Disclaimer: I am NOT affiliated with ILLEGEAR in any way or circumstances to do this review.
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About
Been using ILLEGEAR RE-15 for more than 2 weeks.
Animation student. Gaming is a plus.

Tech Spec

Hyundai Metallic Crystal White with Automotive Clear Coat

15.6" LG Phillips Full HD LED-Backlit Matte Display (1920 x 1080)

Intel® Core™ i7-4700MQ (6MB L3 Cache, 2.40GHz)

Nvidia GeForce GTX 765M 2GB GDDR5

IC Diamond Thermal Compound - CPU & GPU

8GB Dual Channel DDR3 RAM 1600MHz - 2 X 4GB Team-Elite 1600 RAM

500GB 5400rpm Western Digital Scorpio Blue Hard Drive

DVD-R/RW DL Combo Optical Drive

Realtek RTL8723AE - WLAN & Bluetooth 4.0 Combo

8-cell ion battery

2.7 kg


Price:RM 3817 (Without OS)



Unboxing "THE BOX"



It was a huge box and it seriously got me real excited when i frist picked it up.

The insides


Drivers disc and AC adapter ( smaller and lighter now)


The "Beast"


As usual, equipped with the standard ports, 2 usb 3.0 ports (marked with blue) 1 usb 2.0 , HDMI , e-sata Usb , LAN port ,SD Card Reader , Sound jack (microphone, headphone, speaker) and a lock.



The nice automotive lid.
Touching it just makes up for the quality.







LG Screen and the standard chiclet keyboard.
Keyboard quality is excellent once you get used to it. Build quality is decently good.
The LG screen has excellent contrast for it's price too, see in the next sections.

The laptop is mostly plastic but gives a quality feel with a plated base on top.

The onkyo speakers are decent but a lot people might not like it due to it's trebly sound (which is excellent quality for piano/classic music), can be improved with soundblaster cinema either way, get a subwoober or a headset.

VGA/OPTIMUS mode buttons.
Flight Mode switches ( disables WLAN) quite convenient.

Indicators (4th indicator to the right)
Orange : on Nvidia GPU
Green: On integrated GPU

The weight is standard for most 15.6 laptops. Considered light for it packed performance inside. And anyway, the bulkiness show just how good the ventilation is compared to other laptops

I carry it to college sometimes and it's a bit heavy but bearable coz i carried a 4kg laptop before previously. Most of the time i use it as a desktop at home.
The portability is there and the desktop replacement feature is there.
The RE-15 balances between desktop and mobility.
Get RE-17 for desktop replacements.

PLease dO nOt QQ about Ultrabooks VS this. There is absolutely no relation between RE-15 vs a SIMILAR SIZED ultrabook. You can't compare them. And you will never will. Ultrabooks are ultrabooks.


This post has been edited by johuru93: Oct 6 2013, 10:33 PM

The back Vent. This is the main thing that keeps the laptop cool. (Fan and Heatsink)

Temperature are very obvious at high load in these areas : vent, speakers area.
The keyboard and palm rest and touch pad are mostly minor and not really hot ( below 40~ (30-40)

GAMING



On power supply 100% brightness high performance battery mode

<--- This is with Crysis 3 in the background

Some tech info

Crysis 3
Low AA ALL ULTRA FHD 1920X1080. above 30fps


Devil May Cry 60fps and above Super Smooth perfect.
ULTRA everything other thing MAXED out! FHD 1920X1080



This post has been edited by johuru93: Jul 8 2013, 09:12 PM

UNDER CONSTRUCTION
Tomb Raider
All Ultra FHD 1980X1080 AA disabled Texture filter 1x anisotropic only


THE VERDICT

Let's get back on track shall we.

Price: You pay for what you get and its fair. You want corsair vengence, go get it, You want an extra SSD, get it. Fully customizable to meet your demands and giving adequate price that fits your specification. This baby gives you the best bangs for bucks. Of course, there are competitors such as Lenovo, MSI, Asus, and Alienware or others that may offer better specification for better price, but you must consider several important factors such as cooling or maintainence friendly or warranty issues or even updatability.

