5720 Almost Ordered

Well at the moment I am still deciding where to buy my Sager 5720 from. It is either going to be from www.discountlaptops.com or www.powernotebooks.com. I couldn't really decide so I thought of something to really make me decide. I sent both companies the same email with all my questions about the 5720. The best and quickest response gets my vote and my order! lol.

Another thing I am waiting for is the approval from my Dad to buy it for me as an early Christmas present. My parents are divorced so usually I would get two different sets of presents. This is year I told them all I wanted was this laptop. So if I get it this is ALL im going to get for Christmas from both my Dad and my Mom. I really don't care because im so going to be in love with it when I get it. Also I am going to be paying almost half of it. My parents aren't really what you call "rich" or even close to it. Im begging them to get it for me so hopefully I will. If I it's a "yes" I am most probably going to order it in the next 2-3 days. I kind of made up a lie telling them the price was going to go up dramatically. The price is going to go up but not as much as I told them. I also told them that the price change was going to be in the next day or 2. Yes as you can see I really want this laptop. Wish me goodluck.

Oh yeah, I have finally chosen on wether I should get the WSXGA or the WUXGA. I have decided on the WUXGA. I have read many reviews and the WUXGA sounds good to me and my friend has it on his Dell XPS Gen 2 and it looks sweet. He uses it for the same reason I do. To play a game called Counter-Strike: Source. He has the nVIDIA 6800 Ultra and he runs the game fine on the high resolution. So im sure with my 7800GTX I will be happy.

Finally the laptop specs...

-17" TFT WUXGA (1920x1200) Glare Type Display
-2.0 Intel Pentium M (760) Processor (2 MB Cache, Sonoma)
-256MB GDDR3 nVIDIA GeForce Go 7800 GTX PCI-Express 16x
-2048 MB DDR2 SDRAM (533 MHz, PC-4200, Dual-Channel) (2 X 1GB)
-80 GB SATA Hard Drive (5400 RPM)
-Internal 8X DVD±R/RW LightScribe (Dual Layer) + / CD-RW Combo Drive
-Integrated V.90/56K Modem (V.92 compliant)
-10/100/1000BASE-TX Fast Ethernet on boardLAN Card
-Internal Intel 2915ABG 802.11a/b/g Wireless LAN
-8-cell Smart Lithium Ion Battery
-4-in-1 Flash Card Reader (SD/MMC/MS/MSPro)
-Integrated 1.3M Digital Video Camera
-Ac Adapter w/ power cord included
-Free Carry Case
-No Operating System Installed
-1-year parts / 1-year labor warranty from Sager

Price: $2,224

My future wife:


Please give me feedback!!

 

I have it and love it. BF2 and Guild Wars run great on it.

 

Add 90 bucks for a faster Hard Disk maybe...

 

Even if you go for a smaller size (easy and cheap to get an extrenal) DEFINATELY get a 7200RPM hard drive. That will be by far the biggest bottleneck in the laptop's performance. I will be getting an almost identical configuration, except with a 60GB 7200RPM HD, and if I need to cut back on cost I will drop the RAM down to 1GB. Windows doesn't handle more than 1GB of RAM efficiently, so the performance upgrade of 1GB vs. 2GB of RAM compared to a 5400RPM vs 7200RPM HD is tiny. Of course, if I can afford it I'll get everything, with a cherry on top.

 

I like the configuration Spartan, everything looks very nice. If you can bump the hard drive to 7200RPM, that would provide a big performance boost, especially in video editing/loading.

 

Thanks for the postive feedback guys. I'll be giving you guys a "yes" or "no" answer on if im going to get it in a couple of hours. I guess im going to get the 80GB 7200RPM Hard Drive instead because i've heard a lot of postive things about it. That was one question I asked in my email to the companies. Oh, btw i've chosen www.powernotebooks.com. They gave me quick and very knowledgable feedback. All my questions were answered just how I wanted them to be except for they couldnt show me a picture of the free carry case you get with the lappy. If any of you can show me a quick pic that would be nice if not it doesnt really matter. I've also decided to still get the 2GB RAM. How does that sound. I told my Dad the price would be around $2,000. By upgrading the hard drive the price now goes up from $2,224 to $2,314. I guess i'll just through my Dad that price and see what he says. If it's too much I guess i'll go back to the 1GB RAM and then if it's still too much i'll put the hard drive back down to 5400RPM. So were im looking at $2,099 - $2,314. How's that sound? Am I making the right choice here? Like I said my parents aren't really big spenders but since its a Christmas present and it's all im going to get I want to get the best out of it.

