Why you can trust TechRadar
We spend hours testing every product or service we review, so you can be sure you’re buying the best. Find out more about how we test.
PC Specialist Defiance II 16: Two-minute review
The PC Specialist Defiance II 16 is a budget gaming laptop that still has an impressive specs list to handle high-end gaming.
It has a premium-looking lid, with a metallic sheen and dark grey finish. Overall, though, it’s certainly less ostentatious than other gaming laptops, with no brash logos or RGB lighting, which is confined to the keyboard alone.
Another area where it departs from the norm is its form. It’s surprisingly free from bulk considering its large display size. There’s no rear protrusion, and the overall thickness of the body is relatively small. It’s quite heavy, though, which makes it more laborious to carry around than lighter rivals.
It seems built to a relatively high standard, with its solid lid and sturdy chassis. However, the keyboard enclosure flexes considerably, and isn’t something you’ll find in the best gaming laptops. Thankfully, this didn’t cause an issue while I used it.
The ports on the Defiance II 16 are thoughtfully chosen and positioned. On the back are the power, HDMI, and Ethernet connections, as well as one of the USB-C ports. The other is on the right, along with a USB-A port. On the left is another USB-A and a headset jack.
Gaming with the Defiance II 16 at full resolution is a pleasant experience, with the RTX 5050 in my review unit delivering high frame rates in AAA titles. There can be considerable jumps in fps depending on the in-game scenario, but this isn’t regular enough to be disruptive, and you won’t have to reduce the settings that far from maximum.
You will, however, have to set the Defiance II 16 to Performance mode in the Control Center. This inevitably ratchets up the fan noise, which can be quite loud, requiring a good pair of headphones to mask.
Thankfully, most of the heat it generates is dispersed underneath and towards the back; any that makes its way topside stays to the right, meaning your WASD hand won’t bear the brunt.
The 1920 x 1200 display is sharp and vibrant enough to make gaming enjoyable, although reflections can be prominent at times. The smooth 165Hz refresh rate was also a blessing.
The keyboard is sufficient for gaming, but the narrow keys can make the WASD position feel a little cramped. The touchpad is worse, with its small surface area and lack of cursor smoothness, but will likely be a moot point for most gamers, who’ll be using an external mouse instead.
More damaging to the Defiance II 16, however, is the poor battery life. It performed dismally in our movie playback test, with cheaper rivals managing to far outlast it. At least when you do run out, it’s reasonably quick to recharge.
This is the biggest compromise of the Defiance II 16, though. In nearly all other regards, the Defiance II 16 acquits itself very well, making it a contender for one of the best value gaming laptops out there right now. It certainly faces some stiff competition in this category, but it doesn’t shrink in the face of it.
PC Specialist Defiance II 16 review: Price & Availability
- Starting from £956
- Available now in the UK only
- Lower end of the market
The Defiance II 16 starts from £956 (about $1,280 / AU$1,960) and is available now in the UK. The CPU isn’t configurable, but nearly every other aspect is. GPUs up to the RTX 5070Ti 12GB are optionable, as are huge RAM and storage capacities.
This is a very good price for a gaming laptop with this spec. You won’t find many equivalent rivals under £1,000. One of the few is the Acer Nitro V 15 Intel, which actually has a cheaper starting price, yet the base model still comes equipped with an RTX 5050. What’s more, it has a variety of CPUs to choose from, and it’s also available in the US and other territories.
For AMD fans, there’s the ASUS TUF Gaming A16 Advantage Edition instead. Its AMD Radeon RX 7600S 8GB can handle 1080p gaming just fine, although you may have to disable Ray Tracing. It also has a great display, and likewise doesn’t command an outlandish price tag.