Design: As i said, it's a bit bulky and may be unattractive for some people and thankfully the automobile lid saves this point. Keyboard design is actually interesting. To sum it up, it's not a great looking machine like alienware but it's decent. What matters is the inside. Weight wise is standard, don't ask for more cause the cooling system will suffer.

Quality: For most notebooks at this price range, you'd expect the quality to be just decent but The barebones W350STQ has improved from it's predecessors by reducing the plastic in the design.

Sound: IS okay but may be UN-toleratable for some people who can't stand trebles. Instal the Sound blaster Cinema to give it more bass to improve it. Though there are better quality speakers around for this budget. exp MSI ge60/ge40 Asus N/A

Battery Life : 3~ hours surfing or normal load ~ As predicted, it's pretty standard for a 8 cell ion battery on a 15.6 inc screen (4700MQ is on 47TDP unless you ordered 4702 MQ 37TDP then you make a significant difference). i believe it can stay up to 5 hours on power saver and minimal activity. Actually battery life doesn't really matter here, we're talking about powerhouse , most likely you will stay plugged mostly. Gaming will only last an hour. Other activities like hd videos will be around 2-3 hours.


Performance: Nothing to argue here. There is nothing that compares to this beast in performance. Cooling, benchmarks are all excellent even at base specs. Customize it to the MAX and it's perfect.


FULL Detailed review here (same barebone W350STQ/W350ST) :

In conclusion,
I will recommend people to consider illegear, though it's still uncommon and relatively new in the market, ( i've just started )-----We'll see how it goes, so far so good and i'm building my trust with illegear slowly monitoring closely if there's anything wrong.

UPDATE:
-Used + Gaming/Work/Rendering almost everyday for 1 1/2 yr++ (since june 2013) and still perfectly fine.

-No problems.

-Added new Samsung 840 evo SSD easy upgrade to the extra sata port/

- Replaced WD 500gb Blue with Hitachi 7200 rpm 1T drive for faster and more storage.

-RAM ok. GPU ok. CPU ok so far.

- CLEANED THE 4000RPM FAN.

This post has been edited by johuru93: Dec 30 2014, 10:52 AM

Just wanna ask, on the pictures that you've uploaded (6th I think) why is there Windows XP displayed ? Correct me if I'm wrong or mistaken (maybe a different boot or something). Just curious because the next few pictures it displayed other version of Windows. O_O.

Initially i tested installing win xp pro sp3 with it.
But all drivers as of now are not compatible win xp anymore.
Just for research.
For the upcoming models if i'm not wrong , driver disc will only contain sp win 8 ( no win7 anymore)

Photos abit too large bro, might want to "spoiler" them ya

I see I see, so was it fast while running on XP SP3 ? XD

Btw, thanks for the speedy reply, cleared my confusion XD

Of course it was fast lols. Win xp doesn't sp all the drivers lols.
Nothing to run

We provide Windows 7 drivers DVD if customers purchase Windows 7 from us

By the way, thanks for the detailed (photos) review

Np welcome XD. I'm a fan of ILLEGEAR now.
Will continue to monitor closely if there's any problem.

sPOIlere'd a few

Thanks mate
My internet super slow haha, had problems when the photos are large
Just finished reading, nicely written, simple and straight, just the way I like it haha~
Though I have to say that most gaming notebooks are powered with premium speakers nowadays, and most are really good.
I'm not really sure about Onkyo, they don't seem to be very popular (at least I've never really heard of them until the recent ones in budget Toshiba and Fujitsu units)

good spec, but chasis design abit like dell vostro 5460 xD

Really ? Wow, yea. quite close lols

Yea, gotta say comparatively other gaming notebooks have better speakers. Either way, it's a trade off, maybe the RS or RX series with subwoober might beat the cake.

looks amazing!!! hope someday soon i'll be a proud owner of a re-15 as well.

does RE-15 has backlit keyboard ?

the answer is no except RS and RX.

Nice review you have there, well done bro

Hopefully we need more illegear users to start a community.

Thanks bro , will try to stay updated with illegear.

Hello there my fellow re-15 owner, great review buddy...

Nah, yours is more detailed

Wow, nice bro!

Noob double post.

This post has been edited by Cranky guy: Jul 9 2013, 04:26 PM

Lols, illegear thread users visiting me
Thanks lols. I'm glad to be part of the illegear community.

