[Review] Clevo/EVOC PA71ES-G

Hey everybody - found some time to slap together some thoughts on my recent purchase, in case anybody has their eye on this one. Lemme know if there's any other details you want, and I'll try to accommodate when I have time. Churrs!

Specs are as follows:

EVOC High Performance Systems PA71ES-G 17.3"

FHD 144Hz (AUO319D - B173HAN03.1 w/ color calibration)

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 w/ 8GB GDDR5 + Intel UHD 630 (user switchable MSHybrid mode via CCC 2.0)

Thermal Grizzly Conductonaut on CPU + GPU, and Stock thermal pads

16GB Crucial DDR4-2400 (CT16G4SFD824A.M16F) Single Channel SDRAM

(OEM) Seagate ST1000LM035-1RK172

(Aftermarket) WD Blue 3D NAND SATA SSD M.2 2280 (500GB)

Intel® Wireless-AC 9260 802.11 ac/a/b/g/n 2x2 NGFF w/ Bluetooth 5

RGB Per Key illuminated full size keyboard with numeric pad

Windows 10 Pro

66600 mWh Battery

VIDEO REVIEW



WRITTEN REVIEW
Great performance in an affordable package, with a few caveats. Benchmarks are at the end of the bottom.

SCREEN
The 144hz G-Sync ready IPS screen may not offer the best NTSC coverage at 72%, bu it looks pretty flaunting what it’s got. Having owned this machine for 2 weeks now, I’m happy to say that I’ve been very content with everything I’ve experienced on the display thus far. Design work, gaming, and general daily use all look fine straight out of the box. A bit surprisingly, there was no discernable difference between the professional color calibration profile and the default calibration after OS reinstall. Being an IPS though, you may want to minimize backlight bleed via your reseller if they offer it, as I bypassed that option and definitely have noticeable bleed in the top left corner which may annoy me into a screen upgrade in the future. It’s also worth mentioning that the inner panel cover is plastic, and the back is aluminum. The hinges feel smooth and sturdy and you CAN open this laptop with one finger, if that’s your thing.

WEBCAM
It’s a 2MP 1080p 30fps webcam, and it does the job fine. Most other options on the market have 720p, so I’m glad Clevo remembered it was 2018 and went full HD.

SPEAKERS
Stock speakers are invariably ‘meh’ unless you tweak them thru driver or software mods. I opted for the easier of these routes, and after some TLC via EqualizerAPO, they got noticeably louder, clearer, and more well-rounded in their frequency response. No matter what though, you will not get bass out of these things, so if you really want an upgraded audio experience, the addition of any kind of external speaker will be a (major) improvement. Don’t get me wrong, EQ APO + Viper4Windows working in conjunction make a great team, and squeeze a lot more performance out of them, but they’re still just tiny drivers at the end of the day, so just keep expectations low and you’ll be alright. My config files for both programs are available at the bottom.

KEYBOARD / TOUCHPAD / LEDS
The full RGB per-key backlighting looks nice, but as mentioned in the one line review, it is somewhat crippled by the (laughable) Clevo Control Center module used to control it. There’s no way to save configs, and the sleep timer has severe amnesia. The typing experience is OK: A little more stiffness/clickiness in keypress would be nice, but the travel feels good and typing pretty natural after an hour. What I really like about the per-key lighting is you can light the lettered-keys and arrows differently than the rest, so a quick glance down will allow you to (re)orient yourself if your fingers start to wander due to the full keyboard layout being offset from center. Also nice: ZERO flex thanks the structural integrity of the Al-alloy body. I typically use an external mouse, but the touchpad does just fine in a pinch, with gesture recognition and pleasantly clicky buttons below.

There’s also a group of 8 status-indicator LEDs on the front that add to the angular spaceship look + feel of this model, though no more than 4-5 of them are typically lit up during normal usage.

HEAT / FANS
The whole aluminum body stays cool enough while doing everything except gaming, in which case it heats up pretty quickly; especially the top-left corner. I never found it uncomfortable, but it was certainly noticeable, and that may detract from your gaming experience.The aluminum body + fans dissipate heat well enough, so the CPU/GPU temps are back down to idle range within a minute after ending your session, but the top left area of the faceplate will stay warm for much longer. On that note, the aluminum gets warm on the left side while using the keyboard after an hour or so of work too, so I’ll probably be using my external keyboard most of the time to avoid sweaty palms.

