Why dont i ever see Sagers being reviewed in professional magazines/websites?

I buy a lot of PC magazines, and while i see Sager advertised in them, i have never read any reviews for any of their machine outside this site, and random blogs. same goes for dozens of other smaller companies.

All i ever see are Dell, DP, Sony, etc. etc.

What gives? Is it just cause sager cant afford to pay of these people for reviews?

 

I think that depends from country to country. In Portugal we have a couple of Clevo resellers (rebranding) that appear in the reviews of PC magazines. And I remember of seeing good reviews of alienware Laps in international magazines.

 

Since the about 1996 I have seen Clevo and Sager's reviewed many, many times in PC Magazines. Lately, with the internet being the main source of information you will see them there more. In fact it was in a PC magazine that I first learned of Sager - Clevo notebooks.

 

I kind of agree with the OP. I never heard of Clevo or Sager until very recently, when I was researching notebooks to buy. I think various review sites do have articles on Sagers/Clevos, but I just don't think they're "mainstream" enough for people who aren't actively reading up on high end machines to be aware of them. Ever since I got my Sager,I have yet to come across a single person who recognized the brand...

 

Reviews are first and foremost a marketing tool and the choice of products to be reviewed is heavily influenced by the advertising budget of the reviewed company. Clevo and Sager sell what are essentially niche products and neither advertises heavily. Hence, relatively few reviews.

 

Last estimate I saw, had Sager at 150 employees in the US.

Very niche brand, and I don't think they even want the business model of Dell or HP with all the support infrastructure required.

 

More than likely Sager/Clevo refuse to pay these mags anything or give them free press junkets !

 

They still make magazines?

No seriously....actually you do see Clevos in magazines--just often under different names. You will see Avadirects, Alienware, VoodooPC, Falcon Northwest, Cyberpower, IBuyPower....all these notebooks are Clevos, which is what Sager is.

You cannot get hung up on brand names in the notebook world because "brands" mean nothing here.

No one makes their own notebooks (well, Lenovo does...but there are not many)

 

and Asus .

 

There are reviews of Clevo notebooks on sites like ComputerShopper, LaptopMag, CNET - you just have to search by rebranded names. :-]

 

Magazines ar for the masses, Clevo/Sager Notebooks aren't

 

....

Since when was Alienware still using Clevo? It manufactures its own unique notebooks just for AW now.

 

Actually Alienwares current lineup aren't manufactured by Dell, they're licensed out to Flextronics/Arima I believe it is, same guys who made the M17.
Older Alienwares were Quanta/Clevos in many cases.

It varies from time to time what they're using, and who they're using to build it. Can't remember which brand it was but my old Fujitsu was BIOS compatible with one of the AW laptops back in the day, because it was identical. Even did the BIOS flash at one point to see if it would unlock any BIOS features.

 

It's Flextronics and I should've been more specific. I should have said it contracts a company for an exclusive design unique to AW only. Regardless AW hasn't used a Clevo in awhile now.

 

Well they are kinda competing with each other. Besides Clevo generally makes "boring" notebooks while Dell likes them to be "flashy".

 

Dell hasn't used Clevo in a while, I would love to see them use a visually flashy "just for Alienware" version of the x7200 though. It would be great to have a Clevo covered with Dell's warranty. As long as it has all the bells and whistles Alienware does, like RGB LED, back lit keyboard, aluminum trim, and as long as it looks good and not cheap-ish as it looks from the photo's we've all seen so far.

 

They could just purchase the motherboard from Clevo and build their own casing/stuff to avoid low profit margins from too many Clevo rebrands competing.

As for the OP, well, you don't see Sager's review because they don't give free notebooks/freebies to reviewers, but you must've seen quite alot of Clevo reviews (which is what Sager basically is), in other forms, like AVADirect, Malibu, EuroCom etc, and always in those catchy titles like [insert reseller name] came out with a new monster etc.

 

Very good thinking there. I wonder if the Clevo motherboard idea has crossed their minds. I know there are rumors of a 400w Alienware upcoming, if the x7200 final specs turn out to be as they are on the Style-Note site, it'd be the best one they could get their hands on, as I don't see any other company out doing Clevo on that board.

 

Current iterations of the Alienware lineup were designed in house by the Dell and AW team. Flextronics just does the manufacturing. I spoke at length about this with one of the head Alienware engineers when I was in Miami.

There's nothing Clevo can do that Dell can't. Clevo doesn't have near the resources they've got. If they see a profit in a desktop CPU based notebook, they'll make one. I would be very surprised if they did though because it doesn't seem their style.

 

I don't want to drag this topic any further off base than it already is, but Clevo doesn't have near the resources of Dell?

When it comes to laptop manufacturing, Dell's combined resources include two desks, a windowless office and a guy with a box of felt tip markers and a pad of paper.

Their "design process" is pretty much, "What can you guys build us with agaudy alien head on it?" (scribble scribble scribble on pad) "Like this?"

Then the manufacturer goes out and engineers the notebook, selects all the parts, and at the last minute slaps on few lights and an alienware head while the Dell folks clap their hands like second-graders at a show and tell.

You guys seriously overestimate the contribution of the OEMs; the ODMs do all the real work.

 

This...

Just look on the last Clevo reviews on this website. They have AVAdirect pasted all over it.

And this. I didn't learn about Clevo or Sager until getting to this website, and it took me a long time to figure out the difference between Clevo and Sager.


Multi-quote doesn't work for me :/

 

Dell has the moola, and it does the talking. Clevo is a just rather small notebook maker compared to Compal, Quanta etc, and Clevo mostly make boutique products that doesn't have a lot of market, that's why they've been losing money all the time and recent few years almost went bankrupt. Though it might mean a good thing for buyers since it means they have a slim profit margin.

 

That's just outright sensationlist. That seems to de-emphasize all the work the engineers do in testing/creating BIOS's, revising/testing the chassis, testing GPU's, ect ect. Then again this is coming from a guy behind in info about 2 years.