*** Official Clevo P151EM1 / Sager NP9130 Owner's Lounge ***

As stated earlier pre vs post tax... xotic said you need to claim it on your taxes.

 

This has been the law forever though. There was actually a few news articles i read this year because H&R Block has started asking people specifically if they did have any online purchases they needed to claim.

 

Quick question, a buddy of mine bought a P151EM1, and he is trying the fn + 1 trick, but the fans arent spinning up, does this still work on this model? It does on my P151HM1.

Thanks,

ID

 

No, I believe this feature was taken out on the newer models.

 

Anyone get theirs yet? How is it?

 

I will get mine on the 21st, bought mine from prostar, they are the best!. Is it hard to swap the solid state drive for this laptop? Im kind of regret for not choosing the p150em model. I really like the backlid but in return I get a much faster CPU and ram for the money I have saved
My specs:
15.6" 1920 x 1080 Full HD (16:9) Matte Type 95% NTSC Color Gamut Display
CPU Intel Core i7-3720QM Processor, 2.6 GHz
16GB, PC3-12800/1600Mhz DDR3 - 4 x 4GB
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670M w/1.5GB GDDR5 with Optimus Technology
Hard Drive 500GB/7200rpm 16MB Cache Buffer SATA-300 (SATA II 3GB/s)
Windows 7 Home Premium Edition 64-bit

 

A quick question for those of you that do have one... what is the keyboard style on the 9130? I know what the backlit keyboard on the 9150 looks like and I always assumed that it was the same style on the 9130 but without backlight. However, from a lot of the pictures on reseller websites, it is still the chiclet style like in the 81xx series? I always thought those were just old pictures that hadn't been updated but is that what the keyboard is like?

Thanks!

 

chicklet style, extremely high quality feel. best keyboard I've ever used (yes, even macs).

 

Thank you for this. Have been looking all over trying to get a definitive answer for a while now

 

Thanks! Do you think you will be able to report on the non-gaming battery life when you get the chance?

 

Yeah. It varies from state to state. In Michigan I know you can claim the standard use tax or itemize. Standard use tax is like $120 or something like that which is $2000 in out of state purchases. I know I spend at least that, lol, so I just pay standard use tax.

 

I just ordered mine; hopefully it will be arriving sometime around the end of the month. It's a fairly basic configuration, with an i7-3610QM and 95% matte screen being the two main upgrades, but once it arrives I'm going to put in a 128GB Samsung 830 SSD and 16GB 1600MHz RAM (and move the HD into the optical bay, since I hardly ever use CDs or DVDs). Not too impressive, but it will be the most powerful computer I've ever owned, and also my first gaming computer, so I'm looking forward to it.

Also, has anyone who already has one reported on the battery life? I don't recall seeing that anywhere, and while it's not hugely important I am rather curious.

 

Mine will be here on Thursday. It's coming all the way from California to New York, I hope nothing gets knocked loose in transit ><

 

I already have mind.

i73720m
8gigsram
NVidia 670

I'll be happy to answer any questions. There are some disappointments and some pleasant surprises. I had never owned a sager, or even worked with one for that matter. I have to say the construction on this thing is definitely not on par with asus or even HP. Everything aside from keyboard is a bit flimsy. It's the type of plastic that you know will dent and scratch easily. The sound is worse than what I expected. I expected it to be bad. But it's actually horrible. Even a headphone sounds weird. I haven't been able to find bass adjustment. I don't know what onkyo did for clevo. Onkyo is a reputable company that makes great products, I can't believe they had any inputs on the sound design of this machine. I think what happened is, clevo paid them to slap their label on the notebook and that was it. The webcam is garbage.

On the plus side, the display is absolutely gorgeous. Beats any asus or hp that I've seen. Then again, I upgraded to 95%, so I can't comment on stock display. I do like the keyboard, the keys feel very responsive and have solid bouncy feel to them, and the trackpad is probably the best I've seen in a laptop.