With fans on auto, they’re generally pretty quiet, but will ramp up to 80% as soon as you get into your game. For whatever reason, Clevo doesn’t allow for the customizable fan profiles to be set at 100%, so it’s 80% on auto or manually selecting 100%, which is a dumb caveat. I game-tested BF1 with all settings on high, and although my GPU never got above 72C, the CPU was at 85C after 30mins, at which time I threw the fans on maximum*, and the CPU + GPU dropped a few degrees and hovered around 80C / 65C, respectively for the rest of my session. All that said though, I did go with the TG Conductonaut re-paste from HID, so I imagine temps might be too high without, since they are packing all this power in such a thin chassis. I should also mention I have my laptop on a stand ( https://amzn.to/2xKFU76) for max air flow, so your experience may vary. If anybody else is looking into stands, keep in mind the screen only opens to about 45 degrees, so you’re pretty limited in how much can angle it.

*I’ve heard lots of talk of unbearably loud/high-pitched Clevo fans, and maybe I’m blissfully ignorant due to not having anything to compare to, but even at maximum, the fans didn’t get in the way of my BF1 experience. If it does for you, some headphones or an external speaker will cover that distraction up with ease.

PORTS / LEDS
The PA71’s have a great selection of ports finding another machine at this price point with TB3 is nigh impossible without compromising something else. Nothing is future-proof, but at least you have the option for an external GPU or 4K monitor with this one in addition to 2 mini-display ports. I’ve had my FHD external graphics monitor taking up the HDMI + 1 of the USBs, and have yet to feel wanting for more. With my calibrated speaker software in place of the included SoundBlaster X suite, the headphones + bluetooth speakers sound great, and there’s even another 2-1 audio jack besides the dedicated headphone + microphone jacks, so it should have you covered on all fronts. There’s an SD card slot as well, but I didn’t have anything on hand to test with, apologies photog friends.

BATTERY
I think the battery on this beast is respectable enough considering it’s mid-range 66wH size. I put it to the test doing some light work in Photoshop, had a dozen tabs open in Opera browser, a music mix playing on Youtube in the background at 35% volume, display at 75% brightness (until battery hit 50%, then brightness down to 40%), dual displays running, keyboard lit up on lowest brightness setting, battery saver clicked on 25%, and I ended up squeezing out a little over 2 hours. If you were just browsing or movie watching, I’d figure you could get at least another half hour on that or more. Recharge time is about 1hr 30mins from 1%.

SERVICEABILITY / GENERAL PERFORMANCE
One of the main reasons I ended up going with this model besides the obviously attractive hardware, was the ease of access to the guts. I had all the screws out in a few minutes (HID even removed the screw under the keyboard for me , and the base plate popped off with zero hassle. A lot of the other big name-brand models I had this stacked up against didn’t seem as serviceable, so for those of you who like to switch out components, do DIY repairs, or just keep it clean, that’s all easily accomplished with the PA71 series. Only thing I couldn’t see was the speakers, as those are front firing on the top, which I actually think is a good design decision...if only they’d use slightly better materials or drivers in the first place.

The 6-core Coffeelake chomps through most tasks with aplomb. It handles my daily design routine (3 Adobe apps, a dozen browser tabs, and a handful of windows apps) like a champ. While the 8750U is not overclockable, you can undervolt it, which I may try down the line, and will update this review if I do. Judging from my gaming experience thus far, the laptop 1070 (NOT a Max-Q, mind you) in this machine handles heavy lifting dutifully, and will hopefully be sufficient for light forays into VR. If not, having that TB3 as a fallback option is real nice, I gotta say. My closing thoughts are that this thing is a great buy for the money, IF you get it repasted, can live with the sloppy Control Center AND the VERY VISIBLE FINGERPRINTS. It’s an absolute magnet, so keep your spray + cloth nearby. Benches are below - let me know in the comments if there’s something else you want me to run; if it’s free and I have the time, I’ll update as soon as I can. Thanks for reading~!

