Yet another V review

[hiddenflaw]

Just another V review, nothing to see here, move along.
I shall chronicle my experience of using the V here.
It might be useful, it might not be, at least it’ll waste some space on someone’s server.
------------ Nuff said -------------

I’m one of the LB, the second batch to boot, and I finally recieved the V last Saturday.
The delivery guy pressed on the office’s doorbell just as I came back from the restroom,
I halt him right there and signed off in the corridor.

The V came in a box bigger than I expected.

I'm pleased to find that the bubble wrap is fully inflated. Thanks to whoever blew in the air at 4PX

Intersting way to open up a bubble wrap... I've recycled it and both boxes now live in the bubble wrap

I like the tiny details on the white box

This looks expensive

Ahh... that infamous screen protector...

So this is alcantara... upkeep is gonna be a b*tch ._.

The only logo on the outside, stealth mode max

Business on the outside, party on the inside, logo galore

The keyboard comes with a V logo too

!

Hard sides to protect the keyboard

First breath of life.... well technically it was booted up before for calibration and stuff, but let's ignore that

Check for light bleed, yes, there is

Another light bleed check... but honestly, it's an LCD, what do you expect? I don't notice any of that during usage

Backlit keyboard... it's nothing as bad as people said, the light is fairly even... yes it leaks a little from the top row but nobody asked you to peek from the bottom

Usage:
Coming from a $200 atom tablet, almost anything will be better, but by how much?

First off, the screen. It’s gorgeous. Yet I had to put a privacy screen on it and now I get diagonal lines throughout… bummer. That said, brightness and darkness are both excellent, it goes darker than my previous tablet so that’s less eye strain at night, and brighter too, so now I can blind myself if I ever want to.

The build quality is excellent, it’s hefty and industrial. The edges are sharp and angular, yet the back is rounded. This juxtaposition is really interesting. When I run my hands over it I can’t feel the plastic part for the antennas, it feels like a solid slab of aluminium.

One thing though, there's this spot that looks like the attachment for the electroplating, which shows bare metal. It's obvious because the other parts are dark, but not something I'll return the V over.

BOTH USB-C ports are no looser than the other. The power key is NOT hard to find. The volume UP/DOWN is a bit hard to differentiate, maybe a notch in the middle with help with that. Speakers were bad, the driver updates made it better and on par with my Mi A1, which is known for having great speaker quality courtesy of it’s DAC. In conclusion, update your drivers, kids.

I popped into the BIOS, was expecting overclocking/undervolting settings there, alas there weren’t any. Nevermind, Intel XTU it is. On my unit I managed to push it to 551 score on AC, should be enough for what I need it to do.

It’s been a looooooonggg wait. Was it worth it? Maybe. I have considered, many times, to just get something else and return the V when it arrives. Especially since the advent of 8th gen CPUs. Nevertheless it didn’t happen, and I am satisfied with the V. I’m gonna keep updating this post with other revelations as I continue level up my EEVEE.

[hiddenflaw]

------------------------- Update 1 -------------------------
I need that charge indicator. That $200 tablet has it, why does something 7x the price lack this?
A caps lock indicator will be nice, especially when entering passwords.

Applied Dbrand skins on the V. I’ve got the black and red dragons for some mix and match. To be honest they look more like charcoal to me.

Red Hot Charcoal

Burning fingertips

Forgive the greasy keyboard.

Finally backed up the display calibration files. If anyone can’t find it, they’re in C:/Programdata, you have to enable hidden files.

Tried it out at the office today, managed to get through the day. I think I can expect about 7-8hrs of continued use at lvl 2 brightness, chrome, and using wifi. With pause and breaks in between, I ended my day with about 40% left. Will keep updated.

oh, and the cameras are no better than that on my $200 tablet. The back camera has autofocus, the front none, which I think it should have. Put an IMX378 into the next V.

[Christoph]

Yeah. Something positiv.
That’s good. I stopped reading a lot if threads because of the many negative things.

Which model do you have? Or have I over seen the info?

[hiddenflaw]

You didn’t, I forgot to mention, i7 512gb

[rockdawgusa]

Really nice review. Looking forward to add’l updates. You know, I am digging the red and black “charcoal” looking skins. I think it looks good. Can’t wait for mine to get here next month (hopefully). I bought the new black camo skins. The light bleed does look like a lot in my opinion. I’ll have to compare mine to my Surface 3 and Surface Pro 4. I’m not sure those panels show that much. Hopefully it’s not noticeable in day to day tasks.
EDIT: oh , the V logo on the keyboard … hilarious!

