The Spec I ordered:
Chassis & Display
Optimus II: 15.6" Glossy Full HD LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Mobile Processor i7-2670QM (2.20GHz) 6MB
Memory (RAM)
8GB SAMSUNG 1333MHz SODIMM DDR3 MEMORY (2 x 4GB)
Graphics Card
nVIDIA® GeForce® GT 555M - 2GB DDR3 Video RAM - DirectX® 11
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
500GB WD SCORPIO BLACK WD5000BPKT, SATA 3 Gb/s, 16MB CACHE (7200 rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
8x SATA DVD±R/RW/Dual Layer (+ 24x CD-RW)
Thermal Paste
ARCTIC COOLING MX-3 HIGH THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND (£9)
Network Facilities
GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS 802.11N CARD INC. BLUETOOTH 3.0
USB Options
2 x USB 3.0 PORTS + 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS AS STANDARD
Battery
Optimus Series 6 Cell Lithium-ION Battery - 48.85WH
Operating System
NO OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIRED
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)
Price: £720.00 including VAT and delivery.
Buying Process
Personally I really wanted to get a Vortex system, it offers much better GPU and cooling has the GPU has its own heat sink. However I dont game as much as I use to on pc anymore and the price difference was £200, if it had not been for the increase in HDD prices you might have been looking at a Vortex review LOL.
Overall the process was very easy, I know exactly what I needed from my laptop however if I didnt the forums are a great tool, with friendly poeple all over to help you get the best for your money, been trying to give a bit back aswell
. After that I selected what I wanted and ordered away. Takes 1 day to check your card and then its off to the building process. Overall the whole thing took 10 working days and any questions I had PCS answered them right away hats off to them. Yodal for me was all good, PCS sent it on Friday laptop was with me on Monday, although my Mom said they looked very unprofessional lols.
After that I just popped in the the driver CD and after a little while of installing my laptop was ready to go. Everything went like a dream and laptop came before I even expected it too so couldnt ask for more.
Chassis
This thing for what its packing is very light and slim. Its not going to beat laptops like all these new metal thin laptops, but it does come in at more or less the same dimensions as my dads Dell which is great. If it wasnt for the huge ass chargering brick then it would be a very protable laptop. The build of this thing is crazy good, it feels great, impossible to damage, doesnt leave finger prints and nasty markers. It feels like brushed metal and glossy plastic that soft to touch on the inside. On the outside it feels rough and has a sparkly to it which looks great. The rough texture means it doesnt leave any finger printers and any mark is easy rubbed out with your finger. there is a lot of well thought out buttons and lights which I love. Things like a light to switch from NV optimus to just using the intergrated card saving you time searching through settings, then a ligt to let you know if your using your intergrated card or the GT555 is great to just let you know everything is going as you would have liked it. Buttons for wireless and to mute the speakers is also great, camera button isnt so usefully for me personally. One thing I would really like is to have the fn+1 = full speed on fan hotkey they have on the Sager versions of these laptops, could be great for gaming as I personally would like to have it max'd out the whole time instead of it speeding up and down and leaving things hotter.
Keyboard
The keyboard is 1 of the things I found to be slightly dissapointing. It gives off a lot of noise and is full of ends cracks and flex all over. Apart from that the spaced keys give a great typing experiences and I found the layout to be very well thoughout and typing is a breeze in general. I would have liked a back light to aid with typing in the dark but isnt a very big demand for me.
Touchpad
The touchpad is very good, it has a slight textured feel and that was a welcome for me, it is very resposive and the multi touching works very well. Although it doesnt quiet match up to some of the better touchpads it is a very good touchpad and should be good for most users. Some migth find the texured feel tough at first but I think over time it shouldnt be a big change. Also getting some what of a gaming laptop I would think most would have a mouse to use.
Screen
This is the biggest difference coming from several 720p screens the difference is crazy. When I first switched the laptop on my dad swore it was much larger than his 15.6", till I had to put my laptop ontop of his and show him that they were still exactly the same size, he still couldnt believe it.
For a laptop screen it has excellent viewing angles even on the glossy screens that I got, the colours are perfect blacks are actual black, having it at 1080p makes watching TV shows amazing, although things like youtube look extremely small unless you running it at 720p.
For multi tasking it is amazing, one thing that is really lacking on 720p and using 2 1080p screens at work I just couldnt be coming home to a single 720p screen. However now I can have lots of windows open and be using them all at the same time e.g youtube, msn, web all at once without much problem. Also everything becomes super sharp.
I also have a weird eye illness which makes it hard to focus and makes my vision very bad so I was very worried that 1080p would be very difficult for me to be able to see anything. this wasnt the case and it actual seems like the perfect res for using a 15".
I havnt game'd on it much so I shall report back on that...
