A little trepidation on the Sager 2090 from a poor college student to be

So I'm heading out to college come August and I figured it was about high time I got myself a laptop. I mean that literally, in that I've worked my butt off and have finally saved enough to get one on my own (it's a pride thing, I think). Now, knowing that I wanted to get my moneys worth, I ended up here at NotebookReview. Sorry for introduction of sorts.

To get to my point, the Compal IFL90/Sager 2090 looks absolutely amazing. I was just wondering how it compared to the new-released Dell 1520 (the one I was looking at until I learned of the Sager). Also, I was curious as to the actual release date of the Sager 2090. I was going to buy it off Powernotebooks because of their high reviews (and the fact that one of the salespeople actually frequents this forum, which is kinda cool), and it says it ships early-to-mid july, but I saw that some people had already received theres. Are they shipping out yet, or no?

So basically, how does the Sager compare to the Dell 1520 in terms of build quality and longevity? The fact that I haven't heard of them before also does unnerve me a little. Anyone care to answer my few questions?

[edit]

after some more reading, I realize that they will ship latest.. the third week of july? I read that off of another thread, and I understand it's an estimate. So I guess the question is how the quality holds up to in face of big name companies, mainly Dell (with the 1520) and Apple (although the Macbook doesn't really compare in terms of components), and what the difference is between the PowerPro J 10:15 (which I take to be a Compal IFL90... which in turn is a Sager 2090) and the .. Sager 2090 (forgive the redundancy). All this rebranding is quite confusing.

 

Welcome to notebook review forums

The sager 2090 is out already just shipping delays, so if you order now it should take 2-3 weeks. The sager is great machine and you won't regret buying it, best bang for the buck. The sager has much superior build quality and customer support better than dell, you can easily make them last for 3+ years if you follow these guidelines.

 

Its hard to compare the(quality wise untill we get some reviews)

However Compal is know for making/designing quality machines(Compal Hel80 is an good example) and IMO i believe it should be better then the Inspiron build quality.

Read more about the relation ship between ODM(Orginal Design Manufacturer-people who actually make/design the laptops) like compal/clevo /ect and OEM(original equipment manufacturer-put in cpu/ram/hdd ect) like Sager/HP/Dell/Alienware ect

The Sager NP2090 and Compal IFL90 is the same thing just they have different warranty options and one might have different starting configurations

The Sager NP2090/Comapal IFL90 is a very good bang for the buck 15.4 gaming machine.

 

Thanks for taking the time, and thanks for the reassurances. I'll look around some more before committing, but the Sager's probably a likely candidate.

haha, would there be any student discounts

 

http://www.gen-x-pc.com/note_IFL90.htm offers student discount and free shipping if you pay by paypal , you might want to check them out as well. Also Justin from Xoticpc and Donald from Powernotebooks will able to handle any further questions you have about price, shipping, build quality, and any other questions, so you might want to also talk to them as well.

 

Original Post: I'm still waiting on an email response from gen-x-pc.com on the student discount, they claim they have 24/7 email customer service, but haven't replied in 13 hours, so I don't know how good of a reseller they are because of the fact that they don't seem to have fast communication with customers (at least email-wise).

Update: Gen-X-PC.com was changing their web and email hosting provider, this explains why my emails were lost and never replied to. All of this has been sorted out. Gen-X-PC.com is a great company and is one of the only reseller of Compals and Clevos to offer student and military discounts to their customers, I highly encurage everyone check them out before making a final choice on which reseller to go with.

 

The WXGA version is the one that is out now, the WSXGA+ is delayed and the WXGA+ is due in mid-late july. I would wager if you wanted the WXGA version you may see it sooner since the majority of pre-orders that need to be filled are for the higher res model. I wouldnt base your purchase on a couple weeks delivery, but if you already wanted the WXGA, I figured I would share some good news.

 

i got a reply from them within an hour. however, it was very brief and not very informative, i asked about their different discounts and whether or not they could be combined

they said:"You would be able to use only one of the many available discounts options. The best option is the bank wire."

i'm gonna try calling them up later to see if i can get more details

 

Whoa mixxster...in Netiquette response to email within 1 business day is considered excellent. Many times it can be faster...sometimes within minutes even...but please don't criticize anyone's reply time to email requests unless you don't get an answer within 1 business day. You will find many companies...particularly the Major Brands that won't respond for days...weeks...or never.

If you have a question that you want answered quickly always pick up the phone and dial the toll free number...that is why we all have one...but if you have time and can wait for up to 1 business day then email is appropriate.

 

You hit that right on the head sco_fri...at this point new orders for WXGA will probably be shipped faster than other resolutions. However once these finally start flowing the back log will be short lived and we will be back to shipping regularly within about 2-3 business days...or even faster if need be.

 

Thanks for the link Kdawgca, it's been really informative. Although the student discount is enticing (if mysterious), I might just pay the premium and go with Powernotebooks as the reviews have only been good. As for release dates, it was mostly curiosity. I just need the laptop by the end of July at the latest, so that I could have it in August in time for school. So a little more browsing, a little more forum lurking, and I'll have my mind made up. Thanks for the help everyone.

 

I saw order fast to get by the end of july

 

Ok, my expectation were a little bit too high for an email response.
I guess I just interpreted 24/7 email support as a fast response promise.

 

Kind of an interesting gimmick isn't it...claiming 24/7 email support...it just means that YOU can send them an email 24/7, then they'll get around to answering it when they can...hopefully within 1 business day.

