Clevo P180hm vs. M18x thoughs 1 month later......

K, Ive had both of these laptops now for about a month. Thought I would share some in depth thoughs on my feelings between them.

I'll start this out by saying I absolutely PREFER the P180hm over the Alienware M18x. Regardless, both are serious performance machines(laptop or desktopwise). But after doing alot of nitpicking and having plenty of hands on time the P180hm is without question the better built machine. A few things I will key on here.

A. Overall build quality. It goes right to the P180hm. It doesnt have all the nice aluminum pieces on the outer chassis like the Alienware does, but its just has a more solid feel, and the chassis design is without question a full step up.

Few reasons behind it. The keybaord to start.

A. It does not flex excessively like the m18x's. The chiclet keys feel much better with real positive feedback. The Alienware's keybaord flexes a rediculous amount. And I notice it starts to develop indentation "waves" and remains permanetly "bent" if you push on specific keys too hard(in which case you need to remove the keybaord to bend it back upwards in the area that bent down. The Alienware's keyboard's top F row can also develop sticking over time since its able to shift a mm or 2 up and down inside the keybaord bezel. The screws that hold the keybaord in place have had to had loctite reapplied a few times to minimize this issue. But the top row of keys is just too close to the top of the bezel where it will shift and the bezel will start to interefere with the top row over time. I do wish the P180hm's keybaord were backlit, but Ill take the current tradeoff any day of the week as it stands.

B. The cooling system. Its just superior on the P180hm. The fans pull air in and blow cold air directly over the copper heatsinks and through the exhaust fins. The gpu's run a few degrees cooler because of this. The fans are louder on the P180hm without question, but it also blows ALOT more air over the heatsinks, and the fans can be controlled and you can reduce the speed to quiet it down considerably.
On the M18x, the fans are on the backside of the video cards and pull air out through restricted holes through the MB and chassis. They do not blow or pull air directly away from the main GPU and CPU heatsinks. THey fans are quiet, but the amount of air the move around(or whatever the hell it is they do) is a joke. Overall a bit dissapointed in the design layout of the cooling system. Regardless, Ive had no over heating issues still, but I do use a Notepal U3 cooler(passively without the fans) to help aide in cooling.

C. Overall layout of the chassis and components.

If you want to get to the video card, cpu or main RAM dimms on the P180hm, all you do is remove 4 screws underneath and remove a bezel trim, unplug a few fans and voila your there. CPU,GPU and RAM sticks are nice and easy to acess for upgrades, or repasting etc.

On the M18x? Its a serious project and you need to tear the entire laptop apart to get to these same components. Keybaord, keboard bezel, bottom plate, disconnect all the cables(ALOT OF THEM),remove HD to get to more acess screws, remove top plate,remove wifi antanna leads and feed em through the MB, fully remove LCD panel mounts and lift off lcd screen etc to get to the CPU and GPU's. Its not a simple 5 minute task at all. Its a chore. And there are so many small hard to get locking connectors that are very fragile and will break no matter how careful you are if you end up doing this excessively. Its still overall a straight forward procedure, but its just very time consuming.

D. Eurocom's warranty. Although mine is short, and I did complain about having to pull teeth to get my initial video cards fixed and replaced, they did do it, and did so in a sketchy manner, but it was done on their dime and the laptop has been running FLAWLESSLY since then.

Dell's "next day in home customer care warranty". The idea is great, and there are some benefits, but the teeth pulling is insane with them. The "tech support" and "procedures" are a real PIA, and dealing constantly with idiots who don't know the product, (or the English language for that matter) can be just as brutal. And when you have a 3rd party "tech" come out to do the repairs on your nice shiny new $2k plus laptop, it has the potential for more times than not, to make you CRINGE. The few techs that came out to "repair" some issues with my M18x were near incompetent. Both of which claimed to have never worked on an Alienware computer either. One of them ended up bending a brand new replacement keyboard, just trying to secure it in(in which another had to be sent out). Screws ended up being missing, poor paste job, etc etc........

All in all, I have to say I actually prefer Eurocom's tech support and warranty, at least they were willing to send me out a replacement card at first so I could do the repair myself. Although there were a few issues past that(mentioned in another thread), it still ended up being better for me.

