quick review of NP9150 w/7970m

so just a quick little review of sager np9150/ clevo p150em i got today

1. Case -


The case feels very well built
the plastic has a very nice feel to the touch and is quite sturdy

the rubberized lid is very well done
it is a bit less "rubbery" than i had imagined but now that i have first hand experience with it im glad its not the type of rubberizing with lots of friction/stickiness that i expected..... it is much more sleek and feels great

the screen hinge doesnt feel cheap/weak like i have noticed on many other laptops if you were wondering about that

the corners like others have said do hurt your forearms while playing but i settled this a small piece of cloth but i doubt ill use it for anything other than long gaming sessions

2. Screen

Got the 95% gamut matte screen and it looks very beautiful

i am coming from a 768p glossy display with probably 60%ish or lower color gamut so the upgrade is huge for me

i havent seen the stock matte screen first hand so i cant compare those but like i said the colors look excellent on this screen

3. keyboard

pros- cool backlighting had a lot of fun messing around with the colors
right now being patriotic with blue-white-red scheme
- the keys are very pleasant to type on i would have gotten the steelseries but i very much dislike chiclet keyboards and i am not disappointed by how these keys feel

cons- like most people i rely on muscle memory to type and this keyboard differs from my old one because of the number pad.
the keys are arranged a bit differently as a result with the backspace and shift keys noticeably smaller for me
sometimes i hit the num lock when going for the backspace or hit the up arrow key when going for right shift

this was really bad when i first started using it but im getting used to it a bit only after half a day of use so should be fine in the long run

- for light typers this keyboard will be annoying as it key presses require a little more oomf but im used to typing hard

4. battery life -- will update when i get a chance to test
go around 3.5 hours surfing on wifi with the backlighing for the keyboard on (forgot to turn it off)

5. touchpad- surprisingly nice to use but the multi gesture stuff i found beyond useless and quite frankly they pissed me off so i uninstalled the synaptics drivers
the left/right clicks are very clicky (they click loud and hard) and are a bit unpleasant to use but i have my mouse for a reason

6. gaming performance --
dont really have any games like bf3 and such to test on but i did play some tribes msi afterburner had the gpu usage between 25-40% but fps never dropped below 55 tribes is not a very intensive game though so that tid bit may or may not be of value to you

ran 3dmark11

Spoiler

this is typical score on stock drivers right?

may add some more stuff later

no bsods or anything like that
installed the main drivers off disk in order after installing windows
and did reboot then installed the option drivers then rebooted again and has been smooth sailing thus far


feel free to ask questions

 

updated battery life

 

Nice quick review, the 3D mark scores look good too. Glad to hear your 7970M is working out great for you too!

 

Thanks for the review man. Can't wait for mine. Does your matte screen look grainy at all? Sometimes matte screens look like they have a layer of grease over them.

 

nah doesnt look grainy

looks like most matte screens with the screen off but the display is great while its on

 

Ordering P170EM with 7970m myself, very exciting.

 

Same here, I can't wait to have this beast!