XoticPC - Sager NP7358

The backstory: I've been looking at a new laptop since November. Due to not being able to reach sales (I always manage to have questions when sales isn't available) during the black friday/cyber monday sales I missed out on getting a different model at the time. I then waited to see what was offered up until new years, but nothing really pulled me in to make an impulse buy at that time and I ended up holding off again. When the new nvidia cards were released I started looking again, but it was about that time that my go-to laptop (old Toshiba that chokes on youtube videos) finally kicked the bucket so my hand was forced into picking something. After going back and forth over all the options I finally settled on the NP7358, although I didn't much care for the light silver color (to which I was surprised when I opened it up to find a nice dark grey!) or the chicklet keys. Over all this time I was corresponding with Josh who was kind enough to answer all the questions I had.

What I bought:
Sager NP7358
Warranty Sager 2 Year Parts & LIFETIME Ltd Labor Warranty w/ Lifetime 24/7 DOMESTIC Customer Support (SKU - WTY098)
The XOTIC PC Difference * 24/7 LIFETIME U.S. based technical support
* Extreme QA testing by dedicated technicians
* 24-72 Hour stress testing and benchmarking to ensure top performance and stability
Build Time Standard Production Time
Operating System ~Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit (64&32-Bit CD Included (Supports up to 16GB of RAM)) + MS Office 2013 Trial
Fingerprint Reader Integrated Fingerprint Reader
Battery Smart Li-ion Battery (8-Cell)
Sound Card Sound Blaster Compatible 3D Audio - Included
Camera Integrated Digital Video Camera
Memory Card Reader Internal 9-in-1 Card Reader (MMC/RSMMC/SD/Mini SD/SDHC/SDXC/MS/MS Pro/MS Duo)
Wireless Network Sager - Intel® Dual Band AC 7260 802.11 A/AC/B/G/N 2.4/5.0GHz + Bluetooth™ 4.0 (SKU - WIFI98)
Bluetooth Bluetooth Included *With select wireless cards only* (See “Wireless Network” Section Below)
Optical Drive Bay 8X Super Multi DVDRW/CDRW Combo Drive (Sager) (Dual Layer w/ Software) (When selecting a Hard Drive in the Optical Bay, No Optical Drive is Included) (SKU - ODD099)
Primary Hard Drive 750GB 7200RPM [SATA II - 16MB Cache] (SKU - HDD099)
Branding Remove All Branding
Ram 8GB DDR3 1600MHz [2x4GB] Dual Channel Memory (SKU - RAM01S)
Graphics Video Card NVIDIA® GeForce™ GTX 860M (2.0GB) GDDR5 PCI-Express DX11 w/ Optimus™ Technology
Thermal Compound - IC Diamond Thermal Compound - CPU + GPU
Processor Sager - 4th Generation Intel® Haswell Core™ i7-4700MQ (2.4GHz - 3.4GHz, 6MB Intel® Smart Cache) (SKU – SPU201)
Dead Pixel Warranty 30 Day No Dead Pixel Warranty (On any Sager Screen)
Display 15.6" FHD 16:9 "Matte Type" Super Clear Ultra Bright LED Anti-Glare Sager Screen w/ 95% NTSC Color Gamut (1920x1080) (SKU - SSC006)
Free Shipping FREE!!! – U.S. UPS GROUND SHIPPING (Use Coupon Code "FREESHIP" in Checkout) [U.S. Lower 48 ONLY / Restrictions Apply]

Timeline:
April 02: Ordered Laptop
April 02: Phase 0: Order Received & Processing
April 03: Phase 1: Payment Processed & Inventory Gathering
April 14: Notified the screen I ordered is no longer available. Chose to go with default screen and proceed.
April 15: Phase 1 (Continued)
April 17: Phase 2: Sager Assembly, Build, Technical Analysis, Stress Testing & QA
April 18: Phase 6: Sager Shipped to XOTIC PC Nebraska Facility (I'm in California so it had to bounce from Sager to Xotic to me)
April 23: Phase 7: Packaged & Shipped
April 29: Refund put through for the screen that wasn't available.
April 29: Phase 8: Received, Opened and Powered Up! (This phase isn't on their chart)

Phase 3 that you don't see is for Xotic customization. Phase 4 & 5 I haven't a clue about as there's no mention of those anywhere. When it arrived I was pleasantly surprised that the case was a dark grey instead of the light silver that all the images seem to show. I had purchased a samsung ssd separately to save some money as I was way over budget if I got it through a sager reseller. Unfortunately due to my timing, I missed out on all the free games nvidia offered with the cards, but at least I got what appears to be a solid laptop so far (in the few hours I've been fiddling with it). Also I made sure to charge the purchase over a 3% discount as my CC extends the warranty by a year. Overall it was a good buying experience. I would however like to see a couple changes and I think all resellers should keep this in mind:
1. Refunds should be processed as soon as Sager ships the unit out.
2. An update on the order every few days, even if there's no change, would be greatly appreciated. I get a little nervous (especially with a company I've not dealt with before) when the charge is on the card and I haven't heard anything for over a week.