BENCHMARKS
https://imgur.com/a/5vgDfyU

EQUALIZER APO CONFIG
https://bit.ly/2slNRu7

VIPER4WINDOWS CONFIG
https://bit.ly/2IYZPV7

 

Nice review.

 

I just bought the same laptop it in payment review complete now. Also for the drivers I heard that OBSIDIAN-TOOLS is good.

 

Sorry you took away your own credability away by simply showcasing your very biased view towards your clevo notebook.

Not even a minute into the video and you say the clevo is quiet and cool, yet all I hear is how the fans are ramping up, while even showing how the GPU Fan is at friggn 3203 RPM (50% Fanspeed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) while doing absolutely NOTHING. It's even clocked at 139mhz. The CPU is also still at 38% fanspeed while having 2487RPM while the CPU does nothing, it's at 7% @ 2.4ghz.

As you pointed you're not a guy who is sensitive to noise, which I respect but you're misleading people who actually are sensitive to it by saying it's quiet and cool.

Also the speakers are garbage no matter if you go for stock or APO. Sure you improved the sound and I appreciate the fact that you do help people out by showing them how to improve their sound quality by fixing the broken sound processing software from clevo, but when you say "Making the speakers alive" you're implying they are getting good, which again, they really arent.

Also about bluetooth speakers and laptop speakers, depending on notebook and bluetooth speakers you're wrong. There exists notebooks who crushh many low - medium range bluetooth speakers, some of them are the Dell L702X, Toshiba Quasimo series with Harman Kardon, GT line from MSI etc. As you pointed out, you simply lack the experience to know this, you never had one of those notebooks.

This review has to be the weirdest review I've seen in a long time, you bought a clevo and showcased its weakness while saying it's good. Clevo is cheap because it has so many shortcomings but offers good performance to buck ratio. Due to the nature of Clevo it is very barebones, since the finetuning phase doesn't exist, which other brands such as Asus, MSI, Acer etc.do have.

I know you're an amateur and you clearly stated that and you mean no harm when making the review, but giving out very unprofessional subjective oppinions while not having anything to compare it to, does only mislead people. If someone actually went out and bought that clevo because you said its temps are great, speakers were fine with APO and it runs cool and quiet, but then people realize that a crappy 700USD HP notebook crushes it in terms of speakers and noiselevel, then you will only do them a disservice.

I'm very happy for you that you got yourself a notebook which you are happy with, but please don't mislead people into buying something they would not have wanted to.

 

Thanks for posting!

 

So Clevo. Much thorough. Very review. Wow. (Very nice & in-depth, @LeiEn)

 

Showcasing bias? Throwing stones and glass houses there. He posted his opinions next to the evidence he collected. Saying that destroys his credibility is silly.

 

Are you implying 50% fanspeed of the PA71ES is quiet?
Are you implying that the software of the PA71ES is great and flawless?
Are you implying that the speakers of the PA71ES are good?

If you cannot refute even 1 point I'm making, then don't bother. I clearly pointed out the flaws of his video review. I know truth is bad for your business, but it's truth nevertheless. His bias is clearly coming from inexperience and the fact that he is happy with his notebook, which I don't mind, only problem i have is that he potentially is misleading people who search for something that is not that clevo. He even fixed some of his video mistakes in his text, for instance on the speakers. He even described how the CPU temp would go on 85c on BF1 with normal fan profiles and would go down to low 80s on max fan profile, that is with liquid metal and max fanspeed on a game like BF1 (60-70% CPU usage on avg). This means that if he actually started doing something CPU intensive such as rendering his CPU would easily hit 90s with max fan speed, which I do not consider cool and quiet.

 

In his opinion then yes it was just fine and the software did what it needed to. I'm also waiting for your response on multiple posts you have been directed to refuting your opinion on other machines.

Also battlefield 1 is known for being a very stressful load, more so than the CPU usage indicator would sometimes let on (this is getting a more useless metric to rely on as time goes on). If you are doing rendering the load on the CPU will be higher but the GPU likely lower.

 

So we are going to ignore the fact that he showcased how buggy the control center is by saying "i guess it will fix itself later" and that "fan control" is basciially broken. Also he substituted the audio processing for a freware audio processing tool. I call that NOT doing what it needed to do.

