Thetownend.com

Alreet, I'm getting a new lappy and am liking the looks of these: http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/

Anyone got experience with them? Seem to be pretty reliable but the more you know etc. etc.

Looking at:
Cosmos II chassis
i7-4700mq
4GB ram(got another 2GB DDR3 card hanging around, so will have 6GB total)
GT 750m graphics card
750GB 7200rpm HDD (
Silver Warranty (3 years labour, 1 year Collect and return, 1 year parts)
=£570

Umming and ahhing about two things: whether I should shell out the £9 for Arctic mx-4 thermal paste (does it make a noticeable difference?), and whether I should switch the 7200rpm drive for a 500GB hybrid SSHD for another £4 (not having had a go with Solid state or hybrid drives before, I have no idea if it's any better than a 7200rpm conventional).

No OS as I plan to dual boot ubuntu and Windows 7.

Thoughts appreciated.

Bought both daughters and the mrs a lappy each from there last november

All have been in use constantly and have only had one issue with one - HDD went tits up
Was picked up by courier and back to me in less than week from raising the issue

Arctic paste is worth the extra IMHO, all depends on how you intend to use it I guess. Girls have theirs on all day at times and no overheating problems even while game playing.
I went for the hybrid drives and deffo seem to start up quicker/run quieter
May just be my imagination tho  :Ride On Fatbury's Lovestick:

Join the forum and post up your specs
Some knowledgeable fuckers on there that are always willing to help

I've had 3 PCs from them, very good service and the oldest is 4 1/2 years old and still going strong.

Solid State drives are noticeably quicker.

Cheers chaps.


From the reading up I've done that seems obvious, but does that apply to hybrids?  I would imagine so, what with the flash memory basically being 'tacked on'. Are hybrids partitionable (i.e. can I dual boot off them without a major ballache)?

The flash memory is used for cache on the hybrid drives, not visible to the os - looks and acts like a normal drive, but faster. Poor mans ssd drive.

I'd plump for an SSD if at all possible and bin the hybrid idea. Shell out the extra and you won't be disappointed.

SSD every time, hybrids are slow in comparison.

Buy another computer and have an OS on each

I would go for 8gb ram Hyper x genesis as it is noticably quicker and with a core i7 you will get the best out of it by having matched 4gb modules and not adding extra unmatched memory as that will cause possible issues.

Go for the 240gb SSD minimum or the 480gb if you can stretch to it, avoid Hybrids are they are poor in comparison.

Thermal paste...debatable that you will see much difference but if you use it for long periods it will keep it cooler for longer before the fans kick in but worth £9? thats up to you as a tube of MX-4 is about £3.50 and takes 20-30 mins for a half competant PC modifier to fit it.

Thanks everyone.

Can't really stretch to an SSD. Wish I could, but can't atm and can't put off getting a new computer any longer. Think I might just plump for a 7200rpm HDD and then replace the optical drive with an SSD when I can afford it.


That's a proper TEF answer, cheers Si. Will be converting my current laptop (7 year old Toshiba Satellite pro...) to Ubuntu anyway.

I'm a bit late to this, but I bought from there and was pleased with the pc I got. It was recommended by my nephew who has also shopped there in the past.

Having owned my new laptop for a little over three weeks now, thought I'd give it a review for posterity-

Fucking brilliant. Service was amazing too- slight problem with the PC when it arrived (didn't even turn it on as it had a cracked screen...) but it was picked up by courier same day and I got it back within another two, no quibbles at all. I can sit here and play Empire:Total War, Call of Duty, Battlefield etc. at ultra settings and the computer barely notices. This i7 is a fucking beast of a processor and I have yet to really max it. I could probably do with a couple of gig extra RAM (it generally chugs along at about 50-70% usage depending on what I'm doing), but that can come later. For the price I paid, the service I've received, and the quality of the build, it really is faultless, and if you're looking to spend over £500 on a laptop I cannot recommend them enough.

Only thing that slightly bothered me was that it came with Windows 7 Ultimate pre-installed despite me asking for it to not come with an OS. It's not a complaint, but I would have liked the option of installing the OS' I want (like I thought I was asking for when I specced it as 'no OS') rather than turning it on for the first time to find the windows logo greeting me. It's alright, just made installing ubuntu a little more complicated than I was expecting.

Your moan is you got a copy of Windows Ultimate for free?! Haha brilliant!

They install an OS to thoroughly test the hardware, they must have forgotten to remove it. I've had 3 PCs from them now, brilliant company and like you say, excellent service.

Damn right. I've got to moan about something!

too right, if i got a burger and asked for no tomato, and it came with tomato i'd be fucking livid.

what graphics card have you got?

Nvidia GeForce 740m 2GB. They only do the 750 with the expensive screen option unfortunately, but I'm more than happy with what I got.