Quality of Sager?

I have been looking at Sager and before my parents willing to buy it, they want to know the quality of sager computers versus the major brands like dell, asus, and hp. I have been looking at the sager np9150. Also is there support for it comparable to these companies?

 

Far superior to Dell/HP. In fact, I own an HP and if I wasn't going to pass it down to my sister I would destroy this piece of sh** once and for all (of course I'd loot the components first, so it's more of a symbolic thing). Dell... Customer support is awful but as far as I know their machines run fine (sometimes).

ASUS makes quality stuffy though, as does Sager.

 

Sager quality vs apple?

 

Sager is great as far as quality of components, assembly, fit and finish, and overall design. Customer service isn't quite up to snuff as Dell or HP, but buying from a good reseller, they should be able to help you out without much issue.

 

apple vs. oranges?

 

thank you guys can more people reply please so that parents will be convinced? also are there any known issues for the sager np9150 except for the ghosting issue for the keyboard?

 

Uh Dell and HP have terrible customer support. I don't know how you got so lucky. With those two, it's a good day if you even get a guy who speaks english.

And yeah I would second the motion to buy from a reseller, they care a lot about their customers and have good service most of the time.

 

I don't know about HP but the best tech support I've seen and experienced is from AW which is Dell. Nothing beats their Next Business Day tech support.

Sent from my HTC Glacier using Tapatalk 2

 

what kind of support would you need? and if hardware support, what kind? like warranty? every product must carry at least some minimum defective "support," but how adept are you at troubleshooting both hardware and software issues? stricly speaking, the physical quality of machines come down to but a few things--plastic, metal, and printed circuitry, yet i don't think that's what your parents' reservation is about. they're probably more concerned that they may not have ever heard of sager. explain to them how clevo is the ODM and sager is an OEM, and that sager, as a business, is lawfully required to be just as "reliable" as a dell or asus or hp...

 

Uh, have you tried to call Sager directly?

 

Aye alienware is still a bit different than full on let's-call-india-for-help-in-america customer support, is it not? I would hope they put competent people on the phone when people are regarding their highest end systems.

 

is there something about people from india that says incompetence to you? if so, you have a problem... or is it the language barrier that sparks such a simple statement? maybe you should learn hindi.

by the way, it's called outsourcing not full on let's-call-india-for-help-in-america customer support.

 

Calm down, I have nothing against indian people. My only issue is when the company you have paid for a product from won't connect you to someone able to help you. The only indians I know are incredible competent, more so than I -but when I am connected on the phone to someone who cannot understand what I'm saying and only can help from a script, that does not seem like good customer service to me.

 

a negative inference that can be drawn from your post is that people from india are incompetent. thanks for clearing that up for us.

and who needs customer service anyway? it's a necessary evil i suppose.

 

Sager == Clevo right? I ask this as in my country we can only get Clevo.

I like it you can customize everything except the mainboard... I would pick an ASUS MB if I had that option but both with Clevo (and AW) I am stuck to whatever they have.

Are their MB's any good? to me that defines stability. Or better AW?

 

If North American phone support is not an upgrade, then why does Dell charge you like $100 per year of it?

 

because they know some people will actually pay it.

 

If you get a Sager it's a good idea to go through a reseller such as Xotic to handle any potential problems.

 

I know we're in a global economy, but I'd much rather have support from a native English speaker, and also someone that can relate to our culture and way of life. Speaking to someone in India I have to repeat myself a half dozen times frequently in different ways because they don't understand what I'm trying to say, as well as asking them to repeat themselves because I can't understand their accent. Rarely can I ever get an issue resolved beyond the basics. I work with Italy, India, and Mexico at my job on a daily basis too, so it's not like it's foreign to me. In my job, my counterparts across the world are more competent than the support I usually get from India from any PC maker, so it's not India or Mexico or wherever they outsource their work, it's the horrible training and quality control of the service.

