PCSpecialist Defiance 16 review: affordable, portable Blackwell

In the wake of GeForce RTX 50 Mobile graphics, a fresh batch of gaming laptops have hit the scene. PCSpecialist has joined in on the fun too, refreshing its lineup with Nvidia’s latest offerings. You needn’t spend hand over fist to get one, though, as models like Defiance 16 pack plenty of punch and value for their price.

Starting at £970, this laptop offers a solid entry point into gaming on the go. However, it is possible to greatly boost performance through more-expensive configurations without compromising value.

Specs

Like all PCSpecialist laptops, you can configure the specifications of Defiance 16 to your liking. I’d strongly suggest playing around with the configurator as you can unlock a lot more performance with a few relatively inexpensive tweaks.

For example, upgrading to 16GB (2x8GB) of RAM will greatly assist performance and only costs an additional £38. Likewise, doubling your storage capacity from 256GB to 512GB incurs a mere £11 increase in price.

	PCSpecialist Defiance 16
CPU	Intel Core i7-14650HX
GPU	Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 Ti Laptop*
Display	16in IPS (2560×1600 / 240Hz)*
RAM	32GB (2x16GB) DDR5-5,600*
Storage	2TB Crucial P310 PCIe Gen 4 SSD*
Battery	73WHr**
Connectivity	1Gb Ethernet (x1) 3.5mm audio combo output (x1) Bluetooth 5.3 HDMI 2.1 (x1) USB-A 3.2 (x2) USB-C 3.2 (x2) WiFi 6E
OS	Windows 11 Home
Weight	2.5kg
Dimensions	360mm (W) x 255mm (D) x 26mm (H)
Extras	ARGB backlit keyboard FHD (1080p) IR webcam
Price	£1,499

Your choice of screen and GPU will ultimately prove the most costly decisions. These two specifications are inseparable on the configurator, with RTX 5050 Mobile being the only option that you can pair with an FHD+ display. Outside of that panel, PCSpecialist offers two flavours of QHD+, one with a 180Hz refresh rate and the other running at 240Hz.

My review unit sports several upgrades, including RTX 5070 Ti Mobile graphics which arrives part and parcel with a larger 73WHr battery, as well as a QHD+ 240Hz screen. I also have a 2TB Crucial P310 at my disposal and 32GB (2x16GB) of DDR5-5600 RAM.

You can purchase my review configuration for £1,499, albeit with slightly slower 5,200MT/s RAM. PCSpecialist has removed the option from the configurator while it explores reports of instabilities using 5,600MT/s kits. I haven’t experienced any memory problems during my review period, but I’m glad to see the brand prioritise customer experience in this case.

Design

Settling Defiance 16 down on my desk, the system doesn’t scream gaming laptop. This could very easily pass for a professional portable PC on first glance, trading blinding ARGB LEDs and sharp edges for a minimalist, muted grey colour scheme.

The stealthier the better is my motto when it comes to gaming laptops, and Defiance 16 might as well be Sam Fisher. This system’s chunkier size does betray its nature sat alongside slimmer ultrabooks, but I’d happily whip this out anywhere without a second thought.

Measuring 360mm (W) x 255mm (D) x 26mm (H) and weighing 2.5kg, you won’t have much difficulty fitting Defiance 16 into your backpack or whatever workspace you have in mind, be it a dorm desk, office space, or your lap. I’ve long maintained that 16in is the ideal size for most laptops, especially of the gaming variety, as PCSpecialist’s offering exemplifies.

Build quality across the laptop is high, with nary a hint of flex in the plastic base nor a trace of wobble from the metal lid. Neither material feels cheap to the eye or touch, though you will need to regularly clean the latter to keep unsightly fingerprints at bay.

As much as the majority of Defiance 16’s build quality is music to my ears, the laptop’s speakers are less so. The system features two downward-facing tweeters towards the front of the chassis, which together deliver a decidedly middling listening experience.

Listening to the Daft Punk’s Discovery from front to back consistently left me longing for a pair of headphones. The glittery highs and punchy lows of the album more or less disappeared entirely, blending together in a muddy soup of muffled mid tones. Gaming is sadly much the same, with God of War: Ragnarök and other titles suffering from a significant lack of definition and punch.