PC Specialist Defiance II 16 review: Specs
| Row 0 – Cell 0 |
PC Specialist Defiance II 16 Base Config |
PC Specialist Defiance II 16 Review Config |
|
Price |
£956 (about $1,280 / AU$1,960) |
£1,072 (about $1,435 / AU$2,200) |
|
CPU |
Intel Core i7 14650HX (16 Cores) 2.2GHz |
Intel Core i7 14650HX (16 Cores) 2.2GHz |
|
GPU |
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5050 8GB |
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5050 8GB |
|
RAM |
PCS Pro 8GB DDR5 5200MHz |
PCS Pro 32GB DDR5 5200MHz (2x 16GB) |
|
Storage |
256GB PCS PCIe M.2 SSD |
1TB PCS PCIe M.2 SSD |
|
Display |
16″ Matte FHD+ 165Hz sRGB 100% LED Widescreen (1920 x 1200) |
16″ Matte FHD+ 165Hz sRGB 100% LED Widescreen (1920 x 1200) |
|
Ports and Connectivity |
3x USB-A 3.2 Gen 1, 1x USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 (Thunderbolt 4), 1 x HDMI 2.1, 1x RJ-45, 1x 3,5mm Audio, Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.3 |
3x USB-A 3.2 Gen 1, 1x USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 (Thunderbolt 4), 1 x HDMI 2.1, 1x RJ-45, 1x 3,5mm Audio, Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.3 |
|
Battery |
54Wh |
54Wh |
|
Dimensions |
14.2 x 10.2 x 1in / 361mm x 259mm x 25mm |
14.2 x 10.2 x 1in / 361mm x 259mm x 25mm |
|
Weight |
5.3lbs / 2.4kg |
5.3lbs / 2.4kg |
PC Specialist Defiance II 16 review: Design
- Understated looks
- Reasonably compact
- Mixed utility software
The Defiance II 16 adopts a sleek yet functional form, forgoing the flashier aspects of others in the gaming laptop market. The steely finish of the lid looks premium but discreet, as does the small PC Specialist logo. There’s also a distinct lack of RGB lighting, confined only to the keyboard.
For a large gaming laptop, the Defiance II 16 is pleasantly free from bulk. There’s no rear ventilation bulge, and its overall dimensions are surprisingly compact. It’s quite heavy, though, which limits its portability somewhat.
Build quality is pretty good, although the considerable amount of flex to the keyboard, which is apparent even when typing lightly, didn’t fill me with much confidence. However, this wasn’t egregious enough to negatively impact my time with the Defiance II 16.
The lid is much sturdier, holding the display in place without wobbling. The hinge operates very smoothly, too, and provides a generous recline angle, although it stops short of a full 180-degrees.
The keys feel good to use (despite the aforementioned flex of the keyboard), and their subtle RGB backlighting is a nice touch. They’re quite narrow compared to other laptop keyboards, but their generous spacing helps to prevent the layout from feeling cramped, even though it includes a number pad.
The Defiance II 16 has all the ports a gamer would need, and they’re sensibly located. There are two USB-A ports on either side, ideal for connecting peripherals, while on the rear you’ll find the power port, centrally located with an HDMI port and an ethernet port to the right of it, and a USB-C to the left. Another USB-C port is located on the right side of the Defiance II 16, and a headset jack is placed on the left, ahead of the aforementioned USB-A port.
The lack of an Fn shortcut for F4 key is a little odd, especially when it’d be ideally suited to housing the mute shortcut, given that volume decrease and increase are bound to F5 and F6 (the mute shortcut is instead bound to F3).
What’s more, there’s no way to reassign these shortcuts. The best you can do, without using external software, is assign other keys or macros to them (and to all other keys, for that matter) with the preinstalled Control Center app from Clevo, the manufacturers of the motherboard for the Defiance II 16. You can’t, however, assign system or media functions, only other keys.
This app is also used to adjust performance modes, fan speeds, and the keyboard RGB, as well as toggle key locks and the activeness of the touchpad and webcam. However, it doesn’t appear to be very well engineered, with no option to pin it to the taskbar, and its installation name confusingly being “Fn hotkeys and OSD.”
PC Specialist Defiance II 16 review: Performance
- Great AAA performance
- Reflective display
- Poor touchpad
The Defiance II 16 does a commendable job of running AAA titles smoothly. Frame rates were between 60-70fps when I played Cyberpunk 2077 with the default Ray Tracing: Low preset, although I did experience occasional dips to around 50fps in busier scenarios.
This was also with Performance mode selected in the Control Center app, which is accompanied by plenty of fan noise, so you’d be wise to use one of the best PC gaming headsets to drown it out. If you select Quiet mode instead, you’ll certainly get a more hushed experience, but expect frame rates to suffer: Cyberpunk 2077 dropped down to 40-50fps on average, with 35fps being the lowest I saw in certain situations.
Thankfully, most of the heat the Defiance II 16 generates is concentrated underneath and towards the back. The temperatures here can be high, and the lack of ground clearance probably doesn’t help matters.
