Clevo W170HR / Sager NP5175 - A few questions.

I'm going to be traveling by late (the 28th) April and in need of a laptop. But I had a few requirements, a Quad Core i7, switchable graphics between a decent discrete and intel integrated and a 1920x1080 screen. (17" preferable, 15" acceptable.) Two major options came up, either a 17" Macbook Pro or a Clever W170HR. My distance education schooling I'm doing for my travels requires Windows for its OS. (In computer science and music.) in semester two.

My two main questions are:

1. The battery life on this laptop, I found a "First Impressions" thread which gave some enlightenment but didn't have any statistics about the battery life of the product. (For example set to only use the Intel Integrated GPU, brightness on medium, and say one or two tabs open in a less intensive browser such as Firefox or Opera.)

2. The second question being, the screen. I was curious as to what the gamut of the stock glossy is, as to compare it to a 72% gamut matte and the 90% gamut glossy. (And if there was a thread which had pictures comparing each of the panels. I found an older one with 15" screens and there were 17"s listed but in the specs the stock and matte were listed with 48% colour gamut. [Or I may have completely mis read them.) I'm not sure how 'bright' my situations in travel will be. I'll be mostly living in one place and wont take the laptop to coffee shops with me, but still glare on my iMac display drives me insane but the colour and viewing angle of it compared to my Benq G2420HD draws me to a glossy display. (That's something I'll probably have to decide based on my situations.)

Anyway, thank you for taking time into reading this, I searched on these forums and google prior to posting. I may have missed a result or to, I am pretty tired and unwell so if I have done so I apologize.

If I have written anything in an un-clear manor then simply just state so below and I can rephrase/rewrite it.

P.S - I'll be most likely ordering this through "Affordable Laptops Online" on a "Metabox" build, since I am located in Melbourne/Australia.

EDIT - I have noticed that they have a new line up of products to come in late April but that may not be released soon enough for me to order it, have it built and shipped to me in time before I leave, anyway, this model that this topic is based on doesn't seem to have any upgrades judging by what the site says. (P.S - Just for the sake of it, I'd oder the laptop with a different display, either 73% matte or 90% glossy, an extra battery pack [8cells] and if I can afford it a 500gb SSD [If not a 7200RPM HDD.)

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/sager-clevo/645061-comparison-between-glossy-matte-screens.html

This post has pictures of both a glossy and a matte screen. You can clearly see the difference.

 

The NP5175 did get phased out for a couple weeks but Sager has just put them back on their site. They are not listing upgrade screen options as they didnt offer them directly through them previously. Some resellers did offer screen upgrades when ordering it through the reseller instead of Sager. All resellers did remove this model from their sites when Sager phased out this model about 2-3 weeks ago so ordering it with an upgraded screen is going to be trickier but might still be possible to do.

 

@Snipore - Thank you, although if anyone here comes or knows of a comparison of each of the three most recent 17" screen options for Clevo / Sager notebooks, a link here (or a PM, either is fine.) would be appreciated.

@Hutsady - Hm, yes. As undermentioned I would be ordering it through Metabox - Metabox Laptops Australia - they still stock this model with available screen configurations.

-Thank you for responding.

I should mention that the screens in this have the same options as a Clevo P170HM / Sager NP8170.
Image below has the screen options I previously mentioned.

 

To answer your first few questions:

1) Battery life is going to be 3-4 hours max. ~3.5 seems to be what most people are getting.

2) Here's another good link with screen comparisons:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/sag...-between-different-screen-options-photos.html

The 90% glossy will obviously be the best in terms of color reproduction, though it will be a glare type screen.

 

Thank you. That seems to be main plus to a Macbook Pro 17" is with the Intel GPU, it can get a great battery life. Only problem is with a matte screen (I've seen a matte screen on a MBP and it looks pretty nice. A glass panel glossy display if pretty un usable in highly bright conditions. Not sure how they compare to TN Glossy panels) and a higher speed HDD it costs over A$3000.

I'll definitely be ordering a spare battery with this if I choose this.

I'll keep an eye on both Clevo and Apple and see the pricing of the w150ER and keep an eye on Apple's upcoming upgrades on their MBP line. A 17" screen is preferable for its size but as long as I have the desktop space of 1920x1080 then I'm alright.

EDIT - After some thinking I've decided on a 90% Gamut Glossy screen. I'm not going to be taking this with me to cafés and it'll be used indoors mostly.

It's interesting that some other companies have discontinued it. It's still going on fine via Metabox<Clevo.

Battery life is mildly disappointing. It would be nice to be able to get at least 4 or even 5 hours from it. A P170HM would be intersting to look into, from what I've seen it had about 2.5 hours at its most, but the increase in power is tempting, but then I wouldn't really game on this, most intensive game would probably be Elder Scrolls IV. (You know an Express Card slot would be very useful with that HDMI Input thingy I saw in another thread here.) and if I get this model I could probably afford a 512GB SSD.