awakeN's P150EM/NP9150 Review

This is my first review ever for a laptop, so feel free to critique meh~

Latest Updates:
6/4/12 - Added Cinebench and Skyrim when fighting a dragon and Total War: Shogun 2 and Crysis 2 to Benchmarks
6/7/12 - Added pictures of included software. Added 3DMark 11 OC to Benchmarks.
6/8/12 - Added an updated Microsoft Flight Simulator X to Benchmarks.
6/10/12 - Added Final Fantasy XIV added to Benchmarks.
6/14/12 - Added more thoughts on Build Quality
6/25/12 - Added more thoughts on Build Quality
8/28/12 - Bunch of new thoughts, bolded/

SAGER NP9150/CLEVO P150EM



The glorious no-branding lid. Rubberized, too!​

Introduction:
Finally, just got my P150EM from Xotic PC! I pre-ordered on April 29th, and received it almost a month later (5/30). The P150EM, as you all know, is the latest and greatest 15.6” offered by Clevo/Sager, which also contains the magnificent beast known as the AMD Radeon 7970M within it. From recent benchmarks, it is definitely worth the $200 if you are looking to buy gaming laptops that will last for 3-4 years.

My Configuration:

• Processor: Sager - 3rd Generation Intel® Ivy Bridge Core™ i7-3610QM (2.3GHz - 3.3GHz, 6MB Intel® Smart Cache, 45W Max TDP)
• Display: 15.6” FHD 16:9 LED Backlit Wide screen (1920x1080) Super Clear Matte Type Screen
• Graphics Video Card: AMD Radeon HD 7970M (2048MB) GDDR5 DX11
• Primary Hard Drive: 750gb 7200rpm (Serial-ATA II 300 - 16MB Cache)
• Ram: 8GB - DDR3 1333MHz Dual Channel Memory (2 SODIMMS)
• Thermal Compound: - IC Diamond Thermal Compound - CPU + GPU
• Battery: Smart Li-ion Battery (8-Cell)
• Bluetooth: Bluetooth Included
• Remove All Branding
• Camera: Built in 2.0 Megapixel Camera
• Case: Basic Black Business Case - Included
• Dead Pixel Warranty: Standard Dead Pixel Policy
• Exterior Finish: Standard Finish
• Memory Card Reader: Internal 9-in-1 Card Reader (MMC/RSMMC/SD/Mini SD/SDHC/SDXC/MS/MS Pro/MS Duo)
• 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)
• Sound Card: Sound Blaster Compatible 3D Audio
• Wireless Network: Sager - Built-in 802.11 Wireless B/G/N - Stock Wireless Card + Bluetooth

Total: $1,554.01 (where'd the $0.01 come from?)

Pictures of Unboxing: taken with a macbook camera LOL

Spoiler

The grand box that the Sager laptops come in.


Boxception.


Peepin' inside.


The laptop in pink wrapping, the included "free" bag, and the power brick.


The glorious laptop opened with all the packaging off. Matte screen presents itself.


The driver discs and the owner's manual!

Xotic PC: 10/10
The processing was fast and painless with Alison. The people at Xotic care about you, as during the mess that was May 16th; Justin reached out to me and asked for my order number, later confirming that I was in the first shipment. Justin was rather fast to respond to any questions I asked (I felt like I was pestering him). I would definitely recommend Xotic PC. Now on to the review of the laptop itself! Although they're going through a very messy backorder of 7970M's right now.

Build Quality: 9/10
It’s very, VERY sturdy from first impressions. It has a nice finish to it, nothing glossy, nothing fancy, so no fingerprints or sweat marks. The touchpad is quite sensitive (which I like), and is made of the same matte material as the rest of the laptop. The hinge looks quite pretty as well, with the frame of the screen being glossy and shiny. I’ll have to dedicate every Sunday just to be cleaning this beauty the P150HM/NP8150 was rather bland, this is similar, but it’ll have the backlit keyboard to add some flair (which can be turned off by an fn hotkey). It's a whopping 7 lbs though, and that's not even including the giant beast known as the 180W power brick!


