Which seller to choose?

Hi guys, I'm a new member here. I found this forum after researching for a new laptop to replace my ASUS G73JH. This is really urgent for me, so quick replies will be really appreciated.

So after all the research, I found that the CLEVO W355SSQ is the most suitable for my need. I also found that there are many resellers which sell the same model, just in different brand names. Those include Sager, XOTIC PC (sell Sager), iBUYPOWER and CyberPowerPC. Their prices vary just slightly(+/- $30, which is not a big deal for me). I only concern about their customer service and build quality. The reviews for those companies are all over the place, including the reviews in this forum. So I need your opinion on which company should I buy from (maybe even from another companies that I didn't listed, because I literally did all the research in 4 hours).

My other problem is: I am leaving the US in 3 weeks (May 24th), and I won't come back for half a year. So I DESPERATELY need my laptop to arrive May 23th or earlier. I obviously don't want to pay for the rush service, and I couldn't find the standard shipping time on either Sager or XOTIC's website. Cyberpower says they'll need 2-3 weeks to ship (so they're basically out of the question for me), and iBUYPOWER says it will take 6-10 business days to ship, which is still a big risk for me. So I also love to know your experience about the shipping time.

Thanks for your sharing.

 

the option is between xotic, prostar, power notebooks, lpc digital who all have active reps on here.
i would shoot an email off to each with your requirements and your deadline delivery date and take it from there.

 

Thanks, but I also wanna know which one is the best seller. I can only ask them about the production time, and I need to know customers' experience as well.

 

If you didn't have such an inflexible time window I would have suggested Mythlogic to you if they had the available model, but Myth takes a LONG time with their QA testing. I think XoticPC might be able to do it for you, but you better get good confirmation from one of their reps here first to see how it goes.

 

In Xotic website they say the ETA for this model is May 3. Does it mean they can ship right away?

 

Wish I could tell you man. When I ordered from them in '09, they got the money on Monday of week X. I got the laptop AT MY DOORSTEP ON THURSDAY OF WEEK X. Please note, I live in the caribbean. Not the US. So for all I know you could have it in a week. I HAVE heard people needing to wait two weeks for the machine though, so I suggest checking with and asking them if they can do it. They're known to get good ship times for people who have some deadlines to meet in the past.

 

Yeah Xoticpc was very quick. I was more of a hold-up getting my information to them.

 

I've already emailed them. If they don't reply by tomorrow, I guess I will order anyway; there is no reason to delay things even more (Since they don't work Sunday, I will wait till tomorrow because ordering now doesn't make it any faster).

 

Just make sure you don't buy from Malibal and you'll be ok.

 

I guess I went with XOTIC because 1) I felt I saw their name pop up the most on NBR, Reddit, and elsewhere (with mostly good things said), 2) they had the cheapest price, and 3) maybe a silly one, but some of the other Sager reseller websites look like they were designed in the 90's. I know Sager isn't known for making pretty laptops, but the sites could at least look like they were designed in the past 10 years.
In all fairness, it seems people have had good experiences with all the sites MrDJ listed above, so that's not a major point.

Speaking specifically towards XOTIC (since I ordered from there), their speeds tend to vary, since the laptops are actually made and shipped out by Sager. My NP7358 cleared payment over 2 weeks ago and I'm still waiting for it to ship out (which hopefully should be by early next week). It appears there was a delay in some of the parts coming in to Sager (which I wasn't aware of until I contacted XOTIC last week), so if you order now it's possible yours will go through much faster. I just wasn't expecting mine to take close to a month to get here (including time for the payment processing). But since this was an issue on Sager's end, it stands to reason any of the resellers would have had a delay, so I don't blame XOTIC for it (though my payment could have been processed a bit faster).

If you're in a rush, I probably would forgo the Cash back discount option and pay with a credit card (some cards also extend your warranty that way as well). Somehow my order got held up a few days due to address verification issues (which they admitted was a problem on their side), but hopefully you won't run into that.

