Sager NP8150/Clevo P150HM Review by Forerunner

Hello!! This is my review of the Sager NP8150/Clevo P150HM.

*The review is still being worked on and updated. I decided to post it early because I have a good portion of it done and people were clamoring for it. I am a student and didn't have time to finish it in one day.

Reason for Buying
I needed a new laptop though my 3 year old Asus C90 is still working it is starting to struggle with games and is experiencing a bunch of other technical problems. Though it has given me a good life cycle I am a student and can't afford the brand new laptops I want all the time and bought the C90 because Asus guaranteed it would support future gpu upgrades. However, we never really saw that come to the light of day without making a bunch of modifications which I did not want to spend the time and money on. On that day I swore then that my next laptop would be a Sager/Clevo as I wanted one of those on my last laptop purchase. They had a reputation of being rock solid and being true gamer's notebooks offering the top of the line gpus in well cooled package. So did my brand new sager live up to my expectations? Find out by reading my review.

*Pictures are from my friend's touch screen phone so bear with me if they aren't the best quality. I'm working with what I have.



Price, Vendor, Specs
I bought my laptop from LPC-digital. Babyhemi (Larry) was very helpful and answered all my pms quickly and was patient with all my different questions and concerns. After a day or two of contemplating I decided to spring for the gtx 485m and make the extra investment so my laptop would last me longer down the line before I needed a new purchase or gpu upgrade. I needed a new laptop for school right away to take to class so I didn't want to wait to see how the ATI offerings would compare in terms of price and performance. Larry called me the same day as my purchase to verify the order and make sure everything was in order. He even mentioned that the laptop would not come with a carrying bag as previously mentioned and made sure that I as the consumer was aware of that. The laptop shipped within 2 days of ordering and I got the laptop within a week (free ground shipping!!).




I paid $2044 at the time of the order but essentially paid almost exactly $2000 for my laptop because of a 2% student rebate that I was eligible for through LPC digital.
Here is my exact specs:
Sager NP8150 (Built on Clevo P150HM)
Display: 15.6” Full HD 16:9 LED-Backlit Super Clear
Zero Dead Pixel Insurance: None
Video & Graphics Card: nVidia GeForce GTX 485M with 2GB GDDR5
CPU Processor: Intel® Core™ i7-2630QM (6M Cache, 2 GHz)
Thermal Compound: IC Diamond Thermal Compound - CPU + GPU
Operating System: Genuine MS Windows® 7 Home Premium 32/64-Bit Ed *
Memory: 8GB DDR3 1333 (2x4GB)
Primary Hard Disk Drive: 500GB 7200rpm SATA 300 Hard Drive
Optical Drive: 8X DVD±R/RW/4X +DL Super-Multi Drive
Wireless Network Card: Integrated 802.11 b/g/n wireless LAN + Bluetooth*
Bluetooth: Bluetooth™ V3.0
Primary Battery: 8 cells smart Lithium-Ion battery pack 76.96Wh
TV-Tuner: None
Integrated Security Device: Integrated Fingerprint Reader
Microsoft Office: None
Warranty: 3 Year Labor and 1 Year Premium** Parts Warranty
Additional Power Adapter: None
Additional Battery Pack: None
Carrying Bag: Standard Carrying Bag
Shipping Method: UPS Ground (FREE!)

So basically I upgarded the stock system with 485m, 8 gb ram, IC diamond thermal paste, and windows 7 home premium.




Unboxing
The laptop arrived in great condition. There was an outer box and then an inner box which held the laptop itself. The laptop was secured by foam on all corners and the power supply (its big) was cushioned in a similar fashion in a seperate box. The laptop arrived with plastic wrappping all over the lid, screen, and keyboard. I was giddy like a kid on christmas while unwrapping it. Overall I was very impressed with the care and attention that went into packaging the laptop.



My goofy friend.

