Introduction

With the recent launch of Intel's new Haswell line of CPUs, Puget Systems has completely revamped our laptop product line to take advantage of the new improvements in technology. In addition to supporting the latest mobile CPUs from Intel, these laptops also have newer chipsets and have received significant increases in GPU power compared to previous models. 

At Puget Systems, we understand that laptops get used for a very wide variety of applications, and that some features may be more, or less, important to one user over others. For example, one user may prize great battery life, while another wants to have the best gaming laptop possible. For this reason, we strive to offer a range of units to satisfy nearly every need. In addition, we have first hand experience with how misleading many battery life estimates can be, so we do our own testing to find out exactly how much battery life you can expect with each unit in real world situations.

With all this being said, let's take a look at these new models!

Closer Look

	Puget Traverse
B560i More Pictures
V560i More Pictures
V760i More Pictures
	Puget Traverse Pro
M560i More Pictures
M760i More Pictures

Specifications

Hardware specifications:
 

*Limited to 47 W CPUs
**Only one active with current firmware revision

Starting with our entry model, the B560i is the only unit that does not utilize an additional video card. Instead, it uses just the Intel graphics that is integrated into the CPU. This is more than powerful enough for things like browsing the web, playing movies and writing documents, but is not the best choice if you are planning on doing more than very light gaming. In addition to the lack of an additional GPU, it also has the least amount of supported RAM, is limited to 47W CPUs, only has two WiFi antenna, and uses the HM86 chipset. There are a few minor features differences between the HM86 chipset and the HM87 chipset that is found in the other models, but in this case the most notable difference is the lack of Intel Smart Response Technology. This is only important if you want to use SSD caching, however, so for any other use these chipsets are essentially identical.

The main difference between the V and M-series units is the fact that the V-series includes a built-in NVIDIA GT 765M video card while the M-series allows for various models of video cards to be used. This gives the M-series a much higher degree of flexibility since you can tailor the video card to suit your needs, but it does come with a price premium. In addition to the GPU differences, the V-series units also maxes out at three sticks of RAM while the M-series can use up to four sticks. Finally, the M-series units have dual MSATA slots which allow for the installation of a second MSATA card, although at the time of this article there is a firmware bug that causes system instability if the second MSATA slot is used.

External Ports:
 

Externally, the available connectivity ports are very similar on all of these models with the differences coming in the available audio and video ports. For external audio, the M-series has 7.1 audio output, the V-series has 5.1 audio output, and the B560i only has 2.1 audio output. For external video, both the B560i and the V-series units have a VGA and HDMI output, while the M-series units have HDMI and two DisplayPort outputs. All of these units can output to three video displays at once with the integrated display being included in that count. This means that the B560i and the V-series units can utilize both of their VGA and HDMI outputs at the same time as the integrated display. Since the M-series have three video outputs in addition to the integrated display (for a total of four displays), only three of these displays can be active at the same time on those units.

In addition to the higher internal specifications, the M-series also feature a full size illuminated backlit keyboard. Hotkeys on the keyboard allow you to turn on and off the LEDS as well as change the brightness of the LEDs. With the control software installed and running, the illuminated keyboard is also very customizable. You can change the backlit LED color as well as choose between multiple profiles that change how the LEDs behave.

Hotkeys for controlling the backlit keyboard	Each of the three zones can be set to a different color

BIOS

Laptops tend to have very limited BIOS options and these Haswell laptops are no exception. For example, the BIOS does not give you any options for configuring RAM timings, frequency or voltage. There is also no way to customize the fan throttling to make the unit either quieter or run cooler. This is completely normal for laptops, so this is not a problem; just something to be aware of. In fact, there are really only three useful things you can set in the BIOS:

1. Boot priority
2. SATA mode (IDE/AHCI/RAID on the V and M-series, AHCI only on the B560i)
3. Enable/disable UEFI boot

Note that in our testing, we found that the UEFI boot option is only functional with Windows 8. When we tried to install Windows 7 in EUFI by various means, the installation froze even before we were able to select which drive we wanted to install the OS on. So if you are using Windows 7 and start having boot issues, checking to confirm that the BIOS is still set to have UEFI booting disabled is one of the first things you should check.

Main BIOS Screen	Advanced Tab	Advanced - Chipset Control
Shows installed SATA devices, RAM and BIOS version	Gives options to enable/disable various features.	Allows you to enable/disable the Bluetooth Power Setting
Advanced - Rapid Start Tech.	Security Tab	Boot Tab
Allows you to enable/disable Rapid Start Technology	Allows you to set the Supervisor password	Allows you to set the boot device priority
Boot - UEFI Boot	Exit Tab
Enable/disable UEFI boot. Note that UEFI mode on these laptops is only functional with Windows 8	Save or discard changes as well as allowing you to directly boot to a device or to the EFI shell from a filesystem device.