 

Thanks for posting your feedback. I'm in the middle of the same process with XOTIC for the same laptop (seems we're part of the minority on NBR that opted for the 7358 over the smaller 7338 ). Mine has been in Phase 1 for almost 2 weeks now (have not heard of any specific delays to my order up to this point).

I also echo the sentiment that it would be nice to get at least a weekly update on orders by default, especially with how slow Sager is with getting these laptops shipped out for non-Rush orders. I contacted my rep last week and got an ETA on the ship date for early May. It was unfortunate to hear how much longer it would take still, but it was also nice to hear them take the time to confirm the dates with Sager. If I don't hear from them this week, I'll probably have to contact them again to see how that ETA is holding up.

Also, glad to hear the laptop is a darker shade of grey. My old Inspiron from 2005 was a light silver and it was a bit annoying how quickly the paint started to wear by the palm rests. Hopefully won't be quite as noticeable on a darker color, though I'm probably going to miss the black rubberized palm rest design on my current Asus G51.

 

I did end up contacting sales on the 10th and got a reply on the 11th reminding me of the stated time frame. I thought maybe they just forgot to update a phase and might need a nudge as updating phases seems to be an issue with every company I've run into that uses them. Phase 1 just takes forever though!

 

Wow, not sure if I just got luck with the timing or what but I bought the same laptop with the normal screen on April 1st and it arrived at my house on April 15 and I thought that took forever. Your almost month of waiting would have drove me nuts! Kudos to your patience though. How you like it so far?

 

Vanished - Glad to hear Josh got you taken care of, he doesn't frequent NBR but i'll be sure to let him know.

Right now the ETA is May 5th which is this coming Monday so not too much longer for the wait. They were expected before that originally but it got pushed back. Once they do get back in stock Sager will typically prioritize those builds since the orders have been waiting for them to come back in stock.

Feel free to shoot your advisor any questions, or PM me here.

 

Love the color, the startup speed is great and haven't had issues with the wifi so far. The most I've used it so far though has been reinstalling windows, doing updates, installing drivers and trying to test to make sure everything works. Still have to check the ports and then if I can get over to another location today, download some of the steam games that I've been sitting on for a year+. The home dsl connection is terrible, especially when there's multiple net hogs (myself included) constantly vying for a majority of it. The speakers on the laptop aren't as bad as I thought, though at full volume after reinstalling everything they did give a rather horrendous static sound during startup. Turning it down a bit kept that from repeating. The audio from the headphone jack was great though. The only thing I've noticed that worried me a bit was the optical drive tray seemed exceedingly wobbly while open, but it worked so I'll just assume it's supposed to be that way.

I will say that my patience wore thin by that last day. It wasn't delivered until late afternoon and I got up early waiting for the UPS truck. On a windy day when you're waiting for a delivery, EVERYTHING sounds like a UPS truck. Between the horrible desert winds blowing in and the psychological warfare with the noise I was somewhat exhausted by the time it finally arrived.

 

Agree with you on the speakers, I'm mildly surprised that they seem to be ok. Just be sure to install the sound blaster crap after installing the via drivers (also i had no idea they were still in existence). Don't know about the cd drive, first thing i did was replace that thing with a caddy for another hd.

The other thing i'm impressed about is the cooling. having only one fan was initially kinda concerning but i've been able to game with the thing on my laptop while sitting on the sofa with no problems. i try not to block the vents with my legs but it seems to handle everything fine. of course, im coming from like a 4 year old msi where it would overheat if you didn't take the back cover off so maybe my thermal performance bar is set way low.

 

Finally got out and snagged a couple games that have been sitting on my steam account behind my lack of net speed wall. Haven't pulled up Dishonored yet, but thoroughly gorged on Bioshock Infinite. I had the settings on Very High and didn't notice any lag or graphical issues. Played smooth as butter! Don't have anything to measure temps or frame rate so I just have to judge with my eyes. The fans have been fairly quiet too which is great!