The Sager NP8130 Review by Mr. Mysterious

Just can't thank you guys doing the extensive reviews enough, so thank you! Always comforting to see and hear real experiences before purchasing the laptop, which is quite an investment!

Cheers.

 

Yea wanted to thank you guys for your extensive reviews, it helped me decide to pull the trigger on this laptop because GOD knows how many times I switched between laptop models and companies...

I love the high performance, low-key look of this laptop! (Though I haven't received it)... And to think I was going to go with another laptop with flashing LED lights everywhere No offense to people who like those things

 

BOOO ALIENWARE!

Ok ok jk I like alienwares, but you have to find the laptop that most suits your needs.

Hopefully, for a lot of people, the Sager NP8130 fulfills all of that

Oh, and you're welcome, guys. It was a lot of fun to write that review up.

Mr. Mysterious

 

Hey thanks Mr. Mysterious this is a great review!

I was planning on getting a Macbook Pro originally b/c I was overwhelmed with all the different brands and models available and this review helped me a lot.(Not to enforce stereotypes, but I believe a lot of Mac owners don't really know/care about the internals that much)

It's also obvious that this is a beast even compared to the ~$2k model of the MBP.

 

Lol, and this is just my opinion, but I believe that most MB owners outside of NBR do not care about laptops and about their potential and what they hold inside.

NBR is for the coinnoisseurs...for the fanatics...for the people that love laptops

Mr. Mysterious

 

Thanks for this review! Im about to buy the NP8130 from XoticPC with the i7-2630QM, and everything else as standard fare. What I want to know, did you opt for the thermal paste? I saw temp readings, but maybe I missed if you mentioned that. I will be switching from my Alienware m5550 that I bought in 2005 lol

 

No thermal paste for me

As in, no thermal paste beyond what comes stock/standard.

Mr. Mysterious

 

Thanks for the fast reply! I really want to buy this RIGHT NOW, but leave for vacation in 10 days, so I doubt it would arrive in time. Guess I just have to wait lol

 

Patience is a virtue

Mr. Mysterious

 

Would you happen to know the actual width and height of the screen? I'm trying to visualize what this laptop will look like with respect to my current 16:10 laptop.

 

Lol, that is something to ask the resellers. I don't have measuring tape right now and I left my laptop safely at home.

Mr. Mysterious

 

OK

I found this website: Visual TV Size Comparison : 15.6 inch 16x9 display vs 17.3 inch 16x9 display, but I wasn't sure if the dimensions on there were actually correct. If so, that's kind of depressing, because it's really, really small - at least compared to my current 17" 16:10 laptop.

I resized a window on my laptop to the dimensions on that page and this is what it looked like:



That's a really big difference

Do you feel like your NP8130's screen is large enough for you? I'm having a hard time imagining using a screen that small..

 

Those dimensions are just about right. But it looks like you resized your screen a bit off. The comparison on that site you linked shows the difference, and it's not as marked as what you're showing.

You also have to keep in mind that a 17" 1080p screen versus a 15.6" 1080p screen both have the same number of pixels. It's just that the 17" has bigger pixels. Now it is a slight loss over a 16x10 aspect ratio though.

I have the P150HM at home, and it's been a nice step up going from a 1680x1050 previously- though coming from 16x10, it may be worse for you (assuming it was a high res 16x10, it if was lower than 1920x1200, then you'll still have more screen space overall)

 

I'm pretty sure I resized the explorer window correctly. My current laptop is 16:10, though, which is why there is more space at the top.

Good point.

 

Can you tell me where you got that awesome space theme for your background, MrMystery?

 

Just curious. I was looking at the 3DMark Vantage results. Here's what I got from my machine, which is vastly different from the original results:

 

Just ordered it from Malibal, Thanks Mysterious for your in-depth review, I have re-read it many times over the past month. The pictures were helpful I hope to post my own mini review of it soon enough. Right now just waiting...

 

I was just briefly considering getting this while looking at other laptops last week, when I stumbled upon this review while researching the laptop. Thanks a lot for putting this up, it really helped me make up my mind

 

bump for Mysterious. I'd like to have a copy of that background if possible =D

And I must say, your review is making the wait much easier. Just a day or two more and my baby will be here. =(

 

There are a couple of backgrounds. One is a leopard and the other is the outer space one.

Which one would you like?

