MSI, Sager/Clevo, Gigabyte, Origin, Alienware or Razer?

[chowderek]

I'm looking to buy a gaming laptop for around $1,200.

I was hoping you guys can give me a briefing of each brand because as I do not have much knowledge myself (I have heard good things about Sager/Clevo and MSI though).

Feel feel to add in more brands if I missed some.

 

[saratj1]

All the Alienware haters. Its kinda like everyones looking for you to fall when your on top, but anyways. I have an m17x r1 and at 4yrs old its still a beast build quality is second to none. Its freaking solid aluminum yes its heavy but so are all the others. Also if you do have an issue see if asus or sager will come to your house and fix your laptop for you on your kitchen table, bet they wont. Dells customer service is pretty impressive.
Notebook check rates the m17x as the best overall gaming laptop, and this is from hundreds of different people reviewing it from all over the internet.
Read the reviews is the alienware perfect? no, but it isn't a pos either as some like to claim on the internet.
http/www.notebookcheck.net/Notebookcheck-s-Top-10-Gaming-Notebooks.98628.0.html

 

[Alejandro Hernandez]

I'm looking to buy a gaming laptop for around $1,200.

I was hoping you guys can give me a briefing of each brand because as I do not have much knowledge myself (I have heard good things about Sager/Clevo and MSI though).

Feel feel to add in more brands if I missed some.

Sager/Clevo are the best for the money, but are extremely ugly. Otherwise, MSI is great. All the others tend to be overpriced and unreliable.

I dont know why you call sager clevo ugly, let me tell you, they are not. my p150sm a is a beauty, it very solidly built and has a tone of aggressiveness, the backlit keyboard is ectremelly good ( though i wish it oculd be brighter), i think for the money that you save i would go with sager/ clevo they are the best choice in this situation. i think MSI is way ugly they try to be flashy without any style. trust me the matte on the sager is awsome and not glossy parts so its pretty much perfect

 

[Fruischian1234]

My opinion is that sager and clevo look extremely bland, boring, and ugly. They have none of the exterior finishes that I find attractive in msi and asus and all other laptop brands
This is just my opinion of all the companies.
MSI- excellent high quality laptops that have some heating issues (only in gt series though, gs series have dual fan) but can be solved by getting a cooling pad which is only like 30 bucks. Msi's keyboards are also customizable, you can change the color of each key.
Asus- Also very high end laptops. Although not as customizable, very sturdy, and professional look matched by excellent hardware options
aorus- sexy looking, light (I think its 6.5 pounds) , sli cards, good quality
Alienware- downright crap, overpriced
Razer- okay but WAAAAAAAAY overpriced for what you get
Clevo/sager- very uninteresting look, but gives a pretty big bang for the buck.

 

[JackNaylorPE]

i would be dubious about clevo / sager after working for 15+ years at a laptop repair company clevo are the no1 for hard to get parts, when ever we need replacement components clevo are almost impossible, so for out of warranty repairs your going to be stuck, i would stick with major brands asus & msi would be my choice. at the end of the day you pay for what you get !

I have never had a problem getting parts going back to the same source as I bought it. Clevo is very strict and will not sell parts to "unauthorized distributors".

Regarding other comments.....

Alienware *was* a Clevo based laptop back in the day .... after their phenomenal success combining cute marketing with quality components and great performance, they caught Dell's attention and after Dell purchased them, the supply chain was replaced with Dell's.

I have not seen much difference between the MSI / Asus and Clevos when ya buy the 'default' CPU / GPU in each model range. When you customize and upgrade the CPU / GPU, I find that heat issues arise on the Asus / MSI where as the Clevos handle this a bit better as they used bigger heat sinks.

The thing you have to keep in mind with Clevo is that basically every reseller is a separate company. You buy an Asus lapop from newegg, you go to Asus for support .... you buy a Clevo .... you go to the guy you bight it off for support. So the quality of support will vary by the reseller.....so important to pick a good one.

Notebookreview.com is a good place to get a handle on who rocks and who doesn't

 

[Dicepshon]

I'm also looking scouting for a new laptop (will be posting myself eventually). The laptop I'm on right now is a clevo m860tu, aka sager np8662. I got it before the big change to the i-series processors(has a t9700 core 2duo) and it's held me out since 2007/8. The only reason I want a new laptop is because my graphics card bit the dust (yay onboard gpu back-up!) and getting a new one off ebay that fits my mobo would be about $300usd. Add on a memory upgrade and I'm looking at close to 4-500 already. I bought my pc to do graphics rendering, etc. (fx2700m card) as well as play games.

Here's what I can say about this clevo that got awesome reviews when I did my research:

heavy laptop, poor battery life
well built. I've dropped it from coffee table height and the laptop was fine. The screen died one time but that's not the builds fault.
highly customizable and workable. you can replace and upgrade so much on it.
runs HOT! hottest laptop I've ever owned and that's without a quadcore or any of the other graphics cards that I've heard people have used in it
the support, as someone else mentioned, completely depends on the retailer. I went through xotic and was very happy with their customer care team.

overall, I'm very happy with it's lifespan. I did at the time, pay about $2,200.00 usd for it but after 6 or so years, I was able to play D3 and other games on a fairly high graphics setting while keeping up with CAD, Maya, Photoshop, etc. In my opinion, that's a good investment.

 

[JackNaylorPE]

The weight and battery life are a symptom of the power being used and the power being dissipated. They overdesign the heat sinks which is why they are so heavy..... it's also why they don't suffer in the same way that MSI/ Asus do when you upgrade the CPU and GFX a few notches above the base model.

 

[Dicepshon]

fair enough. battery makes total sense. I know the heatsink has some weight to it and I love the fact that I CAN upgrade the CPU, graphics card and so many other things on it. I'm not certain if asus/msi have this same type of "future-proofing"... which is also something the OP might want to consider.

 

[JackNaylorPE]

If you are going with the basic "package" and not upgrading CPU / GFX I think you will still be fine with an Asus / MSI..... if yout=r or gonna be checking off upgrades to either, or doing some minor OC'ing, Id get the Clevo.

 

[StormFalcon]

Actually, Alienware was supposedly a clevo rebrander until they got so successful and dell bought them out.

 

[g-unit1111]

Thread is from 2013. Please don't bump old threads.