On the performance side of things, it is what you would expect so far. I am still testing though as far as battery life and CPU and GPU performance. The machine is not as quiet as people say. The HP that I returned was definitely quieter. I have to upgrade to an SSD because of the HDD that this came with, which was a hybrid, makes an audible noise that can be very distracting. I don't think it helps that the case is so thin.

 

I was planning on buying a NP9130 but after reading this I honestly don't know anymore.

 

Well that depends. I haven't seen/heard anything so far that is a deal breaker to me. On-board audio? On-board Webcam? I wouldn't buy any laptop just based on those two specs alone. External sound card if you must and an external camera if you must? But that's just me. I plan to use a Sager for an upcoming mobile editing setup. So the number and type of ports are important (esp. Firewire for legacy devices). If there is anything that might hinder that setup please let me know.

 

Received my 9130 yesterday morning, so I thought I'd post a few quick initial impressions. Specs are basic, 8gigs, 670m, i7 3610QM. Total cost was around $1250 from xotic after some small upgrades, which went slightly above my budget of $1000. Ordered April 30th, processed payment May 2nd, shipped on the 9th, and I picked it up on the 15th (from a UPS distribution center).

The machine is pretty quiet when doing basic stuff, and even under load its not as loud as I expected after reading some of the (overblown I think) initial impressions of other users.

I bought this laptop with work and LANing in mind, as I usually game from a desktop at home. The 9130 has handled d3 @ max settings (@ 60fps) no problem, and outside a bit of questing in Warcraft, I haven't had the chance to really put the machine through its paces.

Display is sheer awesomeness (I got the default one). One of the first things I did was download a few 1080 movie trailers, and was very impressed with the clarity of the images.

Battery life seems to be a bit on the low side, used up about 20 percent of the battery just browsing the web over the course of about 45 minutes; although I'm sure if I turned the brightness down on the screen while its unplugged might extend the life of the charge.

As far as the hardware itself, I ordered mine with all branding removed, and I absolutely love the low key look. The shell is made of plastic, but feels very sturdy and typing on the machine requires little effort (you dont have to mash on the keys).

Anyway, that's just a few quick impressions. Also, would like to add that my experience with xoticpc was excellent, and everyone I spoke to was super helpful/friendly.

 

Just received my NP9130, specs as below.

Installing my new SSD and drivers now...

 

Ordered a NP9130 from XoticPC yesterday. I was very hesitant between an NP9150 and NP9130 but the almost $200 difference was the dealbreaker for me... I could get a SSD for that.

- Display: 15.6” FHD 16:9 LED Backlit Wide screen (1920x1080) Super Clear Matte Type Screen (SKU - S1R324)
- Graphics Video Card: nVidia GeForce GTX 670M 1,536MB PCI-Express GDDR5 DX11 with Optimus™ Technology (SKU - S3N501)
- Thermal Compound: - IC Diamond Thermal Compound - CPU + GPU
- Processor: Sager - 3rd Generation Intel® Ivy Bridge Core™ i7-3610QM (2.3GHz - 3.3GHz, 6MB Intel® Smart Cache, 45W Max TDP) (SKU - S2N224)
- Branding: Remove All Branding
- Ram: 12GB - DDR3 1333MHz Dual Channel Memory (3 SODIMMS) (SKU - S4R777)
- Optical Drive Bay: Combo Dual Layer SuperMulti DVDRW/CDRW Drive w/ Software (When selecting a Hard Drive in the Optical Bay, No Optical Drive is Included) (SKU - S7R455)
- Primary Hard Drive: 500gb 7200rpm (Serial-ATA II 300 - 16MB Cache) - Default (SKU - S5R207)

I told them to ship it without a hard drive and refund me the $ instead. I'm gonna buy & install an SSD which I plan on ordering here in the next day or so. I've got a Crucial C300 256GB in my desktop which is slick and will probably end up going for an M4 or something. Looking forward to it!

 

YESSSSSS!!!!!!!

