Notebooks

PCSpecialist Ionico Luna Pro Laptop Review

PCSpecialist is my go-to brand for gaming laptops, having bought one myself, borrowed and reviewed a few of their models over the years, have suggested them to various family members, and have largely had a pretty great experience with them in the past. So, with that in mind, I was excited to see that I have one of their new gaming laptops coming in for review. I’m not a laptop gamer myself, but they certainly fill a need in the market for those who don’t have space for a full desktop PC, and of course, who also need something much more portable, making it ideal for taking to work and travel. It’s nice to take the same laptop with you for work and study, but able to pitch it up anywhere and play your favourite games too.

PC Specialist

The Ionico Series laptop packs a serious punch when it comes to performance and display. It has a solid processor with the powerful AMD Ryzen 7 8845HS, offering eight cores and sixteen threads with a boost clock of up to 5.1GHz.

AMD + Nvidia

This is paired with a generous 32GB of high-speed Corsair DDR5 RAM, ensuring smooth multitasking and responsiveness even under heavy loads. Visuals are handled by the very capable NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060, which should deliver solid frame rates in most modern games and easily accommodate both the laptop’s native QHD+ resolution and the lightning-fast 240Hz refresh rate.

Sure, there are faster CPUs out there, and there are more powerful mobile GPUs too, but let’s not beat around the bush, they simply cost a lot more money. If you want the best gaming laptop in the world, dropping £3000+ isn’t unheard of. However, there’s a balance to be found between what you want and what you need, and I think £1000-1250 is a price range most people are comfortable paying for a gaming laptop. Obviously, if you just need a work laptop with gaming hardware, you can get something for £500 or less.

Display

The 15.3-inch display is a standout feature, offering a crisp 2560×1600 resolution, and full sRGB colour coverage, making it ideal for gaming and creative work. I love a 16:10 aspect ratio too, it’s a shame it pretty much only exists in the laptop market these days. However, 2560×1600 is a great resolution and is going to offer great pixel density on a screen of this size, making your games and media look pretty sharp. It’s not a fancy OLED or anything though, or a pro-colour calibrated titan, but again, I think that’s fairly reflected in the price.

Fast Storage

Thanks to a 1TB Solidigm P44 Pro NVMe SSD, storage is lightning fast, boasting read/write speeds of up to 7000/6500 MB/s. However, I must admit I’ve never heard of or tested a Solidigm drive before, so I’m eager to see how that drive performs in this system. Rounding out the package is an upgraded 80WH battery, an RGB backlit keyboard, and Windows 11 Home.

Ionico Luna Pro

Overall, that’s a pretty potent package, and while you can customise it to your needs, with some more budget-friendly options too, the package we have here today comes in at just £1,299 inc VAT. That is a lot of money, but in terms of gaming laptops, it’s honestly pretty reasonable. I don’t think it’s fair to say this is an entry-level laptop, but there are certainly a lot more expensive options on the market. For comparison you can get a Ryzen 5 7600 and RTX 4060 desktop PC from PCSpecialist for around £1110, so to get a sort-of similar package in a laptop with a high-performance gaming screen built-in, well, that seems like pretty great value for money to me!

Starting Configuration

Our Review Configuration

  • Ionico Series: 15.3″ Matte QHD+ 240Hz sRGB 100% LED Widescreen (2560×1600)
  • AMD Ryzen™ 7 Eight Core Processor 8845HS (3.8GHz, 5.1GHz Turbo, 16 AI TOPS)
  • 32GB Corsair 5600MHz SODIMM DDR5 (2 x 16GB)
  • NVIDIA® GeForce® RTX 4060 – 8.0GB GDDR6 Video RAM – DirectX® 12.1
  • 1TB SOLIDIGM P44 PRO GEN 4 M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD (up to 7000MB/sR, 6500MB/sW)
  • Ionico Battery 80WH
  • IONICO 15 SERIES RGB BACKLIT UK KEYBOARD
  • Windows 11 Home 64 Bit – inc. Single Licence

Check out this configuration and other products at PCSpecialist here.

Value

There’s a lot of competition in the market for laptops, there are a lot of big names out there, all with similarly priced, similarly equipped products, that are sure to have their strengths and weaknesses, and also some brands have more prestige or coolness than others too. PCSpecialist has a good reputation though, they’ve been doing this for a long time. At this price range, I think it’s pretty fair, and the specification is on par with what I would expect to see from other big-name brands. Of course, as we’ll cover in our conclusion, you can tinker with the configuration a little to help it better fit your budget and requirements too.

Page: 1 2 3 4 5 6

Peter Donnell

As a child still in my 30's (but not for long), I spend my day combining my love of music and movies with a life-long passion for gaming, from arcade classics and retro consoles to the latest high-end PC and console games. So it's no wonder I write about tech and test the latest hardware while I enjoy my hobbies!

Disqus Comments Loading...

Recent Posts

Krafton CEO Admits Hi-Fi Rush 2 May Not Be Profitable

In a recent interview, Krafton CEO Changhan Kim shared some surprising thoughts on the upcoming…

8 mins ago

EK Water Blocks EK-Nucleus CR240 Lux D-RGB All In One CPU Water Cooler

The EK-Nucleus AIO CR240 Lux D-RGB is an all-in-one liquid cooling solution offering a stylish…

6 hours ago

MSI GeForce RTX 4090 Gaming Trio X 24GB GDDR6X PCI-Express Graphics Card

FeaturesVirtual Reality ReadyYesColourPrimary ColourGreySecondary ColourBlackLightingLightingYesLighting ColourRGBClock SpeedsMax. Memory Clock21000 MHzStandards / SpecificationsAdaptive Sync Technology (G-Sync…

6 hours ago

BenQ Zowie 27″ XL2746K 1920×1080 IPS 240Hz 1ms Widescreen Gaming Monitor

SpeakersSpeakersNoStandards / SpecificationsAdaptive Sync Technology (G-Sync / Freesync)AMD FreesyncColourPrimary ColourBlackDimensionsWidth628.6 mmDepth217.9 mmHeight562.2 mmWeight12.7 kgDisplayDisplay Size27"Display…

6 hours ago

MSI 27″ Modern MD271UL 3840×2160 60Hz sRGB 139% Widescreen Productivity Monitor

LightingLightingNoColourPrimary ColourBlackSecondary ColourSilverDisplayDisplay Size27"Display ResolutionUHD (3840 x 2160 Pixel)Display Aspect Ratio16:9Display Refresh Rate60 HzDisplay Panel…

6 hours ago

AOC 32″ C32G2ZE/BK 1920×1080 VA 240Hz 1ms Curved Widescreen Gaming Monitor

FHD, 31.5” VA panel and curvature radius of 1500R create the flawless image quality of…

6 hours ago