I recently ordered the skyfire IV 14" from PC Specialist. There is a typo in the title of the thread. Here is my review.
I am happy to have found the pc-specialist website, as I am not interested in paying for a fancy brand, but rather for the quality of the components, and the flexibility for upgrading the system in a second moment. I needed a computer that can easily fit in a backpack, so upper limit for the screen size is 14". It should be able to support dual boot, for windows and linux. Under linux I needed to run calculations and test jobs before sending on a bigger cluster, and I needed to run programs like mathematica and matlab, which sometimes require large memory. I needed windows for two main reasons: editing videos of my biking adventures, and normal office stuff like giving presentations and writing documents etc. Balancing all my needs, I decided for a compact but powerful machine, scarifying a bit portability and battery life. Soon my choice was reduced between the skyfire IV 14" and the Optimus 13.3 models. From the point of view of the components that you can install, they look more or less equivalent. I prefer the skyfire IV 14" because I like much more its aesthetics, while the slightly better graphic card in the Optimus 13.3" was not so important. The alternative when choosing the portability among the offers of Pc specialist would have been the Sigma 13.3". The new ultrathin cassis that will enter in production next spring looks also pretty nice.
Here the list of my specifications:
Chassis & Display
SkyFire: 14" Matte Full HD LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Mobile Processor i7-4710MQ (2.50GHz) 6MB
Memory (RAM)
8GB KINGSTON HYPER-X IMPACT 1600MHz SODIMM DDR3 (1 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 850M - 2.0GB DDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 11
1st Hard Disk
2TB SERIAL ATA II 2.5" HARD DRIVE WITH 32MB CACHE (5,400rpm)
M.2 SSD Drive
120GB Kingston SSDNow mS200 mSATA (upto 550MB/sR | 520MB/sW)
Memory Card Reader
Integrated 2 in 1 Memory Card Reader (SD, MMC)
Thermal Paste
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND
Sound Card
Intel 2 Channel High Definition Audio + MIC/Headphone Jack
Wireless/Wired Networking
GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® AC-7260 (867Mbps, 802.11AC) + BLUETOOTH
USB Options
2 x USB 3.0 PORTS + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT AS STANDARD
Battery
SkyFire 14" Series 6 Cell Lithium Ion Battery
Power Cable
1 x European Power Lead & 90W AC Adaptor
Keyboard Language
INTEGRATED 11.6"/14" MSI UK KEYBOARD
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
Mouse
INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
Webcam
INTEGRATED 3.0 MEGAPIXEL WEBCAM
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery
2 DAY DELIVERY TO GERMANY (25 €)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 6 to 8 working days
Price (excluding VAT) 881,67 €
Price 1.058,00 €
Regarding the choice of the components, I preferred a quad core cpu rather than a dual core, for the video editing. If possible I would have installed the model i7-4712, but as this option was not given, I went for the i7-4710MQ, which has a bit higher clock but dissipates more. I do not think that higher cpu models would have been worthy the cost. 8GB of RAM for the moment are sufficient. It is good having the chance to upgrade up to 16GB at any time, if necessary. One very important thing was that I could combine a large storage (2TB) with a fast SSD mSATA drive for booting. For the moment I have have just 120GB, but the great thing is that in case of need, there is home for a second mSATA, which can be entirely dedicated to the second operating system. I could not find this possibility in the other branded pc which I have been checking, and I find it just great. About the graphic card, it looks like that the GeForce GTX 850M is not much worse than the GeForce GTX 860M. As for me graphics is not a priority, I am happy with the 850.
Regarding PC-specialist, the service is just great. It took eleven days from the order to be shipped, and three extra days to reach Germany. Meanwhile I was informed of each step and I could interact with the people. They also allow for amendments on the way. For example initially I thought that in the pc there was home also for an internal optical reader. When building the machine I was informed that there was no space for it, so I decided simply to not buy it and I was refunded on the cost. On the other side, the configurator page in the web site could be improved by excluding in automatic way the configurations that do not fit the machine. However I have to prize the flexibility and the accuracy of the service, and the quick response to the inquiries.