Power
This laptop is such a beast, I thought coming from a c2d I wouldnt be seeing much real world improvement and that it would be more noticable in benchmarks. I can safly say that the difference is mind blowing, everything opens right away, openning any program that I have right now I see no waiting at all this thing just blazes through it all. One of the biggest impacts Ive seen is the opening times of 720p media, usually I would get 3-4 seconds while it loads everything up now I click and its done. The HDD boots up in around 20seconds which is just incredible. The GT555 is a very cable card, however I havnt really tested it yet.
Benchmarks
To be far all the benchmarks in these sections are done with all stock sets and everything is how the laptop is out of the box.
Windows Index Score
3D Mark 06
Will add more as I ran them
Heat
This laptop runs hot, very hot the chassis stay quiet cool even when my CPU reach temps of around 98c you couldnt really feel it unless you put your hand there the fan vent which felt like a blow dryer.
Over the week my laptop has cooled down a bit, I guess the thermal paste is setting in, but its still way to high for my taste.
I stressed the CPU on its own on the first day it hit 98c, however after 1 week it is a lot better:
After that I ran a 3d mark 06 run, which will let the GT555m run free and should increase the temps to something more real life gaming performance.
I ordered a cooling mat so I shall ran more testes with that and see how it improves.
Got my cooling pad, really like it Ive noticed my laptop hardly ever goes above the minimum fan speed, not always the best as its temps havnt really changed. The laptop cooling pad is great, very well built comes with 3 years warranty and its much quietier than I expected.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B002I8QX...de=asn&creative=22206&creativeASIN=B002I8QXHG
Sadly the new SB cpus dont support any kinda of undervolting like the C2D CPUS did so I cant reduce heat that way. However the maybe problem is that the fan speed doesnt hit 100% unless its maxing out both the CPU and the GPU and even then its only for a few short seconds. The laptop does a good job of staying quiet I just wished it had the fn+1 = 100% fan speed like on the Sager models. However I found out that there is an updated bios which has a new fan speed table.
GPU
The GPU I have to say it very good, I have ran Skyrim on it at 1080p Full and it was very smooth and didn't notice any slow down, the GPU is also a decent overclocker.
To overclock you just need to get MSI after burner and just move the sliders up, run your benchmark of choice and see if it pass all the tests without crashing, afterburner also monitors your temps for u which is great, so far I havnt hit anything higher than 80c which is really good.
First try at OC
Was really easy and everything went fine, benchmark isnt a lot higher but some of the parts were the benchmark was hitting sub 20 it started to move to 21/22
2nd try at OC
2nd I saw the FPS go a lot higher, however this doesnt show to well in 3d mark 06, I will try other versions soon.
Chassis & Display
Optimus II: 15.6" Glossy Full HD LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Mobile Processor i7-2670QM (2.20GHz) 6MB
Memory (RAM)
8GB SAMSUNG 1333MHz SODIMM DDR3 MEMORY (2 x 4GB)
Graphics Card
nVIDIA® GeForce® GT 555M - 2GB DDR3 Video RAM - DirectX® 11
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
500GB WD SCORPIO BLACK WD5000BPKT, SATA 3 Gb/s, 16MB CACHE (7200 rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
8x SATA DVD±R/RW/Dual Layer (+ 24x CD-RW)
Thermal Paste
ARCTIC COOLING MX-3 HIGH THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND (£9)
Network Facilities
GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS 802.11N CARD INC. BLUETOOTH 3.0
USB Options
2 x USB 3.0 PORTS + 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS AS STANDARD
Battery
Optimus Series 6 Cell Lithium-ION Battery - 48.85WH
Operating System
NO OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIRED
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)
Price: £720.00 including VAT and delivery.
Buying Process
Personally I really wanted to get a Vortex system, it offers much better GPU and cooling has the GPU has its own heat sink. However I dont game as much as I use to on pc anymore and the price difference was £200, if it had not been for the increase in HDD prices you might have been looking at a Vortex review LOL.
Overall the process was very easy, I know exactly what I needed from my laptop however if I didnt the forums are a great tool, with friendly poeple all over to help you get the best for your money, been trying to give a bit back aswell
. After that I selected what I wanted and ordered away. Takes 1 day to check your card and then its off to the building process. Overall the whole thing took 10 working days and any questions I had PCS answered them right away hats off to them. Yodal for me was all good, PCS sent it on Friday laptop was with me on Monday, although my Mom said they looked very unprofessional lols. After that I just popped in the the driver CD and after a little while of installing my laptop was ready to go. Everything went like a dream and laptop came before I even expected it too so couldnt ask for more.