So I guess people who want to stream their gameplay are supposed to deal with the 90+ C because Clevo reseller wants to talk the temps nicely, great.

 

Still better than a MSI though.

 

Careful now, those are the trigger words.

 

@Danishblunt

I think it's safe to say that nobody else on this subforum agrees with your opinions about laptops, especially when you put them forth "as matter of fact". Look at your own Clevo audio mod: you swapped out the drivers with different ones, you 3D printed acoustic chambers to isolate the new drivers from the casing, and afford it some airspace. Then you went on about some software mods you did to the driver, of which you won't supply to the public, so I am dubious about any of that. All in all, you did a complete overhaul, for a marginal improvement at best? Still won't compare to my Sony SRS-X7 speakers, and I don't expect them to. Even those have their limits.

I did enjoy his part in the video review stating that no laptop has great audio, so keep your expectations realistic. I believe I've said that several times in response to your dribble.

There's nothing wrong with using a post-process audio application. Heck, Creative's SBX software is just that. He just used whatever he was comfortable in using to EQ his laptop speakers. No foul here.

I think the point here is to try and keep things in perspective. Yes, there can be some decent laptop speaker setups, but it's still a Grade D audio solution no matter how good it gets. Chamber acoustics, speaker driver capacity, power delivered, air pressure on-hand, etc, these things all affect speaker performance. I'd love to get the specs of the drivers used in these Clevos, and throw them into AudioCAD and see what would really be needed to get a balanced audio output, if possible.

As you may have guessed, I know a thing or three about speaker design. I have a DIY subwoofer that I built from an Adire Shiva Mark IV 15" longthrow, with a 4" flared port tuned to 18Hz, 3/4" plywood, 25" square, 6 chambers, 370W amp plate. (Design from AVS Forum for AudioCAD, using driver specs) It can do +/- 1dB from 150Hz to 14 Hz, at 136dB output. The best part about it is that it's totally musical, and you can feel a bassist's fingers run down their strings. $465 total in parts, wood, and 5 cans of Cherry stain.

I made that because I thought the Klipsch ProMedia 5.1 sub was good, but things could be better. (And I didn't want to spend $2000 on a reference sub)

 

Nice review, thanks for sharing.

As for no reseller offering panels other than FHD I might look elsewhere.

 

¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Ignorance is bliss

 

I used to do audio reviews for 3DSoundSurge. Where's your SPL readings of key frequencies? Loudness readings? What you have there is an amateur review demonstrating no more than loudness scaling. Do some of the science and document the changes properly please.

 

This is a thin and light with a modern low NM chip, it's focused on performance more than absolute temperatures. Even the GT75 which is far thicker demonstrates it struggles to cool this chip. We have been stuck on the same process node and now we are seeing the results when you continue to push the thermal envelope. That's just the price everyone pays for 10nm being delayed from Intel.

If you want to push it further you can get a desktop chip based machine and carry that envelope forward another 1-1.5Ghz or back it off and have it running much cooler.

You continue to be aggressive towards all the users on this forum alienating yourself, which is a shame because I have seen you help others out. If you continue like this getting further and further towards the edge then I can see you getting kicked off the forum which I would find a shame, i'd like everyone to be able to take part.

 

I don't get it...

Using a video to demonstrate audio quality differences and not graphs is a pointless endeavour.
No levels, no microphone model, no charts. The only thing I can tell is that the modded driver is just louder, there's a cut at 600hz for some reason (could be a result of normalisation?) and the bass sounds like mud because literally everything is boosted. Even the original source doesn't bias the low end THAT much. Pretty standard given it sounds like run of the mill superior drummer samples and he keeps riding that damn crash on the right channel instead of mixing it toward the centre.

There's also some "pumping" going on in the 2nd half (which might be Youtube's doing). Or some compression effect has been added and over-done.

Either way, anybody who actually cares about audio would do themselves a favour and use headphones.

 

Cheers~!

Yeah, I downloaded that tool; unfortunately it's paid software and I'm not entirely sure it does anything other than check the Clevo driver page for updates for you, but if you (or anybody else) uses it, I'd be interested to know how the experience is. It's cool somebody is offering some 3rd party support for Clevo stuff at any rate.

My pleasure!

Many appreciate, Doge-approved!

