"there are users that want this sort of system, and this review is targeted at that audience. Everything clear? Good, let's continue."
these users need professional help!
Why? It's that hard to imagine that there are people (as me) who are travelling a lot (and working in different countries) AND who want a system, what is good for work and playing with the latest games? Travelling with a desktop PC is rather difficult...
The truth is that I bought this rig in a refurbished (but perfect) condition for 1800USD, and for this price I think it wan't a bad deal. I wouldn't have paid 2000+USD for it either...
I for one find the Qosmio's shape horrible, but the computer is a decent one. That Clevo smokes it on most benchmarks though, and does look nice as well. Where would you buy one online?
AVA Direct, Sager, and WidowPC all come to mind immediately. Eurocom is another option. The last I looked, I think Sager was actually the cheapest place for a fully equipped Clevo D901C system, but that can change at any time. Also, as I mentioned in a blog post, Clevo is coming out with the D900F that will use Core i7 desktop CPUs, so if you want more performance that's an option come ~April.
I'm away from home for up to 220 days per year, so without my Sager (Clevo 901C) I wouldn't be able to play the games I want, ever. My limited time at home needs to be spent keeping up the house/yard and with the family. I only get to game on the road, hence the utility of these types of notebooks - it's obviously a niche, but it seems like almost everything is these days.
How come the specs of the laptops being compared against aren't all listed? It'd be nice to know what kind of hardware you're pitting this laptop against. It'd also be nice to perhaps put the CPU/GPU of each laptop next to its name in the charts.
Nice article, but I'd like to request that you put a "higher is better" or "lower is better", or whatever determines better for each of color graphs. Only the last one says "lower is better" and I'm completely naive to these tests.
All of the graphs are sorted so that the better scores are at the top of the charts. As for what the terms mean, I discuss that more in depth in an article I http://www.anandtech.com/displays/showdoc.aspx?i=2...">wrote a while back. In terms of what they should be, normally I'm fine with a maximum brightness of 200 nits, and a contrast ratio of 500:1 or better.
Color accuracy and gamut are nice to have, but if you don't do image editing or color matching it often doesn't matter. If that's the case, good black levels might be more important than raw color accuracy. Watch a movie on a display with a poor black level, and even if the colors were accurate you'd likely be somewhat annoyed by the missing blacks.
That makes it much easier. Maybe just a single line (if you don't want to put Lower/Higher is better) at the beginning of the section saying they are ranked from best to worst in each of the graphs? For instance, I have a pretty good understanding of calibration from performing maintainence on my RPTV, and so things like contrast, black level, color bleed into white, etc. I get. So I get that contrast ratio should be high, but didn't necessarily think the black level number should be low (makes sense now, but not when I was first viewing the charts).
Anyways very nice review. I especially liked that you qualified the review in the first paragraph (and reiterated throughout) stating whom this laptop is targeted at which should (hopefully) limit the regular criticisms in the comments section against this niche market. I personally don't have a use for it, but enjoy reading about the new mobile pseudo-desktops, and certainly understand their value for several different professions.
Now go and pressure Anand for the SSD roundup! :) Please...
A business power user needs some mobility. I use a laptop as my main business computer. It would be nice to have something to play games at an ok rate. But given the bugs, let alone the power issues, I wouldn't. I need some mobility and I need my data and system operational to make revenue.
A plain gamer/laptop lover wouldn't because it isn't a top performer, and thats why they buy.
I used to travel a lot between point A and point B and wanted a good gaming system at both places. I was considering a gaming laptop for a while but ended up building myself a Shuttle SFF system instead. Fit perfectly in the backpack together with my other belongings, cost about 1/4th of a gaming laptop and offered 95% of the performance of a full tower system. I just used a cheap 19" CRT monitor at one place and the LCD at the other. Amazing how small and light that system was.
Of course if you travel a lot between many different location, this kind of laptop might make sense. Just hook it up when you arrive at the hotel room, cabin etc., and you've got a full gaming setup. Of course, if you don't care about games, you'd be better served by a netbook or 13" laptop...
with the AMD/Ati 4850 and 4870 for mobile... why these companies still use the renamed 9400/9500/9600/9800gt/gtx...? and what it worse some people think the GTX 280M is the same as the deskstop counterpart but is really a 9800GTX...