 

WooHoo!!! Just received my Sager NP 9130 from Xotic PC today.....Can't wait to get home & apply the Diamond Thermal & Install the 120Gb OCZ mSata SSD into the machine and get it running. It only took 33 days to receive the Laptop, but the wait was very much worth it. I'll be back here soon to give my first impressions.

 

The main thing that got to me was this part:

I was led to believe that Sagers had exceptional build quality. If someone posts a video showcasing the NP9130 I'll be able to make a final decision.

 

It took 30 days? Uh oh... that may prove to be a problem for me.

 

If OsamaBinGaming ordered one with an Ivy Bridge CPU, then half of it was just waiting for them to come out, meaning that it actually took less than 20 days from when the components became available, which doesn't sound too bad - about 14 business days, or maybe a bit less, as I'm not remembering exactly when IB CPUs started shipping.

Alternatively, if he(?) ordered one with a Sandy Bridge CPU ... well, that would be a bit worrying. I'm hoping to get mine towards the end of this month, not halfway through next month.

 

IB parts availability flew right over my head. Thanks for the clarification.

 

Yes indeed. I originally ordered with Sandy bridge, then Ivy Bridge was released after my system was sent for building * testing. So the switch up did add a few days o my order time.

 

Help!

Is it normal for my NP9130 to be running at 50C or more while web browsing? It loads up into 75C or more while gaming. Should I look at a better thermal paste? (have Noctua NT-H1 on it now) Cooling solution?

Ideas?

 

as far as i can see the 9130 is the same as the 8130 but better hardware i just got mine yesterday and seems very good quality only problem is the 670m is so new nvidia doesnt have offical drivers for it yet which i think is very poor or their part. speakers are decent for a laptop and can get loud and fan noise is a tad loud but not too bad the fn + is going to take getting used to. i would recommend a cooler because the bottom gets kinda warm when resting on your lap. without actual drivers rating performance is hard but got 12573 on vantage.
i think the sound output for the headphones is where this is lacking its not very loud and has not low output kinda put off by that i think id give this a 8/10

 

I'm getting around 42 ~ 45 degrees while web browsing, but I had xotic do the thermal upgrade compound on my setup.

 

I made a few config changes to my system, thats why there was such a delay.

 

yup, just got mine today. I took the HD which came with the laptop out and replaced it with 120GB Corsair GT series SSD. I'm very happy with the laptop but i'm kind of regret that I didnt choose the P150EM with the back lid keyboard. It annoys me when I have to tilt the screen down to see where I am typing.

1. The plastic is awesome, it has a very good feel to it, very durable and sturdy. The track pad is super and that comes from the guy who adores the track pad on the Macbook pro. it's so responsive.
2. The sound is SO ADDICTIVE, clear, crisp and has a depth to it. There was somebody complaint about the sound. Here is some advise, if you replace your HD, you have to re-install all the drivers back so you can enjoy the full potential of the hardware.
3.The keyboard is very good, similar to the Macbook pro, not only better, only its made out of less premium material.
4. The screen is very good, I havent played game or watch any HD movies yet but it is a impressive screen compares to my Macboo Pro.
5.The battery is.. mediocre lol. This laptop is SUPER QUITE, i cant even hear the freaking darn thing. My Macbook pro is a freaking noise factory sitting next to it. Nvidia Optimus technology is working hard, I mean under regular workload, the GPU just tops lol. this computer is cool, after 1 hr of normal use, I cant even feel any heat at all on the bottom.

I'm a happy customer and end user. i love everything about this laptop except the fact that it doesnt have back lid keyboard but hey, in return, you get a much cooler and much more efficiency laptop.

 

Very cool. Good to hear. Thank you for sharing your experience. Mine will arrive in a few days and am really looking forward to it.

 

Here is my review after tinkering with my 9130 for a few days.

When I take the battery out (for intense gaming sessions) the left rubber foot of the 9130 comes out with the battery as well, causing it to flex slightly and makes it slightly unstable if I prop up the back of the laptop to improve cooling.