 

Hey LeiEn,

thanks for sharing your thoughts.
I am interested in buying this model myself. Maybe you or other participants can share there thought and answear my questions.
Is it possible to undervolt gpu and cpu without Prema bios? Can you do it via normal bios or only via software in windows?

Is it possible to customize fan curves in the bundles or separate software or they are maybe set and hardcoded in the bios and you need to get used to it?
Does the fans stay quiet when watching youtube, browsing web, using Office or watching typical 1080p .mkv blu ray rip?

 

LOL, wow. Should've known I was chumming the waters with such prime-time tech troll bait. Alas, my credibility as an amateur 'notebook enthusiast' who bought a new laptop for the first time in years has been destroyed. Well dang, I worked so hard to earn such high esteem. Easy come, easy go. I suppose I shall have to start at the bottom again; trying to (futilely) impress the NBR masses with my (lack of) mastery. Glad we have the keen eyes and ears of digital demi-gods such as yourself, Sir @Danishblunt, for we'd all be lost without your completely unbiased or overly-analytical critiques of things that are ultimately trivial. Hoorah! Rejoice ye fellow members! HE HATH SPOKEN!

But in all seriousness (or not) and full discretion, the computer was not actually at COMPLETE AND UTTER IDLE at the time of review, because I was of course running screencap software, as well as avast in the background, Adobe Cloud, and CCC 2.0 (let's all collectively gasp at the horror of the lack of sterility in my review conditions).

My intent was to give my opinion, which is that the fans are indeed quiet enough FOR ME, thus the inclusion of the word 'subjective' in my review. I hereby formally apologize to anybody that was mislead due to the nature my amateur review and brash usage of adjectives like "quiet" and "cool". Perhaps I was brainwashed into thinking those were apt given the categorization of that noise level of the dB meter app I was using at the time, which registered the fans as somewhere between 'quiet library' and 'moderate rainfall'.

As far as speakers and "fine-tuning"...I think you may want to see somebody bro. You seem to have an abnormal fixation on how loud or overpoweringly awesome laptop speakers should be. As stated in the review, it's a laptop. IMO, any self-respecting gamer or audiophile is going to get external speakers of some kind to get the full experience anyway, so your point is relatively moot. IDK about anybody else on the boards, but I wouldn't buy any laptop with the expectation I'm going to throw a houseparty with it.

Moreoever, I'd be willing to bet that most people who'd buy a $700 HP laptop probably aren't doing so because the speakers 'crush'...nor are they likely interested in how many cores their processor has or if they can play games with textures on ultra. There's a beautiful, old-timey saying that sages have whispered from time immemorial, and I feel as though it is my duty to pass on such knowledge of the ages to you, Sir Blunt: "Different strokes for different folks."

If people want to pay hundreds more for block-rocking machines with fancy branding and "fine-tuning", that's all good. I simply presumed that most people who'd gotten deep enough down the rabbit hole of custom-laptop reviews to watch mine were much like me: somewhat tech-literate geeks who are weighing the options and parsing all the data out there with ample grains of salt. My bottom line was that it's good value for the money if you don't mind the caveats. You clearly DO mind, and that is your opinion, just like it's mine not to care that much about them. Everybody else is free to make up their own mind based on my (obviously) subjective opinion and experience.

 

AIDA64 scores are the 1st image in my benchmark link. 4+ mins of 100% CPU usage yielded 85C max. Considering there's very few circumstances that would actually happen, I think that between AIDA and BF1, it's safe to say this machine isn't going to crack 85C anytime soon, and this is all pre-undervolt. Will update as I have the time to test other conditions.

CPU values not being read are likely being caused by a software conflict. Will probably reinstall OS next week in order to try and undervolt with XTU.

My pleasure man. GPU undervolting is available in the Clevo Control Center (see linked video in Review description on YouTube), but I can't confirm CPU undervolting ability at the moment because there appears to be some sort of software conflict that is not allowing my CPU values to be read right now. AFAIK, only possible through XTU or ThrottleStop, as no option exists in BIOS and PremaBIOS isn't available for this machine with the 8750H config. Going to reinstall OS next week and check it again; will update if things change.

