So now Sager is using garbage Chi Mei LCDs?

Just got my NP7358 (standard matte panel) and was shocked after installing Windows 7 how much of a granular/screen door effect there is.

I ran HWINFO only to find out that the panel is a Chi Mei CMN15B1 and not the LG panel I thought I would get.

 

First they get rid of the 95% gamut screens and now this? Sheesh.

 

What's wrong with Chi Mei?

It's primarily about availability. You can't offer what isn't available.

 

Products | Chi Mei Corporation: Bringing you Real Happiness their website is pretty science-y looking

 

Yeah, LG, Samsung, etc are all running out of LCDs...

 

You got the wrong division of Chi Mei in your link. The actual company which makes the LCD panels is Innolux Corporation. They are an SBU of a bigger enterprise, Chi Mei Corporation.

http://www.innolux.com/pages/en/index_en.html

 

Oh, golly gee Beaver, why didn't I think of that!?

Interface, gamut, screen technology, capacity, size, other OEM's ... all play a role in availability. There's times when quantity is in short supply. It was even indicated that the 95% screen was due to availability/discontinued. Other OEM's may make larger volume purchases and more or less "hog" all the screens for their machines, reducing supply as well. There's a whole host of reasons. If anything Sager is better than pretty much any other laptop maker with the wide availability of LCD's. Most just give you a single garbage TN screen with no other options.

 

You mean like Sager is doing now with this crappy, screen doored Chi Mei?

 

Send the laptop back if you don't like it, or don't buy it, or order with cheapest screen and source one yourself. /shrug/

 

Or maybe email sager support and ask them if they offer other display types for that exact laptop, mention the low quality of the display, what you do to see the low quality, find proof that the quality is not a one-off but the model itself, then see if Sager will allow you to ship back for a LG replacement.

Sager's not unreasonable, and you won't know unless you ask them.

 

You very quickly went from gung-ho Sager=God to "duh send it back".

 

I find sager great. have the 8258-S. Build quality is excellent, parts are excellent.

Every brand has its lemons.

I have three burned out pieces of crap that used to be Asus ROG laptops to prove that point.

I have a friend with a door stop that used to be an Alienware.

I have had to return my work laptop which is a macbook pro because it overheated and fried the motherboard.

Every distributor has issues, has lemons, have made bad decisions with pricing.

A lot of these companies are handled by separate organizations. The purchasing department most of the time take their lead from the VP's who take their lead from the CEO who take their lead from the board of directors who own the company. They're interested in lowering costs and raising revenue. Everything else is second to them.

The CEO understands the business requires a careful balance, and tries to achieve that. The VP's realize that they have to juggle the different groups to make things work. The purchasing groups realize that they have a limited budget per year that they have to make work. Sometimes this requires cutting costs on lower end systems to keep the higher end systems 'on par'. Then the technical groups are left holding what the purchasing department let them get away with, and have to make it all work, to the best of their ability.

It sucks, but that's business.

So what you do, again, is contact the company in question (in this case Sager), let them know of the faulty product (in this case, the LCD display) and ask for a different model or at the very least request one that does not have the problems that you have identified.

It could be as simple as a bad run of LCD's for that period of time. Stranger things have happened, and I doubt it's the devil.

 

You're a wise person, Ashen-Shugar.

 

My screen is beautiful on my 8298! The only screen I have seen better is my alienware 14 and the m17x R2 RBG. Definitely no complaints about the screen here.

 

I'm not "gung-ho" Sager, just stating the facts. Bottom line is if it doesn't suit you, if there's no suitable replacement, then send it back. Not every laptop or brand is perfect for everyone. If it doesn't suit your needs, send it back.

 

Sager does have a great 30 day return period if you're not completely happy with the computer. But not sure how effective sending it back and trying to get a different screen would be, if those are the only available right now.

 

Thaenatos, did you get a high gamut screen for your 8298?

My P150SM-A uses Lenovo B156HW01 V4, which I believe is a 95% gamut display.

I did a quick comparison with the P151HM1 this morning which uses the stock matte LG display the OP is talking about. Fantastic display and I haven't had a problem with it.