[hiddenflaw]

------------------------ Update 2 -------------------------

Screen at max brightness is a no-no, it cuts through battery life like hot knife through butter. Full brightness, and the battery indicator shows 2hrs 30 minutes left at 64% brightness. I switched it back to lvl 2 and it’s showing

5hrs 30 mins left at 57%.

I find that in the office, brightness lvl 2 is adequate, and brightness lvl 1 is enough in my room. I keep the lights off but the curtains are open so my room is lit by outside light.

Today I dropped the V in the drawstring bag from a height of about 30cm, was fussing with my bag on the subway. It was at that moment that I yearn for my missing magnetic sleeve. That’s right, my magnetic sleeve and USB-C to HDMI adapter was missing. Support replied quickly and I’m waiting for the second tracking number. The V survived. No cracks, no scratches.

@rockdawgusa the light bleed is really not noticeable in day to day usage. The photos are taken with Mi A1 and Google Camera with HDR+, so they might be exaggerated.

In chrome dev I’ve switched on “Touched events API” in chrome:flags, and I’m able to go backward/forward like in MS edge. There are a few other options that try to optimize touch, do try them out, I’m liking it so far.

[hiddenflaw]

----------------------------------------- Update 3 -------------------------------------------

The battery life is holding up well. I am consistently getting 1hr/10%. I am on chrome 95% of the time, the other 5% I’ll be using ACG player to play some video clip off local storage. I am on wifi, with my phone as hotspot, at most 3 feet away.

Here are my settings

Brightness: 20%
Dimmed Display brightness: 0%
Adaptive Brightness: Enabled
Turn off Display: 1 min
Put comp to sleep: Never
Turn off HDD: 1 min
Javascript Timer Freq: Max
Desktop Background slideshow: Available
Wireless Adapter: Medium Power Saving
Hibernate: 10 mins
USB Selective Suspend: Enabled
Intel Graphics Power Plan: Balanced
Lid and stuff

• Lid Close Action: Sleep
• Power Button Action: Hibernate
• Sleep Button Action: Do nothing

PCIE Link State Power Management: Max Power savings
Processor Power Management:

• Minimum State: 0%
• Maximum State: 100%
• Cooling policy: Passive

Multimedia Settings:

• When sharing media: Prevent Idling to sleep
• Video Playback quality bias: Power Saving
• When Playing Video: Balanced

I got ghost touches once when waking up from sleep. I closed the lid and opened it up again before it hibernated and Casper appeared. Solved by removing and reattaching the keyboard, I think, it was few days ago.

Casper

https://ufile.io/280rv

I have the Brotect Privacy Screen protector on. It’s working as it should but it introduces diagonal lines on bright images and makes everything fuzzy, particularly noticeable on websites and stuff, which is where the Dark Reader extension comes in and saves the day. I got used to it after a while and doesn’t bother me while watching videos anymore, though text on bright background is still troublesome. @M_K

Like this

About the upper usb-c, I can see why people say it’s loose now. Yes, it slides out like some lethargic shart sometimes, but I find that there is a side that when you put it in it locks in with a satisfying click.

Also, I’ve figured out how to position the V when I want to use it in landscape tablet mode. Basically I remove the keyboard and flip it over so the let’s are facing down, then I attach the keyboard back without connecting the pogo pins. The magnet and Alcantara surface secures the V.

[Wickedly]

@hiddenflaw

blah blah something about battery life

@hiddenflaw

Here are my settings

You should share your XTU settings too - and also if are you noticing any performance issues at all.

i’d hazard a guess that a not-insignificant portion of your power savings are from your lowered PL on battery, because in day to day browsing i find the CPU is more often than not at turbo boost levels almost constantly.

if my napkin math is accurate, at full throttle heavy usage you should be able to get about 40% - 80% more battery life than at stock, which - based on what i’m getting - is 10-14 hours.

if you want to measure battery life under load, i find a good way to do that is to download a lot of files (like almost 1tb) from the cloud on to a usb device. i guess thats also a decent way to check if your ISP is secretly a dick. or getting labeled a dick by your ISP.

