When it comes to computers, quality and performance both carry a hefty price tag. If you want stellar performance in a machine, you’re going to have to pay more than you would for you average BestBuy commodity PC. If you want really good build or design quality, that also carries a premium. If you want the two together then you’d better be independently wealthy, completely dedicated to your craft, or prepared to live in fear of the credit card statement arriving every month. At least, that’s what I always believed.
Let’s look at some examples, starting with my favorite – Apple. A top of the line MacBook Pro notebook, without any customization of features will set you back around $2799, and most of that is for the design of the machine. The hardware specifications are not really that impressive (2.6 Ghz processor, a couple of gig of memory, and a fairly old graphics card). Among the boutique computer makers, Alienware has established itself as a force to be reckoned with in terms of performance, getting people through the door with unique design and stellar performance, but to get the most performance out of their machines customization is almost a requirement. Alienware’s new M15X notebook is very impressive and smokes anything Apple has to offer in terms of performance at least, but the price of a well specified machine is going to creep over $4k.
Voodoo have both the design aesthetic and performance combined, offering superfast machines with custom paint jobs and even case tattoos. An equivalent machine to the $4k M15X though will set you back over $5K from them.
I’ve recently been looking for a notebook development PC, and I instantly turned to the gaming notebook offerings of all the computer manufacturers. I still play games a lot and I want the ability to play in any room in the house. Also, computers specifically designed with gaming in mind tend to have stellar performance that translates well into a zippy experience running monstrous development tool suites like Visual Studio 2008. Ideally, I want to find a notebook computer that can keep up with my Mac Pro in terms of performance, and something that can be expanded over time (so it’s not an overpriced, underpowered paperweight in a year or two’s time). I also wanted it to be relatively cheap. I’ve saved up my pennies diligently (my Dad would be proud) to buy a new machine, and credit is not an option.
I started my search with the name brands. Dell’s legendary XPS 1730 seems to be viewed by the mainstream press as the most powerful laptop on earth, and at 5 grand of the World of Warcraft edition, 4 grand for the unbranded version, it better be. That’s too much money for me, no matter how desirable all the flashing and glowing neon lights it sports would appear. It’s also huge! I don’t really need to travel every week with the new machine but it would be handy to have something that has some semblance of a battery life and that doesn’t require leg braces to support on my lap.
So I turned to Voodoo, and while the designs looked great, the price tags were terrifying and the performance of a relatively average machine from them wasn’t that good. Alienware were my next stop, in particular the aforementioned M15X. That seemed to have everything I wanted – fast processors, the option of one or two 8800 graphics cards (the current best of the best), a nice design, but again the price was intimidating. The cheapest I could get a decent machine down to was about 3300. I compromised some more, dropping memory down to 2 gig, going with a slower processor and got the price down to 2950 and was almost ready to reluctantly hand over my cash when I discovered notebookreview.com and a large number of threads on their message board talking about poor Alienware service and customer support. $2900 AND the chance to be treated like utter crap by their sales and support staff? No, I’m buying a computer here not eating in a snooty French restaurant.
It was actually at notebookreview.com that I discovered the secret, a relatively unknown company called Clevo. Clevo are a small Taiwanese company established in 1983 just for building notebook computers. Today they do more than that, and have interests in peripherals, telecoms, information appliances, but building laptops is what they remain specialist in. But there’s a catch. Clevo won’t sell anything to you or I.
Clevo produce ‘barebones’ machines. These are basically the computer chasis with the power supply fitted, motherboard, keyboard and so on, but not much else. The barebones kits are bought wholesale by computer manufacturers who then put their own spin on the design, custom painting the case, fitting the processor, memory, hard disks and so on. The machines are then typically rebranded and sold at a markup. Clevo have supplied computers to Alienware, Voodoo, NorthwestPC, Widow and various other extremely expensive boutique manufacturers in the past. They also supply another relatively unknown company called Sager.
