New 2012 Models Speculation Thread - WxxxER Series (W110ER, W150ER, W170ER)

Here's the W150 lounge:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/sag...clevo-w150erq-sager-np5165-owners-lounge.html

There are no Sandy Bridge exclusive machines anymore. Once Ivy Bridge is launched, the current lineup will be sold with Ivy Bridge CPU's instead (as the motherboard in the new models supports it). There won't be any Sandy Bridge machines "leftover" because they all convert over to Ivy.

 

2 more days =D

 

Thanks a bunch csoren.I thought there would be a significant difference inbetween the SSD and HDD,I dont think I will notice it.

I did take a look at 640M* graphical performance through Notebookcheck,and even the 640M provides 30+ FPS on most of the latest titles,except Battlefield 3 (close with 26 FPS.).

However what I want to know is,the resolution used in the tests are unspecified? At home I will plug my W110 to probably a 1600*900 and I would be curious to see how the 650M would perform there.When travelling or when in college,the native 1366*768 should handle things pretty smoothly anyway.

 

My Radeon 6750m can manage BF3 at 1080p at about 30fps all low. The 650m is probably 30-40% improvement over my card. I'd say no worries.

 

If you hold your cursor over the numbers in the notebookcheck tests it'll tell you the resolution and some more detail about the settings they used.

 

Nope holding my cursor above the results didnt return any feedback about resolution.Must be becouse of my settings though,perhaps JavaScripts,pop-ups are disabled? I dont know.

In any case figured that even in 1600*900,this little thing wont be having any troubles at all,which is good.Until now,I see nothing wrong with this model except that the quality of the barebone is not as good as others,(Still not aluminium) and also the screen factor.

 

It's not javascript, just html alt text. In any case I don't know how people are concerned or worried about the GPU in this thing. It's 11.6" and more powerful than most 15.6" notebooks of the SB generation (except Sagers of course). The screen is a bit of a concern, but I've been using 11.6" for a while, and if it's at least as good as the one in the HP DM1, I'll be happy.

 

Indeed.You are pretty right with the GPU.We shouldnt be having any concerns.Regarding screen size,I have been on a 10.6" for a long time now too.I can say that I am used to it,but I havent been able to game on it so I wouldnt know.I dont really play FPS a lot,but just the idea of being able to run Diablo III on this screen is enough to make me pretty excited.You know,take your notebook and a bluetooth/wireless mouse of choice and your set to be able to chill on the couch

 

Am I correct in thinking that if the 650m GDDR5 was overclocked a bit (100mhz~) that it would put it at exactly the same speed as the 660m? There doesn't seem to be any other difference between the two. I can see the DDR3 one being slower of course but otherwise they should be close right?

 

This is more or less accurate, except that the 660M is likely chosen from better binned chips, and any laptops with it will likely have superior cooling. These two things combined mean that the 660M is likely to OC well beyond whatever the 650M can achieve.

There's also the fact that the 660M comes in an MXM 3.0 form factor, which allows upgradeability down the road, while the 650M is soldered onto the motherboard.

The DDR3 650M shouldn't really have any problem matching the 660M at stock, actually, at lower resolutions. It's only at higher resolutions that it may have insufficient bandwidth to cope.

 

Thanks that's interestinggggg and which model range do you suspect will be getting the 660M chip? The WxxxER series or the PxxxEM series? The WxxxER is the "lower-end" but the PxxxEM has the MXM 3.0 capabilities. I think it'd have to be priced right for many people to consider it over a 650M.

 

I would be overjoyed if the W150ER got the 660M, though I'm sure that many others would be more excited about the W110ER getting it. I'm somewhat doubtful as to whether any of the WxxxER series would get it, though, because from what I've heard the 650M is soldered on, which would make swapping them somewhat difficult.

As a side note, am I the only person who's planning on getting a W150ER? While it's rather less powerful than the P151EM and P150EM, it's also cheaper, weighs slightly less, and has better battery life; as a casual gamer and college student, those seem more important than the beefier GPU.

 

Actually if the 660m has a 75w tdp it might be a worse/similarly binned chip with the voltage cranked up, considering the 650m has a 45w tdp according to Dell.

 

Since the 650m is soldered on, swapping in a new GPU is pretty much impossible. I was planning on getting the w150er too, but I figured that having an upgradable GPU and better cooling was worth the extra $150.

 

I believe the WxxxER will only be getting the 650M. There's a possibility that they may get the option of a 660M but it won't be MXM as the WxxxER models don't have support for that, so there's really very little difference between that potential option and the 650M GDDR5.

Sorbus, the performance difference between (stock) 650M GDDR5 and 660M should only be 10-15%, entirely due to clocks. If 660M would excite you, then I don't see why 650M GDDR5 wouldn't excite you, unless you wanted to swap it out for something more powerful down the road, in which case a P-series is what you'd be looking at.

W110ER will almost certainly not be getting anything other than/higher than the 650M DDR3 because it simply can't fit good enough cooling into the 11.6" form factor. The 660M's rated TDP is rather higher than the 650M's.

