Your impressions on Clevos? 8150?

I have an Alienware M11x and I'm disappointed in its performance so I was searching for an alternative after I sell it. At first I was heavily leaning towards an HP Envy 14 with the Radiance display, but the Auction I'm watching ends in a day and I don't want to make too hasty of a decision.

After randomly browsing the NBR Marketplace I noticed a Clevo for sale and the design was really appealing. I looked around random resellers and ended on Xotic's configuration page. Other than this I don't know much about Clevo's.

So for all you Clevo owners, what do you think about the laptop? I'm not entirely sure which laptop to get from Xotic PC either.

I was leaning towards the laptops with Optimus for slightly more battery life and the i5 sandy bridges, but I'm not entirely sure. I learned while asking the Envy forum people that for gaming the difference between dual core and quad core are somewhat negligible unless its a processor intensive game, e.g SC2?

How big is the performance difference between 480/485m and 540m?

Overall I'm looking for advantages and disadvantages to the Clevo besides aesthetics so owners please give me your honest thoughts.
There was a post in the forums with the rubberized keypad that seems like a major disadvantage, do they still have this or did they fix it?

And finally, any tips when choosing the configurations, specific models? Like do I really need an i7? I'm a pretty heavy gamer, but I want the portability option; as well as a computer that lasts for 4 hrs or so.

I look forward to your thoughts!

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/sag...s/558469-impressions-review-sager-np8150.html

This guy did a great impressions thread, along with pictures and benchmarks.

And this guy did a great one too, and his notebook had the gtx 485 in it instead, which is the stronger/strongest video card.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/sag...er-np8150-clevo-p150hm-review-forerunner.html

 

If you need 4 hours away from a wall outlet, you probably shouldn't be looking at the 8150. In fact, you'll have to look into the Optimus laptops like a 5160 but be warned, a 540m is much less powerful than a 460m and it is SEVERELY less powerful than a 485m.

 

The best points of a Sager/Clevo based machine are basically the following:

- Performance. Clevo machines are known to be one of the first with the latest and greatest hardware. Often, the other manufacturers out there are playing catch up.

- Cooling. Clevo based machines are typically very cool running machines. Some computers out there you can fry an egg on. Not these machines.

-Customization. Clevo machines are very easy to upgrade, and various merchants will be able to accomodate a wide variety of options. For example, the 8150 screen options.

- "Simple" Design. Many people want a machine that does not stick out like a sore thumb. A clevo machine would fit in an office setting and not stick out, unlike many brands out there.

There are a few things that aren't the greatest on them though. My opinion on them go as follows.

- Weight. Clevo machines are usually in the heavy side of a given size.

-Battery life. Because of the high end hardware usually found in these, battery life is not known to be amazing.

- "bland" design. Where some people want a machine that doesn't stick out, many want a machine that looks the part of a fire breathing speed demon. A sager most certianly is NOT a flashy design.

- odd numpad layout. The 15" larger clevo machines come with a 3 column numpad. in 15 inch and smaller machines, i personally believe this complaint is moot, as many/most 15 inchers don't come with a numpad at all. It is a valid complaint at 17/18" imo.

- Lack of backlit keyboard. Definitely a taste thing, but clevos do not come with a backlit keyboard, even as an option. Personally, i do not need (and more importantly, do not want to pay for) a backlit keyboard, but i suppose some may want it.

 

Better questions are what games do you play? There is no such thing as a hardcore gaming laptop that can go 4 hours on battery...

If you play WoW you can probably do decently well on the 540 so either the clevo solutions offering optimus or things like the new Dell xps 15 are good. If your willing to go to 17 inch I believe the XPS 17 offers battery performance your not going to get from clevo.

If you play fps or other graphics intensive games and don't want to play on low-medium settings you'll need a 460 at least which means a variety of brands but no one is beating clevos price on 15 inchers and in the 17 inch market you will have some competition. Even wow you won't max on something weaker than the 460.

If you play farmville why are we talking

 

Psh, farmville is pretty intensive though. My netbook struggles with flash games!

I've asked this before, can it play Minecraft? I think the 2720qm and 485m should do it quite nicely

OP: Think of it like this, for battery life and light gaming, go np5160, or XPS 15 or 17. For everyday gaming on average settings, 8130. For high end gaming or to just play things maxed out, 8150, 8170, or x7200 with the 485m

For each level up, you lose a bit of battery life and portability.

 

^^This for sure, though I still don't really see a point to the 8130 since it may not be as upgradeable as an 8150 and the price difference isn't that much as long as you don't choose a 485m with the 8150.

 

Actually at most places the price difference is about $200 when comparing the stock config of the 8130 to an equal 8150, and considering it comes with discounts like the cheaper bluray option. Some people may also not like the rubberized finish.

