LightningMat
Active member
Hi All
I received my new PCS Optimus II Laptop on Friday and after a weekend of setup, data transfer, configuration and testing (including some playing!), here is my initial review:
Spec As Ordered:
Chassis & Display
Optimus II: 17.3" Glossy Full HD LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Mobile Processor i7-2760QM (2.40GHz) 6MB
Memory (RAM)
8GB SAMSUNG 1333MHz SODIMM DDR3 MEMORY (2 x 4GB)
Graphics Card
nVIDIA® GeForce® GT 555M - 2GB DDR3 Video RAM - DirectX® 11
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
500GB WD SCORPIO BLACK WD5000BPKT, 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 COOLING MX-3 HIGH THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND (£9)
Sound Card
Intel 2 Channel High Definition Audio + MIC/Headphone Jack
Network Facilities
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
Upgrade to 62.16WH 6 Cell Lithium-ION Battery (£39)
Power Lead & Adaptor
1 x UK Power Lead & 90W Adaptor (GT 540M) / 120W Adaptor (GT 555M)
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)
Office Software
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Mouse
INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
Webcam
INTEGRATED 1.3 MEGAPIXEL WEBCAM
Surge Protection
6 Socket Compact 2M UFO Surge Protector (£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
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 5 to 7 working days
Quantity
1
Price: £976.00 including VAT and delivery.
Build Timescales:
Processed Date: 04-11-2011
Pre-Production Date: 08-11-2011
Build Date: 16-11-2011
Test Date: 17-11-2011
Awaiting Dispatch Date: 17-11-2011
Dispatch Date: 17-11-2011
A total of 9 Working Days from order placement to Dispatch
General Review:
Great screen. I was really tempted by the Matte screen option, but at an extra £69, I wasn’t sure, so in the end stuck with the standard glossy screen. I must say that this was a great decision, as I really cannot fault the standard glossy screen, and would whole-heartedly recommend it to anybody else. I have used this laptop in a number of locations with different lighting and I have not had any issues at all. The only time that I have noticed reflections is when the laptop has had a blank/black screen. I did also go for the 12 month dead pixel warranty for the extra peace of mind, but on initial inspection, all seems to be fine, with no dead pixels, dark spots or light spots.
Great looks, with the brushed texture look of the case - It has a general Matte look to it, and it does seem to be fairly fingerprint-resistant, which is useful. On very close inspection, there are minute metallic speckles in the case plastic which give off a very slight (almost unnoticeable) sparkle in certain light - but don’t let this put you off, like I say, this is almost unnoticeable, you can only see this if you look closely.
There is no outlandish branding and the couple of stickers that are stuck on below the keyboard can be easily removed if preferred.
Nice action to the keyboard, and the floating key style is really nice (although I think that the sound from the keys when typing does have a slightly cheap plasticky sound, but this really is nit-picking, and I am sure that most people wouldn’t even notice - In fact some people may actually like the sound, and it is far, far better than the horrible clicking sound you get with some cheaper laptop keys!).
The trackpad has a very slight texture to it - Coming from a totally smooth trackpad on my last laptop, I found this a little strange at first, but after just a couple of days I now actually really like it and prefer it to what I had before. To be clear, when I say a very slight texture, I do mean very slight, nothing at all like the horrible bumpy trackpad surface found on most Sony laptops.
This laptop is actually not too heavy (for a 17” laptop), certainly not as heavy as my last 17” laptop from Dell.
Performance:
This is a significant upgrade from my last laptop (which was 5 years old), so it will come as no surprise that my initial subjective view is that this laptop is significantly faster than that. With the i7-2760QM Processor, 2Gb GT555M GPU, 8Gb RAM and 7200rpm HDD, this laptop devours standard computing tasks with ease. Office applications run very quickly and Photoshop (which can demand a lot from a system, especially when working with large files) simply flies along. Multi-tasking with several applications is no problem at all.
