My dealings with XOTIC PC - join me as I go through this process.

Recently got a chance to do the upgrade to the 970m that I wanted to. Went ahead shopping around for what I wanted. Realized I could get A LOT of what I wanted from a Sager laptop. Prices were decent, and the reviews for QA and just general product quality was INCREDIBLE for Sager. I have heard of them from years before and know they go the whole custom laptop route.

Started looking for deals and realized XOTIC did Sager machines too, you order, they get it from Sager, add your custom options, send it to you after testing it, and they give you a 1 year full warranty to boot. Nice.

End up spending $100 less on the NP8268-S buying from XOTIC than buying directly from Sager.

http://www.xoticpc.com/sager-np8268s-clevo-p150sma-p-6987.html

Get a few custom options, upgrade the CPU to the i7-4810MQ for an extra $35, have the RAM moved from 1 stick of 8GB to 2 sticks of 4GB so I can take advantage of Dual channel for another $10, dropped the SSD and stuck with the 750gb 7200rpm drive (cause I can upgrade to a 240-256gb ssd, get a used one from the forums). Essentially, after all is said and done, with free shipping, spend $1396. Not bad.

Now, I know I'm not gonna get this right away, and I understood that. I also understood cause the site clearly explains it, it does not come with an OS. Thats fine, I got Windows 8.1 retail, no worries.

Enter Phase 0. Phase 0 with XOTIC is essentially, your order makes it to a sales reps desk, they do your initial CC or however you pay, and move it from their desk to Phase 1 which would be a tech desk.

I get a call, sale rep from XOTIC, explains all the ins and outs of the process to me (including making sure I was aware there was no OS installed). Asks if I have any requests for phase 0, sure, hold off my charge till tomorrow after 1 so I can ensure a payment to my CC went through. No problems at all. Next day, I get a call from same sales rep, (at 1:05) lets me know its been processed and is approved, shes moving it to Phase 1 for me.

Phase 1 begins, I get a call from the technician whose beginning work on my laptop, essentially he informs me he has contacted Sager to receive the laptop with the basic items I requested, when it arrives he will install the advanced items and from there, move it to Phase 2 which is testing, QA, etc.

So that's where I sit at this time. I want to keep everyone up to date, because honestly, I was NOT expecting this kind of service for a laptop purchase. Having everything clearly laid out, and everyone there being incredibly polite, it really surprised me.

If there quality continues down into the product, than in 3 years when its time for me to up the laptop to a new one, I will stay with XOTIC.

Anyway, will update, and when product arrives, I will un-box.

Well darn. With so much negativity on the internet, I was expecting another rant. You pleasantly surprised me with another possible company to add to my trusted buying list.

Thank you! Keep us updated on your purchase.

I have a 2yr old xoticpc sager laptop, i had excellent service as well

I can't complain too much about them, but when I ordered mine they said they ran out of steelseries keyboards and had to change it. I told them to cancel the order and 5 minutes later they called back and said they found one...


Lol but I am probably going to order soon from them.... just hate waiting on the build time. I'm so impatient.

Bowhuntr11 said:

I can't complain too much about them, but when I ordered mine they said they ran out of steelseries keyboards and had to change it. I told them to cancel the order and 5 minutes later they called back and said they found one...


Lol but I am probably going to order soon from them.... just hate waiting on the build time. I'm so impatient.

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I think that was my problem, I am very impatient..... But with them calling, I am happy cause now I know whats happening which calms me down a lot.

Over the past several years I have ordered Clevo's through XoticPC (Sager), Mythlogic, and Eurocomm. XoticPC was by far the best I dealt with, which is why my current system is on order with them. If you haven't yet Freaky, head over to Notebookreview.com under their Clevo/Sager section there's a Reseller Feedback section, you can have an ongoing experience thread there and there's a few XoticPC reps there as well if you ever need a question answered or advice.

I got my MSI GhostPro 44 (with the 970M) via Amazon (who got it from Xotic)

Granted I just got it as it came (which is perfect for me) but the process was DAMN fast. I was happy b/c going through Amazon I got 5% cashback ^_^

That sounds like a bunch of bullshit and wasted time on the phone to me.

I for one will never order from XoticPC, back in 2009Ish era, I bought a laptop from their company. The laptop was missing a sticker with the serial number on it, (common for this laptop, asi rebadge), Sometime later a issue came up with the hinges on the laptop and Xotic told me to pound sand, sending the laptop back to me in the process. I now let my $ go to other vendors before I would ever order or recommend Xotic to anyone.

Geez, 2-3 hours of battery time. Ouch. I know that thing needs a lot of power.

