Sager Laptops any good?

[MrBaseball]

Are Sager Laptops any good? I might be getting a laptop for a grauation gift. Im looking at this one. It has a desktop P4 in it, is that a bad thing?


Sager NP5620 ULTRA
15" SXGA+ TFT Active Matrix w/ATI Mobility Radeon 7500 w/64MB DDR
2.0GHz Intel Pentium® 4 Processor w/512k L2 Cache - 400MHz System Bus Speed
40.0GB Ultra ATA/100
512MB (2 DIMMS) PC2100 DDR Memory
Combo 8X DVD/8x8x24 CD-RW w/Softwares
3.5" 1.44MB Floppy Disk Drive
Built-in 56k V.90 Data/Fax Modem
Built-in 10/100BaseT Ethernet w/RJ-45 Jack
Built-in IEEE 1394
Deluxe Carrying Case
Productivity Software Bundle
Smart Li-ion Battery

$2,080.00

 

[MrBaseball]

anybody?

 

[MrBaseball]

 

[MWink]

They are very cheap, unfortunately they are also very unreliable. I know someone who bought one and it was nothing but trouble from day 1. I would not recommend them. I would stick with Dell or Toshiba, or some other brand with a good warranty.

 

[XMan]

They've got a great rating on Reseller Ratings.

My dad has one, and he loves it.

 

[RamzaBeoulve]

I'd never trust Sager with anything. Same goes towards Toshiba. They use cheap parts, and are very unreliable. Also, stay away from laptops with Desktop P4 chips because they can tend to get VERY hot and consume a fair bit of power for a laptop. They're also fairly terrible on battery life. You can also probably tell by the price tag for this thing, that for what is has to offer for that price probably isn't very good. If I were you, I would consider purchasing a Dell, Sony, HP or Winbook laptop. The price may be a little higher, but you get a laptop with a P4 chip designed for laptops, a better warrenty, better support, and an overall much better laptop.

 

[CDigs]

How about Asus?

http://usa.asus.com/notebook/nbindex.htm
http://usa.asus.com/notebook/s1000/feature.htm

They have a sweet looking line of notebooks. Googlegear.com sells them at a very attractive price. I've never really read any reviews on Asus notebooks, but if they're engineered and manufactered with the same standards as their other products, you can bet they'll be rock solid and pretty decent performers.

I'm currently looking to buy an Asus S1A for my g/f:

- PIII-M 1000 (512 KB L2 Cache)
- 256 MB PC133 SDRAM (Up to 640 MB)
- 13.3" TFT XGA 1024x768
- Integrated LAN/56K Modem
- Magnesium Alloy Casing
- 8x DVD
- Win XP Pro
- 20 GB HD
- Carrying Case
- 32 MB Ai Flash Drive
- Only 3.9 Lbs (!!!)
- 1.1" Thick (!!!)

$1597.00 from Googlegear.com and roughly $1600.00 around the web. That's a damn sweet price for a PIII-M 1GHz / 512 KB L2.

The S1A is more geared towards mobility, if you're looking for more power and you're less concerned about mobility, I'd look into the M2000 series or the L1000B series notebooks. Very hard to find on the net. I've found them at eCost.com, Computers4SURE.com, and Googlegear.com.

Hopefully Anadtech or Tom's Hardware will feature one of these notebooks in the near future

 

[MrBaseball]

Thanks for the replies.

I was thinking the Sagers might be an ok laptop because of Powernotebooks.com 10 rating on reseller ratings and it looks like the Sager is the same laptop as the Alienware Area-51-M. I thought Alienware stuff was good. The salesman from powernotebooks.com said the battery life is 1 1/2 to 2 hours on one battery and a little over 3 hours on two batteries.


I don't care about the weight of the laptop, I want something that I can game on. I might have to wait for the next Dell deal. Has anyone purchased from Powernotebooks.com?

 

[MrBaseball]

What types of problems did they have with the Sager? Are there anymore suggestions for a good gamer laptop?

 

[daddyo]

Sager badges laptops built by another company, who's name I forget. Apparantly, the OEM Sager uses manufactures something on the order of 75% of the laptops sold worldwide. Alienware is currently using the same OEM as Sager for it's laptop line, if that says anything.

Usually, Sager uses desktop CPU's in their laptops, but it's not always the case. If you plan on using the laptop as a desktop replacement that you can occasionally take with you, it's not a problem. If you plan on travelling heavily and will often be stuck using battery power, look for a more "portable" solution. Personally, I have a Dell Inspiron and I can count on my finger the number of times I've used the battery for more than 10 minutes at a time. I almost always have access to AC power of some sort. The flagship Toshiba laptop (or at least it was a few months ago) uses a desktop CPU. It really doesn't matter as long as the battery life is OK. My Inspiron uses a mobile processor and it's hotter than hell, so obviously the "mobile" part of that equation doesn't make THAT much of a difference.

Sager is a good option for a gamer because you tend to get a lot of features at a fairly low price point, and you can get it with a Radeon 7500 video card.

My dad's had a Sager for 3 years or so, and he hasn't had a single problem.

Anyone that write's off a brand because of one bad unit doesn't really understand "the real world". With VERY little effort, I can find scores and scores of people that have had a DOA of every laptop brand on the market.

