Cryo Mercia Laptop System Review

Entering the laptop sector is a tough step for any system builder, this market is dominated by companies such as Dell and Acer who offer competitively priced systems with good internal components.

Cryo however have the finger on the enthusiast pulse because you can immediately see the differences in the building ethic. For one, the Windows installation is kept totally clean without any crapware, bloatware and trialware preconfigured.

The first steps for myself are generally to spend an hour deinstalling garbage I don't want, or to work out an reinstall method after locating all the relevant drivers on the companies website. This initial phase for me is extremely frustrating and I would assume many enthusiasts feel the same. Cryo leave the system with only the barebones drivers installed and put faith into their customer base to have the intelligence to install their own security software and applications. We also liked the feel and size of the keyboard as it will suit people with big hands (like me).

In regards to productivity, the Core i5 540 processor is capable of handling the majority of tasks without issue, however I would not class this as a rendering powerhouse capable of replacing a high performance desktop system. Media encoding and general duties are easily accommodated, but multicore 3D duties prove to be a little too much for the relatively modest processor.

The Cryo Mercia is a gaming powerhouse and every engine we threw at it ran at the native resolution of the screen (1080p) without a problem. Thanks to the mobile HD5870 graphics all the settings can be pushed as high as they go and frame rates remain smooth as silk. With such a high quality screen, the gaming experience is really the best I have experienced on a mobile platform. I wasted a few hours this week just playing Mafia 2 on the Mercia, and this is a good sign.

We have mentioned to Cryo about the graphics card temperatures under load and they have told us they are going to try making a few tweaks to the system before release to try and improve the situation. No instability or artifacting occured during our testing, but we would prefer to see the graphics solution running at under 90c when fully loaded.

The Mercia ships with a 3,800 mAh battery which we feel is slightly underpowered, because on the move it is hard to get more than 70 minutes under tasking conditions. While the system is quiet even when under load, the air flow is massive as it sucks in cold air from two vents under the chassis while forcing it out the back. This can make gaming on the move rather uncomfortable and the two vents need plenty of space to cool the internal components properly. If you accidentally block them with your clothing then the system could very well become unstable.

Cryo have marketed the Mercia perfectly, it is a very competitively priced gaming system with one of the highest quality 1080p screens we have seen. There is very little backlighting bleed and the black depth for high definition movie material and gaming is first class. We rate this screen as one of the finest we have seen.

KitGuru says: Overall this machine comes highly recommended, Cryo have made a very bold first step into the market and this machine should sell like hot cakes, it deserves to do so.

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