Official Sager NP8130/Clevo P151HM1 Owners Lounge

Below is the standard config of the Sager NP8130-S1

15.6" FHD/Glare with 95% NTSC Color Gamut ( 16:9 ) ,
CORE i7-2630QM ( 2.0 GHz ) ,
nVIDIA GeForce GTX 560M w/1.5GB GDDR5,
8GB DDR3 1600 SDRAM (2x4G) ,
750G (7200rpm) SATA, 8X Super Multi Drive,
Integrated 2M Digital Video Camera,
Finger Print Reader,
802.11B+G+N Wi-Fi + Bluetooth Combo Card, 10/1000 Ethernet.

 

There is also a New S1 Special for other resellers like ourselves.

P151HM1-S1
Display: 15.6" 1920 x 1080 FHD LED Backlit 95% NTSC Color Gamut GlassView Display
Processor: Intel® Core™ i7-2630QM, 6MB L3 Cache, 2.0-2.9GHz
Memory: (8GB) 8192MB, PC3-12800/1600MHz DDR3 - 2 SO-DIMM
Graphics Card: NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 560M 1.5GB GDDR5
Hard Drive: 750GB 7200rpm 2.5" SATA 300
Optical Drive Bay: 8X Multi DVD+/-R/RW RAM Dual-Layer Drive
Wireless: Internal 802.11B/G/N LAN and Bluetooth Card
Cooling: Stock OEM Thermal Compound, CPU & GPU
Warranty: 3 Year Ltd. Labor and 1 Year Parts Warranty with 24/7 USA-Based Support
Extras: Integrated 2.0 Megapixel Web Camera
Extras: PowerDVD & Bison Cam Software Package
Extras: Integrated Fingerprint Reader
Extras: Integrated 9 in 1 Card Reader
Price: $1319

This deal is now live.

 

Bios -- 1.01.08LS1
KBC/EC -- 1.00.05SA1

I did see mention that there's a BIOS thread around here somewhere, I suppose I should check that out.

Do you happen to know that either of these is a problem version?

 

Ah man, that's a pretty good deal. I would have liked to get the upgraded screen. I felt little bit sad reading this, but then I got an email from xoticpc telling me that...

My computer shipped today!

 

Ok, that would have added $150 onto my order. I'm good with what I got. Phew, and here I thought that I purchased 3 days too early!

 

Kind of bitter sweet for you then...

 

Please make the glossy screens go away forever. Thanks!

 

I am going to buy an extra AC adapter but I cant seem to figure out which one to buy. I cant believe that these adapters cost $75. Does anyone know of where I can get an adapter at and what I need to search to get them? Searching Sager NP8130 adapter or Clevo P151HM1 adapter gets me no where.

 

You can find one of these at any reseller site. We sell them and the price is $75. I don't think you can find them for less than that.

 

I often try not to look at these new sales.

But I'm very happy with my NP8130 with GTX 460M. Trying hard not to look at new sales.....

Thanks Justin!

 

I think for the bios 1.01.11 is available. And I think 1.00.07 for the EC. It's what I had anyway.

 

My computer is on it's way, so I probably shouldn't even be thinking about stuff like this, but out of idle curiosity...

What sort of actual performance difference would you see between the 1333 and 1600 MHz RAM? Would faster RAM affect gaming performance, or just general snappiness in the OS during multitasking?

 

No. There is no discernable difference.

Mr. Mysterious

 

You'd see almost zero real world benefit going from 1333 to 1600. If you want to see a real world improvement, adding more RAM *capacity* overall will give you a boost, but the frequency increase will only show in benchmarks (and even then, only marginally). If you want an immediate performance boost to get that "snappiness" you're much better off putting that money from 1600 RAM into an SSD. The difference between an SSD and an HDD is like night and day to most. You'd be hard pressed to notice the RAM difference.

 

Yeah, I just checked my latitude d630. It's got 4GB of 667MHz RAM, and handles heavy multitasking in Win7 pretty much flawlessly. I doubt 8GB of 1333 will disappoint.

btw, is that an alpaca?

 

No, that's a constipated llama in mid-chew.

