Clevo's Razer Blade / Aero 14 answer

What is the status with Clevo's offering of a Razer Blade or better yet, Gigabyte Aero 14, alternative? Is it still just the P640RE ?

Is there any viable answer they have out currently and if not now, anything coming up in the future?

The Gigabyte Aero 14 released this summer (along with it's new Pascal refresh) in particular seems to raise the bar substantially in the battery department. From what I read the P640RE gets maybe 3 hours of light use whereas the Aero 14 people are reporting 7 hours+ of light use.

I'd love to know if Clevo has a 14" unit on the way that can match or at least come close to that.

 

The P640RE is the closest model Clevo has put out in that size with a dedicated graphics card. But since it was a 9 series graphics card, they aren't available with a lot of resellers any more. Yes, the battery life on the Gigabyte is better.

Not sure when we might hear of another 14" model coming out from Clevo at this point. I don't think they have announced anything that I am aware of. Typically if they do come out with new models, it is usually tied in with new processor or graphics card releases.

 

I hope they release a refreshed version of the P640RF/RE, it's like a razer blade for "poor" people

 

The W230SS was mostly well received it seemed, also. There's really a market for high performance, low profile. It will be nice if Clevo pushes out another small unit.

 

Yes, that was a nice model and well received. A return of a similar model would be welcomed.

 

The hardware for such models would need to be in place of course.

 

W110ER will be missed... I'm thinking LateQ1/Early Q2 we'll see something

 

Technically the P640RF is the "current" model since Nvidia hasn't released a 50-60W mobile part yet. I think the 1060 was viable to throttle under the P640 chassis since it really doesn't quite have the capacity to cool the 100W mark.
The 965Mv2/Ti (there's now 3 iterations of the damn thing) is therefore still considered "current".

I highly suspect we'll see a P640 refresh after/during CES 2017 (Jan 5th) where the Kaby Lake quad-cores and mobile 1050 parts are being announced.

 

This could be a nice option that should work, and decent upgrade to a P640 if it becomes available. Always love the waiting game...

 

You're going to have to put up with integrated graphics and the hybrid switching, and all of the limitations and problems associated with that technology, if you want reasonable battery life. You'd be better off with a very inexpensive low end notebook to use when battery life is important and a powerhouse to use when it's not. Considering how overpriced Razer's notebooks are, you might be able to buy two machines for the same or less than one of the overpriced compromisers. As much as folks would like to believe they can have it both ways, that never works out. If you settle for something in the middle, you shall have something in the middle... meaning it doesn't actually excel at anything.

 

The P640RF is actually quite affordable here (about half the price of the GTX1060 Aero14). It's actually quite a lot cheaper than some high-end ultrabooks

Assuming they maintain that price-point for a potential 1050/ti refreshed version I suspect it'd be a very good compromise. They better put a god damn Thunderbolt3 port in this refresh though instead of the half-assed Alpine Ridge chipset with TB3 disabled crap we have now in the P600s (they even used the more expensive dual-port controller! WHY?!).

 

Let's take another look at this ! (now that it's been 3 months). So what did Clevo end up offering us ? Do they have a viable Razer Blade or Aero 14 answer (ie: performance and battery) ??

 

I have been on the lookout for a more compact 1060+ laptop for several months, and I've not seen or heard anything on this website about a P640 successor. So my guess would be "no". Or, hopefully, "not yet".

 

The P640HK is out. Same thing but using a Kaby i7-7700HQ and 4GB 1050Ti. A mate of mine has one and it's a great machine. Sure a 1060 would've been nice, but P640HK is also a lot cheaper than 1060 equipped machines.

There's also a P640HJ which is the same except for the lower end 1050 (non Ti).
Looks like the P640 chassis just doesn't have the power delivery to deal with a full 1060.

Another one that popped up is the new ASUS GL502VM. It's a 7700HQ + 1060 combo as well as a 120hz G-Sync panel which is nice. It's also fairly thin at 23.5mm. Initial impressions I've read seem to indicate it gets damn hot though.

Other than that you're really only left with the Gigabyte Aero14, Aorus X3v6/7, Razer Blade and MSI GS60. All vastly more expensive.

 

The P640 comes with a 180 W adapter... Isn't that plenty? And I thought @Prema said it was more of an 'electrical incompatibility', paraphrased as 'the BGA pads of the 1060 don't match that of the 965M'...

 

Actually the P640 comes with a 120W PSU.

The cooling in the P64*HK is better than in the N850, that's why we only offer the 1050 in the N850 and not the 1050Ti at the moment.

 

Interesting. The P640RE and RP came with 180 W adaptors; odd that they downgraded the power supply this time.

There is an N850HK with a 1050 Ti, though, and other resellers offer it like XOTICPC and Aftershock PC.

 

Yup, the P641RE pulled 169W on Furmark and Prime, the P641HK pulls 135W under the same load but the 120W PSU has no issue with that.

