I took delivery of my new Vortex II 17" laptop on Monday 16th May 2011. Ordered it on the 27th April. It was built pretty quickly considering all the Bank Holidays and whatnot. Very, very happy with the level of customer service so far. I honestly believe PC Specialist are way out in front with the tools and systems they have for their customers. Never experienced anything like it from other vendors!
Specs:
Vortex II 17" Laptop
2.5 GHz i7 2920XM Processor
16GB 1333Mhz RAM
GTX 460 1.5GB GFX
2 X 500GB Scorpio Black HDD striped to RAID0
Sony Blu Ray ROM / DVD writer
I bought this to replace an i7-740qm Vaio I had bought about 6 months ago. I'm an animator and visual effects artist and really needed the best mobile workstation I could afford. Needless to say, I went through all the usual vendors to find the latest Sandy Bridge laptop but none could sell me exactly the spec I required. Those that could were at a silly cost premium and/or came with features I didn't really didn't need (glowing lights, 3D displays etc.) Just try adding the 2920XM processor to any of their configurators and watch the price go through the roof.
Anyway, The Vortex II is a beast of a machine and I would thoroughly recommend it if you are after a serious creative tool with real power rather than an overpriced fashion accessory
The performance is insane compared to my old 740qm. Cinema 4D, After Effects, Photoshop all fly with this. So much more responsive.
Can't say I'm overly enamoured with the looks of the chassis. It's very solid and has everything you need including USB 3.0, HDMI, eSATA but it is a big, bulky slab of hardware! I've nicknamed it "The Monolith"
The PSU is about the size and weight of a house brick. What you'd expect to drive this amount of power though.
The isolated keyboard is solid with NO flex but the numeric pad layout is a bit odd. Touchpad is lovely with a great textured finish. Fingerprint reader works well. The included software that drives the hotkeys is so ugly though. I wish there was a different version so I didn't have to cringe every time I change the volume or brightness.
Sound is pretty good and definitely a cut above most laptops. Cant believe this thing has 5 speakers! The maximum volume could be a little louder.
Display is sharp, clear and bright but in no way colour accurate. White point is shifted to blue a lot. OK for me though because I use a separate calibrated display and you can fiddle around calibrating the colour in Windows 7 if you like.
All in all very happy. Not a particularly pretty or slick laptop but certainly the fastest money can buy.
Specs:
Vortex II 17" Laptop
2.5 GHz i7 2920XM Processor
16GB 1333Mhz RAM
GTX 460 1.5GB GFX
2 X 500GB Scorpio Black HDD striped to RAID0
Sony Blu Ray ROM / DVD writer
I bought this to replace an i7-740qm Vaio I had bought about 6 months ago. I'm an animator and visual effects artist and really needed the best mobile workstation I could afford. Needless to say, I went through all the usual vendors to find the latest Sandy Bridge laptop but none could sell me exactly the spec I required. Those that could were at a silly cost premium and/or came with features I didn't really didn't need (glowing lights, 3D displays etc.) Just try adding the 2920XM processor to any of their configurators and watch the price go through the roof.
Anyway, The Vortex II is a beast of a machine and I would thoroughly recommend it if you are after a serious creative tool with real power rather than an overpriced fashion accessory
The performance is insane compared to my old 740qm. Cinema 4D, After Effects, Photoshop all fly with this. So much more responsive.
Can't say I'm overly enamoured with the looks of the chassis. It's very solid and has everything you need including USB 3.0, HDMI, eSATA but it is a big, bulky slab of hardware! I've nicknamed it "The Monolith"
The PSU is about the size and weight of a house brick. What you'd expect to drive this amount of power though.
The isolated keyboard is solid with NO flex but the numeric pad layout is a bit odd. Touchpad is lovely with a great textured finish. Fingerprint reader works well. The included software that drives the hotkeys is so ugly though. I wish there was a different version so I didn't have to cringe every time I change the volume or brightness.
Sound is pretty good and definitely a cut above most laptops. Cant believe this thing has 5 speakers! The maximum volume could be a little louder.
Display is sharp, clear and bright but in no way colour accurate. White point is shifted to blue a lot. OK for me though because I use a separate calibrated display and you can fiddle around calibrating the colour in Windows 7 if you like.
All in all very happy. Not a particularly pretty or slick laptop but certainly the fastest money can buy.
