Mythlogic Experience + REVIEW (Pollux 1611)

On 11/27 I placed an order for this little lappy:


SPECS:
MYTHLOGIC Pollux 1611 Chassis (Clevo P150HM)
15.6" Full HD (1920x1080) Glossy 95% NTSC Color Gamut LED Backlit LCD
Intel Core i7-2760QM 2.40GHz, 1600MHz DDR3, 6MB Cache
IC Diamond Thermal Compound
16GB (4 x 4GB) , PC3-12800, 1600MHz SODIMM (Patriot)
AMD Radeon 6990m 2048MB GDDR5 DX11 Compliant Video Card
8X DVD+RW/CDRW Combo Drive
750GB 7200 16MB Cache SATA Notebook Hard Drive
Integrated 2M Webcam
Integrated Fingerprint Reader
KILLER WirelessN-1102 the best wireless gaming and HD video experience
Windows 7 Home Premium
MYTH Lifetime Assurance with Lifetime Labor + 2 Years Parts Warranty, 2 Yrs 2-Way Shipping Cont US
Phoenix Upgrade Plan: Lifetime Phoenix Upgrade Plan


Ordering / Build
I placed the order midday Sunday, and quickly got a response from Josh to work out payment details and deals and such. That Monday the laptop went into the "SUMMONING" stage.

That Friday, I get an email from Josh saying that their Intel rep was out of the 2760's, and wouldn't be getting them in for another week or so. He presented me with a number of options, I chose to wait it out.

Fast forward a couple weeks and the laptop moves into the "BUILD" stage for a little over a day, the "TESTING" stage for about THREE solid days, and I then got a tracking number.


First impressions

The box for this thing was super full. Filled with peanuts and tons of protective Styrofoam. Couldn't ask for better packaging. Inside the box I got all the following:

• Laptop
• Battery
• AC Adapter (HUGE M. F'er)
• Slappa case w/ strap
• Mythlogic mousepad, tshirt, and hat
• Mythlogic CD binder with recovery disks

After unboxing, I booted up the lappy and immediately installed my favorite software and downloaded Black Ops and Crysis off of steam. I continued to configure the lappy to my liking. When these guys were done, I figured I'd take 'er out for a spin.

This is when weird stuff started happening.

I was getting like 20fps @ 1280x1024 in black ops, and Crysis was nearly unplayable. I called up Mythlogic support, and told him my problem, assuring him I had all the right power plans set (performance in Windows 7 and Clevo hotkey applet). He told me to try and reinstall the video drivers once more. This somehow managed to break CCC. He told me to try and recover from the Mythlogic recovery partition. I went in there, and the only option that did anything was "REINSTALL WINDOWS WITH FACTORY DEFAULTS". So, that's where I went next.

Eric from Myth stayed calm and helpful through this whole process despite my intense level of frustration. After all, I forked over the money on a Mythlogic to get it tested and working perfectly. Ironically, I've never had a problem like this on any of the Dell laptops I've set up after unboxing.

Fast forward a couple hours and a few phone calls, and I finally get the thing back to where I started. Steam Holiday sale is going on, so it took me probably 2 hours to download COD4:MW. I booted it up, maxed out the settings, and BAM ~150 FPS. Seemed to be working!

I'm getting ~30fps steady in Crysis all Ultra @ 1080p + 4xAA.

What bugs me so far:

• Keyboard feels really stiff and plasticy. No 'give' to the keys. I'm hopin that they will soften up over time
• Rubberized trackpad surface + callouses from bass makes the trackpad nearly unuseable for me. Again, major adjustment
• Sound quality is so-so out of my stereo system, and THX has a very limited number of features

Conclusions....
So far I'm very happy with Myth's customer service. Much more friendly and human than any other massive computer companies I've worked with. The 6990m problems just seem to be bad luck on my part. I'm crossing my fingers that the problem won't resurface.


After I spend a little more time with this thing, I'll add a lot more to this review... sections still to do:
Benchmarks
Linux performance
Fraps videos

No sleeping for me tonight....

 

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