*** Official Clevo P150EM / Sager NP9150 Owner's Lounge ***

You should also be able to control/assign the lights with the software included.

 

Grats mrsamurai!

Okay, so I keep seeing posts about the screen quality of the new models, and most people going with the 95% gamut screen upgrade option, either through Xotic or other resellers. I had to make a choice between my jump from the 670 to the 675 or the better matte screen. I chose the card upgrade...as it seemed more logical. Can anyone here give any feedback on the stock matte screen? I was very disappointed in the brightness level of my old Sager np8662, but I'm sure they've come a loooong way since then. I'm inclined to take an "ignorance is bliss" stance on this...considering what I'm upgrading from.

 

since im guessing that they use the same screen models in the EM series like in the HM series before, i can tell u that the stock matte screen is beaaautiful, best laptop screen ive worked with so far (but then again, ive never checked out a 95% gamut screen ) but anyway, point is that im pretty sure ure gonna love it nonetheless!

cheers

 

Cool, thanks for the feedback...this is like torture waiting, seeing all these posts of people getting theirs, lol.

 

Can any P150HM/P150EM owners comment on the reflectivity of the default glossy screen? It seems like most people prefer the matte screen, but I've heard glossy screens are better for gaming. Are there any exceptions with this particular model?

 

XoticPC has put up a half-hour video review!
XOTIC PC - Sager NP9150 (Clevo P150EM) Video Review - YouTube

 

Mine arrived today, much to my surprise!! According to the website and my emails it was still sitting in Production phase 2. Suffice to say, I'll have my thoughts and impressions up in the next few days...so far...AWESOME!!

 

My P150EM's CPU temp is around 45-50C idle and max at 70C with heavy tasks. My GPU temp is 40-45C idle. When I play Skyrim at ultra setting, it's 60-80C max with 100% fan speed. Are these temps considered normal? The fan noise is kinda loud when I play at max settings, should I get Arctic Silver/IC Diamond to get better results?

 

I am not sure about the temps being normal as I am still waiting for my sager np9150 to arrive at my home. However I have had great success with IC Diamond. It should surely drop your temps down. It wont be anything crazy like 15 degrees celsius but as high as 5 degree celsius change at full load. I would say that is about the highest. I used ic diamond on my previous laptop which was the alienware m14x and it worked amazing! Very easy to apply to the gpu and/or cpu BUT MAKE SURE that you put just the dab of it in the center of the cpu/gpu and let the heatsink spread the ic diamond out. I tried it out the other way by spreading it out with a thermal grease plastic card and my m14x kept over heating. Took it apart and applied the pea size ic diamond drop and BAM running cooler than ever!

Also make sure to let it dry for 15 minutes or so after putting the heatsink on before booting it up. This helps with the condensation in the ic diamond paste. I have tried both ways and noticed no difference but with a rig like that its better to be safe than sorry!

 

There aren't enough p150em owners for us to get a reliable idea of how hot it gets. Based on the p150hm (which should be the same) wether or not those temps are good depends entirely on your ambient temps.

 

I got my P150EM tonight. I wanted to upgrade the ram but noticed that the 2 slots at the bottom of the laptop are occupied. I thought the 2 beneath the keyboard would be used leaving me with the bottom ones empty ( I ordered it with 2 modules). How do I remove the keyboard and does it void the warranty? Thanks.

 

Those are great temps. You don't have anything to worry about. IC Diamond may lower your temps by about 5C, but I'm not sure you'd even get that much with the already low temps you posted.

Taking out the keyboard to add new RAM won't void your warranty. You just have to pop out the plastic bezel on the top (from underneath, there are slots) and then unscrew the keyboard screws. The memory is right beneath the keyboard.

 

Will the P150EM be delivered with 3D screen? For extra cost?

 

Thanks for the info Anthony@MALIBAL! it was very easy to do.

 

Can never rule it out, but we haven't seen 3D screen upgrade options on 15.6" for this model or previous ones.

 

So there is four memory slots: two under notebook, easily accessible , and other two under keyboard - not so easy to get to. So, if ordering default 8Gb of memory, those are preinstalled where? Under the keyboard I hope? And is it the same with 9170?

Thanks

 

Is there any performance benefit with going mSata and Storage HDD over
just getting a larger primary SSD and forgetting the mSata?

Something like primary 240G SSD vs mSata 120G / 500G HDD. I think
cost would be a wash.

I don't really need the additional storage so cost/performance is what
I am after.

 

The only point of mSATA is space. If you don't need the extra space, use a 256GB crucial M4 from newegg, it should cost less than 128GB mSATA and 500GB HDD, and will be way faster. Depending on your budget you could also look at samsung SSD's, they're very good too but more expensive. I've seen 256GB M4 go as low as $330 on sale, and the price keeps dropping.