E. Battery, and battery life off the plug, favors the M18X. THe P180HM has a rather small battery which lacks any significant run time with crossfire cards running. The M18x has the ability to switch to the HD 3000 onboard video card, and with this option enabled, you can get 2 plus hours of runtime on it. You just dont have that ability on the P180hm. Best you can do is disable the secondary MXM card, but it still leaves runtime well under 2 hours. I really wish the P180hm had the ability to switch to integrated graphics on the rare occasion Im unplugged.

Performance between the 2 is basically the same overall. Obviously its how you configure it, which will determine how powerful your system is.

On the 6970m's and 6990m's: I find that the 6990m's are literally only 10% faster on games which the extra stream processors are utilized fully. On games where the stream processors are not fully utilized the performance is literally identical. This is 100% true when the main GPU core is bumped up 35mhz to the stock 715mhz of the 6990m's(And both GPU's are identical). I do not believe in "overclocking" a laptop, and feel that the mild bump in GPU clock to equal that of the 6990m is technically not an overclock. Temps run identical all day long whether the the 6970m's run at 680mhz or 715mhz.

F. Last but not least wifi: I do prefer the fact that the m18x has a dedicated and seperate bluetooth module. You can run a 3x3 card and not lose bluetooth functionality. On the P180hm, the bluetooth has to be integrated on the wifi card if this feature is important. Either that or you need to use the Xpress card slot. I havent looked into this yet, if I can find a good Xpress bluetooth card that does not stick outward of the slot, then this can also be considered a wash since I will most likely upgrade to a 6300 Intel 3x3 card in the near future to match up with my new e4200 wireless router.

G. 1080p LCD screen. Very small differences here, but I do find the P180HM has better ANSI contrast and better black levels when calibrated. Both are very close though, but the P180HM edges out the M18X.


All in all, both excellent powerhouse laptops, but I do feel the P180HM is overall a modest step up in overall build and functionality. A few things I will probably add and edit, but have a few chores to do. Will add later in the day.

 

What about speakers and onboard audio?

 

Honestly, the onboard "audio" and speaker performance is about the same........nothing to write home about either way........if you want really good audio, pick yourself up a pair of Ultrasone Pro 550's cans and be done with it.

 

Are you sure you have a M18x?? AW uses Klipsch sound system and it's very good if not the best in the laptop segment. Most Clevo's have mediocre speakers at best, even by laptop standards.

I also noticed that you liked the P180HM screen over the AW. Well, you are clearly biased as both screens have been thoroughly tested and the M18x's is by far superior, it's actually the best 18.4" panel out there from the current gen.

Anyway, both are great systems though we are biased towards our toys. to each their own, but I'd never switch to a P180HM personally, especially after seeing it in a lab multiple times side by side to most other power laptops including AW and business grade systems. To me, the screen on the AW is clearly superior (before and after calibrating BOTH with Spyder3 Elite) Here you go, after calibrating + messing with CCC a bit. Same goes for the sound quality and if you think I'm biased, check some reviews (Notebookcheck, Anandtech, Tomshardware, etc). they all agree on that hands down.

As for your tech support impression, when dealing with large vendors you have to be careful. You have to understand how the system works and play by the rules. If you do that, you will get the best service. I never allow 3rd party tech to touch my machine, would rather have the parts shipped to me and do it myself. Also, as soon as you get the direct AW support phone number, keep it and you won't have the hassle of finding the proper department. When talking to AW support folks, you should be clear and honest as mos people just call whenever the whim strikes to try and get free upgrades and replacements.

 

Nicely done but I also have to disagree with a few points. The warranty in which a customer can get a fully upgraded replacement by Dell multiple times. This makes the warranty the more valuable than the laptop itself. Also duration of the warranty is another matter. My warranty goes from 2011 to 2016. 5 full years. Clevo does not offer this.


Also the screen on the M18x is amazing, I sometimes think it looks better than my Dell U2412M. I've never seen the Clevo screen but it would have to be fairly new tech to compete.

 

Disagree my 5 speaker + sub setup with THX Surround is by far the best I have ever heard in my P170HM and it can go earplittingly loud when playing Battlefield 3 and not distort in the slightest.

I doubt the 180HM using worse than the 170.

 

Here is how I look at it.

Audio: The M18x uses a "2.1" system, with the main front 2 speakers firing out the front effect lighting "vents" below the palmrest and a small "subwoofer" out the bottom.