 

[daddyo]

BTW, a quick search on google found this quote on the Sager 5620:

"I have one with a 2.2gig processor. Its been a flawless machine. It is a bit
heavy though. I wouldn't want to lug it too far! Plays games as well as my
desktop. I use it for work mostly (software development). I reccomend the
5620 highly. Got mine from powernotebooks.com. Great business."

 

[MrBaseball]

I did a search on google and I found mostly good comments on the Sager. Im not worried about the weight of it, my backback for school is exremely heavy with all my books and I carry that around all day without a problem. I was considering getting 2 batteries so the battery life would not be a concern if I have to use the batteries. Im just trying to get as many opinions as possibe before I put that much money into a laptop.

I emailed powernotebooks.com and received quick replies.

Here is some of the info I was emailed by the rep at powernotebooks.com

******
**I asked about the screen compared to the Dell.

Hello,

Thank you for your inquiry!

I think the screen is much better at SXGA+ resolution, and most people
agree. The reason is that "Ultrasharp" is just a marketing word they made
up to convince you it is somehow sharper, which it is not. Have you ever
seen UXGA or UXGA+ resolution on a 15" screen? Everything is so tiny you
can barely read it, and after looking at it for a while it hurts your eyes.
You will be begging for a lower resolution.

You see, resolution has nothing to do with quality or sharpness, it only has
to do with how far you "Zoom Out". The higher the resolution the more stuff
that will fit on the screen, but to do that it has to shrink down to a size
of that stuff so that it is very difficult to work with.

I would recommend going to a local computer store and looking at the
different resolutions. Remember that you are going to be looking at that
tiny image for hours at a time, and see if you don't agree that a lower
resolution, like SXGA+, on a 15" screen is better.


***********************
The battery life is 1 1/2 to 2 hours on the primary battery. However to
extend the battery life to over 3 hours you can have a secondary battery in
the laptop at the same time. With the mobile processor you get about 20
more minutes per battery. To learn more about why this is please read the
short essay that you will find at
http://www.powernotebooks.com/P4_Truth.php3.

I use the Sager NP5620 with the P4 2.4GHz Northwood processor and it runs
cool, quiet and FAST! You couldn't get me to pay that extra premium for the
laptop processor that is only 1.7GHz.
************

The Sager NP5620 is probably the best gamer on the market. Did you know
that it is the same machine that Alienware
(http://www.alienware.com/main/gaming_main.asp) is selling as their
Area-51-M, only the Sager is several hundred dollars less! It will eat up
the DELL.

 

[daddyo]

I'll agree with everything but the LCD comments. I have the 15" UXGA screen, and you'd have to pry it from my cold, dead hands. I've heard the new "ultra-sharp" lcd's that are only available on the Inspiron 8200 super-high end configurations are quite beautiful, but most of the new LCD's are fantastic looking.

 

[MrBaseball]

How would this be for a gaming laptop? It would be $1422.

Dell Inspiron 8100 Notebooks: Mobile Pentium® III Processor 1.0GHz-M 15in UltraXGA
Memory: 512MB,SDRAM,133M,2DIMM 512M2D
Video Card: 64MB 4X AGP ATI Mobility Radeon 7500
Primary Hard Drive: 30GB Ultra ATA Hard Drive 30GB
Floppy Drive: No Modular Floppy Drive NFD
Operating System Software: Microsoft® Windows® XP Home Edition
Modem: 10/100 + 56K Capable V.90 NIC/Modem, Internal Mini-PCI PCI1010
Fixed CD/DVD Drives: 8X Max DVD Drive 8XDVD
Bundle: Microsoft®Works Suite 2002 with Money 2002 Standard
Limited Warranty, Services and Support Options: 3Yr Ltd. Warranty- 3Yrs Mail-In Service + Lifetime Phone Support
Internet Access Service at no additional charge: 6 Mths of DellNet® by MSN Internet Access for Windows®XP Included
Special Offer-Dollars Off: Special Offer - $50 Off Online Purchase

 

[MWink]

How would this be for a gaming laptop? It would be $1422.

Dell Inspiron 8100 Notebooks: Mobile Pentium® III Processor 1.0GHz-M 15in UltraXGA
Memory: 512MB,SDRAM,133M,2DIMM 512M2D
Video Card: 64MB 4X AGP ATI Mobility Radeon 7500
Primary Hard Drive: 30GB Ultra ATA Hard Drive 30GB
Floppy Drive: No Modular Floppy Drive NFD
Operating System Software: Microsoft® Windows® XP Home Edition
Modem: 10/100 + 56K Capable V.90 NIC/Modem, Internal Mini-PCI PCI1010
Fixed CD/DVD Drives: 8X Max DVD Drive 8XDVD
Bundle: Microsoft®Works Suite 2002 with Money 2002 Standard
Limited Warranty, Services and Support Options: 3Yr Ltd. Warranty- 3Yrs Mail-In Service + Lifetime Phone Support
Internet Access Service at no additional charge: 6 Mths of DellNet® by MSN Internet Access for Windows®XP Included
Special Offer-Dollars Off: Special Offer - $50 Off Online Purchase

That looks like a very good choice. Just a few comments... Why not get the floppy drive? It's only like $30 if I remember right. Also, about the memory and HD, it may be cheaper to get it with the least possible and then buying it from somewhere else. For example, I just bought an Inspiron 8200 and Dell wanted $199 to upgrade from the 20GB HD to the 40GB. I got it with the 20GB and bought a 40GB for $150. The same can be true with memory.