Mr. Mysterious

 

Ah, of course

 

I'd just like to give a shout out to the XoticPC crew. They've been incredibly helpful through my RMA (originally for service and then for a return as indicated in my last post). They've had to put up with a ton of emails from me with various questions and whatnot throughout this whole ordeal, but they've always responded promptly and have never given me the impression that I was bothering them. It's customer service above and beyond what I ever could have expected, and certainly the best I've ever seen anywhere on the Internet.

Good job guys.

 

Thanks for the response. I was beginning to worry my hearing was off. I agree the speaker imbalance is distracting, it sounds more mono than stereo. Fortunately, I'm connected to external speakers most of the time. Other than that, the laptop is pretty awesome.

Side note: can anyone point me to a sleeve for this laptop? Thanks muchos

 

Ship my laptop Xotic! I need it before June 10 because I'm traveling for business.

 

If you read through this thread. It is mentioned again and again that the speakers on the 8130 are imbalanced because the right side has two speakers and the left has three.

 

Don't you mean 2 speakers on the left and 1 on the right?
They are referring to the low freq driver (subwoofer) on the left side right as the 3rd speaker right?

 

I actually don't notice any speaker inbalance at all. You know you can just move the speaker balance slider slightly to one side to compensate for this if you have problems right? There are not two tweeters one one side and one on the other. There is a low frequency driver known as a subwoofer on the bottom that is closer to the right side. My speakers sound amazing and have a nice stereo effect. Are you guys using the THX software at all?

I also have no rattling problems. Notebook class optical drives will always be very noisy in operation and flex as well. I replaced my optical drive with Clevo's HDD caddy recently and it's perfect. That area is just plastic with no real reinforcement though so I understand the flex concerns but why would you ever squeeze that area? I have to put my fingers around both sides of the laptop and squeeze hard to get any flex. There is no flex when resting your palms in regular typing.

The trackpad does majorly suck! The matte finish is better than the rubbery finish but the whole pad is still unresponsive and the buttons are hard to press and the fingerprint reader is a feature most people won't need. I would prefer a middle button. Also, everytime I plug in a physical mouse, the sensitivity settings of my trackpad get reset to an impossible to use setting.

I wonder what would happen if I put a teflon sticker or something on the trackpad that allows capacitive conductance.

 

I'm just repeating what I heard from Sager in regard to both the rattling and the speaker imbalance. They said both were normal.

 

How long did it take for your guys's laptops to ship? Ordered mine 2 days ago about, from xotic.
Shipping was pretty pricy from them, 48$ for 3 day shipping.

 

I went with the $24 ground. Luckily I still have my old laptop (despite the fact that it needs to stay on a cooling pad). Hopefully mine will ship to them this week.

 

In my review I mentioned that it took 6 days for them to get it to me.

Mr. Mysterious

 

I've considered doing that as well. There are plenty of trackpad covers out there. Honestly though, it might make it even more less sensitive. I've never heard of a cover that increased it anyway. I imagine the only real way to improve it is if we somehow removed the "coating" that covers the trackpad. I imagine it's that that is creating the unresponsiveness with gestures.

Dangerous road to try though. lol

 

There is no coating. You are directly touching the plastic as it is molded. Only the 8150 owners have a rubber coating and honestly, that one is even worse because your finger sticks more.

 

Oh one more thing guys, is the mini pci express slot close to the wireless card and or bluetooth card? If so, is the free mini pci express slot big enough to fit in one of these? It's underneadth the keyboard right? (I don't have the laptop yet)
Unlocked Sierra Wifi MC8781 3G HSDPA Medom GPS +Antenna | eBay

 

There isn't? I knew the 8150 had a rubber coating, but I just assumed the 8130 had a plastic like coating over the trackpad since it matches the same texture as the rest of the laptop.

 

Yes, the free Mini PCI-E slot is full-size and also has an antenna run to it for 3G, you'll see the antenna when you open the bottom cover.

As for near the WiFi, thats on the top side of the motherboard so you'd either have to plumb the antenna wires to the bottom side of the board to connect WiFi on the Sierra modem or just leave the stock adapter as your WiFi connection.

You wouldn't be able to replace the stock WiFi with the WWAN card outright either since you will have to use he bottom slot, the topside slot with the WiFi card is half-height.

 

Thanks, I repped you for that.
Also, there is a free antenna over there just not being used next to the mini pci express slot? Like as in, I can just plug the free antenna to my sierra card and expect it to work? Well along with the sim card adapter for the sierra card, that's separate though of course.

