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My dealings with XOTIC PC - join me as I go through this process.
- Thread starter FrEaKy
- Start date
FrEaKy
[H] Movie and TV Show Review Guy
- Joined
- Jan 31, 2003
- Messages
- 14,113
Welp, shes home, shes working well so far, played Star Citizen for a bit, than jumped around software programs for a few hours, so far so good. I want to give her one more good night of stress before I start writing my actual review.
FrEaKy
[H] Movie and TV Show Review Guy
- Joined
- Jan 31, 2003
- Messages
- 14,113
Shes at work with me today!
FrEaKy
[H] Movie and TV Show Review Guy
- Joined
- Jan 31, 2003
- Messages
- 14,113
FrEaKy
[H] Movie and TV Show Review Guy
- Joined
- Jan 31, 2003
- Messages
- 14,113
Review of this laptop! 
After finally being able to really stress test the laptop, no longer getting any errors or issues, I am now satisfied enough to post a semi-review of the laptop without bias.
Firstly, before I get into the Pro's and Con's, the system runs very well. I get around 65-70 FPS in Star Citizen, 1080p, high settings in Arena Commander. CS:GO, 180 fps, Payday 2, 120 FPS, BF4, 85 FPS. There are occasional blips in the FPS, course running shadowplay streaming to twitch at same time and only 8GB memory, I almost expected that!
Pro's;
Price for what you get is incredible. The laptop is running a 970m 6GB GPU, 8GB DDR3, 1TB 7200RPM drive, i7 4810MQ CPU and I got it around $1399. Comparable systems are going for $1599 at this time, maybe there are deals elsewhere.....
The build quality of the laptop is superb, shes heavy, feels durable, the casing is that soft rubberized crap that we all know and love, so no fingerprint magnets, but it will collect other stuff easily.
The onboard Onkyo speakers work very well and output sound better than most onboard laptop speakers I've dealt with and having X-fi3 sound chip on-board is also very nice to have.
the RGB keyboard is very nice, its the same one they have used for several years now, so its a tried and true setup, very responsive keys and the led system on the keyboard is also very nice as you may have seen in my previous post with images.
The optical drive IS swappable for a hdd caddy, also the system has 2 internal mSATA slots. So there is PLENTY of room for storage upgrades
There are 4 SODIMM slots, system can go up to 32GB DDR3.
Ventilation is FANTASTIC on this system, 2 fans pumping out the backside of the laptop which is nicer than the sides.
Con's;
This is more on Sager, the first 970m I did get was faulty and there were complaints around from the very first batch of cards that they would fail, but those seem to have already been remedied. Mine was replaced and works fine.
The laptop uses the older chipset (CPU) than the newer laptops that will be releasing soon with the newer Maxwell cpu's. While the GPU is a Maxwell, the CPU is not so it still runs a bit hot around the CPU area.
Heat is not as bad as most gaming iterations, but its still enough to feel rather toasty in the r,t,f,g key area's on the system. If you play more games, the w,a,s,d keys are still nice and cool.
Touchpad, this by and far is the worst touchpad I have EVER seen on a laptop, its very unresponsive, even for a touchpad. While the scroll functionality works well, it just seems the entire touchpad is just buggy as all get out. I use a Razer Imperator as a mouse for this system, and I suggest to anyone who purchases this laptop, by a portable, take-along mouse too.
The screen is TN display, which actually wasn't a HUGE con, the TN display in this system is one of the better ones I've seen, but I think the price could have justified an IPS display.
Views on dealings with XOTIC as a company;
My overall experience with XOTIC was not bad at all. I have seen some horror stories from people on dealing with them, but I got the exact opposite and was treated very nicely, was given updates along the entire build process all the way up to shipping it out. Even after I received it, they called to make sure it was satisfactory. Sure, the next day the GPU died, but the experience before that was very pleasant. The RMA process wasn't bad either when I dealt with the bad GPU, pre-paid shipping label was provided, and I still got my system back within 2 weeks, which isn't a bad turn-around-time.
Even after I received the system, I was able to talk with XOTIC support and got a game-code for the 970m purchase since it was announced after the release. So they got some extra points there as well.
Sager's initial support of the laptop when I called them before XOTIC was also very palpable.
Conclusion;
Would buy from XOTIC again and I am incredibly pleased with my laptop!
There will be a video posted on my youtube channel in the coming days regarding the laptop, run some benchmarks, etc. Look out for those!
