Check out the Sager NP8690 (W860CU) - Intel i7 Calpella - It's here!

The high HDD heat issue may be resolved in this new revision. Although that remains to be seen.

 

See, what's keeping me from buying something like whatever replaces the np8690 / np9850 / np9280, is as much as I love the specs (and I want a 17" or 18" laptop as a desktop that only goes around the house and has 4 cores), is that I cannot get used to the off-center touchpad and, to some extent the integrated numberpad. I suppose that for those who engage in number-heavy operations at work it's faster than going up to the top rows of keys, and to that I guess I'll have to make a concession to that as it's becoming standard. What I don't get though is why the mousepad on this, and other models has to be moved off-center when for the past 20+ years of laptop / notebook / mobile pc existence it has always been dead center, or very close to there.

Maybe it's me, but I just can't get used to having the touchpad where it is, although i'll have to eventually get used to having the numberpad around unless I want a tiny laptop (which I don't).

Jason

 

Windows 7 + i7 should have comprable battery life to Vista + P series C2D...

I wouldn't recommend the M860TU at this point, unless it was severely marked down. Like $1200... The W860 has MXM 3.0, dedicated CPU and GPU cooling, i7 + 1333 RAM. It's a very worthy upgrade.

Personally, I'm waiting for 32nm i7 and GT300/RV870 before I sell and upgrade. But it's a good time for people to jump in on the market (if they haven't already) with the release of this new chassis and i7.

 

I think the idea is to keep it centered to the keyboard (minus numeric keypad) so you don't accidently hit it with your palms when typing. If you centered it with the entire laptop your right palm would constantly make contact with your hands in the home position.

 

This guy got it

If your replacing a lappy I say keep your current notebook and wait for theses (at least the gt 300 series gpus). If you need a new one now well I suggest waiting for the first review just so you know how bulky it is (it looks fatter than the M860TU), how much battery life it gets and if there are any issues (design flaw, bad placement of a component or overheating).

 

Does this have a multitouch pad?

Oh and I *hate* keypads on laptops. Feels so weird to have my hands off center relative to screen, and I'm constantly brushing against the pad with my left hand. I really wish chassises would have keyboard options for folks like me.

 

THANK YOU!

10chars

 

which is why i prefer no numeric keypad... you can keep the pad centered, and it won't make you brush your hand up on the touchpad, the touchpad is in between your hands, rather than your hand on the touchpad. I think a good idea then would be that upon plugging in a mouse, the touchpad gets turned off so you don't make the mouse go crazy by brushing the pad. (In effect, the mouse puts a killswitch on to make the touchpad go to sleep)

jason

 

Some touchpads have this "enable/disable when mouse plugged in" setting so you'll have to check the control panel for that. There could also be a keyboard shortcut to disable the touchpad. Otherwise you'd probably have to do it manually in the device manager.

 

I emailed rjtech about the W860CU and the W870CU yesterday. This is what they answered me today:

"We should have W860CU on our website either today or tomorrow, it will be available in the early of Oct.

As for the W870CU, it should be available in the end of Oct.


Please let us know if you have any question.

R&J Technology"

Now I just gotta wait for those CPU's (OEM or not) to pop up on eBay.

 

Most Clevos have the option to outright disable the touchpad via a FN key. On the NP9262/D901C, hit FN+F1 and the trackpad becomes disabled via the BIOS. It won't work anymore unless you press FN+F1 again to turn it back on, or reboot the machine.

 

Can anyone desribe me the A/C adapter MAXIMUM WATTAGE of W870CU ?

In the review of W870CU says this: "So the bottom line here is the rough max consumption of our test system was ~172W if you are charging your battery while gaming."

How can be system power consumption 172W if only 120W A/C Adapter is included ??? It is more than 30% over the edge.

Thank you in advance!!

 

^--^
You are talking about two different models, with different AC Adapters.

 

So
W870CU = 220W AC adapter
and
W860CU = 120W AC adapter?

 

Sorry, I was wrong. Both models use the same 120W AC Adapter.

However the reviewer is just making a "...rough..." estimate probably based on a wattage consumption device that is plugged into the wall socket into which they plug the AC Adapter.

While the AC Adapter is "rated" at 120W the electrical engineers always leave significant safety headroom in the rating. Clevo reports that even at maximum draw the AC Adapter is still within that safety zone.

 

120W is really not enough if people oc their NBs. I tried before with original 120W and max output is 11X W. And replaced a 160W now max is 15X W.......

 

I've got to say that Power Notebooks is awesome! I sent them an email last night and received the return paperwork this morning, along with a personal email. No auto response or form based response. I just talked to the exact same rep I started with.

Now comes the decisions. What CPU should I choose on the NP8690? Anyone think the 8mb of cache on the i7-820QM is worth it? I'm trying to keep in mind that the i7-720QM may not have much resale value because it is the lowest available processor and I don't see i7 mobile cpus dropping in price anytime soon. As you can tel I'm trying to talk myself into spending the extra money. lol Seriously, does anyone else think it's worth it?