Yes you're correct, other companies do sell the N850 with 1050Ti, I was just saying that we (XMG, not Clevo) only decided to offer the N850 with 1050 and not with 1050Ti for now.

 

Which of the new P64* models has the best battery life, and how long can you expect to get on a single charge?

 

That was in reference to the 960M (GM107) which uses a similar (if not identical) BGA layout. Doesn't apply to the P640 series though as it used the bigger GM204 970M and GM206 965Mv2.

As far compatibility I was more referring to internal power supply ratings. There may just no be enough room on the board to feed a potentially 100W GTX1060.

Interestingly, Metabox in Australia still ship the new P640HK with the 180W brick as noted it can draw a bit over the 120W that Clevo specify. From what I can tell, drawing that much power only occurs under full GPU and CPU load which is quite rare though.

 

@Stooj

Yup, a I said

 

135W is within spec if measured from the wall due to losses in the brick which are not part of the rating of the brick (which is rated on what it delivers to the machine, not what it draws from the wall).

 

Honestly, it shouldn't matter. All the P640 models have Optimus, and if you're gunning for long battery life when unplugged, you'd probably not be using the dGPU at all. According to Clevo, you can get up to 290 minutes of uptime (around 5 hours), but that's probably an extremely ideal scenario. I think 3-4 hours would be more typical.

 

XMG P406 / P641RE:

Idle no WiFi minimum LCD brightness 4h 35m
WiFi surfing 3h 30m
Max load 1h 14m

The Hk pulls less power on load so technically you'd get better battery life with this but only when you're using the GPU on battery power. As mentioned above, this is unlikely when you are concerned about the battery life in general so they're all relatively similar.

 

Then again if you target 30fps using the battery saving feature for Nvidia you may find the higher spec machines don't need to work quite so hard to manage it.

 

Just re-viving this old thread again to see today what Clevo has since brought to the table for this matchup (to answer the Razer Blade or Aero 14)

Extra props to whomever can suggest an even better 13/14" laptop (from any maker) that surpasses the Aero 14 in terms of weight/thinness, GPU, battery life and pricepoint (specifically against the 2016/17 Aero 14 originally referenced in this thread; the one that IMO has been (still?) the best of its class since it came out).

 

There are only the P640HK1 (1050TI) & the P640HJ (1050).
The only new system in that category coming from Clevo has no dGPU, just TB3 for eGPU...looking for a new 13/14"er myself .

 

Mostly it's the slim 15" models going after some of the market which allow you to fit in a more full performance profile and not jack the prices up.

 

Another thread revival to see if Clevo finally has an answer to Razer Blade or the Aaorus Aero 14 ??

(particularly in terms of weight and battery life which has been their weak areas traditionally)

I am literally in Taiwan and eager to replace the now beat up Dell XPS 13 that I bought all the way back around the time I made the OP.

 

Sticking with the 15 inch thin and light and the thin 14" with a thunderbolt port.

 

Most manufacturers have ditched 14" in favour of 15" with small bezels.

Once you eliminate bezels, a modern 15" slim machine is very similar in dimensions to an old 14".

For example:
The new Aero 14 is 335mm x 250mm x 20mm and has fat bezels.
The new Aero 15 is 356mm x 250mm x 18mm and has thin bezels.
Razer blade 14 is 345mm x 236mm x 18mm.

So the measurements are all quite close once you eliminate bezels.

 

Personally I would like to see 14" with thin bezels, and a dGPU, that's like the perfect size for my needs.

 

Thanks for the tips ! I was browsing around the best of the Tw brands at Guanghua Digital Plaza today and think I am settled on a Lenovo (actually Chinese, but anyway) X1 Carbon if my current Dell XPS 13 cuts out.

The Aero 14 is surprisingly bulky and the X1 is just so much lighter and despite not having a dGPU the tradeoff I think is worth it based on the limited selection in this category; ie- just bring along an eGPU in your notebook bag if necessary or to keep on the desk at home when returning from the road.

The Asus ZenBook 3 UX490UA would be another consideration if it didn't have such a **** display.

Maybe onnnnnne day Clevo will hit the mark here with a light system, dGPU, and reasoanble battery.

 

I suppose you could get away with a 1050 and u series CPU.

 

Yes, though if you could get that up to a 1050ti, then bombs away you've got my money!

Ideally I'd like to see a 13" laptop with an 8250u and 1050, but instead of going ultra-thin like all the 13" ultrabooks, we allow some thickness to the chassis for heat management.

x by y dimensions are so much more impactful on portability than z-height, IMO, especially if you're a public transport warrior like myself.

 

So far the only machine that comes to mind fitting that description is the Surface Book 2 which has a 1050 option in the 13" variant. It's priced to even put Apple to shame though :/

 

Even the base starts pretty high on the book, they are certainly not try to compete in the mass market.