I did also run a 3D Mark 06 benchmark just to see how it performed (although I did have to update the nVidia GT555M drivers due to a problem with the installed drivers - see details below), and it got a fairly respectable 10,750 points on the standard test. Whilst this is certainly not in the same league as many gaming PC’s, it shows a capability to run many games with decent settings.
nVidia GT555M driver issue:
With the standard build as supplied by PCS, I was encountering some terminal issues with the GPU drivers - On attempting to run 3D Mark and also whilst attempting to run several different games, the laptop would just completely die after a few seconds - I mean instantly switch off, no warnings or anything, just completely and instantly die. As you can imagine, this made my heart sink and my initial thoughts were that my laptop was going to have to be returned
… However, being somewhat PC savvy, my next thought was to check and update the drivers. Sure enough, there was an updated nVidia driver available for the GT555M - The Driver that was originally installed from PCS was dated May 2011 (I didn’t take note of the full details), the new driver is 285.62 WHQL, released 2011.10.24. I chose the completely fresh install option. This seems to have resolved the issue completely. HOWEVER, I do think that PCS need to be shipping their laptops with this new driver, as someone less technically inclined may not have had the wherewithal to go and update the drivers themselves, thus at the very least resulting in an avoidable support call into PCS.
Other points to note:
Firstly, let me clarify the following comments by saying that there is nothing here that is really that bad, but I am including these comments to try and give as full a review as possible…
One of the features that I was looking forward to, was having a distinct numeric keypad on the right hand side of the keyboard. However, what I didn’t realize (probably because I didn’t look at the pictures specifically to check) was that this has been rather ‘squeezed on’ - Not that it needed to be, as there is physically plenty of room on the chassis to accommodate a wider keyboard. What do I mean by ‘squeezed on’?... Well, there are no dedicated ‘Home’, ‘End’, ‘PgUp’ and ‘PgDn’ keys. These keys are actually shared keys on the numeric keypad, so in order to have these keys available in one press, you need to have numlock disabled (and therefore the numeric keypad disabled). Now, there is a semi-workaround, by using the ‘Fn’ key with the arrow keys for ‘Home’, ‘End’, ‘PgUp’ & ‘PgDn’ functions, but this is via a two-button combo to get these (e.g. Fn + Left Arrow for ‘Home’). This is a minor point, but irritating knowing that there would have been physically enough room for Clevo to fit dedicated keys in at the chassis design stage.
The CD drawer on my Optimus II doesn’t quite fit perfectly flush - It is out by about 1mm at the rear. The drive itself functions perfectly well, with no issues and it is not a great problem, but I can feel it if I run my finger along the side of the laptop and I can see it if I look at the CD drawer. This is certainly not an issue worthy of an RMA, but just not perfect build quality, which is a shame.
Track pad buttons can make a rather horrid loud ‘click’ sound - This is not uniform, either, and is worse if you press the button in the middle, whereas if you click the bottons on either edge, the ‘click’ is less pronounced. Again, this is more of a personal preference thing, and I am sure that some people will not even notice this, but I have noticed it, and whilst I will probably get used to it eventually, for now it is mildly irritating.
The Caps Lock, Num Lock, etc lights are on the front of the laptop (see pics on PCS website). These are near impossible to see in normal use as they are actually under your left arm when typing). This is a minor point, but just a strange design decision by Clevo - These would have been much better placed along the top next to the WiFi and HDD lights
There is no backlit keyboard option - If there had been an option, I would have chosen this without question. Backlit keyboards are becoming more and more common on laptops, and it would be really good if this were to become available as either an option or standard build on the Optimus II.
All-in-all, this Laptop has devoured anything I have thrown at it so far, and I can on balance whole-heartedly recommend a similarly spec’d Optimus II to anyone who might be considering one and I am happy to answer any questions for anybody that might be considering purchasing a similar model!
