PC Specialist Inferno 11.6 inch Laptop review

The PC Specialist Inferno 11.6inch laptop has been designed by the company to deliver as much performance as possible within the confines of a tiny laptop chassis. It is the only 11.6 inch machine we have tested which incorporates a Quad Core i7 processor with hyperthreading.

Intel's Core i7-3630QM processor is unquestionably the star of the show and is normally seen installed inside larger 15 inch or 17 inch laptop systems. During testing we found this machine extremely responsive and capable of handling more serious duties, such as 3D rendering and video editing.

A final encoding time of just under 11 minutes for instance in our Media Espresso test is a new record for this market sector and obliterates any other sub 13 inch machine we have tested previously. Additionally, the responsive Solid State Drive ensures data bottlenecking is never a concern.

While gaming isn't this machines forte, the PC Specialist Inferno is capable of holding smooth frame rates at 720p with many titles and relatively high image quality settings, although we don't feel that a serious mobile gamer would be contemplating such a small system for full time gaming duties anyway.

The keyboard and touchpad are quite good, and we could happily use this machine for general office duties on the move, although as I am quite a large man I always have a problem dealing with small laptop keyboards. If you have experience of using a smaller laptop keyboard, then we see no problems with the PC Specialist Inferno.

Onboard sound is understandably weak, and a decent set of headphones or external speakers would be a prerequisite for fully enjoying a media experience.

The 11.6 inch 1366×768 panel has a matte covering and is bright enough to be used in most environments, although it won't be usable in direct sunlight. Viewing angles are distinctively average for this class, however PC Specialist are aiming to reach a wide audience, with a competitive asking price. Adding a state of the art IPS panel would raise end user costs.

The small size and fantastic processor power, does come with a caveat. The cooling fans have to work hard to maintain stable operating temperatures, and the undersize of the chassis can get very warm if the processor is highly stressed for long periods of time. This is the counterbalance with offering such a powerful Core i7 processor inside such a diminutive chassis.

The system we reviewed today is priced around the £650 inc vat mark which I think is fantastic value for money. You are not likely to find such a powerful, tiny laptop anywhere else right now at this price point. If you have always wanted to own a very small laptop, but didn't want to deal with low powered, feeble processing power then we feel that the pros of the PC Specialist Inferno far outweigh the cons.

You can buy this direct from PC Specialist, over here.

Pros:

• Fantastic processing power.
• excellent memory bandwidth.
• Very competitive price point.
• Decent keyboard.
• only 11.6 inches.
• SSD helps boost overall system responsiveness.
• 8GB of memory.
• stable.
• 3 USB ports.

Cons:

• Can get very warm.
• Clearly audible under load.

Kitguru says: In the sub 13 inch market, The PC Specialist Inferno is the clear performance king.

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