Impressions / Review of the Sager NP8150!

Intro

Before we start, there are some photos that I took and uploaded to the flickr page, which would give you an idea of what the components look like, as well as the overall impression of the laptop at first sight.

Sorry for not writing a review earlier, but I had some serious amount of schoolwork. ( I still do, but I'm tired of working so I just started writing this.. )

Design & Aesthetics







These were all taken with my companion, Olympus PEN E-P1.

The overall feel of the laptop is very business-like, and myself coming from an Alienware m17x-R2, I can say that the two appeal to different groups of consumers. Alienware, with its flashy looks and rainbow-backlit keyboard, flashing alienware head logo and its Ferrari-looks, are more fit for people who like to show off and demonstrate the power of their laptop. With its gigantic size and Dual GFX power, it handled everything I threw at it, and it was an awesome experience to carry something around that was 12+ pounds...

The Sager NP8150 appeals more to people like myself, who are at work or in school, where the 'flashiness' brings some unwanted solicitors like friends with chip-eating greasy fingers, some thieves that wander into the library at night, and my girlfriend who felt that I was childish for having a rainbow colored keyboard with a huge alienhead. This laptop is really just subtle. Just like every other laptop at school, mostly HP, Dell, Lenovo, etc, this laptop fits in the category of the "student" laptop, especially with the metallic gray colors, and demonstrates no intention of the power that resides in the internals. Not one have told me that the laptop was pretty- but when people came and took a look at what my laptop could handle, they were shocked and started asking me questions about the price and where they could buy this laptop.

My model, the NP8150, has a rubberized finish that introduces some friction when grasping the laptop. At first, it was quite a new feeling, as the laptop wasn't smooth, but was really.. it clung to my holds... I should say. I had no fear of dropping this, unless I was out of the shower(which I should never do with water on my hands), and it started to feel sturdy and sleek. The color also is not a pitch black like other laptops, nor is it a glossy finish that could be a worthy personal fingerprint detection device. Hardly any residue remain after holding the laptop, and it remains sleek and metallic gray as I had first gotten it.

The laptop is also in a very compact, light form, with its thickness, compared to the credit card, is surprisingly slim for the power. It is also very light. (I am biased on this one, I did carry around 12+ lbs. laptop to school every day.. ) To add to reduction of weight, I removed the ODD and inserted an empty caddy shell, which, according to mythlogic, drops about 0.3lbs weight of the laptop.

Screen.. Gloss..?




The gloss of the screen isn't too bad, but it isn't one of the best either. As you can see from the photos, the desk lamp was placed about one foot from the screen, and it causes some visual glares that wipe out the corresponding letters at the spot of reflection. You may have to squint at the screen and tilt here and there to actually see the letters if there is a lamp directly placed behind you, but in real life, this isn't too much of a problem. The viewing angles, I guess, are what everyone expects, but which I didn't include. This is a pretty standard screen, with horizontal viewing angles being pretty good but the vertical angle sucky. ( Characteristic of most TN LED panels.. ) So, I wouldn't recommend you standing when the laptop is on the desk, because you will have to tilt the laptop screen backwards to see it.

Power / Benchmarks


3dMark Vantage ( GPU OC'ed )


3dMark 11 ( Basic Edition.. Default Settings )


wPrime CPU Benchmark


Street Fighter IV Benchmark ( Highest Settings, Max AA, 1080p )


Final Fantasy XIV Benchmark ( 1080p, Random Character )

This laptop is very powerful. Probably not as powerful as the models that house the GTX 485m.. I did opt for this 460m option because I was planning to get the 6970m when it was available. Apparently, it isn't coming soon.. But still, you can see that it scores pretty high for vantage, and it is shown that the laptop is capable of running games at high~max settings. I don't play games too much, so I don't have games readily available for testing, and I did what I could to find demo benchmark versions of games.

Temps are really low, running all game benchmarks never got it over 65'c. The fan wasn't blowing to hard, either, which is a good sign that it is going to be able to effectively cool the 6970m and its 100W .. Performance-wise, I really have nothing to add, as it only has the 460m and the Internet is filled with infos about this card, ranging from the Asus G-series, Alienware m15x, etc.

A Few Gripes...

