Clevo P950EP6 or ER review

Hi everyone,

First post here.
I try to find review, tests, or advices on the pcscpecialist Defiance XS II. Seems to be based on the Clevo P950 ER/EP6 laptop but I am not sure and it is hard to find any precise review of this specific model on the web. Even the thread named after this laptop on this forum doesn't include lots of things.

So I am looking for advices from users of this laptop. I'll use it mainly for productivity AND for video editing on DaVinci resolve (need at least 4Gb of GPU memory). So I'll probably go for a 4K screen, GTX1060, 1x16Go of RAM (so I can upgrade to 32Go easily when needed), and a 512Go Pci M.2 Drive for now.

My main questions are about :

1/ The quality of the screen. The website says 72% of NTSC...but is it really 100% of sRGB or REC709. What can I expect regarding viewing angle and general quality of the screen ? I wont need 144hz, 60hz will be enough. But does the 4K worth the prize ?
The bezels seem pretty thick compared to new laptops...is that okay ? Doesn't it look cheap ?

2/ Battery life. Not really when editing (I'll have a power source), but for productivity (word, excell and internet). Can I really expect 5h as the website claims with a 55Wh battery ?

3/ Noise. Is it loud (when idle or when productivity tasks are running) ?

4/ And overall build quality ?

There is a big sale on the 2017 dell XPS 15 now (i7 7700, GTX1050, 16Go and 512Go), so I am hesitant....I want to be sure that the build quality of the Clevo is good enough to last long...

Thanks in advance to everyone who wants to share and sorry if this has been discussed already !

 

Nothing ?

 

Check P950HP6 review.
The same chassis, but with 7700HQ
https://www.notebookcheck.net/Guru-Fire-KS-Clevo-P950HP6-Laptop-Review.257730.0.html
And main thread here
http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/official-clevo-p950hp6-sager-np8950-owners-lounge.804747/
Model with 8750H can be a little bit hotter and louder, but everything else will be the same.

 

https://translate.google.com/transl...u=https://pclab.pl/art77861-3.html&edit-text=

 

Thanks a lot for all this docs !

The tests of the battery seems to be pretty different though. Notebookcheck says 5h20 while watching a movie and 5h44 browsing, the article Prema quotes says 3h of movie, 3h30 browsing....all that with the same 55Wh battery.
What do you think we can expect with medium brightness and economy mode for this kind of use ?

Thanks !
R

 

I would probably err more on the side of the 3 to 3.5hr mark. Not everything is going to be like the tests where everything is at optimal everything.

 

Even on a conservative power plan, 5+ hours is a bit of a stretch. Expect closer to 3.5 hours, give or take.

 

Thanks everyone for you insights !

3.5h could be enough if it is the price to pay for powerfull hardware.

One last question : I would like to run linux on it (probably CentOs or Fedora). Does any of you had any experience in it ?
Xotic, Prostar, any of you have some advice ? Is all the hardware fully compatible with linux ?
Can I still benefit of Optimus with bumblebee ?

Thanks !!!!

 

Optimus on linux is always an absolute disaster.

 

We don't have much experience having not supported it, but the feedback I've seen here and there suggests that some of the bigger distros work well enough (Ubuntu based ones, mainly). Haven't heard much with respect to Fedora, Cent, Red Hat, etc.

 

I would avoid Centos/Fedora. With these kinds of laptops, particularly with GPU related drivers, you'll want a much faster moving distro or something with more ubiquitous support (ie *Buntu variants, Arch and the like).

Pretty much all of the hardware is. The main gripes are Optimus/switching and some of the more Clevo Control Center specific things like keyboard backlight and fan controls. For the keyboard backlight I remember a git project a while back which supported many Clevo models.

Bumblebee is a massive pain in the butt. I've tried it multiple times and it's just not anywhere near as usable as it is in Windows. Particularly issues surrounding sleep/suspending the NV GPU properly can get wonky under certain conditions. ie. The NV GPU not turning off correctly and draining huge amounts of enery, which rather defeats the purpose.

The "easiest" path is to use the proprietary Nvidia drivers and the included manual switch-over app (requires an X Restart). Alternatively, reboot in full DISCRETE mode whenever you want to game.