As for fans, they're pretty gimped by the control center, which is definitely one of the caveats of Clevo machines. I mentioned in my written review that it's pretty silly that they're as limited as they are, and I really have no idea why they'd set a limiter for the customizable profiles at 80% and then only make a jump to 100% with the manually-set 'maximum' setting (at least for CPU...GPU goes up to 90% in custom profile). There's a lot of very intelligent and adept members on these boards, so if it were possible to mess around with the fan curves, they'd probably have done it already. Access to the EC seems to be pretty limited with Clevo hardware. IN MY OPINION, the fans are quiet enough and I don't notice them unless I'm gaming. However, if you're the type who thinks libraries are noisy, rainfall is deafining, and a door shutting sounds like a thunderclap to you, then they may very well irritate your overly-sensitive ears and cause you to take to a forum board to shout down anyone who says Clevo fans aren't very loud.

 

I messed with SBX for awhile but (much like the accompanying Clevo Control Center) found it painfully basic. I'm not a full-fledged audiophile like yourself, but the jump in decency was much more noticeable (and controllable) with EQAPO and Viper. I'll take a D over an F any day

PS: Being a lifelong basshead, I would LOVE to hear that sub. Respect on the DIY build!

 

Misleading people would be talking in absolutes and extremes in every case, like calling all BGA filth or someone's choice a mistake because it does not conform to your personal view.

 

Then you did a poor job since you could pay same amount, while getting more performance. Also someone who claims to care about decent performance yet is completely oblivious to his performance I call BS on your statement.

 

Maybe he values modularity and isn't interested in something that will have to be entirely replaced if, say, the board goes bad. In other words, he's smart. I haven't been here for two years, but now that I'm back, all I've seen is that you have an ax to grind against Clevo, and you are damaging the credibility of these boards by recommending models that have not been released, by attacking posters who happen to enjoy tweaking their systems, and by being a genuine troll. Congratulations! You're entirely misleading novices and annoying everybody.

 

Well I, for one, eagerly await your list of 17" 8750+1070 TB3 144hz IPS slim profile options for $1700 or less. Don't forget those benchmarks plz, because they're definitely more important to me than the whole package.

https://giphy.com/gifs/thank-you-smug-zVvg4z8nwWAvu

 

I'm also looking forward to buying this laptop! But God that CCC 2.0 looks awful (kinda like the ASUS one, but atleast that works as intended I guess)! Why can't anyone make a simple and minimalistic "working" design?

Speaking of, is there by any chance a third party universal app that controls keyboard backlighting and stuff?

 

No open source access to the EC, which controls all the hardware, as far as I know. I emailed Clevo to inform/ask them about the broken sleep timer setting, and (in broken English) they told me "Could you please contact with where you bought the laptop from the vender to them to update the BIOS for you. it will be fine."

So yeah...at the mercy of half-@$$ developers and a locked EC.

 

I am also courious what else could you buy and get better performance for same amount.

 

He doesn’t say, does he? Hmm

 

Maybe he's diligently scraping the entirety of the internet to form the list and benchmark everything

 

I'm under the impression this is the same laptop as the NP8375?

I just bought this as well and waiting for a backorder to fill in a few days. It looks perfect for me because I travel for work. I'm only concerned about the heat. I noticed someone on reddit mentioning that they had bought the NP8375 directly from the Sager website and literally described it as a burn hazard, and pointed out his CPU temps were breaking 100C. Here is a link.

https://www.reddit.com/r/SuggestALa...eed_information_on_the_monitor_for_the_sager/

Now I know you got the conductonaught repaste job from HID, I did as well. Could you honestly say your experience has been anywhere near what this person is experiencing? A self destructing burn hazard is not something I want to spend this amount of money on and any insight you can give me is appreciated. According to your review you expect them to hover around mid 80's temp at 80% fan speed while gaming. Which I would certainly be comfortable with. Nothing higher than that though.

 

It is the same model, yes. I bought it probably for a lot of the same reasons others did - mostly for heavy work and light gaming. I'm honestly not surprised after reading that Reddit comment; the stock Clevos are known for having poor cooling, and I wouldn't have bought mine without the upgraded repaste. The top-left area of the base plate does indeed get hot when gaming, and warm when power-using (which I mentioned in the written half of the review). I don't have a heat cam or anything to list actual temps, but it's warm enough that I would be uncomfortable if it was any hotter in both regards.

