Back in July 2011 I was in need of a laptop, as the one I was using (a Clevo C720 from the now-defunct Evesham) was becoming unuseable due to its Geforce 7900 dying. (It turns out this particular chip has a problem with its solder and I wasn't brave enough to try the oven trick!)
Dodgy GPU aside, I was impressed with the rest of the machine and so I Googled for a Clevo reseller in the UK. PCS came up and I ordered the following:
Chassis & Display
Vortex II: 17.3" Glossy Full HD LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Mobile Processor i7-2720QM (2.20GHz) 6MB Cache
Memory (RAM)
8GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS 1600MHz SODIMM DDR3 (2 x 4GB)
Graphics Card
1.5GB nVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 560M - DirectX® 11 (17.3" Vortex II)
1st Hard Disk
750GB WD SCORPIO BLACK WD7500BPKT, SATA 3 Gb/s, 16MB CACHE (7200 rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
SONY BD-5730S 6x BLURAY WRITER & CYBERLINK SOFTWARE (£89)
Memory Card Reader
Internal 9 in 1 Card Reader (MMC/RSMMC/SD: Mini, XC & HC/MS: Pro & Duo)
Sound Card
Intel 5.1 Channel High Definition Audio + SPDIF/MIC/Headphone Jack
Wireless/Wired Networking
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
Vortex Series 8 Cell Lithium Ion Battery (3,800 mAh)
Power Cable
1 x UK Power Lead & 220W AC Adaptor
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 2.0 MEGAPIXEL WEBCAM
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)
Delivery
SATURDAY DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (BEFORE 12 NOON) (£19)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 5 to 7 working days
Quantity
1
The machine arrived after 12 working days (with plenty of updates on status on the way) and my first impressions were that it was a chunky, serious-looking machine. I had bought an SSD seperately (a Corsair Nova 2 60GB) and my first task was to install it. Dismantling the laptop wasn't a problem, although I was interested to see that the default hard drive had been put in the harder-to-reach location - meaning the SSD was an easy install. One of the good things about PCS is that you can buy a PC without an OS. I saved a good chunk of change as I was able to buy a student/teacher license of Windows 7 from Microsoft instead of paying full price (working in a school has its perks!)
The install went smoothly and I immediately ran the WinSAT tool to see how good the basic performance of the machine was. I wasn't disappointed, as the result was a whopping 7.1; the SSD was the weakest link, but the other components scored only a little bit higher.
My plan for the machine was quite unusual, I'd wager! I volunteer at a wolf centre and look after their website. As a result, I set the machine up to dual boot between Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2, which I managed to get via Websitespark (long since gone). I set up a complete copy of the site and, in a pinch, I'd have been able to serve the site from the laptop. Thankfully the need hasn't arisen! The large HD screen proved excellent for editing code and although the gamut isn't brilliant it's certainly good enough for general image and video editing. I use the laptop regularly at weekends at the hotel near the wolf centre, as I stay overnight. It's always worked flawlessly, even as the hotel moved away from wired to wifi connections.
The laptop has seen a good deal of travel, being lugged around America and Europe on various holidays. The weight is very much noticable and there were a few times in various airports when I wished it didn't weigh as much as it did! The laptop fits snugly under the seat in front on all the planes I've been on. This brings me to another point: battery life! As a gaming laptop from the pre-Optimus days it only ever lasted an hour or so on battery, so it's very much a "use at a desk" type of laptop. The PSU is large and delivers up to 220W, necessitating a kettle lead type plug. As the laptop doesn't draw anywhere near 220W it barely gets warm in use.
Games wise the laptop is used for the likes of WoW and Diablo 3. The latter runs well but WoW is starting to strain the graphics card somewhat, the latest expansion meant I had to take in the draw distance and switch some other settings down from their highest settings in order to get a smooth 50 to 60 FPS. (My desktop 670, for comparison, did around 60-70 FPS at HD with almost everything maxed out, whereas the 980 I have now does 100-120 FPS).
So, after 3½ years, how has the laptop coped? Admittedly it's used relatively lightly, but it's still in near-new condition. Nothing's broken and the battery now reports a capacity of 70WH rather than the 76WH it originally held. The processor is still as sprightly as it ever was and it doesn't feel at all slow in daily use - Intel really have dropped the ball on raw performance increases these last couple of generations! The graphics card, on the other hand, really shows its age. The 560M was half as powerful as the desktop 460 I had at the time and it struggles with more modern games. Even WoW taxes it nowadays, and that's not exactly known as a high-performance game.
If I was doing it again the only change I'd have made was to go for a more expensive graphics card. The rest has held up remarkably well!