Design
When you first lay eyes on this laptop it is a beauty in it's simplicity. When my girlfriend first saw it she asked "Wow that's a gaming laptop?" I was proud to tell her it had the most powerful mobile gpu currently offered in a laptop which she promptly replied with a "dork." The design is very sleek and professional which is exactly why I went with Sager instead of Alienware. The lid has some minor curves around the edges which makes it slimmer and more appealing. On the lid is Sager written in silver letters. The laptop itself feels very sturdy and strong and it is moderately heavy due to the fact that it weighs nearly 7 pounds. The laptop's color is a mixture of black and what I would like to call a matte metallic gray. It does not have the the clear metallic look and visible metallic specs as if it were a brushed aluminum but it definitely has a nice sheen to it. The look is achieved by this rubberized texture that gives it that nice metallic look and sheen while giving the laptop a smooth but textured feeling. This means that while typing and or gaming you feel like your palm and wrist is actually being gripped and held in place by the laptop. The nice thing about this material is that there is basically no fingerprints or grease marks and the laptop remains nice and clean throughout. The entire laptop has this textured look and feel expect 3 areas. The first of course being the bottom of the laptop which is regular plastic. The next is the speakers on top which you may find attractive or out of place. The two speakers located next to the power button are covered by a mesh deisgn which isn't your typical circles. It appears to look to be made up of diamond and squares (my girlfirend argued they were cubes) and it really is a hit or miss about whether it detracts or adds to the design to the laptop. I feel like it feels a little out of place but without it the laptop may have been a litte too bland. The last area that is different is the screen border. The screen border is glossy. Now this may also be a hit and miss for you. I personally like it. It goes along nicely with the glossy screen but yes it defintely is a fingerprint magnet if touched. I feel like it also makes a nice change from the rest of the notebook to make the screen stand out and pop.





Ports & Features
The laptop pretty much has every port and feature you would need. It has S/PDIF, 1 HDMI, 1 DVI-I, 2 USB 3.0, 2 USB 2.0, 1 esata, 1 EEE, 1 Headphone, 1 Microphone, 1 Line in amd 1 RJ-45 Ethernet port. The laptop also has a 3 in 1 card reader and a 1 minicard slot. It has built in gigabit ethernet ith integrated wireless (which I have) which can be upgraded to intel centrino options. The laptop also features a 2 megapixel digital video camera, kensington lock, and a fingerprint reader. The laptop also had 4 sodimm slots and is expandable up to 16 gigabytes.







Keyboard and Touchpad
The first thing you will notice is that the laptop has a chiclet style keyboard. While this is new to me coming from a standard keyboard I must say the transition was smooth and welcomed. The keys have a nice tactile response and are spread out nicely. The touchpad is the same texture and is very responsive. The touchpads button are a bit of a hit and miss for me. The left button has the nice smooth click and response whereas the right click has the much more hollow feeling and isn't a nice of a smooth responsive click as I would like. In between the clickers is the fingerprint sensor. It is a synaptics touchapd which has a scrolling strip along the right edge although it is not visible. It also supports multi gestures so actions such as using both fingers and moving them in opposite directions zooms in and out the application your using. Whether you use it or not its always nifty to show it off by logging into windows with your finger. The WASD keys also have the gaming arrows. Though I wish instead of red the arrows were blue to match the color of the bue LED lights that light up for wireless and the power light. For those who also care the Control button is under shift rather than the FN control. I know my best friends hate it when the FN button is under shift because it throws him off during gaming.



Display & Sound
One word: gorgeous. The full HD screen LED backlit display is a whole new level of brightness and clarity coming from my C90. The 1920 x 1080 resolution is new for me and it certainly is purty. The clarity and amount of detail with this resolution is impressive. I currently have the blue water windows theme and have turned up the digital vibrance so all the blue matches the laptop and really makes it look great. I already have gotten compliments from friends and other students about the quality of the screen. The viewing angles are good. The vertical viewing angles are great. The screen can be tilted back as far as it goes and the colors are still vibrant.




Tilting it forward the screen tilts it to 60 degrees before the colors start becoming washed out. As for horizontal viewiing angles the color starts becoming washed out at around 80-85 degrees. Although I have no way to measure it, it definitely gets past 60 degrees before becoming distorted. The hinge on the screen is very sturdy. There is enough tension that the screen stays put even when I lifted it and give it some minor shakes.
The speakers and sound are usually the most lackluster part of a laptop package and here there is no difference. There are 2 speakers under the mesh at the top of the laptop above the keys whereas the subwoofer is located on the bottom of the laptop. The subwoofer is not very noticeable but it does give a little oomph when there is bass heavy movies or music playing. What makes the sound package a lot better is the THX TruStudio PRO software included. You can fine tune the surround sound and different effects to your pleasing. The software drastically increases the clarity and quality of the sound.