 

Thanks a lot Stooj for these details.

Actually my project is to use this laptop for video editing on Da Vinci resolve. I'd like to avoid Windows as much as possible (I switched from Linux to Mac years ago when I needed Final Cut and now that theses days are gone, I'll be glad to go back on Linux). It happens that Resolve works with Cent OS (and officially support it, not other distros)... so I'll need the nvidia drivers working on Cent OS.

I was thinking that maybe I could do a dual boot with one main distro like ubuntu or Pop!_Os (based on Ubuntu from System 76...which I suspect to be Clevo friendly), WITHOUT the nvidia driver, only the intel driver...to save battery life and power, and on another partition, the CentOS WITH the proprietary nvidia driver working.

What do you think ?
But in all these scenario, I'll need audio working and as much things as possible.

I am hesitating with the dell xps 15 (last version with i7-8950H). The battery power (97wh) is much more interesting on the dell but for the same price there is no 4K, no second hard drive, 1050 Ti vs 1060 and I am forced to buy Windows at full charge... But maybe the overall quality of the computer is better for the XPS. I don't know cause I don't have any experience with the clevo build quality. Any advice ?

Thanks again.

 

1) The 1080p 60 Hz panels PCSpecialist use either cover 60-70% or ~85% of sRGB. The 1080p 144Hz panel will almost definitely cover 96-100% of sRGB. The 4K panel option they have is a RGBW panel and should therefore be avoided at all costs. The only way to know for sure is to call PCSpecialist and ask.

2) If you turn down the brightness, and do nothing intensive with the laptop, you could probably squeeze 5 hours out of it. This is not a sure thing, so you might want to get a portable power bank like this one off amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/MAXOAK-Cap...=1529422601&sr=8-4&keywords=laptop+power+bank

3) When idle, the laptop is pretty much silent providing you have the latest BIOS/EC installed. Most Clevo laptops tend to have awful fan curves when they hare release, but this gets fixed with new BIOS updates about 6 months after they are released.

4) Really good. There's no keyboard flex at all - the laptop is built like a tank.

 

F*** I was aiming at the 4K screen. The website says " LP156UD1-SPB1 ou Samsung LTN156FL02 " for these 4K models. What would be the main drawbacks with RGBW ?

I contacted them to ask and they said :

"The panel model for the FHD is the B156HAN03.1. We do not have any confirmation for the 4K yet."

According to the website they are out of stock for this laptop. So maybe they are waiting to know what is coming?

I am really hesitant between the Dell XPS 15 (FullHD, same CPU but GTX1050Ti, 16Gb of 2666Mhz Ram and 512Go Pcie M.2 SSD) and the Defiance XS II A.k.a P950 (4K, same CPU, GTX 1060, 16Gb of 2400 Ram and 512Go Pcie M.2 ). The price is pretty much the same but it is hard to decide between battery/design vs power/upgrade with a second SSD

:-(

 

Some Clevo resellers offers new FHD IPS 144Hz like this LG Philips LGD05C0
https://www.notebookcheck.net/Euroc...Q-FHD-Laptop-Review.306110.0.html#toc-display
95% sRGB and no PWM.
I found this panel very good even for some enthusiast content creators.

 

Not really.

Avoid Bumblebee (which hasn't been updated in ~5 years) and stick to the prime-select tool for when you need to switch to the iGP.

Distros that work well here: Modern Ubuntu builds, and their variants.

For HDMI audio on Optimus notebooks, see https://github.com/hhfeuer/nvhda.

 

Out of all the distros I think I have seen the most success with Ubuntu on Clevo based models. Maybe Mint but I think that's just me remembering one person who did.

 

Just to add my two cent,

I have the pc specialist Defiance XS II from when it was still available, and currently have Opensuse and Windows 10 installed in a dual boot config.

Windows 10 works flawlessly, Opensuse has been a small nightmare but it has been working well. Issues with Nvidia as expected, Bumblebee with suse seemed like it would be a good idea ... slight mistake ... currently can't boot X but fairly confident it's fixable without a snapper. Also couldn't use visual installer.

Also other minor issues with Suse like lack of brightness control working, all looks fixable with some TLC.