I noticed Colors are more vibrant/pop more on the 95% which is welcomed but there is something odd going on with the 95% display - depth of darker colors is lacking in comparison to the stock matte, it's not as "clear" as the stock (not sure if that is what people refer to as grain) and I also noticed it had a tinge to the white. It is brighter than the stock display, as an example I use the stock matte display one notch above lowest brightness. On the 95% I have to put it about 2-3 notches above. That was only a brief comparison. Will do some more testing after work.

Both screens are not calibrated and used in their stock configuration. Maybe something is up with the Intel driver. I'll reinstall the driver just in case.

Edit: I used the GS70 for about a week which used a Chi Mei display - not sure what model number. It was a very nice display, It was very vibrant in its colour reproduction, easily moreso than the P151HM I had at the time. Perhaps over-saturated? The panel didn't have the best black reproduction though, black's weren't as "black" as they should have been- could be attributed to panel "glow". Overall, It was very nice and relatively easy on the eyes.

 

I think LCD ratings are totally subjective...

This Inspiron 17R has an LG (LG Philips LP173WD1) and its by FAR the worst display I've ever used. Inaccurate colors, horrible viewing angles... I could go on for hours. I would have taken a Chi Mei any day over this garbage. I would have sent it back but unfortunately Dell doesn't have the same return policy Sager does, especially on Outlet items.

If you aren't happy, do as has been recommended and return it for a refund.

 

My Clevo came with an AUO B156HAN01.2

Anyone heard of this display before? I only know that it's an IPS panel.

Wikipedia says "AUO manufactures TFT panels for companies including Samsung, NEC, Lenovo, LG, Dell, Apple, Viewsonic, Acer."

EDIT: AUO B156HAN01.2 Overview - Panelook.com

I'm not too sure how to interpret the specs, but it seems to be pretty good.

 

My point was that if they are not happy with the machine, LCD, whatever, then return it, instead of griping about it, because that won't make it magically be better.

 

Or maybe... it can....


Sorry, couldn't resist

 

Im not on the 95% gamut screen and also on the default settings. But color production, brightness and overall look is amazing. Sure I have seen better but this still cracks the top 3 IMHO.

 

It's the same algorithm every time anyone says anything negative about their Sager product on the Sager forum.

Resellers are first on the scene to do damage control, you'll be approached from three angles simultaneously: A- Your knowledge about the topic will get challenged and the topic will get obfuscated (Meaker is a master of the art). B- Others will simply point out that there were other options and you picked yours, suck it up. C- The third approach will be to constantly insinuate that you'd rather whine than go through the "official channels" (as if sharing the experience on the forum and e-mailing tech support are mutually exclusive).

If you survive the resellers Joe six-pack who's ever so super duper happy with his Sager shows up. His machine might not even be from the same decade as yours, but it doesn't matter. For every post that is lukewarm about anything Sager there are a dozen who just want to tell you that their machine is perfect. I'm not sure why they do this or what the relevance is. Just ignore them.

The most annoying response of course is the ever-so-present "Well maybe your machine is just a lemon, for every whiner there are a 1000 silent satisfied customers". Ignore them. Whenever anyone is googling Sager the more negative threads they see the more they'll consider their Sager decision, so persevere if you're dissatisfied with your machine. That's what customer review threads are for.

If you want to cut through all the regurgitated stuff here's my review after owning a Sager machine and lurking on these forums for nearly 2 years: They're the company that gives you the better components in the cheapest package. The more mobile you relatively are the less you should consider Sager. Anything it doesn't have to get from the big brands it woefully skimps on. My laptop doesn't even move anymore and the power cord falls of at an average of twice a day just by moving the desk slowly back and forth for 6 inches on a smooth marble floor. Sager speakers are great is a sentence never uttered by anyone, yet you'll still get the same lame "Well it's a laptop you can't expect the full surround experience!" response, yeah but I can expect something a little better than a Casio wristwatch speaker, specially when the budget sub-500 USD offerings on the market almost always grant a better auditory experience.

Chei Mei is not bad though, not the one on my series of Sagers anyway.

