Below is the main spec of the laptop and a short review.
Chassis & Display SkyFire:17.3" Matte Full HD LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor (CPU) Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Mobile Processor i7-3610QM (2.30GHz) 6MB
Memory (RAM) 8GB SAMSUNG 1600MHz SODIMM DDR3 MEMORY (2 x 4GB)
Graphics Card NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 675M - 2.0GB DDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 11
1st Hard Disk 120GB INTEL® 330 SERIES SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 500MB/sR | 450MB/sW)
2nd Hard Disk 500GB WD SCORPIO BLACK WD5000BPKT, SATA 3 Gb/s, 16MB CACHE (7200 rpm)
Thermal Paste ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND (£9)
Network Facilities GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® ADVANCED-N 6235 (300Mbps) + BLUETOOTH
Operating System Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit w/SP1 - inc DVD & Licence
Carry Case TARGUS XL CITY GEAR 16" - 17.3" LAPTOP CASE TCG417 (£43)
Mouse MICROSOFT WIRELESS MOBILE MOUSE 4000 (£9)
Warranty 3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)
Dead Pixel Guarantee 1 Year Dead Pixel Guarantee Inc. Labour & Carriage Costs (£19)
Delivery PCS EXTRA-CARE DIAMOND DELIVERY - MON-FRI, PRE-NOON (£9)
Build Time Standard Build - Approximately 8 to 10 working days
Total Order Price £1,243.00
Production Dates
Processed Date 07-09-2012
Pre-Production Date 11-09-2012
Build Date 20-09-2012
Test Date 20-09-2012
Awaiting Dispatch Date 20-09-2012
Dispatch Date 21-09-2012
Who Worked on This Order?
Built By Mark Bradley
Tested By Carl Auckland
QC'd By Carl Auckland
Packed By Adam Kirby
-------------------------
The laptop was packaged very well and very secure. DPD usually do a good job on delivery. It was delivered within the stated time frame. PCS kept me updated with regular emails from payment to delivery. DPD also emailed me to confirm the time and date it would be delivered. I paid for standard build time and the turn around was 10 days, so all in all very happy.
The all round build quality of the laptop is superb, the only issue I have is that the keyboard (left side - qwerty) is very tappy compared to the right hand side. Not sure why - possibly due to the location of the GPU? It just feels less solid and makes a noticeable noise when the keys are depressed. The only other issue I have with the keyboard is the lack of caps/num/scroll lock lights but this is not a big deal. I understand a handful of people on the forums have stated that the touch sensitive hot keys along the top are a bit tricky to press, however, I do not have any issues. They work first time with minimal pressure.
It isn't as weighty as I imagined, which is a good thing as I regularly lug this from home to work and back again. It is a lot lighter in comparison than my friends 17" Alienware. Saying this, I still feels like a quality product and is built like a tank.
The screen quality is really good. Everything is crystal clear and looks amazing in full 1080p. Viewing angles are very good and the anti glare matte screen hits the right balance between reducing glare from light and still having vibrant, clear colours. The lid opens and closes in a very smooth manner.
The speakers are fairly decent for a laptop rig, although when I am at home I hook it up to my sound system. When at work I tend to use headphones, and the sound quality again is more than enough through a basic £50 set of headphones.
As you can see above the main hard drive is an Intel SSD. The operating system is situated on this drive, and the laptop boots up from cold to the desktop in about 10 seconds. I have also put Microsoft Office on the SSD along with a few other aplications such as VM Ware and they are lightning fast. Instant access. Shutdown usually takes 5-6 seconds. Very fast and worth the extra money. The secondary drive has all my junk (pics, mp3's, films, games) and is still fairly quick. No complaints.
I haven't had much time to test the GPU fully but GPU-Z is telling me that the GPU runs at no more than 61C during Left 4 Dead 2 with maxed out settings including Anti Aliasing on full after about an hour of gaming. Unsure of FPS but I am sure it is in the mid 60's if not more. No lag at all, very fluid. Playing Sleeping Dog on High settings roduces the same results.
Average GPU temperature when not gaming is between 34C and 38C. The fans kick out a lot of heat when gaming, which is a good thing as the laptop stays nice and cool even after 2-3 hours of non stop gaming. The temperatures above clarify this.
Overall I am very impressed with this laptop, for the money I could not get a better deal. I was looking at Alienware laptops, but to get a similar spec machine would cost nearly double what I paid.
Hopefully the quality will uphold for the foreseeable future as I plan to keep this rig and upgrade the GPU as and when I need to.
