Sager/Clevo Satisfaction Poll

Are you happy with your Sager/Clevo laptop?

 

I am more than satisfied with my Sager.

 

I'm like, totally completely and 1000% satisfied with my Clevo. It's like, err, Supercalifragalisticexpealadocious???

 

After seeing my friend's Clevo gaming notebook about 2-3 years ago, with a crazy P4 3.4ghz Northwood and ATI 9700, I knew that Clevo makes the most gaming-oriented notebooks, and innovates to prove it.

I saw the build quality and performance, and I have to say that I was impressed and never thought that notebooks can be made, can look, or perform like this. If you ever saw a Clevo in person, you would know that its definitely not your run-of-the-mill retail store notebooks.

Then I started to save my cash and started researching for about a year. I thought that I was going to purchase a fully configured notebook, but I found that my budget was not going to let me (insert "poor/starving college student" reason here)... but I knew I had to have a Clevo gaming notebook or BUST.

So I decide last February-March to purchase the Clevo D900K barebones (through Pro-Star), and save up for another month while ordering standard parts (HDD, RAM, CPU) for this notebook. When I got my barebones, I was VERY excited, although I only had the RAM and the CPU at the time, I still was impressed. I actually turned my 1gig USB Pen Drive into a diagnostics tool, it had Windows XP(PE) installed into so that I can boot from it in pretty all current systems. I used that until my HDD(s) arrived.

Its almost been a year now, and it still is a head-turner, I guess "custom" notebooks are not an everyday thing... which I like, since I enjoy not being "a part of the crowd"... and if you knew me in real life, you would know that "normal" is not part of my vocabulary.

I digress, once you go Clevo, you wont go back.

In fact, if I never got the Clevo, I would have never joined NBR and never have "volunteered" to right extensive guides and FAQs.

Game On People,
-Gophn

 

so far i'm very happy with my Sager 5760, apart from the fact that my cd reading capabilities suddenly quit on me yesterday. Not sure what is up with that at the moment. It reads DVDs perfectly fine but doesn't read cds

 

I voted "Completely Satisfied." I purchased my NP5320 from PowerNotebooks.com in Oct '05. It's never had a serious issue. There are small quirks but they are nothing I can't ignore/deal with.

If there was one thing I could change about it, it would be the cooling system - it gets too hot without the aid of a cooling pad. It gets hot because the chassis is very thin at the front where the hard drive is located, and the drive has no room to 'breathe.' I think the fans could be more efficient too. On a cooling pad, all is fine though. Like I said, nothing I can't live with.

But everything else has been great - it shows very little wear and tear, still looks great, and is still quite fast. I definitely don't have any regrets about buying this machine. If I had to go back in time and buy a laptop all over again, I would still get this one.

 

I'm happier than a pig in mud with my clevo M570U!

 

i'm happier than a drunk with a bottle of vodka!
I have a 5760 Sager, best thing ever!

 

+1 to Completely Satisfied

 

Hello People!
Happy to read such beautiful things about Clevo.

I am a really Enthusiast Clevo M570U Owner!
I have to say thanks to HP and the last "low" quality of their consumer laptop if i optated for a whole new world named Custom PCs.

In fact i would never be here if not for the very USEFUL advices i found before to buy my Monster Machine.

After a very fine research I made my purchase.
NBR is already full of my comments about it and i will never stop to repeat that right now i really know what does it mean perfection (in terms of Notebook of course).

Thanx to MY M570U i could meet very kind people in here, as Gophn, Chaz and Glasspusher (Hello Man!! )

That last guy own my same system (almost ) and bought it @the same place where I did.

FLAWLESSCOMPUTERS!

Why did i wrote it with Capital letters? Because they deserve it.
Since i have been in touch with them, and even before my order, i could get the best customer service of ever (beyond a very good deal).

Mr. Brian, The Flawless President, followed all the process from the order to the delivery, being sure that the system i would get SHOULD BE just FLAWLESS. And it really was.
I still keep in touch with him and he always care about my needs.

For me it was not just a purchase, but most of all a discovery : that Power, Reliability, Customer Care are not just a words.

Grazie.

Giuseppe - Italy

 

I don't think I'll ever be looking at any other brand again.

 

QFT.

 

QFT!

Nice to see everyone is satisfied with their laptop!

 

I've had 2 Sagers a NP4780 that's 4 years old and a NP5710 thats 2 years old. I had never heard of Sager 4 years ago but found a review on CNET of the 4780. After reading more about the company I decided to choose between the 4780 and the 8790. I didn't need the power of the 8790 and choose the 4780. I purchased the 5710 because of the longer battery life. I'm happy with both and will prbable buy a Sager with my next laptop purchase.

 

This was my first personal laptop purchase. A couple friends of mine have Sagers (a 5720 and a 9xxx both about 2 years old) and they really love them. Based on them and my reading here, I decided to get a 5760 from PowerNotebooks (Hi Ron! Really great to work with you!).