 

Its ok for you to say things in that manner, I gotta watch how I word things

 

Dear Unhappy Customer,

I am pleased to inform you that Sager offers a 30-day no-question-asked full refund policy for their laptops. As long as you return your laptop in working order within 30 days of receiving it, you will get a full refund minus any fees for custom services that XoticPC has rendered. I do hope that you will take advantage of this generous refund policy, and wish you all the best on your future purchase.

Sincerely
Hustady K

================================================

There, not all that hard is it?

 

*chuckle*

Well worded.

It is amusing when you see people in all the various parts of this forum who swing both sides of the chain.

You have those who are total pro-sager and just spout the glories of everything that is right with them because of their good system.
You have those who are total anti-sager and just spout the glories of everything that is wrong with them because of their bad system.

I've seen it with every distributor. Sager, Asus, Alienware, HP, Toshiba, Apple, you name it, everything has been said about them.

Each distributor will have a really good system, a really bad lemon, and a bunch of systems in between.

Each distributor is a business first and foremost. They are out to make money, and reduce expenses. This is done usually at the pain of the customer. Such is life.

It's our job to find the best fit, regardless of distributor, that best matches our current price tag, with the best possible performance.

Sometimes that's a Sager, sometimes that's an Alienware, sometimes that's an Apple, and sometimes that's absolutely nothing until the next release of laptops.

Telling someone to do something because of what you, yourself, have seen, especially on a system that isn't an exact match is arrogance at its finest. All you're doing is being an idiot. And yes, if you feel this refers to you, then it likely does.

The solution? Stop being an idiot.

Give your opinion of your own system, tell them how your system is. But leave their choice to what it should be. Their choice.

Regardless of what was said earlier, lemons do happen, hardware does fail, and technology is never perfect. It's our job as consumers to get the best bank for the buck, and sometimes we fail in this because of things outside our control as well as the business we buy it from. Sometimes the third party parts received are faulty in a given manufacturing line. I remember kingston and corsair memory having big issues a few years ago with HP and Dell servers. Seagate had a line of duds on their SATA drives 4ish years ago for Sun Microsystems (now Oracle). Asus had bad chipsets in their motherboards in their desktops for certain lines. Cisco had a line of absolutely sucky routers at their corporate level. No company is immune to this. Lemons happen, get over it, and usually they're outside the control of the company in question on top of that.

So there's several choices out there of very good systems. Xoticpc offers a wide variety of them. Find the system that best matches your need, then ask around and find reviews of what people find for those systems.

Don't take my word for it, or anyone elses on what is good or bad. Instead, take a large variety of informed input, and make your own decisions.

A few disgruntled users, or happy-go-lucky zelaots an opinion does not make.

 

SO MUCH OF THIS OMG

If you want an informed opinion, ignore reviews on both extremes -- if someone says their product is perfect and can't find a single flaw, well they probably haven't used it long enough to pick up on some of the more subtle issues. Even for purchases that I considered to be "perfect" at the time, I usually find *something* wrong with it down the road, most are extremely minor/trivial annoyances not worthy of mention, but you notice them nonetheless, and "perfect" becomes a misnomer. That said, take note of what they like about their product, and see if any of those apply to you.

On the other hand an extremely negative review where the product is derided as the absolute worst POS and has exactly 0 merits is to be taken with a huge grain of salt as well. Clearly the user has become extremely disgruntled/embittered by their experience of using said product, and is simply channeling out their latent anger in written form. Some of the criticisms may still have merit, but they will almost certainly be greatly exaggerated. or be one of personal nature that will vary from user to user.

The exact same could be said for company reviews, and I sum it up as thus: you will inevitably p!ss off somebody at some point in time. A few negative reviews here and there are totally normal. But if the review record is perfect, then that perhaps deserves a closer look. OTOH, I've bought from sellers on Amazon who had ratings in the low 60%, and worked out completely fine, mainly because most of the complaints were about the product itself and not the actual buying experience.