@R3d
Those are both good points. It being soldered on doesn't preclude the option of a different GPU from Clevo/Sager, but it does reduce the chance significantly. As far as the binning, that's dependent on what your definition of "better" is-arguably, for higher performance parts, "better" can mean "is stable well beyond stock clocks at the higher voltage we ship it with", whereas the 650M could be a chip that simply can't handle a lot of voltage, regardless of clocks.

 

Thanks for clarifying; I didn't know that the performance difference was so low. I am pretty excited about the 650M, I was just thinking that the 660M would be enough of a step up to justify even more excitement. Of course, considering that my current laptop has a 310M, any modern GPU aimed at gamers would be a huge upgrade.

 

I'm in the same boat as you--casual gamer looking for a solid machine for the next several years. And buying it for the price, weight, and battery life as well. You are not alone brother/sister.

Edit: Plus it has two hard drive bays, so I don't have to remove the optical bay in order to have one HDD and one SSD. I get all three

 

I'm also looking at getting the W150ER, the 650M in it is plenty good for me. I don't see myself upgrading the laptop components other than the memory or HDD anyway. I'd most likely just buy a brand new laptop when the time comes. The backlit keyboard and dual cooling system are really impressive in the PxxxEM series though so I don't know.

My only concern of the W150ER now is the fan noise, especially with both CPU/GPU being on one heatsink/fan. Having IB + Kepler should keep things relatively cool though. Will we have decibel readings around April 29th?

 

I'm also planning to do that! While the P150EM does have support for mSATA - which I suspect is going to become quite popular in the future - the selection of mSATA drives right now is very limited, and they cost about 50% more than 2.5" SSDs in the same form factor, at least based on my limited research. Not exactly ideal. SSDs, on the other hand, are starting to get down in price to where hard drives were a decade or so ago, and there's a much larger selection.

Admittedly, I haven't used an optical drive in forever, but it's still nice to have one, just in case.

 

Alternatively, a better recommendation may be to get your optical driver ordered as an external drive. This way, you can use it on other computers, it just connects via USB cable.

Just some food for thought.

 

I was planning on getting the W150ER but due to the lack of resellers posting ANY info on it at all (fan noise, temperatures, screen quality, etc) they have lost my business. I am now waiting to see what the lenovo Y580 and new hp dv6t have to offer.

Not only I am disappointed in the resellers but the fact I don't see much of an upgrade from the previous series (i.e. no backlight keyboard, limited design upgrades, still the same crappy speakers) makes me very hesitant.

 

What do you mean better battery life. They both will use Optimus and the P150/151EM have a 77WHr battery vs 62WHr battery in the W150ER. So my guess is the P150/151EM will have better overall battery life.

 

The P150 has a lower estimated battery life is lower than the W150. Just speculating but if it's true it might be because it has to power 2 fans.

 

XoticPC rates the W150ER at 3-5 hours and the P150/151EM at 2-3; I don't know how accurate that is, however, and I suspect that none of us will until people start receiving the models that they've ordered.

It certainly is. Do you know if there's a noticeable difference in performance between a SATA II drive an optical bay hard drive caddy and in the hard drive bay in the P150EM or P151EM?

The lack of information isn't particularly encouraging, I agree. I'm not going to be buying until midsummer at the earliest, though, so I'm hoping that more information will come out before then. If not ... well, I'll look at the other options.

 

I'm looking at upgrading the W150ER screen to the 95% gamut one. Is that the same 95% screen upgrade as in the P150EM or do they each have their own unique screen upgrades?

 

Its the same screen. The AUO B156HW01 V4 / V7 (Matte / Glossy)

 

That's the life of previous gen ones. I'm certain that it will be more in the P150/151. But yeah, until we get actual results we won't know actual time.

Same screen.

 

Do you know what model the default matte screen is?

 

B156HW01 V1 (60% Gamut)

 

Thanks. +rep

 

Can anyone compare the build quality difference between the w and the p series? I'm most interested in the LCD protection from pressure on the lid but it would be interesting to hear about the general toughness comparison.

The business line for most companies is normally the most hearty line but I've never heard much about Clevo's work machines. Normally one just hears about the build quality of their performance gamer line.

 

They are pretty equal, the LCD protection is basically the same, as they use the same basic lid design for each. The P's are just a little thicker, and so yea they flex a little less by sheer volume of the chassis, but I carried a W around and never saw any real issues with it.

 

I've been lurking in these forums for months, and created an account just to second this. It looks like the W150ER is in my "sweet spot" for performance/screen/battery vs. price. I almost pulled the trigger on last year's model, but I decided to wait for Ivy Bridge. Now I'm in a tough position because the P-series and the W110ER are getting all the attention, and almost no information is coming out on this thing.

 

I'm kind of with you on this one. I was all set to buy a W150 back in March, and was trying to locate the version with the GT555 card, but they all seemed sold out and only had the GT540. Annoyed at that, I decided to wait for the new models.