Some of this heat makes its way topside, but the worst of it seems confined to the right portion – a smart move, since you’ll only be making contact with the left side while gaming, in all likelihood.
The display is vibrant and bright, and the 1920 x 1200 resolution of my review unit was sharp enough for its size. It was also pleasingly smooth thanks to the 165Hz refresh rate. However, it lacks HDR and is a little too reflective in all but the most ideal of lighting conditions.
PC Specialist Defiance II 16 Benchmark results
Below are the results of the various benchmarks I ran on the PC Specialist Defiance II 16:
Geekbench 6.4:
Single – 2,735
Multi – 10,056
Cinebench R23:
Single – 1,808
Multi – 9,868 (5.46 x)
Cinebench R24:
Single – 106
Multi – 534 (5.06 x)
3DMark:
Night Raid – 60360
Fire Strike – 25161
Steel Nomad – 2262
Solar Bay – 43010
Speed Way – 2437
Port Royal – 5810
Crossmark:
1,702
Cyberpunk 2077:
1080p Medium – 229fps
1200p Ultra – 173fps
1200p Ultra w/ Balanced upscaling – 211fps
1200p Ray Tracing: Overdrive w/ Balanced upscaling – 107fps
Battery test:
Movie playback – 1 hours and 21 minutes
The keys don’t offer as much feedback as I would’ve liked, while their aforementioned narrowness can make the WASD position a little uncomfortable after a while. However, they suffice for the most part.
Less sufficient is the touchpad. It’s small for this size of laptop, and cursor movements can be jerky and unresponsive. This may not be a problem for most gamers, though, since they’ll likely be using one of the best gaming mouse picks instead.
I should also mention that I faced several issues with Windows updates on the Defiance II 16. Many got stuck either downloading or installing, requiring repeated restarts to work. One was particularly stubborn, however, refusing to install before Windows 11 eventually threw up a dialog box advising me to reinstall Windows to repair broken system files and components.
This worked and thankfully didn’t require me to delete any apps or other personal data. Admittedly, this ordeal was a minor hurdle in the grand scheme of PC troubles, and it’s hard to say whether the blame lies with Windows 11 or the Defiance II 16, but I feel it’s worth highlighting all the same. I haven’t experienced the same with other gaming laptops I’ve set up.
PC Specialist Defiance II 16 review: Battery Life
- Poor battery life
- Many rivals outlast it
- Quick charging
Even by gaming laptop standards, the battery life of the Defiance II 16 is poor. In our movie playback test, it didn’t even manage 90 minutes before giving up the ghost.
The cheaper Acer Nitro 15 V can outlast it by a wide margin, as it achieved a time of six and a half hours in the same test – and it isn’t exactly built for endurance. At least the Defiance II 16 is relatively quick to recharge, taking about two and a half hours to do so from empty.
Should I buy the PC Specialist Defiance II 16?
|
Attributes |
Notes |
Rating |
|---|---|---|
|
Value |
The Defiance II 16 is well-priced for a laptop of this spec, although there are a few cheaper rivals. |
4 / 5 |
|
Design |
The Defiance II 16 is understated yet premium in appearance, but the keyboard flex is a little disconcerting. |
4 / 5 |
|
Performance |
AAA titles run very well even at full resolution and with Ray Tracing. There’s a fair amount of fan noise, though. |
4.5 / 5 |
|
Battery Life |
No doubt the weakest aspect of the Defiance II 16. Many other gaming laptops can outlast it by a long way. |
2.5 / 5 |
|
Total |
The Defiance II 16 is a high-end gaming laptop with a low-end price. Just know you won’t be getting the best battery life. |
4 / 5 |
Buy the PC Specialist Defiance II 16 if…
Don’t buy it if…
PC Specialist Defiance II 16 review: Also Consider
How I tested the PC Specialist Defiance II 16
- Tested for several days
- Played various games
- Plentiful gaming experience
I tested the Defiance II 16 for a few days, during which time I used it for productivity, streaming video, and, of course, gaming.
I played various AAA titles at different settings, and also ran our series of benchmarks to assess its all-round performance. I also ran our movie playback battery test.
I’ve been PC gaming for over a decade, and have experienced various machines in that time. I’ve also reviewed a number of other gaming laptops, ranging in their price, size, and spec.
- First reviewed: September 2025
- Read more about how we test
Read the full article here