I’d love to see future PCSpecialist laptops throw away the numpad and use that extra chassis space to adopt an upward-firing speaker design. This change alone would do wonders for the audio experience. Presently, this stereo setup is useful in a pinch but you’ll want to keep a headset handy for anything outside of semi-passive listening sessions.

With the laptop’s numpad relatively fresh in our minds, let’s talk keyboard. I’ve used it to type of much of this Defiance 16 review and while the membrane board’s nothing to write home about it doesn’t get in the way either. If you need to thrash out a couple thousand words at a moment’s notice or need some keys for a long gaming session, it’ll get the job done.

You can change the colour of the keyboard’s backlight via Control Center 3.0 but don’t expect a tonne of customisation. There are no fancy effects here to choose from, just a solid light available in a handful of shades that spreads across all keys. This isn’t a problem for me considering this is exactly how I prefer to style ARGB LEDs, but this array will disappoint those seeking more personality from their laptop.

It sounds ridiculous, but I’d also like to commend PCSpecialist for crafting this board with entirely semi-transparent keys. There’s nothing more frustrating than having a backlit keyboard, only to fumble around looking for a secondary function in the dark. It’s a sin I’ve seen other manufacturers commit plenty of times, and I’m thankful I didn’t have to contend with such pain on this system.

You’ll find sprinklings of connectivity spread across Defiance 16’s chassis. The laptop houses enough inputs to accommodate a set of core peripherals (headset and mouse) while still having a header or two spare for additional devices. More specifically, you have two USB 3.2 Type-A and two USB 3.2 Type-C ports at your disposal, spread across the sides and rear of the base.

The laptop’s charging port, HDMI 2.1 output, and Gigabit Ethernet each take residence round back. I’m thankful for their placement, as this doesn’t create any clearance issues round the side for USB devices and creates a less cluttered environment via a more even spread of cables.

Of course, Defiance 16 features wireless connectivity too, namely in the form of WiFi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3. In my testing, the laptop had no issue connecting to my home network of the same standard, and my pair of Sony WH-1000XM4 worked flawlessly for hours on end too.

Screen

Bigger is usually better in the world of screens, but I’m a champion of 16in panels on laptops for the greatest balance of portability and immersion. PCSpecialist packs a solid panel into Defiance 16, that promises

Benchmark	Result
AdobeRGB	78%
DCI-P3	79%
sRGB	100%
Brightness	41-687nits
Colour Accuracy	1.26 (Avg. Delta E)

The QHD+ 240Hz panel on my review unit doesn’t dazzle with wide colour gamut coverage, displaying just 79% of DCI-P3. However, it does hit 100% of sRGB and delivers both a bright and accurate viewing experience.

A brightness ceiling of 687nits blows many high-end OLEDs out of the water and is a particularly good result for any IPS panel. However, contrast is on the mild side at 1,060:1.

Every screen should strive for Delta E ≤2, and Defiance 16 smashes this goal and then some with Delta E 1.26. Across 48 colours, only one proves exceptionally inaccurate, resulting in a maximum Delta E 6.96.

Performance

Like other PCSpecialist laptops, Defiance 16 offers a choice of three power profiles: Entertainment, Performance, and Quiet. The system defaults to ‘Entertainment’, which more accurately serves as a ‘Balanced’ preset.

You can select between the trio of profiles via Control Center 3.0. Anyone familiar with Asus Armoury Crate will feel right at home here, as the layout and feature set are very similar.

I’m benchmarking Defiance 16 using the Entertainment profile’s default ‘Automatic’ fan curve. Control Center 3.0 doesn’t provide any details on how it structures said curve, but you can create your own custom setup should you wish.

CPU

Processing duties fall to Core i7-14650HX, the third-most-powerful chip in Intel’s older but still plenty-powerful Raptor Lake Mobile lineup. The CPU features 16 total cores, split across eight Performance cores plus eight Efficient cores, 24 threads, and a maximum turbo frequency of 5.2GHz.

