Gaming Laptop: Premium Brand vs. Sager/Clevo

benfinkel

Weaksauce
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Hello,

I've been researching a high-end gaming laptop and I'm narrowing down my choices but I still have outstanding questions about the "premium" brand name laptops versus the Sager or Clevo setups.


The price differential is really what is confuses me. I can build a Sager/Clevo model for anywhere from $1800-$2000, depending on vendor and specific choices I make.

Similarly specc'ed models from Alienware, or even Origin (which is just a Clevo builder) run $300 or more higher. The most egregious example is the MSI GT70 at $2800.

I know that obviously name-recognition plays into it: people will pay more for a fancy looking case with an alien head on it, but can that be all? I've heard some people talk about support/warranty/testing from AW or Origin, but a lot of the Clevo builders have the same high reputation across the web.

So what else might it be? They're all using the same brand HDD, and CPU, and Video and Memory. Do the premium brand builders have access to their own lines of motherboard components or displays? Is there something else I'm not aware of that drives the price up so much?


tl;dr - I don't mind paying extra for better equipment that's worth the money, but I don't want to pay extra only for a brand-name and fancy chassis. Is it worth buying a premium brand?

Thanks in advance!

-Ben
 
There are a couple reasons the "premium" brands cost more. Namely:

--Advertising and marketing: You've heard of Alienware, MSI, Asus from TV, magazines, online spots, right? Where did you hear about Sager/Clevo? -- word of mouth, I'm guessing? The larger companies have huge advertising and marketing budgets to get you to notice their brand. The fact that you think of them as "premium" brands proves they are doing their job. The money for this needs to come from somewhere.

--Design: See that unique design with the cool vents on the front of the Alienware with the light-up grill that makes the kids in your dorm go "that kid's a dork"? -- Those designers, QA teams and specialized factory tooling cost money.

--Subsidizing other models and initiatives: Dell lost millions on their tablets last year. They also had a couple major design flaws in some of their monitors that sucked up thousands of RMAs and returns. Guess how they're trying to cover that hole in their balance sheet? "Enthusiast" retail items have the biggest profit margin, gaming laptops included.

I'm not saying all premium brands are bad. On the contrary, Alienware designs are exceptional in my experience. If you have the money to burn and want the absolute combination of power and design, go for it. They are, almost invariably, overpriced compared to a direct builder and reseller model like Sager/Clevos. Further, they don't, with some exceptions, have any different access to components than Clevo/Sager.

As far as the quality of Sager/Clevos vs. other brands, I would say they are no worse or no better (and I've owned six different Sagers, seven AWs, a couple Asus and MSI models). Moreover, Sager resellers like Xotic, Mythlogic and AVADirect's service is second-to-none (and are located locally if you are in the US).
 
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Thanks harmattan.

Yea, I get the advertising/branding aspect of the pricing. People are always willing to pay more for the name when they shouldn't. I was trying to determine if they offered something that went above and beyond just being the Nike of the laptop world. Is there functionality to be gained by spending a little more. I thought there might due to the extreme price difference (as there sometimes but not always can be between premium brands and store/generic brands).

Mythlogic is settling in as my vendor of preference. No one has yet come up with a good reason they shouldn't be.
 
Sager is a fine laptop, so is MSI, Asus, Alienware, none imo are bad, just different. That said GT70 is more things than what you see, for example the $2500-2800 version come with dual mSata III ports (sager only comes with 1x msata II), if this werent enough, MSI mobo supports raid 0, a lot of laptop manufacturers do no allow their sata ports to be able to raid... this and the msata III puts it in a step above.

The keyboard on the MSI is imo the best that i have used, i tested Sagers.... and they are ok, but not as good as the MSI/Steelseries, specially the customization you can do... thats if you are into that.

Matte screen, in many brands you have to pay extra for this, they come with glossy screen that i cant tolorate due to the places that i use my laptops. MSI GT70 comes with a very decent matte screen.

Blu ray as default, this is something that i dont care, but that increases the cost.

Speakers, by far the best, MSI Dynaudio is miles ahead of the crap speakers that sager puts into their latops. Keep in mind that this are still laptop speakers, so dont expect real base like a 12'' sub would give you, but in all fairness they are decent enough for me to listen without much discomfort.


As a final comment, value is relative to each, so for you all that i mention might not be worth the extra $300-500 that you can get the sager for... reason why all brands still sell and they are in market... all have their own customers that value what they do, say its saving you money, better quiality setup, more apealing exterior.... etc. etc.
 
