Does the NP6165 or the NP9130 suit me better?

Hi guys! I'm finally selling my MBP and going with a Sager!! I need a laptop mainly for school, but I will be spending some of my free time gaming.

With either laptop I'll be going with the i7 3610QM configuration, so it's really between the 650m or the 670m. I have some questions to figure out which one fits my needs.

1.) Would you consider either of these laptops bulky? I currently own a MBP so the size scares me a little. Maybe they look big to me in the pictures. Are they bigger than, say a 15" HP DV6T, Asus, or Lenovo? I will be taking this laptop back and forth to class. It needs to be able to fit on a smaller desk (one of those arm chair desks on your seat) and not look like a monstrosity, lol.

2.) I know the 6165 has Optimus technology, but does the 9130? I need battery life, so I'd switch to integrated graphics while doing schoolwork if I can.

3.) What's the difference in heat and the noise of the fans between the two? I get that the 670m is louder and hotter, but does the 2 vents on the back make up for the 6165's one vent on the side?

4.) Lastly, gaming. I play current games like Skyrim, Guild Wars 2, BF3, Dark Souls and Borderlands 2 when they come out. I want to be able to play on high settings with at least 30 fps. Could the 650m handle this? I'm not sure if the 670m is worth the extra heat/less battery/ laptop size for the performance you're getting.

Thank you in advance for helping

 

NP9130 should be fine your school. Going from MBP to Clevo, I'd recommend getting the 95% Matte. A NBR moderator who seems to be very informed with LCDs, ranks the 95% at #2 after the HP DreamColor for color accuracy and overall, including better than Apple IPS displays.

NP9130 and NP9150EM both have support for switchable graphics, regardless if it's Enduro or Optimus and battery life should be the same with either config. Both shuts down the discrete graphics.

 

Thanks, but the extra money for the screen upgrade puts the laptops out of my budget. I like my MBP's glossy screen, because the colors are more vivid to me than matte and I mostly game in a relatively dark environment where I won't see any glare. Is the stock screen not as good as my MPB?

Plus I had a matte monitor for my desktop and I noticed that "dirty look" effect during gaming because of the AG coating.

 

I think the best way to figure out if a laptop is too big/bulky for your tastes is to break out a tape measure. Grab the dimensions of the two Clevos and measure out how much bigger they are than your MBP by sitting the tape measure next to your MBP and extending it out to the correct dimension of the Clevo. Aside from the extra height, I don't think the Clevo should really be that much larger since it doesn't have a huge bezel around its LCD; I was pleasantly surprised that the 9150 I ordered was actually going to be noticeably smaller than my old Asus G60VX (1" in width, between 0.25 and 0.5" in depth)!

I believe both are capable--I'd just check with the reseller to make sure that it's enabled before making a final decision.

From the reviews I've seen here and elsewhere, a slightly(?) overclocked 650 is extremely comparable to the 670m. Even better, it puts out less heat and consumes less power! The only downside is that I believe the 9130 has its GPU on an MXM 3 card whereas the 650 in the 6165 may be soldered onto the motherboard.

 

It's hard to fit any 15" laptop on those desks in my experience. My 9150 fits, but not very well and it looks like a monstrosity as you say. In my experience, unless you have a 14" slim laptop or less, your laptop won't fit on those. Most people don't bring laptops to those classes.

Compared to the dv6, either Sager laptop will be thicker, but essentially the same in width and length. Not sure about an Asus or Lenovo (I wouldn't recommend getting a Lenovo for gaming anyway), you will have to look at dimensions. They are probably all about he same.

Yep, any card you get for these will have Optimus/Enduro.

I can't answer this very well. The 2 vents will provide better cooling, but I can't say how much.

Without overclocking, the 650M should just barely pull 30 FPS average in BF3, which is the most demanding game on your list. The 670M will run BF3 with about 50 FPS on high settings.

I'd get the 670M personally.