Processor package power briefly peaks at 127W in Defiance 16’s Entertainment mode, but settles closer to 45W for the majority of a multi-core Cinebench 2024 run. Swapping to ‘Performance’ mode outfits Core i7-14650HX with a greater budget that averages to 95W under load.

Benchmark	Entertainment	Performance
Cinebench 2024 ST	116pts	113pts (-3%)
Cinebench 2024 MT	777pts	1,076pts (+38%)

Given the context of watts available to Core i7-14650HX in each profile, the processor’s multi-core performance greatly differs depending on whether Entertainment or Performance is active. While single-core scores are largely the same across each, there’s a massive 38% gap in multi-core.

Single-core is the most important metric for gaming, so I’m glad to see the laptop’s default profile deliver the goods. While the toggle to unlock greater multi-core performance on Defiance 16 is welcome, I wish PCSpecialist would make all the differences between Entertainment and Performance more obvious to the end user beyond broad tooltips.

Gaming

It’s time to test Defiance 16’s gaming chops, ray traced and rasterised. I’m taking a look at native performance as well as the benefits of DLSS 4, spread across FHD+ and QHD+ resolutions.

Benchmark	Score
3DMark Steel Nomad	3,450pts
3DMark Speed Way	3,955pts

A quick spin in 3DMark demonstrates RTX 5070 Ti Mobile performance is falling within expected parameters. For context, we’re just a few 100pts (1-2 frames) behind the more-expensive Recoil 18.

More broadly, it’s important to note that RTX 5070 Ti Mobile will not grant performance even close to the desktop component. Instead, you should expect frame rates closer to RTX 5070 and RTX 5060, which isn’t too surprising given all these SKUs share the same GB205 GPU albeit with varying amounts of cores and other subcomponents.

Benchmark	2560×1600 (QHD+) [Min. / Avg.]	1920×1200 (FHD+) [Min. / Avg.]
Assassin’s Creed Shadows	27fps / 31fps	33fps / 39fps
FFXIV: Dawntrail	63fps / 100fps	67fps / 142fps
Forza Motorsport	41fps / 48fps	58fps / 70fps
Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord	101fps / 142fps	134fps / 218fps
Rainbow Six Siege X	166fps / 223fps	201fps / 251fps

Facing off against the Club386 test suite, Defiance 16 rises to even the most challenging rendering workloads. Assassin’s Creed Shadows with every ray traced bell and whistle under its belt pushes the system a touch beyond the brink with a 27fps floor at QHD+, but that’s nothing DLSS or a switch to FHD+ resolution can’t fix.

Similarly, Forza Motorsport proves taxing for RTX 5070 Ti Mobile. The GPU is by no means burning rubber with a 48fps average at QHD+, but the drive is smoother at FHD+. Once again, dropping resolution or employing DLSS makes all the difference as you aim to balance frames and eye candy.

Free from the intensity of ray-traced realms, RTX 5070 Ti Mobile makes short work of rasterised games. Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail runs at a cool 100fps average, with Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord pushing even higher at 142fps.

However, it’s Rainbow Six Siege X that proves most impressive, making the best use of the 240Hz display with a 223fps performance. These results showcase Core i7-14650HX has enough grunt to keep pace with RTX 5070 Ti Mobile, but dropping to FHD+ in the competitive FPS does reveal early signs of a CPU bottleneck through minor frame rate gains.

Cyberpunk 2077 RT Overdrive	2560×1600 (QHD+) [Min. / Avg.]	1920×1200 (FHD+) [Min. / Avg.]
Native	13fps / 15fps	22fps / 26fps
DLSS Quality	28fps / 32fps	44fps / 50fps
DLSS Quality + FG x2	51fps / 58fps	80fps / 90fps
DLSS Quality + FG x3	73fps / 82fps	114fps / 128fps
DLSS Quality + FG x4	93fps / 104fps	146fps / 162fps

Important as native performance remains, one shouldn’t ignore the performance and visual benefits that DLSS 4 offers. In fact, the likes of Super Resolution and Frame Generation are practically necessities in the face of ultra-demanding path-traced workloads such as Cyberpunk 2077’s RT Overdrive preset.