 

Hello there,

Could you try out these workarounds?

(a). Don't bother with Bumblebee.

(b). For grub, edit /etc/default/grub and ensure that GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT= is populated by this: "acpi_osi=! acpi_osi='Windows 2009' blacklist=nouveau elevator=deadline drm.debug=0xe quiet splash"

Then regenerate grub config:

(i). With Yast, it will automatically regenerate the configuration for you, but if you do it manually,
(ii). You must run grub2-mkconfig.

At this point, ensure that only the NVIDIA driver is installed. Bumblebee, at this point in time, is an outdated hack (that hasn't seen commits in over five years!), and a headache to even get it up and running properly on modern laptops.
Related, Pascal GPUs are very power efficient, and for desktop tasks, they actually 'idle' and consume very little power (an additional ~10-15W compared to the IGP).

Whatever benefits bumblebee offers are quite marginal in this regard, and for this reason, cannot recommend it for general use.

However, if you must use Bumblebee for whatever reason, on your machine, see this workaround (that fixes the X not starting issue): https://github.com/Bumblebee-Project/Bumblebee/issues/764#issuecomment-388701108

 

I will give these ago as soon as I can ... thanks for the help, really appreciate it

 

That chassis is identical to that of the Eurocom Q6.

I also struggled a bit to get Ubuntu 18.04LTS on it (couldn't use the graphical installer and had to use Ubuntu server alternate installer ISO), as shown here: https://gist.github.com/Brainiarc7/f7da590bee1ed35ac5ed258ff9335fd6

There's also a discussion on stuff such as OpenCL performance here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...0-build-1803-vs-ubuntu-linux-18-04lts.818024/

The gists in (1) also describe other workarounds such as getting both inbuilt and HDMI audio to work, and a conky configuration you can load and adapt with ease (optional).

 

Thanks for these two cents !

Did you try the distrib Pop ! _os ? It is from the guys of System 76 and as they sell clevo laptops I expect it should work well. And they have a built in tools for the Graphic switch. I think it relies on Prime but not sure.

Also I noted that the Defiance XS II was not available any more on Pcspecialist website. Don't know why though.....

Cheers
R

 

I would never touch Pop_os! with a 10-foot long pole.

System76 dropped grub as a boot manager, defaulting to systemd-boot (for the sake of "speed and simplicity"). All good intentions, until you consider the need to pass on custom boot arguments to the linux EFI stub loader.
Another headache, for another day.

And the same applies to any system made by System76:

As a Linux user, I've never considered System76's existence to be in line with the community's goals of bringing Linux to the mainstream.
They're a niche vendor whose tooling exist primarily to sell Linux-first laptops, and at a significant markup.

If that sails your boat, its' cool. For me, its' a big no.

 

I'm choosing between this laptop and the tongfang gk5cn6z. I'd like to install Linux. The installation of Ubuntu works fine, the touchpad works? any other problems?
I know the tongfang has various problem on Linux (touchpad, screen flickerink), so
I'm hesitant to buy it.
if neither is compatible, Anyone can advise me a laptop with similar charateristics (good battery (4-5 hours), good screen (144hz 72% Ntsc), 15.6 inches, intel i7 8th gen, nvidia at least 1060, good for video editing, but fully compatible with Linux?
Thank you in advance.I'm not in a hurry to buy the laptop, so I'd like to choose that with less defects.

 

Yes.

None I know of that can't be fixed without workarounds, save for the fingerprint reader. See the links in the previous posts.

What Clevo chassis is this laptop based on? From there we can deduce on what to expect based on other users experiences with it on Linux.

If you're okay using a Dell machine (not the Alienware line), you'll find that the company supports Linux very well, especially on the XPS line.

Case in point: The Dell XPS 13 (9560/70).

You could also go with the likes of System76. Their hardware also runs Linux very well.

 

The tongfang is another OEM.

 

Thanks for the clarification.

Reading about this OEM/ODM now.

 

These laptops arent tb3 compatible. Right? It is not a minus in 2018 for a future proof laptop that should 3 years or more?
-

 

Yes, no Thunderbolt 3.

 

For most people I doubt that would be an issue.