Clevo W740SU 14.1"

I'll shoot an email to Sager to see if we can get it without the mSATA, we can special request no hard drive on models that have one by default so it may be possible. Any reason you dont want a mSATA, SSD technology is about the best upgrade you can do to a computer to see a noticeable increase in overall performance.

 

Thanks for checking. It's just that the options aren't the best, and I just bought an SSD for my aging laptop that I can transfer to the new one. SSDs are getting cheaper, but still are fairly expensive.

 

Ah you have your own already, good reason

 

Yep, I've been told that most Clevo laptops have a high powerconsumption due to their mobos.

In the review of the W740SU (Schenker S413) the standby power consumption is 3.1 watt?! That must be a typing error or something like that because 3.1 watt would mean that the laptop woudln't even survive 20 hours of standby?

 

Try RJTech for barebones w740su. I personally don't have any buying experience from them, but I see that they've the most configurable machine options around, which may work for you.

-TC

 

Heard back from Sager. At this time they are not offering the removal of the mSATA drive.

 

Has anyone who ordered this actually had theirs ship yet? What retailer?

My Mythlogic is still sitting in the pre-order queue, hopefully the parts arrive next week.

 

My order with System76 went into Assembly about 3 days ago. So here's hoping it ships soon!

 

why did you decide to go with mythlogic?

 

Mine went in to assembly on the 29th and they said that it should be shipping next Monday or Tuesday... can't wait!

 

I'm looking forward to hearing how you like it, especially how nice the screen, noise levels, and temperature are. Fingers crossed!

 

I think Mythlogic must've hit some snags. Too bad, customers now have other options. Also, Mythlogic upped the price by $15 or so, even if the model is still in pre-order and the ETA went from "mid-to-late July" to "late July/early Aug". I guess those who placed the order early on were lucky. I think Mythlogic should charge same price for all the pre-orders.

Here's the first comprehensive review of the whole machine in English -- Schenker S413 (Clevo W740SU). The review in German was out a few days prior.

 

Good link!

Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk 2

 

I liked just about everything I read in the review. As they mentioned, hopefully the loud whistling and rhythmic clacking was unique to their review model. From those who have ordered from Mythlogic before, is that something they would normally catch before shipment, and if they missed it, they would easily handle if a customer complained?

I don't fully understand how companies like Schenker, Mythlogic, and Sager relate to Clevo. Does Clevo supply the same case, keyboard, etc. to each of them, or is there some variation between or even within countries?

 

Schenker and Sager are Clevo sellers that receive Clevo barebones and retrofit them however. They are close-ish to clevo. Mythlogic is a boutique that buys from Clevo or Sager (can't remember which) as an independent party/system builder. This means that the price they pay for the chassis is higher than it is for the closer companies. That is at least how I understand the differences.

 

Hardware wise they are supposed to be identical, unless for System76 in which case the keyboard needs a Ubuntu logo instead of Windows.

 

For the most part it's the same hardware. There are sometimes variations of hard drives and such offered, but at it's core you'll have the same laptop. The primary difference will be price + support. System76 is somewhat pricier, has an ubuntu logo instead of a windows key, and only sells clevo's that they verify work well with Ubuntu. They also do some driver work in the open source community to get things like fingerprint readers and volume keys to work. Mythlogic, Xoticpc, et al are mostly the same with slight differences in price and slight differences in price/configuration/warranty.

Outside of that you're left with the boutique sellers who tend to be even more pricey and offer burn-ins on hardware and stuff like that. System76's prices used to be quite a bit higher from what I understand, but recently they've dropped to be pretty close with Mythlogic and Xoticpc. For the same build on my laptop I paid about 80 bucks more to get it from System76, but for me the price difference isn't too bad, and I like to support the people who are working to make desktop Linux better.

 

I get the impression that the quality checks aren't so good. This is just my opinion, but have you heard about the clacking sound on the w230st? It's just a matter of luck of course...

 

Here's a (short) review/hands-on:
Intel's Iris Pro integrated graphics tech hands-on: solid gaming performance on the go | Tech, Tech News | PC Gamer

 

WAY better warranty for the same price.