AMD has a good oportunity if more OEM embrace the 4850/4870 for the enthusiast notebook segment like MSI has done and if they introduce low power(HE) quads and triple cores for this segment that would be a nice move...
with $1500+- you could build something better with a compal/saeger barebone...
Sager doesn't make barebones, I don't think; they use Clevo offerings. But yes, you can put together a better custom system I think. Pricing might not be much better, though.
I'v had similar expiriences with my qosmio. The problems in the old drivers. have to uninstall them (twice) from the safe mode. and then install the newest nvidia drivers. Mine used to lock up randomly. Now everything works perfectly.
I've had several laptops over the years. Best fix I've found for stability is to blitz the manufacturers build asap and slap on a fresh build with the latest OS. Go to the manufacturers site for drivers that you cant find elsewhere as they will generally be two or three versions on from the ones the laptop came with.
FWIW, the instability issue always cropped up with a graphics application - game - running. (Well, there was the SysInfo issue with 3D/PCMark Vantage, but that's clearly a driver problem that they addressed.) I did run Folding@Home SMP on the laptop non-stop for several days with no crashes caused there. I did not test the GPU folding client, though, which would have been interesting to check now that I think about it.
Personally, I do not run Folding@Home on laptops (anymore); it just places a huge load on the system and is almost asking your laptop to die a premature death. For that matter, I've stopped running it on most of my desktops as well - power costs for all the running computers were too much, so it's much cheaper to just leave them off when they're not in use.
Be funny to people? My notebook is my main system...I mean why not?
Anyway, I'm so glad Anandtech is continuing to cover power laptops!
I hate how gaudy this is, but I'd certainly consider it if not for the lack of Blu Ray and LED backlight. I actually prefer the single high end GPU route...
Plus obviously the instability is disturbing. Must be a hardware defect somewhere, or else a bad driver. I've been Folding non stop on the CPU and GPU of my (much lower end) Asus n80 with a Penryn/Geforce 9650GT and it hasn't crashed once.
17" is too large for a notebook in my opinion, even a gaming one. 15.4" widescreen @ 1680x1050 would be perfect. Also how did they manage to make this thing so goddamn thick?!
I've had 2 of the Gateway FX series of notebooks, the first one was the 3mb Vista 32 version with a slower dual core, but it seemed to run games "ok"-WoW, TF2, AoC. Sadly the monitor got stepped on, so now this one is beside the TV functioning as the home media server and does a fine job of that. The first Gateway cost around 1300, then last one was 1050 but they are going for 1150 in Bestbuy now. The newer Gateway has the 2.6 mhz cpu, 4 gb ddr3 and a nicer screen and I find it handles whatever games I throw at it reasonably well. Battery life is about 2 hours, and the large keyboard lets you get work done efficiently.
I think I'll wait until Gateway comes out with their quadcore system, both of mine have been really stable, offer nice performance, and aside from the size and weight of the 17 form factor I can't really knock them.
The Gateway FX P-7808u is now shipping, though the price is higher than the last FX "mainstream" model at around $1700 right now. You can http://www.jr.com/gateway/pe/GTW_P7808U/">buy it here if you're interested, or wait another week or two for my review. Short summary looking at the specs is that they've upgraded the CPU substantially (Q9000), but the LCD is back to the 1440x900 of the P-6831. That does make gaming at the native resolution more viable with the single 9800M GTS, though.
I stopped reading as soon as I read NVIDIA. Three years of defective GPUs that disintegrate under heat and a manufacturer chooses them for a high performance (high temperature) premium gaming notebook.
The instability of the machine seems a very big issue to me. I definitely wouldn't spend $2000+ on a machine that hard boots when you try playing a number of different games! Considering that is what this designed for (mobile gaming) that is a serious issue for me and would definitely make this a "non-buy".
These type of computers are made for people like me, I travel the world for work and have been a gamer since the 70's and pong. I don't own this particular one, I have a Clevo M571TU, ( can be bought as SagerNotebook.com and some others) but I was looking to see what the competition has, if you go to the Clevo site, you'll see what awesome machines these are. Yes, the brick and all the that stuff travel around with me, and I play games like Crysis, Far Cry, Fear 2, WOW, all sorts, these machines are great. This is my second Clevo I'm on now, after 3 years with the old one, I wanted to update the technology, people in my family were clamoring to get the old one, these are very stought machines, yes, costly, especially completely decked out like I get them, but worth every penny for the gaming road warrior, and believe me, I've met quite a few.
