Official Sager NP5165 / Clevo W150HR Owner's Lounge

Yeah, I'm on my 2nd bad screen. Too bad they can't just ship a new screen over for replacement...

 

Tested out Windows 8 Preview and had many drivers missing. Do anyone know if Clevo will release driver updates to support Win 8? Probably too soon to tell? The driver cd says the OS is not supported and doesn't install.

 

Don't use the driver CD auto installer for them, as it does an OS check. You can install the packages manually from the disk itself though (navigate to the appropriate directory). In general, Windows 7 drivers work almost 100% with Windows 8 unless they do an OS check (which doesn't mean they won't work- just that the installer is set to terminate if it doesn't detect Windows 7).

The Clevo Driver thread should also have all the drivers you need:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/sager-clevo/573379-clevo-driver-thread.html

Windows 7 also lacks almost all the critical drivers on a fresh install, so it's not unique to Windows 8.

 

I'm really edging on ordering a 5165 due to the weight, Optimus, FHD screen and moderate gaming options but I just can't decide for/against the P150HM which has more flexible upgrade path and a much better gfx card.

I'm leaving a Alienware M15x at a monstrous 9lbs so I really need something more portable but its hard cutting out performance to get it.

Anyone have any advice on the 5165 vs. the P150HM?

 

I was in the same position as you. My old laptop was an asus, weighing around 6.6lbs, and as thick as the P150HM at the thickest end.
I was able to carry it around, but really wanted something slightly lighter/smaller and portable.
Talking to malibal, they suggested me to go with the P150, saying that the size/weight difference is not that notable. I was set on the P150, but then changed my mind last second.

Bottom point, I ordered the 5165 and couldn't be happier. Even though it's just 1lbs lighter than the p150/my old asus, I can really feel the difference and it feels much smaller/more compact overall.
Another reason I went with the 5165was the battery life, it's nothing spectacular, but I do get the promised 3+hrs when just browsing the web/watching a movie/(wifi on!). From what I've gathered from reviews on here that's about half to a full hour better than the P150.

You will probably be happy with both coming from 9lbs, in the end you'll probably have to decide based on the gfx card. For me 555m is plenty, and I am happy with my decision

 

Both models are actually great and there are advantages or disadvantages to both. As many have mentioned before, there is not a lot of weight difference between the two units. I prefer the 8150 myself because of the better GPU and the upgradibility of it. Since I use my machine plugged in all of the time, the extra battery afforded with the switchable GPU is not a big seller for me. If you do carry it around and use it off of the battery a lot, that could be one of your deciding factors.

 

Sometimes in the past I found myself wanting to get a powerful GPU or something just for the sake of it, or just in case I wanted to play games, or because I thought that if I had the hardware I'd enjoy playing more games. But I found that in every case, about a year or two down the line I ended up realizing it was a waste of money for me because I didn't end up doing much gaming at all.

Consider what you actually have done in the past couple of months. If you have played games a significant amount, and you still buy new games in the past year then getting somewith with a stronger GPU might be a good idea.

I am now optimizing hardware purchases to what I actually do, which is software development. I work from cafes a lot, and i use my laptop to browse from bed or the couch, and take it to work on days when I go into the office. Most of the time I am somewhere where I can plug in, and my current laptop is relatively light about 5.5lbs, and the battery lasts 5-6 hours. But the one I had before that would last only a couple of hours and it was a real pain to have to charge all the time. I have company meetings sometimes where I need to be able to go without charging for almost an entire day so while deciding on my new laptop I took that into consideration.

I also gave mysel fa rough budget of what I'd be willing to spend, and looked at all models from many different places (Dell, Apple, ASUS, Samsung, etc). I zeroed in on Sager/Clevo because for my uses, they gave the absolute best possible configuration for the lowest cost. I placed an order for the NP5165 yesterday.

