You are browsing within the review sections of our forums. Content within these sections reflect consumer opinions of laptops. Our admins take the best and most objective laptop reviews and index them here to create a distinct selection of quality reviews with averaged overall ratings. Many of these reviews have benchmarks attached to them which allows for users to compare their laptop's performance with others, and ultimately enables us to provide a sortable list which at a glance show the fastest laptops amongst a variety of applications (gaming, video editing, web browsing, etc...). Help us build a better laptop database by submitting your laptop review.

Back in May, OCZ Technology introduced a new idea that could pave the way for a whole new outlook on notebook customization and notebook gaming. OCZ is asking customers, “how often have you tried to configure a notebook through a vendor but it still isn’t exactly how you want it?” Introducing the OCZ ‘Do It Yourself’ Gaming Notebook kit. OCZ will provide you with the core elements of a notebook and it is up to the consumer to hand pick CPU, RAM, hard drive and Operating System to customize the notebook exactly how you want it.

When comparing the cost of 15 inch gaming notebooks across the web, consumers will find that it can get pricey. Alienware offers a 15 inch gaming notebook with an nVidia 8800 M card starting at $1499, Hypersonic’s Aviator SR5 starts at $1,599 and Sager’s NP6690 begins around $1,200. Add a three year warranty to each of those notebooks and watch the price jump respectively to; $1799, $1903 and $1405, and we haven’t even touch any of the hardware inside yet. With OCZ’s DIY kit, most of the components you purchase will come with 3 year warranties, making it very easy to swap out hardware for replacement without having to send in your whole notebook for repair. But is the notebook kit worth the hassle?

What’s in the Box:

Opening the box, you’ll find the OCZ DIY Notebook kit comes with the notebook chassis which includes the following hardware as well as a very detailed How-To Guide for building your notebook. This makes installing your components which include your hard drive, CPU, GPU and wireless card quick and easy; total install time ~15-20 minutes.

15.4” WXGA+ Display w/ Glossy Finish
Intel® PM965 Chipset + ICH8M
NVIDIA® GeForce 8600M GT with 512 MB DDR2 Video Memory
PCI-Express 16X
8X DVD±R/RW + 4x Dual Layer Combo drive
Built-in HD Audio Codec
3D Surround sound
Integrated Touchpad
A4 Sized Keyboard
1 Lithium-Ion Battery (9 Cell)

MSRP:
Total: $730.99 via Buy.com
Total: $699.99 via ZipZoomFly

The hardware I chose to build the notebook:

Intel T7700: $319
120GB 7200rpm Hard Drive: $64.99
2 GB DDR2 RAM $77.00
Wireless Card: $15

Sub Total: $475.99

Grand Total: $1175.99

Right away, you can see the savings in building a notebook yourself rather than configuring one through a vendor or any of the notebooks listed above.



Advantages:

How does the OCZ DIY kit help you? Well picking your own components definitely has its benefits. The first and obvious benefit is you no longer need to pay for features you will never need. Never use wifi? Don’t bother ordering a wireless card. Don’t need that expensive fast hard drive? Buy a smaller cheaper hard drive. The same thought process can be applied to the CPU and RAM. Customers can determine exactly how much they want to spend by hand selecting the components.

Most CPUs will come with a standard three year warranty instead of the standard 1 year warranty that usually comes with pre-build notebooks. Another advantage is the extra warranty on components.

Disadvantages:

Troubleshooting your notebook if you do not install the components right is entirely on the customer. There are support forums on OCZ's website that offer a great deal of support to determine what problem. But the install process is so simple, and the components snap into place so easy, customers should only need the helpful HOW TO guide that is shipped with the Kit.

Design

For a Do it Yourself kit, OCZ did a pretty good job of making this notebook appealing to the eye. The entire notebook is a deep black and the lid has a glossy coat with OCZ’s emblem in the center which looks very professional. There are no latches to close the lid, but the lid is held together tightly. The only weakness in the notebook’s build is the area directly above the keyboard. This is part of the assembly of the notebook but there is some major flex when pressing the power button or any of the multimedia buttons The rest of the notebook feels strong and solid.



Screen:

For this 15 inch notebook, the maximum resolution you can set is 1440 x 900. This could be a problem for avid games who want a high resolution, but the screen still looks phenomenal. There were no dead pixels when turning the notebook on and no visible light leakage. The viewing angle as you can see below, is not very good when leaning the monitor down or closing it slightly.



