Keyboard and Trackpad
On paper, Scan's expansive keyboard appears to have it all - it uses almost the full width of the laptop's large chassis, it includes a dedicated numpad and it's backlit, too.
In terms of layout, the keyboard is almost identical to those featured in MSI's GT-series laptops. Designed primarily with gaming in mind, the Windows key has been moved to the right of the space bar to prevent accidental hits (you'll either appreciate the gesture or you won't) and a programmable multi-coloured backlight illuminates each key.
Various small changes to the layout can take a bit of getting used to - we're not fans of the single-height enter key or the relocated backslash - but each key is well-sized and the backlight is both bright and even. Unfortunately, it's the key action that lets the panel down. The keys feel shallow, spongy and fatiguing during use, and though we were able to type fairly quickly with few errors, this isn't the most enjoyable keyboard to use.
The Synaptics trackpad, however, hits a lot of the right notes. The tracking surface is of a good size and feels smooth to the touch with not too much drag, and we always appreciate having two dedicated buttons. Multi-finger gestures such as scroll and pinch-to-zoom work perfectly, and support for various Windows 8 features is also built in - you can swipe in from the right edge to bring up the charms bar or swipe in from the left to switch between apps.
The trackpad is hard to fault, but the built-in fingerprint reader isn't put to good use. Scan doesn't include any fingerprint management software by default, so users are left to find their own third-party solution.
Software
One of the advantages of purchasing a laptop from a system integrator such as Scan is that there's likely to be no bloatware.
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As expected, the LG10 arrives with a tidy Windows 8 installation carrying only a few obvious additions such as the latest AMD Catalyst drivers and configuration utilities for the various hotkeys and the keyboard backlight. The latter is crude in terms of presentation, though it does provide good control over the backlight functions - users can customise three separate zones as well as choose from a variety of light cycles.
Having no bloatware in sight is always a bonus, but as with the LG5, Scan's out-the-box software configuration is arguably too simple. As mentioned above, the LG10 doesn't include any fingerprint management software, but more importantly there's also no recovery partition so getting back to a factory-fresh state isn't as easy as it ought to be.
Performance
The LG10's raison d'être is to provide a stellar gaming experience, so exactly how much power do you get for your £1,030?
Unsurprisingly, the answer is quite a lot. Our first benchmark examines the multi-core performance of each laptop and with a quad-core Core i7-3630QM at the helm, the Scan machine has no trouble finding its way to the top of the chart.
PCMark 7 tests overall system performance, and though this particular benchmark tends to favour laptops with solid-state drives, the Scan 3XS Graphite LG10 scores an impressive result with a Seagate Momentus XT Hybrid Drive. The system feels fast during everyday use and boots to the Windows 8 Start screen in a little over 10 seconds. You can certainly feel the benefits of Seagate's integrated solid-state cache, though as with all cache solutions, the speed-up occurs on repeated tasks; loading a game for the first time can feel drawn-out.
