Personal Reviews of the Clevo M860tu

I posted this in the "what laptop should I buy" forum but haven't gotten the responses I was hoping for, so I figured I put it here too.

I'm a student in the design field and need a new laptop that is capable of running modeling programs, in the past this usually meant something close to a "gaming" laptop. Having visited stores, looked through websites, asked fellow classmates, I still feel pretty hesitant about purchasing any laptops that I've seen. My past laptop was a Dell that I bought 5 years ago, and I've never had any problems with it, it's performed flawlessly. So Dell was my starting point, but wondering if there were other options I've surfed the web and have noticed people talking about laptops that I never heard of or seen before. One that looks like it might work is the Sager/Clevo m860tu.

I'm very apprehensive about plopping down $1700 for something I can't touch or see before I buy, but the ability to customize has me interested. I've heard good things and bad things about this laptop.

Good things:
Fast, powerful
built well
understated, handsome looks

Bad things:
A little overpriced
not built well (keyboard lifts off, high amount of body panel flex)
If you need service, CS is bad, and shipping becomes expensive

Places I've looked to buy are AVA Direct and PCtorque

Software I'll be running will be
Digital Project
Rhino
max
Autocad

maybe Revit


So in a nutshell my hesitation lies in the quality of an unseen laptop, along with poor customer service.

So for those who have bought a Clevo/Sager laptop, what are the overall feelings about the quality of this laptop (not just "o look it's different and therefore, more cool then what everyone else has")? As well as who to buy from? I'm not looking for a emotional response about one's own laptop, but a clear, concise, critique of these laptops by those who own them.

Thanks

 

It seems, you can't decide whether they're well built or not from your pros/cons column.

I don't know where you're getting this (either the case of a rare misadventure or there's inexperienced fanboi bias at work) from but I'll be honest here to avoid misinforming you further.

While certainly not 'the best ever' Clevo are pretty close to the top of the list when it comes to build quality and the M860TU is no exception.

Look through the last several pages of the Clevo sub-forum and you'll probably, only find issues dealing from hot HDD temperatures. But this isn't prevalent to most cases and when it is, it rarely causes any REAL damage issues. Only occasional hot palm syndorme. They are mainly just issues of concern.

Most other notes of point tend to be the lack of certain hi-brow features rather than real build problems - the lack of overclocking support, non LED backlit/ basic screen quality, standard sound quality, no backlit keyboards etc, etc. Certianly some of these you would expect to be better for such an expensive model. But it's internal specifications are the reason for the pricetag. The fact is that very few notebooks of this size can handle this amount of power. Bigger brands have had larger problems with their competing models - AW have known to have bigger issues dealing with the heat (m15x) and Asus models have had to downclock components (G15).

As for customer service, that really depends on the OEM (reseller) you buy the model from. I don't know much about the US market, Xotic always seems to get high regards if you ask around and they even have a rep here on the boards if you need to ask any questions about their service.
Here in the UK we're blessed with a few good resellers - Kobalt, Novatech and OCUK (Overclockers). They've all received good words from their customers, especially Kobalt which I'm sure many a member here would vouch for with a zeal.

Personally, I bought an M860TU nearly a year ago now and have yet to see a problem apart from the occasional virus but that can't be blamed on the manufacturer. Just make sure you take it for a monthy clean through and a weekly system check and you'll be right as rain. As people often say here - look after your machine well and it will look after you.

 

Who has bad cs? All of the sager resellers aer known for their customer service.

 

I boutht mine from http://www.rjtech.com/ the barebone + 260M.

The rest of the components I bought myself and buit the device by myself because it came much cheaper that way.
Usually the cpus are the most overpriced part of a laptop so I got mine off ebay, if you search this site you'll find two very trusted sellers.
HDDs are usually not worth either because many shops will likely sell older parts at the price of the ones that just came out as long as the size is the same.
The only issue I've ever had was the ddr wich I and another user have had errors with. Sorts to say, kingston hyper-x DDR3 is nowhere near 5-5-5-15 latencies as tested with 8 different memory modules, kingston's fault.

Building the laptop was a picece of cake but I have previous experience with PCs.

