Sell me on the 5790! :)

I'm trying to justify buying the Sager NP5790 over a similarly configured Dell Vostro 1500 - for almost a grand less. The Sager has the 17 inch display vs the Dells 15.4. And the Sager chassis is obviously way better. But the rest of the specs are pretty much the same. I can configure both with a 2 core 2.2ghz, 2mb ram, 512 graphics card, 7200 HD.

But damn I like the Sager so much better! The logical side of my brain says save the grand and buy the Dell - it's the same computer on the inside. But my not so conservative - impulsive - side of my brain says get the Sager.

If I buy the Sager at say powernotebooks it sounds like I will get great support. Whereas Dell has shipped it's phone support to India. Which I absolutely can't deal with.

The Sager looks better put together on the outside. But there site is a little lacking on information like quality control or any tweaking they might do to make sure the system is running at it's very best. They seem to carry a really great product. But their marketing department (if they have one) seems to be lacking. Especially on their site. Which is pretty much the only place to find out about their product.

Anyway. Is there any logical arguments for buying the Sager over the Dell? I really wanted a better chassis and 17 inch screen. But damn - a grand is hard to justify - when all the other specs seem the same.

I considered the lesser model Sager but there is absolutely no review anywhere about it. And the chassis seemed to be about on par with the Dell.

(I do alot of downloading and playing and editing movies, etc. And some gaming. I won't travel with it except rarely so size doesn't matter to me.)

Moab

 

The Sager's graphics memory is better.

 

If you have the money to spare, definitely go with Sager.
By the way, the Sager has the 7950gtx 512mb GDDR3 graphics card which is the FASTEST GPU currently available. The Vostro has the 8600GT has is DDR2. There is a huge difference in gaming performance.
If you don't need that much gaming power and have a limited budget, Dell should be your choice. Otherwise, Sager's the way to go!

 

First of all, the Vostro only has a 256MB 8600GT. The 512MB 8800GTX will run circles around it.

Then you get a 17 in. screen, better chasis, better quality build, better quality components and most importantly, better support. This is a notebook you are dealing with, not a desktop, so if something breaks, you want a good company to take care of you.

But some people have no problems with Dell. I haven't been that lucky so I have no intention of going back to Dell Hell... or HP/Compaq/Gateway/Toshiba for that matter.

 

sager will have the fastest gpu... in about 20-25days

 

The Sager 5791 currently comes with the 8700M GT w/512MB GDDR3. But will add the GTX sometime after Dec 6th (shipped feb?). I assume with that newest card the price will be much higher(?). And I'm already at my price point with it now.

The Vostro 1500 as I have it configured has the 256MB NVIDIA® GeForce™ 8600M GT (DDR2?).

As I am primarily doing video and not gaming I assume either of the DDR2 cards will do.

So I am back to my first question which is - is the 17 inch screen, slightly better card, better build quality, and support - worth the $689? (I just subtracted the actual numbers. Now I'm sounding cheap! Maybe it is worth it.) I've just never spent anywhere near $1850 on a computer. I own a company with probably 8 computers. But going that high just seems overboard to me somehow. I guess I'm to old and married with kids! That would be a good poll on here!

To bad there aren't any reviews for the low end Sager 6790. And to bad it only offers a 128 card. It runs $1364. Still the chassis on that model doesn't look overwhelmingly better than the Dell. And at that price point your so close to the 5791 you might as well opt for it and the 512 card and way better chassis.

So what's up with these units be upgradeable? Is it just the card that you can upgrade? Or can you upgrade the processor and ram too? I guess if I knew I could do that, it would extend the life of the laptop far beyond my past models. As I don't see to many things about the rest of the laptop that are going to be developed beyond what I will need for some time.

Sorry to sound like such an old penny pinching fart! I do want a great laptop. It's the one computer I use the most. And I'm tired of video slowing my computer down to a crawl or lockup. I do alot of video conferencing, and downloading and playing alot of video - all at the same time.

Thanks for all your guys help. I really appreciate your donated time and energy to answer all my noob questions. And for listening to my ramblings.

Moab

 

If you do not game and you do not push your PC to the max there is no reason to get a 5790.

Upgradability means nothing unless you wish to stay at the top of the 'bleeding edge' of gaming.

By the time you fear that the laptop is obsolete, most likely the upgrades that would normally fit in there, are obsolete as well.

Any 'new' computer should be able to do all the things you ask, assuming they are not $400 compaqs or something like that. Playing video is not that intensive unless you plan on playing blu-ray rips or something like that.

For those of us who plan on playing games at high res, the value of the 5790 is priceless and the thought of buying a dell ( less than the XPS m1730 ) would never enter the mind.

Durability wise, the Sager will be better but... just take care of your laptops and you are fine, for the life of the technology.

 

Yeah, I see a lot of people on these forums who seem to push themselves for great graphics cards when they really don't need them. If you're not playing the latest games, then you don't need one of these cards. You'd probably be fine with a n 8400GS for video editing, I would imagine. Maybe I'm wrong. But you'd most definitely be fine with an 8600GT.

 

If you are doing video editing and have multiple windows open at the same time the 17" would be better. The more surface area you can get the better. Both the sager and the dell have upgradeable memory. The sager would be easier to upgrade the CPU and video in than the dell. But you might be able to do a small upgrade on the CPU with the dell. I don't believe dell will offer any upgrade on video later for the system you reference. The 8700 is a better card than 8600. I am don't sure you would see the difference they both are powerful enough to handle the job. I can say that the 8700 is a good card but I am not sure how much better for your application. The extra memory should help in that it will be able to cache more of what you are working with.

You should also take into account some "minor" details that are often over looked. Compare between the two system things like location and number of USB ports. Since you are looking at video editing this may come into play when connecting external drives. I would also look at the video out options and other ports like firewire or esata type ports. Look at card readers and what types are supported. I would also compare the screen resolutions of the two systems. The higher the screen resolution usually translates into better visual quality as well as a larger work space.

Hope this helps but these are things I look at and do comparisons on when I shop for a new laptop.

 

Dell Hell, ... that's funny.

I was actually in kind of the same situation, I was considering the XPS 1530, also HP 8510p. If for no other reason then it's a really nice looking notebook with really good specs. But, I am afraid of getting caught up in the massive red tape that is Dell/HP. Then I found the 5791. Better upgradable graphics (Sorry guys but these machines have 4 different GPU's that will fit spanning back through the last chipset platform. THAT is what you call upgradable for a notebook, regardless if some machines need a motherboard update.) I wasn't really looking for a laptop that big, but if all I am gaining is about an inch and a half in width to gain that much performance I am feeling that the Sager will be the best way to go.