Sager NP8150/Clevo P150HM Review by Forerunner

Exact same question. Are there 2 mini pcie slots? one being used for wireless and bluetooth, and one being free?

 

There is only one slot, so if you want wifi-bluetooth, then you need to get a combo card like the Intel 6230. If you get the Intel 6300 card, then you will need to purchase a little usb adapter if you want bluetooth.

 

Forerunner, you said the screen was gorgeous, but do you have any problems with the glossy part? I have a glossy now, but I'm tempted by the matte screen. Malibal doesn't have that upgrade available and it doesn't seem they will anytime soon, so I'm contemplating jumping to Mythlogic if I can get that upgrade (and it's worth it). I was just hoping to find out how good the stock screen is before doing so because Malibal has been great so far.

 

Hey Forerunner! I hope your enjoying your laptop still =]

Some easy questions:

How are you liking it over the passed couple week?
Any heat issues?
How do you like the trackpad?
Are you experiencing any freezes?

Thanks =]

 

Its tearing through every game I throw at it so I;m loving it. No heat issues at all. I bought a cooler but the cooler isn't really effective (I skimped). To be honest I don't really use the trackpad but it really isn't the best.

No freezes or problems whatsoever. Still in love.

 

Any screenies on the "games that were being thrown upon"?

 

Well I'm running the crysis 2 demo on hardcore with an average of 34-35 fps. Low is about 30. Its overall pretty smooth. I will try overclocking and see what I can get.

 

I'm in grade 12 right now and I'm planning on getting the np8150 with the new 8970M when it's out for college. What I'm curious about is if this laptop would be that much heavier than my current laptop (5.8pounds)--since I will have to carry it pretty much to every lecture right(is this true for you guys who are in college/went to college)? And--do you ever have 3 lectures back to back? and if you do have back to back lectures...whats the total time they normally take?

 

Lol, when I was in college this was the only notebook I used:

 

Yeah, when taking notes, having a fast, gaming laptop contributes nothing..

I actually prefer a slow rig when taking notes because you don't want to lose focus and start admiring the speed of the machine in front of you...

 

Netbook with 8hours of battery life comes in handy for school

The beast stays inside.

 

It really depends on your major but seriously, you're most likely not going to take notes on your computer for most classes. I only use them for gened classes such as history classes. Even then, a lot of gened professors have dumb policies forbidding the use of laptops in class.

I don't take notes for my CS classes because they post notes online. And it's damn near impossible to take notes for math/physics on your computer unless you're amazing at LaTeX and can type equations as fast as you can write them. And let's not forget the graphs and diagram

Trust me, I thought I'd be taking notes on my computer for every single class, but I barely take it anywhere unless I have a gened class that only involves pure English text.

 

I applied for electrical engineering, so I guess in the most of my classes I won't need my laptop at all right? I am used to taking notes on paper too--but only thought of changing to note taking on my laptop for college because I thought I might not be able to keep up with the pace...

 

I am an electrical engineering major, I hardly ever take notes with my laptop.

Typing is fine until the prof. starts to draw a circuit and I go like, uh.. wha?

I just bring pencil and paper for notes. This never dies, it may tire you out, but it is the most versatile method for taking notes for what you can't do instantly with a laptop.

 

You could always do the stylus type mouse if he really wants to use the laptop for all the notes. It's nice having everything electronic for easier reference.

 

completely agree.. i bring a spiral for the classes i need to take notes in. for the "blow off classes" i bring my laptop just to have something to do lol. i tried taking notes on my laptop a few times but i tend to get distracted. its so easy to just click open chrome and browse nbr. next thing you know you've missed 15 mins of the lecture lol

how much does one of these run? i assume its just a usb device that stores your handwritten notes in some kinda program?

 

My Mondays of last spring semester were horrendous. Three lectures back to back with a double length third one. Solid lectures from noon to 10pm. I carried a netbook with me to class to get 8-10 hours of battery life since I didn't have a plug at all to charge it.

But if you're really serious about classes, don't even take a laptop. You just end up distracting yourself, as I'm sure we'll all attest to here.

