Livesoft's NP8660

The almost-perfect laptop built by Clevo aka M860TU

First of all, please know that I'm a total noob about reviews, that I wasted my whole evening yesterday trying to figure out why I couldn't make my updates and after reinstalling Vista again and 3 failed download at 50% of the 700MB Service pack 1 due to retarded internet connection provided by my school. I wrote this review fast so I could share the info I had for now. I will update this during the week-end and reinstall Vista again from a scratch so for now, if you have an benchmark requests, I can install almost anything (I don't have any games, just an internet connection).

Specs:
- 15.4'' WSXGA+
- Intel P9500 Montevina 2.53GHz 25w
- 4GB RAM DDR3
- nVidia 9800M GT 512MB
- Seagate Momentus 320GB 7200rpm
- No OS, 3 year warranty + no dead pixel
Cost: ~$2500 w/ cash discount and shipping to Canada

For your eyes ONLY, by my Nokia N82 5mp w/ flash:






























Purchasing from XoticPC

The staff answered all my questions, especially Justin W (Y). Response to emails were quick and all. The process went flawlessly. I got my secured payment email the next day and I sent my bank draft the same day.

Shipping to Canada

I will try to update my guide during the week-end to add all the infos I got. Overall, it shipping Thursday night, got my email Friday morning around 8am and the tracking said it was in Montreal already. Shipping time: less than a day.

Build and Design

The M860TU has a sleek finish. Its really amazing and nice to see. Its not as eye-catching as the m15x but you won't say it looks bad. At the beginning, I didn't believe this was a fingerprint magnet but after checking from different angles, I saw clearly the shape of my hands on the palm rest so be carefull with that.

The screen is well attached and has no flex. If you don't hold the laptop when opening the screen, the laptop rises with the screen so its pretty solid there. This laptop has a great build quality. For that, you can't go wrong.

Screen

Well, that do the jo. The display doesn't seem grainy but I can say that the screen could be a little more bright. The image is sharp and the viewing angle is OK although my desk is just beside the window so I can say the glossy finish makes some reflexions.

Speakers and audio

Didn't try it yet, from all the windows buzzes and sounds, the speakers are good for now. They are located on the top corners.

Keyboard and touchepad

The keyboard is great. At first, I was surprised that you need to apply some force to press the keys down but I was used to some old Dell Precision. The keys are not totally silent but that's stealth if you want to play during the night. The spacebar makes, indeed, more sound than the others keys but I guess that's normal since its a bigger key.

The trackpad is warm...so I don't really use it. The software is OK, detection is good. It is slightly depresed so you don't go off the trackpad. The left and right click button need some force to be pressed. I didn't got used to it so I stick with my Logitech G5.

Will try the fingerprint during the week-end.

Performance

Vista installation took 15 minutes from an empty hard drive. Clean install from upgrade version took 30 minutes. Installing the drivers tooks half an hour, without restarts exept the ones that restarts automatically. Installing SP1 took almost an hour. And since I believe I messed my instalation and did some crap, I will reinstall it his week-end. Vista navigation got some freeze and all but I believe that's my fault.

3dmark06: this laptop is awesomecompared to my desktop that scored ~4k @ 1024...

Score: ~9200


Heat and noise, the most important part...

CPU: Does a great job. Did not go over 60 during the 3dmark06.
GPU: Same thing here, it stays cool and never went over 80.

The HHAAAAA-rd drive: The biggest pain. At first, it idles at around 60-62. The right of the trackpad is more than warm, its starting to be uncomfortable. After installing the driver fix, I immediatly saw the temperature drop to around 55. While I was installing Office and making my updates, the hard drive went up to 63 and I believe that's the max it can reach. During the 3dmark06, the right of the palm rest was warm but not uncomfortable, the temp was around 58. I believe that some undervolting and aluminium foil on the vent could bring the temp down to 50. My hard drive is a Seagate Momentus 7200rpm. I believe the temp is acceptable for the power this laptop packs although its still a big concern.

Noise: The optical reader makes some weird noise that I never heard before, I believe its OK but its still loud. Under normal mode, the laptop makes some significant noise from the fan but its acceptable. When the room is dead silent, you can really heard it running but that was when I was installing some stuff so I'll update this when I have more info. On the other hand, the silent mode is really...well...silent. No fan noise, nothing, totally stealth.

Input and output ports

No need to take some pictures, there's plenty out there.

On the left: the optical drive
Behind: Kensington lock (it doesn't fit perfectly but its does the job), power plug, 1 usb port, hdmi, dvi, big fan vent.
On the right: modem and ethernet, 2 usb, card reader. My biggest complain here is that I had a bad time trying yo plug my usb drive in the usb ports. While writing this, I fould this weird so I tried with my mouse on the ports on the right side and it went in flawlessly...so my Sandisk Cruzer Titanium is weird...more on this in an update.
On the front: audio jacks (3), mini firewire for camera (I love it), some LED.