From the perspective of a windows user, everything works just perfectly. I asked to install a windows 7 professional 64 bit, as I already own a license for this operative system, and so they did. For a linux user perspective I was a bit concerned, but eventually almost everything worked fine. The system was already booting with BIOS, and not UEFI, so I had just to install the boot loader and ubuntu on the second partition of the SSD. I am not sure if this is the typical case, maybe the default installation with windows 8 comes firth the UEFI, which is not really linux friendly. For the moment the only graphic card installed under linux is the one integrated in the main board. Differently from windows, it looks like linux cannot switch them automatically according to the load.
This laptop is very nice looking, sturdy and light enough to be handled with a single hand. It can be also comfortably placed on the legs to work sitting in a train or somewhere else. The screen is just amazing, and I maximally enjoy the full HD resolution (I never had before). Keyboard has no backlight, but to me is not a big problem. The metal parts on the top collect quite easily fingerprints, which for some people can be annoying, but in my case is also not a big problem. If the plastic parts in the back would be replaced by metal, it would become also a very elegant device, but I am already very happy with its appearance. Also I like the fact that there is no brand on the cover: I love the simple black color. After a few days of normal usage (no computations, no games), and without any special tuning, I noticed that a full battery can power the pc for about 3-4 hours under windows, but barely 2 under linux. However it is known that linux performs worse under this aspect. The fan can be heard, but under normal load runs quite smoothly, and does not disturb me. Running the deshaker all eight cores ramp to full power, and the fan as well. However the noise is still within acceptable limits.
In conclusion, I can warmly recommend this pc. The performance is great for what I could see until now, as expected for the quality of the components. Both windows and linux work fine and all components are properly installed, with the exception of the graphic card under linux, but just because I did not have yet time to look for a proper solution. The only serious drawback is the battery life, but it is what you can expect for such powerful machine.
I am happy to have found the pc-specialist website, as I am not interested in paying for a fancy brand, but rather for the quality of the components, and the flexibility for upgrading the system in a second moment. I needed a computer that can easily fit in a backpack, so upper limit for the screen size is 14". It should be able to support dual boot, for windows and linux. Under linux I needed to run calculations and test jobs before sending on a bigger cluster, and I needed to run programs like mathematica and matlab, which sometimes require large memory. I needed windows for two main reasons: editing videos of my biking adventures, and normal office stuff like giving presentations and writing documents etc. Balancing all my needs, I decided for a compact but powerful machine, scarifying a bit portability and battery life. Soon my choice was reduced between the skyfire IV 14" and the Optimus 13.3 models. From the point of view of the components that you can install, they look more or less equivalent. I prefer the skyfire IV 14" because I like much more its aesthetics, while the slightly better graphic card in the Optimus 13.3" was not so important. The alternative when choosing the portability among the offers of Pc specialist would have been the Sigma 13.3". The new ultrathin cassis that will enter in production next spring looks also pretty nice.