The P180hm, also has a pair of speakers in the same location, sub is also located underneath but on a back corner. It also has "surround" speakers in the lcd hinge towards the back of the unit. The P180hm lacks serious output if you just use the realtek audio drivers alone. But the THX audio program allows for individual gain, and surprisingly can EQ out the system to where its pretty much on par with the M18X using an Audiocontrol 3055 RTA and pro mic.

Neither system is great. Klipsch to me is not a "high end" company. And the tiny quarter inch front drivers and subwoofer still equate to about 50 cents in production cost to the unit. Jumble it in with Polk and the rest of the mass produced marketed garbage out there IMO.

All said and done when EQ'd out correctly they sound about the same. The M18x has a bit more output, but nothing to write home about. All laptop speakers SUCK, plain and simple.

As for the screens, and taking into account using an AMD grpahics card, the M18x clips the whites heavily, regardless of using 16-235 or 0-255 space. And its the same on its luminance as well. Blacks can get dark, but then at the expense of crushing them. WIthout clipping black or white detail the P180HM has the best ANSI contrast. And Im not gonna even mention the gamma curve. To get it even remotely close to around 2.2 the stock AMD CCC is set to about 1.65 and its still not even close on the M18x, the P180HM is marginally better. Colorspace without question favors the M18x, but once calibrated, its still hard to tell side by side that the M18x is better in this one area. IMO the ANSI contrast is the most important aspect with blacks and whites not being clipped.

As for using a Datacolor product like the Spyder........I dunno bout that........I've gone through 3-4 different spyders with every one giving vastly different readings. The latest Spyder 4 is OK I guess, but again, tolerances from unit to unit are poor. Id actually recommend a copy of DVE or AVIA with a set of D65 glass color filters over a Spyder. The hardware overall is the weak link. I wouldnt be too trusting of results from the Spyder........I have a pair of Sencore Colorimeters and a photospectrometer..............obviously the typical user wont have the ability to have one of these on hand, but the results are accurate and 100% repeatable, plus they are excellent for low light readings down to .01 fl and well below. The i1's from X-rite used to be a nice go between unit between regular consumer products and all out pro calibration devices, I just dont know if they are available anymore.

 

It's similar but the problem is not the volume but rather the clarity of sound. I find the 5+1 laptop sound systems found in Clevo's including your P170HM and X7200 while having a very high max volume lack the precision a bit. Not too bad and the overall impression is very positive but not as convincing as the M17x and M18x sound systems.

 

Guys, the points and comments being made on the LCD screens and the audio.......really the differences arent huge. And honestly arguing about either of them is pointless. If your worried about absolute sound quality, your going to buy yourself a set of good CANS, and if video quality is your main concern. They are about the same. In reality both are below average if you want to compare them to a real dedicated display, especially one other than the highly flawed "LCD" technology that is ancient.

 

Thanks for your input on screen calibration! Wish I had access to Sencore...

As for laptop speakers in general, totally agree, they all suck big time but at least we are spared the agony of the business class laptops. Those are truly crippled when it comes to sound system.

 

Oh I agree fully. Im sure they are by far better than alot of the "business" laptops etc. But again, if your an audiophile and want to hear the true potential sound out of your soundcard, you need a pair of these: ULTRASONE PRO-550 PRO550 PROFESSIONAL STUDIO HEADPHONES | eBay

These are $3-400 studio quality headphones that use a very high quality 50mm driver in a closed, tuned can. The impedance is even low enough where you can use an ipod nano or touch to power them to pretty high sound levels without clipping the audio signal. Make sure you rep me 1000 times over if your smart enough to pick up a pair and try em. SERIOUS SOUND QUALITY.

As for the LCD screens, both are actually pretty punchy and pop well. Again my observations between em calibrated were quite sublte. You would have to have them side by side to notice the very subtle differences. In other words a non factor. But I was nitpicking on my observations.

 

I own Spyder 3 Express for 3 years now, and i cant say much about varing between each, but lately i have been noticing that the calibration is not as good, since you have much more experience, maybe you have tested others to know if they are better or worth it, like Xrite EODIS3 i1Display Pro or Xrite CMUNDIS ColorMunki Display

 

I would check out the calibration section in the AVSforums to get an idea on user feedback and opinions on some of the entry level display calibrators.

 

Do you own any of these notebooks?

 

Again, check out the link for the cans posted. You will NOT find a better set for under 2-300 bucks.

 

Nice post, I'm waiting for my tax return and I'm still debating whether or not I should get a Malibal or an Alienware...been debating for months but I just can't seem to pull the trigger yet X(