Sager 2090: My Take

So I figured it was just about time i wrote a proper review about this amazing system that i have in my hands right now.

First of all here are the specs of my machine:
Sager Force NP2090 Laptop with 15.4" WXGA Display
T7300 Intel® Core™2 Duo T7300 2.0GHz w/4MB L2 On-die cache -
800MHz FSB
1GB Intel Robson Turbo Memory
1024MB Corsair DDR2 667
(Serial-ATA) 120GB 5400RPM
Universal 8X DVD +/- R/RW /CDRW Dual Layer Combo Drive
Windows Vista Home Premium
Built-in Intel® PRO/Wireless 4965 802.11 a/g/n
All of this cost $1344 with shipping.

If you want some pictures they can be found here
Aesthetics:
Before my order arrived i felt very dismayed about the 9 cell battery and hot it stuck out a bit. I thought it would make the whole thing look cheap and dumb. Also the pictures of the IFL90 floating around the internet really made it look old and a little bit ugly. All of this however was erased from my mind as soon as i saw this beauty. The battery sticking out from the back was not much of an eyesore and it is actually pretty unnoticable if your just casually glancing at it. It is far better than the 12 cell battery on the HP's that stick out underneath and make the thing seem silly to me. Also the laptop as a whole is very clean and very classy. The top of the laptop has a nice shine to it as well as the top part of the keyboard(scratches easily...). The blue lights are amazingly beautiful to me i just love them so much. All in all this laptop looks very professional. No one will believe you when you tell them that this laptop can put their desktop to its knees.

Input Devicies:
The keyboard is very nice with very little flex if any. The function key being left of the CTRL key is annoying as hell(and i mean 9th level of hell, its just plain horrible) and i don't like the setup of the DEL HOME PGUP PGDN and END keys. I'm just not use to it and its just awkward, especially for gaming. I've hit the end key so many times while trying to press the right arrow key. Aside from that the keyboard is very comfortable to type on. The touchpad does however sometimes get moved while typing which sux, i'm really wanting an off button for it right now. There is some slight heat underneath my left wrist. It's not bad and is almost unnoticable.
The touchpad is very responsive and is quite nice. The right side functions as a scroll area even though it is unmarked which is really nice. Its not dedicated to it so you can still use that part when moving the mouse but if you put your finger down and drag just on the right side it'll scroll up and down.
The Fingerprint reader and the software it comes with is very easy to use and very easy to setup. The software works with firefox for those of you who shun IE like the plague.
The webcam is very nice and the picture quality is very good. The computer comes bundled with a lot of software for the webcam. One of them, it's name has dog in it, watches your face and keeps track of it and when you leave it can, if you want it to, put your computer to sleep. It's pretty cool but i probably will never use it. Using it with AIM video is good and the microphone picks up sound very well. The video quality is also very nice with AIM video.
*edit* I still can't get the buttons at the top to work, i'm beginning to doubt if they are buttons at all. If anyone has any idea drop me a line*edit*

Gaming:
I have only tried out two games so far Supreme Commander and Company of Heroes. Both games run smoothly at max settings at 1280x800. I have a video of supreme commander available here. You can even here my voice being picked up by the mike.

Battery:
I would say battery life is 2 hours plus while gaming. I haven't done any testing where i time the battery but i was able to play two long games without the battery dying on me. The Smart Battery program that the laptop comes with is very useful because you can set how much you want the battery to charge. Currently my battery is set to charge to 50 percent and no more. To make it charge to full i simply have to press the top button on the left side(the one above the usb charging button).

Ok i ran out of things to review. If i missed anything let me know and i'll talk about it. I haven't tried burning anything or charging my usb devices while the system is off. I'll do that sometimes soon.

*edit some more*
The LCD Screen:
The glossy laptop screen is really nice. The picture quality is crisp and its not all that reflective which is nice. The screen resolution is very nice although i do regret not upgrading to the higher resolution because i thought i would get a 6 cell battery with this. Pushing on the back of the screen on the upper left side is the only place i can make it ripple which is pretty good. It has a pretty good viewing angle, you can have two hot babes sitting at your side watching a movie with you but not one sitting slightly higher and behind you. so your limited to two women, which is not all that bad in my opinion.

*Edit for some heat*
Heat:
With the laptop on my lap while playing a game i barely even notice that it is in fact producing heat and the little it does produce is bareable. Its deathly silent, i can barely hear the fans when their on but i can feel them working on the bottom. Its a very cool machine both figuritively and literally.

Lid:
There no latches or magnets(that i know of and i'm not bringing any magnets near it...) it just simply closes with a slight gap if held on its side. Its very secure. I love this part because i think the latch holes in some laptops are hideous!! I wouldn't be worried of it popping open or something in your bag or things slipping inside. It uses gravity very well to stay closed.

*sound edit*
Sound:
The sound quality is actually really good. Maybe i didn't have the right drivers or i had bad settings when i first got it but now sound is real good. Their still built in speakers so don't expect the best but the sound is quite nice. Sound from the headphone jack is better tho.

 

Great review! I'm glad you're satisfied with your purchase, makes me feel better for choosing this laptop in the end as well.

I can't wait for mine...

 

What about heat?

 

Cool! Thanx for the review. Btw, are u running Windows Xp or Vista on it?

Dont forget to up that RAM if its vista!

 

It's Vista look at the picture.

 

The ram is coming in on tuesday

 

I don't think anyone's answered this yet: how does it close? Is it magnetic? Is there some latch I'm not seeing? Or does it just close with no attachment with the main part of the computer to the LCD? If so, does it stay closed completely without any gap?

