Is Sager as good as it seems?

Well, I'm 16 turning 17, and I'm going to be going to a boarding school that allows laptops. I REALLY want a Sager, because they seem to be perfect laptops at a great price. I'm looking at possibly the NP5796, or the NP8660. They seem to be just ideal laptops. Well, a quick question; is the blu-ray drive a burner, or a read-only drive? If it's a burner, then it seems to be completely perfect. I just have a father who is VERY skeptical about buying from "no-name" companies/companies he's never heard of. He wouldn't even let me get a Creatve MP3 player! I just want to know how the laptops are in general (build quality, hardware performance), and how the customer service is from Sager. I have a Dell desktop, and we had some issues with it after 4 weeks, and the customer service was complete and total junk. We got transfered to India for the customer service, and they wouldn't even let us transfer to an American customer service center to talk to someone. I know Dell service is junk, but would I get that if I were to buy directly from Sager (not one of the small online retailers that sells Sager notebooks). I really want a good gaming laptop, but I don't want to have to spend so darn much on the 17" that has the 3 HDDs. I just want some reassurance that the laptop is as good as it seems to be, and that everything will work out ok. Thanks

 

They are not no name.

They just do not spend millions on marketing... which is good since they do not "pass on the savings to you" by charging you more.

Read my Clevo Guide, Sager is the largest Clevo vendor in the world for about 2 decades now.

If you look at a "known brand" (Sony, Dell, HP, etc..) up with the Better Business Bureau or resellerratings.com, you would find that they are quite under par with service/support.

A vendor like XoticPC or Powernotebooks has much better records (from the Better Business Bureau) for their legendary service/support over the long number of years being in business.

Just do your research before making assumptions.

 

Justin from xoticpc and donald from powernotebooks are great. Read the clevo reseller thread to see their impeccable reputations. You're better off buying from them than Sager itself.

They will be proving tech support, and they provide free labor above and beyond what sager does.

The blu ray drive is a burner, so it plays and burns blu rays.

Sager is not a no name company. They resell Clevo laptops, which makes laptops that almost everyone sells (even the big names), and then xoticpc and powernotebooks etc are Sager resellers.

 

i would recommend u go with xotic or power... but check the clevo guide as gophn said.... my dad also had a prob with that., but i convinced him that sagar/clevo was worth it
sagar is noted for its superior build quality and cooling solutions in the gaming market.
customer service from xotic or powernotebooks is legendary...

 

Ask him if he's rather to buy a zonda or CCX or veyron for $20000, or a Porsche 911 for $100K

 

I have no clue. I know the Veyron is the Bugatti, but he's heard of that, and he knows it's just a volkswagen. I don't know about the others though

 

He was trying to illustrate a point. Fame and mass appeal doesn't equal quality.

 

Sager ain't just good, they're damn good! The best bang for the bucks out there, period! er...make that an exclamation mark! And ya can't go wrong with Xoticpc.com and Powernotebooks.com, either. They are the par excellence among resellers, if not the entire industry.

 

Just because you don't see a commercial on television doesn't make sager/clevo a no name. Press back and take a look at the forum. There are very few, if any, threads complaining about overdue shipping, horrible build quality, and unsatisfactory customer service, amongst many other problems. Then, take a look at the alienware (an advertised computer with a so called "name") and notice all the threads about computers taking a month to ship, gpu's overheating, and whatever else you could come up with. That's not to say Alienware, Dell, Apple, or whatever other company is bad, because no brand is perfect and I'm sure people have had trouble with sager/clevo. It's just that sager/clevo is generally much better when it comes to build quality and customer service, and all that comes at a much better price.

I'm leaving for college in less than 2 months and I was looking for a computer that I could use for gaming, as well as run all the engineering software and whatever else I may choose to do. I was looking to spend about $2500, so I went with the usual candidates. I researched into various brands and was going to settle on an alienware/dell before I came accross sager. What I built for $2500 in an m15x or xps m1730 I put together for $2000 in a Sager, and I knew I didn't have to worry about waiting a month+ for my alienware to get to me because of various backorder excuses or talking to some guy from india when my dell broke down. I bought my Sager from XoticPC, and I couldn't be happier with my decision.

 

They are very good,I have had a few of their laptops.

 

well i can attest to their build quality as i have recently dropped my 92962 !! grrr silly me.. only thing that has happened is my case above the front speaker is dented but otherwise everything is running magnificently

 

Offtopic, I know.