Great points Abula, especially about the Steelseries KB and speaker quality.
 
Some brands like Lenovo and Sony, to name two, offer software add-ons that do things like keep your drivers up to date and check your system for proper functioning. It's not all about advertizing and covering losses. Whether you find value in this is for you to decide. I have never owned a sager and have not even seen one advertized. I know of them only because I read these forums.
 
MSI offer excellent value while sager offer more options (dual cards) while alienware offer excellent cooling and a certain aesthetic (which you pay for).
 
Sager had the best cooling system when it came to Sager vs Asus vs MSI. Not sure if that still applies. I know Asus and MSI have been trying to change that lately. Particularly Asus as they were known to be hot running units. Efficient cooling is important I would say so thats something to look into as well.
 
Sager is a fine laptop, so is MSI, Asus, Alienware, none imo are bad, just different. That said GT70 is more things than what you see, for example the $2500-2800 version come with dual mSata III ports (sager only comes with 1x msata II), if this werent enough, MSI mobo supports raid 0, a lot of laptop manufacturers do no allow their sata ports to be able to raid... this and the msata III puts it in a step above.

The keyboard on the MSI is imo the best that i have used, i tested Sagers.... and they are ok, but not as good as the MSI/Steelseries, specially the customization you can do... thats if you are into that.

Matte screen, in many brands you have to pay extra for this, they come with glossy screen that i cant tolorate due to the places that i use my laptops. MSI GT70 comes with a very decent matte screen.

Blu ray as default, this is something that i dont care, but that increases the cost.

Speakers, by far the best, MSI Dynaudio is miles ahead of the crap speakers that sager puts into their latops. Keep in mind that this are still laptop speakers, so dont expect real base like a 12'' sub would give you, but in all fairness they are decent enough for me to listen without much discomfort.


As a final comment, value is relative to each, so for you all that i mention might not be worth the extra $300-500 that you can get the sager for... reason why all brands still sell and they are in market... all have their own customers that value what they do, say its saving you money, better quiality setup, more apealing exterior.... etc. etc.

All great points, but I offer a view other points ...

1. Although the MSI GT70 series do indeed offer dual mSATA in SATA III, it means the other drive bay is relegated to SATA2 only, regardless whether you put a SATA3 SSD or conventional HD in that slot. This is a limitation of the chipset, which only supports two SATA3 ports. Another possible drawback of the MS-1762 chassis is that the proprietary dual mSATA SuperRaid option uses up one of the two HD bays, leaving only one other available for an SSD or mechanical HD. In comparable non-MSI chassis, the single (albeit only SATA2) mSATA slot is leaves both HD bays open for other drives, which can be fitted, for example, with a pair of high-capacity SATA3 SSDs (in SATA3 mode).

For me personally, storage capacity is a top concern. I went with a 480GB Mushkin Atlas mSATA and a couple of 750 GB 7200rpm HDs in RAID 0. For the time being, the mSATA drive is my boot/OS drive, but once Crucial's M500 series 960GB SSD is released in a month or so (for under $600 a pop!) I'll replace the two spinners. At that time, the mSATA drive will become a storage/data drive and the SATA3 drive(s) will hold the OS.\

My final point (regarding mSATA) is this: While I concede that a SATA3 mSATA drive (connected to a SATA3 port) offers superior performance to the same SATA3 mSATA drive connected to a SATA2 port, the difference isn't earth-shattering. I'm willing to wait an extra second or two for my OS to boot up. Bottom line is this ... any SSD, whether SATA2 or SATA3, is light-years ahead of of a mechanical HD in terms of speed. And given the current limitation of only two SATA3 ports on an Intel chipset, I'd rather put a pair of higher capacity full-size SSDs on those ports and consider the mSATA port as bonus storage I can't get in the MSI.

2. If you're heart-set on a GT70 laptop (maybe you prefer the "rounder" MSI styling over the "boxier" Clevo/Sager chassis) consider another possibility ... many boutique shops (Xotic-PC and Maingear, for example) will sell you not only an actual MSI GT70 series model (which have more limited modification options) but also offer custom-built laptops based on the MS-1762 chassis which have almost endless configuration choices. Such a laptop is MUCH less expensive. Maingear even offers dual mSATA SuperRaid as an option. The notable differences between a "true" GT70 and an MS1762-based build are the keyboard (still great but not SteelSeries) and the backlighting (blue only vs. multi-coloured). Aside from those items, they're basically identical ... same great sound, same HS/SSD/mSATA options. Where the MS-1762 comes out ahead of the GT70 is the sheer number of choices: more varied screen options, etc.
 