 

Sagers are far from perfect. But they do offer the best bang for the buck usually. Generally speaking, as I see it, pros and cons of Sager laptops and company in general:

Pros:
- Large selection of laptops
- Large selection of brand selectable configurable options: LCD, RAM, CPU, Hard Drive/SSD, Wi-Fi Card, MXM GPU, optical drive tray. Something you don't get from most other brands
- Ability to service your own machine without voiding warranty
- Easily serviceable
- Exceptional cooling
- Multiple resellers offering unique services above and beyond what a stock Sager can/would, most offering exceptional support
- Typically least expensive configurations compared to other competition
- Great user support and third party "tweaks"
- No "bloatware" installed
- 30 day 100% refund return policy
- Inexpensive warranties: LCD dead pixel and full system

Cons:
- limited BIOS configuration options and support
- Typically thicker and heavier than competition
- Speakers are below average
- Not always the best port placement or offering
- All plastic construction. Not always a bad thing, but more metal where it matters would be nice
- Battery life usually sub par (although newer offerings are improving)

Neutral:
- Fan noise, not the quietest, but also not awful
- Appearance. I personally like the "plain" look of the Sagers, but others prefer more "style"
- No accidental damage warranty
- Limited software suite
- Windows optional

 

Honestly, I agree with all the points you said, but do want to comment on these points.

From what I've heard, based on all the models that Clevo offers, I'd have to agree with the fan and speakers.

But honestly, with the latest offering in their top-tier systems, the speakers are actually pretty good.
On the 8258 I've found them loud, non-distorting, and you can actually hear the base push some.

It won't rock the house, but for laptop speakers, it's honestly some of the better I've heard.

I can't say if the other clevos are similar, and from what others have stated they can outright suck, but for the 8258 I actually find them loud enough to watch movies on in a living room and have everyone enjoy the sound from it.

I couldn't do that on my old Asus G51 laptop.

For battery life, I've ran two movies back to back on my bluray with wifi on and still had a bit under 20% battery life remaining. So I can probably tweak out 5 hours of battery life on my laptop if I kid-gloved its use. I'd say I can consistently get 4 hours with average use. Much much better than what previous clevos had, but not anywhere near the MSI offerings for their better machines.


The fan noise is also quieter than I've heard reported, though agreed if you max out the fan (which it never has hit on its own) it can get pretty loud. (pretty loud as in about the noise of talking in a quiet room loud, not blow drier or jet turbine loud)

Other cons I've ran across:
- Drivers. Egads people, at least bug-check the driver support on these things. Mine didn't even have bluetooth installed. The intel driver was buggy as hell (for the AC driver) until I updated to the 17.x update then it became rock solid. I also had severe issues going from a gaming headset with a mic to speakers as after the headset the speakers became super-muted. Upgrading the realtek drivers and upgrading the hotkey drivers fixed the sound problems.

The Pro I want to especially comment on:
- Keyboard -- Holy gravy, it's one of the best laptop keyboards I have ever had the pleasure to type on. Better than the keyboard on my macbook pro, better than the keyboards on the Asus laptops, and better than the keyboard I've used on the IBM T series at work and the Dell laptop at work. It's firm, it's responsive, and it handles my 160 wpm without a single error or issue with ghosting. I'm absolutely blown away by it.

The touchpad I also enjoy a great deal, but without spending a good long time tweaking it to exactly how you want (which you can do by the way), out of the box it absolutely blows goats. Twitchy as hell. But again, that's taken care of with careful config tweaking from the touchpad config tool.

 

Actually I should put drivers down as a "Pro" since they do let you use the component OEM drivers instead of requiring Sagers or Clevos.

 

Talking of displays I noticed something unusual the other night playing remember me on my clevo with90% gamut color display usinghdmi output to Samsung plasma TV on dynamic.
The textures were more detailed on plasma than auoptronics display.
Is this due to the ppi of optronics display ?
Curious .

 

Glad you like your keyboard, but for me the keyboard is a solid neutral. My main gripe is that Clevo chose to use full sized arrow keys but didn't offset them slightly below the main typing area. This makes the right shift key disproportionately small, and when I first used the keyboard I would often miss the right shift. Got used to it after a week but I still count that as a strike against it. The actual typing response is decent, and reminds me just how much I hated using a chiclet keyboard -- and this is after using a Toshiba with a chiclet keyboard for over 2 years.

But see you just proved how subjective/personal these things can be, and why certain criticisms really shouldn't be taken at face value.

