x17: Thoughts and Review

A little bit of back story to explain why I chose the X17 and DS. My previous laptop was an AW M15X, one of the last ones produced, which sounds cool right? WRONG! I chose to purchase an AW laptop because that was the rave several years ago and it looks "good". 3 years later, my AW laptop can barely do anything correctly, by that I mean, it can't run Warcraft 3 on high settings and we can forget about SC2. It also runs at a solid 77 degrees celsius, and upon running SC2, gets close to 90.

After a bit of research, I came across DS and first things first, looked and read a good majority of the reviews. I was impressed with the reviews in regards to Customer Support and quality and this is my overall review of the purchasing process.

Customer Support - 9.0/10
The only reason that this is not 10/10 is because my first attempt at speaking to a DS Customer Rep via the chat, ended with them leaving me hanging for 30 minutes without an answer. I gave it a shot the next day and I was able to get all my questions answered promptly.

Purchasing Process - 10/10
The purchasing process went extremely smooth. I was really satisfied how right after purchasing, an email was sent saying that a verification form would need to be filled out and sent (if not mailing to the same address).

Received Laptop and Thoughts - 10/10
Ordered the laptop on 01/04/2013 and received it on 01/21/2013. The weight is very close to my M15X, which is only a 15.6" laptop and this is a 17.3" laptop, so I am pretty used to it. All the reviews you have read about their packaging is absolutely true. It gives me the impression that they truly care about the product they make . Turned on the laptop and finished set up within 5 minutes, which is extremely fast, and upon logging in, no bloatware. Took me a couple of hours to get through the windows update, which was expected.

Food for Thought
I would highly recommend my friends and any future interests in getting a DS laptop. After purchasing the X17, I went to the AW website just to see the comparison in price. For a laptop of similar quality, and still slightly sub-par from AW, would cost me approximate $1700 more. Pictures will be uploaded in the future, but it essentially looks like all the other X17.

Thank you for taking the time to post your review! Please add photos when you get a chance.

That's a nice looking laptop. Make sure that water flows in the right direction.

Thanks for the pic.

Congrats on your new laptop.  

Congrats on your new laptop!

You made the right choice with a x17. Mine continues to amaze me every day, and I've had it for almost six months.

FPS Count Update
Diablo 3: Lowest - 72; Highest - 132 without the max limit on. With it on, it maxes out on 100.

StarCraft 2: Never lagged, which is awesome.

Temperature Update
So I finally got around to using CPUID to check out the temps, when nothing is running, the laptop runs at an average of 40 degrees celsius. After running D3 and SC2, both at separate times, but essentially one after the other, the laptop went up to 50 degrees celsius. Nothing to worry about because it cooled down pretty fast.

Awesome framerates!

One question. Did you go with the standard or the IC Diamond thermal paste? Those are some really low temps from the looks of it. Most people with the same chassis seem to be getting around 65C on their GPU under full load, I'm getting around 60C.

Glad you're enjoying your laptop.


Edit: How are the CPU temps?

Edited by DomTheBomb - 27 Feb 2013 at 7:35pm

Hi DomTheBomb,

Just to update you, I ran furmark last night for 2.5 hours, solid 98% gpu usage. Temp was at 75 degrees celsius, which sounds closer to what you were expecting.

This is like porn lol while i wait for mine to be built and delivered. :)

Edited by moomar - 07 Mar 2013 at 11:49pm