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The laptop doesn’t look like much at first glance. It doesn’t have a PC Specialist logo on the lid or below the screen, and the only lighting can be found beneath the keyboard.
The angled power button is surrounded by modest speaker grilles, and hot air is ejected through subtle vents at the rear of the unit. The entire system is made from plain black metal and plastic.
The Defiance isn’t as loud as some laptops – the Asus ROG Strix Scar GL703VW has more obvious logos, and its metal is coated with a carbon-fibre finish. The only real decoration is a row of branding stickers on the left-hand side of the wrist-rest, and we’d have them off as soon as we got the Defiance out of its box.
The PC Specialist pairs its underwhelming looks with solid build quality. There’s barely any give in the area around the keyboard, and the base panel is similarly sturdy. The screen feels a bit flimsier, but we tugged it back and forth and the desktop itself never distorted. Its thickness of 25mm is reasonable, too; many other 17.3in gaming laptops are much chunkier.
It’s a 3kg machine, though, so you’ll notice it when you’re carrying it around in a bag. And, as with any laptop, we’d always recommend using a protective sleeve to avoid scuffs or scratches. The size is similar to the Asus, which is only a few grams lighter.
This isn’t a machine that dabbles in decoration – instead, it concentrates on the practical aspects. It’s got four USB 3 ports and a USB 3.1 Type-C connection and two mini-DisplayPort outputs alongside an HDMI port – so plenty of scope for attaching a VR headset. It’s one of the only laptops we’ve seen with three audio jacks, and it’s got a card reader too.
It’s possible to get inside this machine, although it does require removing plenty of screws and tugging hard at the base panel.
Once it’s off, you can get to the storage, the memory slots, the battery and the cooling hardware, so it’s an easy laptop to manage and potentially upgrade.
The PC Specialist is subtle, solid and versatile when it comes to hardware, but there’s not much software. We’re used to seeing big-brand machines with apps to modify their lighting, clock speeds, networking and screen modes, but there’s none of that here.
Instead, you get PC Specialist’s Control Centre app, which handles the keyboard’s RGB LEDs and the machine’s fan controls – but that’s it.
Of course, some people may prefer to have a laptop that isn’t cluttered with extraneous applications, but that’s down to personal preference.
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