EDIT: scratch that, I must not have checked it recently. 256GB M4 is currently $300.

Crucial M4 256GB

 

Samsung is $330.
Newegg.com - SAMSUNG 830 Series MZ-7PC256B/WW 2.5" 256GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

Reading appears to be higher on the samsung, while writing is better on the crucial.

 

Great thanks that is the way I will go.

 

Huh crucial writes at 260MBps and samsung writes at 400MBps...

Also, make sure you don't buy one bundled with a transfer kit, because for some reason they're rated slower.

 

Yes, there are a total of four slots. The first sticks of RAM may be in either slot, depending on who you ordered from. Getting to the slots under the keyboard isn't hard at all, it just takes an extra minute to remove the plastic bezel + the couple of screws on the keyboard.

Not at all. A full size drive is often going to be cheaper and faster. The big benefit to an mSATA + HDD would be that you don't have to give up the optical bay for your second drive. This way you can have mSATA + HDD + optical, rather than just SSD + HDD.

 

what is the battery life for this model + with optimus? If I am just using microsoft word, excel, watch youtube and web browsing.

 

Just a few thoughts/observations here, regarding battery life and temps:

So far, I've only done a little stress testing and both GPU and CPU temps seemed normal. But after a two-hour gaming session on RIFT and BF3 last night, I recorded high temps of 70-74 for CPU and 80-84 for the GPU. Seemed pretty solid but I also chose the thermal paste option on my order from xotic. I might open it up today to make sure...unless you guys think those gaming temps still seem pretty good?

I also did some mild surfing before bed, on battery, got about 2 hrs and still had about 30% power left. Take that with a grain-o-salt though, as I"m not sure how accurate the charged/battery readings can be.

 

According to sager, just shy of 6 hours. I don't know what settings they used, but you will probably get ~5 hours with wifi, assuming they had it off. Maybe.

Hmm. Sounds like optimus was turned off, that's about what P150HM owners were getting with 580m. Either that or your battery meter hasn't had time to adjust to your computer yet.

 

Those temps sound great, I wouldn't stress over that at all. Especially with a game like BF3.

Now were all of the above activities on battery only for the duration of gaming AND web surfing or were they individual activities with a recharge in between?

 

I doubt he was playing BF3 on battery.

 

No, I was only web-surfing on battery, lol. My gaming sessions are always wired

I'm not sure about Optimus...I would assume it's active, my only guess is that maybe it was screen brightness, I only had it to 50%...and I forgot to mention I was listening to itunes as well...so that would probably take up some juice as well. Sorry, I'm a little new to the benchmarking...I'll have a full review up soon though.

 

so If I wait for ivy bridge. Does this processor helps with battery life? I also heard that Radeon HD 7970M will release soon? Should I wait for Radeon or wait for gtx 680m

 

Ivy uses a lot less power under load than sandy does under load, but fully optimized there's no difference. It doesn't matter what GPU you wait for, you still have to wait and can decide once more is known about GCN.

 

Tried out the battery today. I got around 4hrs 15m with only WiFi on and screen at around 25% brightness. Just browsing the internet and no flash videos played. I think with some tweaks and future BIOS and/or software updates it can get better.
Maybe IB can can increase the battery life a bit more, we'll see.

 

Hmm. Anything above 3 hours with wifi and iGPU is enough for me to leave the power brick at home when I go to school, so that's good.

 

I also have question about the heat in this unit. Does it get too hot? burn on your lap while using?

 

Is this the mSATA SSD that is being packaged as an option?
MyDigitalSSD 128GB 50mm Bulletproof mSATA SSD | My Digital Discount

 

I have thought that the mSATA port is only SATA II 3Gbps. In this case gaining back the optical drive will downgrade you from a possible SATA III 6Gbps SSD to the SATA II 3Gbps mSATA drive.

 

Hey fellas!

So I've just bought a "Mouse Computer JP m-book P Series", which as far as I can tell, is a reseller version of the Clevo P150EM (pictured: http://www.mouse-jp.co.jp/m-book/mbp/gallery.html).

I've got a couple of quick questions in case anyone has the answers, none of which were essential to my purchase but would be good to know:

1) Is the CPU / GPU easily upgradable? For clarification, by "easily" I simply mean will it be possible to buy an aftermarket product and install, as opposed to "is replacing a cpu/gpu easy?" Often manufacturers seem to enjoy soldering bits and pieces to the board, or using unique versions of components, or white-listing components, and so on and so on...

2) Does anybody know if the KEYBOARD is easily replaceable, and if so, replaceable to one of those nice shiny flashy ones seen on the Sager NP9150? The Japanese refit seems to come with a Japanese keyboard (duh), which is not in itself that awful besides the fact that the spacebar is TINY and drives me absolutely bonkers :/

Thanks in advance

 

No, it stays cool to the touch on the bottom. You shouldn't use it on your lap directly though because the air intakes are on the bottom of the laptop and the exhaust is on the rear. If those get covered, it can easily overheat and shutdown. A notebook cooler or lapdesk is a good idea if you don't plan to work on a hard and flat surface.