#1 - Dust


I'm not sure as to how to put this, the rubberized finish seems to attract dust at an alarming rate. I never had this problem with the Alienware m17x, it seemed pretty standard and was easy to clean. But this model, I feel like I see more of the dust, maybe the finish kind of holds the dust more than just the plastic.. I guess. But the one place where dust easily gets clogged is




Inside the grail, small dust get clogged, and it starts to look aesthetically unpleasing quite quickly.. and as the grail is so small, there are hardly any tools to clean this, I probably will get a can of air and remove the grail to blow on it, I'll keep you guys posted on how it went.

The hinges have this gap that seems to house a humongous amount of dust as well. As you can see, there seems to be just a gathering pot of dust inside, I'll probably have to clean it out as well, but the vast emptiness that is between the hinge and the laptop provides space for dust to gather, I wish they had chosen a different design so that it won't be as a dust-magnet as it is now. As you can see from my photos in flickr, the laptop that first arrived is no longer present in clean, speckless condition, as the dust have gathered pretty much everywhere, and it is indeed quite hard to wipe off due to the rubbery finish.

#2 - Keyboard



OK. The keyboard gripe. Coming from a standard keyboard, the chiclet keyboard seemed pretty new and good. But the feel of this keyboard is not as good as I had first thought. You can see that the keys are spaced out a lot, even more than the macbook I have right next to me. The spacing is a bit too wide for me to adjust, and I frequently mistype things.. which is a bit of annoyance.

Also, there seems to be significant flex on the keyboard, and you can here the click-clack of the keyboard hitting the board, and I am just afraid that I might damage some components beneath it ( I don't type that hard, at all. ). The problem is that the RAM modules and the WiFi card are placed right beneath the keyboard, especially where the WASD keys are, and sometimes I would feel some warmth underneath when the RAM is in use. Overall, I'd say I probably will get a Topre keyboard to use instead of this keyboard, I cannot adjust to this keyboard with its flex and wide gaps even for a chiclet keyboard.

#3 - Trackpad



Whoever designed the trackpad to be of the same material as the rubberized finish deserves a sarcastic applause. This trackpad, even compared to the horrible!(Yes, horrible) trackpad of the Alienware m17x, is worse. Some friction and grasp of my hands may be good when I type things, but when I try to scroll or move my cursor, there should be nothing that prevents the glide of the fingers, as it becomes very cumbersome. This trackpad is another gripe that I have on this laptop, but the good news is you get adjusted to these gripes as you have no compromises when you are using these on your lap in bed, or using them in class for notes with cramped desks.

Final Remarks, Conclusions

I've focused my review on some of the gripes of this machine, but these are mostly minor as all laptops probably possess any combination of the three gripes I presented. In fact, I love my machine so much that the only gripes are petty things like the keyboard, dust, and trackpad! That's good news. This machine is simply a beast as it is, with blazing fast 2820QM, 16GB RAM, and the GTX 460m paired with a 7.9 Crucial C300 SSD. Launches are instant, and the boot time is less than 15 seconds from pressing the power button.

The laptop is sturdy, feels great, and appeals to everyone in that those that come to snort at this bland laptop will be blown away with the power of this rig. Cheers to Larry at LPC-digital for giving me a great opportunity and quote for this laptop, and has been awesome throughout the entire process of the ordeals of receiving this laptop. I hope I covered what people were hoping for, and I will finally add that the battery life on this machine is about 3 hours and 15 minutes according to Batterybar Pro.

If you have any requests, questions, or pleas of my address to ninja this laptop, feel free to post replies and I'll try to get to each and every request.

Specifically to "Madkid", sorry I couldn't get the screen photos up for ya. I remembered it, but I was too lazy to do it.... Now I have them
And Larry, thanks again and I hope this review will get me some hidden stashes of 6970m's tucked behind in the warehouse of LPC-digital.

 

Yay!! Nice detail on the gripes. Although most Clevos will have that kind of chiclet keyboard spacing anyway, so previous Sager owners won't mind having that.

Trackpad was always an issue...well for my NP8690, the trackpad was like crap spinning down the toilet, furiously. I was hoping it'll be better on the newer models but hey, hope doesn't last forever.

Dust, well. That's some unavoidable matter there And one question...what would become of your empty ODD slot? Just nothing? Haha. That's a waste though...

