Quality of Sager notebooks

[Kevlar Coated Tent]

Im going to buy a high end gaming notebook and I wondering what the quality on Sagers is like because I will be spending a lot of money and any warranties will be hard to use as i live in New Zealand and freight is about $250US each way Also has anyone had any experiences with dealing with their warranties from overseas (I'll probably be dealing with PC Torque) My other option is a Dell XPS M170 which will be covered by a international warranty and serviceable through Dell NZ i believe but will also (cost a lot more, or almost the same if i can get it with about 33% off)
THe laptop i am considering is
Sager 5720
Centrino 2GHz
2gb DDR2 533
100gb 7200rpm HDD
go7800GTX
8xDVD+- and DVD+DL
TV tuner
Two batteries
802.11abg and bluetooth
and a Targus backpack
and possibly a 3 year international warranty depending on wha the deal with it is.

Any information othe quality of the machines would be greatly appreciated as i dont want to spend $4000NZ on a paper weight

 

[keeleysam]

Sager's are nice machines, as well as the Dell XPS's.

Warranties will be a bitch with either, so I'd get whatever is chepest.

 

[The Linuxator]

Sager > Dell

 

[thunderhorse]

I have a Sager 8790. 3.4 prescott P4 with a ATI 9700 vid card, 1g of ram, cdrw-dvd, and a 60g hard drive. With the 17 inch screen it is truely a desk top replacement. The only game I have trouble with is Doom 3, and I figure if I keep going I'll find the right combination of drivers to cure this problem. I have had it for 10 months and I love it. It has not given me one bit of trouble. But let me add--I'm in one of the hotest place on earth, Kuwait. I have to blow the sand out of it once every 2 weeks. I paid about $2500 American. I have added a Western Digital Passport 80g hard drive to one Usb port, really slow but I only use it for backup and to hold programs. I hope this will help you with your decission. Have a good day. Peace.

 

[imported_Woody]

I just saw that new Sager model with the 7800GTX! It looks kick-aZZ!!

Time to get rid of my 9600 equipped eMachines M6805 for one of these beasts! I spend a lot of time on the road with my job and love gaming.

I haven't heard bad things about Sager and I did a lot of research. I like this much more than the behemoth Clevo machines and it looks much nicer too.

I also would prefer the Pentium-M over the P4 since they are more efficient and perform very well with games....why else would you want a laptop with the 7800GTX?

I think this is the machine I've been waiting for.

 

[andrewbabcock]

The sager looks nice but i don't know about that warranty. The support seems to be a little unorganized. At least with dell, they have some organization.

 

[datacore4]

I haven't heard bad things about Sager and I did a lot of research. I like this much more than the behemoth Clevo machines

Ugh!.....the sager machine we are talking about here is manufactured by Clevo.

I think with exception of the Dell xps notebooks (with 7800gtx), all other notebooks out there with 7800 gtx are manufactured by Clevo.
(namely:- Alienware, ABS, Sager, Voodoo Pc, among others)

 

[imported_Woody]

Originally posted by: datacore4
Ugh!.....the sager machine we are talking about here is manufactured by Clevo.

I think with exception of the Dell xps notebooks (with 7800gtx), all other notebooks out there with 7800 gtx are manufactured by Clevo.
(namely:- Alienware, ABS, Sager, Voodoo Pc, among others)

Check out the brand new Sager 5720. It's a 17 widescreen comes in two resolutions, sports a Pentium-M and 7800GTX. Sounds very much like the Dell XPS. It's cheaper than the oversized and ugly Clevo model and will get better battery performance certainly.

I'm getting ready to order one here myself!

 

[andrewbabcock]

Originally posted by: Woody

Originally posted by: datacore4
Ugh!.....the sager machine we are talking about here is manufactured by Clevo.

I think with exception of the Dell xps notebooks (with 7800gtx), all other notebooks out there with 7800 gtx are manufactured by Clevo.
(namely:- Alienware, ABS, Sager, Voodoo Pc, among others)

Check out the brand new Sager 5720. It's a 17 widescreen comes in two resolutions, sports a Pentium-M and 7800GTX. Sounds very much like the Dell XPS. It's cheaper than the oversized and ugly Clevo model and will get better battery performance certainly.

