NP9150 / Clevo P150EM -- How Easy to Upgrade?

Hello,

I'm looking to buy a laptop soon, and I've pretty much settled on buying a Sager, because it seems to have the best mix of performance components and price combined with a professional appearance, which I appreciate.

Right now, though, I'm trying to work out what I can and can't afford. The thing that I've noticed about Sager models is they tend to have a lot of options, and the NP9150 model in particular has [User Upgradeable] GPU options.

My question is what exactly does User Upgradeable mean, in practice? How easy is it to add, say, a newer, better GPU down the road (e.g. from stock GTX 670 to a 680)? How about adding a mSATA SSD drive to the unit if I don't buy one with the laptop originally (leaving that slot open)?

I ask because I'm thinking the NP9150 would really fit my needs, but I don't think I have quite enough money right now to get all the components I might think to get for it (e.g. a more expensive GPU or a SSD to run with the HDD). I could spend a bit less money (~$1300) to get a more static Sager model (e.g. NP6175), but I thought maybe it would make sense to spend about the same (~1400) on a NP9150 now, and then upgrade it down the road when I have the money to do so.

Is that feasible / advised?

 

well sager/celvos are built with the idea that many of its consumers will want to make changes/modifications/upgrades in mind

they are very easy to add stuff too especially something like an mSATA

it will cost u more in the long run though to upgrade the gpu later as opposed to ordering it first time around but thats completely up to you how u want to do it

as far as adding an mSATA or ssd later on many more people do this including myself

 

I upgraded the ram, all four slots, redid the thermals on the CPU/GPU and the thermal pads, and installed the mSATA in about 30 minutes. It's very easy.

 

Yeah it is really easy. It is one of the main reasons that my third Sager / Clevo is on the way.

As birdsonbat said the graphics is a bit expensive after market and may be wise to get that up front in many cases. However when I build my system I generally get the minimum on memory and hard drives.

For instance on my current build that I ordered I just got the base 8GB of RAM but have an additional 8GB sitting at home because it was cheaper. Same with the storage, I let them put the base 500GB in as the primary drive, but once it gets here that drive is being moved to the secondary HD space and I am putting my SanDisk SSD in as the primary.

Even if you wanted to change the screen down the road it is not too hard on these.

Love being able to customize and it allows me to add longevity to the system.

 

The other thing that goes hand-in-hand with being easy to upgrade is being easy to service. Today I spent around an hour dismantling a customer's HP laptop to clean out the heatsink and fan, because to get at it you have to remove 30-40 screws, the keyboard, bezel, hard drive, wifi card, screen, wrist rest, and finally the motherboard itself. This same job will take 5 minutes on the NP9150 due to the design. 4 screws give you access to most of the components you'll ever need to mess with.

 

Thanks for the quick and useful feedback, guys. Based on what you've said, I think I'll look to do as Clintre suggested and go minimal on harddrive and RAM, but probably look to spend the extra $100 to go from the 670 to the 675. That GPU should keep me playing the games I want to play with plenty good performance for quite a while.

Given what you've told me here, I think the 9150 is the right choice.

YAYTech, I can speak from personal experience that being able to clean out the fan easily is important. I've lived in dusty dorm rooms / apartments for the last 5 years, and my laptop fan has gotten very dust-clogged at times. If my HEL-80 didn't have a very easy to remove and clean fan, I might have been forced to spend some good money to get somebody to professionally do it. But in the past few years I've opened this thing up and removed the dust dozens of times with no problems.

 

go 7970, it will keep going longer .

 

Maybe, if I can afford the expense of yet another $100, though that's pushing it. Chances are I won't REALLY need something that powerful for a while. I want to be able to play newer games, but for the cutting edge stuff I don't need to blow it out of the water to be happy.

 

In that case, I'll be one of the few people here to tell you to not go all-in for the 7970m. If you have the extra money, go for it. Its a large upgrade.
If you don't have the extra money, I wouldn't worry too much about it unless you need to play BF3 on ultra.
Besides, you will most likely be able to put whatever nvidia or AMD make next year inside and be good to go.

I, too, went for the 9150 for the updatability. If you look at my sig, I'm planing on putting my current HDD in the CD drive, and SSD in for my main drive, and putting in more RAM. Heck, I might even get a newer GPU in two years if it will that big of an upgrade.