Temps are stable at low-to-mid 80s for me, and the comfort level of using the keyboard is largely mitigated by using an external one, but I can definitely see how that my opinion of usability could change quickly if it was a few degrees more. While the al-aluminum body provides excellent durability, I wonder how sensible it is to use it for the baseplate. Though aluminum may be good at transferring internal heat outwards, it also retains ambient warmth way longer than PC plastics, so the area stays warmer to the touch than I imagine a plastic one would, and judging from stock temps without repaste, it's not doing much to help dissipate heat in the stock config.

Looking at the options that have popped up just in the last month since I've bought mine, I'd probably go with the Asus GL703GS at this stage as well, since it now boasts very similar specs given the 8750 in it AND upgraded 12V fans (but no TB3 support, FHD webcam, or per-key RGB - probably better speakers though)! Knowing what I know now about the warmth + fingerprint magnet aluminum baseplates, I may try to sell this one after a year and upgrade to the latest and greatest at the time of sale just for the sake of testing out a different manufacturers offering to see how it stacks up.

 

Well, glad to hear the CPU temperatures are under control. It is what your original review implied and I wanted to see if you had any new experiences since then. I was more worried about that than surface temperatures.

The only question mark left for me is the heat on the keypad. I've never used a machine that did that before. I don't really know how it would affect me. Originally I brushed it off as a non issue... But now I don't know. How can you put a thing like that into words. Does it feel like the tips of your fingers are getting uncomfortably hot? Are your palms getting warm? Or does it only feel weird when you intentionally touch it to see how hot it is? If its constantly making your hand uncomfortable while gaming, that would be the kiss of death for something like this.

The size, components, build quality, and panel are all really appealing. My last laptop was an ASUS and it left a bad taste in my mouth. I like the build quality on these Clevo's because they don't seem to be engineered to skimp on materials and reduce production costs. They're built like a Model T from what I can tell.

 

I'd say it's pretty subjective; if you're in a cold room, it's probably a welcome feature (joke), but conversely if you're in a hot room, it ain't gonna help the situation any. So far, I've found that because it IS metal, it retains heat longer than plastic, period. That means that once the palm rest gets warm, it stays warm while you're using it. If you're doing heavy gaming, it may affect your immersion if you're sensitive to the heat. Make no mistake: it seems like most of these thin + light laptops are plagued with high surface temps during gaming sessions, so the difference of 10 degrees F between this and something more efficient seems pretty moot to me.

The problem is also the solution that these things provide: they are 'desktop replacement' models. You get tons of power in a highly portable form, but theres compromises to be made across the board. Dealing with heat (or fan noise that comes from dispersing it) is one of those major compromises. On that tip, if you treat it like a desktop replacement and get a few externals to solve shortcomings, like a decent keyboard, then you can pretty easily remedy those issues (same goes for the speakers).

What it really comes down to is how long you're willing to wait and, to a degree, how much you're willing to spend. If I'd had the ability to wait a few more months, I would've waited for reviews on all the new 8750 offerings, but I had work piling up and needed a machine on the cheaper end that could handle it, and this has definitely been that thus far, but nothing comes without caveats.

 

It looks great, I just don't want to feel like I'm touching a handwarmer....

There is a review of the previous model on youtube in case anyone wants more information. Only difference is the upgraded CPU and Panel on this ESG model.

 

I have a PA70HS-G (1710) and I can confirm about the upper exterior regions do get warm, especially the power button, being right over the GPU. I've been able to tame the heat by:

1) Laptop Cooler underneath. This helps a lot, as there is now less heat to transfer into the aluminum and keys.
2) Game with VSync enabled with GSync, or if external monitor, adjust framecap with RTSS. Not putting a 100% load on the GPU/CPU constantly helps a lot.
3) Undervolting. This will shave a few degrees off the top.

 

Thanks, how does it feel resting your hand on WASD when it's heated up?

 

Good review as always by JT. Going to be hard to find anything that doesn't produce some considerable warmth (esp. gaming) in the thin, light, and powerful form factor since it's always at the expense of efficient cooling. If you have the luxury of putting your pre-order on hold for a bit, I'd wait for the GL703GS reviews (there are a few out there, but I haven't found one with thermal readings yet).