Here I thought my Asus was kind of bad cause I only get 4-5 hours on it (not a gaming laptop by any means).

While 2-3 hours isn't too hot -- for the size this thing is... I think it's not too bad at all. Ultra thin and ultra light, but plug it in and you have THE latest GPU for mobile gaming.

It gets toasty when gaming - but it's on a desk and not in your lap. Hell my crappy old Dell had HD3000 or 4000 (I forgot) and the battery was shot where I'd only get 1 hour (and it was way heavier and thicker.

My only complaint so far is their touchpad... integrating it into a single piece with no "buttons" just sucks for the way I use it... I keep one finger on the button area and one to move the mouse around, for the most part it's able to keep track, but sometimes it gets confused and thinks I'm trying to zoom or rotate.

unfortunately, the trackpad fad of integrating it into a single piece extends passed Clevo barebones, even my wife's work grade Lenovo Thinkpad has the trackpad as a single piece with the buttons built in.

Mad[H]atter;1041190899 said:

unfortunately, the trackpad fad of integrating it into a single piece extends passed Clevo barebones, even my wife's work grade Lenovo Thinkpad has the trackpad as a single piece with the buttons built in.

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And its a piece of trash!

I don't care for trachpads at all, but I use a G602 mouse and when I don't have it handy, the Thinkpad has the built in nipple to use.

Have bought four machines now with Xotic, always great service. It's hugely impressive getting someone on a CS line who actually knows what their talking about which has been my experience with them.

In general, you'll get this kind of service with many of the Sager/MSI gaming laptop resellers e.g., powernotebooks, mythlogic.

As for Sager/Clevos, you should know what you're getting when you buy: middling design and ergonomics for a solid build, good price and second-to-none performance.

Mythlogic is not a sager reseller, nor do they have near the service I would expect from a builder. I really wanted to like them and support a Michigan business, but it's not worth my time to jump through their hoops and wait days for answers when I can goto a Sager reseller like Xotic and get actual good support.

Edit* Just so no one is confused, Clevo is the OEM manufacturer of barebone laptops, Sager then builds on the Clevo barebones and distributes through several resellers like XoticPC, Powernotebooks, and sells them themselves at sagernotebooks.com. The Sager resellers act as a middleman between Sager and yourself, even repairs are usually done by Sager. Companies like Mythlogic take the Clevo barebones and build them themselves (nothing to do with Sager other then the fact they have the same barebones), you can find several companies actually using the Clevo barebones in their laptop lines.

So yesterday, e-mail, phase 3 began.

Today, e-mail, phase 7.
Got my tracking #, should be here Friday!

LOVE the updates.

Nice Freaky, I just hit phase 2.

Same laptop ordered few weeks back. Dropped in a 512 GB Crucial SSD. XoticPC was excellent to deal with. I also custom ordered mine with all the branding removed and covered the entire outer shell with some 3M carbon fiber. Clean just like my F32... gets a lot of interested looks and compliments.

I ordered a P180 from xotic and promptly returned it. Had a failure in both the GPU and the monitor, when trying to get things sorted out the rep literally said it was my fault and i was stupid for picking an AMD GPU of Nvidia, will absolutely never deal with the company again

I have an MSI gaming laptop I got from XOTIC that served me well while I was waiting to get a new PC built.. It's a good backup too.

Seems like a lot of good reviews for XOTIC with some people who just unfortunately had a bad experience.

Either way, tomorrow is the day.

Now I just gotto save up some more cash, get an SSD and the memory upgrade. Will probably have to wait till after XMAS, but at least I can call it an upgrade

Delivered

Waiting to go home and open that puppy up after I get outta work!

So? How are you liking it, FrEaKy? Any issues? Was it packed nicely for shipping? Any other calls from XOTIC?

TBH, the packaging could leave a little more to be desired, it was packed well enough that it was safe, but not enough for peace of mind.

After I installed Windows 8 and all my updates, its flawless and works wonderfully.

I went from 33FPS on 1080p low settings in Star Citizen with a 860m to around 45-50FPS on 1080p medium settings in Star Citizen with the 970m.

I am readying to post a review of the laptop tonight on my youtube;
HelloHardware

Sooooooooooooooooooo

Been loving the laptop, having fun, etc.

Today, turn it on, start working in windows, my 3 left lights start to blink (Caps, Num, Scroll) and than the system starts to beep. 1 minute later, shuts itself down. Okay....

Start system back up, go straight into BIOS, lights start to blink after 10 seconds, beeps commence, system shuts down after 1 minute.

Check to make sure all fans are working, they are, great!