REAL 24/7 support is with English speaking DOMESTIC telephone support...instant satisfaction

Now, even 24/7 telephone support will sometimes require escalating for additional help to the factory technicians who of course stroll in during West Coast business hours. But in our case that only happens about 15% of the time.

 

Hi All,

My name is Robin, I am one of the owners of GENX-PC. First I would like to address the comment made by mixxster:

"gen-x-pc.com doesn't reply to e-mails, I've been waiting for about a week now for replies to 2 emails."

I apologize for your frustration with our company. We were having email problems with our hosting company recently and on July 28th we switched to a new hosting company.

The result was tons of SPAM which apparently our previous email software was blocking and maybe that's what happened to your email mixxster. We were even not receiving email within our own company so now that problem is eliminated.

In reality we do answer all email we receive. We do tech support for all computers and all people whether they bought their computer from us or someone else. We have been doing that for years now.

We also forbid our sales people from posting in forums such as this one. I don't think it's fair to the consumer to come in here and pitch a product. Asnwering technical questions is one thing but the temptation to lead someone to making a purchase is too great. We also forbid our sales people to use any tricks of the trade when talking to people that call with questions about the laptops we sell. PERIOD.

Now about the quote above about our 24/7 tech support being a gimmick. I have worked the support desk too many nights to let that comment go without a reply. I find it appalling that another website owner would make a statement such as that without any knowledge of the facts.

The quote above by palladin is an excellent example of the reason we forbid our sales people from posting.


Thank you,
Robin L.
GEN-X-PC

 

Ok I will resend my original emails and I expect a response within 24 hours. That seems fair to me. And now that I think about it I do remember that the Add-to-cart link was broken that day and has since been fixed, it now seems to make it more believable that there were server problems that day. I must say that I think Donald is a great sales rep, its nice that there is someone to see our concerns everyday. Donald made a perfect statement regarding the situation; at that time we had absolutely no communication from Gen-X-PC.com. When you make a claim and don't fall through with it, it is a gimmick by definition (we only thought it was a gimmick because the email system was in a state of transition, making it appear that my emails were ignored). I support Donald, his company and his statements, thats why I bought from PowerNotebooks.

Regarding the Web/Email Provider transition: It probably would have been helpful to put some kind of announcement on the Gen-X-PC.com front page saying something like:

Otherwise you make customers like me feel that your website is broken and that you don't answer emails. This in turn loses me as a customer and then causes me to warn others from buying from you. I wanted to help others out by sharing my experience so that people make the best choice when making such a large investment for a laptop.

I'm sorry if I harmed people's image of your company but thats what happens when you don't keep your customers informed. You provide a perfect example by saying "We also forbid our sales people from posting in forums such as this one." by not posting in "forums such as this one" your customers will not feel like they have the ability to easily communicate with your employees and other customers at the same time about the products you are trying to sell. If I had not stumbled across your company I would have never known anything about it as I have gathered all of my information from "forums such as this one", which obviously your company does want to be a part of.

This post was not intended to be negative, I'm simply trying to explain the situation that led me to post what I originally posted about Gen-X-PC.com. Gen-X-PC.com seems like a great reseller, they just take a slightly different approach than XoticPC and PowerNotebooks.

 

I hope as well that RobinL makes his account a little more professional. I have a little trouble believeing what appears to almost be a random post. Hopefully though it all clears itself up and anything negative going around turns up on a plus side.

Keeps us informed mixxster.

 

Hi All,

Both very interesting comments. Thank you. I really didn't want to get into a point by point discussion about the details of the postings. But here goes a very brief one.

1) Our claim is not a gimmick.

2) Powernotebooks has an excellent reputation. That was never in question.

3) The link was never broken on our end but thank you for letting us know about the problem.

4) I gave the true facts about our email system.

4) The DNS change was done without our customers noticing any change at all.

5) I don't think any harm was done but thank you for the apology. I just wanted to clear up the "gimmick" posting.

6) I don't think I've been unprofessional. I have spoken the truth and I haven't said anything untruthful about another company or person.


Thank you,
Robin L.
(that's Ms. Robin L. not Mr. thank you)

 

I agree, we just got off to a bad start because of the hosting transition.

Couldn't agree more.

Actually the add-to-cart link was broken for a 5 minute period that day but has worked perfectly since.

That day, you did not inform anyone that the email system was acting up. Thats what caused the confusion, but that is past.

Alright...

Thank you for informing us.

You have been very professional, its nice that we can now understand what happened that day. Your company sounds like a great company just like XoticPc and Powernotebooks. I have received a reply to my resent email at 2 am last night, this confirms your claim of 24 hour email communication, I was very satisfied with the response. I will update all of my posts about Gen-X-PC to reflect that. I just want to thank you for clearing all of this up.

By the way guys, they are one of the few (if not only) resellers selling Compals/Clevos that offer a student discount, and free shipping on paypal orders. http://www.gen-x-pc.com/notebook_discount.htm I'm sure its worth considering.

To sum things up: http://www.gen-x-pc.com/ - Great reseller, I now know several dedicated customers who are very happy with their experience.

 

Damn there's me getting happy over the student discount thinking they were based in the UK

 

Have you tried Zepto notebooks? They sell the IFL90 at a great price in Europe and have other good laptops with the 8600 GT. I'd kill to have a Zepto reseller in the US.

 

I'm mainly after a 8600m GT GDDR3 (as from what I've read it has better performance), but all I've seen with that is the Asus G1S which retails for £1200 atleast, but for that price I can geta Rock Xtreme 770 with 8700m GT GDR3 , all so confusing.