I'm getting ready to order one here myself!

Most like yes it will get better battery life but i just don't know about their support...

 

[datacore4]

I was talking about the sager 5720.....heh!

 

[datacore4]

Oh, and i ordered one last night from www.Powernotebooks.com. But i realize i should have bought it from discountlaptops.com, its got a few extra warranty features and costs $13 less due to smaller shipping fee.

Here is what i ordered.

Sager 5720 (duh!)

2.0 Ghz pentium M
512 mb system Ram (will buy another 512 mb stick soon)
cd-rw drive only
40gb hard-disk only
rest are standard features of the 5720

$1993.00 Grand total.... But would have costed me $1980.00 If i ordered from discountlaptops.com for the xact same thing. And I would have added the $25 prepaid shipping (in case i have a problem) , both ways (i think its a one time fee, and lasts 1 year)...which for $25 is well worth it, powernotebooks.com dosent have this.


About the CPU:

I think the pentium M 2.0 Ghz should last me well through all games i will be playing for the next few years. My only concern is for the lovely Unreal Tournament 2007. That game will have lots of CPU intensive functions. Team AI, communication, you can talk to the bots...for example if i say "there is a sniper on the roof, kill him", the bot will understand it and try to take him out. heh, more likely become another headshot. Also if i were to say "is the cave clear?"..the bot responds "the cave is clear". This is what i read from some preview online. Surely this sort of thing, among others will require a power CPU.

So anyone thinks pentium M @ 2.0 ghz wont be enough? The 7800 GTX should be enough according to what sources say, probably playable at 1280 x 1024 rez no AA, etc, assuming you got a fast CPU, heh.

 

[datacore4]

Check out the brand new Sager 5720. It's a 17 widescreen comes in two resolutions, sports a Pentium-M and 7800GTX. Sounds very much like the Dell XPS. It's cheaper than the oversized and ugly Clevo model and will get better battery performance certainly.

Hmm....It seems to me that you guys are mistaking things.....

Let me clarify

1) The sager NP5720 Is a CLEVO!!
This is the Pentium M version...7800 GTX, and only 8.5 lbs, powerful enough cpu, and sleek....I ordered this puppy last night
Shipping in 4 days! will have it in my lap in 10 days! YEY!..
Finding time to kill till then...Bet you can tell from my excessive messaging! heh

The Big fat clevos that you are mistaking with are:-

2) Sager NP9890 (7800 GTX with pentium4...big, fat, ugly, 13 lbs), not worth the performance gain over the pentium M version
This one will be shipping in 2 weeks or so.

3) Sager NP9750 (7800 GTX with ATHLON64 DUAL CORE!!...Also around 13 lbs)
Its the same look, size of the pentium4 verion...but worth the performance benefits.
This one wont be shipping till another month i think.


BASICALLY THEY ARE 3 DIFFRENT CLEVO MODELS!!
All these conpanies uses them (Sager, ABS, Alienware, Voodoo PC, EuroCom, Falcon Northwest, ProStar, Hypersonic)...dell might be the exception..havent confirmed it yet

Basically they are all the same quality, since they are the same things!...so choose on price, minor aestetic diffrences, warrenties, etc. Inside they are the same.

If you add quality components like RAM and Hard-drive...they all should last long (maybe not the fat pentium4 clevos since they kinda cook things inside, they might not last as long as the pentium M verions. THe athlon64 version might be inbetween)


It would have been nice if they made a Turion64 version with 7800 gtx also....I hate choosing an intel over an AMD, but the pentium M cps's are good, too bad they carry the intel name.

Oh well, i'll just buy more stock in AMD plus a dual core desktop cpu to compensate...heh

 

[datacore4]

 

[datacore4]

 

[datacore4]

AHHH! Sorry woody....My bad

Check out the brand new Sager 5720. It's a 17 widescreen comes in two resolutions, sports a Pentium-M and 7800GTX. Sounds very much like the Dell XPS. It's cheaper than the oversized and ugly Clevo model and will get better battery performance certainly.

You said "oversized and ugly Clevo model"...heh sorry...I misread.

And sorry about the empty posts...Im still new at AnandTech Forums.

 

[cheesehead]

If Asus would make a version of the Z71v with Turion compatibility, I would buy it. The Z71V has a mini-PCIe slot, so it should work just fine with the 7800.