I however did decide to go for the 8150 primarily because of the rubber finish the upgraded graphics and power supply.

 

I'll start off by saying that I like most here don't actually own my Clevo yet, sorry.

I keep hearing that the 8150 is supposed to be more upgradeable than the 8130, yet they both share the same physical chassis (minus the outside finish) and BIOS. I don't see why you couldn't upgrade the 8130 if you purchased an 8150 PS to go with it. Maybe Clevo put some kind of limitation somewhere on the 8130 to keep this from happening though.

To the OP, try checking the owner's lounges for information. There's a lot of off topic posts in there, but the meat of it has a lot of the things you're looking for.

 

Theoretically possible some of the wiring is not up to standard to handle more juice I guess...

 

The games I play probably require 460m graphics :[ I would like the 485 but my budget is a little tight right now.

So what are the major differences between the 8150 and 8130 besides the option to upgrade to 485? and is the 8150 cumbersome? What do you guys mean by the finish is different? and is the trackpad still rubberized like the review i read?

Ah and I'm looking for a 15in laptop. Would like something smaller, but I guess m11x has taught me the annoyances of gaming on a small screen -_-;

Btw you're replies are awesome so far

 

The 8150 and 8130 are exactly the same aside from:
1) the power supply. 8150's is larger which allows for upgrades
2) the coating on the outside of the shell. The 8130 is just plastic while the 8150 is supposedly the plastic with a smooth rubberized texture on it. I assume it's competable to that found on the ASUS G53/73's?

The trackpad does seem to be a bit of an issue. Some people have said it's not bad once you get used to it, but the general consensus is that it's not the best :/ but if you'll be using it for gaming, chances are you'll be using a mouse anyways

 

Hmm I'm leaning towards the 8150 just for the option of upgrading 485 in the future. So I understand the battery life isnt meant to be incredible, but how much can I expect?

And I just saw a video with the power brick of the 8150..... looks like it matches up to the xbox 360.. wow lol

 

If you can stretch your budget, buy the 8150 with the 485 now. You will pay a high premium for one down the road really (although it is nice that you can upgrade later).

Too bad you didn't like your M11x. I love mine. Extremely portable gaming WoW machine for me. It runs WoW in medium settings and max view distance with no drops in fps (low shadows) even in 10 man raids. Beats a PSP or DS or iPhone anyday. heh

 

I would hope so. m11x is 600+ not exactly in the range of a current psp or ds :x

 

I was only speaking about the M11x's portability while it's marketed as a gaming pc. While it is decently bigger then any true netbook, it is still pretty tiny. It is the PSP/DC equavilant in the pc gaming world really.

 

Just wait for the 6970M to hit the NP8150. It will be less than $200 more than the 460M and almost 2x the performance.

 

If your budget is tight, wait a few more weeks for a card named "AMD Radeon 6970" if you haven't heard of it. It will basically be the performance of the GTX 485 but much closer to the price of the GTX 460. Because it's a different company, the pricing is different. It's the best of both worlds.

 

Awesome! I guess I'll try to hold out a little longer before making my decision :] Thanks a lot for the advice guys.

Btw these things look huge, but I haven't been able to find dimensions for it. How thick is the 15" approx?

 

At it's thickest, I think it's about 1.7 inches. That's not bad at all for a 15 inch laptop. It's thicker than a lot probably, but it's actually thinner than the current thinkpad I have now.
The exact dimensions according to the review of this website is:

14.75 x 10.1 x 1.25-1.8 inches

 

About the Radeon 6970 I heard that you can switch between integrated on m17x R3? Do you guys think it will be available for Sagers/Clevos? I mean a powerful laptop that lasts for 3-5 hrs would be awesome.

 

lol, not even a chance.

 

Only if they enable it on the machine, which i'm sure is not gonna happen. Maybe if the demand for it is really high.

 

something running on the intel IGP for a full charge could get 3-4 hours. turn the brightness down and its easily doable. as long as you're not playing a game or anything...

 

But will the feature to switch to IGP even be available for the new Sager models with 6970?

 

I would venture to say no because it would not fall in line with their normal way of doing things. I would really hate to see them start caving in for customer demand right after I decide to purchase a laptop from them. I would certainly like to have a backlit keyboard and optimus right now.

 

Yeah, for real.. I'd be pissed lol. Would make me have to sell the 8150 and pay the difference. That'd be only if the new one had optimus with whatever the latest nvidia card was, and backlit keys of course

 

I highly doubt that they will offer any type of switching. Remember that these machines are easily upgradeable, so Clevo/Sager can just put in a MXM a or b (forget which one is for the model) 6970, flash, and call it a day. They don't need to change much to offer the 6970, so there will be a extremely, extremely low chance of it happening.