Sager Service/Reliability/Longevity

I read in the reseller guide the following about Sager:

Reseller Rating: 6-Month Rating: 10/10 | Lifetime Rating: 5.1/10.0
Better Business Bureau Rating: F (20 complaints to date, 15 resolved)
Overall Customer Satisfaction: Satisfied

I'm already skeptical about buying from a non-major brand (got a local computer in the mid-90's from a shop with good service but numerous hardware problems), and this frankly doesn't look like the best record. 5.1 of 10 lifetime ratings and an F from the BBB? That just doesn't seem adequate.

I did notice many of the Sager resellers (powernotebook.com, xoticpc.com) had much higher service ratings. Is this because they have the influence to make things get done at Sager, or just their own commitment to customers?

Any comparisons on how many Sagers have to be returned for service relative to big-name brands such as Dell, Sony, and Gateway? Even if I can get excellent service from a reseller, I can't afford to be sending a computer in every 2 months (ideally I wouldn't at all...I've had a Sony computer for 8 years with no problems whatsoever and would my new computer to match that).

And how long do Sagers last? I'd except one to last at least 5 years with regular use (I've become accustomed to that with Sony and HP - never have had a computer from a big-name company really break).

Any general reasons why Sager is still relatively uncommon? I don't know anyone who has one, yet they've been in business since 1985 and have great prices. It just seems their prices might be a little bit too great.

 

You have to look towards the Sager resellers to purchase over Sager directly.

Sager distributes the notebook very well.. but their service is somewhat lax.... that is why they did the smart thing by having resellers for their notebook to give much better customer service and support.

So if you read the Clevo Guide, you would notice that all of the Sager resellers have outstanding ratings and service.

Brands are just marketing to create a unique image to the consumer's eyes... does not truly tell much about service and support.

And Sager is a VERY HUGE "brand" for boutique/custom notebooks. You have to understand that the other "brands" do not make their own notebooks as well.... they all ultimately just re-brand them (with new color, alien-head, stickers, etc..).

The Clevo notebooks are the most wanted systems for their superior build quality and innovative features. No other ODM can match them to date... only try to catch up.

If you ever go to gaming or electronic conventions or expo's, these high-end notebooks are pretty well known.... and makes the Dell XPS look like plain jane notebooks... thats what happened last year when I was at E3 2006 with my beast.

 

I don't know what your experience has been for Sony and Dell, but for me I've literally been on hold for over an hour when I was trying to get my optical drive replaced with Sony. And from what people tell me, Dell is worse and I got off easy with the Sony.

If you look up Dell on resellerratings, they have a 4.63.

So yeah, buy from a reseller. Xoticpc and powernotebooks are both great resellers. And if you get the 3 year warranty that's overnight shipping paid.

 

Woah!

How about looking at the:

DELL ResellerRating.com rating = 4.63 six months and 4.38 Lifetime

Or,

Gateway = 1.25 six months and 2.11 Lifetime

Or,

Sony = 1.0 six months and 3.37 Lifetime

Hmmm, I would have to say that Sager IS the best rated manufacturer among those you are comparing them to.

The point really is that you should look to the Customer service record of your reseller, and the number of ratings they have, to determine the most reliable place to buy the most reliable manufacturer's (Sager in this case) product.

Then before you make your purchase call the different resellers and ask all of your questions...after you do that you will probably know where you will be most confident in placing your order.

 

That 1.0 rating sony has makes me laugh out loud.

 

Hmm...so I guess the 60% for passing that I'm used to in school doesn't apply for computer manufacturers. Although I'm sure the site tends to draw more heavily from those dissatisfied, I guess Sager isn't so bad as it first looked. Still, I will go with a reseller if I buy from them.

My only experience with tech support was with HP - needed as OS disc shipped and it was not a long wait and was sent right away, just as you'd expect. My Sony machine's been good enough to never have to call service. I'm surprised they're as low as they are in the ratings, though Gateway doesn't surprise me. But that still leaves the question - even if Sager's support is better than most, how reliable are the machines? It's not a big deal to get something fixed once, but if I have to multiple times it would get very old very quickly. And how long do they last - I probably couldn't afford to replace it for five years or so (going to university)?

And what's this 30-day dead pixel guarantee thing for $200? Seems to me like it'd make a lot more sense to just return it in the 30-day return period if there was a dead pixel.