My HDD in the caddy seems to be shaky, I can hear it knocking around if I flip the laptop upside down. For those users with a caddy, is the HDD meant to sit loose in the caddy? It has no x or y space to move about, but there seems to be like 2mm or so vertical leeway. Under normal use, however, there are no issues with it. I'm worried that if I bring the laptop around, it will damage the HDD.

Another issue with my caddy is that it does not follow the contour of the laptop case. There was no such issue with the DVDRW drive, which was sloped to follow the shape of the laptop case. The caddy, on the other hand, is boxy, leaving a ledge on the right of my laptop. Although it hasn't affected me much, and I probably don't care enough to get another caddy, I feel that that is one area which could be improved upon.

Other than that, the 95% matte screen is amazing. It makes my desktop monitor faded in comparison. I loaded the Sager color profiles for the 95% matte screen and it worked perfectly.

The keyboard feels great to type on, but coming from a mechanical keyboard, I need to get used to it. Feels like some sort of rubber dome keys for the 9130 keyboard, but it has that clicky feel to it so that you know whenever a key is depressed.

The cooling system is amazing. I had free ICD installed, courtesy of my reseller. My GPU sits comfortably at an average of 70 Celsius playing Diablo 3 with an ambient temperature of 25-27 degrees Celsius, with a max of 78 degrees. My CPU runs at 68 degrees. While resting, the GPU is turned off, so I cannot read the temperatures on that, but the CPU runs at 44 degrees with an ambient temperature of 25-27 degrees. (yes, its hot in Singapore. Goes up to 30 degrees on hot days, and I don't need a portable heater to go with that) Sounds good, but Diablo 3 doesn't strike me as a game that is very GPU intensive.

Still installing BF3, so I'll get back with the temperatures for that when I'm done.

 

+ rep for a4paper and silverado1500 for their feedback. Also, thanks to everyone who previously posted their feedback.

Looks good so far, can't wait to get mine

Also, a4paper, was the HDD caddy pre-installed from the reseller? Did you check for some loose screw?

 

@SynapseR
The caddy was not pre-installed. I tried installing the plastic insulating sheet on the HDD and it fixed the problem.

 

My temps while playing Diablo 3 max out at around 72 degrees. GPU temps that is.

The only issue - Xotic PC gave me a 500gig HD instead of the 750gig that I ordered. I also forgot to include an OS which was a pain.

I really don't want to have to mail this thing back, wait, re-install everything ect just for some added storage. Hopefully Xotic will hook me up with some free accessories or something to make this right.

Are there new 670m drivers out yet?

 

You might want to look here for the latest drivers, updated 16 May 2012
http://forum.notebookreview.com/sager-clevo/573379-clevo-driver-thread.html#post7418834

 

Its my understanding that the P151EM1 is a normal plain matte plastic finish and not the rubber style finish of the P150EM ? is this correct ? Anyone have pictures of the P151EM1 showing the finish by any chance ?

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/sag...567228-sager-np8130-review-mr-mysterious.html has good pictures of the NP8130, courtesy of Mr Mysterious. The 9130 chassis is the same; only the Fn+F1 button and the internals (optimus) is changed.

I wouldn't worry so much about the plastic; it feels great, and it is not matte black but actually has bits of white sparkle(not sure how to describe this) that gives it a subtle refined look and feel. The touchpad photo from the above like quite accurately depicts this.

I'm not so sure how the rubber style finish would feel though, I think you should ask that question in the P150EM lounge. Ultimately, its down to personal preference. Some people just love the rubber feel, others hate it because its a fingerprint and dust magnet.

 

I know that the fingerprint and dust thing with that kind of rubber plastic finish will annoy me, hence asking about the finish on the P151EM1 as id prefer not to have the rubber style finish and if the P151EM1 doest have that then that's a good thing.

 

I'm sorry to hear about the hard drive mix up. Have you let our service dept know yet, if not PM me with your order number and i'll get it looked into.

