VORTEX IX 15.6" [RTX 2070 + i7-9750H] - Views & Reviews?

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TheNameIsJambo

Member
Hi all,

I've been looking at replacing my aging and battered MSI GS60 Ghost Pro [w/ i7-6700HQ & GTX 970m]. And have been considering venturing into non-mainstream (in Europe) brands. Considering the above spec. costs circa £2000 from ASUS, et al. you can understand why I'm looking elsewhere!

I've been primarily using my MSI as a "Business" workstation for AutoCAD, PLC IDEs and VMWare - with gaming as an aside. Currently, due to the physical abuse my laptop has taken over the years; travelling onshore & offshore, it is slowly becoming unusable for gaming with some overheating & throttling issues. I could try and re-paste the HSF, but there's physical damage to the chassis too... Eurgh.

I was wondering if anyone had first-hand experience in regards to a few things:

[1] Build quality:
The Vortex IX / Clevo PB50 seems to be reasonably solid from the photos. My MSI is an all-metal design, so it's somewhat resistant to knocks, bumps and scrapes. The only plastic on-show is at the vents; which is now in absolute pieces and missing all of its' fins. I'd prefer it if the laptop had an entire metal design.​

[2] The cooling system:
Which seems to be decent; with temperatures never reaching abhorrent values. That is based on one PB51 review I found on YouTube; but with an i7-8750H.​

[3] Monitor: 1080 GSync @ 144Hz vs 2160 OLED @ 60Hz.
The one thing I really love and hate about the MSI is the 4K screen. Everything looks sharp. I reckon a 2160 OLED would look absolutely fantastic for movies, games, work, etc. not to mention it would save (somewhat) on battery life. I don't know if I could go "back" to a 1080 screen (with poor black-depth).​
​
[4]Keyboard: There's nothing worse than a poor keyboard. What are these like on the Clevo?

See the spec attached:
13573
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​
What are your opinions?​
 
M

markh

Bronze Level Poster
following this with interest as I'm strongly considering the Vortex too. I found a couple of users on Reddit who said the cooling is fine, staying below 90 when gaming. Apparently if you raise the backend slightly it improves airflow and temps significantly, which seems a daft design flaw (how much trouble would it have been to stick a couple of rubber feet on it?) but there you go. There's a long review on this forum where a user reported high temps out-of-the-box in a stress test, but was able to stabilise them with a substantial undervolt.

re OLED screens on laptops - I would much prefer to stare at a glossy display all day too but the burn-in thing with OLED really worries me, especially given that you inevitably have static images like menu bars on screen for a long time. Interesting that they disappeared for a while and have very recently returned, maybe they've found a workable solution to this. Personally I think I'd stick with the 1080 screen.
 
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TheNameIsJambo

Member
Isn't OLED burn in over a very long period of time I.E 5,000 hours? Or is it much less? It would be good to know who the panel manufacturer is [Most likely one of the usual suspects? LG? Samsung?] then we could give its resilience a Google. I know the Windows Start Menu, etc. are visible on-screen, essentially at all times, so you do increase the risk of burn in, but couldn't you take some steps to prevent it, for example: Automatically hide task bar?

My MSI laptop had rubber feet to increase air-flow. But due to the constant use and "moving" the laptop around on desks they've all become unstuck and lost and I've not replaced them - Just sheer laziness. Lifting the laptop up at the rear does make a big difference to how it is cooled; I normally just stick my wallet under the centre-most part of the rear. Although, I suppose you could always super-glue some form of rubber buffer pads [from Amazon] onto the back corners - that are thicker/wider than the stock supply.
 
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markh

Bronze Level Poster
I think all the new OLED screens for laptop are made by Samsung. Trouble is, they've not been out long enough to know if burn-in is still a problem yet - when I googled it the only posts I could find were about an older Alienware model. I'm probably worrying about nothing as I tend to do, but it'd be nice to have some reassurance before shelling out. Maybe someone on here knows more. There probably are some things you can do to mitigate spending too long on the same screen though.

Yeah I don't mind raising the back with a couple of books or whatever, I just thought it seemed a bit of a silly omission when it's such a basic and standard feature.
 
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markh

Bronze Level Poster
I checked this out again and found an article saying that ASUS are holding back on releasing any OLED laptops because they aren't convinced that the burn-in issue has been resolved yet. I would post a link but I think PCS have a rule about external links on the forum
 
Oussebon

Oussebon

Multiverse Poster
markh said:
I checked this out again and found an article saying that ASUS are holding back on releasing any OLED laptops because they aren't convinced that the burn-in issue has been resolved yet. I would post a link but I think PCS have a rule about external links on the forum
Click to expand...
If it's an article on a hardware media site reporting news it's probably fine

If it's essentially endorsing or selling another product (or you were to be using it in that context) that's probably not fine

If you think it is likely ok feel free to post in this instance 🙂

Worst case, a mod removes the link
 
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TheNameIsJambo

Member
For those following this thread, Darbyjack has posted up his review!

Vortex IX (4K) Review

Hi all, I received my Vortex a week ago and would like to share my experience with it so far. I'm a chef and have been super busy with work lately, but so far managed to have a play with it a bit. This is a replacement for my previous PCSpecialist Defiance I laptop, purchased in 2015. I'll be...
www.pcspecialist.co.uk www.pcspecialist.co.uk
 
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