But you can get a veyron for 20K?

 

No it was just an example. Porsche - AW; zonda, veyron - Sager. I was trying to ask if his dad is willing choose Porsche for worse built, worse performance just because it is more "famous", and give up a super hot deal of zonda or CCX.

 

no, you cant, veyrons cost over 1,000,000 easily, and zonda looks terrible

 

You are the champ bro! forget what I've said.

 

Don't know about the Zonda, but that's what I understood about the price of the Veyron. Nirvana's example threw me off.

 

Hey guys,

I'm new to the whole Sager line, but they are very appealing laptops. One major gripe: battery life! I don't have the privilege to search the forums at the moment, so what is the maximum number of hours people have gotten out of their Sager laptops (both 4 cell and 8 cell batteries)? I need at least 4 hours minimum.

 

4 hours is ridiculously high batterylife for any notebook... a gaming notebook can get a max of 2.5-3 hours of batterylife with 8-cell.

If you want a high batterylife, look towards a 14" or under notebook with at least 8-cell battery and LV/ULV CPUs... no gaming though.

 

well you can get a battery extender from these people

www.battergeek.net i been trying to get one from the NP9262 but they dont make the batteries to suit this particular model. my current input is too high

 

Hi, I own a Sager NP9260 (in sig.) and all in all it's pretty good. I've owned it pretty much for a year now.

Good points:

(1) The build is very solid and sturdy. It's very unlikely that you'll have bits warping or just falling off.
(2) Games look great (especially in Hi-Def); note this is at 1920x1200 resolution.
(3) I was impressed with Sager's support service. I live in the UK (I imported it from the states knowing the risks) so it was really nice that they sent me a repair part in the post so I could fix it myself. The guy I contacted was patient and ultimately helped me solve the problem- with some help.

Bad points:

(1) When I spend approximately £2200 = $4400 on a laptop I expected it to have undergone rigorous testing and/or to be of top quality. Therefore not to
exhibit problems after 2 weeks. I've had far less expensive computers that have gone without problems for years.

(a) The problem I had with mine seem to be 'relatively' common for this model (re: white ghost bands- LCD cable problems).
(b) In just under a year I had 'ghost band problem', keyboard problem (beeping at start up), and what seems to be another random screen problem (patches of colour pixelation).

(2) Worthy of note is that resellers of Sager pretty much wash their hands of you after your 2 week return period is up and a problem then develops. After that period it seems you fall directly under Sager warranty. Therefore you have to deal with guys who didn't sell you the product. I know this is normal but I still found it weird. This may account for why some Sager resellers have high customer ratings (as Sager actually deals with the real problems).

(3) Odd device conflicts?: I never had so many problems with Win XP than I've had with this machine. I don't know specifically what seems to be causing
the conflicts with software or just generally making Win XP glitchy, but I'm fairly sure that it is between one or more Sager drivers (bluetooth, webcam, etc.) and various software I use (this after a clean xp install) . I've had to do more Win XP repairs and whole formats than I care to mention. It isn't my version of Win XP because I've had the same copy on two previous machines.

(4) Not as fast as I thought it would be. For an enthusiast games machine I was expecting far greater general performance (I'm mostly talking about boot speeds , application opening etc.). I had a single core Packard bell 1.8GHz with 1Gb RAM which actually seemed only marginally slower than my now 2.66GHz dual core + 4Gb RAM (about 2.8GB under XP).

(5) Motherboard changes: After 4-5months wasn't expecting a slew of motherboard changes. Meaning if I wanted some new features (beware of what "user upgradeable" really means) on my np9260 like Quadcore (MoB upgarde necessary), to use new 8800GTX (again MoB upgrade) I would have to upgrade (I'm sure there are people out there that have had 2 or more MoB changes in the last 12 months); not sure about Penryn, but no doubt more MoB changes in the immediate future will follow if you want to keep it top spec for new games/media production.

Although I have a few more bad points than good I'm not unhappy with it, but if I knew these things beforehand I would probably have reconsidered my options. When the time comes to replace this laptop I will more likely look else where and probably go for a more generally well know brand.

Note though as with any laptop there may be some sort of issue, however it will sting more the more you've spent on it. BTW hopefully Sager fanboys will not start bashing me for this. This is merely to state that not everything is rosy from Sager/Clevo, and to add some balance.

 

And the performance.... well.... it goes without saying, that it's top of the line!

^^ Talking with respect to Clevos.