Uhm, yeah, that would be me. My $1,800 Dell E1705 Inspiron went from being a pretty decent portable DX8/9 gaming system and DVD movie player in 2006 to basically a websurfer today that sits in the living room next to the remote for when I want to surf and watch TV simultaneously. Damn if only I could have that money back - playing HL2 and other games while traveling for work (that I already played at home on a real gaming bo anyway). It just wasn't worth it in the long run. But I was happy in the beginning - sounds like all my former relationships too, LOL.
Now, I won't dispute that an SFF (well, uATX system - SFFs have their own set of problems) is a more cost-effective solution for gaming, offers better performance, and is expandable. However, it is a far cry from being transportable like a DTR setup. Throw in the fact that many proprietary SFFs are not particularly cheap (Shuttle) and quality control on those same SFFs is poor in my experience, and I'd say if you really want to game on the road the DTR market is worth a serious look. You still might go with an SFF, but only if you don't actually travel+game all that much.
I agree with the SFF notion except for a few points.
The first point would be that no reputable mini-ITX motherboard manufacturer sells a motherboard with 16x PCI-e. Sure, you could always *attempt* to play games with the onboard graphics, but you're most likely going to be very disappointed.
Second point would be power usage if that is a concern ( which for me it can be since we're solar/wind power ). a SFF system built with care, and plenty of thought can still be a power house ( subjective ), and use ~50W without a beefy graphics card. However, you will find it very hard to beat a laptop in power usage just because of the LCD you have to hook up to that SFF system. A typical 19" WS LCD such as the one I have will use 23W all by its self which can put a damper on this aspect of the idea.
Another point would be cutting edge technology on SFF mini-ITX boards. I have yet to find a mini-ITX board of current that will address more than 4GB of RAM, a lot of them only have two DIMM slots. Let us not forget that a lot of graphics editors could use such a system ( I am one ), and even 4GB of RAM is cutting it close if you want to do any *real* image manipulation. The of course you have outdated chipsets on a lot of these boards that make them not even worth purchasing in my own personal opinion.
Anyhow, I suppose if you did not mind using a mATX board, you may be able to come out ahead on some of all of these issues ( plus many more I did not even address ). But if you're looking for a mini-ITX board that either uses laptop or desktop based CPU's . . . well, I just think that we're al going to be SOL for a long time to come yet.
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Beno - Thursday, March 19, 2009 - link
"there are users that want this sort of system, and this review is targeted at that audience. Everything clear? Good, let's continue."these users need professional help!
szcsongor - Thursday, September 3, 2009 - link
Why? It's that hard to imagine that there are people (as me) who are travelling a lot (and working in different countries) AND who want a system, what is good for work and playing with the latest games? Travelling with a desktop PC is rather difficult...The truth is that I bought this rig in a refurbished (but perfect) condition for 1800USD, and for this price I think it wan't a bad deal. I wouldn't have paid 2000+USD for it either...