Re-seat the RAM, turn it on, same thing.

Call Sager, guy has me make sure again the fans are spinning. Than says the GPU has failed.

Have now placed an RMA on my laptop. Hopefully I can get it back quick, I really REALLY needed it for this weekend but now looks like I'm on hold now.

sucks man -- i'd expect a turnaround time of less than a week if I was paying high dollar

I have a Maxwell based MSI - 970m chip. and for almost 2000 dollars, if this fucker fails, I want RAPID turn around.

Especially since it's my only laptop and means of entertainment here stuck on an oil rig for 30+ days at a time.

collegeboy69us said:

sucks man -- i'd expect a turnaround time of less than a week if I was paying high dollar

I have a Maxwell based MSI - 970m chip. and for almost 2000 dollars, if this fucker fails, I want RAPID turn around.

Especially since it's my only laptop and means of entertainment here stuck on an oil rig for 30+ days at a time.

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Yeah

I do a lot of my side work with the laptop (Dreamweaver, Photoshop) so if I am down for 1 weekend, I can deal with it, but its still a potential loss of $2-300, if I am down for 2, thats a major potential loss to me.

Already got my RMA label and info from XOTIC, took them about 18 hours total, not bad. I will send it out in the AM tomorrow and see what the turn around time for all this is.

So another GPU failure from xotix...seems fishy when my card failed within a few days from them before i got fed up and returned the entire thing

VladDracule said:

So another GPU failure from xotix...seems fishy when my card failed within a few days from them before i got fed up and returned the entire thing

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Im not at the fed up stage at all, one mistake, it happens, msi had a few reports of some 970m's going back as well, so did ASUS. Not gonna get mad if a card fails. Now, if it fails a second time, than I might be going for the refund.

VladDracule said:

So another GPU failure from xotix...seems fishy when my card failed within a few days from them before i got fed up and returned the entire thing

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I'd be less inclined to think its xotic directly -- unless each of these failures was a case where "extra" was paid for them to put their special thermal compunt on the CPU/GPU.

If thats not the case you can't really blame them on a manufacturing defect. All they can really do is try to shine through when it comes to support and rapid turnaround.

collegeboy69us said:

I'd be less inclined to think its xotic directly -- unless each of these failures was a case where "extra" was paid for them to put their special thermal compunt on the CPU/GPU.

If thats not the case you can't really blame them on a manufacturing defect. All they can really do is try to shine through when it comes to support and rapid turnaround.

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Exactly.

Mine came with the IC compound, which wasn't a paid for extra, it wasn't even an option.

But seriously, I am checking up on Sager right now, three distinct models they have had a few issues regarding this same problem with the 970m. So might be a Sager issue more than anything, but if they can fix this in a timely manner and it be fine throughout the rest of my warranty (which I may up to the full 3 years now), than I am happy cause I need it to last for 3 years before my next one

I got my 8278 from Xotic PC and they were awesome all the way through. Even with adding the custom build to their Amazon listing so i could pay for it with my International CC over Amazon as they did not take it specifically.

I will always go to Xotic for any Laptop needs for me or anyone else i know.

MrGuvernment said:

I got my 8278 from Xotic PC and they were awesome all the way through. Even with adding the custom build to their Amazon listing so i could pay for it with my International CC over Amazon as they did not take it specifically.

I will always go to Xotic for any Laptop needs for me or anyone else i know.

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Awesome....

Mine made it back to the facility for its repairs, should see it in a week.

Did you get the laptop back?

txsizzler said:

Did you get the laptop back?

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Negatory

UPS pre-paid label was for 3 day shipping, it took them 7 business days to get it to XOTIC, XOTIC had it on Wednesday this week, did not receive any updates since. I will be calling them tomorrow.

Before I even picked up the phone to call I get an e-mail from XOTIC, was a little garbled, but essentially said system was on its way back, but with no notes and no proper tracking #.

Called XOTIC, spoke with Barry, very chill dude. Did some research for me, saw what happened, got an e-mail instantly with a proper tracking #. He said there was still no notes, so would find out what happened.

Got another e-mail a few minutes earlier, VGA card has been replaced. Good nuff.

Check the tracking, was sent 3 days, so should be here Wednesday, however, note shows early delivery of tomorrow

UPS must love me?

Check again today on the tracking, which originally showed 3-day shipping, should arrive Wednesday, but with Early delivery on-time for a Tuesday (TODAY!)

Checked again......

Rescheduled. Thursday delivery, with POSSIBLY late delivery Friday - Monday End of Day

WTF UPS!!!!

UPS delivered, will check it when I get home, yay.