I work with large log files (text files with semi-structured data), SQL Server databases, .NET, Visual Studio. IIS, and do a lot of tabbed browsing where I'll have up to a couple of dozen tabs open. I don't game at all anymore, so I wanted to optimize my new laptop so that my money went towards fast disk (working with large files, databases, and doing compilations for large projects, and searching the disk through hundreds of thousands of files of code, all require very fast disk), and very fast CPU with large cache (mainly for build times, but also for my SQL Server work to be as fast as possible), and large, fast memory.

It came down to a decision between 8130 vs 5165.

8130 Pros:

• Up to 16GB RAM
• Looks slightly better, and better cooling solution

8130 Cons:

• A little more expensive
• No Optimus, and thus shorter battery life
• also only comes configured with GTX560m or higher, which adds to the power draw

5165 Pros:

• Cheaper
• Up to 16GB RAM
• Optimus / Roughly double the battery life of the 8130
• Still has decent GPU power for non-gaming hardware accelerated stuff like encoding, GPU acceleration that web browsers are now coming with, flash video acceleration, etc.
• Lighter by 1 lb (same weight as 15" high end macbook pro, and same weight as my current laptop that this will be replacing)
• Money saved by getting this can go towards highest available CPU (i7-2860), and 1600MHz RAM, and an OCZ Vertex 3 SSD

5165 Cons

• Slower GPU, but in my case I don't care

 

Thanks Monarch that was a really helpful breakdown.

I still play games heavily on my custom gaming-rig desktop but like you I tend to use my laptop as an extension while away from my desk. Primarily to surf, manage pictures for photography, skype, and powerpoint/visio work.

All that could be done on a $500 netbook - but when I travel, I enjoy playing my games (lowered gfx settings) on the laptop when stuck in a hotel for a few days but something lightweight enough to not need a backbrace lugging it through the airport.

From your list and what I've been reading - the 5165 really seems like a good fit while upgrading to an SSD and faster CPU.

Thx for the help

 

Woot! Just ordered my NP5165 this past weekend from XoticPC. I'm really happy with the build/upgrades I chose. I'll add my review once the machine comes in.

Can't wait.

 

Ordered mine last week, on Monday, and I just got it today. I did rush shipping and 2nd-day delivery because I needed it by this coming Thursday for a trip.

Weird thing is, up until noon today the order status still said Phase 2. I called xoticpc.com and asked if they had any idea if the laptop would ship this week and the guy said he wasn't sure when but it would most likely ship tomorrow or the day after and I'd receive it one day after that.

I almost didn't get the laptop today because I was like "Oh well, may as well go work from the cafe today since I don't have to be home for a delivery". By chance (or rather, by obsessiveness), i checked the order status and the order status had updated to "Shipped", and there was a link to a tracking #. I clicked that and the UPS page said it was out for deliver TODAY. I packed my stuff up and rushed back home. The people at the cafe must have thought I was a weirdo because I unpacked all my laptop, headphones, power cord, mouse, jacket, hoodie, had a coffee and a bagel, and thenpacked everything back up and left after 15 minutes.

 

Great to hear Septro! Thanks for your business. Let us know if you have any questions!

Ah, that's too funny

Sorry about the confusion on shipping. Sager ships their products at 4:00PM PST, which is 6:00PM CST, and we're already closed by then, so we normally get shipping updates first thing in the morning.

 

Laptop is great so far, and my experience ordering from XOTICPC.com was exemplary. I will post a more thorough review with likes and dislikes later, when I'm not so busy. For now I'll just say that the machine is FAST, and the display is awesome (95% matte).

Power brick is a monster; girlfriend already commented on it, and I'm expecting ridicule from friends and coworkers when they see it. I regret getting a 2nd power brick & cord because now I have two huge ones and I'm going to want to shop for a smaller one (don't care if it's lower power than 120W because I always have Optimus set to use the Intel integrated GPU).

 

If you haven't already seen it elsewhere, you can probably get by just fine with a 90w adapter on this model. That should help you save some size/weight

 

Yeah, I do have a spare 90w lying around and there really is no difference in performance.

 

I got this strong eye strain from the screen, am I the only one, my screen is 95% gamut matte 1080p, mythlogic, I already put the brightness to like 20%. I came from a 1280*800 hp glossy screen tho, am I over-feeding myself? but it's been more than a month already, my eyes still not seem to take it better.

