13 questions about the 2090

hello
i am ordering a Sager 2090 and i have a few questions about how I should configure it among other things. Some of these questions have already been asked multiple times on different posts, but i would love a definitive answer, and i figure this might become the thread that has all the questions answered in one place. So without any further ado...


1. I have never heard of Sager, Compal, xoticpc.com, or powernotebooks.com, are these trustworthy notebook manufacturers and providers that produce a good laptop?

2. The 2090 is so damn cheap! am i getting ripped of here, it just seems too good to be true?

3. If ordered today (july 5th) when can one estimate its arrival?

4. What the hell is robson turbocached memory? is it worth 35 bucks?

5. The only option for a the larger 1680x1050 screen is matte, why is this? will it change? and when will it change if it does?

6. Does the video card equipped with the 2090 have DDR2 or DDR3? WTF is DDR? does it matter?

7. What is all this talk of changing the clock speed on the video card? is this a problem that i will need to manually fix when my laptop arrives?

8. Where should i buy my Sager 2090 from?

9. Why have i not seen a single person ordering there 2090 with 4 gigs of RAM? is there some problem with 4 gigs that i am not aware of?

10. I have seen a few posts about people being upset that the 64bit version of vista was installed instead of the 32bit. What is the problem with the 64bit? is it major? will i have to install 32 bit?

11. Why does Xoticpc have an option for a 6 cell battery but powernotbooks.com does not?

12. In a review i read, the author said the buttons on the top of the laptop didnt work, is this true?

and although this question does not affect my buying of the 2090, i am truly curious:

13. Why have i never heard of Sager? everyone on this forum seems to be drueling about the price of the system as well as its quality. However i have never met someone who owns a Sager/compal. it seems so much cheaper then a Dell or Hp, yet everyone has either an hp or a Dell. I dont understand?

hopefully people will answer these questions and others with the same questions will be able to use this page to answer their own questions.
ty in advance for answering

 

hello
i am ordering a Sager 2090 and i have a few questions about how I should configure it among other things. Some of these questions have already been asked multiple times on different posts, but i would love a definitive answer, and i figure this might become the thread that has all the questions answered in one place. So without any further ado...


1. I have never heard of Sager, Compal, xoticpc.com, or powernotebooks.com, are these trustworthy notebook manufacturers and providers that produce a good laptop?

they are very reliable, just look at the forums, and compal has been making stuff for dell, hp, etc for ages.

2. The 2090 is so damn cheap! am i getting ripped of here, it just seems too good to be true?

it is cheap cuz its more direct from compal i suppose, no advertisement, etc

3. If ordered today (july 5th) when can one estimate its arrival?

they said latest by end of july

4. What the hell is robson turbocached memory? is it worth 35 bucks?

its 1gb of flash ram that adds to performance of the system ram, but current benchmarks show its not really much help if u got more than 2gb of ram

5. The only option for a the larger 1680x1050 screen is matte, why is this? will it change? and when will it change if it does?

they have a supply issue, glossy will come late july supposedly.

6. Does the video card equipped with the 2090 have DDR2 or DDR3? WTF is DDR? does it matter?

its gddr2 and gddr3. both based of ddr2, which is double data rate ram. gddr3 has lower power requirements and is possibly clockable higher. if the 2 ram's are clocked the same, they will have identical performance, otherwise doesnt matter too much. check forum for benchmarks

2090 was initially reported to have gddr2, but ppls who have gotten it say rivatuner program detects it as gddr3

7. What is all this talk of changing the clock speed on the video card? is this a problem that i will need to manually fix when my laptop arrives?

the gddr2/3 on the 2090 is clocked a bit lower than say the gddr3 on the asus g1s, hence in synthetic benchmarks at least, 2090 is a bit slower than the asus, but if you overclock the memory, you can get more similar performance. however, synthetic benchmarks are not the best thing to base performance off of, your in game fps is the best bet.

8. Where should i buy my Sager 2090 from?

power or xotic, but not directly from sager. power and xotic have better support

9. Why have i not seen a single person ordering there 2090 with 4 gigs of RAM? is there some problem with 4 gigs that i am not aware of?

32 bit os addressing can address 4 gigs of memory space, but some of that space will be used to address the computer's components, so 32 os'es cannot use all 4 gigs. you will need a 64 bit os, which have crappier driver and application support. that and 4 gigs is more expensive

10. I have seen a few posts about people being upset that the 64bit version of vista was installed instead of the 32bit. What is the problem with the 64bit? is it major? will i have to install 32 bit?

crappier drivers and app support i guess?

11. Why does Xoticpc have an option for a 6 cell battery but powernotbooks.com does not?

power sells it in their accessories section.

