Sager?! Never heard of them!

Wow! I am very happy i found these. They are a really good bang for the buck, the Sager 8150.

I am skeptical though. I never heard of Sager until now, and you can only buy it from xoticpc?

How legit are these notebooks? How do they compare up to other top brands like Dell/HP? How is build quality? Do they last?

I live in canada, and i have been researching vigorously for the last 4weeks on laptop to buy. I was set on Dell xps until i saw these.

How would warranty or repairs work since i live in canada and im buying from the U.S?

Does sager have any repair centers in canada? I have a feeling it would cost a lot of money to send my laptop across border whenever it needs to be repaired..

I am seriously looking into the Sager, i need some help on deciding.

 

Sager is another rebrand of Clevo. Clevo is one of the big OEM/ODM for gaming laptops and up until Dell bought Alienware AW was rebranded Clevo and Itronics laptops.

you can buy them in Canada pretty easily as well. there are AFIK 3 sellers of Clevo laptops in Canada. one of which I keep hearing bad things about. Repairs arenormally handled by the reseller and NOT Cleov or Sager themselves.

they are a fantastic machine and actually have much better cooling than any of the other " gaming " laptops that I have ever worked on.

which models were you looking at?

 

Sager is just a company who sell rebranded Clevo so what you are getting is a Clevo laptop with a Sager logo then there is a lot of re sellers who sell Sager and also the barebones system with out re branding if you are on Canada don't buy from Eurocom just deal with this guy Gaming Laptops - Fortnax - Your Canadian Source for Gaming and Power Notebooks - Extreme Notebooks - Custom Built Laptops he is a good person and you will get the best service and price

 

Im going to second the guys at fortnax. besides hes close enough to me I can kick him for you if need be. great guys to deal wth.

 

I was looking into the Sager 8150. Looks like a hell of a buy.

But should i not buy a Clevo then if its just rebranded? I don't get the point of rebranding... ...

 

Resellers are just like...they provide support and warranties as well as service, while Clevo/Sager provides the actual maintenance.

So the rebrand meaning, you're accepting the service that the rebrand company provides you with. All in all, Clevo gets the profit anyway.

 

get the Clevo. MANY laptops are rebrands.

Malibal, Sager, and a dozen others are just Clevos with different stickers. what matters is who you get them from.

In Canada Fortnax and reflexnotebook.ca are 2 of them..... Eurocom I have had bad dealings with as well as many in this forum.

 

Yea, see people like quanta, foxconn, compal, wistron and others are doing the same thing for Dell, HP, acer and others.
Its just that clevo doesn't sell the actual license to their design or something like that (?) but at the same time they don't care as much, so multiple 'brands' can sell them under their own separate names (literally, custom made lids with their brand name). Usually they tell you its built on a clevo though, and its pretty obvious anyway.

Oh, and the build quality is WAY better than dell and most other major brands
Some think more about case quality when talking about build, and in that area its true you can find some much tougher all metal laptops from dell. but thats just the casing, so many dells have serious issues with cooling and throttling, not to mention the fact that dell simply will not put a graphics card anywhere near 50w in a 15" chassis.

Yea, clevo is pretty much the best for plain old no BS really really good gaming laptops.

 

Are they good and portable for school as well? Is the design tacky at all?
And how is the battery life?

 

Are sagers upgradeable?
Say i don't get the 480M, or the blu-ray.
Can i update those into there after?

 

almost all of them are. Blu-ray is an easy upgrade in any laptop but a Macbook/Macbook pro so dont worry about that.

 

...or anything slot load, really.

Definitely not tacky, although that can be a very personal thing. I think there is always someone calling really nice notebooks tacky because they've never seen anything else but a thinkpad.

They are not so great with portability as far as weight, battery life either as. With the sandy bridge i7 it will be a lot better but its generally the last concern any manufacturer or consumer will have with a gaming laptop. The casing will probably be very strong however which contributes to portability in another way, I wouldn't think you need to use a padded sleeve or anything to transport it.

If you want to see some seriously lightweight and powerful notebooks you should check out the msi gx640. I just wish they would refresh that line so we can keep some 16:10 laptops around with sandy bridge...

 

I was looking into the Msi gx series at first. But i didn't go with them after lots of research.

6lbs isn't that heavy.. is it? I have a gateway nv5909h and its not heavy at all, then again it doesn't pack a lot in it.

Uhm, whats the difference between the Sager NP5160 or the NP8150...

What would suit my needs better?

 

Yes, very upgradeable.

 

Sager NP5160 is more of a gaming/college laptop. Small power adapter. 6 Lb is not really heavy, but you should get a good laptop backpack.

Sager NP8150 is more of a gaming/desktop replacement laptop which is bigger and heavier than the NP5160. Power brick is huge!

If you're hardware specific, then the best choice is a Sager/Clevo laptop. These laptops look dull or plain looking. I personally have a Clevo B5125M which is also a Sager NP5125, but mines doesn't have a "Sager" logo on top of the screen panel.

I bought it because my HP Pavillion dv6800 series suck major a**. Intel Core 2 Duo with an Intel X3100 GMA. It shutters on HD 720P videos and can't really play games on it. I bought a Clevo, and I love it! I forget it looks plain, but you can always put stickers on it

 

I don't care about looks that much, its whats under the hood that matters! These sager laptops seem to pack big performance for the best money.

Even though the Sager 8150 is bigger, and i am looking for a portable laptop the specifications (w x d x h) are not that bad, compared to my gateway.

 

Sager NP5160 is 374(W) x 250(D) x 25~37.2(H)mm.

Code:

http://www.clevo.com.tw/en/products/prodinfo_2.asp?productid=309

Sager NP8150 is 376(W) x 256(D) x 35~43(H)mm.

Code:

http://www.clevo.com.tw/en/products/prodinfo_2.asp?productid=307

 

The laptops you're comparing are for two different sets of audiences; the NP5160 will be for the portable laptop enthusiast, the other (NP8150) being a powerhouse desktop replacement laptop.

The NP5160 sports switchable graphics which I would think, lowers the battery usage when gaming/surfing/other things. But you won't get the best performance out of a game, and that's where the NP8150 comes in; when it was born (conceived lol), they meant crush games into oblivion...meaning king kong.

If it were me, I'll just go for the NP8150. From the reviews, it isn't as heavy at it looks, and with that power it will last very long.

What are the specifics of your needs anyway?

 

These big brands as HP/Dell and Apple and Fujitsu and others do not manufacturer anything they buy everything Clevo, Quant, MSI and a few more. When some store is brave enough to sell extended warranty for 50-100 $ for a laptop which costs more than 2000 $ I think that they sell solid products. Otherwise they would not make profit.

 

Yep they are fully upgradeable. You can swap out the GPU or the CPU to other products if their supported ofcourse.

 

As for the tacky part, that certainly is a matter of personal preference. I think that they definitely have a professional look to them that shouldn't raise any eyebrows in a professional / work setting. ASUS laptops, for example, have this stealth bomber look to them along with some lighting that make them look very cool indeed. However, many people who are going to use their notebook at work / school have stayed away from them for this very reason. In regards to the earlier Thinkpad reference, I think they look just as professional as a Thinkpad. They both have pretty much zero eye candy going on, and wouldn't (IMHO) cause any issues when used in the workplace.

 

True, but I do miss the super eye candy of the m17x.

The rainbow backlit keyboard was awesome...

 

Yeah, I like the elegant and simple look of the Sagers. Not a head turner by exterior looks, but that's the way I like it.