 

I think anything from $2,000 to $2,300 would be a good amount of money to spend on an NP-5720. If you can get the 2GB of RAM, that will really help with games down the line.

I just upgraded to 2GB's from 1GB because I was running out of RAM and everything was slowing down due to the fact that Windows had to use the page file.

If you can't get both the 2GB of RAM and the 7200RPM hard drive, I say get the hard drive and skip on the RAM - get a single 1GB stick if you can, that way you can easily slip in another stick later on.

 

Thanks man. Just making sure I was doing the right thing.

Ahh!!! I can't wait till I atleast find out if it's getting ordered!!! lol

 

If you want to save a bit of money, you can drop the CPU down to a 1.86GHz, you won't notice a difference between that and the 2.0Ghz. Also, which screen are you getting? I'd suggest the WSXGA+ - it's still has a lot of screen real estate, plus it will be much easier for the video card to handle in games.

 

Thx for the advice but ill stick with it just how I have it. Im getting the WUXGA. I like it better and it's my opinion. My friend does fine on his XPS2 with it and a 6800 ultra so the 7800gtx should be just fine. 1.86GHz is such an ugly number and anyways I wanted atleast 2GHz.

Ohh guess what?!?!?!?!

Im ordering it tomorrow!!!!​

One more question:

My Dad recently bought a Gateway desktop that came with Windows XP Media Center Edition. He has the Windows XP MDC CD that came with it. Would it be fine if I installed that on my 5720? It says its only suppose for the computer he has but that bs because ive done it on other computers. But I just want to know for sure before I do it on mine.

 

Here's what the folks at PowerNotebooks have to say.

Tell me what you think.

 

Well, if both of the drives were SATA and 7200RPM, then I'd say that is correct for the most part.

However, I'd sooner have a 7200RPM UATA drive than a 5400RPM SATA. The 7.2k will have faster access time, which does add to your performance and responsiveness, and it will have a higher bandwidth due to it's faster rotational speed.

For best performance, the 7200 is #1.

 

However there not. The 5400RPM HD's are SATA and the 7200RPM HD's are Ultra ATA.

So I really don't get it.

One question Chaz, you have the 80GB SATA 5400RPM right?

 

Well - I said if both the drives were SATA...yeah no big deal.

I have the SATA 80GB 5400RPM, yes. You can see my performance benchmarks in my review to hear my thoughts on it. In short, it is nothing special, you'd need a 7200RPM drive to take advantage of the SATA, and even then, an Ultra ATA 100 would be very close in speed.

 

I still need this question answered.

 

Keep the SATA and get the faster one next Christmas. The monstrosity supports multiple HDDs anyway.
And it should be fine, since the 5720 is a desktop masquarading as a laptop anyway.

 

Okay iv'e decided to get the 80GB 5400RPM SATA.

That's it, it's final!!

$2,224

I'll be ordering it as soon as I get home from school around 4:00 PM EST.

=)

 

Sounds great Spartan, be sure to post back when you get it and let us know your thoughts.

Yes - I'd agree that you made a nice hard drive selection - I have the 80GB 5400RPM SATA, and I'm very satisfied.

The nice features of a Serial ATA drive are that it requires less CPU utilization to access, less power consumption, and they support 48-bit addresses, etc.

 

Not multiple SATA drives, though, I don't believe.

 

That's correct - the 5720 has only one internal hard drive, which can be either SATA or Ultra ATA; the other hard drive, which fits into an adapter and goes in the modular bay, is UATA only.

They also cannot be run in RAID either.

 

The deal is done!!! ORDERED!!!

Im so happy!! I should recieve it by Monday.

I'll post when I get it and maybe even give you guys a small review.