 

You might want to bump down the resolution to something smaller (with the same 16x9 aspect ratio) and/or increase the size of text and icons. Some people can just never get used to the small screen dimensions coupled with the high resolution. My parents find 1366x768 on a 15.6" to be too hard to read without changes

 

Can't wait. My order shipped on Tues and its due to arrive on Monday. Already have a Mushkin 240gb Tier1 SSD rit-2-go when it arrives. XoticPC have been great so far.

 

Just got my Sager from Xotic. Love the high gamut screen. Altho i had to calbirate it some, the reds seemed a little to hot for my liking. But now it looks perfect.

Plays SWTOR maxed with shadows on low 30-60fps.
Temps while running swtor are 70c gpu / 80c cpu with the fan on auto mode. Bout 5-7c lower with fan on max. So not bad at all for a lappy.

Lovin this laptop so far.

Also loved dealing with the Xotic folks, They made me feel really in the loop with all the status updates. I was even able to upgrade the PC after i made my order without issue.

I guess my only complaint bout this laptop is this monstrosity of a PSU it came with, lol.

 

@Septro and @Ultra_Magnus

Thanks again guys! Be sure to let us know if you have any questions and I hope you both enjoy your new laptops.

 

I recently started to get rattling/popcorn noises from around the fan area. I cleaned the fan so I don't know what is causing this. It seems to get louder when the fan blows harder.

 

Sorry if this was mentioned before but it's hard to sift through 80+ pages of posts. And I can't seem to find this info in the few reviews that are available online.

How is the temperature and noise level on this machine? I would prefer to know with any of the quad core CPUs intead of the dual cores. I understand the description will be subjective but please be as descriptive as you can.

 

You might want to check the thread below. The W150HR and W150HN should have very similar reviews due to sharing the same chassis.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/sag...607872-clevo-sager-notebook-review-index.html

 

Thanks Malibal, that Anantech review answered my questions.

 

hey guys,

I need some help!!!

I brought a NP5165 from XoticPC in Aug.

It has a i5-2410M, 4 gigs of RAM and a 500 Gig HDD.

It has stopped powering ON. When i try to power it ON it does not respond at all.
The AC adapter light glows when connected to the plug but when i connect its other end to the laptop, the light doesnt glow anymore.

I have tried powering it by removing and inserting the battery. and with no battery at all. It's not giving absolutely any response.
I'm surpised this happened completely out of the blue.

Can anyone help me as how to fix this problem..?

 

Was about to post asking about temperatures too. The Anandtech and Notebookcheck reviews were very helpful. Thank you very much!

 

Probably your best thing to do is contact support. It will probably have to go back in to Sager for repair.

But first, have you tried it using different wall plugs...and does it do the same thing with all of them?

 

So I'm looking around at laptops to buy (mix of gaming and school/note taking, much more school and not as much gaming though) and had a few questions for Sager NP5165 owners. On a side note I'm currently looking at one from XoticPC at the moment configured with i7-2670QM & Nvidia GT555M. They seemed to offer the configuration I wanted at an ok price. Anyway, here are my Qs:

- How is typing on this laptop? Do you experience any wrist probs/carpal tunnel from typing on this without a separate keyboard/mouse?

- How does this run games like Battlefield 3 and DotA 2? FPS? any problems? overheating?

- Anyone know of any other resellers that may better deals?

I'm currently deciding between a lenovo y570, a HP dv6tqe, and this laptop btw.

Thanks!

 

Hey Abe,

Thanks for your interest! We currently do have some offers running for NBR members, feel free to contact us for that information.

I think the keyboard probably receives the most complaints on Sager models, but it just gets a little bit of getting used to. Most customers state that after about a month of usage the keyboard doesn't bother them very much. However, I use an external keyboard and mouse myself for comfort

For your FPS question, you should check out this link: Computer Games on Laptop Graphic Cards - Notebookcheck.net Tech

Thanks!

