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Question

Looking for a gaming laptop for my cousin

Oct 5, 2015 12:50PM PDT

Hi,

I'm looking for a gaming laptop for my younger cousin. No specific budget at this point though. Myself own a MSI GT60 for two years (older model with GTX770M) and I had countless issues with it. Recently the power jack, net cable port and audio failed completely and I had to send it for repair. The whole experience with this particular MSI product is just a nightmare. I know that they have made quite some changes to the later models but I can hardly put them on the top of my list now.

I don't have much experience with other brands like ROG, CLEVO/SAGER and Alienware. Can anyone give me a brief on how are the general impressions on those brands in recent years?(even including MSI) I'm more concerned about building quality and after sale support this time as my old GT60 failed to offer them. (The experience with the MSI customer support was just awful)

Best regards.

Discussion is locked

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Answer
I worry when I read power jack failures.
Oct 5, 2015 12:57PM PDT

That is I caught a student schlepping their laptop around with the power adapter plugged in. Then it was clear what was going on.

The office supplied a Lenovo y510p about 2 years ago. Yes I wore out the keyboard but that was easy to replace. Cost? 55 bucks. The office while it was doing that cloned the drive to a SSD so yahoo and more power.

Look at the y50 line too. But 2 years of gaming and if a student seems to be the norm.

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Answer
I've had
Oct 6, 2015 4:36AM PDT

Sager before but awhile ago. Clevo is the ODM and Sager is OEM. Clevo makes barebones that are sold under their name or small brands across the world. Sager, Eurocom and Prostar are Clevo's sold in the USA. They are different from Alienware or Asus as they are designed by the ODM and OEM's add the components. They do specialize in gaming machines. Xoticpc is a place that sales these as they also sell Alienware and Asus. Alienware is made by Dell and they offer 13,15,17 and 18.4 in screen system. They dropped the 18.4" system in early 2015 but users responce Alienware brought the model back. The ROG is Asus and they have many different configurations for their 17" systems. Another gaming company is MSI.

http://www.laptopmag.com/gaming-laptops

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Current thoughts
Oct 11, 2015 7:00PM PDT

Hi orlbuckeye,

Thanks a lot for the detailed information. I've spent some time researching.

- My concern for Sager is that, since my cousin is not in the US, any warranty issues could be a problem. In our region(Mainland China), the CLEVO-associated brand is called Tarran Force,that provides much over-priced products. You can end up paying $8500 for just a GTX980M SLI setup, which has much less to offer compared to the MSI Titan series. I think I'll check if I could skip the tarran force for warranty issues if possible.

- Back in 06 MSI was definitely the greatest brand for gaming (at least through my experience). It looks like they have stepped up their game quite a bit now.

- Alienware was never on my list. It's just that my cousin really wanna check on that. Suppose I'll just try to talk him out of it.

- I've got mixed feelings towards Asus. They have great build quality for most of their products for sure. However, it appears that ROG has poor customer support both in the US and mainland China.

Anyway, thanks again. I wish I could figure out a way to ensure the warranty on Sager products.

Best.

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Correction
Oct 11, 2015 7:04PM PDT

Sorry I mean MSI was not a brand known for high performance gaming in 06.