InternetGeek - Sunday, March 15, 2009 - link
I for one find the Qosmio's shape horrible, but the computer is a decent one. That Clevo smokes it on most benchmarks though, and does look nice as well. Where would you buy one online?JarredWalton - Sunday, March 15, 2009 - link
AVA Direct, Sager, and WidowPC all come to mind immediately. Eurocom is another option. The last I looked, I think Sager was actually the cheapest place for a fully equipped Clevo D901C system, but that can change at any time. Also, as I mentioned in a blog post, Clevo is coming out with the D900F that will use Core i7 desktop CPUs, so if you want more performance that's an option come ~April.Globemaster - Friday, March 13, 2009 - link
I'm away from home for up to 220 days per year, so without my Sager (Clevo 901C) I wouldn't be able to play the games I want, ever. My limited time at home needs to be spent keeping up the house/yard and with the family. I only get to game on the road, hence the utility of these types of notebooks - it's obviously a niche, but it seems like almost everything is these days.vj8usa - Thursday, March 12, 2009 - link
How come the specs of the laptops being compared against aren't all listed? It'd be nice to know what kind of hardware you're pitting this laptop against. It'd also be nice to perhaps put the CPU/GPU of each laptop next to its name in the charts.JarredWalton - Thursday, March 12, 2009 - link
If you visit the http://www.anandtech.com/mobile/">Mobile section of our site, you'll be able to find all the specs of recently tested laptops. Most of them are in the http://www.anandtech.com/mobile/showdoc.aspx?i=339...">gaming laptop roundup, and then there's a http://www.anandtech.com/mobile/showdoc.aspx?i=341...">couple more http://www.anandtech.com/mobile/showdoc.aspx?i=343...">laptop roundups. The http://www.anandtech.com/mobile/showdoc.aspx?i=337...">Gateway P-7811 was covered in a separate article. I suppose I could try to include specs, but the problem is with this many laptops included in results the specs page would get very long. I sort of assume people that follow the mobile articles have read the previous reviews and know what to expect, but that's obviously not the case all the time.7Enigma - Thursday, March 12, 2009 - link
Nice article, but I'd like to request that you put a "higher is better" or "lower is better", or whatever determines better for each of color graphs. Only the last one says "lower is better" and I'm completely naive to these tests.JarredWalton - Thursday, March 12, 2009 - link
All of the graphs are sorted so that the better scores are at the top of the charts. As for what the terms mean, I discuss that more in depth in an article I http://www.anandtech.com/displays/showdoc.aspx?i=2...">wrote a while back. In terms of what they should be, normally I'm fine with a maximum brightness of 200 nits, and a contrast ratio of 500:1 or better.Color accuracy and gamut are nice to have, but if you don't do image editing or color matching it often doesn't matter. If that's the case, good black levels might be more important than raw color accuracy. Watch a movie on a display with a poor black level, and even if the colors were accurate you'd likely be somewhat annoyed by the missing blacks.
Hope that helps some.
7Enigma - Thursday, March 12, 2009 - link
That makes it much easier. Maybe just a single line (if you don't want to put Lower/Higher is better) at the beginning of the section saying they are ranked from best to worst in each of the graphs? For instance, I have a pretty good understanding of calibration from performing maintainence on my RPTV, and so things like contrast, black level, color bleed into white, etc. I get. So I get that contrast ratio should be high, but didn't necessarily think the black level number should be low (makes sense now, but not when I was first viewing the charts).Anyways very nice review. I especially liked that you qualified the review in the first paragraph (and reiterated throughout) stating whom this laptop is targeted at which should (hopefully) limit the regular criticisms in the comments section against this niche market. I personally don't have a use for it, but enjoy reading about the new mobile pseudo-desktops, and certainly understand their value for several different professions.
Now go and pressure Anand for the SSD roundup! :) Please...
Dfere - Thursday, March 12, 2009 - link
A business power user needs some mobility. I use a laptop as my main business computer. It would be nice to have something to play games at an ok rate. But given the bugs, let alone the power issues, I wouldn't. I need some mobility and I need my data and system operational to make revenue.A plain gamer/laptop lover wouldn't because it isn't a top performer, and thats why they buy.
JimmiG - Thursday, March 12, 2009 - link
I used to travel a lot between point A and point B and wanted a good gaming system at both places. I was considering a gaming laptop for a while but ended up building myself a Shuttle SFF system instead. Fit perfectly in the backpack together with my other belongings, cost about 1/4th of a gaming laptop and offered 95% of the performance of a full tower system. I just used a cheap 19" CRT monitor at one place and the LCD at the other. Amazing how small and light that system was.Of course if you travel a lot between many different location, this kind of laptop might make sense. Just hook it up when you arrive at the hotel room, cabin etc., and you've got a full gaming setup. Of course, if you don't care about games, you'd be better served by a netbook or 13" laptop...
Enoc - Wednesday, March 11, 2009 - link
with the AMD/Ati 4850 and 4870 for mobile... why these companies still use the renamed 9400/9500/9600/9800gt/gtx...? and what it worse some people think the GTX 280M is the same as the deskstop counterpart but is really a 9800GTX...
AMD has a good oportunity if more OEM embrace the 4850/4870 for the enthusiast notebook segment like MSI has done and if they introduce low power(HE) quads and triple cores for this segment that would be a nice move...
with $1500+- you could build something better with a compal/saeger barebone...