Outer Space: http://www.outerspaceuniverse.org/media/earth-from-outer-space.jpg

Mr. Mysterious

 

Yup that's the one! The outer space one. =)

 

Other than johnnyman, has anyone else put a 6990M in their 8130?

Mr. Mysterious

 

The longest reigning notebook review thread on the net!

 

Lolwat? "Reigning"?

Mr. Mysterious

 

Wow, quite a nice review. It was actually kinda fun to read too, I liked your side commentary on the games. Makes me excited to get my own NP8130 in a week or so!

I'd have to agree with Proudclad by the way, that space wallpaper is a pretty cool choice for the background.

 

Thank you its not exactly a "background", not for my main desktop. I changed the windows logon background to have the outer space wallpaper, a nifty little trick.

Mr. Mysterious

 

Whoops, I erroneously thought that johnnyman had a 6990m in there. Sorry!

Does anyone have a 6990m in their 8130?

Mr. Mysterious

 

nice review dude~love it

 

How Did you get a 6970m with the 8130/p151hm1 ?
I only see gtx 560 as an option now, and I've been bugging malibal about other options.

 

You'll have to purchase it through other means. Either a seller on here, on NBR, or some of the other online vendors like mxm-upgrade.com will sell mobile graphics cards. It's quite expensive though.

Mr. Mysterious

 

I just purchased one of these from xoticpc.com. In the future I'm thinking about installing an SSD. How difficult was it to install the SSD in the blueray tray? Is a bracket that will fit an SSD included?

 

zioni, you'll probably want to install the SSD in the primary hard drive bay and take the current HDD you'd have and put it in the optical bay. Only reason I say this is that the optical bay runs at SATA II, so if you got a SATA III SSD it won't run at full speeds unless it is in that primary bay.

We do have optical bay caddies available, and most of them are pretty universal, you'll just need to make sure you get a 12.7mm SATA caddy.

 

Awesome, I already have an SSD from another build project I expect I can use for this. So just wanted to see if there were any special issues. Any suggestions on 12.7mm SATA caddy's?

Thanks! You guys rock.

 

Pretty much any 12.7mm SATA caddies will work. The ones sold by the retailers are guaranteed to fit though, and to take the plastic bezel from your old drive to match the machine. Some of the third party or generic caddies work, but the bezel may not fit correctly.

 

great pictures! very nice read, thanks

 

Mr. Mysterious, what kind of BSODs were you having before with the Crucial M4?

 

Very helpful thread, especially with the pictures. Thanks!

 

Mr. Mysterious is not replying.

 

Those of you using a Crucial M4 in your NP8130, can you post your Crystalmark and/or AS-SSD benchmark results on here? Thanks...

 

Sorry about that. I was away on vacation (actually, I still am). I'm not sure how to answer your questions....I wasn't aware that there are kinds of BSODs. They were random, but it didn't seem like anything triggered them.

After the firmware update, it seems like everything is working fine now, though.

Mr. Mysterious

 

Here ya go:

Oh ok, sorry about that I didn't know you were on vacation.

I thought you were getting specific BSODs at first.

 

Can you share any information about the quality of the microphone?

 

Is this from completely shut down and not from sleep/standby?

 

No, I can't actually...I don't use the microphone all that much. In fact, I don't think I've used it at all since I've gotten it. Not something that I'm concerned about.

Mr. Mysterious

 

great review, as i am still undecided whether to pay the premium for sager/clevo or go for a standard manufacturer like hp,asus,samsung etc....i just wish ivy bridge hurries up

 

what do you mean by premium? it's not like their so much higher priced, not to talk in some cases, they ain't

 

ok for example i was looking at the new sager and i had a price difference of around 500pounds, when i was looking at the old SB models,in the USA, i was getting much better spec of components for the equivalent amount of GBP...

 

oh yes well.. that's how it is

 

So I'm beginning to prepare for the upcoming game Star Citizen. It looks like my CPU and RAM meet the requirements but my graphics card, an Nvidia GTX 560m does not.

The recommended graphics card is DirectX 11 capable GPU: GTX 670 or greater

So I've found mixed info on this but is it possible to remove my 560 and install a newer graphics card? 780m for example? Any suggestions or advice would be appreciated.

 

The 7 series does not work in hm or em sager/clevo machines.

The fastest card you can support unofficially is the 7970M with hm bios, you would be best getting the 8970m heatsink from an sm machine.

Remember your board was only rated for the lower power draw GPUs so no guarantees on how long it will cope with a 100w gpu and you would need a 180w power brick.