Looking for reviews: SAGER NP8957 (CLEVO P950RF)

I've been shopping for a replacement for my venerable 2012 W230ST for a while now, and I'm resigned to having to go up to 15" if I want enough performance to keep whatever I buy going for another 7-8 years -- nobody makes a 13" with a 1660Ti or better. I was delighted to find that there are now a few options that stay under 5 pounds, and thanks to super thin bezels, some of them are barely bigger than my current 13" system.

I've looked at the Mag-15, which seems to be the current community darling, but the subject Clevo/Sager has really flown under the radar. I can barely find anything about it online -- reviews from Amazon or XPC listings, sure, but all the video content is for other, similar (but different) systems, or a few that are literally a slideshow of pictures of the system with a text-to-speech voice reading Amazon reviews (!).

I'd love to read a full writeup by a professional. How is performance? Thermals/throttling/fan noise? How is the screen quality, speakers, keyboard, trackpad, etc? I can't even find references to it on this board. Maybe I'm using the wrong model number to search?

 

Good grief, I forgot how bad Clevo/Sager is at naming. Throw an actual *word* in there, guys, please! I found out about the NP8957 through a Reddit post, where somebody linked to the 17" version, called NP7876, but I think maybe the NP8977 is the same system with a 2070 instead of a 2060? Maybe? Help me out here, Sager, and make these things a little more straightforward.

 

I could be mistaken but I think @Mr. Fox actually has the mag 15?

 

Just go to our website, you can browse the models by screen size.

 

No, I looked very carefully at the MAG-15 and the MECH-15 and opted for the latter. The chassis is a little bit nicer on the MAG-15, but the MECH-15 is more of a workhorse. The MECH-15 is a bit more powerful at a slightly lower price point, and it was a better fit for what I needed with its dual DP and numeric keypad (both of which I use every day and wouldn't be satisfied without them).

 

Ah sorry for the confusion I stand corrected.

 

No worries. They're both made by Tongfang and have similar names. Totally understandable that one might get their wires crossed.

 

I'd be ordering from Germany but have access to an APO (American postal address), FWIW. I've considered the Mag-15 (XMG Fusion) and Mech-15 (XMG Neo, I think?) and they sound great, but I just want to make sure I've looked at all the options. It'd also be cool to stick with a Clevo/Sager since I've been happy with the one I have.

My priorities are to find something super portable and reasonably unobtrusive, that will continue to do a decent job of running any game I throw at it for the next 5-ish years. That sounds like a tall order but it's what I got out of my W230ST. I'm looking for professional reviews because the things I care about -- running cool and quiet, build quality, keyboard, speakers, etc -- tend not to be obvious from a spec sheet on a store page, and they're very hard to compare when you can't handle the system in person.

Mr. Fox: XMG is coy about the ODM for the Fusion (Mag-15 equivalent) and says that the official line is that the hardware "comes from Intel". Sure does seem like Tongfang, though...

 

My previous comment about model naming was specifically geared to figuring out which systems are built on the same chassis. With any other system, I might not find a review of the Model ABC with 2060, i7, and 144Hz screen, but I did find a good review of the Model ABC with *2070*, i7, 144Hz, so that's probably applicable. The whole reason I'm making this post is because I see an Amazon listing for the N1234, and a Youtube review of the N1233, but the Sager website lists an N1235, and I *think* they're the same chassis with slightly different components, but I'm not sure.