 

[imported_Woody]

Thanks for the heads up on the 5720. I didn't know those were also manufactured by Clevo. But yes, you are right, I was referring to those huge Clevos that up until now, were the only option for a non-DellXPS 7800GTX or 6800Ultra based laptop (it's hard to imagine one of those beasts sitting on your lap with any hope of having children again).

Not that there's anything wrong with Clevo models. There does seem to be a lot of difference in who puts it all together, slaps their name on it and ships it to you.

I can't recall ever hearing anything bad about Sager and from what I've read on different forums, powernotebooks.com is probably worth the few extra shipping dollars due to their reputation of support and reliability.

My last notebook is an eMachines M6805 which I picked up at Best Buy a year and a half ago for $1300. Athlon64 3000 and 9600 mobility. A very fast machine capable of running all modern games including CSS and BF2 at native 1280x800 resolution with smooth framerates. It is also very overclockable and has performed flawlessly for me. The support from eMachines was non-existent after they got bought out by Gateway and you couldn't even install SP2 on the thing without flashing it with a BIOS pulled from an Acer notebook or other similar model. We pulled our support from each other on these forums. So even though Sager has better support I don't anticipate ever needing it.

I too would prefer another A64 over the Pentium M but I would hands down prefer a Pentium M over a Pentium 4. From all I've heard the Sonoma Pentium M is a better performer in games over the Pentium 4 in most cases.

I plan on ordering one of these 5720 Sagers tommorrow. I need to call it in since I plan on getting the cash discount. I'm also looking at the 2.0GHz model since I think that CPU is a nice balance of price and power. I'm also going to order it with 2 GB RAM so I don't have to worry about that in the future. I could probably save a few bucks by ordering the low end RAM, buying the 2GB separately and then selling off the remaining stick but it would probably only be $50 or so and a bunch of hassle.

datacore4 we can be the first kids on the block to get one and start a new thread to compare notes.

 

[datacore4]

You bet Woody, we should compare our notebooks once we get them.

The first thing i'm gonna do after i get it is benchmark the hell out of it...and abuse it within its limits.

Abuse it? ....here's why
(Note: my use of the word abuse, here means "put it to its max limits" rather than "push it beyond its max limits")

Most people after they get a brand new item they give it so much love and care that problems with it most likely wont show up immediately. After a year, after the warranty ends...heh, then they cry.

So, I will abuse it within its limitations so that any problems it might have will show up in a few days hopefully (i will test/abuse nearly ever system of it without voiding warranty)

This way i can easily get it fixed at first, rather than later.

Here are the test breakdowns (still working out the test details)

1) LCD torture test (havent figured out what to do exactly)
-Probably will be a full screen, full range, flashy movie i will make and run it continuously for many many hours...heh
-This will also be the system i will test most as its almost impossible to void warranty, and also most people including myself are most concerned about the LCD.

2)Temperature torture test (heh, dont worry...ovens are only for frozen food)
-NO overclocking whatsoever! (I will assume I dont know what that hell that means, or how to overclock...not even by accident!..heh)

3)Physical stress tests (no gymnastics, hammers, vehicles involved)
-This is where most problems will show up fast if any exist
BTW, if you sit on your notebook and it breaks, the problem is not with the notebook....its your fat a_s_s

This way i will also know some of the systems limitations so i can avoid them in the future.

* IMPORTANT NOTE*
All tests are secondary to warranty. If any of the tests involve voiding warranty....i will never put it through those tests.

*MOST IMPORTANT NOTE*
I DO NOT SUGGEST YOU TO TRY ANY OF THESE THINGS....AND I DO NOT TAKE ANY RESPONSIBILTY FOR YOUR LOSS, BECAUSE OF ANYTHING YOU TRIED BASED ON MY IDEAS.

AND I WILL NOT ATTEMPT ANY OF THESE UNLESS I HAVE A GOOD UNDERSTANDING OF HOW TO FOLLOW SAFETY PROCEDURES, PROPER PLANS, AND KNOW WHAT THE HELL "within limits" MEANS!
(follow this statement at your own risk)

 

[Kevlar Coated Tent]

datacore4:
I think i will wait until i have heard your results before purchasing

 

[imported_Woody]

Have you guys heard of M-Tech? As in: http://www.m-techlaptops.com

They have this same notebook with their own brand name for less money than the Sager brand. It's the MTECH M570A. Disregard this...they actually cost more.