This model contains the 15.4" WXGA (1440x900) Glossy Screen. Like most laptops today the screen has eight levels of brightness settings that can be adjusted using the function key (FN) + the F8 key to lower the brightness and F7 key to raise it.


Keyboard

Surprisingly there is no keyboard flex. When flex was noticed above the keyboard, naturally the first thought was that the keyboard will also contain some flex, but there none. The keyboard feels strong and has a quiet tapping sound that is very pleasant. Characters are marked white while the keys themselves are black to match the design of the notebook. Function keys are blue and there is not a number pad directly available, but there is a number pad built into the main keyboard via the function button.

The keyboard also comes with a range of useful function keys; Pressing Fn + the F1 will put the notebook in sleep mode, F2 toggles the wifi (if there is a wifi card present), F3 will toggle the notebook’s output ports, F4 and F5 will lower and rise the notebook’s LCD brightness respectively, F6 will mute the sound, F7 and F8 decrease and increase the sound volume respectively F9 will play/pause a DVD or CD, F10 will stop a DVD or CD, F11 will rewind/previous track of a DVD or CD, F12 will fast forward/next track of a DVD or CD, [b]Num Lk/b] will activate the Scroll Lock, Ins is also Print Screen and Del is also SysRq. There is also a number pad built into the letters U, I, O, P, J, K, L, and M.



Touchpad

The touchpad is not the greatest. The texture is extremely smooth and not very satisfying. Even with the sensitivity turned up to max, it still take two or three swipes to make it form the left side of the screen to the right. Add in the fact that there is no scroll bar makes this touchpad is very unrewarding.

Features:

Security Module

If you are the type of person to worry about unauthorized people accessing the data on your notebook, the OCZ DIY Kit has a great security feature that will protect your data from people you do not want accessing it. The security feature is the fingerprint reader module. This allows users to scan their fingerprints into the computer so they are the only ones with access. This feature is perfect for college students who do not want to trust their roommates in the same room with their precious notebook, or employees of a corporation who would like to hide sensitive data from other employees. The reasons to have this feature are infinite, but it is an extremely solid security solution. You can also use the fingerprint reader to access your e-mail or other application based passwords.

Setting up your fingerprint access is extremely easy. Swipe your finger once on the reader, and a prompt will walk you through the short instruction process. The accuracy and the technology in fingerprint reading is so advanced these days, that your actual fingerprint will show up on the screen as you set up your own access.



Multimedia Keys –

There are five touch sensitive buttons above the keyboard on the flimsy piece of plastic. The first button will launch your default web browser, the second will launch Microsoft Outlook or Microsoft Windows Mail depending on whether or not you have XP installed or Vista. The third multimedia key is labeled Wow Video and when pressed, changes the style and colors of the LCD screen to different themes that include, Office, Photo, Theater, Normal and User Defined. The next multimedia key is labeled WoW Audio, which does not appear to do anything. The last multimedia key is a mute key for the sound.



There are also two buttons to the left of the keyboard. One is marked with an S and the other is marked with the USB symbol. The first button is used for Smart Charging, which I’m guessing allows the notebook to be charged in a charging station for monitoring the battery so that “charging is at the optimum rate”, but I cannot find an explanation for using this. The second button can be VERY useful as it is a Power USB button, which allows the use of the USB ports for power when the computer is in an OFF state.



LEDS -

There are three LEDs on the very front of the notebook. The first LED is the standard power LED, letting users know if the notebook is on or off. The second LED is a battery LED which lets the user know if the battery is being used. If the LED is on, the notebook is running on AC Power, if the LED if off, the notebook is running on battery power. The third and last LED lets users know if they are connected to wifi. The LED will be flashing if they are connected to a wifi network, and if the LED is off, users are not connected to a wifi network.



Speakers

Although the notebook does not come with a subwoofer, the speaker quality is clear. Watching youtube or gametrailers is very satisfying and there is no buzzing, whining or other anomalies detected.



Input and Output Ports-

Front: The front of the notebook contains three LEDs, an ON/OFF switch to enable/disable wifi and two speakers, left and right. There is also a finger print reader to the right of the touchpad and a 2.0 Mega Pixel webcam built into the top of the LCD screen.



Webcam Pictures

The pictures from the webcam are just as good as the pictures you can take on your cell phone. Very good quality.





Right Side: The right side contains the optical CD/DVD drive, two USB ports and the AC Power connection.