I had a bit of an issue in the beginning, but it was resolved with the help of Gophn, TwilightVampire, Chaz, & TehStranger here! Still wonder if it was a driver issue or a HSF seating issue, since I did both when it was fixed...

Anyway, my vote was for 100% satisfied even though I wish I had gotten the WUXGA (1900x1200) instead of the WSXGA+ (1680x1050). I thought my old eyes would have a hard time....

Took it to a LAN party this past weekend with those two guys, another friend who I just talked into buying a 5760 as well, and one poor guy with a Dell.... Sagers ruled the roost in more than one way! Rock solid rigs that deserve more media attention than they get!

My rig:
Sager 5760
- 17" WSXGA+
- nVidia 7950 GTX
- Core 2 Duo T7600 2.33GHz w/4M Cache
- 2GB DDR2/667
- Seagate 7200RPM 100GB SATA/150
- Hitachi 5400RPM 160GB SATA/150 Secondary drive
- Combo 8x8x6x4x Dual Layer DVD +/-R/RW
- TV Tuner
- Intel PRO/Wireless 3945 802.11a/b/g
- Bluetooth

 

Im satisfied with my D900K, but one small thing keeping it from being 100% satisfied, is I cant turn down everything all the way to let it be silent in class.

But It does play every game ivethrown at it with out a problem so oh well.

 

What do you mean you can't turn down everything to be silent in class?

 

Build quality is above average, electronics are crap. Sager's support has been sub-par and their tech's are sloppy. In addition I think they engage in deceptive business practices. For a more accurate analysis, look Sager up on one of the rating sites. I was far more pleased with my older Dell Inspiron, and the new ones are even better.

 

It must be becasue u called them

heh, in all seriousness though, I couldnt be happier with any other notebook.

I Purchased my NP5720V almost exactly a year ago now, my FIRST notebook, and havent had any major problems with it at all. There were a couple moments of panic, about a month in the touchpad malfunctioned for a week, then suddenly worked again and has worked since (i think it was a lot of built up static), then my gpu overheating, which i quickly realized was dust in between the CPU and GPU heatsinks. Other than that, no problems.

Sager's email tech support has always been helpfull for me, promptly sent me a new touchpad interface pad when i had my touchpad problems, always there for any qestions i may have.

Theres just no way I'd deal with any other notebook manufacturer now.



Unless i got it for free

~Poseign

 

I bought my Clevo M57U, and it was fantastic at first, but after a while I began to notice a loud screechy buzzing electrical noise from under the keyboard when running high framerate stuff, like Quake 3 timedemo or especially the OpenGL Extensions Viewer tests (<-- its *very* loud for this). Even running stuff at 150fps produces this buzz. I get the same type of noise when I plug in a USB mouse into the laptop when running from batteries, which I would like to do on a regular basis without it buzzing.

I got this a few years ago in an old dell laptop I had, and it was produced by a buzzy transformer. After some interwebbing, the technical explanation was that the di-electric/insulator on the transformer coil wire had broken down somewhere, and a length of the coil was then being moved at very high frequencies, producing the buzzing noise (which happens in all transformers where it produces an audible buzz).

The problem is the laptop is fully functional, and if I return it to Nexoc (got it from Germany) they will probably say 'Theres nothing wrong with it, in fact most laptops make this noise etc'.

Has anyone had this type of problem before, and if so were they successful with getting a replacement?

 

josephus,

continue this conversation here:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=106539

it is covering this particular issue.
and read this and see if it helps:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=90335

 

Selected the "Yes Satisfied but got regrets..."

Why ?

1. Burnt by the ATS Warranty debacle, might as well go and flush $500 down the toilet. PCTorque.com did nothing IMO and Charles did not reply at all to my emails querying the status and whats happening with this.
2. Had about 2 mobo replacements from Sager from my 9750. Issues with freezing and battery level drop issue while on full AC. Freezing is now gone but still could not fix the battery drop issue. It does not appear to be harmful though and even a fresh install of XP did not seem to have done anything. To Sager's credit, they could not replicate this issue but they did replace my mobo anyway.
3. Battery issue. Optical drive issues. All fixed by Sager.

So bottomline is that I AM SATISFIED SAGER but extremely pissed off and regret the ATS debacle. Now my 9750 is out of warranty and my fingers are crossed nothing blows up in a puff of smoke....

 

I had to vote 'not satisfied at all'. almost 2 years ago, I bought a 9860. Loved the machine. It was powerful. It was fast. it was awe-inspiring.

Until it started to die. The batteries craped out. The power started to fluctuate. Then it started randomly rebooting. Then it refused to run on battery at all. Then the motherboard burned out completely.