Pics on the way.
Chassis & Display SkyFire:17.3" Matte Full HD LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor (CPU) Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Mobile Processor i7-3610QM (2.30GHz) 6MB
Memory (RAM) 8GB SAMSUNG 1600MHz SODIMM DDR3 MEMORY (2 x 4GB)
Graphics Card NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 675M - 2.0GB DDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 11
1st Hard Disk 120GB INTEL® 330 SERIES SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 500MB/sR | 450MB/sW)
2nd Hard Disk 500GB WD SCORPIO BLACK WD5000BPKT, SATA 3 Gb/s, 16MB CACHE (7200 rpm)
Thermal Paste ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND (£9)
Network Facilities GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® ADVANCED-N 6235 (300Mbps) + BLUETOOTH
Operating System Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit w/SP1 - inc DVD & Licence
Carry Case TARGUS XL CITY GEAR 16" - 17.3" LAPTOP CASE TCG417 (£43)
Mouse MICROSOFT WIRELESS MOBILE MOUSE 4000 (£9)
Warranty 3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)
Dead Pixel Guarantee 1 Year Dead Pixel Guarantee Inc. Labour & Carriage Costs (£19)
Delivery PCS EXTRA-CARE DIAMOND DELIVERY - MON-FRI, PRE-NOON (£9)
Build Time Standard Build - Approximately 8 to 10 working days
Total Order Price £1,243.00
Production Dates
Processed Date 07-09-2012
Pre-Production Date 11-09-2012
Build Date 20-09-2012
Test Date 20-09-2012
Awaiting Dispatch Date 20-09-2012
Dispatch Date 21-09-2012
Who Worked on This Order?
Built By Mark Bradley
Tested By Carl Auckland
QC'd By Carl Auckland
Packed By Adam Kirby
-------------------------
The laptop was packaged very well and very secure. DPD usually do a good job on delivery. It was delivered within the stated time frame. PCS kept me updated with regular emails from payment to delivery. DPD also emailed me to confirm the time and date it would be delivered. I paid for standard build time and the turn around was 10 days, so all in all very happy.
The all round build quality of the laptop is superb, the only issue I have is that the keyboard (left side - qwerty) is very tappy compared to the right hand side. Not sure why - possibly due to the location of the GPU? It just feels less solid and makes a noticeable noise when the keys are depressed. The only other issue I have with the keyboard is the lack of caps/num/scroll lock lights but this is not a big deal. I understand a handful of people on the forums have stated that the touch sensitive hot keys along the top are a bit tricky to press, however, I do not have any issues. They work first time with minimal pressure.
It isn't as weighty as I imagined, which is a good thing as I regularly lug this from home to work and back again. It is a lot lighter in comparison than my friends 17" Alienware. Saying this, I still feels like a quality product and is built like a tank.
The screen quality is really good. Everything is crystal clear and looks amazing in full 1080p. Viewing angles are very good and the anti glare matte screen hits the right balance between reducing glare from light and still having vibrant, clear colours. The lid opens and closes in a very smooth manner.
The speakers are fairly decent for a laptop rig, although when I am at home I hook it up to my sound system. When at work I tend to use headphones, and the sound quality again is more than enough through a basic £50 set of headphones.
As you can see above the main hard drive is an Intel SSD. The operating system is situated on this drive, and the laptop boots up from cold to the desktop in about 10 seconds. I have also put Microsoft Office on the SSD along with a few other aplications such as VM Ware and they are lightning fast. Instant access. Shutdown usually takes 5-6 seconds. Very fast and worth the extra money. The secondary drive has all my junk (pics, mp3's, films, games) and is still fairly quick. No complaints.
I haven't had much time to test the GPU fully but GPU-Z is telling me that the GPU runs at no more than 61C during Left 4 Dead 2 with maxed out settings including Anti Aliasing on full after about an hour of gaming. Unsure of FPS but I am sure it is in the mid 60's if not more. No lag at all, very fluid. Playing Sleeping Dog on High settings roduces the same results.
Average GPU temperature when not gaming is between 34C and 38C. The fans kick out a lot of heat when gaming, which is a good thing as the laptop stays nice and cool even after 2-3 hours of non stop gaming. The temperatures above clarify this.
Overall I am very impressed with this laptop, for the money I could not get a better deal. I was looking at Alienware laptops, but to get a similar spec machine would cost nearly double what I paid.
Hopefully the quality will uphold for the foreseeable future as I plan to keep this rig and upgrade the GPU as and when I need to.
Pics on the way.
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