Eurocom X5 (Clevo P177SM)
by Vivek Gowri on September 2, 2013 12:00 AM ESTWhen it comes to large gaming notebooks, battery life is never really a concern, but since NVIDIA’s Optimus graphics switching technology basically became standard on all Intel/NVIDIA notebooks across the board, it’s actually been possible to see a solid few hours of life out of this class of system. The sheer size of the notebooks typically allows for 90-100Wh batteries that would be considered absolutely massive by normal standards, so with the large display and high TDP quad, we’ve been seeing Haswell gaming notebooks end up in the 4 hour range for web-browsing battery life.
That’s honestly pretty impressive; I still remember the days when the batteries in 17” Alienwares and Clevos almost served more as uninterruptible power supplies than any kind of mobile power source. An hour or two would be considered good back then. Obviously, both CPU and GPU microarchitectures have gotten far more efficient in the last handful of years, and Optimus really changed things for the better.
None of our battery tests stress the CPU enough for the extra 10W TDP of the Extreme Edition to make a discernible difference in terms of battery life relative to the lower end mobile quads. Battery life is slightly lower than the Clevo P157SM we tested, but that had less RAM, a smaller LCD, and a single SSD (instead of an SSD and HDD), so a slight reduction in battery life is expected.
Our battery tests aren’t that intensive, mostly focusing on internet, music, and video use cases; there’s a lot of CPU idle time where we already know that Haswell excels, so this is no real surprise. Between the CPU and GPU, this system has a thermal envelope of roughly 160W under load, so the 77Wh battery would go pretty quickly under any sort of intensive workload (like gaming).
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Braincruser - Monday, September 2, 2013 - link
Are there thermals? Also FIRST!DigitalFreak - Monday, September 2, 2013 - link
Is your life so pathetic that you need a "first" post?Hubb1e - Monday, September 2, 2013 - link
A lot of words about industrial design where it clearly doesn't matter to the end users. The appeal of these is choosing components. Those who do care are welcome to pay more for it. I prefer plain to gaudy any day anyway.ShieTar - Monday, September 2, 2013 - link
I second that. More specifically, "overwhelming blackness" actually sounds good to me. When I sit in a darkened room staring at my Notebook-Screen, chances are I do not want to see anything except the screen itself. Either I am watching a movie on it, or I am playing some deeply immersing game, but in any way having a colored dragon in my field of view won't usually help the experience.madmilk - Monday, September 2, 2013 - link
This isn't plain by any stretch of the imagination. Why can't Clevo just use black matte plastic consistently all around, without weird bevels, trims and LED audio meters?nostriluu - Monday, September 2, 2013 - link
This is only because the writer's comprehension of industrial design is childish.asasione - Monday, September 2, 2013 - link
Come someone from Anandtech please let me know if they are planning on reviewing the P370M/SM or P375M/SM with dual Nvidia 780M anytime in the near futurelololol - Monday, September 2, 2013 - link
LOL? 32 GB RAM using Microsoft 7 Home Premium... FAIL!ddriver - Monday, September 2, 2013 - link
Upgrade to unlock kinda deal (on a better day I'd call it scam). Cheaper windows drops the price a bit but makes some of the memory you paid for inaccessible, pay extra to ms for upgrade to get it all working without hurting the margins of the laptop manufacturer.rpgfool1 - Monday, September 2, 2013 - link
Seems like the notebook I want. Looking at several Clevo resellers for the P177SM and some are getting $50 off $1350+. Lowest prices are from Pro-Star, LPC-Digital, and PowerNotebooks. Mythologic sells it the most expensive, followed by Eurocom. I know the Alienware 17 and Razer Blade Pro cost more, but the Clevo P177SM seem to have more options available.