Thinking Sager, how was your experience?

I am thinking of buying a new gaming laptop early in this year (2009), and since Toshiba, (I have been a long time Toshiba fan and supporter) have decided that they do not want my business and do not care to answer why the only choice in Canada is an over priced under featured mess like the X300 seen here:

http://www.toshiba.ca/web/product.grp?lg=en&section=1&group=1&product=8471&category=

Anyway while looking at some other brands and the experience some have had I was thinking Alienware was probably my best choice for a gaming laptop, until I saw someone recommend a Sager on another thread, which I have never heard of, well I checked the website and I have to say I am impressed. I have now decided I will most likely go Sager for my upcoming purchase, but first I would like to know the experiences of some of the users of Sager products here. Like for example were there many issues with the systems (with Toshiba I had 2 issues, only 1 major over three systems and 8 years). How is the repair if needed? Toshiba has repair facilities where I live, what was predicted to take a week, took 3 days. Are you happy with your purchase and why? If you were not what other brand would you recommend?

Thanks for any help and suggestions you all can put forward, any help will be appreciated.

Oh yes this is the Sager system I am looking at, any suggestion for what features you recommend for customization will also be appreciated, the only thing I will not change is Vista Ultimate 64 bit which I simply must continue using. Well I use 32 bit, but will need 64 bit for the extra RAM.

http://www.sagernotebook.com/product_customed.php?pid=29175

 

i'm in the exact same boat as you right now, and i am doing an insane amount of research. don't buy from sager directly, they have very bad customer service reviews from resellerratings.com and only 1 year warranty.... instead go buy it from a powernotebooks.com which concentrates on selling Sagers and are one of the top rated customer service companies on resellerratings also... they also extend their warranty to 3 years for free

 

sager 9262 is better. that toshiba is under power by its cpu. if it had a 2.5 or higher it would be a worth while buy.

 

I don't own a Sager myself, but XoticPCs, who sells Sagers, is very known for having fantastic customer service.
Justin, who's the owner of XoticPCs, also proved very helpful to me, when I asked him some questions about delivery from XoticPCs.
So yeah, don't buy from Sager, but buy from either XoticPCs or PowerNotebooks.

Also, the Sager NP9262/Clevo D901C wins hands down; I'd definately go for that one. I'm going to buy a Kobalt Comanche SLI, which's practically the same as the Sager NP9262 (since they're both built on the Clevo D901C barebone). Only reason why I chose to buy from Kobalt Computers rather than XoticPCs, was that I live in Europe, which makes the delivery much cheaper (especially if I have to get it repaired).

If you live the US, I'd definately recommend buying it from XoticPCs. There's a lot of reviews on this forum too, if you're still in doubt on what to buy. From what I've heard, they have a very good repair service too.

Good luck with your purchase!
Xan

 

[QUOTEOh yes this is the Sager system I am looking at, any suggestion for what features you recommend for customization will also be appreciated, the only thing I will not change is Vista Ultimate 64 bit which I simply must continue using. Well I use 32 bit, but will need 64 bit for the extra RAM.

http://www.sagernotebook.com/product_customed.php?pid=29175[/QUOTE]

You may also consider the Sager 5797 if you don't need dual video cards. It's about 3 pounds lighter and gets another hour of battery life. It's a question of whether you want power or portability.

I purchased a 5797 from TorquePC about 3 weeks ago and I've been very pleased with both the service and the laptop so far. They also offer the extended warranty for free, but be aware that all of the free extended warranties only include labor after the first year (at least all that I've seen). There are several highly recommended Sager dealers out there, and all seem to have the same price. I actually ordered the 5796 from PCTorque, but they were going to the 5797 the next week and went ahead and upgraded me. I was also able to negotiate free shipping since they guarantee the lowest price.

 

I bought an NP5793 from xoticpc. I'm yet to have any major issues with it in the month I've had it, and the minor ones I've had could be corrected by reinstalling certain drivers, directly from the CD that came with my laptop from xoticpc.

Unfortunately, my issues were with xoticpc. I'm not in the States, so I've had to limit my correspondence to email and their online tech support chat. The person I spoke to wasn't willing to help me deal with nVidia drivers, namely the new ones which were brought to our attention by Justin from xoticpc. The person I had spoken to said his name was Justin W. both times, and the first time I spoke to him, before buying my laptop, the tech support person was very helpful, and though half the messages seemed to have been copy/pasted, enough of it seemed to come from a person to keep me satisfied. The second time, when I was asking about the drivers, I got random disjointed replies that weren't directly answering my question, until finally the chap said he didn't know anything about GPU drivers. This left me quite disappointed.