 

I had the same dilemma and just went for the 820QM I don't know how the 720 will perform but I've seen reviews with the 920 and 820 and liked what I saw. I was previously considering a laptop with the QX9300 and since the 820 seemed to perform similarly that seemed like a no-brainer to me.

 

Thank you for your kind comments

Keep in mind that it isn't just the extra 2MB extra L3 cache, but also the clock speed. When analyzing the clock speed you need to look at the clock speed range that the Turbo Boost technology offers:
i7-720QM (1.6~2.80GHz),
i7-820QM (1.73~3.06GHz)

Early benchmarks compared the mid-range Intel® Core™ i7-820QM (1.73~3.06 GHz) processor in an otherwise mid-range system against the Intel® Core™2 Quad powerhouse QX9300 Extreme (2.53 GHz) processor in a very high-end system. In every test but one, the Intel® Core™ i7-820QM outperformed the Intel® Core™2 Quad QX9300 Extreme processor with the higher clock speed.

Is that worth $200.00?? I would call it the "sweet spot".

 

Sorry I missed this earlier.

Thank you! I know what you're saying. It's just a matter of time before the next big thing hits the shelf. I'm just having a hard time starting off a generation behind for the minimal price difference. For a similar spec NP8690, I would only be spending about $100 more. That's less then a 6% difference in price.

Everything I've read has nothing but praises for the NP8660 and NP8662 (aside from HDD temps). I'm sure you're going to enjoy your M860TU! I'm very impressed with the build quality on this one. My HDD temps are fine too. I don't think I've seen much more then 55C with the A/C set to 78F. This morning it's sitting at 51C.

 

Thank you for the help!

Thank you for the stand up service! I know where my Wife's laptop is coming from when her old one bites the bullet. Not sure if you're the owner, but Tim deserves a raise He's incredibly professional and laid back at the same time.

OK you sold me. My M8690 with i7-820QM will be ordered in about 5 minutes.

Edit: Ordered

 

Wow, you sager vendors have some excellent business skills!

 

Congrats on making the move to a W860CU! Powernotebooks is known for their top customer service, so I'm not surprised that you got it all sorted out so quickly.

As others said, I think if you have the budget, going with the 820QM makes sense, so you're making a good move there.

For me, it was a very tough decision. I managed to acquire a QX9300 for much less than I expected and I've been researching this laptop since last May, so I'm actually simultaneously very satisfied with my new machine and very excited to follow the release of the next gen W860CU; if that makes any sense!

 

Idk if someone asked this before but, arrandale is around the corner and supposedly has and IGP on the cpu, so will it use the same pm55 chipset? I think they use the same socket IIRC.

EDIT: Apparantly it uses the same chipset. The barebone from RJTech gets me excited .

 

You might want to make sure, chin.

Last I heard the socket will be different for arrandale (yeah, I know it doesn't make sense - just what I've heard).

 

I dont think intel would go that far to make two different sockets, which means two different motherboards to support arrandale and clarksfield.

I saw this and this though, kinda backs up what I read.

 

That's great.
Can you give us a idea on the fan noise with the 2 fans running?
Were they loud a really going when running benchmarks?
Some temps would be very nice!

 

I've thought the same thing. Some folks are convinced that because of the IGP in Arrandale, it will require a different chipset. I think they are right in terms of needing a new motherboard and chipset to support the IGP but I think it will still work in the current PM55 pending a OEM bios update. Granted, you wouldn't be able to use the IGP.

Here is some support for my thoughts (definitely not proof)
http://anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=3648&p=2

There Anand is talking about the desktop counterpart to the PM55, the P55.

 

Just sent my pre-order in yesterday! Really excited about this lappy! here are the specs!


1x Sager NP8690 (Built on Clevo W860CU) Custom Gaming Laptop - PRE ORDER
- Warranty: 3 Year Labor* 1 Year Parts XOTICPC
- Operating System: ~Windows Vista Home Premium 64-B
- Car Adapter: No Car Adapter
- Battery: 11.1V Smart Li-Polymer battery p
- Case: Basic Black Business Case - Incl
- Sound Card: Sound Blaster Compatible 3D Audi
- TV Tuner: No TV Tuner
- Camera: Built in 2.0 Megapixel Camera
- Wireless Network Accessories: No Network Accessory
- Wireless Network: Built-in Intel® PRO/Wireless 530
- Bluetooth: Internal Bluetooth + EDR
- Memory Card Reader: Internal 7-in-1 Card Reader (MS/
- Primary Hard Drive: ~ 320GB 7200RPM (Serial-ATA II 3
- Optical Drive: ~Combo 8x8x6x4x Dual Layer DVD +
- Exterior Finish: Standard Finish
- Ram: ~ 4,096MB DDR3 1333MHz Dual Chan
- External Monitor Video Adapter: No Video Adapter
- External Graphics Card: No External Graphics Card
- Video Card: nVidia GeForce GTX 280M 1,024MB
- Thermal Compound: Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound
- Processor: Intel® Core™ i7-920XM processor,
- Dead Pixel Policy: Standard Dead Pixel Policy
- Display: 15.6” FHD 16:9 LED Backlit Wide