You are correct that it is SATA II with the mSATA. That is one of the disadvantages to having to use it over a full size SSD. It's up to the end user whether or not having a SATA III drive is more important than an optical drive. I just listed two pretty common configurations. I have machines with mSATA drives and I can honestly tell you the difference in speed between them and a faster SATA III drive is negligible. Most people can't tell the difference in real world tasks anyway. (Benchmarks would be the place where you would see the difference immediately).

1) Yes, they're both slot/socket based components. Once you remove the heatsinks, both the CPU/GPU can be easily taken out like on any desktop PC. There are no whitelists, but due to changes in slot/socket compatibility upgrades beyond the range initially offered with the laptop aren't guaranteed. They frequently work, but you can't plan on a GPU 3 years down the road being compatible either. Also standalone MXM GPU's tend to be expensive ($500-900) and limited to only a handful of retailers. Mobile CPU's are also expensive, but not quite at the same level.

2) If you actually have the P150EM and not one of the older models, it should have already come with a backlit keyboard. If it didn't and it actually is an EM model and not HM, then yes, you shouldn't have any trouble buying a separate keyboard and swapping out the old one.

 

Hey guys,

I recently purchased the NP9150 from XOTIC PC. I was looking at some mSATA SSD drives I could possibly install myself once I receive my laptop. However, I'm having a hard time picking/choosing one. So my question is, which mSATA SSD is compatible with this laptop and which do you guys recommend?

Thanks!

 

First of all, thank you for your helpful reply!

What's the distinguishing differences between the P150EM and P150HM? I havn't recieved my unit yet so I'm unable to check, and the reseller I bought mine from doesn't seem to list the related Clevo model number. In fact, the only reason I'm able to tell it was a Clevo unit at all is because of the likeness of the case. Does the fact that it's coming with a nVidia 670m exclude it from being the former model?

 

There aren't a whole lot of them out there that you can get as a consumer. The Intel 310 series is decent, though they're fairly slow in terms of write speeds (the 80GB model is 70Mb/s, while the 40GB one is 35Mb/s). There are lots of other generic models available too. The one thing to watch out for when purchasing an mSATA is to check what type of controller they're using. Sandforce based or Intel models are generally OK. Some of the generic mSATA drives use unknown or third party controllers, which come with the issue of being... well, unknown (and sometimes untested). Generally speaking though, user reviews are a good way to find a reliable and speedy drive.

Just having the 670m isn't enough to determine, because they can technically be installed into the older chassis. An easy way to tell is once you get your machine, check what motherboard it has installed. If it's got the HM77 chipset instead of HM65, you've got a newer EM model. You can also clarify with your retailer to see if they know. (Use CPU-Z or another hardware monitor tool to find out).

 

HM77 chipset Thanks for the tip! Very helpful

 

Okay so would something like this:

Newegg.com - OCZ Vertex 4 VTX4-25SAT3-128G 2.5" 128GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

Be compatible with the NP9150 as a mSATA? Or is this only doable by taking out the optical drive?

 

Unfortunately that would only be compatable as a normal laptop hard drive. Msata drives are much smaller.
I have the 120gb version of one of these waiting to go in the laptop I don't have.

 

You could wait till these hit the shelves.

AnandTech - Micron C400 mSATA (128GB) SSD Review

 

Differences between p150hm and p150em:
em has backlit keyboard
em supports ivy cpu's
em has optimus
em supports overclocking of xm cpu's (?)
em has sataIII optical drive (?)
em has msata
em has extra usb3
em has displayport
hm has higher usb port total
hm is slightly thinner due to keyboard

 

Ah, now I understand. Is it possible to install an OS to the mSATA SSD and boot from it? Do you think 128GB is practical for an OS/updates, and a few games? I will most likely download music/movies and other media items to my HDD.

 

yeah it's totally possible to install windows and boot to an msata drive. 128gb is enough for my desktop, and I managed with a 64gb in my m14x.

 

Awesome, thank you for answering my questions! Now, just one last question. Any idea on the quality of this mSATA ssd?

MyDigitalSSD 128GB 50mm Bulletproof mSATA SSD | My Digital Discount

Or should I just wait and see how the new C400's are priced when they are available?

 

HTML:

Ace, thank you very much for the summary

 

not exactly

em does not support overclocking
em does not have a SATA-III, it's SATA-II still sadly..
em does not have a extra USB 3.0, it's overlayed a USB 2.0 in the hm
hm does not have a higher usb port total, dont forget the mSATA/USB 3.0 mix in the em