Teffo's 5720-V Review

I purchased the 5720-V notebook from Discountlaptops on Nov 11, 2005. This laptop is just amazing. My previous laptop was a Gateway 600. My current desktop has 1Gig of ram 9800 PRO ATI video card with 7200 rpm 200 GB hard drive. The 5720-V drives circles around them. I can't say that I have seen a better compact gaming laptop than this one right here.

Here is what I ordered with the 5720-V as follows;

17" TFT WUXGA (1920x1200) Glare Type Display
2.0 Intel Pentium M (760) Processor (2 MB Cache, Sonoma)
256MB GDDR3 nVIDIA GeForce Go 7800 GTX PCI-Express 16x
1024 MB DDR2 SDRAM (533 MHz, PC-4200, Dual Channel) (1 x 1024MB)
80 GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200 RPM)
Internal 8X DVD±R/RW LightScribe (Dual Layer) + / CD-RW Combo Drive
Integrated V.90/56K Modem (V.92 compliant)
10/100/1000BASE-TX Fast Ethernet on boardLAN Card
Internal Intel 2915ABG 802.11a/b/g Wireless LAN
8-cell Smart Lithium Ion Battery
4-in-1 Flash Card Reader (SD/MMC/MS/MSPro)
Integrated 1.3M Digital Video Camera

The only reason I purchased this laptop becasue of Everquest 2 game. This game needs a work horse of a computer to actually enjoy the eye candy of the game. I did not want to invest more money for a 3 year old desktop so I decided when I have enough cash-on-hand I will invest in a gaming laptop. Well, when the time came and I did my research via google and I stumbled onto the notebook forum scene and everyone was raving about this laptop. Here is what I think about the following key componets of the 5720-V.

1) POWER - Processor is strong... No. It's a diesel ! The Pentium 2.0 mobile cpu has surprised me. It slaps my desktops 3.0 Ghz Pentium processor off the charts. I'm a not a computer geek mind ya just a Everquest addict but I can multi task way better than the Desktop version of the Pentium processor. With flipping from EQ2 to Word to The internet this bad boy does not flitch.

2) STORAGE and MEMORY - The 7200 SATA 80 GB hard drive is a godsent. No long load times compared to the original 5400 RPM 80 Hard drive SATA I received ( Thanks Matt at DL and Alan at Sager for letting me swamp it for the difference in price). The one gig memory DDR2 is refreshing but I will upgrade to 2 gigs so I can enjoy Quake4 with out the hick ups at ULTRA mega settings !! !!

3) SCREEN and CASING - What can I say that others here in this forum havn't said ? Plain and simple GORGEOUS ! From all angles the screen is clear and glossy. No fog effect. The casing overall is sleek and elegant. When I took it to a monthy EQ2 LAN party every was Like, " WOW ! What the heck it that ! Its awesome ! " I loved it. One of my friends said to me if he had my 5720-V he could pick up so much geek girls ..

4: BATTERY LIFE - This is not a issue with me. I usually live on the AC with my laptops. But I have to hand it to this laptop if you drop the settings in windows power management and also in NVida display you can get 2 hours of power if you lower the brightness all the way down and just normal web surfing or word. ( Also lower the wirless card power management to lowest setting ).

5) VIDEO CARD - This is the real reason for this laptop. The Nvidia 7800 GTX go Video chip in the 5720-V with 256 MB of DD3. Freak'n awesome ! I never seen so much details in a Everquest2 since I played with this notebook. I'm shocked still after almost a month of owning this notebook. Graphics are rich and vibrant. Also, smooth texture gives a feel for the game. Just amazing. I'm sorry I don't know what else to say. Speechless here on this subject. WOW that 's the word. WOW !

6) MISC - Folks on other forums have had small complaints about noise of fans, the laptop being a bit warm, and chirping noise on the 5720 overall. Sorry but I do not see any of these discrepencies with my 5720-V. I must be blessed by the laptop Gods. Nothing negative to say. Awesome product and Discount laptops for so far at this point, good customer service along with Sager. Yes Sager as well.

CONCLUSION - Amazing Laptop with all the goods I wanted all packed in a 9 pound mini monster. I love it. I am so glad I bought it. Finally, I purchased something that cost me over $2000 and didn't feel bad a week after compared to my Gateway 600 .. Don't get me wrong.. it was a good laptop. But it only lasted 3 weeks until Everquest 1 wouldnt play on it becasue of new graphics patch. This laptop will last me a good year or two and I'm loving the ride.

TEFFO

 

Nice Teffo, very positive!

Many thanks for submitting this. I am going to add a link to it in my Sager Models Guide.

Thanks again.

 

Teffo, welcome to the forums and what a great post. Reviews are highly encouraged and always appreciated. And yeah, if you can drop $2,000 on a laptop and 2-weeks later still not have buyers remorse, then it's a thumbs up!

 

Do you hear any fan noise at all? or it is just no noise at all.

I feel fan noise much louder than my Dell Inspiron 600M

 

Only if its dead silence and Im not using onboard speakers I can then hear the fan . But nothing out of the ordinary.

 

Nice review, congrats on the machine.