ubuysa
The BSOD Doctor
I got a rather nice email from PCS the other day reminding me that it was two years ago that my Optimus IV was delivered to me, so I thought it might help those browsing these fora looking for info on the reliability of PCS built laptops if I posted a brief 2-year review of mine.
Here's the spec:
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Mobile Processor i7-3630QM (2.40GHz) 6MB
Memory (RAM)
12GB SAMSUNG 1600MHz SODIMM DDR3 MEMORY (3 x 4GB)
Graphics Card
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 660M - 2.0GB DDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 11
1st Hard Disk
120GB INTEL® 520 SERIES SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 550MB/sR | 520MB/sW)
2nd Hard Disk
750GB WD SCORPIO BLACK WD7500BPKT, SATA 3 Gb/s, 16MB CACHE (7200 rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
8x SATA DVD±R/RW/Dual Layer (+ 24x CD-RW)
Memory Card Reader
Internal 9 in 1 Card Reader (MMC/RSMMC/SD: Mini, XC & HC/MS: Pro & Duo)
Thermal Paste
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND (£9)
Sound Card
Intel 2 Channel High Definition Audio + MIC/Headphone Jack
Wireless/Wired Networking
GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® N135 802.11N (150Mbps) + BLUETOOTH
USB Options
3 x USB 3.0 PORTS + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT AS STANDARD
Battery
Optimus Series 8 Cell Lithium Ion Battery (5,200 mAh/76.96WH)
Power Cable
1 x European Power Lead & 120W AC Adaptor
Keyboard Language
INTEGRATED UK KEYBOARD WITH NUMBER PAD
Operating System
NO OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIRED
Office Software
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Mouse
INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
Webcam
INTEGRATED 1.3 MEGAPIXEL WEBCAM
Warranty
3 Year Standard Warranty (1 Month Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 9 to 11 working days
Quantity
1
I've not bothered posting any images because it looks pretty much as it did when I took delivery. Specifically (and very impressively) the lettering on the keyboard is still in perfect pristine condition. There is no sign of any wear or 'rubbing off' of any of the lettering on any of the keys. That's impressive, and this laptop takes some hammer, I use it pretty constantly every day in the winter months and for a much shorter time every day in the summer months too. The keys still have the original positive action, none of them are sticky or flaky. Many other laptops (not from PCS) that I've owned before generally show key wear after two years, one of them (a Compaq) needed a new keyboard in that time.
The only sign of age on the laptop is a little wear of the surface where the palm of my left hand rests. Despite years in the computing industry I'm not a touch typer, I tend to rest my left hand on the case (hence the small wear mark) and I type with my two index fingers. Otherwise the case is as good as the day it arrived. Note that I don't use the touchpad much, I have a USB mouse, so the touchpad surface is not worn either. If you were a big touchpad user this area would probably wear in the same way the left palm rest has - as all laptops do. It's only cosmetic wearing though, it's a bit shiny that's all.
The screen is as bright and defect free as the day I got it. I am very careful to open the lid by lifting at the centre and not at either end as the manual recommended when I got it (yes, I do read those things). I also generally leave the lid open when the laptop is sitting on the chart table and switched off (overnight) and I try to keep the lid opening and closing to a minimum to avoid wear on the hinges and to the cable that connects the screen to the motherboard. That's a lesson learned from a lifetime of owning laptops (well, not quite a lifetime, laptops didn't exist for much of my early computing career). I don't use a screen-saver either, I blank the screen completely after 5 minutes of non-use - another lesson learned from years of laptop ownership.
Component-wise I've had two issues. Pretty soon after delivery I started to notice WiFi dropouts, research seemed to suggest that my choice of a basic Intel WiFi card was not a wise one. PCS were extremely helpful, they analysed a couple of sets of my Windows event logs (sent to them via email) but they found nothing amiss with my system and instead sent me a replacement card to install. That made a big difference, though I still get the occasional drop out on WiFi (most of the time now I'm cable attached to our MiFi from the Optimus IV and that's perfect of course). The other issue was with my Intel 520 series SSD. I noticed that a couple of times in the fist year the SSD was not found on boot and I got the classic network boot error message, recently I've had one instance of a boot to a black screen. I put both these down to the SSD and PCS were more than happy to replace it, so I opened an RMA. I'd have had to send the old one back first though and from Greece that would have taken a while so I've not followed that up. That was my choice though, PCS were very happy to replace it just because I wasn't completely happy. Full marks for that.
I bought my Optimus IV without an OS because I had a valid (retail, not OEM) Windows 8 license, since then I've upgraded to Windows 8.1. I've had no software issues to worry about at all, mainly I believe because I don't mess with drivers (I'm still running the original drivers supplied by PCS for Windows 8) and I regularly take disk image backups so whenever I do foul up I just restore the most recent disk image.
I do keep the Optimus IV physically clean. About three times a year I have all the back panels off and with a small soft brush and a can of compressed air I carefully remove all traces of dust and muck from the inside of the case, all components, and ensure that the vents and the finned 'radiator' are completely dust free. That makes a big difference. I keep the screen clean with a very soft cloth (which I keep in a sealed plastic bag) and proper screen cleaning spray. Although I'm very gentle the screen surface looks pretty tough and there are no signs of any scratch marks on it at all, the screen is cleaned probably once a month (a boat is a pretty dusty place surprisingly).
So after two years of proper care and sensible handling my Optimus IV is as good as it was the day I first got it, and in almost pristine condition too. It's a tough chassis and although it spends most of it's time on the chart table it's been carted around off the boat quite a bit too. On balance I'd give my Optimus IV 10/10 for ruggedness and quality of build and PCS themselves also get 10/10 from me too, their after sales service has been excellent and I will not hesitate to buy from them again.