Thanks PCS! :rockon:
Cheers, LightningMat
I received my new PCS Optimus II Laptop on Friday and after a weekend of setup, data transfer, configuration and testing (including some playing!), here is my initial review:
Spec As Ordered:
Chassis & Display
Optimus II: 17.3" Glossy Full HD LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Mobile Processor i7-2760QM (2.40GHz) 6MB
Memory (RAM)
8GB SAMSUNG 1333MHz SODIMM DDR3 MEMORY (2 x 4GB)
Graphics Card
nVIDIA® GeForce® GT 555M - 2GB DDR3 Video RAM - DirectX® 11
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
500GB WD SCORPIO BLACK WD5000BPKT, 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 COOLING MX-3 HIGH THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND (£9)
Sound Card
Intel 2 Channel High Definition Audio + MIC/Headphone Jack
Network Facilities
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
Upgrade to 62.16WH 6 Cell Lithium-ION Battery (£39)
Power Lead & Adaptor
1 x UK Power Lead & 90W Adaptor (GT 540M) / 120W Adaptor (GT 555M)
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)
Office Software
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Mouse
INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
Webcam
INTEGRATED 1.3 MEGAPIXEL WEBCAM
Surge Protection
6 Socket Compact 2M UFO Surge Protector (£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
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 5 to 7 working days
Quantity
1
Price: £976.00 including VAT and delivery.
Build Timescales:
Processed Date: 04-11-2011
Pre-Production Date: 08-11-2011
Build Date: 16-11-2011
Test Date: 17-11-2011
Awaiting Dispatch Date: 17-11-2011
Dispatch Date: 17-11-2011
A total of 9 Working Days from order placement to Dispatch
General Review:
Great screen. I was really tempted by the Matte screen option, but at an extra £69, I wasn’t sure, so in the end stuck with the standard glossy screen. I must say that this was a great decision, as I really cannot fault the standard glossy screen, and would whole-heartedly recommend it to anybody else. I have used this laptop in a number of locations with different lighting and I have not had any issues at all. The only time that I have noticed reflections is when the laptop has had a blank/black screen. I did also go for the 12 month dead pixel warranty for the extra peace of mind, but on initial inspection, all seems to be fine, with no dead pixels, dark spots or light spots.
Great looks, with the brushed texture look of the case - It has a general Matte look to it, and it does seem to be fairly fingerprint-resistant, which is useful. On very close inspection, there are minute metallic speckles in the case plastic which give off a very slight (almost unnoticeable) sparkle in certain light - but don’t let this put you off, like I say, this is almost unnoticeable, you can only see this if you look closely.
There is no outlandish branding and the couple of stickers that are stuck on below the keyboard can be easily removed if preferred.
Nice action to the keyboard, and the floating key style is really nice (although I think that the sound from the keys when typing does have a slightly cheap plasticky sound, but this really is nit-picking, and I am sure that most people wouldn’t even notice - In fact some people may actually like the sound, and it is far, far better than the horrible clicking sound you get with some cheaper laptop keys!).
The trackpad has a very slight texture to it - Coming from a totally smooth trackpad on my last laptop, I found this a little strange at first, but after just a couple of days I now actually really like it and prefer it to what I had before. To be clear, when I say a very slight texture, I do mean very slight, nothing at all like the horrible bumpy trackpad surface found on most Sony laptops.
This laptop is actually not too heavy (for a 17” laptop), certainly not as heavy as my last 17” laptop from Dell.
Performance:
This is a significant upgrade from my last laptop (which was 5 years old), so it will come as no surprise that my initial subjective view is that this laptop is significantly faster than that. With the i7-2760QM Processor, 2Gb GT555M GPU, 8Gb RAM and 7200rpm HDD, this laptop devours standard computing tasks with ease. Office applications run very quickly and Photoshop (which can demand a lot from a system, especially when working with large files) simply flies along. Multi-tasking with several applications is no problem at all.