 

My biggest gripes about they keyboards are:

- Sleep Fn key between volume down and mute... dumb
- same keyboard for 15" and 17", there's no benefit of the keyboard for the added width on a 17"
- restricted backlight options only on specific models despite using the same keyboard. They just omit the power feed.

Otherwise they are pretty solid and good for typing and gaming.

 

Completely agreed on the first two... I actually made the fatal mistake of hitting sleep instead of volume the other day -_-

Comparatively speaking, I love this keyboard. I do wish it was full 17" but I'm getting used to it. That tiny shift button right next to the arrow gets me a lot though lol

 

Oh yeah how could I forget about that STUPID placement of the Sleep key, makes me think someone fell asleep on their job while designing this thing hehe

Agreed on the 15" vs 17" as well. Clevo probably got lazy and used the same design to cut costs. Honestly I can forgive a 15" for not having a dedicated arrow key area (even though my craptastic 15" Toshiba had offset arrow keys), but it's unforgivable on a 17". I mean come on look at how much palm rest space is going to waste.

 

Don't even get me started on the trackpad... The keyboard is great... but the trackpad is terrible and it is in a terrible position too.

I use the trackpad pretty much exclusively unless I'm gaming (then its the DS4 or my Saitek rumble pad if the game doesn't support XInput) and this one is... yeah...... Its messed up that the right button works perfectly but half of the left button is dead.

 

So what is better a Chi Mei or LG lp173? And what about AUO screens, I heard its also supposed to be in the league of LG lp173!?

 

Moved my question to another thread, about the part numbers from AUO that were discontinued...

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/sag...using-garbage-chi-mei-lcds-2.html#post9663512

I didn't even realize that Sager offered those garbage LP173 screens... stay away...

I'd take an AUO any day.

LP173 is FHD though, I believe, while LP173WD1 is only 900p... might be different but I really hated that LCD.

 

imho the only real con of sager/clevo laptops is the limited bios support for gpu upgrades. especially so because upgradeability is a major selling, and more especially so because their competitors offer this.

other than that im happy with the two sagers i owned.

 

Not sure when and how chi mei = garbage. Every manf. make good and crap panels.

Don't like the panel? Get a replacement or return it.

 

I have an Innolux/ChiMei 173HGE-L11 CMO1720 matte 72% gamut panel in my Clevo and I think it's the best panel I have used, despite it's "graininess". Brightness is superb and so is contrast. Colors are vivid and rich. I don't do any photo editing, so color accuracy is not important to me. For Internet browsing, office tasks, gaming and movies this panel meets my expectations at 110%.
This panel has also been used frequently by ASUS and MSI in their top gaming laptops. I came across it frequently when reading reviews of various gaming laptops on notebookcheck. In every review they point out the "graininess" as a con, but other than that they think that this panel is superior to most competition out there.

 

Agreed. I found it to be the only silver lining regarding the laptop's "peripherals", which has the same screen as yours.

 

B156HAN01.2 is ips?

 

I think what this thread shows, is just how subjective descriptors like "keyboard feel" or "garbage screen" can be. I think we'd have a lot less fuss about Clevo laptops if a potential buyer could actually see and test one in person before buying. But I'm not aware of any commercial outlets that carry Clevo laptops.

Incidentally, the testing in person part was what made me strike the MSI GT70 off my list. Didn't like the feel of the SteelSeries keyboard at all, and something about the laptop was just... off. It's hard to put in words but it just didn't "feel right" for me.

 

Yeah, I agree. It's hard to make an assessment on things like the LCD, keyboard, fan noise even because there can be different tones and dB that users are comfortable with. But then again there is a 30 day money back guarantee. Not that I'd advocate buying just to try but you do have that option if you think it will work for you, and can return it (your only cost is the return shipping).

 

Well, the lack of display models is reflected on the price.

 

If any member happens to stop by in Korea, Hansung Computers has many official outlets and certified repair centers that actually have certain models on display..

 

In regards to my NP8278 I will add this:

Pros:
Speakers are a big improvement over my Dell Precision M4500, so I am happy with them.

Cons:
The Num Lock/Caps Lock OSD is annoying. It hangs out upper right corner of the display and I can't type/click in that area. That is really just super lame.

 

Yes, I have the B156HAN01.2 in my Clevo and it's IPS.