Negative Experiences with W230ST? Potential Buyer.

Hi All,

I'm considering purchasing the W230ST. I've heard that the machine runs very well. I reside in the US so I'll likely purchase it from XOTIC with the custom cooling paste and maybe upgrade to a 1TB 7200 RPM drive (or stay at 1 TB 5400 RPM not sure yet) Please let me know if there are any deals/coupons!

Before I purchase I just wanted to hear everything that is BAD about the computer. I've done some research and it seems there's a lot good going for it so I didn't want any surprises. This is my first time considering a lesser known brand so I was worried about quality.

How is the sound? I've heard it mentioned as one of the weakest areas both through the speakers and on headphones.
What about the forward slash key position compared to the enter key? Is that a big annoyance?

Thank you.

 

Not much bad to report, the only real negative is it doesnt get as good of battery life as hoped, people are seeing 2-2.5hrs
You can also check the owners lounge for a lot of feed back http://forum.notebookreview.com/sag...-clevo-w230st-sager-np7330-owners-lounge.html

 

I just had to send my W230ST back to my reseller. http://forum.notebookreview.com/sager-clevo/733575-w230st-nvdia-card-dead.html We're suspecting that it's a bad video card. But we will see.

My personal opinion is that battery life isn't what I expected it to be. But honestly it's a gaming laptop for me so battery life wasn't my biggest concern, though would be nice. Also the speakers. Onkyo speakers did not impress for me. I've had cheaper laptop with better sound than this. It just doesn't seem to be loud enough for me and they sound very cheap. With headphones, they sound pretty good. I usually use my bose headphones to game, and I cannot complain. The laptop can get pretty warm while gaming to include the systems fan can get loud.

But honestly with my current problem with the laptop and the negatives I've mentioned, I'm very satisfied with it. I would buy it again. There is no perfect laptop out there. It's size, speed, performance, screen, and price is hard to beat.

 

I find that it causes me to get far to much attention from beautiful women which can really distract me from my work, games or tweaking my custom, unlocked bios.

 

Hmmm... everything that's bad? That's kinda hard :/
Build quality: Amazing. See the display bit.
Display: Colour rendition: Great . Resolution: Just nice (for my usage); Durability: It's more fragile than my MBA's screen. Arguably, I dropped my MBA when I had a concussion rather than having a 5kg steel briefcase drop on the case and opened screen from above. There's some backlight bleed, but even as an amateur photographer who edits his photos and a gamer, it doesn't seem visible beyond the black screen on boot.
Port placement: Not particularly ideal but still.... The USB 3.0 ports MAY be a little too close for people with fat thumbdrives. For me, I can populate all the USB 3.0 ports w/o any problems. Power port was surprisingly near the middle, though not a concern (at least for someone who's been using computers with power ports either at the back or the far end of the back)
Sound: Internal Speakers: Well.... it's as mentioned. Not stellar by any means. Currently, I'm using Parrot Zik headphones though, works perfectly ;D and cancels out the fan noise even at max fans with no sound playing. And the quality is good I'm listening to music now I'm using VIA HD Audio Deck though.
Wifi+BT: 7260-AC is aweshum I could connect to my school network from the bus stop near my school BT is also great but haven't tested anything other than my bluetooth headphones.
Temperatures: You should get the ICD upgrade or reapply thermal paste yourself. Else, it'll be a little toasty. Even with the upgrade, you should undervolt your CPU and GPU, especially if you're in a place that has 30 degrees Celsius ambient temperatures. Or higher. An issue may be that if you do tilt the computer excessively, it may have problems cooling itself. Or if you block the fan exhaust. I max the fans when I game though.
Keyboard: It's as good as a MBA's. I actually have less mistakes typing on it than on the MBA's, the response is a little better and the keys are well positioned. I never seem to hit the forward slash key wrongly, anyway. Still, regardless of how awkward the KB position is, I can usually get used to the keyboard in my touch typing relatively quickly and get >90WPM. The keys feel great
`` Backlighting: My local Clevo builder, Aftershock (in Singapore), allows for the LED colours to be customised But even with it all white, it's great
Aesthetics: Well I don't like flashy things. So it's perfect And it looks great enough that people ask what kind of computer / brand it is, rather than like "oh it's just an alienware" and just move on. I did wrap my lid though
Touchpad: Roughly less useful than a MBA's super-large-and-sensitive clickpad. The zoom function requires you to put your fingers parellel to the keyboard length and move them (or approximately there) instead of being able to do all sorts of wacky angles (and still have it work) in the MBA's touchpad.
Weight: 50% heavier than a MBA. Still 50% lighter than a D700+70-200mm VR II F/2.8+TC-20E III though. It's not heavy, not very light either, but it's light IMO. Doesn't give me a backache carrying it for long with school stuff, though I'm already used to carrying DSLRs and tripods for long so it probably isn't a fair comparison It still is very light though, as most of my schoolmates have commented.
Size: Perfect, or close to, for my hand size. I can hold the laptop with one hand and use it while walking (rarely), or carry it lid closed with one hand comfortably. The MBA was so thin (and with it's sharper edges) that it digs into my hand when carrying it with its lid closed.
General performance: If I do say I'm satisfied I'm lying. It's so much better than that, lol. It's really close to my ideal image of a computer with it's 3-4hr batt (at least on the stuff I do on battery, I game on AC only), especially with an extra battery. It handles the editing of a 218Mpxl banner that the other computers that I have in my home can't even display properly. While handling a 4GB ramdisk and >200 tabs on Chrome (I like multitasking, what can I say). Win 8 is surprisingly useful compared to Win 7. I'll use it any day. And on a side note, I admit, I had a period of time when I was experimenting with the ariflow from the maxxed fans coanda effect heheh. It beats anything I could ever get in Singapore hands down. Especially with the service Aftershock provides.
Service (Aftershock only): SUPER GREATTT. Like seriously. I'll elaborate on it later when I finish a small review and post it, hopefully soon
I run the 4700MQ on 36/35/34/34 undervolted, 16GB of RAM @ 1600MHz anyway