 

Well, if you buy notebooks from any store, you will have to pay restocking fee to return it. Sager gives you a chance to return the product if you're not totally satisfied with it. The reason why resellers have dead 30 day dead pixel guarantee is that when you return your laptop, you will be responsible for shipping. However, if you decide to go ahead and do 30-day dead pixel guarantee, you will not be charged with anything and you will be able to return your laptops until you're free of dead pixels.

 

I've been a Sager owner for a while now - I have had my current machine since October of 2005. It has given me no trouble since I took it out of the box on day one. I have only contacted support once or twice and when I did, my phone call was answered immediately (I purchased my Sager from PowerNotebooks.com, I contacted their support) and my question was answered promptly. I also emailed Sager's tech support and got a response back from a real person within an hour.

I would skip that . . . the vast majority of displays shipped are pixel perfect.

 

Sager claims that 80 percent of their machines are shipped with 1 or less dead pixel.

 

well they do a free dead-pixel check during quality control burnin tests, and replace the monitor if they find dead pixels, and if you buy ZPD you get one more check before it's shipped o.o

Yea don't buy the ZDP it's just pre-paid shipping.....
and yea most resellers have a 30-day money back guarantee, but I it's very rare for a Sager notebook to have a dead pixel, especially in the center of the lcd.

And don't buy from Sager, resellers give lower prices and alot better customer support, since they only deal with the end consumer, but Sager deals with all the resellers + some customers, must be insane for em

 

My D9k came with 0 dead pixels. But i bought it from cyber power pc. I was really satisfied when bought a desktop from them because it saved me alot of time and money (about 3 years ago)

So when i went notebook shopping i started there and looked no farther. Hind sight is 20/20 so i would not recommend them for your clevo/sager. Thier knowledge of the system and tech support is very minimal even tho it's 24/7. Also thier warranty is non extendable and is only good for 1 year on notebooks vs 3 years on desktops.

edit: Also thier prices are higher i think, but you get what you pay for. Dont forget the more expensive the toy, generally the higher the cost of upkeep.

 

OK, good to here you've had your Sager for awhile without any trouble, Chaz. I doubt I'll get the ZDP then - if it's bad I can return it within 30 days for a lot less than $200 shipping. Just curious, how many dead pixels do you have to have before a standard warranty covers it? I'm not sure of this with any company, for that matter.

One dead pixel isn't a huge deal, either. Not ideal, but I have one on my ThinkPad (I know...must be rare) and it still looks good enough.

paladin44, are you Donald Stratton? I'm confused; your sig says Donald Stratton but on powernotebooks.com Paladin44 and Donald Stratton are different options for sales advisors.

edit: didn't see there was a page 2. Legomaniax, you're referring to cyberpowerpc.com? Right now I'd probably go with powerpc.com or xoticpc.com; it looks like they have pretty phenomenal tech support.

 

Yes paladin is Donald Stratton of Powernotebooks.

 

why does powernotebooks have 1200 lifetime reviews and xoticpc has a lot less? do more people choose powernotebooks over xotic?

 

From what I've learned in the past 5 or so hours reading in this forum, both Power Notebooks and Xoticpc are quality sellers and you'll have no trouble with either of them.

 

that wasn't my question lol but thanks for the answer
i wanted to know if some companies just ask people if they want to write a positive review, not that i don't believe they have such a good service...
maybe it's just because powernotebooks has been arond longer or have a bigger reach of customers.

 

I very much doubt that was a smart ass answer. He offered an opinion, nothing more.

For my part, I have had a sager laptop since October 2004. There was/is a design flaw with this laptop--the 5680--in which the plastic bezels around the hinges crack from stress. This is a well documented issue and was limited to this body class (the 5600 series).

There have been other laptops with issues as well from time to time (the 8790 overheating issue sticks out), but that can apply to many laptop makers. The clevo models with desktop processors (in which SOME Sagers are built) tend to run a little hotter as one might expect--if you get a gaming laptop you have to expect heat dissapation to be an issue. Most people who get these specific models take care to keep vents clear and add external cooling solutions.

Despite the hinge cracks, which I have also experienced on several other laptops, I have been more than happy with my sager notebook.

Both powernotebooks and xoticpc have been around since 1999, though I believe powernotebooks has a longer life as a non E-retailer dating back some 25 years.