[Taa_Ynwa]

Great review!

@hiddenflaw

Also, I’ve figured out how to position the V when I want to use it in landscape tablet mode. Basically I remove the keyboard and flip it over so the let’s are facing down, then I attach the keyboard back without connecting the pogo pins. The magnet and Alcantara surface secures the V.

Sorry, but I’m not sure I fully understand what you mean here. Maybe a picture of this will help? Thanks

[hiddenflaw]

Like this

[hiddenflaw]

---------------------------- Update 4 --------------------------

Battery life again.
I’ve been messing around with XTU, and settled on 2 profiles.

Here

In the screenshot above, centre column Active is my ‘On A/C profile’, right column Proposed is my ‘On Battery’ profile. Difference between 2 profiles when I’m running on battery is about 3-4 hours, just like what @wickedly said. It’s ±6hrs on ‘On A/C’ VS ±10hrs on ‘On Battery’. Nevertheless, I’ve never found myself wanting for more performance when I’m on battery. Granted, I don’t game on battery, except for DDLC and AoCF.

About the audio. I find that the V’s speakers are horribly trebled based. Try listening to PBS space time on youtube, you’ll see that the speakers deliver very sharply and harshly at the host’s pronunciation of S sounds. Also, the speakers sound a bit soft, not as loud as I’d like them to be. My solution is to tweak the equalizers. I base my settings on the Bass profile, and lifted up the treble and mids like below:

Equalizer

The result is pretty dramatic. Now my ears don’t feel like being stabbed at every word he says, there’s some bass, and I find 20% volume to be absolutely sufficient for listening in my room of a single occupant. Also, having a surface to reflect the sound off makes a marked difference. The optimal distance seems to be about 0.5 inches away from the wall, I’ve even made it work with just single pieces of paper. Having the speaker directly against the wall produces sounds too harsh to my liking.

Volume

The video below shows the difference between wall and no wall. The first 15 seconds is without wall, and last 10 seconds I moved the V to the wall. You can still detect the harsh S sound when the host speaks, but it’s so much better now.

Wall vs No Wall 1

https://streamable.com/cc6jd

This one shows the bass, and also wall vs no wall. First 45 seconds no wall, last 30 seconds wall.

Wall vs No Wall 2

https://streamable.com/szj31

All recorded on Mi A1 with Google Camera. The droning sound you hear in the background is the AC unit I’m sitting right under.

I think it’s pretty amazing that I can have adequate volume and quality at just 20%, and I frequently lower the volume even further.

Today is the 13th day since I’ve received the V. I have 1 more day if I decide to return the V for a refund. To be honest, I have considered that option many times while waiting for the V to arrive, to just get something else and get my money back when it gets delivered. Unfortunately, or rather fortunately, I don’t have that much cash to pursue that option. As of now, I can safely say that the V is a great machine for what I paid for, and I will be keeping it. Now, if only it has a charging indicator…

addendum: Wish my girlfriend is as dirty as the alcantara keyboard. Keep it clean by laying tissues over it when eating and watching shows on the V.

Clean it using this

Pic taken using back camera, horrendous as always

[Wickedly]

@hiddenflaw

Now, if only it has a charging indicator…

I’ll tell you about the other hidden secrets after day 14. TTYTuesday.

[hiddenflaw]

meanwhile, SHIFT+LEFT LEFT LEFT LEFT LEFT LEFT LEFT

[Wickedly]

@hiddenflaw

Difference between 2 profiles when I’m running on battery is about 3-4 hours, just like what @wickedly said. It’s ±6hrs on ‘On A/C’ VS ±10hrs on ‘On Battery’. Nevertheless, I’ve never found myself wanting for more performance when I’m on battery.

@ Team, have you considered changing the high performance setting in BIOS from what it currently is to A 4.5/7W switch?

I have no way to confirm this but I think its currently borked after the FCU, Windows seems much more aggressive at changing the speedshift setting now.

Personally I think it would be fantastic if you could implement a bios setting that allows us to make it auto switch between “on ac @7W” and “on battery @4.5W” automatically.

I dont like XTU and throttlestop isn’t able to change PL1. The only option for me is to find the memory register and change it, I think? And that looks like it involves mucho “possibly delete important stuff.”