Said 9860 is now sitting in a large pile of parts after I took a screwdriver to it. I'm not sure I could bring myself to purchase another clevo. Wife says that if I do, she'll be really pissed at me, and frankly, I don't blame her.

Yes. I could have spent the $500+ to have the motherboard replaced, but I didn't want to take the risk that the new mobo would also die in a year or so.

Anyone want any parts of a 9860? :/

 

I think this thread should be broken out into two separate polls: one for clevo laptops with mobile processors and one for clevo laptops with desktop processors.

 

Good suggestions.

From my experiences and observations, notebooks that are "early adopting" desktop technology, compared to mobile technology, requires more power and generates more HEAT... therefore problems can occur more often for these true desktop replacements.

Clevo, as well as other notebook ODMs that design these innovative desktop-based notebooks want to get the enthusiasts and early adopters to notice and purchase from them... even when the mobile version of the technology has not been announced yet.

I understand that my D900K is using desktop socket 939 AMD and I know that cooling willing be huge issue to ensure the longevity of my system. Those that have had problems, are usually stemmed from HEAT and not keeping it under control... I know, my videocard needed to be swapped a few months after I bought it, but now that I have been monitoring ALL temps, make sure fans are clean, and always using a notebook cooler, its as healthy as ever.

I know that my system will last me 2-3 more years easily.

 

I'd probably fit, yes but I have regrets.

-desktop processor in Sager 5660 laptop got too hot, had to repair it a few times, it's loud and sometimes the keys are too hot to touch, just a poor design over all
-had to deal with micro medics, too much down time for my 5660 laptop that i paid 2k for
-have to deal with flawless going under
-current laptop, m570u works like a dream (though my wireless card might be faulty), i can play all the games that i missed out on when I was using the Sager 5660 with ati 9000

 

I voted Yes, completely even thou i had a video card go bad on me not too long after i purchased the computer. The one thing that saved me from saying otherwise was the extremely fast and courteous service from Power Notebooks and Sager. Im an IT (navy) so i know things like this can and will happen but great customer service can improve amost any situation. Now i can just get the same customer service for my car...

 

I voted completely satisfied.

My D900K is amazing and still a beast, even with the new upgrade coming out, I'd say. I have had some problems, but most were simple stuff because I know nothing about computers. I have a review here--> http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=74250

The issues i've had were my system not going on hibernate sometimes (which I'm told is an issue with xp, not my laptop?) and recently i had to reformat. Not my computer's fault but some crazy link I clicked.

Right now I'm still experience wireless card issues. It doesn't work. No one could really help me out with the issue here at NBR (much to my surprise i barely got responses even) so i'm going to have to pay some tech to do it.

But really, my 9750 still owns.

 

My Sager 5660 is going strong. Time for an updated one though.

 

Voted Yes, but with regrets.

My Sager 5320 was an excellent machine for the first year and a half or so that I owned it. The only real problem with it was the incredible amount of heat that the hard drive would produce. Maybe the fans were a bit loud and the lcd wasn't quite as bright as my friends' laptops, but overall I was very satisfied with the purchase.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago. The notebook no longer powers up reliably. The power led comes on but the system does not continue to boot. Of course, this is roughly I have been told that this is a motherboard issue that a few other users have also experienced, probably just a bad batch of some particular chip. Unfortunately, I only got the 1-year warranty so this will cost roughly $600 to get Sager to repair, roughly 2/3 of its current market value. I regret not paying $150 or so for the 3-year warranty. A lot.

If Sager had a comparable 15.4" notebook on the market, I would have already bought it as a replacement, with a 3-year warranty of course. Sadly, Sager isn't making any 15.4" laptops with discrete video solutions. Still, I would definitely buy a Sager again if they made a model that matched my needs. If I didn't require a certain degree of portability, I'd be typing this post from a Sager 5760.

 

few regrets
lcd isn't as bright as i'd have hoped for
lcd dimming isn't that great, sometimes it will flicker, i doubt its the driver
there are hidden function buttons. some of them are just not labeled
removing the optical bay is tougher than i expected
battery life is a dismal 1.5 hours, but i guess i can live with that
integrated speakers suck
integrated webcam is subpar
the uneven locking latches isn't that great. some people will unlock one side and keep tugging at the other side not knowing it's still locked in.
the period in the numeric keypad is placed on top of the 7 instead of between the 0 and enter. so much harder to type decimals
doesn't have an illuminated keyboard like mbp
removing the gpu seems to be a lot harder than the cpu, or it's just i'm scared

enough rambling. :]
nevertheless, it's a good computer. i can safely say i have the best notebook on campus

 

Well as for your "issues":
- LCD flickering, means that there might be a loose connection to the LCD inverter, or it could be a strange incidence for power saving (plug it in to AC power to see if it still flickers, if it does, then its a connection issue)
- the hidden functions are all in the User Manual
- batterylife: you cannot expect a powerful gaming notebook to give more than 2 hours
- the speakers and on-board sound are actually good if you do some slight configs to the RealTek software installed
The sound quality is good, its need some configuration within the RealTek software.