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=91510

http://www.xoticpc.com/

http://www.powernotebooks.com/

/thread ....

Why don't you (and your father) simply compare the service you've had in the past from Dell, to what owners of the 'Sagers' have to say, to the components you can order now, to pricing of those components. In the end you will see that one of them is a far superior product, and your $1.00 goes much further.

now, /thread

 

Go with Power Notebooks to get your Sager. They're great and provide super customer service and even have their own 24 hour technical support line.

www.powernotebooks.com

 

I canceled an order with Alienware to buy a Sager, and now that I have the notebook in my hands I can say it was the best thing I could have ever done.

 

heh i wanted to get the m15 but immediately changed my mind when i saw the 9262.. forget about the alienware 'name' and 'bling'; if you're really going for performance + price, sager's the way. can't wait for mine.. argh!

 

i dont think you would need to go to such a contrasted notebook to get 4 hours of battery life.

the Sager NP2096 with a 25 watt processor and the 9600m gt paired with its 9 cell battery can probably achieve 4 hours of battery life if not very close and has decent gaming performance for a low price.

 

you wanted the battery life right? that was what made you look at AW in the first place and not the specs...

by the way, what's the battery time on your monster?

 

battery life on m17x? you serious?

 

Hahaha no I went with Alienware first for the bling and the name actually, like most people. Then i realized Sager could give me the same computer for $400 less. No brainer for me.

With SLI still enabled, my battery life from full to drain is roughly 45 minutes (less if I game while on battery). It's plugged into my wall 99% of the time so I don't really care about battery life.

 

Off topic, yes, since most everything else in the thread has been covered quite well, but the Bugatti Veyron is just a Volkswagen? EXCUSE ME? Thats like calling the Mona Lisa just a drawing, or Bill Gates just a random Joe.

You're father sounds a bit like mine when it comes to "no-name" brands for laptops. Mine refused to believe that Asus was one of the worlds largest motherboard manufacturers, even when I showed him proof of this. Then he proceeded to get me a highly outdated Sony, which promptly ended up spending half its life in the repair depot.

 

maybe in stunted settings making it unable to do any gaming. you must also note that its a 9cell and is most likely pretty heavy.

 

I have to say i was somewhat skeptical, and my i had to convince my parents to do a direct wire bank transfer! and it took a while to get my laptop, so that kinda got me worried (its easy to think you got jipped when you send 3.5k to some small time retailler) but in the end, i couldnt have been happier. Justin from XoticPc offers the best customer service i could have ever imagined, even better than your local hardware store! I cant say the same for Donald, but i have no reason at all to believe he wouldnt be the same...

Go with Sager, you wont be disappointed... I swear it!

 

I wouldnt call xoticpc a small business. they are pretty much sager wich is huge.

 

I agree that neither Xoticpc nor PNB is a "small time retailer;" however, to the uninitiated they sure do look that way - the only reliable way to differentiate them from those who really are small potatoes is to hang out here for long enough that you get a good sense of how consistent and "big time" these two businesses really are.

 

Well I sure can. Donald is also the greatest. So you really can't go wrong.

Pete

 

Has anyone else had similar experiences with the resellers such as xoticpc or powernotebooks? Have you had issues getting support from Sager or was the transition relatively smooth?

Also, does anyone have a NP2096 yet? Referring to device conflicts, did anyone else have the same problems as Techno with Sager products.

Lastly, are the none-Clevo Sager laptops also of high quality, or are only their rebranded Clevo models built well?

Thanks.

 

Are there any Canadian resellers other than Eurocom that people would recommend? I'd just like to avoid all of the import hassles...

 

What hassles? do you know what you have to pay for?

Again, I think it comes down to ups express, and Canadian taxes (province). PM Justin and ask. Email/Call UPS express, and the border people

I just don't see what the fuss is about. When I get paid, and my student visa arrives, I'm 80% sure I'm ordering my PC from Xotic PC, its really not that complicated.

I'm in Ontario btw.

 

I'm in Ontario too. What you said is basically what I found out too. If you get UPS express, you bypass brokerage fees at customs, so all you pay is $110 (with 50% student discount) + GST + PST. I'm having trouble getting hold of the CBSA people to confirm that.

 

Yeah, as long as you order air/express, you bypass the brokerage fees. I regret that now with mine, as I ordered ground (cheaper) shipping. It took longer to get to me (well, 8 days, so not a long time) and cost the same as faster air shipping would have thanks to the *$#&@ brokerage fees.