All great points, but I offer a view other points ...

1. Although the MSI GT70 series do indeed offer dual mSATA in SATA III, it means the other drive bay is relegated to SATA2 only, regardless whether you put a SATA3 SSD or conventional HD in that slot. This is a limitation of the chipset, which only supports two SATA3 ports. Another possible drawback of the MS-1762 chassis is that the proprietary dual mSATA SuperRaid option uses up one of the two HD bays, leaving only one other available for an SSD or mechanical HD. In comparable non-MSI chassis, the single (albeit only SATA2) mSATA slot is leaves both HD bays open for other drives, which can be fitted, for example, with a pair of high-capacity SATA3 SSDs (in SATA3 mode).

For me personally, storage capacity is a top concern. I went with a 480GB Mushkin Atlas mSATA and a couple of 750 GB 7200rpm HDs in RAID 0. For the time being, the mSATA drive is my boot/OS drive, but once Crucial's M500 series 960GB SSD is released in a month or so (for under $600 a pop!) I'll replace the two spinners. At that time, the mSATA drive will become a storage/data drive and the SATA3 drive(s) will hold the OS.\

My final point (regarding mSATA) is this: While I concede that a SATA3 mSATA drive (connected to a SATA3 port) offers superior performance to the same SATA3 mSATA drive connected to a SATA2 port, the difference isn't earth-shattering. I'm willing to wait an extra second or two for my OS to boot up. Bottom line is this ... any SSD, whether SATA2 or SATA3, is light-years ahead of of a mechanical HD in terms of speed. And given the current limitation of only two SATA3 ports on an Intel chipset, I'd rather put a pair of higher capacity full-size SSDs on those ports and consider the mSATA port as bonus storage I can't get in the MSI.
You also make good points... and in your case i would say you chose better as you need so much storage and willing to spend more then $1500+ on pure ssds. For me its different twin mSatas is good enough for my OS/programs (might upgrade them to M500 mSatas 256gb in the future), and a single mechanical hdd 1tb (i just bought the new hitachi 7k1000 32mg cache 7200rpm) will be enough for storage.

I can see the trend into moving into ssd for storage in the future, specially with how the prices are dropping, and how hdd manufacturers are dropping their 2.5 hdd lines (aka seagate droping their 2.5 7200 rpm line, and keeping only the 5400rpm for now), i think others will follow as the storage on ssds, specially with the M500 is reaching them, but still its much much expensive, probably one or two more price drops and this might start becoming viable, but by that time, ill probably be in another laptop with another setup in hdds, probably all will be mSatas.

All in all, i think there is no better laptop, they are just different, and people should chose based on what they need and how much they are willing to spend.
 
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I got my gaming laptop from XoticPC and I haven't been disappointed.. It was nice to have an option for them to get rid of all the bloatware before sending it.

I just have to say, watch for the laptops with AMD video cards, people seem to be having major issues with them lately, specifically with the 7970M.
 
All in all, i think there is no better laptop, they are just different, and people should chose based on what they need and how much they are willing to spend.

I couldn't agree with you more.

For the time being, at least, its nice that we can enjoy the increased flexibility that mSATA offers (in terms of providing us with the ability to tailor the storage subsystem to best suit our needs). It is unfortunate that the mSATA format already has one foot in the grave and likely won't survive beyond the next few generations of motherboards/chipsets. This is particularly true in laptops that have but a single HD bay, where a secondary storage device that is not only compact and incredibly fast, but also reliable and price-effective, can greatly increase the utility and performance of the computer.

That said, we need to remember that the mSATA format was never intended to be used in the way most of us utilize it today. It was designed to serve as a secondary cache for mechanical hard drives, 20 to 30 GB or so maximum, for those who could not afford the then astronomical prices of full-blown SSDs. Basically, a mSATA cache + mechanical HD combination was a sort of "poor-man's SSD". Apparently, no one back then thought that the price of SSDs would drop as quickly as they have, in tandem with frequent and substantial increases in capacity. The fact that they have done precisely that has rendered the mSATA format largely obsolete, despite its relatively short lifespan. This is especially so in desktop PCs where room for multiple drives is not an issue.