Their noteriety -- as well as the noteriety of other resellers -- in the notebook community stems from a number of factors, not the least of which is the presence of the company representatives on notebook forums like this one.

Donald of Powernotebooks frequents these forums as well as powernotebooks own forum and notebookforums.com and has garned a good reputation. Xotic was not much in evidence until Justin made a concerted effort to get the word out.

Notebookforums was once a house forum for Pctorque.com.

So, I guess the question "why" can be attributed to the efforts of individuals. Xotic was less well known because they did not have someone taking the inititiative -- now they do, and they have quickly become a notebook reseller of choice.

I guess one person can make a difference.

As yourself, how did you find out about Sager?

In my case, I was trawling google looking for a notebook support question. I focused on notebook forums as the quesiton was less generic in nature, found people discussing Clevo's, found out who resells Clevos (Sager, Alienware, Hypersonic, etc...) and found myself in forums like these. The people who were there and helpful got my business.

I imagine that was similar to your story

 

in a way....

i went to xxodd because its a dutch dealer. then i looked up more info on the model, and came to the m570u. then i invested several months looking at how the laptop business works. and indeed found out that clevo has the best performance laptops you can get, and that there are plenty of resellers.

 

So long as the 2090 has no hinge issues...Which other models have you had with hinge issues? The hinges on my old HP Omnibook cracked a few months ago and although the screen still works just fine it no longer is self-supporting. Not a huge issue with an 11-year-old laptop, but it would be in a 3-year-old one. That's why it's kind of an important factor to me...I can deal with a few scratches, but not non-supportive screens.

Not too concerned with overheating. I'm not going to be putting in a desktop processor or dual-video-cards, so I think anything with decent cooling should work. However, I am curious as to whether it is typical to elevate notebooks slightly so air can go by the vents on the bottom. I usually leave mine right less powerful.

I found out about Sager when Chaz recommended the 2090 as a potential laptop based on a thread I made in the Graphics forum asking about all the new video cards. I'd seen a few things about Sager before, but it never really jumped out until I saw the prices. I'd thought it'd be like Falcon Northwest and way out of my price range (the title of this forum does say, "Sager is a well-known boutique brand). So far I've been fairly impressed. Hopefully by the end of next week I'll have a final decision (as I'm entering college I'm not in a position to be the sole financier).

 

One of the two previous ones was also an omnibook, the other was an old IBM thinkpad.

The cracks on the 5680 were cosmetic, not structural--ie, the screen remains usable. As it was, I simply dabbed a little crazy glue on the ends of the crack which melted them together and stopped the spread...not pretty, but it worked.

Sager actually sent me a front and rear bezel to replace the cracked ones, but I never got around to putting them on....

 

Thanks to everyone here...by now I've finally come to a near-conclusion and it doesn't look like I'll be getting a Sager this time around. In the end it came down to performance and warranty per dollar - more for the same price as Sager due to educational discounts. Sometimes those deals are just too good to pass up.

In particular I'd like to thank Chaz and gerryf19, as well as Donald. I've been really impressed by your active participation with potential buyers and honest answers. I'm very confident that if I ordered through powernotebooks.com I would get excellent service. If anything goes wrong with my PC (though I'm really hoping it won't), you might be getting a call with a new Sager order. And after I graduate and can't get educational discounts, Sager will be one of the first brands I consider and quite possibly will be the one I choose.

Perhaps most of all I'm impressed that Sager and powernotebooks.com, as well as all the Sager users, have something to back up all their advertising of how great their systems are. Excellent service if you go through a resaler, competitive prices, and very reasonable upgrade options. I haven't seen anywhere comes close to the $330 upgrade to 4 GB RAM, and the $80 between Vista Home Premium and Ultimate is a great deal - plus you get the CD media for both 32 and 64 bit! If I really needed 4 GB of RAM, again Sager would have been the most competitive.

But alas, I'm a CPU-junkie more than a memory junkie. My favorite game may well be the only one out there that is undoubtedly more burdensome on the CPU than RAM or GPU - it even makes my P4-2.66 GHz look slow. So since I'll be getting the T7500, I guess I would be as Donald said in another post, one of the "most testosterone driven users" .

 

Out of curiosity, what game is this?

 

Core 2 Duo is quite a step up from the old P4 days, I wouldn't judge any current processors on the performance of a single core P4.