Code:

Set the [B][I]Environment [/I][/B]option to [B]Carpeted Hallway[/B]. 
And if you want even more quality, set the [B][I]Equalizer [/I][/B]to [B]Soft [/B](as in Soft Rock) 

Try it, it worked well for several people, using WinAmp especially.

- Removing Components: these notebooks are not meant for easy upgrades for all components, only the standard parts are for that [HDD, CPU, RAM]

Hope this helps,
-Gophn

 

I've had my Sager NP5760 for 3 days now, I'm totally satisfied, I've had no issues, playing F.E.A.R., SupCom, CnC3, CoH with no problems so far.
Although I'm a lil bothered by the whole tv-tuner not in it's right region (Taiwan) so it doesn't display tv >< but tha's minimal compared to other problems I could be facing.

Thanks for that info Gophn I'll go try that now!

Edit: Just tried that and WOW the speakers do seem alot louder o.o, just had to take off the soft eq b/c it made sounds really sharp.

 

I have had a Sager 6630 for a few months now and I have never been more happy with a laptop than I am with this one. I didn't know it was actually possible to love a laptop . http://www.powernotebooks.com was amazing to do business with and I will be ordering my next laptop from them as well.

 

I am very satisfied.
I'd take a brighter LCD, but it is bright enough to look great anyway.
And the onboard speakers are just okay, but I use headphones mainly.
In all other regards, 100% satisfied.

 

I voted yes but with regrets. Id say Im reasonably satisfied, but as much as I want to love Sager over some "lowest common denominator" company like Dell, I have to say I have been left feeling they are overrated.

I bought my 5620 at the end of April 06. So 13-14 months ago now. I cant imagine I would have been any less satisfied with another brand, because if I was any less satisfied than what I am I would have sent the system back for a refund.

A week or two before I bought the Sager last year, I ordered a stupidly cheap (multi coupon/discounts) Dell E1505. I sent it back because there was an issue with random blue screens, even whilst idle, that, from reading their forums, was due to the vid card not being able to handle the clock speed it was set at. Dell of course wanted me to clear my cookies to fix it, so I happily paid $30 shipping to get rid of it.

But it gave me something to compare my Sager to. And its a sad day when a Dell has a nicer, richer screen/picture and FAR SUPERIOR speakers/sound. I was a little disappointed by that, but the picture difference wasnt huge, and the speakers werent *that* important to my needs, so I forgot about it.

But I then soon realized that the SD card reader does not read 2GB cards and I had to get a USB reader. And 2GB had been out for a while too. I thought they might release a driver update, but after months of checking I gave up. A small issue on its own I guess but added to the screen and speakers, the shine and my feeling of superiority over Dell owners was starting to wear off.

Now, exactly 12.5 months after purchase (Ive not checked the guarantee but I bet it runs out at 12 months) the battery life suddenly reduced to about 4 minutes. Basically just about enough time to be able to move the system to another room. Today, that battery life has gone down to zero. If you pull the plug the system dies just as a desktop would. No shutdown, no drop to standby, nothing.

(BTW, I remember a post somewhere here talking about a bios problem that can make laptops think it has less battery life, and make it sleep too soon so I am just going to search for that now. Actually I found this thread whilst searching.)

Not that I ever use the battery. Its a DTR. I cant even change rooms now without shutdown, but again, it is not a major deal since I rarely do change rooms. So whilst I have been able to brush off most of the issues because they are not the end of the world to *me,* what if I did need an hour of battery life? What if reasonable sound was important to me? Why *shouldnt* I expect a picture quality on a par with such jokers as Dell?

The good points are that the build quality is very very solid. Its like a brick. In a good way. The Dell was rather more flimsy, although still satisfactory Id say. Also, the full keyboard is very nice, and again very solid. Trackpad is lovely. Much nicer than the Dell. (As for the Dell trackpad buttons... lol.) But all these things come under build quality really.

Also, service from discountlaptops.com was a world apart from Dell. That was the best part of the whole experience. Dell messed me about for a week and I wont bore you with how truly awful the customer service/tech support is on the phone and by chat because its all the stuff you have heard before. But I was in a bind after that and needed a system urgently for travel, and discountlaptops were excellent. (I know not really relevant to Sager satisfaction but for completeness I wanted to comment.)

But there you have it. While I doubt my Sager has been any worse than many other systems I could have bought, it certainly hasnt been a star. It hasnt been the Cadillac of laptops it is apparently meant to be.

I feel I have nothing to lose by checking out another brand for my next purchase. I have not been turned off of "upmarket laptops" yet though. I certainly will never deal with Dell again.