Perhaps its possible (and I personally hope that it is) that the designers and decision makers will yet recognize the benefits the mSATA format offers even as SSDs continue to drop in cost and increase in size. The fact that mSATA is being used in ways not originally envisioned, doesn't make its utility any less valid. Some of the big players in memory/SSD/HD seem to be on board ... we're still seeing regular jumps in mSATA capacity. Mushkin already offers a 480GB version and Crucial/Micron is about to follow suit with its M500 series, with possibly others yet to follow. If they believe there's money to be made from the sale of mSATA, hopefully they can put enough pressure on those who will ultimately decide its fate.
 
There's a lot of misinformation going around here on the 7970m so let me set the record straight. The 7970m is a great card. When OC'ed, you can expect performance around a desktop HD 7870. Currently, it's tit-for-tat at stock speeds between the 7970m and 680m with AMD taking some games and benches, and 680m taking others in single card configuration (dual cards are a different story where 680m generally shows more gains/less issues). And the 680m does pull ahead a bit when OC'ed... I've owned five different laptops with both 7970m and 680m, and have put them through the ringer testing and benching trying to find something that works for me (and just for shits and giggles), mind you. If I was going for a single card laptop right now, I'd get a 7970 considering the $200+ difference.

There's been a ton of back-and-forth on this issue I don't have time to dwell on here. In summary, the impression that there are issues with the 7970m comes from the fact that up until November (or the Enduro hotfix), there were performance degradations on laptops that used Enduro, AMD's GPU switching technology. The use of Enduro that caused the degradation was employed by Clevo models p170em and p150em. Alienware laptops (m17x), and I believe MSI laptops, that used the 7970 did not experience the issue because they did not employ Enduro, at least not in the same way as on the Clevos. Note also that laptops with dual cards e.g. m18x, p180em never had any issues since they don't use Enduro. These issues, however, have been pretty much resolved with AMD's drivers since late last year.
 
That said, we need to remember that the mSATA format was never intended to be used in the way most of us utilize it today. It was designed to serve as a secondary cache for mechanical hard drives, 20 to 30 GB or so maximum, for those who could not afford the then astronomical prices of full-blown SSDs. Basically, a mSATA cache + mechanical HD combination was a sort of "poor-man's SSD". Apparently, no one back then thought that the price of SSDs would drop as quickly as they have, in tandem with frequent and substantial increases in capacity. The fact that they have done precisely that has rendered the mSATA format largely obsolete, despite its relatively short lifespan. This is especially so in desktop PCs where room for multiple drives is not an issue.

Perhaps its possible (and I personally hope that it is) that the designers and decision makers will yet recognize the benefits the mSATA format offers even as SSDs continue to drop in cost and increase in size. The fact that mSATA is being used in ways not originally envisioned, doesn't make its utility any less valid. Some of the big players in memory/SSD/HD seem to be on board ... we're still seeing regular jumps in mSATA capacity. Mushkin already offers a 480GB version and Crucial/Micron is about to follow suit with its M500 series, with possibly others yet to follow. If they believe there's money to be made from the sale of mSATA, hopefully they can put enough pressure on those who will ultimately decide its fate.

Its uncertain the future into storage, at least the direction the industry will shift, especially with sata express coming in the next few years to desktops. But im hopping mSata will prevail, mostly out of personal assumptions, SSDs marking is basically into 2.5 which makes it convinient for it to be used by most laptops and desktop as where it fits a 3.5 you can fit at least one (probably more), But mSata imo opens at lot for thinner laptops, the space saved is a lot, its like a wifi card, personally i would love to see all laptops in the future move toward it, but the 2.5 standard is what it is, the most popular setup in hdd on mobile pcs till today. But in here i also think that this wont happen, when ssds where first released, i though we were goint to see 3.5 ssd for desktops with more capacity and probably more speed, but this never happen (a couple of 3.5 were released but not for mainstream), so probably mSata might never take off or replace the 2.5 standard.
 
Premium brands have longer warranties(with the option to buy more) and you can sometimes find better deals online than if you went through a custom builder. These deals include no interest payment plans or just out right lower prices. But you do sacrifice some of the customization like the screen options. However, you can always swap everything else yourself and still come out ahead.
 
Sager had the best cooling system when it came to Sager vs Asus vs MSI. Not sure if that still applies. I know Asus and MSI have been trying to change that lately. Particularly Asus as they were known to be hot running units. Efficient cooling is important I would say so thats something to look into as well.

Their new 14 inch is supposed to be very good and surprisingly quiet but alienware have the lead and for the tweakers MSI has the edge.
 
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