Here the list of my specifications:
Chassis & Display
SkyFire: 14" Matte Full HD LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Mobile Processor i7-4710MQ (2.50GHz) 6MB
Memory (RAM)
8GB KINGSTON HYPER-X IMPACT 1600MHz SODIMM DDR3 (1 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 850M - 2.0GB DDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 11
1st Hard Disk
2TB SERIAL ATA II 2.5" HARD DRIVE WITH 32MB CACHE (5,400rpm)
M.2 SSD Drive
120GB Kingston SSDNow mS200 mSATA (upto 550MB/sR | 520MB/sW)
Memory Card Reader
Integrated 2 in 1 Memory Card Reader (SD, MMC)
Thermal Paste
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND
Sound Card
Intel 2 Channel High Definition Audio + MIC/Headphone Jack
Wireless/Wired Networking
GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® AC-7260 (867Mbps, 802.11AC) + BLUETOOTH
USB Options
2 x USB 3.0 PORTS + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT AS STANDARD
Battery
SkyFire 14" Series 6 Cell Lithium Ion Battery
Power Cable
1 x European Power Lead & 90W AC Adaptor
Keyboard Language
INTEGRATED 11.6"/14" MSI UK KEYBOARD
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
Mouse
INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
Webcam
INTEGRATED 3.0 MEGAPIXEL WEBCAM
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery
2 DAY DELIVERY TO GERMANY (25 €)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 6 to 8 working days
Price (excluding VAT) 881,67 €
Price 1.058,00 €
Regarding the choice of the components, I preferred a quad core cpu rather than a dual core, for the video editing. If possible I would have installed the model i7-4712, but as this option was not given, I went for the i7-4710MQ, which has a bit higher clock but dissipates more. I do not think that higher cpu models would have been worthy the cost. 8GB of RAM for the moment are sufficient. It is good having the chance to upgrade up to 16GB at any time, if necessary. One very important thing was that I could combine a large storage (2TB) with a fast SSD mSATA drive for booting. For the moment I have have just 120GB, but the great thing is that in case of need, there is home for a second mSATA, which can be entirely dedicated to the second operating system. I could not find this possibility in the other branded pc which I have been checking, and I find it just great. About the graphic card, it looks like that the GeForce GTX 850M is not much worse than the GeForce GTX 860M. As for me graphics is not a priority, I am happy with the 850.
Regarding PC-specialist, the service is just great. It took eleven days from the order to be shipped, and three extra days to reach Germany. Meanwhile I was informed of each step and I could interact with the people. They also allow for amendments on the way. For example initially I thought that in the pc there was home also for an internal optical reader. When building the machine I was informed that there was no space for it, so I decided simply to not buy it and I was refunded on the cost. On the other side, the configurator page in the web site could be improved by excluding in automatic way the configurations that do not fit the machine. However I have to prize the flexibility and the accuracy of the service, and the quick response to the inquiries.
From the perspective of a windows user, everything works just perfectly. I asked to install a windows 7 professional 64 bit, as I already own a license for this operative system, and so they did. For a linux user perspective I was a bit concerned, but eventually almost everything worked fine. The system was already booting with BIOS, and not UEFI, so I had just to install the boot loader and ubuntu on the second partition of the SSD. I am not sure if this is the typical case, maybe the default installation with windows 8 comes firth the UEFI, which is not really linux friendly. For the moment the only graphic card installed under linux is the one integrated in the main board. Differently from windows, it looks like linux cannot switch them automatically according to the load.
This laptop is very nice looking, sturdy and light enough to be handled with a single hand. It can be also comfortably placed on the legs to work sitting in a train or somewhere else. The screen is just amazing, and I maximally enjoy the full HD resolution (I never had before). Keyboard has no backlight, but to me is not a big problem. The metal parts on the top collect quite easily fingerprints, which for some people can be annoying, but in my case is also not a big problem. If the plastic parts in the back would be replaced by metal, it would become also a very elegant device, but I am already very happy with its appearance. Also I like the fact that there is no brand on the cover: I love the simple black color. After a few days of normal usage (no computations, no games), and without any special tuning, I noticed that a full battery can power the pc for about 3-4 hours under windows, but barely 2 under linux. However it is known that linux performs worse under this aspect. The fan can be heard, but under normal load runs quite smoothly, and does not disturb me. Running the deshaker all eight cores ramp to full power, and the fan as well. However the noise is still within acceptable limits.
In conclusion, I can warmly recommend this pc. The performance is great for what I could see until now, as expected for the quality of the components. Both windows and linux work fine and all components are properly installed, with the exception of the graphic card under linux, but just because I did not have yet time to look for a proper solution. The only serious drawback is the battery life, but it is what you can expect for such powerful machine.
Attachments
Last edited:
