Powernotebooks NP9170 review

I joined this forum some 4-5 months ago to further my knowledge on what's in at the moment and the latest tech, and made an early choice of going for Sager (which I believe was a mistake, more on that later).

I had never heard about this custom barebones clevo business before, so I lurked for a while and then started narrowing down resellers. For some reason Malibal was the first I checked and I loved their clean pro-looking website, and their laptops in the pics looked sleeker and different (one of many sneaky Malibal marketing tricks. The Satori pics on their site are those of the HM series not EM). Not to turn this into yet another Malibal bashing thread, but the many negative reviews in addition to their reps behavior here and choosing to off their forum after the 7970M debacle made me run like the wind.

A reasonably active company rep from Powernotebooks seemed to be on many of the threads I was reading so I decided to e-mail my question. Thing is, after seeing how Malibal conducted themselves I wanted to "stress-test" any company I came across, so on the span of the next few months, I exchanged over 60 e-mails with Donald@PNB. The first e-mail had straight-up 12 questions that weren't always phrased very politely. I asked everything from "Why should I trust you with a wire transfer? Why not credit card?" to 7970M issues, to just general info about components that I could've looked up elsewhere. I first said I wanted an Asus G75 and then switched to Sager NP9170, and then changed my specs 4 times over a month, then wanted extra GPU/CPU fans. When I finally decided I'd make the purchase I told him that I'd want it shipped to a friend of mine visiting the US (in other words, dealing with two people not one now) on a certain date.

To cut a long story short, I tried to mimic what a potentially very difficult customer would sound/look/seem like, and all the questions were answered promptly and in a friendly manner, and I didn't feel that he was getting fed up or curt at any point.

For a fair comparison, I sent another e-mail with the same 12 questions to Malibal at the same time I was e-mailing PNB. Never got a response. I suppose I wasn't worth their time, and they obviously weren't worth my money as a consequence.

Just to elucidate on what a reseller really is: These guys don't even see your laptop in 95% of the cases. They just have a Sager wholesale account of some sort that enables them to make a few bucks off every piece. Pretty much like a retailer. Some will do some tweaking/skinning..etc on their own in-house, but apart from skins, the warranty is really all Sager. The only reason any reseller is in business is because it's minutely cheaper with a more "intimate" support I suppose. The moral of the story is: The only thing these guys can be judged by is how amicable and helpful they are.

In that sense I'd give PNB a solid 9/10.

The reason I took off a point is two fold:

1-When asked about the 7970M underutilization issue, instead of: "Yes many users report it, I'm sure/unsure about it, I recommend X or Y" the response was more along the lines of: "Most customers are very happy with their systems, they just don't know how to enable the GPU and once we tell them how to they never come back", which is a clever way of not answering the question directly. It doesn't rule out the issue but it doesn't confirm it.

2-After the laptop arrived, 10 hours later the power brick failed on me. I e-mailed Donald which replied promptly and directed me to their tech support. The e-mail I sent "Dean" had a line in it on how I tried to pick a good known socket and how where I live there are no thunderstorms in general and that lines are buried in the ground, so surges ..etc are not a known issue. The response -2 days later- starts with: "Hello -my name- We're sorry you're experiencing this issue, and for starters, do not try to fool yourself surges happen everywhere to everybody ...blah blah blah" and then in the next paragraph said that sure it's under warranty but I have to ship the brick both ways (from the Middle East), which makes sense since i don't expect them to start shipping stuff on their own expense internationally. I sent another e-mail asking about how to send it back ..etc 4 days ago and still no response. Yeah Donald > Dean.

In general I was satisfied with the interaction with PNB, and their timeframes/delivery promises were punctual. Everything I ordered was there and in good condition. Apart from the power brick it seems to be an okay laptop.

BUT, if you're international, don't go Sager. These laptops have more issues in general than AW (a simple look at the first 3 pages in the respective forums will show you that), and I've owned a Dell, an Acer, and an Asus that ran fabulous from day 1 to last day. For me to struggle that much -and I'm not a rookie- just to get the 7970M to show any sign of life, and for the power brick to die ..etc, living 10 000 miles away from tech support can potentially be a very expensive endeavor. It makes sense for me to try and repair the brick before waiting for at least a month for an RMA to conclude, and of course opening the brick = void warranty. So at the very least this is going to cost me 200-250 USD to order/ship a new one, and would have costed me even more to send the old one and ship the new one even under warranty.

The thing is, I don't have faith in the component patency of Sager now, and I'm terrified of their power bricks being inherently bad with 220 volt, and are just tried & tested with the US 120 volt currents. Who's to say the new one won't fry in another 10 hours and I'd be on my own again with "Dean" telling me not to "fool myself" as my only consolation.

Not PNB's fault, my experience with them was good in general, but I think I'm going to RMA for a refund. Either that or I'm stuck with a sub-par quality product (bad sound = just get an external sound card? Really? It's a GAMING laptop) that will cost me a fortune every time it ****s up. Here I come AW. At least they have a dealership/maintenance center here.

 

I wish you the best of luck with your new machine my friend.

Sorry to read of your difficulties.

There is always going to be a risk when dealing with long distance relationships.. always, sadly though

Still confused why you didn't order a Alienware to begin with or rather from a European reseller or Asian.
- but happened has happened, once again: best of luck to you !

 

Alienware only makes sense if I buy an aftermarket RAM and SSD. I didn't want to be too demanding of my friend who will lug around a heavy DTR across continents for me, so I wanted a reseller/company that will ship the extras from in-house for a reasonable price. Sager fit the bill.

European and Asian resellers are far more expensive, and the shipping would still be the same price.

 

Ah understandable.

But I mean, PowerNotebooks had Alienware's too.