I did also run a 3D Mark 06 benchmark just to see how it performed (although I did have to update the nVidia GT555M drivers due to a problem with the installed drivers - see details below), and it got a fairly respectable 10,750 points on the standard test. Whilst this is certainly not in the same league as many gaming PC’s, it shows a capability to run many games with decent settings.
nVidia GT555M driver issue:
With the standard build as supplied by PCS, I was encountering some terminal issues with the GPU drivers - On attempting to run 3D Mark and also whilst attempting to run several different games, the laptop would just completely die after a few seconds - I mean instantly switch off, no warnings or anything, just completely and instantly die. As you can imagine, this made my heart sink and my initial thoughts were that my laptop was going to have to be returned
… However, being somewhat PC savvy, my next thought was to check and update the drivers. Sure enough, there was an updated nVidia driver available for the GT555M - The Driver that was originally installed from PCS was dated May 2011 (I didn’t take note of the full details), the new driver is 285.62 WHQL, released 2011.10.24. I chose the completely fresh install option. This seems to have resolved the issue completely. HOWEVER, I do think that PCS need to be shipping their laptops with this new driver, as someone less technically inclined may not have had the wherewithal to go and update the drivers themselves, thus at the very least resulting in an avoidable support call into PCS.Other points to note:
Firstly, let me clarify the following comments by saying that there is nothing here that is really that bad, but I am including these comments to try and give as full a review as possible…
One of the features that I was looking forward to, was having a distinct numeric keypad on the right hand side of the keyboard. However, what I didn’t realize (probably because I didn’t look at the pictures specifically to check) was that this has been rather ‘squeezed on’ - Not that it needed to be, as there is physically plenty of room on the chassis to accommodate a wider keyboard. What do I mean by ‘squeezed on’?... Well, there are no dedicated ‘Home’, ‘End’, ‘PgUp’ and ‘PgDn’ keys. These keys are actually shared keys on the numeric keypad, so in order to have these keys available in one press, you need to have numlock disabled (and therefore the numeric keypad disabled). Now, there is a semi-workaround, by using the ‘Fn’ key with the arrow keys for ‘Home’, ‘End’, ‘PgUp’ & ‘PgDn’ functions, but this is via a two-button combo to get these (e.g. Fn + Left Arrow for ‘Home’). This is a minor point, but irritating knowing that there would have been physically enough room for Clevo to fit dedicated keys in at the chassis design stage.
The CD drawer on my Optimus II doesn’t quite fit perfectly flush - It is out by about 1mm at the rear. The drive itself functions perfectly well, with no issues and it is not a great problem, but I can feel it if I run my finger along the side of the laptop and I can see it if I look at the CD drawer. This is certainly not an issue worthy of an RMA, but just not perfect build quality, which is a shame.
Track pad buttons can make a rather horrid loud ‘click’ sound - This is not uniform, either, and is worse if you press the button in the middle, whereas if you click the bottons on either edge, the ‘click’ is less pronounced. Again, this is more of a personal preference thing, and I am sure that some people will not even notice this, but I have noticed it, and whilst I will probably get used to it eventually, for now it is mildly irritating.
The Caps Lock, Num Lock, etc lights are on the front of the laptop (see pics on PCS website). These are near impossible to see in normal use as they are actually under your left arm when typing). This is a minor point, but just a strange design decision by Clevo - These would have been much better placed along the top next to the WiFi and HDD lights
There is no backlit keyboard option - If there had been an option, I would have chosen this without question. Backlit keyboards are becoming more and more common on laptops, and it would be really good if this were to become available as either an option or standard build on the Optimus II.
All-in-all, this Laptop has devoured anything I have thrown at it so far, and I can on balance whole-heartedly recommend a similarly spec’d Optimus II to anyone who might be considering one and I am happy to answer any questions for anybody that might be considering purchasing a similar model!
Thanks PCS! :rockon:
Cheers, LightningMat
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