Battery

Didn't try this yet....

Conclusion

Overall, this is a great laptop but I find the hard drive a big concern although I know its normal and all and blablabla but I still find this a big flaw since the solution is so easy: make a hooooooole in the case!! There's like one hundred holes already so why you can't put some mooooore (sorry but I needed to say that, I had a bad night after I wasn't able to do my updates to SP1 and I needed to download the 700MB file on my school network, that time out when the download progress is ~50%...) Anyway, some mod fix and undervolting should solve this concern. Exept the hard drive, this laptop is perfect!

I can't say any pros and cons because I haven't used it enough.

 

I wonder if putting a SSD drive in the laptop will solve the heat problem.

 

The speakers i believe are totally amazing for being so small in a laptop. I was using them with XP and gaming, and i couldnt believe how loud/clear they were. Also the SRS WOW really is noticable, the sound totally is amazing i think.

The finger print reader is cool. i love saving passwords to websites to the software, then u just scan ur finger, and select the website and it logs you in immediately.

Finally, my optical drive when i had it was making weird noises too, i believe this is normal....

 

It probably wouldn't run much cooler, but a SSD drive has a much higher tolerance for heat than a standard HDD.

 

is that $2500 Canadian or US$?

How long did shipping take?

 

That's the same No, its USD. I had some US funds when the USD=CAD so I paid with that.

Btw, Im now idling at 60...

 

great review livesoft. enjoy your beast.

 

Yup I got a seagate momentus too and it keep rising as long as it work

Deactivating useless process might lower your iddle temp but that won't lower your load temp mine is 71C

 

how long did it take from Ship to Receive? Did you have to pay GST and PST when it arrived at your door?

 

nice mini review.

glad your Seagate 320gb 7200rpm drive is under 60C.... nice for such a high performing drive.

 

That's said in my review: less than a day If I was home, that would be great but I had to wait more If you are not home, you can call UPS to hold it at an office and you can go pick it up. Express delivery is really express I paid the taxes and all at the UPS pickup location but you would have to pay at the door, with cash, check or any other payment exept credit card. Check my guide for more info. Will be updated soon.

It gets that hot? I keep loading it with defrag and all and it never reached over 63 after the driver fix, which works to stabilize idle temp at 55.

Seriously, this would have been the PERFECT laptop if they had made a hole for the hard drive. That stays my main concern and I'm looking forward to replace the hard drive. For some indications:

I started the computer, completed some updates then restarted. I opened HWMonitor and the temp was 38. In 6 minutes, it went to 48. Uptime is 11 minutes and its at 51. A minute later, its at 52...now I don't want to wait more so I can say it stopped raising at 52 for internet browsing. After a little HDtune test, the temp is at 56. I just checked Chaz's review and I have to same drive but I have like 6 degres more than him

 

temp difference can be due to ambient/room temperature as well as the background processes and services that are running... which can be optimized or disable.

 

Thanks for the review! The pictures especially were a lot of fun to look at. That hole-for-the-hd mod looks like a good idea, but the it also looks difficult if you want it to not look crappy (very thick plastic, right?). I'd be interested in undervolting specs & heat differences when you get to that, Livesoft.

 

I tried the guide of NBR of undervolting and that simply takes do long: do a 45min. stress test for every .05v you lower... I might do the hole but I would need to get a backup back panel before and I would need to ask a friend who got all the tools. I don't care what everyone says, that hard drive runs hot, enough to make the palm rest more than warm, maybe not uncomfortable but its more than hot at ~62. I just started the computer and it went from 35 to 50 in like, 10 minutes The only thing I could do in the future in change to hard drive and see what's the result on that, maybe a WD.

 

Thanks for the review.

And yea about the hard drive that is really the only big (well sorta big) flaw on this laptop. They could have easily just placed the hard drive under the right palmrest (instead of like 2/3 under the palmrest and 1/3 under the touchpad) and moved the wireless card stuff under the middle. Or at least had some sort of ventilation under the HDD (under the HDD was the only place without a vent go figure).

 

cong m8,enjoy!getting a cooler might help temps

 

Just a thought...
The HDD will not create this heat itself...
And I can't really see why would the HDD need ventilation (as most of the HDD's in laptop do not have it).

So, it has to be some component transfering this heat to the HDD. One thing I noticed is that the HDD sits just in front of the GPU. It might be that the GPU is transfering heat to the HDD, no?
Can't people just put some sort of thermal isolant to prevent heating from spreading to the GPU to the HDD?

 

The hard drive generates heat. I have an HP Media center, trashed the left side and putted a hard drive. At first, I putted it in some thick bubble wrap so it doesn't vibrate much and the temp was at around 40. When I leave it in open air, it stays at 33.

