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Why would someone buy through a reseller? Why not buy directly from Sager? Is there some sort of common knowledge reason about Sager that I don't know about as to why everyone seems to recommend resellers?
The first thing that comes to mind is accessibility. It’ll be more convenient for someone in Europe to order through XMG as it’s based there (correct me if I’m wrong), and they can handle warranty claims easier that way.
Some resellers – I’ll go with HIDevolution as I just ordered from them – offer mods/services that are relatively better. An example would be using Thermal Grizzly Conductonaut over IC Diamond on the CPU. There’s also the unlocked BIOS support from Prema.
Full disclosure: I have yet to receive my unit (maybe Thursday next week), as such, I haven’t really done any tests on it. I’m just more optimistic with this new one over my
recent Alienware experience.
it's basicially just that some resellers offer some much needed modding and still give you warranty, which you woudln't get if you'd buy direcly from Sager and mod yourself.
As I said before in your previous thread, you get a free repaste/repad service (for Clevo notebooks) without revoking your warranty, a full QC check, Prema partnered, a discount and a better customer support.
I can vouch for HIDevolution. They are the best when it comes to customer support, they become your advocate if something goes wrong with your laptop and sometimes as intermediary during transactions. I know this, because they helped me a lot recently with my MSI notebook.
If you want particularly sager, then buying it from xoticpc you can get it shipped internationally, or if you get it from lpc digital you get the prema bios, there are various profits of going through a reseller!!
1) When ordering from a different reseller / system builder, you can get more options in terms of hardware customization like faster RAM speeds, better SSDs, etc.
2) Some resellers like HIDevolution offer in-house CPU Delidding which is a must if you were to buy a Clevo laptop that sports a Desktop Class CPU as those things get really hot. You can delid the CPU yourself but if you do, not only is it difficult and time consuming, but you might end up damaging your CPU and even if you don't, your CPU warranty is void. When the reseller does it in-house, they take the risk and will cover the warranty.
3) Even if you were to buy from another reseller, if it wasn't a Prema Partner, I wouldn't touch these Clevo laptops. Period. When buying from a Prema Partner you'd get the laptop pre-installed with the Prema BIOS or remotely flashed to your laptop if it wasn't yet available at the time of buying a particular model. The Prema BIOS truly unlocks the full potential of these machines and it no just about the ability to fine tune your overclocking, it comes with a hose of other features. I remember my first Clevo P870DM laptop which didn't have a Prema BIOS and how much I hated the fact that it kept throttling my CPU to 3.4 GHz whenever the GPU was in use like in a game for example. The Prema BIOS and Prema EC Firmware fixed that.
• Restores user ability to overclock or underclock the CPU
• Restores user control over CPU power settings (voltage, watts, amps) for optimal performance and/or thermal efficiency
• Restores ability to control non-turbo CPU core ratio
• Restores ability to control CPU c-states and p-states
• Restores ability to control BCLK (northbridge) and FCLK (System Agent) frequency
• Restores ability to enable Intel Speed Shift Technology functionality
• Restores ability to disable Intel Software Guard Extensions (SGX) functionality which is intended for software developers who want to use that feature and causes erratic system behavior
• Restores ability to control RSR, Watchdog Timer, ASPM, ACPI sleep and hibernation functionality
• Restores ability to control RAM timings, clock speeds and enables the utilization of XMP profiles
• Restores ability to control selection of Legacy, UEFI and CSM to install whatever operating system is desired
• Restores ability to control CPU-based DEP, AES (encryption) and Virtualization
• Restores ability to control GPU scaling, PCIe speed and power management features
• Restores control over Thunderbolt and USB 3.1 configuration
• Restores control over SATA port configuration and Intel LPM. Having the ability to disable drive ports allows exclusive control over what drive receives the BCD/boot sector, system and recovery partitions during Windows Setup and eliminates the need to physically remove non-OS drives when installing a new OS.
4) From the time I've spent on these forums, it was those with a Sager laptop that usually complained the most about heat issues or laptops not working out of the box. When buying from other resellers, they usually do extensive stress testing to ensure your laptop works perfect out of the box and don't just sell them in bulk without extra testing. With all due respect to Sager, but the complaints I've seen on these forums from Sager laptop owners make me never wanna buy from them. Not saying they're all bad, but what I've seen is enough to sway me away.
Clevo is the ODM (Original Design Manufacturer). They build the barebones from various parts built by other manufacturers...case, motherboard, keyboard, screen, AC Adapter, and battery. Then there are various OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturer) who take it from there and install the parts from yet other manufacturers...CPU, GPU, RAM, SSD and/or HDD, WiFi card, OS, drivers and utilities (even if ordered with no OS, these have to be installed for testing and Q.C.), inspect for defective pixels and do stress testing and final Q.C..
It is not a functioning laptop from Clevo, just a barebones. It takes an OEM to build it to a functional state. Examples of OEMs that are active on this forum are Sager, Pro-Star, HIDevolution.com, Obsidian, XMG...and probably a few others outside of the USA that don't come to mind right now. OEMs are not resellers. Resellers sell an OEM brand. Examples of USA resellers that are active on this forum are GenTech, Xoticpc, LPC-Digital, all of which sell the Sager brand. My examples are not intended to be all inclusive, there are many others, but you have to look at what brand is on the Clevo barebones to determine whether your vendor is a reseller, or an OEM that does the actual building of the functional laptop.
Sager is probably the largest, if not, one of the largest, OEMs of Clevo based laptops, worldwide.
This is true, as long as it has the Sager brand. If it doesn't have the Sager brand, it is a Clevo barebones built by a different OEM, which may be built to different specifications.
The warranty is provided by the OEM, not the reseller. Then the OEM looks to Clevo for warranty issues with the barebones only.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.