Oh, could you thumbnail or direct link the pictures? Because I find it harder (and I'm a lazy guy) to click on the link haha.

 

Delete Post. Embedded Photos now.

 

I see them now haha. Now it looks better! And I'm loving your camera

 

So what do you think of the stock panel, is it pretty decent? I know you said there were some glare issues, but other than that, how does it look in terms of colors? I'm still tossing around switching to Mythlogic for the 95% color gamut screen.

 

Nice review Meraki1990! I thought you were going to get a v4 screen from Mythlogic? You still going to buy a different screen? If so, I hope you post a review of what it was like to change the screen and some pics of the new screen.

 

To be honest, I'm a fan of good panels, ever since I came across the RGBLED panel in m17x. This screen has a cold tint, which is a characteristic of LEDs with a blue hue that acts as a WLED backlight. If you could get the upgrade, I would get the upgrade, but this panel, if you don't have prior experience with good screens, will satisfy you.

So unless you've used really good panels as to you being able to detect a downgrade in screen, this panel is like every other LED panel, and I would say there is no need to upgrade the screen..

But of course, screen is subjective for all people, and I would have done the upgrade as I can see the difference in photo quality and vibrance in color compared to my previous laptop.

Hope that helps.

 

I get really annoyed by bad viewing angles so I hope its not quite so bleak as your pointing out Upgrading the screen won't help the viewing angles much though will it?

 

Vertical angles are bad, but it's bad at extreme angles, it is pretty usable in real life.

Upgrading to another TN panel won't really help with vertical viewing angles.

 

meraki--how did you resolve the dead pixel in the center of your screen?

 

I didn't.



Larry said I could send it in for the replacement of the motherboard around April, and he assured that unless there were physical damages done to the screen, the factory would replace my screen panel for me as well so that I don't have to make 2 trips.

So it is still there, right in the middle..

 

No biggie! The pics with the lamp right behind work just as well

Nice review. I agree on the dust, but I have a similar grill on my current HP dv5, so I'm used to it. That's silver though, so the dust is not nearly as obvious.

I think I'll finally be getting my machine soon too, so can't wait!

 

Nice review. Nice machine isn't it?

 

The machine rocks, to be honest I don't think I was satisfied this much with any other machine.

Though I do like the brushed metal feel on the P170HM..

I went for portability..

How's your rig holding up? I'll get some benchies done when I can get my hands on that 6970m...

 

dust= EVIL.. i wipe off my laptop like 10x a day.. bleh.

going to be investing heavily in that canned compressed air stuff and some sorta lint free cloths.. any other anit-dust suggestions?

 

Great review Meraki!

You shed a lot of light on this laptop for me. I was wondering if you could put up a video of it in action doing different stuff? Maybe also type for a minute so we can hear/see the keyboard in action. (Keyboard is very important for me, I do not want to take an extra one with me everywhere)

 

You're not gonna like what I'm gonna show you about the keyboard..

Keyboard is the only "real" gripe on this machine, I'll get some vids posted regarding the keyboard.

 

Keyboard Typing
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Keyboard Flex
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Memory Card Slot
<param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/H4-bS8XNT4g?hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/H4-bS8XNT4g?hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width='425' height="344"></embed></object>

The SD Card reader has nothing that holds down the card, and it sticks out half the way.. very flimsy method to connect your SD card..

 

Looks like a good typing machine to me...
_

 

Thanks for the videos! It doesn't look like there is a lot of flex during actual typing. I only noticed some very minor flex closer to the top, center region.

 

Glad I could be of help..

Darn I come from using Topre Keyboards.. maybe I have a really high standard regarding keyboards...

 

Well, at $250 a pop for not-optimus maximus, they better be high standard

 

Heh, I don't think that keyboard flex is really bad for a laptop. It could be a lot worse.

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Dang, that KB is like jello!

Edit: Now that I think about it, it looks more like a waterbed...

 

+1 !!
Amazing videos, they help a lot.

Sorry for asking for more, but is there any chance to get a one minute clip of a 1080p video?

And...damn! that m17 has way more flex!

 

Wow... would think that AW would have just a bit better build quality than that... Almost no flex at all on my XPS m1530...

 

I don't have a 1080p video..

