Spec me a gaming laptop with emphasis on silence and weight

[GeorgeHillier]

Never a non issue with a laptop. Dust will always get in them as with any PC but more delicate with a laptop. CPU works twice as hard with a laptop same as a GPU in such a confined Space.

They don't work any harder, they may get hotter, but that's a given. Also laptop components can work whilst hotter, an intel laptop CPU can go up to 100 degrees whereas a desktop CPU can go to around 80 degrees

 

[Carlosis]

Well I've had my Defiance 17" for a few weeks now. Still haven't used it enough as i'd like but i'm really impressed with it so far. This bloody forum set me up to expect to find something wrong with it and I've been looking out for issues the entire time. Nothing is wrong with my laptop, it's worked perfectly since day one and I've not noticed any overheating or fan issues. It's dead silent when not gaming and the battery is pretty commendable too. The only drawback is the poor viewing angles but as it's my laptop i don't care if other people can't see the sweet games i'm playing.

 

[n1ghtwish]

Good to hear Carlosis!

In the end I have bought another one, this one is a different model, cheaper, but not as powerful. Cost is just over £700 for this which is very reasonable (no OS). For the £1200 of the original Defiance I had higher expectations, this is sufficiently lower in cost that minor backlight bleed won't bother me as much and I probably wouldn't go through the hassle of swapping it out if it wasn't perfect.

Chassis & Display
Optimus Series: 17.3" Matte Full HD IPS LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™ i5 Quad Core Processor 6300HQ (2.3GHz, 3.2GHz Turbo)
Memory (RAM)
8GB KINGSTON SODIMM DDR3 1600MHz (1 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 960M - 2.0GB DDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 12
1st Hard Disk
250GB Samsung 850 EVO SSD, SATA 6Gb/s (upto 540MB/sR | 520MB/sW)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
Ultra Slim 8x SATA DVD±R/RW/Dual Layer (+ 24x CD-RW)
Memory Card Reader
Integrated 6 in 1 Card Reader (SD /Mini SD/ SDHC / SDXC / MMC / RSMMC)
Thermal Paste
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND
Sound Card
Intel 2 Channel High Def. Audio + SoundBlaster™ Cinema 2
Wireless/Wired Networking
GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® AC-3160 M.2 (433Mbps, 802.11AC) + BLUETOOTH
USB Options
4 x USB 3.0 PORTS AS STANDARD
Battery
Optimus Series 6 Cell Lithium Ion Battery (62.16WH)
Power Cable
1 x UK Power Lead & 120W AC Adaptor
Keyboard Language
OPTIMUS SERIES BACKLIT UK KEYBOARD WITH NUMBER PAD
Operating System
NO OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIRED
DVD Recovery Media
NO DVD RECOVERY MEDIA REQUIRED
Office Software
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Mouse
INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
Webcam
INTEGRATED 2.0 MP FULL HD WEBCAM
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 7 to 9 working days
Quantity
1

 

[Carlosis]

Glad to hear you stuck with PCS atleast. I'm still really enjoying my laptop, it's handling everything i throw at it which is what i was after. I've noticed very minor backlight bleed when i was playing Soma recently and with the many dark scenes throughout it showed up but it didn't ruin the experience in anyway. I'm just glad i've had no issues and can get Fallout running pretty damn well (if not maxed out) when it comes out. I've been keeping an eye on temps too and it's not gone over 80C on anything so that's awesome too. Just gutted i didn't get the newer model with the IPS and 8GB 980M!

 

[PeterW]

Well I've had my Defiance 17" for a few weeks now. Still haven't used it enough as i'd like but i'm really impressed with it so far. This bloody forum set me up to expect to find something wrong with it and I've been looking out for issues the entire time. Nothing is wrong with my laptop, it's worked perfectly since day one and I've not noticed any overheating or fan issues. It's dead silent when not gaming and the battery is pretty commendable too. The only drawback is the poor viewing angles but as it's my laptop i don't care if other people can't see the sweet games i'm playing.

After reading about Nightwish's problems with backlight bleeding [ or whatever it's called ] and a report from ' Hexus ' about ' noisy fan ' issues you do wonder what you are going to get for your money , hopefully these reports of problems are in the small minority so it's good to hear of your excellent experience with PCS , Carlosis . First I thought I would get an Octane 2 then I think I'll get a Defiance 2 as it has the same specs apart from the processor and my thoughts go backwards and forwards

As for this problem of ' backlight bleeding ' - I have to admit of never hearing about it until now , perhaps the worse screens should be rejected by PC Specialist and returned to Clevo [ or whoever the manufacturer is ] a job for Quality Control ?

Still it's reassuring that your experience was a good one , I hope when it's my turn the experience will be as good .

 

[laubla]

This thread was a good read, thanks for extensively detailing your experiences. I'm considering a Defiance laptop myself as a gaming counterpart me and my girlfriend can share (I have my own dedicated desktop), but the issues in this thread have worried me a little bit, getting a build with bad bleed is a main worry, but I'm hoping as mine will be a Defiance II (I'm assuming yours were the original Defiance) that those issues would have been sorted or at least improved upon.

Out of curiosity, did any of you opt for an m2 SSD? The benchmarks look outrageously quick, I do wonder if that transfers into real life performance though? How about the specs in general, this laptop packs a massive punch, the 970 is a beast of a desktop card for the price, and the mobile version isn't that far off in power, that much power seems mad in a laptop so cheap to me. I guess what I'm wondering is if this machine can run pretty much everything released today at maximum settings at 1080p60fps? Take the game which comes free with it, The Division, for example, it's a mighty good looking game, it looks like it would require some serious horsepower to run, however this machine has that, would it be foolish of me to expect this laptop to come close to playing it on highest settings, at 1080p60fps? Also, someone mentioned the killer wireless card earlier in the thread, is there really any tangible improvement with it over the default?