Clevo Laptops?

[SUBMAN1]

WHo is this Clevo company? I've never heard of them, but they make a pretty mean laptop including 7950 GTX, Core 2 X6800, and even 4 speakers for the sound system! Sounds like the gamer on the goes dream! SHIV anyone?

http://www.clevo.com.tw/products/D901C.asp

[Zantham]

Clevo has been around for a while, they supply many laptops to Alienware, Eurocomm, Sagar, Rock Direct, and many other companies, who rebadge them, paint them, some even add further hardware customisation. I believe they are based in Taiwan.

I had the D900T laptop, and was suitably impressed by its speed and power. Battery life was nonexistant, and its power brick weighed more than most 15.4" laptops. The laptop drew a maximum of 250W as measured by a professional watt-meter (Pentium 4 CPU didn't help). The first power brick blew in a week, and took 6 months for them to replace. Fortunately I had ordered two bricks. They get so hot you can barely touch them. The video card went in the meantime (6800 Ultra), but that one had a decent turnaround (and they sent me the power adapter at the same time finally.) Since then the video card has failed again, this time not covered by warranty. My machine is not quite 2 years old.

I paid nearly $5000.00 for the machine (CDN dollars), and similarly configured units from the above companies and others I found at the time of purchase were $6500.00 or more. While it was fast when I got it....by todays standards its a bit old, since a $1000.00 desktop tower will easily outperform it, and even tho the laptop is PCI Express and DDR2 RAM...if it had been a desktop it would cost me very little to upgrade, but as a laptop...well upgrading is not possible to the video card (believe me, I asked).

In comparison, I spent $5000 on a laptop not even two years ago and it has no upgradeability. Because it died, I just built a tower for $2000.00 CDN that scores 12,500 points on 3DMark06 (a respectable score esp for that price)...and in two years should still have upgrade life in it (judging by, had my laptop been a desktop I could have similarly upgraded it).

So to sum up: basically the Clevo's are probly the fastest laptops you can get, hands down. But that comes at the price in that to call them a 'laptop' is like calling a Cadillac a sub-compact. And the heat generated by those high performance parts (esp the video) generally means its life is reduced. I used to run mine on a special rack I made just to improve airflow for the FOUR fans underneath...

[SUBMAN1]

...So to sum up: basically the Clevo's are probly the fastest laptops you can get, hands down. But that comes at the price in that to call them a 'laptop' is like calling a Cadillac a sub-compact. And the heat generated by those high performance parts (esp the video) generally means its life is reduced. I used to run mine on a special rack I made just to improve airflow for the FOUR fans underneath...
A glorified desktop they call a laptop! :D Enough said!

-S