I've actually had good luck with both HP and Dell with customer service if I request a US contact. I may have to call back a few times to get someone that has the authority to help me with certain things but usually it gets resolved. They throw money and extras at you too to keep you happy even without asking. I actually frequently decline because I just want my issue resolved, not freebies, but it's still a nice gesture.

 

Sagers are clevos. Doesn't matter which you get. I haven't seen any complaints about the main boards going wrong. Not that they definitely won't, but that's true of anything.

 

My experience with Indian tech support, which is considerable, is that they have bunch of people with no experience and one guy that is very experienced. Any time you call with a problem that doesn't fit into their scripts they constantly put you on hold while they wait in line to ask the guru what to do.

 

no pun intended eh ?

imo people should calm down. In the UK we have outsourced our support to india for many things and the language barrier is a pretty damn big problem, but worse than that the script reading and a general lack of any kind of genuine help or interest really puts you off (this isnt restricted to india of course)

its amazing to think such large companies will try save a few million with poor support and then in the process lose a hell of a lot more, not just money but company value and prestige

 

how often do you have issues, basic or otherwise, that you need resolved and are resolved over the phone? i think it's probably pretty important to note what kind of issues you're likely to experience. if its sales or warranty related, you can be sure you'll speak to somebody closer to your timezone. are you saying that italians and mexicans understand english as a second language better than indians? you could always learn hindi like i recommended to Tyranids if you require so much over-the-phone support. it could increase your workflow a good bit.

my experience with people who consult tech support is that it's very difficult to resolve user error over the phone. i think that's probably why outsourcing is so cost-effective because over-the-phone tech support is such a giant waste of time 95% of the time.

lest we forget (now that this post has gone entirely off op's topic) that if you order sager from one of the resellers like op has been advised to do multiple times, you can be sure that none of that phone support will be outsourced.

good thing for those gurus though, man. phew!

 

I never said Italians and Mexicans understand or speak English better, I said I deal with Italians, Mexicans AND Indians in my job on a daily basis and never have the issues with them that I do with PC support, Indians in particular only because they offer a majority of the support. It's nothing to do with race, nationality, religion, or otherwise. It *IS* the language barrier, however, as well as the training. Plus English is the language of international business, plain and simple. My foreign counterparts speak it regularly and are quite proficient and fluent.

And requesting a customer to learn the language of support is backwards thinking. It's like walking into the grocery store and they expect you to speak Russian. If my customers all spoke Italian and was required for my job I'd learn it. But I'll be damned if I have to learn a language so that as a paying customer I can get support.

And I don't "use it so much". I use it occasionally. And every time I waste a lot of time because they either don't understand my request from a technical standpoint or from a language standpoint. As stated above, the regular "hello, how are you today" support people know nothing more than reading off a sheet, if you want any real support you have to wait to talk to the guru who usually is very knowledgeable and helpful.

 

so then you get the joke...?

nobody said anything about race, religion, or otherwise, i just sense this strangely privileged notion that somehow an entire country's over-the-phone customer service/tech support workforce is incompetent, only reads from scripts, and sucks at speaking english. pretty broadly-sweeping generalizations, wouldn't ya say?

 

LOLWUT? You're turning this into a political argument for the sake of argument. I'm not letting you put words in my mouth or others so I'm done here. Dismissing the general user experience from over the phone support as horrible is how we end up with horrible customer support to begin with.

 

alright i'm just gonna come right out and say that if you require over-the-phone support, you can be sure that your "general user experience" was doomed to begin with. the company expected your flood of inane calls, that's why the service was outsourced.

 

*hint hint* e.... bay *hint hint* at least back in the days lol

 

In one of my previous jobs I dealt with outsourced technical support on a daily basis on behalf of my customers. It was quite obvious the persons I was dealing with had little to no IT experience. When the person that is supposedly technical support knows far less about his product than than the person that is calling that is a pretty sad situation.