 

No clue. I've seen them for 100+

 

Dude, college is the place with the most distractions that could possibly exist. I brought a laptop to my freshman year to be productive and it mostly lead me to facebook and silly flash games. Sophomore year I stopped bringing my laptop, but I got a Droid 2 and thats pretty much a 3.7in laptop. I can seriously watch megavideo or something on it.

Trust me with this: go to bed between 12-1am. Wake up around 9 (sooner if you have class). Then really wake up, as in leave your room to do something like eat breakfast. If it is possible, do NOT bring your laptop to class. Just get a 3-subject notebook, a writing utensil (pen or pencil guy?) and that's it. Everything else is a distraction that you will pay for when exam time comes up and you decided angry birds was a better idea than listening .

 

i'm finally getting back into the swing of things lol.. been being lazy and skipping class.

have an intro philosophy class that has two 1.5hour lectures and a discussion every week. havent gone to the lectures cuz the teacher is kinda nuts and really boring. plus the student teacher that leads the discussions is the one who writes the homeworks (our only grades are 10 HW assignments, the midterm, and the final).. now, my point is, not paying attention in the discussion almost killed my grade lol. i could've sworn the midterm was next thursday. for some reason i decided to check the revised syllabus online and found out it was today. jumped out of bed and ran across campus to make it there just as she was passing out the tests

easy A

 

I majored in Supply Chain, and Communication (not the lame PR/radio variant, but Human Communication Sciences), and my notes for both both were all hand-written+PPT supplements. I think I brought my lappie to class like once in my entire college life, and it was definitely too distracting, and not conducive for notes at all.

As an aside, I took a Psych 101 class once, and it was such a crappy class that during one of the pre-exam reviews, I went to walk a dog. The class was at the Vet Medicine building, where you could take dogs out for walks.

Edit: Guys, looks like this discussion about college/school is really taking off, so I created a new thread for it in Off Topic, instead of derailing Forerunner's thread

College/School Adventures

 

Sorry to hijack this thread again with a seemingly similar question as I had last time, but this time I have some more serious doubts. I was told here and 95% of all my research tells me that the P150hm has only 1 mini-pcie slot.

However, while reading through the manual (which I got here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/sag...ager-np8150-clevo-p150hm-owners-lounge-3.html) on page C - 4 (or 266 out of 268), I found that the official manual says that the P151/150/170hm all feature 2 Mini Pcie slots.

Can anyone confirm or deny this? from the SIM card installation page ( C - 63 and 64, or 189-190) it appears that this second one may be hidden or covered. My thought is that it might be an unaccessible mini-card slot. The number of mini-card slots is somewhat important to me for me in my notebook buying decision, which is why I'm obsessing over it Thanks!

 

I thought that the manual says that 8130's and 8150's have a SIM card slot already installed in the second mini pcie slot.

 

They do have two slots. The P150/P151/P170 its mini length. But they are all USB type slots and yes they do have the SIM slots already in them. Its not hidden but you should be able to find it pretty easily as it should have a set of antenna wires next to it not hooked to anything.

 

Ok, sweet. Thanks for the help.

 

Hey Forerunner got some questions for ya =]

Hows the heat on the 485m as of late? Any changes from when you first got it?
Also how is typing on it? Any updates with the trackpad?

 

Hi ForeRunner,

Are you able to run crysis on GAMER settings at comfortable frame rates??

What of CrysisII ?? I havent been able to get information on this from anywhere so far.

Hope you can oblige. thanks in advance. (I did see some posts of yours in the previous pages talking about the crysis II demo.)

 

currently i have a w860cu with gtx 260m and i run crysis 2 on native res 1600x900 with 50 fps in advanced settings.its very very smooth.next week i ll receive my p150hm

 

oh i thought you sold your laptop already

 

great! thanks for the info. And enjoy your p150hm. Hope you can come back and post the frame rates you get on that.

 

sure i come back and post some benchmarks!thx!!