(The screen isn't as washed out as it appears in this)

The keyboard is fine, although it can be annoying. There is zero flex to it, and it doesn’t feel cheap at all. It does require some force in order to press on the keys, or it’s just that I’ve come from a really bad keyboard and realizing I actually have to press these keys. They aren’t that noisy. Unfortunately, it’s not a Chiclet keyboard, which would’ve been nice, but I didn’t quite feel like waiting the extra time and paying extra for a Steelseries keyboard. I'm beginning to loathe this keyboard, as StarCraft is absolutely impossible to play now, because my left shift will go bonkers and not respond, effectively ruining every shift-queue I do, and now I can't smartcast in league either. Touch typing doesn't really work on this keyboard, because you do need a lot of force to push down the keys. But it's still bearable and I've mostly adjusted to it. Also, for some reason, there are TWO |\ keys o_o

Keyboard:

Spoiler

The touchpad is bearable, not the best, but it's fine to use. It wasn't as annoying as I originally thought, but if you bought a gaming laptop you really should have a mouse anyways . The fingerprint reader is a godsend, it's really convenient to login with a swipe of a finger.

The laptop is actually raised at the back, with two rubber domes lifting it up for maximum air flow. Nice design. There are various ports which I don’t know and stuff, you might want to see Xotic PC’s review if you want more specifics on that. However, this is a dust magnet (the glossy bezel is, at least) and it's really annoying, but nothing too bad.

Side-views of the laptop:

Spoiler

The back and the exhausts + HDMI port.


The ethernet port and the 2 USB 3.0 ports, as well as e-SATA and SD card slot reader.


The optical drive, headphone + microphone ports, and some other ports that I don't know.


The plain-looking front side of the laptop.

Sound Quality:8/10
I'm not an audiophile, but the bass in the speakers are pretty damn bad, but I sort of expected it since it was pretty cheap considering for the performance it brings (and I usually wear earphones anyway, so it's fine. There's not as much bass as I would like, but it's bearable, and at least the sound is clear, which is good enough. The only problem is is that the fans can become really loud and wash out any computer sounds from the speakers. Also, fellow NBRer has found a fix-around for the bad-audio quality issue!: http://forum.notebookreview.com/sager-clevo/680221-how-fix-sound-headphones.html

Spoiler

You can see the small subwoofer in middle-left side.

Display: 10/10
3 months later and I am absolutely loving the matte screen still. Went outside to game on some beautiful summer days, and I can finally see what's going on on my screen. The color sacrifice isn't as great as most people make it sound like (although blacks are a little grayish), but it isn't that big of a deal, unless your work involves color accuracy. I would recommend the matte screen to the average user, unless you ABSOLUTELY need the 95% gamut, but hey, it's your choice. But this matte screen for a $30 upgrade is absolutely fabulous.

Battery Life:7/10
Battery test: Web-surfing + eclipse + Spotify on “Power Saver” preset (wireless enabled).
It took 40 minutes to get down to 80% battery. That estimates to about 3 hours 20 minutes, which isn’t too terribly bad, but not so great either. There is some great potential if you further tone down the brightness and don’t listen to music lmao. Probably 4 hours if is the absolute limit you’ll get for just web-surfing and word processing. Not bad for a gaming laptop, but not superb, either. I would say 3 hours is what you'll get on average, 4 hours maximum.

Cooling & Fan Noise:8/10
Double fans for CPU + GPU and IC Diamond? Don’t believe I’ll have a problem with this. The fans aren’t quite that loud on idle, although it is clearly audible, but no big deal. Temps are very low, I just got out of a 4v4 in SC2 on Extreme settings, and the CPU is still around 60 C and the GPU is at 70 C. Same thing after two hours of BF3! Very, very cool! (ahahaaha ucwutididther) Fans are terribly loud under load, I could faintly but clearly hear them roaring from a great distance away (around a corner, even). Then again, it's quite subjective, but I think it's rather loud. Game music will (most of the time) cover it.

