Review: A "Half" year with the M570RU

Intro
As the title states, ive now had the M570RU for a little more than a half a year and wanted to give some feedback on my experience with it
It all started with my old FS Xi1546 deciding to burn it self up a few times over its lifetime, where in the end I got my money back. After that, I started looking around for another DRM notebook, as I dont have space for a desktop and I like power on the go, as im often away from home. This lead me to the Clevo M570RU, as it seemed to be packed with power, had a decent buildquality and had a price that was quite fair for the performance, judging from the reviews popping up around the web. At the same time, I was looking into the Dell M1730, but the price was just TOO much (at the time being some over $5000 here in DK). So I decided to give the M570RU a go, as I got a fairly good deal form a local computerstore, which took care of the RMA of the FS-book. I ended up paying $200 more over the refound of the FS.

Well I got my hands on the Clevo, which is actually the first Clevo ive owned and messed around with. The sight meeting me picking it up were nothing special. A regular cardboard box, which didnt really seem to house the powerhorse I ordered. Took the box home, and began unpacking. Wow were my first thought, getting the book out in the open. What meet me was a solid machine, with very little flex and no wierd sounds handling it. Got everything connected and powered it up. Again, all I had to say were WOW!.
Were very surpriced with its performance, screen and everything tbh.
After the excitement damped a little, had the machine worked through with bench's and had it set up like I wanted, a few issues appeared. New drivers wouldn't for the GPU and I had some TV-out issues. Began to wonder if my experience with the Clevo were not that great again, also with all the jack-stick troubles other people had with theirs. Tho the Clevo served my purpose and just wanted it to run as it did, as I didn't have any troubles running the progs I used/use. In the storm of driver troubles with the GPU a BIOS update hit the road and everything was fixed, the clevo again was a great machine ! Since I haven't had any real troubles with it tbh (still have to see the jack-stick issue) and it really serves me as a great notebook !

To this date ive yet to see the game it dosent handle and the only trouble I still haven't found a solution to, is Solidworks lagging like hell which I guess is a Vista issue. Im still amazed how much power this thing packs.

And now the "half-year-after" review:

Sorry for missing pics, they will be added, havent got my digital cam here atm.

Specs:
X-One (Clevo M570RU-U/Sager NP5793)
- Core2Duo T7500 2,2 GHz
- 2 GB 667 MHz Memory
- nVidia Geforce 8800M GTX 512 mb
- 200 GB Seagate 7200 rpm hd
- 17" 1920*1200 glossy screen
- 8X DVD+/-RW DL burner
- Intel 4965AGN wireless
- Integrated Bluetooth 2.0
- Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit


Build and design
Beginning with the build and design, as I said in the intro, I were surpriced how sturdy this notebook is and the quality of the materials used. I must admit, that when ordering this notebook, I were a little unsure about its design. Didn't like it that much judging from pictures, but it turned out to actually, be a nice looking machine irl. It blends in well, with other regular notebooks and dosent brag being a powerhouse as the end line Dells, Asus' and Toshibas does. Being used daily through a half a year, it shows very little signs of wear. The palmrests still looks almost new so does the back cover, with only a few scratches on the glossy plastics at the top of the lid (being put in and taken out of a bag, atleast twice a day) and tbh Ive not taken any special care of it (other than normal care when handling notebooks).


Screen
The screen this note came with seems to be an LP171WU1-TLB1/APP9C69. It is a nice display with good viewing angles and great colors, tho it's quite dim, which took a little to get used to, as im used to bright screens. It havent given me any troubles with it being dim, tho I could wish a little more "power" of it. After a half a year of use, ive still not seen any dead pixels and colors are still great.


Speakers
The speakers in this book, is somewhat average of what you can expect in a notebook. Trebles are fine and have good details, but the bass is lacking somewhat. They are nothing special, but gets the job done for regular use on the road. IMO if your thinking of taking an evening infront of the comp, with a game or movie, your way better off using external speakers or headphones than the internal speakers.


Heat and noise
This is real DRM note, with a highpower cooling system thats very effective, it will keep this book cool in all occations, atleast ive not seen ANY heat issues yet, apart from a slightly warmer than I like HD, but its still running strong Cleaning is atm long overdue, but it still keeps temps below 75°C on both CPU and GPU being stressed. But as it have a high power cooling system, it also packs a con, which is noice. This notebook is louder than most others and surly was before the fan firmware update (The ramping occured before the update, made it sound worse). Mostly I use the comp with other sounds around it, where the fan noice drowns in the surroundings. But having only the note powered on with no other surrouding sounds, running at high performance powerstate, the fan noice can get to you from time to time. An easy fix is to put it in powersaving state, where fans most of the time is running very low speeds or is completly off. Yet ive still not regret buying this book, for its noisy cooling system, and im using it many hours a day. So I would not say this is a reason not to buy it, thats from a personal point of view. Imo this is still much better than my last desktop, with a low noice cooler. TBH I didnt expect this to be a quite notebook as it packs a lot of power, so as long as its less noisy than a desktop im fine with it


Keyboard
The keyboard in this unit is fullsize and IMO one of the better found in laptops, it have a nice feel to it with no flex at all. The layout of the numpad and some missing dedicated keys, which needs to be activated as a secondary function with the Fn-key, takes a little to get used to. Besides that there is from my point of view nothing else to criticise. After half a year of use, there is again very little sign of wear, much used keys looks a little more "shiny" than the others and the spacebar shows a little sign of wear, cursed by using the same point of the bar most of the time. Ive had slight troubles with some keys not reacting all the time, but it has gone into it self again, so guess something had been caught under the keys affected.