12. In a review i read, the author said the buttons on the top of the laptop didnt work, is this true?

driver issues i suppose, its a new product, so just wait a bit and it will probably be fixed.

and although this question does not affect my buying of the 2090, i am truly curious:

13. Why have i never heard of Sager? everyone on this forum seems to be drueling about the price of the system as well as its quality. However i have never met someone who owns a Sager/compal. it seems so much cheaper then a Dell or Hp, yet everyone has either an hp or a Dell. I dont understand?

they dont advertise, simple as that, doesnt mean anything else.

hopefully people will answer these questions and others with the same questions will be able to use this page to answer their own questions.
ty in advance for answering

 

1) Sager and Compal are notebook brands and companies, while Powernotebooks.com and XoticPC.com are resellers of these companies' notebooks. They are very trustworthy and reputable around these forums, despite not being widely known in the mainstream public as companies like Dell, HP, and Apple have the funding to establish widespread advertisements to establish themselves broadly. Sager and Compal are pretty old computer companies, probably older than Dell and the other "established" companies at the moment, and Compal is the second most prolific notebook manufacturer in the world, second only to the Taiwanese firm Quanta. In essence, the laptop industry and its manufacture of notebooks is concentrated within a specific range of firms that actually make the laptops for the companies like Dell or Apple, they are known as Original Design Manufacturers (ODM). Check out this article for more in-depth information regarding how the notebook industry works and you might be surprised:

(From Wikipedia
* Compal sells to Toshiba, HP/Compaq, Acer, and Dell
* Quanta sells to HP/Compaq, Dell, Toshiba, Sony, Fujitsu, Acer, NEC, and IBM
* Winstron sells to HP/Compaq, Dell, IBM, NEC, and Acer
* Arima sells to HP/Compaq, NEC, and Dell
* Uniwill/ECS sells to IBM, Fujitsu, and Dell
* Asus sells to Apple (iBook), Sony, and Samsung
* Inventec sells to HP/Compaq, Toshiba, and BenQ

2) The price of the Sager is pretty well done actually, it's companies like Dell or Apple that actually overprice their components, giving you the illusion of the "right price" by Dell or the big companies, when in reality, much of the upgrades you can select are much more cheaper on sites like Newegg.com and DIY installations. For example, a 4GB RAM upgrade from Dell costs a insane $1000! On Newegg, you can get 2 GB sticks for about $150 each, so it's $300 on aftermarket upgrades. And upgrading RAM on a lot of the computers is easy, a little panel under the bottom and a screw is all there is to it, really. Dell is notorious for one of its RAM sticks though, that you have to take out the KEYBOARD in order to access it. Talk about bad design, something tells me they did that on purpose to discourage RAM upgrades and would rather you buy it from them.

3) There is a backlog of popular demand for this notebook, so unfortunately they is a wait list. From what I hear a new shipment is coming in mid-July, so if you order now, in all likelihood you'll be included in that shipment and it'll be shipped to you then.

4) Robson turbocached memory is a Vista-only upgrade, a "mini RAM" between the processor and the HDD, if I recall correctly, to speed up information transactions and eliminate HDD access times, in theory. In reality, I don't think there's much difference other than boot up time, really. But maybe Vista drivers in the future will further optimize it. At the moment, I think it's a fad, but possibly it could catch on as an important computer component. Or it can die the horrible death the PhysX processor cards Ageia makes.

5) No, there is a WXGA (1280 x 800) option, I think you selected the high-end customized models on the Powernotebooks/XoticPC sites, so try selecting the cheaper customization and it'll allow you to change resolutions. The Compal IFL-90 will allow you for WXGA+ resolutions (1440 x 900), which is the same computer as the Sager NP2090.

6) The Sager's card has GDDR3. For some it matters in terms of synthetic benchmarks, but in reality there's no real difference between GDDR2 or GDDR3, at least one you will notice which is what matters for me, but all is well since the 8600M GT in the Sager is DDR3. "DDR" is a form of memory, it stands for "Double Data Rate" as opposed to RAM's old standard, SDR (Single Data Rate). It means what it sounds like, really.

7) The clock speeds on the graphics card is the core speed of the processor and the RAM clock speeds. Stock is best for you if you don't overclock at all, but some power users want to do this so they can increase performance. Personally, I wouldn't recommend it as overclocking too much can lead to bad results (like laptops on fire bad results).

8) If you live in the US, Powernotebooks.com (I bought my Sager NP2090 there, Donald is a great help in the purchase) or XoticPC.com. Both have excellent customer service, are very responsive, and have excellent reputations. Believe me, you'll thank yourself from buying from these guys, as their service is a lot better than from what you'll get from Dell's outsourced tech anyways.

10) 64bit architecture is fairly new, and it doesn't really hold too much improvement at the moment, but technology and software will progress and 64bit will become a reality, much like Windows 98's improvement on 32bit from 95's old 16bit architecture. At the moment, most people are getting 64bit because of RAM possibilities, 32bit will only allow for 3.2GB of RAM max, while 64bit will allow for 4GB or more.

11) Not sure about that, maybe Donald from Powernotebooks can elaborate.

12) I think flippoet's problems are more driver related (and sheer nubiness [j/k j/k]) than actual hardware problems, so stay tuned for that; there's nothing really critical up there though, so I'm not worrying.