Cinebench ramped up my CPU up to 79 C, though.

Spoiler

Double fans in both corners - CPU and GPU and battery in the bottom-right corner.

Performance: 9/10
Well, with the Enduro issues showing its ugly rear, I'll have to rewrite this whole section. Apparently, if you play BF3, do not get the 7970M. Enduro causes incredibly unstable performance, as well as many other graphic-intense games like Metro 2033. However, I still have hope that a driver fix may remedy the under-utilization issue that Enduro is showing. However, if you play games like SC2, Skyrim, LoL, etc. there are going to be ZERO issues for you.

AMD Radeon HD 7970M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-3610QM Processor,CLEVO P15xEMx score: P5802 3DMarks

Conclusion: 8.5/10
Being a gaming laptop, and especially a relatively cheap one at that, it does have its ups and downs. The build quality is surprisingly sturdy, but still not the best. The stock keyboard REALLY needs to be worked on, and the with Enduro being so young, the technology really limits the potential of this laptop. However, the 7970M still performs stellar in most cases, and is usually enough. Still runs pretty cool, although the fans can get truly, truly outrageous (ok you can shoot me now). The P150EM with the 7970M, I feel is still a great buy for the money, especially if you cannot afford the upgrade to the 680M. However, if you can afford to spend the extra dough for the 680M and you don't feel like dealing with Enduro problems, go for it!

Pictures of included software:

Spoiler

The pro-grammable backlighting keyboard - available in no backlit, green, blue, red, yellow, teal, PINK, and white.


The Catalyst Control Center, where you can switch inbetween the 7970M and the HD 4000. If you are on battery power it will default to HD 4000.


And of course, the 1080p allow you view up to 2 pages of word at once, which is especially nice for workspace.


The "Control Center", accessed by Fn+Esc. Bundles a lot of configurations of the system into one place.

TL;DR

Pros:
-Great performance
-Appealing simplistic design
-Sturdy build quality
-Backlit Keyboard
-Matte screen is delicious
-Temps are reasonable

Cons:
-HEAVY (Xotic says it's 6.83 lbs without the power brick... which is significant)
-HUGE POWER BRICK

Spoiler

-AMD Driver support for Enduro/7970M isn’t the best (pretty bad, too, with the 7970M underutilization issues, instability, etc.)
-Fans can get VERY loud under load.
-Speakers are sub-par.

Next post will be all benchmarks!

Credits to Briant1234 for the pics!

Useful Links:
Xotic PC's review: XOTIC PC - Sager NP9150 (Clevo P150EM) Video Review - YouTube
HTWingnut's P150EM w/ 680M Review: Here.
thailangod's videos: My first unboxing sager np9150 - YouTube -Unboxing
Sager Np9150 gameplay and screen - YouTube -Gameplay

 

Benchmarks

3DMark 11 (720p): 6559

Cinebench (i7-3610QM): 6.11 pts

SC2 (Extreme,4v4):
Max: 110
Min:12
Average: 58.868
Sounds decent, since it was a 4v4 with my team almost all completely maxed out, on Sand Canyon.

SC2 (Extreme, 1v1):
Max: 92
Min: 61
Average: 79
Still less than NoteBookCheck’s numbers… but still way playable. Was a TvZ on Daybreak LE.

Skyrim (Ultra):
Max: 64
Min: 25
Average: 58.314
Did this benchmark while inside Embershard Mine (near the beginning).

Skyrim (Ultra, fighting a dragon):
Max: 64
Min: 0
Average: 43.599
Fighting the first dragon.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution: Ultra
Max: 68
Min: 28
Avg: 51.863
Seems to be lower than what notebookcheck has. There’s no ultra-preset though, and it may have been running on lower settings with HD 4000 enabled. Can’t be sure.

Battlefield 3 (Ultra preset):
Max: 77
Min: 31
Average: 52
20 more frames than Notebookcheck o.o” I benched “Going Hunting” and “Operation Guillotine”.