Which brings me on to the replacement laptop. This time around the choice was based around the screen size (as I was going for a 980M regardless). The choice was a regular 17" HD screen, or the new 15" 4K screen on the Defiance. The 4K screen eventually won out, as there are no signs of a 17" 4K screen any time soon - nobody makes them and the 17" Defiance will come with a regular HD screen. I doubt we'll see a 17" 4K screen until next summer at the earliest. The Defiance has less VRAM (although the 4GB matches that of my desktop 980) and the GPU/CPU are soldered. That's not an issue for me as I don't plan to replace them, but may put some off. The only other question mark is whether a 180W PSU will be enough for a GPU that draws 100W and a CPU that draws 47W... we'll see next month!
Anyway, here's what I'm waiting for. I'll be especially interested in how the SSD performs, as it's exactly the same one as I have in my main desktop PC. The countdown begins....
Chassis & Display
Defiance Series: 15.6" Glossy 4K PLS LED Widescreen (3840x2160)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Mobile Processor i7-4870HQ (2.50GHz, 3.7GHz Turbo)
Memory (RAM)
16GB KINGSTON SODIMM DDR3 1600MHz (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 980M - 4.0GB DDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 11
1st Hard Disk
1TB WD SLIM BLUE WD10SPCX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 16MB CACHE (5400 rpm)
M.2 SSD Drive
Plextor PX-G256M6e 256GB M.2 SSD (upto 770MB/sR | 625MB/sW)
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 + MIC/Headphone + SoundBlaster X-Fi MB3
Wireless/Wired Networking
GIGABIT LAN & KILLER™ 1202 WIRELESS GAMING 802.11N + BLUETOOTH 4.0
USB Options
4 x USB 3.0 PORTS (1 x POWERED, 1 e-SATA COMBINED)
Battery
Defiance Series 4 Cell Lithium Ion Battery (60WH)
Power Cable
1 x USA Power Lead & 180W AC Adaptor
Keyboard Language
DEFIANCE 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
Browser
Microsoft® Internet Explorer
Mouse
LOGITECH® OPTICAL USB MOUSE
Webcam
INTEGRATED 2.0 MEGAPIXEL WEBCAM
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Dead Pixel Guarantee
30 Day Dead Pixel Guarantee Inc. Labour & Carriage Costs
Insurance
1 Month Free Laptop Insurance inc. Accidental Damage & Theft
Delivery
SUNDAY DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (BEFORE 12 NOON)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 8 to 10 working days
Quantity
Dodgy GPU aside, I was impressed with the rest of the machine and so I Googled for a Clevo reseller in the UK. PCS came up and I ordered the following:
Chassis & Display
Vortex II: 17.3" Glossy Full HD LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Mobile Processor i7-2720QM (2.20GHz) 6MB Cache
Memory (RAM)
8GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS 1600MHz SODIMM DDR3 (2 x 4GB)
Graphics Card
1.5GB nVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 560M - DirectX® 11 (17.3" Vortex II)
1st Hard Disk
750GB WD SCORPIO BLACK WD7500BPKT, SATA 3 Gb/s, 16MB CACHE (7200 rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
SONY BD-5730S 6x BLURAY WRITER & CYBERLINK SOFTWARE (£89)
Memory Card Reader
Internal 9 in 1 Card Reader (MMC/RSMMC/SD: Mini, XC & HC/MS: Pro & Duo)
Sound Card
Intel 5.1 Channel High Definition Audio + SPDIF/MIC/Headphone Jack
Wireless/Wired Networking
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
Vortex Series 8 Cell Lithium Ion Battery (3,800 mAh)
Power Cable
1 x UK Power Lead & 220W AC Adaptor
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 2.0 MEGAPIXEL WEBCAM
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)
Delivery
SATURDAY DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (BEFORE 12 NOON) (£19)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 5 to 7 working days
Quantity
1
The machine arrived after 12 working days (with plenty of updates on status on the way) and my first impressions were that it was a chunky, serious-looking machine. I had bought an SSD seperately (a Corsair Nova 2 60GB) and my first task was to install it. Dismantling the laptop wasn't a problem, although I was interested to see that the default hard drive had been put in the harder-to-reach location - meaning the SSD was an easy install. One of the good things about PCS is that you can buy a PC without an OS. I saved a good chunk of change as I was able to buy a student/teacher license of Windows 7 from Microsoft instead of paying full price (working in a school has its perks!)
The install went smoothly and I immediately ran the WinSAT tool to see how good the basic performance of the machine was. I wasn't disappointed, as the result was a whopping 7.1; the SSD was the weakest link, but the other components scored only a little bit higher.
