Thoughts On Sager Quality

I bought a Sager in 2003, NP8800 series, as a desktop replacement. I was concerned because I had never heard of them but because noboby else could touch the specs for the price I took a chance. Well within a year I had to get the motherboard replaced and now that the warrenty is up I am getting the same problems and I can't even get into windows...it just cycles through the boot-up. I am now in the market to get another notebook and Sager has a some very nice selections but I am leery about buying them again...you know "fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me". Anybody have any thoughts on Sager quality and reliability?

 

Welcome to NotebookReview.com's forums, tpm. Thanks for posting your experience.

About Sager Quality - I have owned my 15.4" Sager NP-5320 (Pentium M) since October of '05. Flawless operation so far, no problems regarding quality, heat, etc.

Compared to a mainstream notebook, such as an HP (which are the best mainstream notebooks in my opinion), this one is a notch above the rest. There is no flex in the lid - made of aluminum, very durable and sturdy, plus it looks nice. The chassis is stiff as a board - no flex there either. I enjoy typing on the keyboard. It is a bit 'clickety', but offers a good experience.

When I tap the plastic, there are no hollow or vibrating sounds as you might get on a cheaper notebook.

The display - a bit above average for the most part. I like the contrast and sharpness, but brightness leaves a bit to be desired. It is about average there. Nobody is going to double-take at this display. It's not bad by any measure, just needs a brightness boost.

Hardware - good components used, reliable.

Remember, Sager does not 'make' any of their notebooks - they are rebadged Clevo's - Sager just customizes them and sells them under a different name.

In the hardware foum, we have a small questionare - the "What Should I Buy FAQ" - if you could copy + paste, then fill it out, we can recommend a Sager to you.

Chaz

 

This is just the stuff I need to hear to convince me to actually BUY one.. ;-)

//Fabian

 

Just got my Sager 9750 this week. My impression is that its a SOLID machine in comparison to my Dells. I have owned a 7000 and still own a 7500 and 8200 and by far, the build on the Sager is much better.

The LCD is firm but smooth. There are no misfit parts or bad gaps. There are also no plastic creeks that I can find. The keyboard is awesome and with nice feedback.

The only quam is that the USB2.0 ports appear to be mounted upside down and the left palm are is slightly warm from the 7800GTX underneath it.

So far, I am impressed with the build and quality but it's early days still...only 4 days of ownership.

 

Well I would like to hear some more from you guys that now have Sager...I like mine; when it worked. I need to get another laptop and continue to like the specs for the price Sager offers but I still have a bad taste from the first one.

 

..don't blame you at all. i've not had any bad experience and i owned all dells until now. will do a review of my 9750 in another forum (with the same username) prolly next week. so far my 9750 has been more than exceptional...:love: it !

I should point out that anothe oddity is the WUXGA screen is 61Hz and NOT 60Hz so you have to make sure the games such as BF2 is configured with 61Hz otherwise it will crash all the way back to the desktop. I can't comment on the 4750 or the other earlier series since this is my first Sager.

 

That's strange - a screen with a 61Hz refresh rate, eh? I've also heard claims about Apple screens having a 62Hz refresh rate as well. The industry standard is 60Hz, however, so I wonder why these makers decided to make their screens with a higher refresh rate.

 

i know...we had so many reports of BF2 crashing on startup about 2 weeks ago and we were bewildered for a little while until one of the guys said "hey the refresh is 61Hz and not 60Hz in the .ini file !"

 

me too. very happy with the quality/durability of my 3790. and I also had my hard drive go south just a little over a year from original purchase. I plan to buy a sager for my next computer if that tells you anything.

 

Sager..... is Clevo.... so they should be good

 

I generally launch mobmeter first thing after boot. Using the GPU really drives up those temps. But what are the critical temperatures? And what can you do (other than shut the machine down?)

 

Yep, even just after 4 weeks, you can see the white dust/cat hair gathering around the grills underneath.

 

imho, critical is > 80C, as a rule of thumb. shut down immediately and start cleaning your fan grills of dust, hair and any other goodies. if that doesn't work, try Artic Silver 5, if you had your notebook for some time.

 

If I didn't buy my Dell E1705 I would have gotten a Sager or Asus. But the E1705 does not get hot - even when you're running it for a long time. And it's battery life is good for what it is - maybe 2.5 hrs (i still have to test this).

That AMD 4800 Sager looks nice - what's you 2M score for Super Pi? Mine is 1:15 on a T2500 2Ghz Due and 2 GB RAM.

But if I had to get a serious gaming machine it would not be a laptop. I use regular computers with a 21" CRT.

 

I have 2 Sagers a NP4780 which is approaching 3 years old and a 5710 which I purchased around the beginning on November 2005. The 4780 had a problem with the graphics card and because it was attached to the MB the MB was replaced. This happened with 1 month on the original warranty. I DMA'd it to Sager and I had it back in a week considering I'm in Florida and Sager is in Cali thats not bad. Sager called me to see if I wanted to keep the same shipping options when it was done and shipped it that day. I haven't had any problems with it since that point but I don't use it as much as I did since I got my 5710.

 

FWIW, my first (and only) experience with Sager/Clevo machines has been nothing short of disastrous.

I should probably start by stating this post is not intended to bash Sager, other folks run Sagers and are very happy with their rig, so nothing's clear-cut.
Still, my own mileage was a nightmare. I bought a 8887, this was in 2003, at PCTorque.com, which by the way are really fine people and have _outstanding_ customer service.

I'll keep this very short, but suffice it to say that in one year (I ditched the thing after that), I had two fried mobos, one fried GPU, one HDD failure, a broken hinge and countless other "minor" cosmetic unpleasantries (vanishing paint, etc).

Dealing with Sager support was also nightmarish, or almost. The only redeeming quality is that they were, for the most part, fast. I never waited more than 10 days including shipping both ways. BUT, everytime the machine came back either still with the problem unfixed, or with another whole set of problems.
In the end, I bawled loud enough so that they swapped the machine with another, newer model, and swayed them my way.

So it's a mixed bag. I'd never, ever approach another Clevo machine again, under whatever brand it's sold, on the other hand, Sager at least seems to genuinely want to help its customers, even though they don't quite know how most of the time.

Finally, I repeat, the dealer I went through, PCTorque, was extremely supportive all the way.

my 0.02 c...

 

Thats a nice benchmark but i hope this doesn't turn into a p*ssing contest...

The Super Pi test on the core duo and the x2, BOTH CPUs, only use one core to calculate and for that my X2, it records a 1min 26s. Your Super Pi 2M concurs with the results from the NBR review of the E1705.

Run the PCMark04 with the multithreaded tests to get a better feel for what the cpus should do. The core duos are no slouch but that is to be expected as the new CPUs come in. Anyway, even my 4800+ is getting blown away by the FX-60, lower voltage and better performance...

I concur - if you want the ultimate gaming rig, go for a desktop. However, notebooks are slowly taking making more and more sales and getting better for gaming and may have a 21" LCD soon in a "portable" form soon...

Cheers...

 

Zaroff...yeah...there are good and bad news with Sager support. Sorry to hear about your issues. So far I've had one RMA dealing with Sager and it was pretty good.

I've not dealt with the PCT support yet since they have changed over to the on-site service and my warranty with them won't kick in until Jan07. Not expecting issues and the boys are PCT are great...

Cheers...