 

I sense some over-sensitivity


its obvious to everyone on this now about ruined thread that overseas support is often difficult and flawed due to the nature of language differences and extreme cost cutting (hence the support being outsourced)

So, drop the Indian part and replace it with ANY country who`s language is different to the person calling. The support offered is from people who have no interest other than feeding their family for scandalously low wages and incredibly poor training with no real incentive or drive from upper management to learn past the script, usually people don't dream of going to school to sit in a call centre all their lives treated as a drone

face it, local support rules. As do local home grown outlets. Globalisation brings you cheap things, including cheap support.

 

To the original poster:

I just bought a Sager NP9130 from XoticPC. I've had it about a month now. You can search for my username and read my "first impressions" / "review" about it.

Like you, I have only bought storebrand computers before--mostly Dells and Toshibas-- so I was skeptical about the whole Sager thing because it is a smaller, lesser known brand. I'm not one to really buy generic, cheaper quality stuff--especially when we are talking over $1000-- I always like to buy high end stuff, so I was very skeptical. From gadgets to bikes to cars, I always tend to go with higher end stuff that I know will last, so I was definitely hesitant to buy a Sager, because I've never heard of them till I stumbled across this forum from a little Google search. But after reading around and doing about a month of thinking/research about Sager, I ended up going with it.

And one thing that definitely pushed me past the whole "Thinking about it" phase and going through with actually buying it, is most of the resellers have a return policy. I bought it from XoticPC, and they have a 30 day return policy. You have to pay the shipping (probably like 30-40 bucks? not sure on that), so you can order it and checked it out and if for some reason you are absolutely dissappointed in it, you can always return it.

I've had the computer about a month now and can say I am very pleased with it. I've had no problems with it. Keep in mind, I pretty much just use it for playing games and typing papers/school stuff-- it fullfills both these needs very well.

Anyways, I love everything about the computer and would buy another Sager again as it currently stands. You get a lot more bang for your buck for a gaming computer-- an Alienware or Toshiba Qosmio would probably cost double what I paid just because they are widley known boutique brands. I don't know what your needs are, though--Sagers seemed to be sorta geared towards gaming/media apps/graphics-related things-- so if those are in your priorities for a computer, then I'd highly reccommend Sager.

I haven't dealt with any customer support as of yet because I've had no problems yet. I'll post back periodically and definitely post back should I have any issues down the road.

But, 1 month in...couldn't be more pleased with my Sager NP9130. It's lightning fast, looks awesome, feels like it's built well, and runs really cool. Oh, another thing that is great about Sagers is the graphics cards are upgradeable--- they arent' soddered to the motherboard like all the boutique brands-- another thing I really liked (I've read that some people think by the time you want to buy a new graphics card, you might as well buy a new computer-- I really don't know the answer to this, but I at least like the idea of having the option of being able to put in a new card).

If you have any specific questions, feel free to ask.

 

I think those days of having to upgrade every year are over. Intel hit 3Ghz 10 years ago. If you purchased a high-end computer now I can't see needing to upgrade anything but the graphics card for quite some time.

 

I've read a lot of great reviews on Sager laptops from the past few years and everyone seems to agree that they're high quality machines. However, there are a few reviews that have popped up recently stating that quality has come down and those specific individuals had nothing but problems with their Sagers. I guess with any major purchase there's always the possibility of a lemon, but I really hope its an isolated issue. I'm looking at picking up a NP9170 myself and I may end up going with AW if Sager really has taken a plunge in quality.

 

Finally someone answered the poor guys question instead of arguing about the Indies. I've also ordered a P170EM from mysn.de and waiting for it and I'm also interested of knowing how good the quality is since I've never seen one up close but have only read about them.

 

As others pointed out Sager is a "bang for your buck" machine. High end components at a more reasonable cost than other more well known brands.

You probably wont find the build quality of a IBM Thinkpad or the customer support you get from Alienware. Alienware is a great overall gaming machine if you are really concerned with that type of support. Just costs more and looks a little too aggressive for some.