I've used NBR as my information resource ever since, but the laptop itself is of exceptional quality.

 

My experience with XoticPC was one of the best, if not the best I ever had. Could not go wrong with them: great service and product, fast replies, etc. On the other hand, I just emailed Sager for some inquiries and I could say there's some place for improvements although they are reliable enough to buy from them (i.e. they won't abandon you if something go wrong).

 

my sager2090 died and i would still recommend them, because it was probably nvidias faulty 8600gt and not xotics fault. really the customer service itself is what makes or breaks it, i never thought customer service was that important. but the ability to call them directly and have them pick up in like the 2nd ring and answer your question directly with no bias or timewasting is awesome.

 

I apologize if you feel you didn't receive proper support on the GPU drivers, but from what I recall from our chat conversation is you were asking for support on Dox's customized Drivers(As you commented here.) Xotic PC only supports official Driver releases from either nVIDIA or Sager.

As you stated your not in the US and unable to contact tech support via phone, I provided two different e-mail addresses for technical assistance on these GPU drivers. I'm not an "official" technical support representative but I'm always here to help

 

That was quick

What seemed off to me was the fact that the representative I spoke to refused to straight out tell me that you folks didn't support customized drivers and went as far as to tell me that he didn't know anything about graphics card drivers.

Perhaps I'll utilize those alternate email addresses for further queries, I've got a couple in mind

 

That's a valid point - the business model Sager and its resellers appear to work from is basically one in which Sager focuses on building and repairing the systems, and the resellers focus on selling the systems and providing first-line support to the customers; as such, customer service and managing the expectations of customers who request assistance is not Sager's forte; it is, however, the true strength of many of Sager's resellers, such as the ones named in this thread, and is what puts them ahead of many of the nationally recognized brands, at least in my experience.

 

all i can say is np8660/m860tu/Kobalt Nexus was the best computer purchase ive ever made.

 

I've had my 9262 for nearly a year, and couldn't be happier!

I purchased from Xotic and got great service on the initial purchase as well as for the purchase of an SLI upgrade kit after I had the machine a couple of months.

I can't comment on Xotic's tech support because nothing has ever gone wrong, and I've had no reason to call them.

 

I bought a Sager NP5320 in Oct '05 from PowerNotebooks and it still runs like a champion to this day. I never had any issues with it and it is the best laptop I have ever owned.

I'd highly recommend Sager if you're in the market for a gaming notebook.

 

My ex M570RU was the sleekiest laptop I`ve ever had, elegant , durable, and powerful. Aka the Sager 579x.

 

So why do you have the m1750 now? Why not another Sager?

 

Because he got an offer he couldn't refuse (and I don't think anyone else here would have refused it if they'd been on the receiving end, either).

 

Thanks for all the great info, I think I have made up my mind, but one more question. Sli, is it worth the extra cost?

 

it could be if you have extra cash to use... or want bragging rights.

but I would not consider it "bang for the buck" though.... since not all games utilize SLI the same way....

but SLI 9800M GTX is the best of the best now... with quad-core... no other notebook can touch it.

 

Well they cant touch it because they would drool on the keyboard, who want a sloppy keyboard ?

 

Absolutely! For a gamer, SLI is the most cost-effective future-proofing you can buy.

 

If Sager would have given me an SLI laptop cheaper than my ex RU, I would`ve jumped on it right away

Indeed, cheapest laptop with an SLI sollution at that time...And I absolutely love it.

Hear hear.
I have nothing but good words for sager though. It seems to be the best sollution in terms of gaming laptops, if you have the time to research and ask for price matching around.

 

have had my sager for near on 11 months now and have had no troubles with it (touchwood) would recommend it to anyone..!!

 

Well this thread may have done it for me. I'm about 10 days away from my next laptop purchase and not only does sager have the fan support but I actually saw a vendor respond to a concern in this thread (very impressive).

I was wondering where I would go to buy such a machine but I'll head over to the Xotic PC site to see what they offer.

 

please read the Clevo Guide if you havent yet.

there are many great vendors.

 

Will do! Thanks!