I also can't decide if I want the WSXGA (1680x1050) or WUXGA (1920x1200). Since I'll want to run games in native I think the lower resolution would give me better performance especially over the next couple years as I throw untold horrors yet to be published at it.

 

[cheesehead]

A good idea for testing your laptop:
First, put it in a burlap bag, and toss the bag over your shoulder. Then, jog or run a few miles.
After this, put the laptop in an ordinary bookbag sandwiched between two textbooks. Schlep it around, and let it occasionally bonk into things.
Then, drop it six inches.

Does it still work?
If so, the laptop's worth buying.

Heat test:
Put the laptop on top of a sweater, to impede cooling. Set it to run something suitably nasty. If it does'nt overheat in six hours, you're golden.


These are the kinds of things I put my laptop through. The dell 9100 is a marvellously sturdy laptop; however, the electronic bits that actually do things (video card, mainboard, sound thingamajig) are all garbage and need to be replaced every four months on average.

 

[Jatt]

I have had a Sager 5680 for the last 1.5 years and I can honestly say I love it, I bought it from PCtorque and let me just tell you that they are awesome, they will do everything in there power to help if an issue ever arises. I had a problem with the combo drive and I contacted pctorque, they put me in touch with sager and I had an RMA# the same day and had a new drive shipped in good faith within 3 days. Sagers will get warm, they are large and a bit heavy but if you are looking for flat out performance I would go Sager all the way, and on a social level I figure if you can get a great product for a great price and support small business(Pctorque that is) then it's a win win. I am awaiting my second Sager this one is the 9880 and barring any changes of policy or quality I will use Sager notebooks for the rest of my days. Hope this helps!

 

[imported_Woody]

Got my order in finally:

1 Sager NP5720 FORCE - $2,224.00
17" WUXGA (1920x1200) LCD w/nVIDIA GeForce Go 7800 GTX PCI-e w/256 DDR
2.0GHz "Sonoma" Intel® Pentium® M 760 w/2,048k L2 On-die Cache
2,048MB (2 SODIMMS) DDR2/533 Dual Channel Memory
80GB SATA/150 Hard Drive at 5,400 RPM
LightScribe Enabled Combo 8X DVD+/-R/RW/CD-RW (2.4x DVD+R DL) Drive

Basically I wanted the 2.0 GHz 760 CPU because I feel that's the price/performance sweet spot right now. Same with the 80GB SATA drive. I can always upgrade to a faster drive later and this machine allows you to make a hot swappable second drive in the CD/DVD tray.

With those two options is actually cheaper to get the high end of the two base models and the high resolution monitor and DVD recorder are included at no extra charge. I've never seen a 17" notebook running at WUXGA so I may be in for a nasty surprise or just downright amazed. I hope it can handle BF2 at native! That's some high resolution!

 

[robnix]

I just got mine from pctorque with the exact same specs as yours yesterday. It's a sweet, sweet, laptop.

Here's my first impressions:

XP was very easy to install.
Debian was not, but I have everything up and running now.
The screen is gorgeous.
The keyboard is simply the best laptop keyboard I've ever used. This is compared to the IBM's, HP's, and Dell's that I've used. There's no flex, and the keys have a nice feel.
The build quality is very good.
3d sound on a laptop is a blast.
It stays cooler than expected with that 7800 in it.

BF2 last night at 1600x1200 on that screen was a trip. You'll be very happy with purchase.

I don't think you can beat it for the price.

 

[robnix]

Originally posted by: datacore4

I haven't heard bad things about Sager and I did a lot of research. I like this much more than the behemoth Clevo machines

Ugh!.....the sager machine we are talking about here is manufactured by Clevo.

I think with exception of the Dell xps notebooks (with 7800gtx), all other notebooks out there with 7800 gtx are manufactured by Clevo.
(namely:- Alienware, ABS, Sager, Voodoo Pc, among others)

Alienware is now getting their laptops from Uniwill. At least the Sentia line. Dell has just contracted with Asus for their slimline laptops.