Microsoft Flight Simulator X (Everything max, 1080p):
Max:42
Min:9
Average:17.343
Everything was turned to ultra high, flew over JFK Int'l Airport with a Boeing 737, reached 10,000 altitude before saying screw it and nose-diving back down, landing on a highway.

Spoiler

Total War: Shogun 2 (Ultra, 4v4, raining):
Max:79
Min:9
Average:32.419
Pretty intensive game, it ran my GPU up to 74 C. Of course, I pretty much did the maximum maximum settings, so I'm pretty sure in a 1v1 situation you would get much more fps than 30.

Crysis 2 (Ultra, DX11, Hi-Res):
Max:88
Min:14
Average:56.438

Final Fantasy XIV (1080p): Score: 2771 (i think)

Still have to:
Add pictures!
Possibly post gameplay video
Various pictures of included software.

 

Nice review +Rep

Mr. Mysterious

 

Ahaha, verrrrry nice bro (feel free to give me credit for the pics)

 

I've been waiting for someone to post a review like this. Thanks a lot! Also for showing how huge that power brick is....i'm going to hate pulling that out of my backpack when I'm on campus. I'm now also considering the no-branding lid. :-D

 

Nice review and great machine! Congrats!

 

The no branding looks great; I also ordered mine that way. Does the rubberized exterior feel good/durable? Also awesome BF3 FPS!

Did you get the 95% NTSC Color Gamut Matte Display? Or the stock 72% Gamut one?

Both are great; but just curious.

 

I got the standard Matte one, so yes, the stock one.

The rubberized exterior does feel pretty good, although it feels as if it could wear out (no signs of that yet), and feels meh-ish, I can get the screen to flex a little bit under some force...

 

@awakeN Very nice and clean review, thank you +rep

 

Perhaps you should PM Chaz for the NBR Reviewer title..

 

Haha, I will later. Right now, I'm feeling like I was a little too generous of my score and now I'm toughening up my stand on the P150EM.

 

I'm sure it could show wear. But if you take good care of it it will probably last a long time. Even if it ends up showing wear it will still work just fine But yeah hopefully its more durable than that; otherwise why would they have changed it from plastic? hah.

 

dude why is your keyboard all messed up ! fix it !, i think you flipped the picture ?

btw do you think since the difference between the np9150 and np9170 is $50, for about the same config should i go with the 17" since it comes with 2 hdd spots ?

nice review btw thanks.

 

yeah, pic is flipped. too lazy to flip it back, already uploaded all the pics

if you aren't going to be constantly moving your laptop around (like around a college campus) go for the NP9170.

 

yea i won't be moving it outside really but i'll be traveling back and forth that's why i'm going with a laptop instead of a desktop .

noise related question: do you use split unit ac at home or regular loud window AC, if windowed can you hear the laptop over the ac's sound ? but i'm guessing your used to using split unit AC or no ac that's why the laptop sounds loud..
would love a comparison cause i'm used to the window AC sound.

 

Ehh... I'm not sure what you're asking. But I would say the fan is about 50 dB, is that enough information for you to judge the fan noise?

 

The 17" is nice; but I plan on taking my P150EM just about everywhere; friends houses/parents house/school/work. So I'm sticking with the 15.6 and getting a nice big laptop backpack for it; thinking the Targus XL; it's ugly as heck but it can fit this beast of a laptop and a bunch of books + binders. Which I'll need for school and work. Hoping at my job I'm starting in 3 weeks that they let me install the software on my laptop and use it instead of their crummy desktops that are probably 10 years old. I'll have to use some odd software for monitoring gas pressure/levels/temperatures and to crunch some numbers to manage them. So the 3.3ghz quad core will come in handy even though basic calc is not that demanding LOL.

Really want this bad boy in my hands; maxed out BF3 / D3 + using it at school and work = WIN

 

@awakeN,
DUDE, What an amazing review! The only con was that now I'm growing even more impatient and I want this laptop as well, I put the order in, but the new 7970m's aren't in @XoticPC yet.
Hey, did i mention that we are also laptop twins? We both have the EXACT same configurations!
Thanks a bunch!

