Ordering W650SH (or similar) to Ontario, trying to choose a reseller

I've been researching my laptop purchase for a few months now and decided to opt for a Clevo/Sager laptop for enhanced performance, reliability, etc. (also because of good linux support)

I've found ProStar, XoticPC, PowerNotebooks and ReflexNotebook all to have the same pricing and available features for the model I'm looking to purchase. Since I'm shipping to Canada, ReflexNotebook said they would cover shipping and sales tax, so that might end up being slightly cheaper, but cost is not really my concern.

I am trying to make my decision based off of increased performance and reliability from the machine primarily, and then customer service and support secondarily. PowerNotebooks has the highest rating from the most users on ResellerRatings and I notice that PowerNotebooks, XoticPC and ProStar seem to all be equally recommended by members of this board.

Another point of interest for me was M-Tech Laptops, who claim to do extensive additional stress-testing on the parts they receive from Clevo. A similar model to the W650SH is M-TECH M665 The best deals in laptop computers - 15.6" Screen Size and actually seems to offer higher performance specs for a lower price. They don't have as strong a reputation as the other three but from what I gather I may be sacrificing a little bit on customer service for increased reliability or overall hardware quality. In this case I would go with M-Tech for the additional stress-testing on the hardware as customer service is a secondary concern for me (I'm running linux and not likely to be able to make use of much manufacturer support anyway).

I know a lot of people have asked for a recomendation to choose between the top 3 resellers and are usually told it comes down to personal preference based on factors like location and shipping charges or personal experience with customer service or particular special features offered. I am wondering if any of these guys do additional stress-testing like M-Tech? I confirmed with Reflex Notebooks that Clevo does their own stress-testing (which I was told was not the most extensive) but Reflex does not do any additional stress-testing themselves. Agents from M-Tech laptops have confirmed with me that they do a LOT of additional stress-testing themselves and advertise that as one of their main selling features.

Other than additional stress-testing, are there some other factors to consider when choosing between these Clevo/Sager Resellers? I liked that AVADirect offered the option to pre-install a linux distribution but their prices were not very comparable on models that I was interested in. Does one of the big 3 (ProStar, PowerNotebooks, XoticPC) offer a large difference in customer service? Has anyone had a particularly bad experience with M-Tech (I've read some people had a rough ordering process but the laptops end up lasting)?

Thanks for reading guys. I'm still a few weeks away from purchasing and will continue to research.

Update: I have now called all of these companies. None of them do additional stress-testing (except M-Tech) except ProStar who is not actually a Sager reseller but take the Clevo barebones and build the laptops themselves. They do their own stress-testing which, from what I gather from my research, is more extensive than Sager's. Same price as Sager resellers.

I will also mention that everyone I spoke to was very helpful and nice. I spoke extensively with representatives at ProStar, XoticPC and Power Notebooks, all of whom went above and beyond my expectations by offering additional solutions to specific problems and tech requests they could not personally resolve (currently I know of no way to get a Clevo laptop without optimus), and a gentleman from Power Notebooks even did some research for me on the internet regarding my purchase while I was on the phone with him.

 

These threads will largely be to post your experience with the resellers with your personal purchase, probably not the best place to post for recommendations though since most users on the forums won't be looking here unless they're new to Sager/Clevo and searching for a reseller themselves.

It all really boils down to who fits your needs best. If price be that point, go with the lowest price. If you want the support and service to stand behind the product after you receive it, choose who you feel will best meet those needs. It does come down often times to juggling pros/cons of each, but out of all of us, you'll be getting identical machines if configured identically. I don't know who it was you spoke with here at Xotic PC or what they mentioned, but if you get an XPC service that we offer as customizations that we perform ourselves, we can arrange for additional testing/benchmarking to be done for you to ensure the machine is working perfectly before getting on its way to you. If you don't have specific time constraints to worry about, that's a great route to go and I'd be happy to help set it up for you.