JarredWalton - Thursday, March 12, 2009 - link
Sager doesn't make barebones, I don't think; they use Clevo offerings. But yes, you can put together a better custom system I think. Pricing might not be much better, though.Memph - Wednesday, March 11, 2009 - link
I'v had similar expiriences with my qosmio. The problems in the old drivers. have to uninstall them (twice) from the safe mode. and then install the newest nvidia drivers. Mine used to lock up randomly. Now everything works perfectly.jabber - Wednesday, March 11, 2009 - link
I've had several laptops over the years. Best fix I've found for stability is to blitz the manufacturers build asap and slap on a fresh build with the latest OS. Go to the manufacturers site for drivers that you cant find elsewhere as they will generally be two or three versions on from the ones the laptop came with.There will also be a new BIOS update usually.
Has always got rid of the quirks for me.
JarredWalton - Wednesday, March 11, 2009 - link
FWIW, the instability issue always cropped up with a graphics application - game - running. (Well, there was the SysInfo issue with 3D/PCMark Vantage, but that's clearly a driver problem that they addressed.) I did run Folding@Home SMP on the laptop non-stop for several days with no crashes caused there. I did not test the GPU folding client, though, which would have been interesting to check now that I think about it.Personally, I do not run Folding@Home on laptops (anymore); it just places a huge load on the system and is almost asking your laptop to die a premature death. For that matter, I've stopped running it on most of my desktops as well - power costs for all the running computers were too much, so it's much cheaper to just leave them off when they're not in use.
Wolfpup - Wednesday, March 11, 2009 - link
Be funny to people? My notebook is my main system...I mean why not?Anyway, I'm so glad Anandtech is continuing to cover power laptops!
I hate how gaudy this is, but I'd certainly consider it if not for the lack of Blu Ray and LED backlight. I actually prefer the single high end GPU route...
Plus obviously the instability is disturbing. Must be a hardware defect somewhere, or else a bad driver. I've been Folding non stop on the CPU and GPU of my (much lower end) Asus n80 with a Penryn/Geforce 9650GT and it hasn't crashed once.
piroroadkill - Wednesday, March 11, 2009 - link
17" is too large for a notebook in my opinion, even a gaming one. 15.4" widescreen @ 1680x1050 would be perfect. Also how did they manage to make this thing so goddamn thick?!Blahman - Friday, March 13, 2009 - link
Check this one out, matches your requirements exactly: http://www.msimobile.com/level3_productpage.aspx?c...">http://www.msimobile.com/level3_productpage.aspx?c...Morelian - Wednesday, March 11, 2009 - link
I've had 2 of the Gateway FX series of notebooks, the first one was the 3mb Vista 32 version with a slower dual core, but it seemed to run games "ok"-WoW, TF2, AoC. Sadly the monitor got stepped on, so now this one is beside the TV functioning as the home media server and does a fine job of that. The first Gateway cost around 1300, then last one was 1050 but they are going for 1150 in Bestbuy now. The newer Gateway has the 2.6 mhz cpu, 4 gb ddr3 and a nicer screen and I find it handles whatever games I throw at it reasonably well. Battery life is about 2 hours, and the large keyboard lets you get work done efficiently.I think I'll wait until Gateway comes out with their quadcore system, both of mine have been really stable, offer nice performance, and aside from the size and weight of the 17 form factor I can't really knock them.
JarredWalton - Wednesday, March 11, 2009 - link
The Gateway FX P-7808u is now shipping, though the price is higher than the last FX "mainstream" model at around $1700 right now. You can http://www.jr.com/gateway/pe/GTW_P7808U/">buy it here if you're interested, or wait another week or two for my review. Short summary looking at the specs is that they've upgraded the CPU substantially (Q9000), but the LCD is back to the 1440x900 of the P-6831. That does make gaming at the native resolution more viable with the single 9800M GTS, though.Pessimism - Wednesday, March 11, 2009 - link
I stopped reading as soon as I read NVIDIA. Three years of defective GPUs that disintegrate under heat and a manufacturer chooses them for a high performance (high temperature) premium gaming notebook.Exar3342 - Wednesday, March 11, 2009 - link
The instability of the machine seems a very big issue to me. I definitely wouldn't spend $2000+ on a machine that hard boots when you try playing a number of different games! Considering that is what this designed for (mobile gaming) that is a serious issue for me and would definitely make this a "non-buy".jabber - Wednesday, March 11, 2009 - link
Cant help but think what $2000 of desktop PC components would give me rather then this....thing?I've known several folks that have bought such monster laptops and all have regretted it later.