You just hold an ordinary fan under it and you can see the temp is dropping. My complain isn't really the hard drive temp but people idling at 45-50 while others are at a bloody 55 =[

And of course I'll get a cooler for usual usage but I won't always have to cooler with me. Anyway, my left hand is always on the WASD and the other on my Logitech G5

 

Try simply underclocking your cpu to half speed and see how hot everything runs. (I use SpeedSwitchXP - switch it to battery optimized, not sure if it works in Vista, but a similar program should be available). If the issue is unrelated to other components, the hard drive should remain around the same temperature. If the issue is the cooling system + fan not dissipating enough heat from cpu/gpu for the hard drive to run at low temps, the temps should drop on the HD when the CPU's running at halfspeed.

(Actually, I plan on running this laptop at halfspeed, on top of undervolting, when idle or browsing the web/not doing graphically/computationally intense things, as I think there's lots of cpu power (literally and figuratively ) going to waste idling). I had a laptop in the past that ran way hotter (cpu/gpu/hd) than the NP8660's hard drives run (hello Inspiron 5150, you've inspired me to never go with Dell again), even when clean, new thermal paste, new motherboard etc. Hard drives would start beeping & clicking and the like, and temps would hit 70-75 regularly (this was normal with this very flawed notebook). (Idles at 41C hard drive, which is the hottest component, underclocked).

 

Just a little update on this, blocking the main vent with a plastic bag (I had nothing else) helped lowering the temp by 4 degres :3 And I got kinda used to the heat...oh well, this is the (almost) perfect laptop

 

Nice review, great job. I agree with a lot of the points you made, especially the solid feel and build of this unit. I'm sure we'd all be interested in hearing how your ownership experience goes. Some features or aspects of the notebook you don't use or notice/appreciate at first, but do later on. So, keep us updated.

 

Hi, just a little update on this. I reinstalled Vista, defrag and all, installed CoD4 and its 300MB patch. One word when gaming: LOUD. That really surprised me but that was when the sound was really low since I didn't want to disturb anyone in the house.

(Sorry about the 5 megapixel photo, I always forget to resize them. Anyway, each image is smaller than 1MB )

Here's a little RivaTuner graph. On the left, when gaming, then I closed the game so the temperature droped. I stopped using HW Monitor since it kept crashing and Im just used to RivaTuner and its nice little graphs



Also, the air coming from the fan was surprisingly hot so I just put my home thermometer. The placement:



The thermometer reading (the "Out" temp):



Video after the break: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgCkhAUdaqE

As I promised, I'll start writing my review this week and it should be out by the end of the week. I'll try covering some parts that Chaz didn't talk about like the webcam, fingerprint reader and get deeper about the noise/heat, installation and all.

 

Good grief -.- Resize your photos, and don't be so lazy:

Here: http://tinypic.com/ Go there, upload, and it resizes for you.


edit: Yay, smaller pics! Thanks

 

Any new developments?!?!?!

 

Yes, Im currently writing the review but my college internet is blocking my gaming ports :[ so I'll have to wait for Friday to confirm my thoughts about gaming. Also, I forgot my cellphone charger (erhh...) so I can't take any other pictures. It should be finished by Friday night or Saturday afternoon =]

 

On college... Study hard!!! Good thing they blocked the gaming ports!
Joking...
Looking forward for more info... I'm still (patiently) waiting for my NEXUS. It looks like an eternity worth of waiting.

So, can you disclose... if it's still a positive review? Enjoying it more, less, the same?

 

Yeah, its pretty much the perfect laptop. I don't mind the hot hard drive since its not really bothering, but why other people have coolers hard drives when its the same model =[ But I can't really say a lot since I didn't game a lot on it. For the practical side, it does the job, its not the best but that's OK since its mainly for gaming.

 

nice review. I live in Montreal too and about to order it this laptop.. After a year of researching.. this looks like the one. I'm just wondering how much exactly did you have to pay for Tax and UPS fees at the door/at UPS' office?

I'd like to avoid financial surprises after buying a $2500 laptop

 

I paid ~USD$2550 for my configuration, including the $110 shipping cost (please see my full review; link in the sig). I had some US funds so that saved me some money. I paid $380 at the door in CAD, that's basically the taxes (13%). More info in my guide.

 

I just read the guide.. pretty informative.. just to make sure I got it right. you recommend paying $50 extra for express shipping to avoid paying the brokerage fee of $71.45 for Items worth 1,600-5,000, that's pretty clever...

oh and I thought the taxes were 15% not 13%.. 15% makes more sense according to the numbers you just mentioned.

 

Yes, since it arrives faster and you pay less overall. But, the cheap way is to use standard shipping and do the paperwork yourself. But that's your choice

I paid my laptop in USD dollars. Before applying the taxes, the value of the laptop is converted from USD to CAD. So there's a conversion rate involved. The tax rate is flat: 5% for GST; 7.5% for PST. I'll upload my invoice tonigh on my guide.