Most Sager owners seem to be quite happy with them overall.

I have went through this same process myself for my last two machines and in the end always chose something else due to the same concerns your parents have.

I have however just placed a order for a 9150 this time. Resellers all seem to offer good support options, most have a money-back policy, and I believe if there were really big quality issues you would be reading about them here.

 

I wouldn't be too worried about that. People are more apt to post anything negative than positive so the reviews can sometimes be skewed. I truly believe the few negative reviews are isolated issues.

I'm getting a Clevo but not a Sager because I'm originally from Michigan and would like to support a local business (Mythlogic) who build their own custom systems. They also go above and beyond the typical Sager quality but their systems are slightly more expensive. Malibal also makes custom Clevo machines. I mention this because Sager isn't the only company that makes great Clevo systems and these builders are worth checking out.

I am on my second and last HP. My first one wasn't horrible and I found a great deal for the dv6 that I have now. Unfortunately, after just a few months I started having serious issues and I can't wait to get a Clevo build.

 

Just note though that Malibal ARE Sager, or Sager are Malibal however you want to look at it. Sager builds and warrants the Malibal machines.

In USA there are few Clevo builders, and Mythlogic is about the only one I'd consider. And then there's places like RJTech that let you configure the machine however you'd like, from barebones to a full system.

 

this is incorrect [ cite]. see my early post about ODMs and OEMs.

 

Read Sager's warranty... identical:

custom gaming laptops - Welcome to Sager Notebooks

Sager builds Malibal notebooks. Sager performs warranty repairs for Malibal notebooks. Malibal may provide some form of customer support, but no different than XoticPC, LPC, or any other Sager reseller. Sager just puts the Malibal logo on it instead of Sager. Malibal is not a Clevo builder.

 

not going to argue this with you. you're wrong. call your lawyer and ask him if "sager warrants" and "malibal warrants" is identical contractual language.

 

Malibal does not build the notebooks. They simply are a reseller of a Clevo notebook branded, built, and physically repaired by Sager under warranty. If Malibal went belly up, closed up shop, whatever, Sager still owns that warranty contract. Go ahead and ask Sager and/or Malibal directly if you don't believe me. This has come up time and again. Just not interested in digging up links at the moment.

 

by all means, start digging.

 

Why not dig yourself? What are you discrediting?

Malibal laptops are built by Sager - true
Malibal laptops are repaired by Sager under warranty - true
Maliable notebooks are identical to Sager branded notebooks except for logo - true

Which of these points are you challenging?

They may have a special agreement with Sager to offer a few select options not available to other Sager branded resellers, but they still are not the builder.

 

well since the third "point" was never in dispute, not that one. still waiting on links regarding the first two though. like i'd believe anything you say just because you think you have the slightest clue as to what you're talking about. i already dug up my sources. click 'em. i made them nice and pretty.

this is what you consider digging, i see. nice to know you're making this up as you go along.

 

I'm not making this up, and your hostility is leading me to set your posts in my ignore filter. I am asking so we have a fresh response with clarification.

 

speak for yourself. malibal sells and warrants clevo shells.

and how off-topic have we become AGAIN?

 

I may be wrong, but I believe this has been discussed on the Malibal forums and was confirmed that Malibal builds the computer themselves and deals with all warranty work except issues that involve the main board (which go straight to Clevo). I'll try to find the link

 

Did Malibal copy Sager's warranty agreement word for word and simply replace their name with Sager's? I'm curious now.

 

Thank you. Apparently this didn't used to be the case, but is now. In any case I guess I was wrong, and my memory fails me again. I just would like Malibal to clarify if they can.

 

Here we go again...

All we have right now is what Malibal states themselves. A bit murky, mind you, but if you're going to take someone at their word, here it is - http://forum.notebookreview.com/sager-clevo/629173-malibal-builder-6.html#post8131831

Please read the whole thread is it is kinda how this thread started as well.