iBUYPOWER Valkyrie CZ-17 Gaming Laptop Review

Valkyrie CZ-17 Overview
As the name suggests this is a 17-inch laptop, so it is quite large.  The actual dimensions are 16.9” x 11.3” x 2.2” and it weighs in at 6.9lbs with the battery attached.  Being this size does not make the CZ-17 much of a looker, actually there are not many companies that have been able to make a 17-inch gaming laptop look attractive.  The lid is made to look like it has a brushed black aluminum finish and there is an iBUYPOWER logo in the middle and two LED strips that go down each side.

iBUYPOWER Valkyrie CZ-17 Gaming Laptop Review iBUYPOWER Valkyrie CZ-17 Gaming Laptop Review iBUYPOWER Valkyrie CZ-17 Gaming Laptop Review iBUYPOWER Valkyrie CZ-17 Gaming Laptop Review

When you open up the CZ-17 you can see the nice large 17.3-inch display, which will give you a maximum resolution of 1920 x 1080.  One thing that I did like to see was that this display has a matte finish rather than a glossy one.  Glossy finishes are nice, but the glare you sometimes get with them can really be frustrating, especially when you are gaming and you miss that all important headshot.  At the top of the display is a 3.0 megapixel camera that can be used for taking photos or skype calls.

iBUYPOWER Valkyrie CZ-17 Gaming Laptop Review iBUYPOWER Valkyrie CZ-17 Gaming Laptop Review

Because of the size of the CZ-17 laptop you get a pretty full keyboard with a complete number pad.  While this is a laptop keyboard the keys are spaced out pretty well, which should make this keyboard very comfortable for gaming.  The keyboard is also backlit, which we will see a little later in the review.

iBUYPOWER Valkyrie CZ-17 Gaming Laptop Review iBUYPOWER Valkyrie CZ-17 Gaming Laptop Review

Below the keyboard is a pretty large trackpad with left and right mouse buttons.  If is placed slightly off center, which should be perfect if you actually plan on using it.  Along the edge of the laptop below the trackpad are a set of activity LED’s for Bluetooth, WiFi, battery, sleep and hard drive activity.  Above the keyboard you have a power button as well as a row of touch sensitive buttons that do different functions  like change your power profile, brightness, turn WiFi and Bluetooth off and on etc.  You have two large speakers on each side of the row of touch sensitive buttons.

iBUYPOWER Valkyrie CZ-17 Gaming Laptop Review iBUYPOWER Valkyrie CZ-17 Gaming Laptop Review

Moving along to the left side of the CZ-17 you have a large ventilated cooling section, three USB 3.0 ports, SD card reader and audio connections.  On the right side there is an optical drive, which in our case is a 6x Blu-ray reader and DVD+/-RW combo drive.  There are also two USB 2.0 ports on the right side.  On the back you have more connections, they include a lock port, power connection, ethernet, VGA out, eSATA and HDMI out.

iBUYPOWER Valkyrie CZ-17 Gaming Laptop Review iBUYPOWER Valkyrie CZ-17 Gaming Laptop Review iBUYPOWER Valkyrie CZ-17 Gaming Laptop Review

Flipping the laptop on its back there are 4 large feet that will keep the laptop off the ground to better airflow.  There is also a bottom mounted speaker.  If we take off the back of the laptop we can get a closer look inside and see the cooling setup and hard drive.  iBUYPOWER is using G.Skill DDR3-1333 laptop memory and a Seagate Momentus 750GB hard drive.

iBUYPOWER Valkyrie CZ-17 Gaming Laptop Review iBUYPOWER Valkyrie CZ-17 Gaming Laptop Review

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