Now the new models have come out, and they're a half a pound heavier! What the hell caused the jump up in weight to nearly the same as the P150? I can't figure out what's caused the weight increase, I can't determine if the keyboard has changed much. . . there's just zero info on the new W150.

 

Okie Dokie Guys here is what the official info is (Finally got the full technical spec)

- This comes as 2 different models one with 3G (More popular) one without 3G (less popular) the non-3G models don't have the mSATA spot either

- 2 HDD Bays
- 1 ODD Bay
- mPCIE for WLAN
- mSATA OR 3G Slot (its wired for USB and SATA)
- GT650m w/ 1GB DDR5

What other information can I provide you guys?

 

I would be interested in seeing a video review of the W150, perhaps with a side by side comparison in size between the w150 and p150. Also, something to use for scale in the videos is always nice. I see a lot of videos of the p150 and not one has shown me something that I can use to accurately visually judge the size of what I'm looking at. The power brick for example looks enormous, but without something in there to compare it to it's hard to determine if it's really as huge as it looks.

I know a video is a pain in the to ask for, but you asked so that's what I'm looking for.

 

If you have any information on temperatures, fan noise, or battery life, that would be awesome.

 

Thanks for responding so quickly. I'm going to take a broader view here for a moment. The thing that really bothers me about this is that this model barely seems to exist. I can't even find pictures of it without a disclaimer that they're actually photos of the "comparable" W150HR/NP5165. Sager doesn't have it listed at all. Nearly all system specs (yours excluded) seem to be a copy/paste of the older model with the chipset/GPU/CPU updated. Perhaps my research is just totally inadequate, but it's what I'm seeing right now.

So that leads me to the conclusion that it really is just a rehash of last year's model. That's disappointing, but not a total deal-breaker for me. Then I see the weight, and have to ask how it got so much heavier. That hints at a significant change, but as maddmatt said, there's no apparent reason for it.

Presumably this will all come out in time, but the pace of new info (especially compared to something like the P150EM) is pretty frustrating. Luckily I'm not in a rush at the moment.

 

I'm also very curious about the fan noise and temps in the W150ER. I've been using my whisper quiet Thinkpad for awhile and hope the Sager/Clevo will at least be comparable. It'll be hard enough losing the pointing stick functionality *pity party*

 

Glad I'm not the only one frustrated with the lack of info on the W150ER. I'll be stalking this thread to see what kind of info is given, especially about the fan/battery life.
P.S a video review would be amazing.

 

If you want to stalk this thread, you should keep it alive.

 

So far, there's one person in the Owner's Lounge (going by the handle AnonymousETfromMars) who has a W150ER, and is posting information about it and answering questions. Some pictures were also posted there a while back. Sadly, it seems like most of the information we're going to get about it will come from owners.

 

I'm close to pulling the trigger on one soon!

 

I think they see a bigger market in the w110 that is why they do no pay much attention to the other models. You cant blame them, i guess more people want smaller machines that pack a punch nowadays. Still leaning on the 6165 but from what this guy is saying, tons of problems e.g switching between intrgrated and dedicated and heating then i guess the w110 is a better buy


Currently:Macbook unibody 13.3 late 2008.
Getting a 6165 or a 6110 as soon as i see reviews when playing games!

 

I'm currently leaning towards the P151EM, rather than the W150ER; apparently the P151EM has a pretty good battery life when running off the integrated GPU (I've heard people say 5 hours, though I'm not sure how accurate that is), and the better cooling is a pretty large selling point. More expensive, of course, but not by too much. It's also heavier, but I don't travel enough for that to be a large problem.

 

why no 13' or 14' models?

clevo makes the chassis i believe...

 

Same, I'm not concerned with the weight (Yay for exercise) it's striking a balance between battery/power consumption and performance that concerns me. (I travel a lot and usually never have anywhere to plugin)

 

Question -- I am very interested in the Mythlogic Pollux 1412 (Clevo W150ER chassis):
MYTHLOGIC :: Configure Your System

The ability to have a 35W Ivy Bridge quad core (3612QM) paired with the new GeForce GT 650M GPU is very enticing, especially since I already have a sweet SSD I can toss in this thing, and I have the option of not getting any hard drive with it.

My first question, will putting in my own SSD void any warranties?

And most importantly, this laptop looks AMAZING on paper, but how is the actual build quality? Will it feel sturdy and solid or will it be flimsy with flexible, creaky plastic, poor keyboard, etc...

Anybody have input on this?

 

Unlikely putting in the ssd would invalidate the warranty. You're normally allowed to do that as it's just a small panel on the base that needs removing.

 

On Mythlogic's website, it lists the weight of the W150ER and the W170ER both as 6.83 lbs - obviously they both can't be the same.

myth, can we get some clarification of the actual weights of the two units?

Edit: NVM, found the info from the Sager website, although I don't know if that's accurate either. W170 = 7.1 lbs, W150 = 6.2 lbs