Compared to my Asus C90 CCFL backlit, 1680 x 1050.


Performance
This is where the laptop really shines and was made for. The performance of this laptop has led me to name my laptop "Beast." The main star is of course the gtx 485m and it proves that is the most powerful mobile GPU. So far it eats any game that I have thrown at it.
Heroes of Newerth- Everything Maxed 8 x AA 16 X AF With V-Sync Enabled 60 FPS
Call of Duty Black OPS- Everything Max 8 x AA Max AF 60- FPS
Starcraft 2- Everything on Extreme Setting Max AA & AF- 59-60 FPS ( Tested in 1vs1 & 2vs2)
Team Fortress 2- Everything Maxed, Max AA & AF - 60 FPS
Crysis- To be Tested

3dmark Vantage Stock-14,807 3dmark Vantage (overclocked 650/1725)- 16,773

(Screenshots will be uploaded)
(CPU Benchmarks will be done)


Heat, Noise & Battery Life
The GPU Idles at around 38-40 degrees. The HD is about the same. The cores idle anywhere from as low as 30 to high at 35. This is while idleing and just web browsing. The computer is dead silent at this leve.Under load such as gaming and benchmarks the gpu the fans ramp up and the gpu reaches temperatures a maximum of 80-82 degrees. When overclocking I reached temperatures of 88-91 degrees. When it reaches this temperature the fan ramps up to even a higher level which prevents the temperature from getting any higher. Overall the example I used was like having a hairdryer on a very low setting if it existed. Its noticeable but definitely not unbearable.

The laptop gets almost 2 hours battery life while gaming with the screen at full brightness.

(Will update with more battery situations and tests)



Conclusions
Buy it. Live it. Love it. You won't regret it. I expect this computer to last me a long time and am very satisfied. Hopefully MXM will still be around in a couple of years when I want to upgrade my laptop.

Thanks for reading my review. It is a work in progress and let me know what I can fix, emphasize on, add etc. Please posts questions, comments, and concerns. I appreciate your help!!

 

Great review! Ordered from Larry as well and this review is making the wait unbearable.

 

Dear god man, you are made of pure awesomeness! Thank you for taking time to write this up, although I ordered mine way back, its still nice to know what I am going to be receiving. Also is it at all possible to do a STOCK vantage run? No overclock whatsoever?

 

This is awesome!

The unit looks sleek too... Can't wait to get mine!

 

The first games I am going to test out on mine are Arma 2 and GTA IV. I originally went with the 15'' chassis but then decided to go with the 17'' instead. Nice review and good to hear you have no regrets, although I thought this would be the case.

 

Thanks a lot for such a detailed review Forerunner .. +1 Rep!

 

How portable would you say the laptop is without the battery? I plan on commuting with it without the battery and only the charger.

 

Great review!

 

Great review, I assume the led screen is glossy... isn't it?

 

Thanks for the review!

Eric

 

Thank you for the time you used to write this up. It's greatly appreciated by me and everyone else here!

Request: What's the ambient temperature in the room that the laptop is in while you are doing these tests?

 

LaptopNut, when you get yours, could you give your impression on the overall size of the 17"? I assume your W860CU is a 15" machine?

With my poor eyes, I am starting to lean towards a 17" more than the 15" and just deal with the bigger hassles of portability.

 

That was a stock vantage score. I have posted the overclocked score now. As for the ambient temperature it was about 71 degrees Fahrenheit.

 

When do you think the review will be *complete*? I am holding myself back from reading until you're done haha.

 

Thanks so much looking forward to updates.

 

Whoa! I wasn't expecting that. I assume you will do a test under light task conditions. 2 hours is great for a gaming laptop under light load, let alone gaming.

 

A day or two? Sorry. Bad time for the laptop to come and for me to write this review. I have a mountain of school work and the semester just started.