My plan for the machine was quite unusual, I'd wager! I volunteer at a wolf centre and look after their website. As a result, I set the machine up to dual boot between Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2, which I managed to get via Websitespark (long since gone). I set up a complete copy of the site and, in a pinch, I'd have been able to serve the site from the laptop. Thankfully the need hasn't arisen! The large HD screen proved excellent for editing code and although the gamut isn't brilliant it's certainly good enough for general image and video editing. I use the laptop regularly at weekends at the hotel near the wolf centre, as I stay overnight. It's always worked flawlessly, even as the hotel moved away from wired to wifi connections.
The laptop has seen a good deal of travel, being lugged around America and Europe on various holidays. The weight is very much noticable and there were a few times in various airports when I wished it didn't weigh as much as it did! The laptop fits snugly under the seat in front on all the planes I've been on. This brings me to another point: battery life! As a gaming laptop from the pre-Optimus days it only ever lasted an hour or so on battery, so it's very much a "use at a desk" type of laptop. The PSU is large and delivers up to 220W, necessitating a kettle lead type plug. As the laptop doesn't draw anywhere near 220W it barely gets warm in use.
Games wise the laptop is used for the likes of WoW and Diablo 3. The latter runs well but WoW is starting to strain the graphics card somewhat, the latest expansion meant I had to take in the draw distance and switch some other settings down from their highest settings in order to get a smooth 50 to 60 FPS. (My desktop 670, for comparison, did around 60-70 FPS at HD with almost everything maxed out, whereas the 980 I have now does 100-120 FPS).
So, after 3½ years, how has the laptop coped? Admittedly it's used relatively lightly, but it's still in near-new condition. Nothing's broken and the battery now reports a capacity of 70WH rather than the 76WH it originally held. The processor is still as sprightly as it ever was and it doesn't feel at all slow in daily use - Intel really have dropped the ball on raw performance increases these last couple of generations! The graphics card, on the other hand, really shows its age. The 560M was half as powerful as the desktop 460 I had at the time and it struggles with more modern games. Even WoW taxes it nowadays, and that's not exactly known as a high-performance game.
If I was doing it again the only change I'd have made was to go for a more expensive graphics card. The rest has held up remarkably well!
Which brings me on to the replacement laptop. This time around the choice was based around the screen size (as I was going for a 980M regardless). The choice was a regular 17" HD screen, or the new 15" 4K screen on the Defiance. The 4K screen eventually won out, as there are no signs of a 17" 4K screen any time soon - nobody makes them and the 17" Defiance will come with a regular HD screen. I doubt we'll see a 17" 4K screen until next summer at the earliest. The Defiance has less VRAM (although the 4GB matches that of my desktop 980) and the GPU/CPU are soldered. That's not an issue for me as I don't plan to replace them, but may put some off. The only other question mark is whether a 180W PSU will be enough for a GPU that draws 100W and a CPU that draws 47W... we'll see next month!
Anyway, here's what I'm waiting for. I'll be especially interested in how the SSD performs, as it's exactly the same one as I have in my main desktop PC. The countdown begins....
Chassis & Display
Defiance Series: 15.6" Glossy 4K PLS LED Widescreen (3840x2160)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Mobile Processor i7-4870HQ (2.50GHz, 3.7GHz Turbo)
Memory (RAM)
16GB KINGSTON SODIMM DDR3 1600MHz (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 980M - 4.0GB DDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 11
1st Hard Disk
1TB WD SLIM BLUE WD10SPCX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 16MB CACHE (5400 rpm)
M.2 SSD Drive
Plextor PX-G256M6e 256GB M.2 SSD (upto 770MB/sR | 625MB/sW)
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 + MIC/Headphone + SoundBlaster X-Fi MB3
Wireless/Wired Networking
GIGABIT LAN & KILLER™ 1202 WIRELESS GAMING 802.11N + BLUETOOTH 4.0
USB Options
4 x USB 3.0 PORTS (1 x POWERED, 1 e-SATA COMBINED)
Battery
Defiance Series 4 Cell Lithium Ion Battery (60WH)
Power Cable
1 x USA Power Lead & 180W AC Adaptor
Keyboard Language
DEFIANCE 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
Browser
Microsoft® Internet Explorer
Mouse
LOGITECH® OPTICAL USB MOUSE
Webcam
INTEGRATED 2.0 MEGAPIXEL WEBCAM
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Dead Pixel Guarantee
30 Day Dead Pixel Guarantee Inc. Labour & Carriage Costs
Insurance
1 Month Free Laptop Insurance inc. Accidental Damage & Theft
Delivery
SUNDAY DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (BEFORE 12 NOON)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 8 to 10 working days
Quantity
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