PCSpecialist Lafité Pro 17.3in
This is a high-quality – albeit chunky – desktop replacement that offersoffer much to buyers on a budgetbud t
PRICE £722 (£866 inc VAT) from pcspecialist.co.uk/reviews
There is much to like about this desktop replacement, and we’ll start with the 17.3in screen. We’re used to lacklustre displays in sub-£1,000 laptops, but this IPS panel covers 94% of the sRGB gamut with an average Delta E of 0.79.
Then consider its exemplary 6471K colour temperature, and it’s no surprise that whites look gloriously white. It’s bright too, hitting 414cd/m2 in our tests. We would have been happy with 350cd/m 2 , so that’s a fantastic result.
There’s enough power here to keep Windows 11 feeling sprightly for years to come, with a modest but effective trio of core components: a Core i5-11300H processor, 8GB of DDR4 memory and 512GB SSD. You’re stuck with the processor for the lifetime of this machine, but fishing out your crosshead screwdriver and removing the bottom panel will reveal a spare SODIMM socket and second M.2 slot. Note the three-year warranty too, even if only the first year covers parts.
You can also replace the Wi-Fi card, but there’s little reason to do so thanks to its support for Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2. This complements a comprehensive set of ports, including a Gigabit Ethernet connection, HDMI output, two USB-A ports and a further two USB-C ports. Both the latter sit on the left-hand hand side, but note that neither can an supply power to the laptop and nd only the front one (which supports Thunderbolt 4) can output to a display. ay.
The keyboard eyboard looks basic compared d to rivals, but this belies its four-level el keyboard backlight and a pleasant, quiet typing action. There’s a numberpad rpad here too, and we’re also fans of the e huge trackpad. Think functional al rather than luxury, but that’s ’s fine for the price.
Less attractive is the Lafité Pro’s sheer size, with a 2.3kg weight making it the heaviest eaviest machine here. A sizeable 73Wh battery kept it going for around eight hours in our main battery tests, but the big surprise came in its result in the PCMark 10 gaming test: 3hrs 6mins. Don’t get too excited, though. This longevity reflects the laptop’s unimpressive results in our gaming benchmarks, which were among the worst of the machines based on Intel’s Iris Xe chip. Nor was this a star performer in any other of our tests, so think day-to-day tasks rather than digital creation.
Still, we would choose this chunky laptop over the faster Chillblast Fusion Iris opposite due to its higher all-round quality. If you don’t mind girth, it’s a fine buy for the money.