Chassis
This thing for what its packing is very light and slim. Its not going to beat laptops like all these new metal thin laptops, but it does come in at more or less the same dimensions as my dads Dell which is great. If it wasnt for the huge ass chargering brick then it would be a very protable laptop. The build of this thing is crazy good, it feels great, impossible to damage, doesnt leave finger prints and nasty markers. It feels like brushed metal and glossy plastic that soft to touch on the inside. On the outside it feels rough and has a sparkly to it which looks great. The rough texture means it doesnt leave any finger printers and any mark is easy rubbed out with your finger. there is a lot of well thought out buttons and lights which I love. Things like a light to switch from NV optimus to just using the intergrated card saving you time searching through settings, then a ligt to let you know if your using your intergrated card or the GT555 is great to just let you know everything is going as you would have liked it. Buttons for wireless and to mute the speakers is also great, camera button isnt so usefully for me personally. One thing I would really like is to have the fn+1 = full speed on fan hotkey they have on the Sager versions of these laptops, could be great for gaming as I personally would like to have it max'd out the whole time instead of it speeding up and down and leaving things hotter.
Keyboard
The keyboard is 1 of the things I found to be slightly dissapointing. It gives off a lot of noise and is full of ends cracks and flex all over. Apart from that the spaced keys give a great typing experiences and I found the layout to be very well thoughout and typing is a breeze in general. I would have liked a back light to aid with typing in the dark but isnt a very big demand for me.
Touchpad
The touchpad is very good, it has a slight textured feel and that was a welcome for me, it is very resposive and the multi touching works very well. Although it doesnt quiet match up to some of the better touchpads it is a very good touchpad and should be good for most users. Some migth find the texured feel tough at first but I think over time it shouldnt be a big change. Also getting some what of a gaming laptop I would think most would have a mouse to use.
Screen
This is the biggest difference coming from several 720p screens the difference is crazy. When I first switched the laptop on my dad swore it was much larger than his 15.6", till I had to put my laptop ontop of his and show him that they were still exactly the same size, he still couldnt believe it.
For a laptop screen it has excellent viewing angles even on the glossy screens that I got, the colours are perfect blacks are actual black, having it at 1080p makes watching TV shows amazing, although things like youtube look extremely small unless you running it at 720p.
For multi tasking it is amazing, one thing that is really lacking on 720p and using 2 1080p screens at work I just couldnt be coming home to a single 720p screen. However now I can have lots of windows open and be using them all at the same time e.g youtube, msn, web all at once without much problem. Also everything becomes super sharp.
I also have a weird eye illness which makes it hard to focus and makes my vision very bad so I was very worried that 1080p would be very difficult for me to be able to see anything. this wasnt the case and it actual seems like the perfect res for using a 15".
I havnt game'd on it much so I shall report back on that...
Power
This laptop is such a beast, I thought coming from a c2d I wouldnt be seeing much real world improvement and that it would be more noticable in benchmarks. I can safly say that the difference is mind blowing, everything opens right away, openning any program that I have right now I see no waiting at all this thing just blazes through it all. One of the biggest impacts Ive seen is the opening times of 720p media, usually I would get 3-4 seconds while it loads everything up now I click and its done. The HDD boots up in around 20seconds which is just incredible. The GT555 is a very cable card, however I havnt really tested it yet.
Benchmarks
To be far all the benchmarks in these sections are done with all stock sets and everything is how the laptop is out of the box.
Windows Index Score
3D Mark 06
Will add more as I ran them
Heat
This laptop runs hot, very hot the chassis stay quiet cool even when my CPU reach temps of around 98c you couldnt really feel it unless you put your hand there the fan vent which felt like a blow dryer.
Over the week my laptop has cooled down a bit, I guess the thermal paste is setting in, but its still way to high for my taste.
I stressed the CPU on its own on the first day it hit 98c, however after 1 week it is a lot better:
After that I ran a 3d mark 06 run, which will let the GT555m run free and should increase the temps to something more real life gaming performance.
I ordered a cooling mat so I shall ran more testes with that and see how it improves.
Got my cooling pad, really like it Ive noticed my laptop hardly ever goes above the minimum fan speed, not always the best as its temps havnt really changed. The laptop cooling pad is great, very well built comes with 3 years warranty and its much quietier than I expected.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B002I8QX...de=asn&creative=22206&creativeASIN=B002I8QXHG
Sadly the new SB cpus dont support any kinda of undervolting like the C2D CPUS did so I cant reduce heat that way. However the maybe problem is that the fan speed doesnt hit 100% unless its maxing out both the CPU and the GPU and even then its only for a few short seconds. The laptop does a good job of staying quiet I just wished it had the fn+1 = 100% fan speed like on the Sager models. However I found out that there is an updated bios which has a new fan speed table.
GPU
The GPU I have to say it very good, I have ran Skyrim on it at 1080p Full and it was very smooth and didn't notice any slow down, the GPU is also a decent overclocker.
To overclock you just need to get MSI after burner and just move the sliders up, run your benchmark of choice and see if it pass all the tests without crashing, afterburner also monitors your temps for u which is great, so far I havnt hit anything higher than 80c which is really good.
First try at OC
Was really easy and everything went fine, benchmark isnt a lot higher but some of the parts were the benchmark was hitting sub 20 it started to move to 21/22
2nd try at OC
2nd I saw the FPS go a lot higher, however this doesnt show to well in 3d mark 06, I will try other versions soon.
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