So just for final verification, the mini pci e is on the bottom, underside, as in where the cpu and gpu are, or underneath the keyboard?

Thanks

 

The full-size slot is on the bottom of the board where the CPU and GPU are, theres an antenna already there thats for 3G, the Asian market version had a WWAN card option so the antenna was standard in the design, I've opened the bottom a few times so I can personally confirm it's there.

The included WiFi card is under the keyboard in a half-height slot.

Taken from the server manual:

 

how many people have dead pixels. I am really stuck between this and m14x. I know aliens are built like a tank and very rarely have dead or stuck pixels.

 

I don't think the dead/stuck pixel issue is very widespread, I've only seen a handful of instances on this forum and doubt it's that much higher probability than getting dead/stuck pixels on any other brand out there, I for one have a completely beautiful screen without any dead/stuck pixels to speak of.

I've had Dells in the past with dead/stuck pixels, I'm pretty sure it's going to ultimately be a rare issue no matter who you go with and not a large percentage of machines will have said issue.

 

I figured that since I didn't pick the dead pixel insurance I'd be sure to have some, but I have none that I can see. I have not used any techniques or tools to be certain I have none, because IMO if I can't see them without special methods then they don't matter -- but AFAIK I have none.

IIRC Alienware seemed pretty pricey for comparable specs when I was looking around...

 

I didn't choose the dead pixel warranty because I can already return it no questions asked within 30 days. if I have a dead pixel, you can bet that I'm taking advantage of that.

 

I think the texture is just the way the plastic is molded with a texture on the outside. I don't think there is any kind of coating.

 

It defeats the purpose though if you have to pay for shipping back right? For me, shipping a laptop back could cost $70 anyway and you might get a dead pixel again on the replacement.

 

My thoughts exactly.

 

I would hope not. Getting two panels with bad pixels in a row would just be bad luck!

 

okay so it looks like i will be ordering this in about 2 weeks then! Can't wait!

 

Awesome, thanks for your help.
Just bought an mc8781 for 20$
Then the usim solderless socket for 23$...
Pricy, but nice. Having 3g evarywhere seems sexy.

 

Though I ended up returning my 8130, I do think it was better than an m14x. The screens on the Alienware m##x laptops are just too glossy for my taste due to the whole thing being covered in glass. I've also heard that the m11x has issues with the screen touching the keyboard when closed, which can leave permanent marks on the screen after a while. In comparison, the 8130's matte screen looks fantastic and has plenty of clearance.

I did have a dead pixel in my 8130's screen, but it wasn't very noticeable. It can and does happen with any manufacturer, including the screens in Alienware laptops. It's all a crapshoot.

 

Honestly, I've never understood the appeal of the alienware line. I don't want a computer that looks like a spaceship. I want a computer that I can game hard on and still take to a meeting without looking ridiculous. I guess I'm just not their target demographic...

I have to say though, Dell's new XPS 15z is a pretty sexy machine. Too bad the graphics don't even come close to the 8130. I guess there wouldn't be enough room to put a proper cooling system into a rig that small.

Not that I'm feeling buyer's remorse or anything. My computer arrives Tuesday!

 

I've seen the 8130 next to the Alienware and the Alienware looks like crap. The glossy screen makes relfections everywhere and I see my face or the light in the office or the light from the window glare off it. It's like playing while watching a mirror. Glossy screens are awesome for a desktop computer that stays in one place but a laptop that has to be in many different lightning environments needs a matte screen.

It's essential for being able to see stuff and also reduces eyestrain and headaches because your brain doesn't have to filter out the glare and reflections. Now if only I could get rid of the glossy bezel. That's stupid too. I have a matte screen but the bezel is glossy.

 

The only thing I would possibly like about the AW lines are:

1) Dual-GPU options
2) Dual HDD bays
3) Customer service

Otherwise the 8130 beats it hands down

Mr. Mysterious

 

1) - Clevo has that
2) - Clevo has that
3) - Resellers/these forums are better

None of those matter. What does matter however is that the Alienware line has Optimus/Quicksync hardware implemented and enabled so the battery life is about double what you get on a high powered Sager/Clevo right now. Also backlit keyboard.

 

Lol, I was comparing the 8130 to some of the products on the AW line...

Mr. Mysterious