Because of cost considerations I bought it from US so sending the device back and forth would be quite expensive, but I made this choice because EU usualy has higher prices. Also clevo/sager are known for the excelent builds so I had no doubts and I was right not to.

The HDD is right under the right palm-rest so you will feel the heat but my hdd doesn't feel so bad; maybe SSDs run cooler but that's yet to be tested.

Temps are no problem either on my current config and I don't use a cooler either. If you plan a quadcore or a 280M a cooler will become necesary.

If you choose right it will certainly cost less than 1700 on a dual-core config and I don't think any other manufacturers offer (maybe with 260M underclocked) the same specs/price.
For the time beeing when you get a clevo, you don't pay for the brand (unless it's from alienvvare).

If you have more speciffic questions don't hesitate to ask!

 

Not all, remember PCMW? LOL..

 

Very good write up. But just one thing, people still get viruses in this day and age?

 

i also agree with the general consensus Ive owned compaq, asus, toshiba and also a dell studio XPS 16 in the past and this sager is by far the most well built and to date reliable machine ive owned, its solid and powerful to boot, and for my purposes it is the perfect fit, i also agree there are some small flaws like the slightly higher hard drive temps and i would have really liked a back lit keyboard but other than that it has been perfect, i also had great help and support from the reseller i went with Xoticpc they were very helpful informative and when i needed a little extra they stepped up to the plate and did what they could to fulfill my requests all and all my experiences with clevo/sager has been very pleasurable and i don't hesitate in recommending them.
good luck with your purchase.

 

Thankee sai. The bugs tend to be harmless - something I wouldn't have noticed had it not been for the anti-viral programs that found them. And it happens VERY rarely.

 

Well, I was one of those guys who plunged based solely on the basis of NBR forums alone, and boy am I not disappointed. The build quality seems pretty good in my opinion. There is some amount of keyboard flex, but its livable, and does not get in the way of typing, which brings me to my next point. The keyboard is absolutely fantabulous. It reminds me of the older dell inspiron keyboards. Initially, I used to miss letters as I thought I need to be a little more 'gentle' with laptop keyboards, but after 2 weeks, I'm quite comfortable putting just the same amount of pressure I put on desktop keyboards.
Oh, well the HDD getting _warm_ (not HOT) seems to be the only issue around here. Mine reaches around 52-53C which I can live with. So I guess that says a whole lot about the build quality of the laptop. The absolute maximum I've been able to put through the GPU was 77C while running FurMark and 3D Mark. And even then the CPU barely went over 70(it was even lesser I think).
Having my first computer as a laptop(was a Toshiba Satellite 220CDS for those of you who might remember the ol'grandaddys) I'm pretty happy with my Sager.

You do not need to worry about its quality. But be warned that it looks EXTREMELY plain, so plain that even a Dell Studio looks 'bling bling' when compared to it. If you care about performance and not about looks (like me ) then this is the right computer for you, my friend.

 

I have owned my M860tu/NP8660 for about 11 months. The only issue i have ever had with this notebook is this. I havent taken it out much as i thought i would. Aside from that i had the normal issues like a pretty hot HDD, but that was easily overcomed by adding a notebook cooler. I honestly thought this notebook was going to let me down, but it hasnt unlike another popular company that i had to deal with.

I am actually an EX owner of a Alienware M15x the one equipped with 8800m GTX Alienware is well known, and they are also working hand and hand with Dell. If you want a notebook that had some issues, the M15x had quite a few just do a google search, and you will see what i mean. I sold mine, but i did it in good concious letting the new owner know that Alienware doesnt do Change of Ownership for Warranty, and the current problems the notebook had. I tried consulting with Alienware to see if i could return it, but that's another bad customer experience story id like to forget.

If you are afraid of dropping down 1700 for a new M860tu im actually selling mine in the NBR market place. I got mine through Xotic PC (they are pretty good re-sellers), and the warranty is still transferable. You can have a look over in the NBR market place if you are interested. Link to NBR Marketplace with my notebook on sale

 

For a second, I thought we were talking about Counter Strike, haha.

 

Got mine just weeks ago (also based heavily on NBR advice), you can check the review in my sig for initial impressions. They haven't changed much though, I still see it as a well-built solid computing platform, capable of handling gracefully most 3d apps you can throw at it.