My System76 was fitted with a 5200RPM 1TB HDD and Killer 1202 w/ a 3 year warranty (and they don't have a dead pixel policy beyond the normal "5 or more" policy)

My Mythlogic is a 7200RPM 1TB (which Sys76 didn't even offer) and a Killer 1103 (much better wifi speeds but no bluetooth), 3 year warranty, 1 year accidental coverage and 30 days no dead pixel.

If I'm going to spend $1,600 on a laptop I'd rather go with the company who seems like they'll offer better long-term support. Plus I don't even use Ubuntu so I'd end up wiping the partition and putting Debian or Arch in it's place anyway.

 

Looking forward to hearing your first impressions, specially on the screen.
BTW, I've been looking around lately on the killer cards, you know for sure the 1103 is linux compatible? I don't want to buy something that will have problems later. And how much better is it than the 1202?

 

The killer card is linux compatible.

Also, +1 on mythlogic points

Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk 2

 

I'll be sure to come here with all of my experience as an owner and Linux user. I plan on using the machine for Linux Android development and slight Windows gaming (SF4 and Skullgirls) so hopefully my review will be thorough. I'm a software guy not a hardware guy though, so be easy on me hah.

Killer 1103 and 1202 are both ath9k compatible, which are completely open source and available in the mainline Linux kernel
The 1103 is a 3 antenna wifi card while the 1202 is 2 antenna -- they apparently are very similar, except the 1103 can reach a 450 mbps transfer rate versus the 1202's 300 mbps. My primary reason for picking the 1103 over the 1202 is that at the university I attend the dorm wifi is kind of lacking, and we aren't allowed to run our own routers.

One thing to note is that the 1103 lacks bluetooth, while the 1202 has it.

Edit: By the way, I was wrong about the pricing for the accidental coverage. They are going to quote me later on it, but the point still stands that I got dead pixel coverage and better hardware at the same price point.

 

I'm glad you went with mythlogic. Pending out summer budget I might be ordering one of these in September.

If this is your first Clevo for Linux then you're in for a treat I had a great experience with arch and my P150hm. The atheros drivers worked out of the box.

Can't wait to hear your reviews of this thing. Right now I'm using arch on a work MacBook Pro. While this isn't a bad experience I'm looking forward to going back to Clevo.

Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk 2

 

Almost everyone here is saying good things about Mythlogic, but Mythlogic's absence on this thread is quite a bit perplexing, especially when people with pre-orders with them are wondering when shipping will commence.

Dear Mythlogic: Your wishy-washy answers -- late this week, early next week etc. -- are not very confidence inspiring. Please provide a firm ETA when those pre-orders will be shipped. What's the use of pre-orders if we're now better off ordering elsewhere?

-TC
Eagerly looking fwd to my W740SU

 

I'd really love to hear from someone what the lid is actually made of. I gather that the palm rest is plastic, but the notebookcheck review seems to imply that the lid and bottom may be some sort of metal (they say aluminum/magnesium alloy). The two thinks making me hold off on this are the lack of a backlit keyboard and the not-metal materials.

 

Why do people find metal shells so attractive? What benefits do people get from it other than worse thermal insulation, more visible scratches and very good finger print collecting performance?

 

What? Okay, point by point:
1) What? Thermal insulation is BAD on a laptop. You want it to dissipate heat away from the machine wherever it can.
2) The visibility of scratches depends on color, and metal lids don't scratch as easily anyways.
3) Again... WHAT? The glossier the material, the more it picks up fingerprints. Glossy plastic lids fingerprint and scratch like crazy. Have you ever seen a fingerprint on the lid of a macbook? (I'll give you a hint: No).

Additional benefits of metal:
Chassis is far more rigid, screen is better protected when lid is closed and general satisfaction in not owning something cheap feeling.
/rant.

Seriously though, when are people going to start getting their hands on these? I want to see some real user reviews.

 

Metal does pick up some fingerprints depending on finish, but it's the feel and look that it really wins on.

 

Anyone have any tips for keeping the metal finish nice and scratch free?

 

Be careful.