Touchpad
Again we see a proof of the quality of this notebook, as the touchpad is imo one of the best ive ever come across. It has a nice textured feel, which I like much better than the smooth surface, than what seen on newer HP's for instance. The buttons reacts even if pushed all out the sides and feels as they are an integrated part of the notebook, with very little wobbeling. After a half a year of use, there haven't been any trouble with it failing to track or getting jumpy, where the cursor is flying around the screen. Also it shows only little sign of wear in the middle of the pad.


Wireless
Not much to say about the wireless part of this book. The wireless card is a Intel(R) Wireless WiFi Link 4965AGN. It works as expected and Ive not yet experienced any troubles with it being unstable.

The unit I got has Bluetooth 2.0 build in, again this works flawless as expected.


Battery
Not really much to say here, the battery is an 8-cell li-ion battery. I get all from 1 hour in full performance powerstate to around 2½ hour in powersaving mode, depending on how the notebook is used. Surfing the web and reading documents, with lowered brightness and in powersaving state, gives around 2½ hour of battery life, which it still does after a half year of use (unloaded the battery last night, just for maintance).


Conclusion
After a half a year of use, this notebook continues to serve me well, with almost no troubles. The problems ive had, have been fixed easily and have all been software related. To this date, it is still a high-end notebook, which packs power as average desktop and handles all tasks I throw at it, with no problems at all. I can only say that I would recommand every one, looking for a powerful DRM to take on the road, should look into the M570RU/TU, as its surly a nice build machine. There are faster ones out there (Clevo D901C/Dell M1730) but they also got another pricetag. Only thing I could wish for, were room for another HD, maybe a little better cooled HD-compartment, better audio-jacks and maybe a little less noisy cooling system. But you can never get it all and im pleased with what this thing manages to do

Performance
There were asked, that I did some bench's of the lappy, here are a few to start with Messed up with the Vantage test, as I only got the trail I cannot do more than one and didnt get to save the screenshot... The score was just a little under 5k - 17xxx CPU and 39xx GPU as far as I recall

HDTune:


3DMark '06:

 

Wow that's great to share. We usually see some mini-reviews or first-week reviews here but that's nice to see some long term reviews Where is the performance part?

 

Well that was also my thought, havent seen so many long term reviews yet Performance part will be added, now when its asked for.. Didn't feel the need to throw it in, as several have done tests on same model before.. Will throw in some benches of a few games here one of the following days, 3D Mark '06 and Vantage scores ill add now

 

good review. thanks.

This only serves to reinforce my intent to buy an M570TU from sager.

 

No problem mate

Well after the starter issues with the BIOS and new drivers for the GPU, there haven't really been much to put a finger on, so personally I can recommand atleast having a look on it

Ive now added HDTune test and 3d mark '06 for thoes interrested

 

Errr...I just realized this...the reason why there is no long-term reviews is that by the time you have enough "experience" and knowledge about the laptop, there's something better that came out...=[

 

Ah, but as of last week this laptop is available for sale again, so it's not in vain!

 

@livesoft - I see your point mate. But actually long term reviews can be used to give an idea of the quality of a company's products in a bigger picture. If more people would do long term reviews, it will give you somewhat insight in how a company cares about their products. For instance if there several times will be failing products after a half a year or more, spread over several products, newer products will probably also have problems down the line. Meaning that the company might not build their products for long term use. And the otherway around, if there are almost no failing products down the line, most likely newer products will tend to have a low failure rate aswell Ofcorse this is not always true, but at least it will give you an idea, if a company build quality products or just put something together, that will last just until a new product is put on the street.

Atleast I wouldn't mind to see some more long term reviews... I like to know, how people feel about a company, having used their products for a long time, rather than just see how the stuff being put on the marked is right when you get it home

I hope I make my self understandable as im pretty tired in my head atm... had a long days work...

 

Yeah, don't worry, happens to me also That's great to know these laptops will last long. But you can also get some updates of a long term usage with threads like "OMGGGGG MAI LAPTOZP R BROK3N N IT R FEILLING APART"

 

very nice review! Yeah I have had mine since January of this year and i still haven't had any issues. This is by far the best notebook that i have owned.

 

@livesoft - Hehe, indeed you can And what a cool way saying it This was more or less also just a confirmation on, that Clevo delivers great notebooks for a somewhat fair price (not everywhere in the world ) Atleast im not scared of recommanding Clevo note's to other people from my experience with them

@naticus - I follow you mate, this is also the best note ive had out of 4, tho the Acer Travelmate I got, havent either really given me any troubles (dont even thing of having touchpad enabled while gaming tho, messes up when heated) But this is the one, taking my kind of usage the best, with least visible and from the feeling of it hardware wise wear

 

now people can get this laptop for real cheap now that its back...

still wondering how loud it will be...