 

So far, I've had no problems with fingerprints or dust, and the plastic feels sturdy and well built. I noticed a little flex when I removed the battery AND propped up the back with a book to improve cooling (not that I needed the extra cooling power though), but that only happens when I rest my palm on the left palmrest with my fingers over the wsad cluster.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but if the laptop runs relatively cool (especially near the battery area), it is fine to leave the battery in the laptop while plugged in and playing intensive 3d games. I remember reading somewhere that battery technology is sufficiently advanced to stop itself from getting overcharged, and most batteries die not because they were left in the laptop while plugged in, but because of the heat generated by the notebook while plugged in.

 

9130 is great overall. The 670 works fine and hits about 76c with Skyrim on ultra. The sound is great. I just adjusted the window setting for volume enhancement and headphones and speakers alike much louder.

The biggest issue I have is the fn + fx keys!! The volume and mute keys don't work when I'm playing Skyrim. I have to alt tab out to adjust them. Also the brightness keys are in in the worst place ever and makes using them nearly impossible.

I'm trying to figure out a way to make the fn + fx keys work in every program and change the keystroke locations. I would love to use the number pad or even fn + arrow up and down replacing the page up page down functions with brightness.

Any suggestions on this?

 

Shipped! Should be here by Friday! Bought a Samsung 830 128GB SSD to go in that baby.

 

I've been beating around the bush regarding getting the 9130 for a while; I'm definitely in the market for another laptop, have checked all available sources and models, sent out some e-mails to resellers of Clevo.
Perhaps the last thing to check ask is, it is easy to to replace the primary HDD on the laptop right? I've been reading a lot of people have been doing this right off the bat, and I've got a Crucial M4 in my hands ready to put in.

Hopefully, I'll get an order in sometime this week and another review a few weeks after that.


Also, I'm playing Skyrim as well (hoping to beat as much as I can before D3) and I have this problem on my SteelSeries 6gv2 hotkeys, and a quick check shows this is a problem with Skyrim itself.

Pretty Good workaround for Skyrim hotkeys: If you're playing Skyrim through steam, global hotkeys work when the Steam overlay is up; so try shift-tab first, then hotkeys.

 

Yes, swapping the hard drive in this laptop is very easy to do. remove 2 screws and pull the panel off and your hard drive is sitting right there. It should slide out without a bracket attached, it is held in by the panel itself.

To answer the other question with Skyrim, it is an issue with the game itself with the Fn keys for volume control.

 

Primary hdd swap takes less then 5 min. Just don't force anything it requires minimal force.

Does anyone know a way to remap the fn + fx keys? I've tried auto hotkey and it didn't work / hard as hell program to understand.

 

Got my 9130 in the mail today! Just wanted to share some first impressions seeing as there aren't many reviews on this bad boy out in the nets yet.

Having only owned mid-range HP and grandfather Vaio laptops, I must say the 9130 is a real treat. Gunna break down this thing into categories...

Before that though, my only upgrades to the base config through xoticpc are IC diamond and i7 3610 IB, and bundled OS.

Chassis
I was surprised by the heft and "solid" feel I got from this laptop. The shell, though plastic, has a nice semi-matte, powdered finish that almost gives it the illusion of being metal. There's minimal flex in most areas of the chassis except right beneath the keyboard. I really dig the minimalist feel to the whole thing. Black everywhere, clean lines, muted finish. I definitely prefer it over the loud and glossy nonsense one finds on most consumer models.

However, beware of the rim around the screen, as it is a different material and finish and is a semi-glossy fingerprint magnet.

Screen
I went with the stock 65% gamut matte and right now I gotta say I wouldn't have it any other way. It's a step up from most laptop screens I've seen. Very vibrant and good colors, great viewing angles, brightness can be way up there if you want it to be - definitely a big upgrade feel for me. I couldn't justify paying up for 95% gamut because I'm not doing any editing or production, but if 65% is this gorgeous I can't imagine what 95% would be like.