I believe Pro-Star makes their laptops in house, so I don't know if that makes their production times faster than the other sites going through Sager.

Another thing to note with XOTIC (and I imagine any of the Sager resellers) is if you live in California, the laptop has to ship from Sager to XOTIC, then from there to your address to avoid any sales tax, so that undoubtedly would increase the time for it to get to you.

 

We should know for sure tomorrow (Monday) if Sager did get these back on the 3rd as expected.

 

pro star and sager are the same company.

 

I went ahead and ordered from Pro-star, because they promise 5 day preparation time. However, when I chose to pay by Paypal, they did not direct me to Paypal website, instead they say they will contact me later to confirm my order. So I haven't paid for my order yet. Is this normal? Hopefully they will contact me tomorrow (Monday).

 

Where will you be going? Depending on your destination, they may or may not have a Clevo reseller in that country.

I'm currently in Korea on vacation when I ordered a Clevo last week via Hansung Computers. It arrived to me the next business day.

If you are strapped on time, just give them a call tomorrow. Or scrap the PayPal order altogether and just use a credit card payment (that is if they allow it).

 

of all of them xoticpc offers a lot of options and upgradeability, LPC has the default configurations with the standards additions and good support. if you want your laptop to have a lot of options and upgrades, go for xotic, it adds up the building time though.

 

I thought they were both different Clevo resellers in the US?

 

You are right, they are not the same company.

 

Just paid for my order from Pro-star. I seriously would have gone for Xotic if I had a little more time; I have heard mostly good thing about them, plus their website has the best design among all Clevo resellers I have come across. However Pro-star has a huge time advantage; they guarantee 5 day maximum production time, compare to 7-12 days from Xotic. Even their rush service is cheaper - $39 for shipping in 1 day, compare to $49 for shipping in 1-4 days from Xotic.

I don't need a lot of upgrades, so I'd rather go with something fast and simple. Also this is not only the first time I own a Clevo laptop, but also my first ever experience with a Clevo laptop, so hopefully it won't disappoint me and be a great replacement for my ASUS G73jh. Still love that baby so much, but it's impossible to carry around, so need something lighter. Also it might not be able to run Watch Dogs, so it's awesome to get a new laptop around this time.

 

I think you'll be happy.

I own a Sager 8258-S (w/ 880M) and originally had an Asus G51 JX-X1. While the Asus was an overall good laptop, it always suffered overheating issues while under load, seemed to clock back frequently, and its response time was just laggish in comparison.

Granted, the Sager has a much faster GPU, a much faster CPU, and, well, better everything, but the night and day in performance is literally breath taking.

My wife, who originally had an Asus G51 JX-X1 as well (which sad to say suffered the SAME issues mine did), went to an Asus G75 for an upgrade, which sadly, also suffered overheating issues when under consistant long-term load. It just couldn't disperse the heat properly. I've heard the newest Asus G750's have much better cooling, but frankly after 3... well, not 'bad' experiences, but not good experiences, I went Sager. After a month, my wife wanted a Sager as well, so got her the 8258 with the 870M.

She couldn't be happier.

The performance was on par with mine, and there's no fan noise while idle. Under load, the fans don't even ramp full on and it's more than quiet enough for day to day use. With heavy gaming, the fans do ramp up and become noticeable, but they still are not max and even then it's not what I would call loud.

So far I'd say the hardest I've pushed the laptop was Witcher 2 in uber sampling. It was playable with about 37 fps (give or take) with everything max. Respectable. I usually just play witcher 2 in ultra (at near 70 fps) since I don't notice much difference between uber and ultra minus smoother graphics, which at half the cost of fps isn't worth it IMHO.

The keyboard is solid, has a lot of nice feedback when you press keys, and at around 160 wpm typing speed, I've not had issues of ghosting yet.

The touchpad is flakey out of the box, but you can tweak the config to make it more responsive and less of a pain in the bottom to use.

I think going from the Asus G73 you'll be highly impressed overall with the build quality. Let us know what you think, but I believe you'll be very happy you went with the Clevo.