Few questions before I decide to go with Sager

I've been on the lookout for a gaming laptop, and most of the ones people recommend to me on OCN are either ASUS or Sager. I have dealt with ASUS laptops, and while they have fantastic products which I rarely have problems with, their customer service is horrible. Now, I have some questions about Sager products.

1. I am specifically talking about the NP5160 and the NP5165. What is the build quality like, and would it last 2 years?

2. How is Sager's customer service, tech support, and RMA service?

3. If you have a Sager product, how happy are you with it? Have you had any problems with it?

Thanks in advance. I just joined this forum to ask this question, but I will probably stick around a little bit.

 

1. I can't comment on the build quality for those exact models but I've been impressed with the quality of my NP8130, I'm pretty sure the laptop will last over 2 years.

2. I've actually had great customer service from Sager, they've been pretty prompt to answer my emails and were very quick with an RMA I had.

3. I'm quite happy with my Sager laptop, I moved to it from my Macbook Pro and haven't looked back, I had a minor problem when I first got it that was quickly sorted.

Overall, the value of the Clevo/Sager products is exceptional, what you get for your dollar is impressive.
Note: I did purchase my machine through a reseller however Sager handles most of the support.

 

NOTE: Sager customer service in itself isn't that great. Make sure to buy through a reseller (Malibal, XoticPC, etc), their customer service is amazing.

 

I wouldn't exactly call those selections gaming laptops, the P151HM1's (NP8130) base configuation should be more like it.

As for build quality, as the owner of this laptop in my sig for two years, yes. It should last you for two+ years. RMA is good, don't buy from Sager directly. But from a reseller like XoticPC. Malibal and Mythlogic assemble their own machines, and as such probably won't carry the same brand name, but are the same machines on the website.

 

The 5165 is more than capable of gaming, provided 1) you keep the resolution down (the GT 555M is fine at 720p) and 2) you get Optimus working properly. It's for the latter reason that I would no longer recommend that particular system, or any notebook with this feature. Optimus (and the similar solution from AMD) is a great concept, but its execution has been far from stunning. When it works, it's solid. When it doesn't, it's a major headache.

If you want a dedicated gaming notebook, start with the Sager NP8130/Clevo P151HM. Comparably equipped, it's not that much more money than the 5165, is much more powerful, and thus more future-proof.

Sager machines are basically Clevo shells that the company puts together and slaps their brand name on the lid. That's what XoticPC sells. Mythlogic and Malibal get the shells directly from Clevo and as you correctly point out, assemble them in-house. I went with Mythlogic because of this fact. They know my system personally and, IMO, can provide a better level of support because of it.

However, most of the Sager resellers who participate on this forum (Xotic, Powernotebooks, etc) offer very good support as well. You won't really go wrong regardless of who you choose.

 

How did you manage to tell me I'm wrong, yet agree with me in the same sentence? That's paradoxial like crazy. (Also, my sister has a Dell with a 540M, or maybe it's 555M in it. We can't tell, because GPU-Z and CPU-Z report integrated graphics. Also, some of her games don't swap from IGP to her card. She mostly sticks to playing The Sims 3 and Runescape though, but other things she's tried have given her issues. This is why I don't consider it a gaming laptop.)

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This is why I'm leaning more toward Malibal for my next purchase. I like the Sager Logo, but they give basically the exact prices that XoticPC do. Even if they ship the PC a bit later than Xotic will (Xotic shipped my D900F within 72 hours of receiving the payment), that discount will be much needed. Also, I'll be sure that they can test my machine and make sure that it doesn't have any directly faulty parts upon shipping more than Xotic can. When living in an international location where there's no dealer remotely near you *cough* Caribbean *cough*, these things are of utmost importance.

 

Because I forgot the word "dedicated" in my initial reply. See edit above.

Such is the problem with Optimus. It works fine with newer games - I had no problem with Bulletstorm, Portal 2, Mirror's Edge, etc. Even slightly older stuff like F.E.A.R. was OK. But get into really old-school titles (Oni, Quake 3, Shogo: MAD, Half-Life), and that's where the frustration set in. It was difficult, if not impossible, to get them to run on the GeForce GPU. When they ran the Intel IGP, performance was surprisingly poor.

I decided to give Optimus one more chance and ultimately got burned by it. No more. Unfortunately, it's nearly impossible to find a mid-range notebook that doesn't have some form of switchable graphics, hence why I had to shell out a bit more money to move up to a system with the 560M.

 

Exactly. And truthfully, I just don't like that about it. It simply should not need to do all that. Ah whatever. I hope he springs up for a P151HM1 though. It's one hell of a machine for quite less than you'd think.

 

Love my notebook. It's FAST. Keyboard could be better, RAID could be there, battery could be bigger. No problems so far.

 

The Nvidia 555 is a gaming laptop, it will play any game at high, some really demending ones at medium, but just very few.
Here's a lil chart for the given gpu, check out the game charts, it's a good guideline to what it can do.
NVIDIA GeForce GT 555M - Notebookcheck.net Tech

If you want more kick then that, the you can move to Nvidia 560gtx in Sager np8130, you will gain a lot of power, you will run every game at high and a lot of games on ultimate, the card itself will be more futureproof for upcoming games in a year or two.
Here's the chart...
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560M - Notebookcheck.net Tech

 

Most buyers don't goto Sager for customer support, or even buy directly from Sager, but instead go through their resellers. Most resellers are regular posters on this actual forum so the customer service and tech support is fantastic. Resellers have more purchasing power from Sager but they are more like everyday people like you and me so they respond much faster and can help you much quicker than dealing actually with Sager.