ILLEGEAR Z5 Simple Review and Photography

ILLEGEAR Z5 is my first laptop since I was using desktop before this. Why get a laptop? Well, when you are sad, you can hug it and play games in a corner in the house. You can’t do this with a desktop, right? Besides that, a laptop’s performance is catching up very fast compared to a desktop. Before I proceed, I would like to mention that I’m not a professional laptop reviewer and you won’t find any technical stuff and benchmark. This blog post is just to share my personal experience and photos of this awesome laptop.

When I was researching for a laptop, I stumbled on this ILLEGEAR brand on Lowyat.NET’s forum. If you guys read through the posts, you will notice about happy customers and good customer support. At the same time also, if you lurk around Lowyat.NET’s Mobile Computing, you will notice complains about other brands’ after sales support. A quick spec comparison also shows that performance over price ratio is higher for ILLEGEAR Z5 compared to other brand. So I decided to go to their studio at Oval Damansara to feel and touch the ILLEGEAR Z5 myself. After the touching session and explanation from Mr Chin, I placed the order. There are actually more laptop models but Z5 is within my budget and the design is unique compared to other laptop.

ILLEGEAR is a Malaysia company specializes in custom, high-end and luxury laptops with premium support. Founded in 2011, ILLEGEAR provides premium support to their customers.

ILLEGEAR Z5, when Elegance meets Performance

ILLEGEAR Z5 has this very unique design that blends triad design and fluidic sculpture according to the product page.

Another view at the ILLEGEAR Z5 cover/lid.

The ILLEGEAR logo is embedded in the middle part of the laptop lid/cover.

A full overview of ILLEGEAR Z5 from the top. You can see there are two red LED lights, which can be turned off with a switch on the keyboard if you think it is too sexy.

ILLEGEAR Z5 is powered by Intel® Core™ i7-4720HQ Processor. The processor cannot be changed but you can upgrade the RAM to 16GB Dual Channel DDR3L SDRAM at 1600MHz. For the graphic card, you can choose between Nvidia GeForce GTX 960M 4GB GDDR5 or GTX 970M 3GB GDDR5 with Optimus (Maxwell).

The shiny shiny aluminium finished palm rest on the ILLEGEAR Z5.

ILLEGEAR z5 comes with two built-in speakers & one sub-woofer. The sound is very loud and clear. So loud until I watch most of the YouTube video at only 70% of the max volume.

Another look on the awesome speaker. As you can see here there are 3 signal lights.

The front part and touch pad of the ILLEGEAR Z5. The touch pad has 2 LED red light as well which can be turned off too with the same switch. Useful if you are using the laptop while everyone around you is sleeping or just for the mood of playing horror game in dark.

The backlit keyboard of ILLEGEAR Z5. To ON and OFF the backlit, press FN + Space bar. The keyboard is very nice and comfortable to type. Perhaps too nice until feel sayang to press. I think I might be getting a wireless keyboard.

The top of the keyboard are the 4 programmable macro keys. Software is provided in a CD. There are some secret keys as well:

FN + 0 => On/Off backlight
FN + 1 => Max fan speed
FN + 9 => On/Off Intel Turbo Boost
FN + Esc => On/Off touch pad

ILLEGEAR Z5 has full numeric numpad as well, useful for calculating your expenses.

ILLEGEAR Z5 comes with 3 USB 3.0 ports for your USB 3 devices which I don’t have any yet and 1 USB 2.0 Port. It also comes with SPDIF port,  headphone jack and microphone jack.

An overview of ILLEGEAR Z5 from the back. Z5 comes with dual-heatpipe, dual-vent and dual-fan cooling. Very cool vent design here. From the left is the power port, LAN port, VGA output port and HDMI 1.4a output Port (with HDCP).

ILLEGEAR Z5 compared to an Apple iPhone 6 Plus. It might be too thick for some people, so it is recommended for you to try it out at their studio before purchase. For me the thickness is OK for the performance and price.

A closer look on the sexy ass vent. I think the golden coloured part is the heat pipe?

The front full view of the ILLEGEAR Z5. For the screen, you can choose between 15.6″ Full HD Anti-glare Display (1920 x 1080) or 15.6″ Full HD Anti-glare Display IPS/AHVA Wide Color Gamut & Viewing Angle (1920 x 1080). Everything looks nice on the screen and there is no reflection.

If you turn the ILLEGEAR Z5 upside town, you will notice the sub-woofer, which can further enhance your gaming and movie experience.

And another area of the bottom part you can see the golden heat pipe and the fan.

The full bottom view of the ILLEGEAR Z5. According to the Lowyat.NET forum, you can unscrew the bottom part for dust cleaning. You can also send back the laptop to their studio for dust cleaning. Now, please excuse me while I go back to my new laptop.

More photos on my Flickr Album

ILLEGEAR Z5
Product Page: http://www.illegear.com/products/illegear-z5/ (You can buy online and get the laptop within 2 – 4 working days)
Company: http://www.illegear.com/

Lowyat.NET Discussion Threads (you can get your questions answered here and read more about other owners’ experience here)
Thread V1
Thread V2