 

How can i forget about that!! i'm editing the OP with that and the heat thing now. Anything else i didn't mention?

 

If you can benchmark 3DMark06 on it for us that would be great.

 

http://service.futuremark.com/orb/resultanalyzer.jsp?projectType=14&XLID=0&UID=9889894

default settings for the free version. i believe the resolution is 1080xsomething

 

Thats with 1 gig of ram, I am very interested to see where it goes after that.

 

Oops.. My bad!!

When i checked first, didnt c the pic there..

 

Default is 1280 X 1024 resolution.

 

Good review. I was wondering since you have CoH installed if you could run the test they have in the game and list those scores, and a screenshot of what settings you have it(DX10 or not and such).

Thanks It was a good review.

 

How is the sound? You were complaining about it at first. Has the sound quality improved or have you just gotten use to it? Also, is there a bunch of bloatware on it? Thanks

 

I can say that, I'm pretty sure there is 0 Bloat ware on a Sager, but it might depend on the reseller the user buys it from.

I would go with Powernotebooks (I feel I should recommend them, since I've dealt with them personally)

 

Edited for sound. Anything else you guys are wondering about?

 

I was assuming that most/all whitebooks would come with no bloatware. I just wanted to make sure. Thanks

 

Anytime

Just trying to help people so they don't have to do the amount of research I did for my note book..


my NP9260 is coming on Thursday!

 

Do you have any more popular games that you could benchmark? Oblivion would be great, as would Half-Life 2, Battlefield 2, or Lost Planet.

 

Lost Planet demo - http://us.download.nvidia.com/downloads/nZone/demos/nzd_lpdemo.zip

FEAR demo - http://www.gamershell.com/download_10167.shtml

 

Oh yeah, try the DX10 demo for Lost Planet as well since you have Vista, not sure if Bona Fide's link was to the DX10 or not.

Not sure if you got me before, but in CoH could you try it with the DX10 settings on?

 

The dx10 demo of lost planet sucks. The retail dx10 version runs way better than the demo.

 

well i'm gonna update my drivers and update CoH then i'll get back to you on that benchmark thing. maybe i'll go to bestbuy and snatch up some ram too (I love 30 day return policy)

 

Yeah that's the DX10 version. I naturally assumed that would be the better choice, given he has a DX10 card.

 

this is smooth for u ? come on its like 15fps max.

 

you have to consider that i'm recording a video, it was smoother when i wasn't. and i think with another gig of ram it's just going to improve. 15 fps with rts is smooth

i found these 3dmark scores at the driver website ftp://ftp.ca.pl/pub/caM160S/3dm_default.jpg
i hope that's a lie

 

2900 is not too bad since it was benchmarked with a T7100. With a T7500 it should get about 400 points more. 3350 is the best score I have seen for a non overclocked 8600M GT with vram running at 400mhz. Alot of other scores show higher because they are benchmarked at 1280x800. The 1490x990 screen and the 1280x800 can not run at the true default of 3dmark06 since they cant display 1280x1024.

 

how can you tell what processor they're using?

 

Hey flippoet, can you tell me all the ratings in the "Windows Experience Score" page? Just type "Performance Information and Tools" into the start search box. Thanks.

Edit: Also, when you upgrade your RAM, click update score and tell us your new scores.

 

after i upgraded CoH their were so many more video settings available. naturally i maxed them out and clicked performance test under dx10. I totally got owned, i stopped it early because it was going annoyingly slow. i got 3fps max. i really need more ram 1 gig just can't process enuff information.

 

Isnt this the review that it came from?
http://fake91.webpark.pl/english.html

Sorry I assumed it was. But anyway it would explain it since the score is almost the same.

 

i think your right.

 

Hey thanks man!

 

flip, just set it so it is using DX10, and set everything else to a little bit lower then max.

And also, don't forget to call the college board!

 

How does COH look at max DX 10 settings?

I didn't think Relic released the patch yet....

 

why college board?

 

If you look closely at the screenshot u see the processor speed @ 2195mhz..

That would mean its a T7500 implying 2.2 Ghz..

 

lol! i have to send my ap scores to my university. I'm gonna wait for my ram before i do anything else. i've been playing supreme commander for the past 2 hours and my antivirus was for some reason scanning my computer. it was not a pretty sight, at all... i played on a bigger map with more units and nukes and artillery going off all over the place. the laptop just couldn't handle both. I'm really mad at pccillin right now, i already scanned the computer today and it rescans while i'm playing!!!

 

anyone have any suggestions about the top panel with the easy buttons and the display thing? i'm talking about the upper right in the pictures. anyone know how i can get it to work?

 

haha i need to send my ap's too. where u goin to school... little OT

 

i'm going to michigan state you?

 

how do i flash my bios?

 

hey guys just a quick question, INTEL has Verified by intel drivers for this notebook, can these drivers be used?

http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Product_Filter.aspx?ProductID=2793&lang=eng

 

ill be a frosh at cornell

little far from home here in portland OR :/

 

I'm assuming you bought the laptop with Windows Vista pre-installed. When I get my laptop I plan on installing Windows XP myself, anyone know where I can get the drivers for this laptop?

 

I'm going to just try to install Windows XP the normal way, from what I've read, people have been having SATA driver problems because they're installing XP with SP1, while I have a Windows XP SP2 disc, and it's never given me problems about SATA drivers before.

 

Really? I have a bunch of friends going there! What HS are you from? I from Belleville High south of Ann Arbor.

 

Lol, southfield-lathrup east of detroit. what hall are your friends in, i'm in holmes