HEY WAIT this could be a job for the community developers group!

edit:oh fk I meant to remove the team tag before I posted when I had the thought that this might be a community development project. WELP if I pinged you anyway, “oops”?

[hiddenflaw]

----------------------------------- Update 5 ------------------------------------

So, I cheaped out and decided to get a Win 10 Pro key from a shady site.

TL;DR: Had to reset PC, lost USD15 and calibration

Here’s the low down of what happened…
I’m one of those that ordered Pro, but then didn’t get registered and wasn’t charged, so my V came with the Home edittion. It’s hard to get mad when you didn’t suffer a loss.
So I came across a link to cheap cheap win 10 Pro keys,

like this:

Turns out, it’s really a win 10 pro key, albeit an enterprise one… that conversation with NA MS support was, how should I put it… interesting…
so my EEVEE got upgrated to Pro, but the key is not activated, which means no updates, which means I’m in deep shit, especially so in the current climate…

ENTER PANICK MODE

Luckily, @wickedly guided my to a way to retrieve the product key from the bios, I backed it up, and I’ve also backed up my calibration files
So first I tried resetting… and Pro clinged on like an octopus upon a japanese actress…
then I clean installed using an USB with win 10 don’t-know-how-many-versions-ago on it, but when I tried to activate it, it says NO CAN DO… probably because it’s an ancient version…
anyway, last resort, downloaded win 10 setup and made installation usb directly from MS, reformatted, reinstalled, activate, update, and installed calman3… copy pasta into programdata directory… reboot…
and no calibration.
(ノ°Д°）ノ︵ ┻━┻

it’s 0430, and I have work today… well at least chrome finished snycing
been looking through the forum this morning for calibration backup and restoring stuff, I’m pretty sure I backed up the right files… there’s a thread on that, gonna try it out in a while ._.

so… lesson learnt, don’t be too trustful of khajits…

this is also a nice chance to test the power profile that the V ships default…

according to XTU, the profile is like this

a bit higher wattage than my 'On Battery' profile, and it shows

also during setup I once again confirmed the effectiveness of the updated audio drivers (15/03/18), just by the windows notification sounds it’s noticeably less harsh and has a fuller profile, without me even tinkering with the equalizer

[Wickedly]

This is kind of like saying “oh man I only just met this chick yesterday and I’ve already got skidmarks on my whities.”

The two are likely unrelated unless it’s a reoccurring situation - and length of time of knowing the chick probably has no correlation with how thoroughly you wipe or how tight your sphincter is. Unless you’re super kinky I guess.

In any case, this is probably just windows trying to tell you who wears the pants in this relationship. It’s gonna bluescreen whenever they F it feels like it.

I don’t know what this reply has to do with this thread though - your posts have been kind of all over the place. You ok dude?

[Masters888]

Nice shirt!

Where can I get one like that?

And yeah, that’s most likely windows.

Not the V itself.

[hiddenflaw]

sorry bro, me no have crashes yet, not since I stopped insider-ing…
looking at your BSOD I’m assuming you’re not on insider build either, unlike that one other guy…
so, confess, what have you been feeding your V? shouldn’t be barfing up BSODs if you’re giving it normal food

[hiddenflaw]

----------------------- Update 5.1 -------------------------
Ingenjoor is the man, following instructions in his thread I managed to restore calibration <3

[v0.1.1.1] Tool and a method for loading Display Calibration on fresh Windows installation

The tool: Display Calibration Backupper v0.1.1.1 (for a lack of a good name) (Doesn’t actually backup yet, just fixes databases) Download HERE Proof-of-Concept, NOT FOR PRODUCTION USE! More information in post #5 Hi all, As I wanted to install Windows 10 Pro from my own key and to keep the color calibration I had to find a way to restore the calibration on new installation. As I explain below, it’s reasonably easy when you know how CalMAN Client stores calibration data and recognizes the …

All hail Ingenjoor!!!

On another note, anyone tried a gigabit connection with the V? using a cheapo usb 3 to ethernet adapter I’m getting 580mbps DL before the speedtest crashes… on wifi AC I maxed out at 125mbps

[tld8102]

some nice and healthy tender medium well organic Hyper V steak, topped with a generous serving of Virtual Switch gravy with sides of hand-cut Andriod x86 “fries” and some Dongle salad.