After finally being able to really stress test the laptop, no longer getting any errors or issues, I am now satisfied enough to post a semi-review of the laptop without bias.
Firstly, before I get into the Pro's and Con's, the system runs very well. I get around 65-70 FPS in Star Citizen, 1080p, high settings in Arena Commander. CS:GO, 180 fps, Payday 2, 120 FPS, BF4, 85 FPS. There are occasional blips in the FPS, course running shadowplay streaming to twitch at same time and only 8GB memory, I almost expected that!
Pro's;
Price for what you get is incredible. The laptop is running a 970m 6GB GPU, 8GB DDR3, 1TB 7200RPM drive, i7 4810MQ CPU and I got it around $1399. Comparable systems are going for $1599 at this time, maybe there are deals elsewhere.....
The build quality of the laptop is superb, shes heavy, feels durable, the casing is that soft rubberized crap that we all know and love, so no fingerprint magnets, but it will collect other stuff easily.
The onboard Onkyo speakers work very well and output sound better than most onboard laptop speakers I've dealt with and having X-fi3 sound chip on-board is also very nice to have.
the RGB keyboard is very nice, its the same one they have used for several years now, so its a tried and true setup, very responsive keys and the led system on the keyboard is also very nice as you may have seen in my previous post with images.
The optical drive IS swappable for a hdd caddy, also the system has 2 internal mSATA slots. So there is PLENTY of room for storage upgrades
There are 4 SODIMM slots, system can go up to 32GB DDR3.
Ventilation is FANTASTIC on this system, 2 fans pumping out the backside of the laptop which is nicer than the sides.
Con's;
This is more on Sager, the first 970m I did get was faulty and there were complaints around from the very first batch of cards that they would fail, but those seem to have already been remedied. Mine was replaced and works fine.
The laptop uses the older chipset (CPU) than the newer laptops that will be releasing soon with the newer Maxwell cpu's. While the GPU is a Maxwell, the CPU is not so it still runs a bit hot around the CPU area.
Heat is not as bad as most gaming iterations, but its still enough to feel rather toasty in the r,t,f,g key area's on the system. If you play more games, the w,a,s,d keys are still nice and cool.
Touchpad, this by and far is the worst touchpad I have EVER seen on a laptop, its very unresponsive, even for a touchpad. While the scroll functionality works well, it just seems the entire touchpad is just buggy as all get out. I use a Razer Imperator as a mouse for this system, and I suggest to anyone who purchases this laptop, by a portable, take-along mouse too.
The screen is TN display, which actually wasn't a HUGE con, the TN display in this system is one of the better ones I've seen, but I think the price could have justified an IPS display.
Views on dealings with XOTIC as a company;
My overall experience with XOTIC was not bad at all. I have seen some horror stories from people on dealing with them, but I got the exact opposite and was treated very nicely, was given updates along the entire build process all the way up to shipping it out. Even after I received it, they called to make sure it was satisfactory. Sure, the next day the GPU died, but the experience before that was very pleasant. The RMA process wasn't bad either when I dealt with the bad GPU, pre-paid shipping label was provided, and I still got my system back within 2 weeks, which isn't a bad turn-around-time.
Even after I received the system, I was able to talk with XOTIC support and got a game-code for the 970m purchase since it was announced after the release. So they got some extra points there as well.
Sager's initial support of the laptop when I called them before XOTIC was also very palpable.
Conclusion;
Would buy from XOTIC again and I am incredibly pleased with my laptop!
There will be a video posted on my youtube channel in the coming days regarding the laptop, run some benchmarks, etc. Look out for those!
I've had my Sager for over a year and is been awesome. Xotic is great for calling to because you get an American and they are usually pretty good at figuring out your tech level and tailoring advice to it.... I had asked for some help with a hard drive not being recognized and rather tell me to hit the start button and walk me through a grandmother pc help process, the guy just said, "Check disk management" "oh yeah, forgot... It's been awhile..." like a one minute phone call.
The only grip is that it becomes unplugged easily but I think that is an engineered protection.
The only grip is that it becomes unplugged easily but I think that is an engineered protection.
FrEaKy
[H] Movie and TV Show Review Guy
- Joined
- Jan 31, 2003
- Messages
- 14,113
I believe it is as well, it comes out so that if you move to quickly and the cord doesn't reach, it wont break the pin or anything on the way out. I think that's smart.