Planning to get the RE-15 by December 2013..Gotta save up for this beauty..

Then you might have a chance to get better deals or discounts. Illegear do have promotion sometimes.

Nice one. Was always eyeing on it but cannot decide whether i want go ultrabook road or the performance laptop road.

Still struggling to decide.

Depend on your style. For most users ultrabook is enough. You can't have lightness and performance at once.
You he to choose, but if you just wanna game like dota/ rts stuffs at max, ultrabooks with gt750m should do.
But you have to consider lightness + thinness vs cooling system. Maintenance is also a factor especially for DIY people like me if i wanna open it up or repair it myself after my warranty expires.

Most of my work will be on photography anyway, and the most i used is Lightroom and others. Always want a I7 for it since the processing time is really speedup, but when u paid so much, sometimes u will think of running some games on it.

Well, Razer Blade can fit your requirement of both ultrabook mobility and gaming performance.

hello, illegear user. im planning to get my RS-17 at next year's hari raya.

For photography work, an accurate, high resolutioned screen, RAM, CPU and SSD are the most important components that you need. Having a good, optimized GPU will also help in smoothening out your workflow though it is not entirely compulsory
All these means that ultrabooks are not suitable for photography work, unless if you are willing to compromise on performance

The RE-15 and also the upcoming 13" Illegear (though might be a bit small for some people), are great machines for photography work when you opt for the right configurations

Next year maybe not called RS-17 anymore haha

the screen kill the purpose for using to edit photos.

It's a shame for Razer to put a TN panel not a IPS in such an expensive laptop

Aha

Setting a target is indeed important! Mine is before Oct

Eh none of you guys with GTX765 done any test for Battlefield 3?

*curious*

I haven't set any target yet
tempted though ~~

Hoping to get mine before end of the year.

Wohoo, Hail ILLEGEAR community soon!!!!

haha i wait i finish my final
my mom will buy for me hope so
still struggle on desktop or laptop XD

Looks like more and more people are getting into Illegear poisonous

After reading reviews for the Clevo W350ST, it seems fan noise is a big issue. Do you find it very problematic, especially when you do office work?

It's only audible at MAX load. So wear headsets/ max out the speakers. Office work is minor.

perhaps. wait Prince J to announce 1st.

I doubt it will be louder than the one in an M14x Its essentially a hairdryer already, can really use to dry hair
Still, I would prefer the fan to be noisy as hell to keep temps in check rather than a quiet one that's only for decorative purpose

Yeah haha
Illegear deserves it what since its the only brand that listened to what the customers wanted i.e. local warranty support, then on-site support, aesthetics upgrade

This is their selling point
I hope more people realize about this.
I have consulted them and Q/A them , they are very open and friendly, you can customize anything.

This post has been edited by johuru93: Jul 12 2013, 07:29 PM

So I've heard
I hope if got chance in the future maybe then can teach me how to open up the notebook and do self-maintenance myself

the fan only loud if u playing games, if do office word,etc sure not that load, unless u are in small and no aircond room, but i tell u sager/illegear fan really work like a charm, the fan is REAL unlike alienware m14x, fan loud as jet but still hot at palm area.

Your M14x's palm area still hot after switching to SSD?

when use intense game, palm area warm abit, my previous sager not even warm

Well, one of the banes of a 14" profile I guess haha~
I'm looking forward to a 15 incher for my next notebook

ya, bigger is better, but my previous sager 15.6'' and got 2 fan @.@ that is good old moment

glad review and decent laptop you have there!

Hey there bro, long time no see! You still holding on to that R-11?

Thanks
I had tight budgets but the choice was solid.

Yes, bro, it's the smallest form factor gaming laptop which I'm happy with and carry around with

It's good that you are happy with your purchase, I do see no regrets on getting sager/clevo/illegear laptop

I just hope it last long. One of the main reasons i bought it it to have a long lasting companion.
Anyways, how well is your illegear laptop now?
I 'd like to see illegear users status on their machines right now. It keeps me convinced.
It's my first time owning a gaming grade laptop.
So far i've never owned anything above 3k.

This post has been edited by johuru93: Jul 15 2013, 08:15 PM

How is your laptop doing now?

Hello! Is your Illegear still doing good?

hehe
good question
XD

Illegear Z5.... any reviews?