13)I guess Dell and HP did their advertising right. The best way to take a customer is to limit their choices of computers of what they know exist. Sager's been around a while and has been known widely among the boutique laptop community, not the mainstream community. Really, Sager focuses on a more specific market than Dell or HP does, as well as the deep, deep pockets that the big corporations have for advertisement and annoying catch phrases. In essence, just because you haven't heard of Sager doesn't mean they're any less of a company than Dell, it's just that Dell makes themselves more than they are through their advertisements or deals, but anyone in-the-know know better and look through their advertising methods and look at other brands as well.

I hope I've been a help, because this was really long.

Good luck on the research, I was at the same position you were only a few weeks back. Now look where I am!

 

1. So far i have been very happy with my service from xoticpc. You know how you asked about that top button pad thing not working? Justin from xoticpc messages me regularly about the problem and is keeping me updated on possible solutions for it.

2. Your not getting ripped off, read this article it answers a lot of your questions: http://www.xoticpc.com/info_pages.php?pages_id=11

3. I don't know about this one
4. What the hell is robson turbocached memory? is it worth 35 bucks?
http://www.xoticpc.com/article_info.php/articles_id/35

5. The initial shipment will be matte due to supply issues with the glossy i believe. after that they will be glossy as far as i know

6. In synthetic benchmarks yes but in real world performance i've heard it's nothing to really care about. According to rivatuner(an oc'ing tool) it has gddr3

7. NO. it runs great out of the box, this is more for those people who like to have pissing contests

8. from personal experience xoticpc but i hear great things about powernotebooks

9. the only problem is price and that vista 32bit doesn't read 4 gigs of ram, it can only read up to 3

10. you don't have to install 32 bit vista. there are just compatibility issues with 64 bit so it has to emulate 32 bit and it just slows you down.

11. you can buy it from powernotebooks also, i just don't believe its part of their online order thing. the sager2090 comes with the 9 cell battery you have to pay extra for the 6 cell

12. for me it didn't for others it did, maybe it was just mine.

13. commercials pretty much in my opinion

 

Depending on which screen you order, I think that may affect your wait time. Some WXGA orders have already been filled, while WSXGA people are still waiting.

 

ty for complete reply

on question 9, you say that the drivers and app support for 64bit OS are bad. are they going to get better in the next few months, or will they stay like that forever?

also would it theoretically be possible to buy 4 gigs, and install the 32bit, and then when the 64bit version gets better, which may never happen, reinstall the 64bit?

 

wow ty all for fast replies

(special shout out to flip for writing those reviews)

 

Yeah you can do that. I expect the 64 to get better eventually. And when they do I"m gonna install the 64 bit.

I guess you could buy 4GB and just install the 32bit, it won't read it but I don't see anything wrong with it, I could be wrong.

 

they only problem with the 2090 right now is the dam wait time...i been waiting since early june preorder of ifl90, then switched to sager...and dam i hope it comes soon...

glueeater, what happened to ur 2090, i thought it had shipped?

 

It shipped to the wrong address, so it's being shipped back to me, essentially doubleing my wait time.

 

Talk about agony.... Hope you get it soon.

 

great thread,also answered some of my questions

 

this really is a great thread, the questions he asked were very good

 

ty, i hoped this might be useful to some other people. all that is left is to convince my dad that sager is a brand that can be trusted

 

Just tell him that sager and clevo have been around for years. Noone knows about them because they don't advertise, nor do they need to. If he asks why dell is so much more expensive then sager and clevo(this is the point where he assumes that the dell is better because it is more expensive), show him that dell is way overpriced by showing him the memory upgrade prices on the dell configuration and then see how much RAM is on newegg, and we can go on and on.

 

Not to scare anyone but there's a bit more to replacing RAM than just a screw and a panel. You need to make sure you are grounded. If you discharge static electricity into a RAM chip, you can destroy it. Nothing will look wrong outside but the insides will be fried.

This being said, the need for grounding should not discourage anyone from replacing their RAM themselves because it is trivially easy to ground oneself. If you use common sense about static electricity... like avoiding to put on wool slippers and doing a carpet dance just before manipulating sensitive electronics, that's already helpful. The second thing to do is to touch something you reasonably know is grounded before you start working with electronics. Any metal that conducts to the ground works for that purpose. It could be a water pipe or a ground wire in the electrical system of the house.

 

just get an anti-static cable at bestbuy. I got mine for 10 dollars I believe, just put the wrist-bracelet around your wrist obviously and put the banana clip on something metal.

if you don't want to get one just touch something metal before you work on your computer/laptop such as the inside casing of a PC.

Now don't go and discharge on your CPU, nononono.

 

just get an anti-static cable at bestbuy. I got mine for 10 dollars I believe, just put the wrist-bracelet around your wrist obviously and put the banana clip on something metal.

if you don't want to get one just touch something metal before you work on your computer/laptop such as the inside casing of a PC.

Now don't go and discharge on your CPU, nononono.

lemur, there's a really low chance of that happening anyway but it is still a high precaution.

 

Lawlz_xD, you seem to double post alot, are you on dial up or something? Cause I remember when I'd use to do that.