 

Currently I'm in the same boat as Abe. The keyboard is my main concern regarding the Sager models. I will be using whatever laptop I choose for 50/50 programming/gaming. Does anyone have experience using the W150HR as a programming machine?

Another question: does anyone have experience running linux on this model?

 

I have no problems with keyboard. It types fine. Feeling is like my Logitech K750 solar keyboard, but as any notebook keyboard it isn't a great idea to lift your wrist up for hours it's still not ideal.

 

same experience here. sounds like a bearing on the video card's fan is acting up. figured i'll replace it when it dies, shouldn't be too hard or expensive.

 

edit: fixed it.

Hello, does the GT 555m take part of your ram? My 64 bit Windows 7 Ultimate is only using 3 GB of my 4 GB of ram.
Nvidia system info says I have 3282 MB total graphic memory and 1234 mb of it is shared memory. my driver version is 290.53

 

The 555m doesn't take any RAM, no. However, the integrated graphics chip (since it has Optimus) does pull from main memory.

 

Can somebody post a screenshot of GPU-Z with your GT 555M please?

 

Hi.

I am going to college next year and I had some questions about this laptop.

1) I don't game that much, but I do game a bit. Is the 1080p screen a bit too high to play games with 60+ fps (I don't mind going low to do it)? I also have a 1080p external monitor that this computer would need to drive.

2) Since most of you have probably had experience in college, how long were the lectures usually? I'm half afraid that the laptop may die after a day's use.

3) I am trying to choose between this, the NP8150 and the NP8130. The reason for this is that this laptop is likely the last computer I will get for some 5-6 years. The upgrade paths on the other computers seem tempting (4 RAM slots and changeable graphics), but I'm worried about their battery lives.

Also since I've made this thread, would a 6990m have a much bigger lasting power than the 560m or the 555m? I don't want to have this become obsolete too quickly.

I will most likely be buying this around May/June so I am going to wait it out a bit and see what new stuff has come to these laptops, but I think it'll be simply the GFX/processor lines will update if Ivy/7000m/600m are out.

 

1. It really depends on the game you're playing. Will it play Battlefield 3 at 1080 at 60fps? No, probably not. However, a lot of less demanding games should run fine. Here's a link to gaming benchmarks for it:

NVIDIA GeForce GT 555M - Notebookcheck.net Tech

2. Depends on your college. Most 4 credit courses are 2 hours, 2 days a week. Some are 4 hours once a week. Your college may do things differently, but typically the number of credits generally equals the number of hours of class per week (not counting lab courses).

3. The battery life difference between the W150HR and the P150HM/P151HM1 is going to be about an hour. Most owners report between 2-3 hours with the P150HM/P151HM1 depending on configuration. The W150HR will do maybe 3-4 hours. It's not incredibly significant, but if you had back to back classes you'd be pushing it on both models.

The 6990 is nearly three times as powerful as the 555m and almost twice the 560m. Here are benchmarks to both of those:

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560M - Notebookcheck.net Tech
AMD Radeon HD 6990M - Notebookcheck.net Tech

Here's a chart comparing the gaming performance of all mobile cards (you can restrict it just to those three if you want):

Computer Games on Laptop Graphic Cards - Notebookcheck.net Tech



If you're waiting until close to summer time, you will probably be able to get an Ivy Bridge model with the new generation graphics, but it's hard to say until any official announcements are made. If you don't need it right now, then it's always better to wait until you do.

 

I've got this comp coming in from MALIBAL this week, specs in sig. I know I've seen mention that the max RAM on this laptop is 8GB...does this mean that if I put in 2 x 8GB sticks (16GB) in it won't recognize it?

Also, anyone have any good recommendations for an inexpensive laptop cooling pad for desk use with this guy?

 

are there any discernable differences between the mailbal and xoticpc versions?

 

If you get the same configuration the only physical difference is the name on the Chassis

 

i too would like to know if two 8 GB sticks would work. i want to upgrade from my stock 4 GB.

 

Yes, 2x 8GB DDR3/1333 should work just fine in your Sager NP5165.

