Is Sager a reliable brand?

Sager seems like a good company. When you customize their notebooks, you get quality for the price. Yet there are hardly any customer reviews. Are they that good? How is the customer service?

 

most sagers are sold through resellers... that's why there are no reviews (or customer service reviews) of sager

they are pretty much more reliable than anyone else.

you would have to try pretty hard to find a complaint about any of their notebooks

 

i have an ifl-90, and it has been rock solid. only had it about 4 months, but no problems yet! xoticpc.com has great customer service. also powernotebooks.com has a good reputation. both companies post regularly on these forums- justin@xoticpc from xoticpc.com and paladin44 from powernotebooks.com.

 

I do not know how many threads we have on this but theres a lot.

Look up the Sager Satisfaction thread, and others similar to that.

And the Sager resellers (like XoticPC, Powernotebooks, Discountlaptops, etc...) have legendary service/support... like a good middle man for handling the purchase/support, while Sager just handles the hardware warranty.

 

Is Ferrari a reliable brand?

 

I don't know about Sager, but Clevo is.

 

Funny thing about some high-end brands, though - they get better when they go down-market. Jaguar was basically guaranteed welfare for mechanics until Ford bought it. Also, if you look at the numbers, most American lines are more reliable than, e.g., Mercedes.

 

IMHO, It is as reliable as any other mainstream brand (except for Acer)

High end, low end it doesn't matter. So if you think you are paying more for quality forget it. Your are paying more for the most recent mobile graphic cards and CPU's and the ability to eventually replace the motherboard to support new technology.

Being the most recent means that probably technology is not that tested and benefits are unconfirmed. Whilest unconfirmed don't expect much in terms of support of new drivers etc etc (just wait like everyone does for any brand)

Trance
PS: It all depends on your expectations for the money you invest. To be exhaustive you get personalized customer service too from the resellers Gohpn suggests. Something you don't get on mainstream brands, but in the end they can only do so much after Clevo.

 

Let's not compare European cars to American ones...I hate plastic stuff.

 

Let's not not compare Sager/Clevo/Compal with Ferraries either. I had the pleasure of driving a GTO and I can tell you that when I kicked the pedal to the metal it wouldn't shutter at all at any speed in the spec

But that comes with the territory I guess.

Trance

 

In a way its not a million miles away from comparing hifi systems.
You would buy a Pioneer system, and get great performance and quality parts, in a sturdy chassis.

you bought a cheaper brand like goodmans, and while many of the components would be similar, the chassis was less sturdy, and the build quality nowhere near as good.

so A Sager Clevo is solidly built, while an Acer is Less solid, a toshiba is also very solid by the way .... good defences against sales reps those things have

 

I bought my Clevo D900K/Sager NP9750 through powernotebooks.com. Though my experience hasn't been the best, some of it has just boiled down to the law of the lemons.

My $3500 notebook (DTR) froze at least every couple days from the moment I powered it up. Though it was billed as a "gaming" rig, it overheated running nothing but IE. I sent it in to Sager 3 times (me paying shipping) and they claimed nothing was wrong with it. Finally the heat fried the GPU and I had to pay to refurbish it. I did every kind of test I could think of and installed and reinstalled Windows countless times trying to gain stability. I even bought Vista on launch day in the vain hope that it would help (actually Vista DID make the system more stable). Eventually I bit the bullet and bought a new CPU- problem solved. However not before Sager's tech support had mangled my power brick (which is STILL in their shop being "fixed") and sent back my notebook unuseable. So though I know Sager is a quality brand, they are not flawless. Here's a list of my woes:

-Faulty CPU upon arrival
-Tech support unhelpful
-Warranty virtually worthless (as is about true with any laptop company)
-My notebook was returned to me from being "serviced" with more problems then when I sent it in (battery wouldn't hold a charge and PSU was broken).
-LCD inverter went sour- things tend to break the day after your warranty expires (not that the warranty covers much anyway)
-GPU went sour
-Battery now is utterly worthless (On a 100% charge, the system drains the battery after only 5 minutes IN HIBERNATION MODE)
-Still waiting on my PSU (it's been over a month- I'm using a "loaner" they charged me $100 for)
-First time I sent the notebook in for diagnostics for what eventually turned out to be the CPU, it took THREE MONTHS to get my latop back and even then it wasn't fixed.


So there ya have it. I ended up spending around $200 in shipping both ways, over $500 in service, parts and labor at Sager and around $350 in 3rd party parts just to get a laptop that runs stable. Of course my battery doesn't work, but hey, after a year and a half of struggling with this beast, I'm glad I can finally use it without being in constant fear of it locking up or overheating!

In conclusion, laptops can be a pain in the butt and every manufacturer is going to offer less support than you feel entitled to for the amount of money you spent, so pick your poison. Sager is as good or better than 90% of the companies out there.

 

@SpartacusMagnus - Sorry to hear of your tale of woe; however, I do appreciate your willingness to handle it without going nuclear - I assume that the "lemon" in question is the system listed as Alienware m7700 in your sig?

 

Indeed. Purchased it in April of 2006 with a then-top-of-the-line AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ (dual core 2.4GHz) from powernotebooks.com (who are great BTW). Since then I replaced the CPU and had to replace the LCD inverter. I like Alienware styling (but at the time of purchase, spec for spec the Sager was almost $1000 cheaper), so I figured if I had to buy a new LCD inverter I might as well buy the AW version with the extra socket for the LED alien eyes, buy a AW lid off ebay and paint it all to match.

So with a bit of work, my silver Sager NP9750 is now a satin black Alienware m7700a. I figured if my machine LOOKED more bad @$$, I'd have more patience with its "lemon" qualities, lol.

 

Might as well make a lemonade, while you`re at it.
And yes,that means squeezing all the performance out of it