If you can point me to a link in youtube with 1080p details,

I'd be happy to do that for you.

 

Diablo 3 game footage 720p: YouTube - Diablo 3 - All 4 Classes HD Part1

Stacraft 2 video review 1080p: YouTube - HDstarcraft's Channel

Or something you like. Thats the best I could find lol...I should PM you a different site

 

That M17x is just a bad build, they're not all like that.

 

was going to say the same thing.. could be a pre mass production model. a couple of the places that reviewed the r3 w/ 6970's stated there was bad flex but were told by AW that the production models would be more rigid

 

<param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/-JzZiTdUdEg?hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/-JzZiTdUdEg?hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width='425' height="344"></embed></object>

I'm not sure what you are looking for.. pretty standard, low fans.

 

He was looking to make you perpetuate the Korean stereotype.

 

Just wanted to see the screen quality
That video helped me fully decide on getting a matte screen =] Tiny bits of screen glare and and seeing my reflection is not to my liking >_<

Now all we need is fraps of Crysis or Bad Company =]

Thanks for your help meraki~!

 

Yeah, if you noticed, the 1530 keyboard is stainless steel underneath. I've replaced mine due to key wear (yeah, I wore out the keys in three years) and it's just a solid hunk of stainless steel like the piece on the palm rest. This machine was definitely built tough compared to the plastic crap out there. Those people that said the Alienware m17x r3 was higher build quality than the Sager most be nuts. That keyboard was awe-inspiringly terrible.

 

So I watched a youtube video about a screen showing a youtube video about starcraft (the only game I'm gonna play) on the series of laptop I'm getting. This is getting weird.

PS: HD is an awesome caster (if thats him)

 

that's what i was thinking lol.. I don't understand why that was necessary lol

 

Lol.
Sorry I don't know many 1080p videos on youtube >_< Starcraft2, Bad Company2 is all I play (can't wait for 485m ultimate 1080p settings)

 

lol, Its not that. I've been telling my friends about this laptop for weeks now (showing my obsession with this laptop). I love SC2 and since I can't play until the laptop ships, I just watch videos about it (although now my current laptop is having a bit of issues with youtube). I just found it funny that I was watching a video about a video (a SC2 video of videos of things) about the screen quality of the laptop I've been drooling over.

 

I feel so used....

 

Why is that??

 

I was just joking......

Any other requests or what not?

Spring break is looming close by, and I will have tons of time next week..

Granted, I have an exam tomorrow! What am I still doing here

 

Lol, thanks, but I have no requests.

I had an exam on monday and stayed up till 2am the night before. We'll see how I did . Spring Break 2011 = well needed break.

Good luck tomorrow

 

May I ask where did you get the caddy shell? Been eyeing this laptop and was thinking of doing the same thing since I hardly every use the disk drive anymore. Thanks.

 

Got this from newmodeus.com.

The link for this model is :

2nd Hard Drive Caddy for Sager NP8690 / 8690 , also for SSD [OBHD-SATA12-SATA-BU] - $44.75 : NewmodeUS, Hard Drive Caddys for Notebooks

and use this coupon code, this worked for me and saved a few bucks.

-> FB072808

Enjoy

 

When I was in college, I stayed up gaming till 4am everynight of final weeks

 

How loud is the fan when doing normal office tasks, I plan on using an 8130 or 8150 for my on the road corporate job while still being able to game in hotels at night.

 

The fan isn't loud at all, except for the occasional ramp up and down up and down cycle.

It's pretty quiet, so you shouldn't worry about bothering other people.

In a pitch quiet room like in a small class would be disturbing, because the low-med level has a whirring taste to it as to somewhat annoy people around you.

In a corporate environment, it shouldn't pose too much trouble.

 

I think a good excuse to tell people would then be that your beast is revving, since it's what beasts do

 

Just gauge your audience though, because a statement like that might keep you from getting laid. At least at my College it would have, lol.

 

Haha, no longer an issue for me, married for a few years

That said, I do go to Law school at night, and occasionally during really boring lectures I ramp up a game of SC2 or DAO...

The fan on my current machine at full force isn't so distracting that its obvious I'm not just taking notes...

Is this one going to sound like a hair dryer going off if I launch something like DA2 in Windowed mode?