 

As Paladin44 said, it should work fine. The reason for the limitation was purely because 8GB sticks didn't exist at the time. They're still very expensive as it is. The higher end models (with 4 slots) all listed a maximum of 16GB supported, but people have had no issues running 32GB there (again, with 8GB sticks).

 

Hi just thought I'd drop in and say hi while I waiting for mine to arrive. I ordered mine on the 20th of December but for some reason Sager won't be shipping it till the 19th of this month. I'm about to pull my hair out as I in compsci and am missing a laptop for it. I ordered from reflex notebooks being a Canadian and I don't think that I'd be too much further ahead if I had gone xotic or malibal. Though their presence here is impressive and should be applauded.


On the bright side I am looking forward to this, its basically exactly what I was looking for, portable, subdued, and fairly powerful. I'm really looking forward to the screen, went with the matte option, and that's what really some me on this vs the Lenovo Y570. Would have loved an option for an 8 cell as the battery doesn't last quite long enough but then not very many do.

I was wondering if anyone had a recommendation for a replacement power brick as the one that does come with this, from pictures, looks enormous. I can't find the coolermaster 120 anywhere. I've read that some of you have been using 95 versions from the previous model, would the coolermaster 95 have any drawbacks? Or is there a different model that I should consider.

My basic specs are
Matte screen 95%
I7 2670
8gb ram 1600
500gb HDD (I have a 128GB M4 waiting impatiently here)
Windows home

My main uses for it are school, word docs and coding, as well as photo management and editing and then the ability to game. I have a full fledged desktop where most of my gaming takes place but I do travel and spend quite a time away from my desk so it would be nice to even play anything. My last laptop was a Toshiba from about 6 years now and it basically gave up 2 years ago now. Ihad a netbook which I took traveling and it drove me crazy with its lack of any power. I'm now using a tablet and while I don't regret buying it at all, thank you HP, its got a lot of limitations and lacks the versatility of windows, its good for coffee shop type browsing and writing this post anything else I use a computer for....ko

 

I just wanted to post a little note about my W150 from MALIBAL. First off, MALIBAL was very easy and quick to work with. I opted for the Rush shipping and received the computer in 7 days, all the way into NC with ground shipping. This counts the day that I placed my order as well. I would highly recommend them. Also,in some pics that I've seen from others, the top cover seems to look like it's a synthetic carbon fiber with a glossy finish, for the Sagers at least. I never saw a mention of it on here but the MALIBAL top cover is a matte finish with their logo in the center which is inlaid metal. It's pretty sweet in my opinion and a plus over the sager version.
Anyway, the comp came without an OS because I get Win7 Ult for free from school. I installed it followed by the drivers and everything went smooth. Also, when I received the computer, the first thing I did was to swap out the main HDD for a Crucial m4 128gb and place the HDD in the optical bay. I'll be using the optical drive externally. Of course with the OS on the SSD, the computer is faster than anything else I've ever had. The upgraded screen is awesome, I have the matte version and am not disappointed whatsoever.
I got this model vs the others (P150, etc...) because I travel with my computer daily to class, needed something to fit into my backpack, needed more battery life and do not game on a consistent basis. I typically run several applications simultaneously with dozens of tabs and my old computer could no longer handle this reliably. Battery life is ok...I got about 3.5hrs the only time I let it run down, which is better than the 15min I got with my old laptop. It's all I need as I'm typically near an outlet.
That's all I got to say at the moment. This forum has been great at helping me make my decision. If there's anything you all would like me to address in particular, let me know.

 

Hi guys,

I spilled some coke on my keyboard and some of the keys are a little sticky... Does anyone know how I can remove the keyboard so I can clean under it?

Thank you. ._.

 

Here is a link to the service manual with full instructions on how to pull the keyboard (thanks to Theriko):

W15xHNx_ESM.zip

 

Thank you! <3

 

YAY! It has shipped. Expected delivery is the 19th. Though that may be a bit optimistic with the border in the middle but one can hope.

 

That's a great manual, clears out the most secrets for me.
Thanks for the contribution!