A few other differences between the 70HS-G + 71ES-G are the updated WIFI card w/ BT 5.0 and per-key RGB keyboard. if you're doing any kind of content creation, I'd highly recommend the IPS at this price level. If you're mostly gaming, the ChiMei TN is probably preferable.

A vacuum cooler on that side in particular would probably go a long way to pull that heat away as well.
https://www.amazon.com/LC05-Cooling-Auto-Temp-Detection-Compatible/dp/B00XKU47Y2

 

Newegg has some pretty negative info for temps on that Asus.

 

GL703GS, miserable heatsink., another joke on an overpriced laptop..

Single heatpipe on the CPU, hitting 97ºC on CB :/

Love that fan slapped in there when they realized that it was gonna catch fire, so lets plop a fan somewhere to move a bit of air in the chasis and call it an innovative cooling system with 3 fans.

 

That's horrendous. It reminds me of the build quality on my old k501lx "gaming laptop" I bought in 2015. I see things haven't changed.

Here's the 70-hsg for comparison.

 

https://www.ultrabookreview.com/19927-review-asus-rog-strix-gl703/

The gl703 would be a downgrade from pa71!
Asus's gl series are plagued with problems starting from:

-a cooling solution that is just barely at the limit of decency (this is with max fans and a coolpad),

-a firmware that would lower the clocks further than necessary just to keep good temps (which is just a compensation method for the poor cooling system),

-some of the models have a considerably lower prochot limit (even in the mid 80C),

-from my personal observations (I make laptop recommendations based on the user's needs, this is in another forum), they have a relatively high failure rate.

Those are just from the top of my head, if I would delve deeper into my memory, I'm sure I can write a few pages regarding asus's failings.

If you'd want a combination of an upgrade-sidegrade (should be better in the cooling department, but you loose G-sync which might not have such a great impact in gaming for some, but helps avoid the problems caused by the optimus (mshybrid) bug), then msi's ge73 8rf would be the choice, which would be the main competitor (or vice versa) for the pa71 in the 17" semi-slim and relatively light gaming laptop category.

The dragon center is just as bad as CCC, but at least you can use another software to have some control over the fans.

https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=255972.0

Also, you might be able to unlock the BIOS for the msi GE73, but I don't know how much it would help (what settings would be available in the GE's BIOS).

 

That tn panel tjough... That would really be hard to ignore.

 

On the GE73 ?
It comes with the same panel as the GT75:

https://www.notebookcheck.net/MSI-G...-1080-Laptop-Review.240904.0.html#toc-display

It's a high quality TN panel with better viewing angles than the classic TN panels, especially the horizontal ones.

 

Not this TN vs. IPS myth again. That Chi Mei TN panel is better than 99.9% of IPS panels, the only exception would be the new 144Hz ones.

 

Really good TN is still not as good as other techs for angles and media viewing. Its perfectly usable and has its perks but it's just not quite as a good.

 

??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
So.... modularity as in..... desoldering GPU and CPU????

What the hell are u talking about. Are you oblivious about the fact that the system is entirely BGA?

OMG WHAT ASUS NOTEBOOK IS THAT?

is that seriously the GL703GS? Holy smokes this is a TURDBOOK.

I mean this is so dissapointing, Asus finally made something I hated about notebooks not having in general, the lack of airflow, Asus created the airflow but immediatly ruined it by attempting to cool a 8750H with a single ******* heatpipe :'D

 

MSI GE73 with full sized GTX 1070 ~1.850 - 2.000 USD depdngin on where you buy, superior screen, superior keyboard, superior speakers, superior fan control + software, superior warranty and support, supperior cooling.
Almost 18K score on firestrike graphics stock, without overclock.
Cinebench almost 1.2K points on same CPU, without being castrated.

Meanwhile your castrated garbage idling at 50% fanspeed, gimping around 985points in cinebench and scoring pathethic 15k points in firestrike graphics.

Not to mention this:
https://www.ultrabookreview.com/19927-review-asus-rog-strix-gl703/

Castrated, single heatpipe cooled, 8750H from the Asus, beat your cinebench score. At this point I'm absolutely speechless.