Maingear's eX-L 15 gaming laptop arrives on planet Earth
By Donald Melanson 
posted Aug 6th 2009 6:29PM
posted Aug 6th 2009 6:29PM
Maingear may have given up on the "world's most powerful gaming laptop" title for the time being, but it's still keeping expectations pretty high for its new ex-L 15 laptop, which has just arrived on the scene from parts unknown. Judging from the specs, however, it won't have much trouble keeping up with the competition, with it packing your choice of top-end Intel processors, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260M graphics, up to 8GB of DDR3 RAM, a max 1TB SATA hard drive or 160GB SSD, a built-in DVD burner or optional Blu-ray drive, and your choice of a glossy 15.4-inch 1680 x 1050 display or (thankfully) a 1,920 x 1,200 display with a matte finish. Sold? Then you can pick one up right now for a starting price of $1,899, or you can wait until September when the slightly lower-end mX-L 15 model will be available.
It is a Clevo M860ETU. Not a new laptop by any means, has been on sale for some months.
If you do some digging, I think you'll find the Clevo has a sturdier build, a better screen, runs cooler and doesn't have an underclocked GPU. And also can be had for much less if you don't get it from Maingear.
To be fair, any Clevo you buy is going to be re-branded (just like that Sager) since Clevo doesn't sell directly to consumers. The difference is some resellers are more open about what they're selling and don't try to pass it off as something completely unique to their brand so they can try and charge a bloated premium.
PCTorque isn't just clear about using Clevo, it also offers to beat resellers, well only Sager resellers but it's not like Maingear can beat Sager prices
Nick is right. If you look around on xoticpc.com or powernotebooks.com you'll find better deals on the same exact laptop than from rebranders like Maingear. Overall, when it comes to gaming notebooks, Clevo is king, while MSI and Compal (often rebranded as Sager) offer less powerful but still great gaming notebooks. Asus notebooks aren't quite as sturdy and are usually bulkier, and heavier, and have overly flamboyant styling (my personal opinion).
You guys do realize that Xoticpc and PC Torque do not build their systems, rather they are Sager resellers. They never see the systems at all.
There's two ways to buy from Sager if you're in the PC business, you can buy the shell, or you can buy at their reseller prices a fully integrated system.
So in reality you're getting a Sager-built system from Xoticpc or the like - builders like MAINGEAR get the shell in, build it up, do their own OS load, and do their own QA.
So yeah, it's gonna be more expensive when you're not an order taker but a real system builder.
Sager is a reseller just like PC Torque and XoticPC - they get their systems from the likes of Clevo and Compal.
Sweet... Do want, but can't afford. :(
pretty
I've never really seen a super "powerful" laptop gaming rig, but I'm guessing they turn into flaming hot lap bricks after an hour or so?
I've never seen such a tasteful looking gaming flaming hot lap brick to be honest.
in for one.... wait...my tired old eyes can't tell enemy from foe at this size......need my 24 inches on desktop or bigger :D
like voodoo said, it's just a rebranded Clevo M860ETU. Sager has been selling this exact same laptop under the model number "NP8662." Do a search for the Sager NP8662 if you're interested, it'll most likely be cheaper than this.
great!
Maingear must be lining Engadet's pockets to report this "news".
I stopped paying over $1000 for a laptop years ago. It just isn't worth doubling the price of a laptop for marginally better performance. For the money that people spend on high end laptops, one could build quite a powerful computer. That's my rant for today.
wow 1920x1200 on a 15.4" screen? really small dot pitch. yeesh
take this down! Maingear clearly used two wallpapers without permision.