 

Woot! Maybe then we can compare scores + benchmarks together to see which twin is better >

 

Thank you so much for posing this review, its highly awesome.

Would you consider this portable enough to carry around at university, or would you steer that individual (aka, me ) towards a much lighter option?

 

do you consider around 8-9 lbs of laptop + power brick portable? if so, yes.

otherwise you might be interested in W150ER or smth like that.

 

After seeing the pictures of the keyboard I might return my np9130 with chicklet keyboard for one of these!!

 

Thank you Youve helped me finally decide on something Ive been going between G75 M17x and this for weeks to Xotic i go ALLONS-Y!!!!! XD

 

fyi. the $0.01 came from the "remove branding" option. I noticed it too and xoticpc told me something along the lines of it being necessary for the site to recognize that option being selected....

 

tyvm for the review. im sure with time the AMD drivers will come around,

 

Hopefully the drivers give us another 5-10% increase in performance

I want to be able to run Unreal Engine 4, and the new Cry engine 3.4

Gaming these next few years is going to be ridiculously awesome.

OC this bad boy 20% and BAM!

 

Very nice review, love the pictures, made everything fast to read. gj +rep

 

Excellent review awakeN, haven't seen one this thorough in a while!

 

Great review, and thanks for the details on the specific games. I have just set up my NP9150 and playing D3. Going to test out BF3 tonight.

What are you using to monitor the temps?

 

I would imagine he was using HWiNFO64.

 

Great review and pics. Enjoy!

 

Nice review!
Have you tried/gotten any fan control software working?

 

Eh, i was using Gamebooster 3.5 beta. They might not be the most accurate though. going to try again with HWINFO, hopefully to make sure those numbers I have up are accurate.

Ah, I see, thanks.

Fan control software...?

 

Great review thanks so much!

I noticed you mentioned something about the steelseries keyboard? whats this? i know its only been a day, but how are you liking the keyboarD? does it go soft like the Mb Pros's?

cheers!

 

The Steelseries keyboard was another keyboard choice which I didn't pick so I can't speak about it.

The stock keyboard is fine, it has a nice backlit and doesn't feel cheap at all. I don't know what Mb Pro's are, so... xD But I can say it feels better than the MacBook keyboard.

 

I've heard that manual control of the fan doesn't work. Things like SpeedFan used to be able to do this.

 

Great review. If you could post some benchmarks for Shogun 2 that would be helpful, it is one of the games I play the most and there aren't many laptop benchmarks for it.

 

I'll be on it, I have the game ready to go but ugh, finals soon >< procrastinated enough already...

 

Damn, Shogun 2 ran my GPU up to 74 C, pretty damn intensive game

 

Great Review awakeN!!! Hope you enjoy the machine!!

 

Thank you for the review awakeN!
I'm considering the matte screen as well, did you had to calibrate the screen? I'm asking this because I'm still deciding between stock Matte or 95% color Matte, but it seems that the 95% color needs to be very calibrated to display correctly...

Can you share some feedback on this subject?

Thank you,
Best Regards to all

 

great review awakeN! I'm also interested in the stock matte screen. could you post some more pictures of the screen?

 

I don't exactly have a great camera that'll take pictures of the screen without any glare from the camera.

I didn't have to calibrate the stock matte screen, and I'm loving it, coming from a glossy MacBook owner screen.

 

Thank you for the feedback
Just to be sure your screen is a AUO B156HW01 V1 , right?

Thanks again,
Best Regards to all

 

PHP:

...how can i check that

 

I think it would be under "hardware ids" when you look through the monitor's details through Device Manager.

 

Hmmm... it just says "Generic PnP Monitor".

EDIT: It says LGD02D9

 

Yes. So, right click->properties->"Details" tab->Property "hardware ids"

 

oh yeah i edited my post, it's an LG screen not an AUO one

 

You're welcome !?