Left Side: The left side contains a VGA port, RJ-45 LAN jack, RJ-11 Modem jack, S-video port, two USB ports, IEEE-1394a firewire port, two audio jacks for headphones and microphone, an Express Card 34/54 Slot and a 4-in-1 Card Reader (MS/MS Pro/SD/MMC).



Rear: On the back of the notebook there is a Kensington Lock, battery and exhaust fan.



Bottom: The bottom of the notebook has access to installing all the major components which include, RAM, Hard Drive, CPU and GPU. The installation process was extremely easy and instructions are clearly printed on the manual that is included with the system. Install time takes about 15-20 minutes for all components.




Size and Weight

Rated: 15.4" WUXGA 14.75" (w) x 11.25" (d) x 1.7" (h) and 7 lbs
Actual: Weight: 6.9 lbs

Heat and Noise

TBA

Battery Life

The two following battery tests were taken on the assigned brightness level. The test runs until the battery reaches 10%, which is the stock setting in which the notebook will notify a user with a low battery warning.

1/8 [Vista Power Saver Management]– 190 minutes (web surfing, trailer watching, youtube)
8/8 [Vista Balanced Power Management]– 154 minutes (web surfing, trailer watching, youtube)

Synthetic/Gaming Benchmarks

Here is a list of tested synthetic and gaming benchmarks. All results are with stock hardware settings.


The 3Dmark Benchmarks are the most common benchmarks used to determine if the notebook is configured to play the latest games. More specifically, it is used to determine the direct X performance of the graphics cards. The higher the score, the more suited your notebook is to playing games. The number behind the 3dMark Benchmark (3dmark2001, 3dmark03 etc) is related to the year the test relates to technology, which is why the 2001 scores are always significantly higher than the 06 scores. You can compare the scores of this notebook to other notebooks by going here.


Super Pi calculates Pi to a certain amount of digits you prescribe, and the faster it does it, the better your notebook performs. For all my tests using Super Pi I calculate to 2 million digits of accuracy.



Pros:
Screen – cost!
Screen – no dead pixels, sharp and bright
Battery Life– over 2 hours on balanced power mode and over 3 on power saver!
Performance – Solid performance in most games
Keyboard - Comfortable, easy access multimedia keys and function keys
Useful Features – Very awesome smart charge / USB access while notebook is OFF

Cons:
Touchpad – Can have improved texture, acceleration, no scroll pad
Missing Options – no HDMI port, no eSATA, no high res screen
Build Quality – Lots of flex on the strip above the keyboard

Conclusion:

“This kit is so easy anyone can do it” Its true, if you can screw in a screw and plop down a chip, you can build this kit extremely fast with an install time between 15 and 20 minutes. A lot of people will enjoy the fact that they are putting together this notebook themselves and will carefully oversee the entire project. Other people who are interested in the kit are happy they are saving a lot of money picking the components they want.

As mentioned, the OCZ DIY Gaming Notebook Kit is a brilliant idea, but it is not quite there yet. A lot of notebook enthusiasts will probably also want the latest technology with their notebook. There is no HDMI port option included, eSATA port or higher resolution screen . If the OCZ DIY Kit remains to be a hot item OCZ will probably offer these features later as well as a 17 inch screen and upgraded hardware like an nVidia 8800M. Once these options are available, OCZ’s ‘Do It Yourself’ line will pretty much be complete. Great idea OCZ!

Editor's Note:
It seems OCZ added the 17 inch DIY To their website this week. For more information, head to their site here.

Wow real nice, Hows the shipping costs and times? Anyone know by chance?
And how do you contact lol, sorry I'm newb :P

It depends on where you buy it from.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...&Tpk=OCZ%20DIY

You want to contact OCZ?

http://www.ocztechnology.com/products/diy_notebooks/

Thanks for the fast responses , hmm I heard the 8600 Graphics cards have been discontinued , I wonder how this will influence this laptop...

Am I the only one who finds it ridiculous that they wanted to make a DIY laptop geared for gamers because 'even with a custom configuration, you don't always have all the options you want' (loosely quoted) yet they don't give you any options for selecting your own GPU, which should be the component that most concerns gamers?

Yes. This is a taste of things to come.

added webcam pics

Will you be reviewing the 17" Whitebook?

One of the OCZ Reps mentioned this to me. I'd love to review it.

Keep us informed!

Dang I just checked this thread out.

Now we just need some video card companies to jump on this bandwagon too and start making video cards that will fit the form factor OCZ is using.