I hope this helps build confidence in new customers looking on here.
Here's the spec:
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Mobile Processor i7-3630QM (2.40GHz) 6MB
Memory (RAM)
12GB SAMSUNG 1600MHz SODIMM DDR3 MEMORY (3 x 4GB)
Graphics Card
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 660M - 2.0GB DDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 11
1st Hard Disk
120GB INTEL® 520 SERIES SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 550MB/sR | 520MB/sW)
2nd Hard Disk
750GB WD SCORPIO BLACK WD7500BPKT, SATA 3 Gb/s, 16MB CACHE (7200 rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
8x SATA DVD±R/RW/Dual Layer (+ 24x CD-RW)
Memory Card Reader
Internal 9 in 1 Card Reader (MMC/RSMMC/SD: Mini, XC & HC/MS: Pro & Duo)
Thermal Paste
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND (£9)
Sound Card
Intel 2 Channel High Definition Audio + MIC/Headphone Jack
Wireless/Wired Networking
GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® N135 802.11N (150Mbps) + BLUETOOTH
USB Options
3 x USB 3.0 PORTS + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT AS STANDARD
Battery
Optimus Series 8 Cell Lithium Ion Battery (5,200 mAh/76.96WH)
Power Cable
1 x European Power Lead & 120W AC Adaptor
Keyboard Language
INTEGRATED UK KEYBOARD WITH NUMBER PAD
Operating System
NO OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIRED
Office Software
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Mouse
INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
Webcam
INTEGRATED 1.3 MEGAPIXEL WEBCAM
Warranty
3 Year Standard Warranty (1 Month Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 9 to 11 working days
Quantity
1
I've not bothered posting any images because it looks pretty much as it did when I took delivery. Specifically (and very impressively) the lettering on the keyboard is still in perfect pristine condition. There is no sign of any wear or 'rubbing off' of any of the lettering on any of the keys. That's impressive, and this laptop takes some hammer, I use it pretty constantly every day in the winter months and for a much shorter time every day in the summer months too. The keys still have the original positive action, none of them are sticky or flaky. Many other laptops (not from PCS) that I've owned before generally show key wear after two years, one of them (a Compaq) needed a new keyboard in that time.
The only sign of age on the laptop is a little wear of the surface where the palm of my left hand rests. Despite years in the computing industry I'm not a touch typer, I tend to rest my left hand on the case (hence the small wear mark) and I type with my two index fingers. Otherwise the case is as good as the day it arrived. Note that I don't use the touchpad much, I have a USB mouse, so the touchpad surface is not worn either. If you were a big touchpad user this area would probably wear in the same way the left palm rest has - as all laptops do. It's only cosmetic wearing though, it's a bit shiny that's all.
The screen is as bright and defect free as the day I got it. I am very careful to open the lid by lifting at the centre and not at either end as the manual recommended when I got it (yes, I do read those things). I also generally leave the lid open when the laptop is sitting on the chart table and switched off (overnight) and I try to keep the lid opening and closing to a minimum to avoid wear on the hinges and to the cable that connects the screen to the motherboard. That's a lesson learned from a lifetime of owning laptops (well, not quite a lifetime, laptops didn't exist for much of my early computing career). I don't use a screen-saver either, I blank the screen completely after 5 minutes of non-use - another lesson learned from years of laptop ownership.
Component-wise I've had two issues. Pretty soon after delivery I started to notice WiFi dropouts, research seemed to suggest that my choice of a basic Intel WiFi card was not a wise one. PCS were extremely helpful, they analysed a couple of sets of my Windows event logs (sent to them via email) but they found nothing amiss with my system and instead sent me a replacement card to install. That made a big difference, though I still get the occasional drop out on WiFi (most of the time now I'm cable attached to our MiFi from the Optimus IV and that's perfect of course). The other issue was with my Intel 520 series SSD. I noticed that a couple of times in the fist year the SSD was not found on boot and I got the classic network boot error message, recently I've had one instance of a boot to a black screen. I put both these down to the SSD and PCS were more than happy to replace it, so I opened an RMA. I'd have had to send the old one back first though and from Greece that would have taken a while so I've not followed that up. That was my choice though, PCS were very happy to replace it just because I wasn't completely happy. Full marks for that.
I bought my Optimus IV without an OS because I had a valid (retail, not OEM) Windows 8 license, since then I've upgraded to Windows 8.1. I've had no software issues to worry about at all, mainly I believe because I don't mess with drivers (I'm still running the original drivers supplied by PCS for Windows 8) and I regularly take disk image backups so whenever I do foul up I just restore the most recent disk image.
I do keep the Optimus IV physically clean. About three times a year I have all the back panels off and with a small soft brush and a can of compressed air I carefully remove all traces of dust and muck from the inside of the case, all components, and ensure that the vents and the finned 'radiator' are completely dust free. That makes a big difference. I keep the screen clean with a very soft cloth (which I keep in a sealed plastic bag) and proper screen cleaning spray. Although I'm very gentle the screen surface looks pretty tough and there are no signs of any scratch marks on it at all, the screen is cleaned probably once a month (a boat is a pretty dusty place surprisingly).
So after two years of proper care and sensible handling my Optimus IV is as good as it was the day I first got it, and in almost pristine condition too. It's a tough chassis and although it spends most of it's time on the chart table it's been carted around off the boat quite a bit too. On balance I'd give my Optimus IV 10/10 for ruggedness and quality of build and PCS themselves also get 10/10 from me too, their after sales service has been excellent and I will not hesitate to buy from them again.
I hope this helps build confidence in new customers looking on here.