Filed under "Seemed like a good idea at the time!"
Dakkota - Sunday, March 15, 2009 - link
These type of computers are made for people like me, I travel the world for work and have been a gamer since the 70's and pong. I don't own this particular one, I have a Clevo M571TU, ( can be bought as SagerNotebook.com and some others) but I was looking to see what the competition has, if you go to the Clevo site, you'll see what awesome machines these are. Yes, the brick and all the that stuff travel around with me, and I play games like Crysis, Far Cry, Fear 2, WOW, all sorts, these machines are great. This is my second Clevo I'm on now, after 3 years with the old one, I wanted to update the technology, people in my family were clamoring to get the old one, these are very stought machines, yes, costly, especially completely decked out like I get them, but worth every penny for the gaming road warrior, and believe me, I've met quite a few.Nfarce - Wednesday, March 11, 2009 - link
Uhm, yeah, that would be me. My $1,800 Dell E1705 Inspiron went from being a pretty decent portable DX8/9 gaming system and DVD movie player in 2006 to basically a websurfer today that sits in the living room next to the remote for when I want to surf and watch TV simultaneously. Damn if only I could have that money back - playing HL2 and other games while traveling for work (that I already played at home on a real gaming bo anyway). It just wasn't worth it in the long run. But I was happy in the beginning - sounds like all my former relationships too, LOL.GaryJohnson - Wednesday, March 11, 2009 - link
I think a lot of people who want portable gaming PCs would be better served with SFF desktops.crimson117 - Friday, March 13, 2009 - link
And little portable LCD monitors?JarredWalton - Friday, March 13, 2009 - link
I guess I look at it this way. For a gaming notebook you need to take the following if you want to play games on the road:1) Notebook
2) Power brick
3) Mouse
For an SFF, you need:
1) Main SFF box (plus cords)
2) LCD display (plus cords)
3) Mouse
4) Keyboard
5) Headphones
Now, I won't dispute that an SFF (well, uATX system - SFFs have their own set of problems) is a more cost-effective solution for gaming, offers better performance, and is expandable. However, it is a far cry from being transportable like a DTR setup. Throw in the fact that many proprietary SFFs are not particularly cheap (Shuttle) and quality control on those same SFFs is poor in my experience, and I'd say if you really want to game on the road the DTR market is worth a serious look. You still might go with an SFF, but only if you don't actually travel+game all that much.
yyrkoon - Thursday, March 12, 2009 - link
I agree with the SFF notion except for a few points.The first point would be that no reputable mini-ITX motherboard manufacturer sells a motherboard with 16x PCI-e. Sure, you could always *attempt* to play games with the onboard graphics, but you're most likely going to be very disappointed.
Second point would be power usage if that is a concern ( which for me it can be since we're solar/wind power ). a SFF system built with care, and plenty of thought can still be a power house ( subjective ), and use ~50W without a beefy graphics card. However, you will find it very hard to beat a laptop in power usage just because of the LCD you have to hook up to that SFF system. A typical 19" WS LCD such as the one I have will use 23W all by its self which can put a damper on this aspect of the idea.
Another point would be cutting edge technology on SFF mini-ITX boards. I have yet to find a mini-ITX board of current that will address more than 4GB of RAM, a lot of them only have two DIMM slots. Let us not forget that a lot of graphics editors could use such a system ( I am one ), and even 4GB of RAM is cutting it close if you want to do any *real* image manipulation. The of course you have outdated chipsets on a lot of these boards that make them not even worth purchasing in my own personal opinion.
Anyhow, I suppose if you did not mind using a mATX board, you may be able to come out ahead on some of all of these issues ( plus many more I did not even address ). But if you're looking for a mini-ITX board that either uses laptop or desktop based CPU's . . . well, I just think that we're al going to be SOL for a long time to come yet.
cheetah2k - Thursday, March 12, 2009 - link
Definately a white elephant. Not only that, wheres the subjective review vs a comparitive Dell XPS 1730?