily a bad thing it does mean that to me at least this feels like it’s a desktop replacement laptop that can be put in a laptop bag and taken away with you from time to time when necessary rather than a laptop that you’ll want to keep with you all of the time and take with you everywhere you go. For me personally this isn’t an issue as that’s exactly what I was looking for but I can quite see that if what you’re looking for is portability then this maybe isn’t going to be the best option out there and you might want to consider something else.
Screen
I only opted for the most basic of the screens available, the Full HD display without 3k or 4k as that’s something that has always seemed to me a little pointless in a laptop with a screen this size. In the past I’ve always found laptop screens to be fine, just fine, nothing more, nothing less. The screen on this however is outstanding and puts other’s I’ve used to shame. I always thought the screen on my old laptop was perfectly fine but when I put the two side by side I realised just how wrong I was. Whilst I’ve never been particularly fussy about computer screens before the colours on this are much deeper, text is clearer and images and videos look crisper than I’ve been used to in the past. There’s also very little reflection and viewing angles are very good. Again, this is something that I’ve never really noticed in the past as I’ve never really found myself in a position where I need to look at a screen from a sideways angle but I found myself looking at the laptop from a near sideways angle to take a photo of it and notices I was still able to see the image on the screen very clearly. The downside of this of course is that it now means whenever I use my spare laptop or my partner’s computer the screens look rather dull and washed out and I find this far more noticeable.
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