Keyboard + Trackpad
Many people praise the keyboard and I must say I'm on the same boat. The keys are solid and if I felt any flex I'd be imagining it. My biggest gripe with the keyboard would be the arrow key and shift key layout, and less so the loss of designated keys for stuff like brightness, volume, pg up/dn, because some of them are huge pluses for gaming.

The trackpad is pretty cool. It's almost flush with the case and has the same finish as the case. Pretty good traction though I fear what it'd look/feel like when the finish starts to wear down as some users have pointed out. The trackpad buttons are okay. It feels a bit too "hollow" for my liking but the clicks are again solid.

Sound
Good, but not as great as I expected them to be considering the price point and the quality of everything else on this system. I think this is where Sager/Clevo needs to step up in their future models. I'm no audiophile, but even after using the THX sound controls that came included as many users have suggested, there's noticeable harshness and muddiness to mids, and highs and lows are usually acceptable to casual listening but nothing to write home about. If you plug in your favorite pair of cans you'll hear more of the average-ness in all its average glory. Don't get me wrong, the speakers do its job. It's just that as a gaming laptop/entertainment center (as well as to make Sagers more marketable) sound should be a "WOW" and not a "meh". Makes me wonder if these are really Onkyo.

Perfomance
Haven't gotten around to playing dem skyrims and d3s and such, but idle temps look good. CPU cores average around 42C and so does GPU. The fans are fairly quiet but are generally on and noticeable. Can't really say much else here because I haven't stressed this thing yet but I hope I'm in for many pleasant surprises.

Update: I really hope nvidia releases drivers for the 670m and up SOON. How are you guys getting good fps in skyrim and such on these third party drivers? Mine's pretty pathetic.

Overall
For $1200-1300 you really can't get a laptop that's as juiced and solid-feeling as this. Everything thus far feels like an upgrade for me, but again the sound leaves something to be desired. The weight of this beast and the brick definitely hinders portability, and I can't imagine unplugged battery life to last over three hours. But in a cafe (and market) full of shiny macbooks and glossy dells and hps, I'd be proud of whipping out this muted black beast of a machine both for cost and looks.

If you ordered this laptop, grats, otherwise, I hope you found my impressions helpful in your decision.

 

Update on my 9130:

OBHD Caddy
I took the time to google replacing the faceplate of the caddy. Apparently you can fix the problem with the caddy not being flush with the chassis. All it took was 20 mins to swap the faceplate from the DVDRW drive to the caddy and its good as new. Well almost; I broke off a plastic bit on the flat faceplate which ended up on the DVDRW, but it's inconsequential as it still has other point of contacts to snap onto the disk tray. I'm too lazy to post pictures, but here's a link to changing the faceplate for lazy people like me:-
http://www.newmodeus.com/pics/OBHD/OBHD-Faceplate-Installation-Guide.pdf
What this means is that you can buy any old 12.7mm caddy off the net and do your own swap which is easy enough even for first timers like me.

Fan Noise
Audible, but non intrusive. Used it in court for a whole day, and it was almost inaudible. There were times when the fan spun up, increasing the volume of the fan noise, but those instances lasted for less than 1 second each time in approximately 20 to 30 mins intervals. The volume of the fans when they acted up were just slightly louder, a person sitting 3 seats away might not notice the difference at all.

Battery Life
Sorry to disappoint you, Onekae, but the battery does last more than 3 hours. I haven't actually tested it exhaustively, but at Power Saver mode, WiFi off and minimum brightness, I burnt ~30 to 40% battery using the laptop for 3 and a half hours doing word processing alone. I haven't had the chance to test with WiFi enabled.

Overall
Really pleased with the fan performance, especially after rumors of the fan being exceptionally noisy for a gaming grade laptop.

 

Quick question guys, is it possible to change the graphics card later on? how about a upgrade on the i5 to i7? if this can be changed then i guess this is abetter buy than the 6165.