Browsing through the forums at Notebookreview.com I found a huge number of messages pointing people at Sager. Message threads asking what’s the best gaming notebook to buy almost universally pointed at Sager. Threads talking about Sager specifically were almost universally glowing when they talked about the machine’s build quality, and performance. Many threads also talked about discount suppliers, suppliers that buy barebones machines from Sager themselves. These are Clevo machines, rebranded already and then sold on to indie companies that bolt everything together and typically sell at a discount from even Sager. And that’s when my jaw hit the floor.
Sager’s 9262 is the world’s fastest notebook computer. Ignore what Apple tell you about their high end MacBook pro’s, the 9262 is the first notebook in the world to score more than 10,000 in 3DMark06. It can be supplied with up to three RAID configured hard drives, quad core desktop processors, twin Nvidia 8800 video cards, and a bunch of other options that from any other company would set you about well over $6000. Sager’s price for a fully specc’d out 9262 is about $4k. A low specc’d 9262 though is still phenomenally powerful and can be had for just $3k. The equivalent VoodooPc remained at $6k.
I don’t need a notebook with 3 hard drives, two video cards and 4 processors though. Very little software makes use of more than 2 processing cores these days, SLI Nvidia cards deliver mixed performance results in games (in some cases even slowing the game down). Two processing cores would be just fine for me, as would a single video card, preferably the top of the line 8800. So, I started to look at the Sager 5792.
This thing comes with the brand new Intel Penryn processor, a dual core processor that’s a little faster than the earlier mobile Core Duo chips. It uses less power too, meaning longer battery life, and it’s the same price. The 5792 includes the phenomenally powerful 8800 video card, can have 4 gig of memory inside it, and can sport a very fast Hitachi 200Gig hard drive. It also has a 17 inch screen with a MacBook equaling 1920 pixel wide display.
The price for that spec, from Sager, was about $2900. However, all of the indie suppliers discount it further. I chose a company called XoticPC. Xotic supply the same machine for about $2700. Pay them with cash (thereby saving them the 3% credit card processing fee) and they’ll pass on the saving dropping the price even further to around $2550. That’s cheaper than a top of the line MacBook Pro, but with a faster processor, bigger hard disk, and more memory. The performance is also way beyond anything Apple offers. The cheapest equivalent spec machine from Alienware will set you back around $4000. Add another $1000 to pick it up from Voodoo. The Sager 5792 I’ve ordered can have the hard disk, processor and video cards upgraded at a later point in time, so it’s got some future proofing built in. Despite being a desktop replacement computer, it gets around 2.5 hours of battery life working on non intensive tasks (email, browsing the web etc), and it weighs only 8.5 pounds. Contrast that with the 9262 which weighs in at almost 13 pounds and delivers just about an hour of battery life and you start to appreciate what I’m talking about. This is all from a machine that will also deliver over 9000 in 3DMark06, and which will support DirectX 10 graphics.
It’s going to be a while before the machine arrives, since it needs to be put together and tested, but Xotic are still delivering it faster than anything Alienware could schedule. In fact, the estimated delivery is on a par with Dell!
So, the best kept secret in computing is simply this. Incredibly powerful hardware with a pleasing design can be very cheap, and without any compromises on anything. You’ve just got to hunt around a bit to find out who the real brands behind the big name brands are.
Edit: I just went to Apple and specified as close as I could get to my Sager in a MacBook. So, 2.6 Ghz processor (my sager’s a 2.5, but it’s a Penryn), 4 gig of ram, 7200 RPM 200gig drive, 17 inch ultra high resolution glossy display. I couldn’t specify the 8800 video card since Apple don’t supply them in notebooks, so the end result is that when it comes to gaming and graphics, the MacBook Pro I just designed will pale compared to the Sager. The total price was a breathtaking $4050, an additional $1500 on top of the better specified Sager.
The equivalent Dell (slower graphics card again) was $3780. Alienware’s M15X with a smaller screen came in at $3589. Best of all though, Voodoo’s Envy 172, which appears to be the same Clevo case as the Sager, with a slower processor AND slower video card topped the scales at a stellar $5528.