 

I posted this on another thread too. the "should i get crysis II thread"

I got all the information that i wanted on whether the GTX 485M would be capable of running Crysis II maxed out:
this is this is a lamp's review on lowyat: [USER REVIEW] Sager/Clevo Horize NP8150 (P150HM)

Says he can run Crysis II on Hardcore with 30-50 FPS. He has posted a couple of screenshots as well. Highly recommend his review of the Sager NP8150.

 

Forerunner, what utility did you use for overclocking? and regarding that, is is safe to play around at 90 degrees Celsius? What are the limit temps on this kind of chip? (regarding the GPU, I have the Sager NP8150 with the 485m like you do)

Have in mind I've never overclocked and I don't know anything about OC'ing in depth, I understand you can overclock 3 different things, what are they? (memory, core, something?) and how can I overclock them? Is it safe? If not, what threshold should I respect?

 

Could you give an update on the battery life, how much can you get while browsing the internet at 40% brightness. Thanks

 

about three hours with Nvidia 4xx VGA and little over two hours with AMD HD6970M VGA.

 

Wait, doesn't the 6970m supposed to have lower power consumption than the 485m, why does it have even less battery life?

 

the 485m has more agressive downclocking when the gou is not is use

 

Well that explains it. Too bad, i was hoping for even better battery life with the 6970m

 

i think i saw it in some notebookcheck or anandtech article.

 

I'm considering buying one of these. It will get alot of use (I will more then likely have it running most nights I work 8-12 hour shifts), as well as be my primary computer at home, replacing my 5-year old Desktop.

I'm an avid gamer, and I neeed a good computer to keep up with the times. The only game I really play is Warcraft 3, which I believe can run on this probably perfectly fine. I would like to install Empire: Total War. Can this computer handle that game?? Just curious...

Thanks,

 

it can handle etw and shogun 2 with no problems. i dont use it with max aa though or it slows down a bit. but who needs aa on a 1080p 15inch screen

 

Alright cool, thanks man!

I'm going to order this one then. Nice review, OP!

 

I am considering the same. I didn't pull the trigger back in Feb because of the sandybridge issue, and then i got really busy. I need to buy by the end of AUG, as my company gives us a "tech" allowance, and i need to spend by then.

I am also considering the Origin Eon15 based on a friends reccomendation, but, the Sager seems to look a nip nicer. Does anyone know/have the Origin to compare to the 8150? What is the Origin....err...Origin parts? Sager, etc

 

Both machines are built on the same chassis.

Mr. Mysterious

 

Origin Eon15 = Sager NP8150 = Lotus P150HM = Clevo P150HM = Pollux 1611
And whatever else is there

 

Are there any long term issues with this laptop, especially to do with heat? Is it advisable to get more than 8gigs of ram?

I am considering this laptop to buy, with my alternatives the Asus G53SW or G73SW with added 16gig RAM.

Is there anything apart from the graphics card that makes the Clevo p150hm WAY better than the asus?

I am a casual gamer so do appreciate a better graphics card if it doesn't mess up my usual laptop experience with internet/word processing etc. The Asus laptops do look very nice and stay nice and cool

 

Heat wise, I know some have reported high GPU temps (including myself), but in all reality that's more to do with the GPU being twice the TDP of the Asus models . I will say this: Asus laptops are HUGE - my P150HM is a nice size laptop - only slightly thicker than my Dell Latitude E6510 for work. I'm a huge fan so far of the size/screen. A G53SW might be a good value proposition, but if you want a more powerful graphics card or CPU - the Clevo's are a really good deal.

I think 8GB is fine for most people. I have 16GB for bragging rights ;-) (had an extra set of ram )

 

Great review cant wait to get this laptop.

 

Hoping this pops up on Forerunner's radar...

9 months on, how do you like the laptop now? still living up to your first experiences? Where do you see wear on the laptop? Hinge still working well? Have you had any warranty work? How has it been working with Sagar?

Thanks!
Rudy

 

Yes this is basically the first user review of the Sager NP8150 on this forum! The last I heard this machine was doing well.

I too hope to hear from you Forerunner. We hope things are going well..
_