Without any assistance from DLSS 4, Defiance 16 understandably crumbles under the weight of a path-traced Night City. However, frame rates more-or-less double once Super Resolution enters the mix, transforming slideshows into playable experiences. This is all while using the feature’s ‘Quality’ preset, with others offering greater performance in exchange for a reduction in upscaled image quality.

RTX 5070 Ti has access to Multi Frame Generation which won’t improve performance but can provide better motion clarity through generated frames. This comes at the cost of latency, though, and you’ll want as high a base frame rate as possible to mitigate this cost.

In my case, I have a 50fps average at best. Cyberpunk 2077 certainly looks smoother to the eye with FG x2, improving all the more as I scale up to x3 and x4. However, the game doesn’t feel smooth to play, on account of the high latency. That said, dropping to a less-intense DLSS preset does provide a more-solid ~60fps base, culminating in an notably superior gameplay experience with frame generation.

Storage

As a reminder, I’m packing storage both faster and larger than Defiance 16’s stock option. More specifically, I have a Crucial P310 2TB at my disposal.

CrystalDiskMark	Crucial P310 2TB
Sequential Read	7,004MB/s
Sequential Write	6,087MB/s

While not the fastest Gen 4 SSD on the market, Crucial P310 isn’t far off. Offering respective sequential read and write speeds of 7,004MB/s and 6,087MB/s, there’s plenty of speed here for general computing, gaming and more.

Should you have spare storage handy, you can tag in any additional drives into the laptop via its second M.2 slot. Alternatively, PCSpecialist can ship Defiance 16 to you with two SSDs in tow.

Vitals

Respectable thermals and acoustics are just as important as performance to any laptop, gaming or otherwise. A 16in chassis provides Defiance 16 with plenty of room to cool its internals, and the system puts that space to good use.

	Idle (Max.)	Load (Max.)
CPU temperature	38°C	77°C
GPU temperature	33°C	67°C
Noise	≤30dBA	47-52dBA
Power consumption	36W	85-197W

You won’t hear a peep from Defiance 16 beyond a low hum as the laptop sits idle. Sitting for five minutes atop my desk, the system whispers along at ≤30dBA and a cool 38°C.

Putting the laptop under pressure, noise levels are less agreeable but still well within expectations for a laptop of this size. Gaming stresses both CPU and GPU, naturally leading to the loudest result of 52dBA but the former isn’t much quieter on its lonesome with a 47dBA.

Core i7-14650HX runs hotter than RTX 5070 Ti Mobile, both idle and under load. Nonetheless, the cooling apparatus inside Defiance 16 keeps both from running unreasonably hot at 77°C and 67°C, respectively.

Battery

73WHr is on the smaller side as far as batteries go in the world of 16in gaming laptops, with many models on the market boasting larger ~90Whr cells. Nonetheless, it’s a welcome boost over the 54WHr capacity Defiance 16 normally ships with outside of an RTX 5070 Ti Mobile configuration.

Of course, size isn’t entirely indicative of longevity (much as it helps). Unplugging this system from the wall, though, I was reaching for the charging cable just a few hours later.

In PCMark 10’s gaming battery life test, Defiance 16 lasted just under an hour running solely off its dedicated graphics with screen brightness set to 50%. This is about what I expected from the laptop, not that I’d ever really consider playing games sans charger.

I was able to squeeze more life through general use, topping at around three hours. There’s room for improvement in this regard that features including Nvidia Optimus and an automatic refresh rate switch could greatly assist with.

Conclusion

The Defiance 16 I’ve reviewed is closer to the gaming laptop at its best than the base specification, but these upgrades don’t stop PCSpecialist from providing a competitive offering. The RTX 5070 Ti Mobile GPU inside this system is the star of the show, but the overall package surrounding the GeForce graphics is solid.

While I wish the battery life was longer and speakers more well-rounded, it doesn’t take much to remedy these wants with charger and headset in hand. Neither diminish the splendour of the laptop’s screen either, which remains accurate, smooth, and sharp.

At £1,499, it’s difficult to find alternatives on the market with comparable specifications, most costing at least an additional £100-200. These options remain worth considering if you’ve the capital, particularly if the efficiency of newer processors interest you, but you’re certainly getting your money’s worth with PCSpecialist.