1-Week Review

I received my R3 exactly 1 week ago, and I thought I would share my experiences thus far.

I'm a computer programmer, so I use computers all day every day. I use my R3 about 2 hours a day during the week, and I probably average 4 to 6 hours a day on the weekends.

My initial impression was 'wow'. It's a great looking machine. I installed the Heaven benchmark and was impressed with the FHD performance (dips into the 20s during certain busy sequences, but 35+ most of the time). I finished Portal 2, which looked and performed great with everything turned up, and just got to Flotsam and picked up a bunch of quests in Witcher 2, which runs very well at 'High' settings. I've had no issues with anything so far, with two exceptions:

1) Fired up Heaven one day to show to some colleagues here at work and the frame rate was markedly reduced. Averaged around 12 FPS. Rebooted the machine and everything was smooth again. Earlier in the day I had played around in Portal 2 and Witcher 2, so I'm thinking some setting for the GPU got 'left over'.

2) During the first Witcher 2 'comic book' memory sequence, the frame rate was atrocious. Slide-show bad. As soon as this sequence ended and the game went back to normal play-mode, everything was fine. The second 'comic-book' sequence ran normally. Sound was fine during both.

I took the laptop to a coffee shop and played Witcher 2 on battery, without changing any settings (6970M was the GPU). Started at 92% battery. Played for an hour, finished at 40% battery with an estimate of 30 minutes remaining.

I installed the M18 OSD update, but still get switched to the desktop from Witcher 2. Didn't notice this in Portal 2.

I have a Razer Orochi bluetooth gaming mouse that I purchased specifically to go with this laptop. It works great, though I do notice the quick powerdown of the mouse (maybe 1.5 seconds) when not tethered by the USB cable. The ever so slight lag when you move the mouse or click the button from the powered down state doesn't bother me. Twice, while at a coffee shop, the bluetooth mouse stopped functioning. I removed it as a bluetooth device and repaired it and it worked again, for a few minutes, before failing again. This has only happened 1 day. Every other day I've used it, I've had no problems. Don't know if it is a failure of the mouse or the laptop.

My longest play session was 5 continuous hours on Witcher 2, and I specifically checked the exhaust and bottom of the laptop during play to test for heat. It was warm, but I would not characterize it as hot (especially compared to my 3 year old XPS 15).

Haven't tested the speakers yet, as I always use headphones, which sound just fine to me.

I have NOT noticed any display dimness, dirtiness, or other abnormalities at all. I have NOT noticed any raised media bar issue, or keyboard flex. Keyboard is responsive and feels great, and typing is accurate no matter how fast I go.

I'd love to be able to turn off hyperthreading, but as near as I can tell (chime if please if you know different) you can't. Whether it's a 'feature' of this chip (2720QM) or something lacking in the BIOS I haven't uncovered yet.

I ordered a High Five M.A.S.K. from Slappa, which is scheduled to arrive on Thursday. I'll take photos and post them and/or do a review of how well it works with the R3, if anyone is interested. I've also got a Shaggymac ordered and that should arrive sometime this week (I hope).

So in summary, I love it! A couple of minor issues, but nothing out of the ordinary when compared with the other laptops I've used.

 

Yea the reduced performance thing is annoying. I don't sleep the computer any more because the clocks will get stuck at 400/900 maximum after waking up. Unplugging the computer may or may not cause my clocks to get stuck. Its just all really iffy. I just keep the thing chained to the wall and completely forgo gaming when I'm off the umbillical.

 

nice review! btw how much battery life do you get when your machine is idle or in use on IGP?

 

Glad you like your new toy(tool). Also, welcome to NBR if you're a new(er) member.

I wonder if there'll be a way in the future to un-throttle our computers so we can play at max power on battery.

 

I have the mask backpack as well, it's great. The laptop fits perfect in the main holder and I keep all my chargers and an xbox 360 controller as well as a 15" MacBookPro in the secondary zipper.

 

Probably for CPU only, GPU is impossible, the guys at a BIOS hacking forum for NiBiTor says the voltage values for the NVIDIA GPU (doesn't apply in your case) are NOT stored in the BIOS.

 

The longest I've used my R3 on battery when not gaming is about 2 hours. It was fully charged before I pulled the plug, and when I shut down it reported 65% remaining.

 

Battery saver mode?