 

That's a great setup and exactly what I chose for my dream setup with the exception of SSD.
Only thing I got to figure out is what screen res I would want and for some reason I'm leaning more towards the 1600x900.
The way I'm thinking is this:
This is going to be used mostly for gaming and with the lower screen res you would get better FPS in games.( games always look better at a laptop native screen res).
1920x1080 also is tempting but screen text gets very small at that resolution + I don't think I'm going to be watching to many HD movies on it.( Hey that's what I got a new PS3 slim for )
I would want to squeeze as much performance out of this laptop that's possible and at 1600x900 screen is good enough for me.
Not saying the 280M GTX would have a problem gaming with the higher res screen just gaming better with the lower res screen even if it's only a few more FPS.
Congrats on the new rig and have you to give us some sort of review.
I'm most interested on how loud the new 2 fan system is and what temps are idle and when stressed.
I'm a bit jealous.
Just gotta start saving....

 

WOW! I was just about to place my order for the NP8662!! hell if i do now ..
call me a real noob about laptops, I have some (more like general) qestions ..
if the GPU is upgradable, will I be able to upgrade the GTX 280 to an 11DX? and do resellers accept to switch the gpu for the difference in price?
am deciding between xoticpc and powernotebooks ..
does powernotebooks have student discounts? and do we have the choice of customized skin?

 

You will be able to upgrade the GPU as long as the BIOS supports it and the new one uses the same MXM 3.0b slot.

I don't think any seller will offer to take back your old GPU and sell you the new one minus the difference - there's always ebay for that!

I'm pretty sure only Xotic has the skins; not sure about student discount (should be on the site).

 

Regarding the resolution, it's not really about whether the GTX 280M can handle it, it is about how long into the future it will do so until you are forced to lower resolutions.

Many say that the new 1920x1080 will still look really good at 1600x900 but I am not so convinced. Nothing beats native resolutions and you get that terrible blur when you have to lower it. For gaming 1600x900 is the way to go but if you need the extra screen real estate or watch HD movies then maybe a higher res can be justified. Sometimes less is more though.

 

i am sorry if this has already been asked, but does it have a backilt keyboard? i tried the search function and that yielded nothing.

also is the screen a full led or just led backlit?

 

It has no backlit keyboard. As for the screen, it is led backlit.

 

Ok I was doing so digging around for the performance of the mobile i7's and came across CONFIRMED details about them when in turbo mode. It can be found here on Intel's website. Anywhoo, here's the information I've found:

 

Thanks for posting that - too many third party reviews have given inconsistent information on the exact figures.

 

The battery seems very small for the power demand of this computer, 11.1V Smart Li-Polymer battery pack 3800mAh, 42.18Wh. I think this will be the biggest complaint of this computer. This one is 3.8 AH, the NP8662 is 4.4 AH so this battery is even smaller than that one.
The m15x downclocks the GPU when on battery power to about an 8400 does anyone know the GPU clocks for the 280 on battery?
I noticed they put the power button on the side. The NP8662 had problems with the power button under the lid. I guess it would turn on by accident. I hope this location will stop that problem. Looks like a nice computer though.

 

I assume the Lithium-Polymer battery in the 8690used instead of Lithium-Ion in the 8862 will offset the smaller size so I suspect they'll have similar runtimes overall

 

No, 3800mAh is 3800mAh, no matter what tech is in the battery.

 

Thanks for correcting me on that. I guess we can expect less battery life then. It's not a concern for me since I'm plugged in 95% of the time anyways

 

can anyone tell me the optical drive config, the size and the connection type?

 

UPDATE

Both Sager NP8690 and NP8760 will began shipping to end users before next Friday 10/9/2009 with no finger print restrictions on both model and no screen restrictions on NP8690.


NP8690 w/HD+ or FHD, With Fingerprint or without

NP8760 with fingerprint and FHD.

 

Woo Hoo! Thank you for the update!

 

Thanks Justin! Any word on a review??

 

so...no fingerprint reader on both model. I thought no FR was for NP8690 only because no mentioned on NP8760 page about this. for screen restriction, all NP8690 models will not have this fearture? or it'll be available in the future?

 

If you read the UPDATE carefully you will see that the NP8760 will only come with the fingerprint reader.

The only correction is that the NP8690 will come with the fingerprint reader on the HD+, but it is optional on the Full HD.

 

Only the 8690 has the no FP Reader option. The 8690 has a option to go with our without FP Reader with the FHD Screen. (You save roughly $20 to go without)

 

I want to, but I won't let myself submit my order without reading a review first... ugh. Hopefully soon!

 

Why not order it now, do a review yourself and share it with all of us? Then if you end up not liking it send it back under the 30 Day Total Satisfaction Guarantee.