Yes I will. Just been too busy gaming on this baby lol. Yeah it was with heroes of newerth not the most demanding game but its still impressive nonetheless.

 

+1 forerunner

whats the highest gaming temps you got on stock and with what game

 

If you want something easier on the eyes, that is usually more down to the type of resolution you use rather than the size of the overall screen. With the fullHD you might find it tough on the eyes but you can always change the font and desktop icon sizes.

 

It's definitely no problem. I completely understand because my teachers are doing the same "welcome back, here's a ton of work".

I +1'd you because it looks to be a great review even from just a scroll over.

 

tq for the review
+1 rep for you

 

Thanks for taking the time Forerunner, nice review.

 

Really nice review.

+1 for ya.

 

Nice review! Welcome aboard!
Please, include screenshots with temps and benchmark (Prime95 and Furmark tests are welcome) scores, so ppl will have a better picture of the cooling system and performance.
Great screen pics, BTW.
+1 Rep

 

If XoticPC (cough cough) could get me my NP8170 very soon, I'd gladly do an in depth review and benchmark of it (cough cough)...

 

I need a bucket for my drool....

Nice to see the review up!

 

First I've to point out I really know almost nothing about laptop hardware and after that I can ask if this notebook can play games in 3d (I guess it does but I think it'a a very important info when deciding to buy a new computer)

 

The 485m that comes with this unit is the most powerful mobile gaming card there is.

 

Forerunner what wireless network card. is this the one? Internal 802.11 B G N Wireless LAN Bluetooth Combo Module or the advance one

 

+1 awesome review forerunner. now i just need to see one like this for the 6970m lol. also, i saw that you tested it on tf2. add me on steam.... i play A LOT of tf2 :3

 

Only a real dedicated gamer could make such an "in depth" review for free. Awesome job! My mouth is watering while I type this. It's gonna be a 12 days package of insomnia and desperation till the goddamn payday.

 

Oh I see, well thanks for updating it!

 

@The Forerunner,

I know we all appreciate your time and efforts in this GREAT review! Thanks! I wish more would do this when they received their machines!...
__

 

Thanks for the fantastic review, + rep.

Mine sohuld be arriving next week

 

Forerunner, do you happen to know the panel number for the LCD?

If we have that info, we might be able to see the specs of the screen.

 

Hi forerunner, thanks for putting up the review!!

Quick question about the icon size/labels on the desktop of your HP150M - are those with increased DPI settings or are they the same as they were on your old Asus C90?

I'm a little concerned if FHD on 15.6" might be too hard for me to read..

 

Yeah, I think I am going to order one of these too.

 

I would love to see Throttlestop monitoring during a wPrime 1024 run, just to see where turbo boost settles after a couple minutes of full load.

 

im still baffled by this. even if it was just heroes of newerth you played, i cant see how a quad snb and 100watt gpu can last that long on a 77w battery.

 

Chances are it downclocks the GPU and CPU significantly on battery.

 

Do a gaming session on SC2 and see how long it lasts on battery.

 

Heroes of newerth doesn't fully utilize the gpu. Fraps rates it at usin 58% of the gpu.

 

Hey guys, I have a quick question to anyone with a p150hm

how well does it run crysis maxed on the native res, as well as metro 2033 in dx11, i was just wondering since im about to order this one.

thanks in advance

 

Metro 2033 with ultra settings runs like crap on pretty much any PC.

 

YouTube - EVGA GTX 580 TRI SLI METRO 2033 2560x1600

Considering that still drops below 30 fps in some parts, I think its safe to say there won't be any laptop that will be maxing out Metro 2033 anytime soon.

 

Yeah either Metro 2033 is poorly optimized or utilizing all the DX11 features are super processor intensive.

 

you have the exact same laptop I plan on ordering, have you tried running it? running crysis? Im a bit of a eye candy w****. would you mind telling me the frames and settings you run? It would greatly assist me in deciding whether to dive in now or wait for the 6970

 

I run Crysis on high and average 43 FPS .

 

Did you have any AA or AF on? What do you avg at when on very high?

 

Averaging 25 FPS on very high. Thats with no AA.