 

Hey its all logistics at this point we are just waiting for the final shells from Clevo (We don't get to pick WHEN clevo builds our orders compared to others), plus there was a late revision that we had to wait for because of some cooling issues that were discovered. Honestly we are just waiting for customs to release things and get them over to us. We have our paperwork in order, just waiting for the .Gov to release

We assure you we would love nothing more than to get these built and to you We don't like having the date slip than anyone else, but we would rather you get your laptop and enjoy it, then get it and not be happy =)

 

Yeah, cover the lid with a skin. There's tons out there. $20-35 on average. I like SGP and Gel myself.

 

Thanks, sometimes some update is better than no update. It was just disheartening not to hear from you guys in so long (forum presence is one of the first things that made me decide to go Mythlogic).

I don't consider myself the shoot the messenger type, so I appreciate the update even if it means having to wait a little longer. Hopefully everything can speed up so I can get my hands on the 1413 by the time school starts :[

 

Edit: Double post because of Amtrak wifi. Sorry.

 

Thanks a ton for the update. It's very satisfying to hear that things are moving along, and all care is being taken to deliver a top notch product! Hope to hear more from you soon.

-TC

 

I noticed this laptop is for sale on Mythlogic with the option for 1866 ram. Anyone have a clue if it will help GPU performance?

 

I had asked Mythlogic about this using the 'Chat us up' prompt on their website. Apparently, their testing has shown ~3% perf gain (Not sure if that's for GPU, though). Hence, they're offering that option. Now, why they aren't doing that for RAMs of all the sizes, is beyond me. Maybe they only see that improvement for 8GB.

-TC

 

Not a big increase, but still pretty cool. Hopefully it is the GPU that benefits most.

Thanks for sharing that.

 

A few percent will be overall with an IGP setup, it would let an IGP overclock scale better but I am not sure that is possible.

 

Having a tough time deciding between this unit and the Gigabyte P34G. Clevo has the IPS, Gigabyte unit is the AHVA. Gigabyte unit has a backlit keyboard, this one doesn't. Then this has the Iris Pro and the Gigabyte unit has the GTX 760M.

Anything else I'm missing? Pretty close trade-off for me. Deciding factor may be availability. Can get this now.

 

GTX 760m is like 2-3 times the performance of the Iris Pro.

 

Ahva is ips in so not tech sense.. It is silly but...

 

I have built the W740SU from several vendors with a 256GB Samsung 840 SSD, 1TB HDD and 16GB RAM for a bit more than $1400. Doubt the P34G with anything close to that configuration will be anything close to that price, considering its main competitor will be the Razer laptop at about $2000 for something like that, with a completely crap screen.

 

But how quickly will they ship? Mythlogic tells me they're still in pre-order stage and expecting their first shipment "real soon." However, they're also saying 12-15 business days from payment processed to ship date. Looks like hang out at least another 4-6 weeks, see some more reviews come out, then see the pricing. Meantime, if the ThinkPad T440s comes out in that timeframe I may just compromise and go with the lesser 12GB RAM.

 

The P34G is not out yet either, and the ThinkPad you mention seems to be a completely different category, with much weaker CPU and GPU.

 

Emphasis added...

PSA: Apparently it's a standard practice at such boutique system builders, at least in case of pre-orders, to process your payment right when you place the order; not when it's shipped. Then if pre-order's ETA keeps on getting pushed out, your money is with them all that time. You lose your spot in the queue if you want your money back.

In case of W740SU, I think the "12-15 business days" clock will realistically start only when they have the shells from Clevo. I'm learning this the hard way as this is my first time buying such a non-big name branded laptop. I'm still optimistic, though, hoping that machine is worth the wait.

All of this makes me wonder, if the problem is with Clevo's delayed schedule, then how come vendors other than Mythlogic aren't saying the machine's still in pre-order?

-TC

 

I'm cross shopping the P34G also, looks good. I only lightly game, mostly video /photo editing so the Iris looks great. That Lenovo 400s is a ulv processor and will be much weaker. What I like about the the Clevo is the testing seems to indicate no throttling which seems to be a real issue with a lot of these power house machines.

I want to know where are all the big boys with Iris machines and thin form factors like the P34...I guess it' a sales thing, vast majority of people are fine with ulv ultra books.

 

Does anyone know if you can open up the Clevo and put in a 2.5" SSD drive yourself?

 

Yes, for the mSATA and main bay both.