sager 5796 Review

Sorry all that this is so long. It's getting late and i haven't really proofread this what so ever so please excuse the errors that i'm sure plauge it. Also since i'm sorta a noob at the forums i don't know how to upload images here, if someone could pm me to help me i'd gladly post some. Also sorry about not having any benchies. Just a 3dmark 06 score of 9300. Anyways here are my thoughts from the past few days.


Initial thoughts (first 30 minutes or so)

The first thing that struck me is how small this laptop actually was. For a 17inch beast the thing is certainly portable and compared to my mom’s old gateway 15.4’ laptop it’s a bit heavier, but to me it’s still very manageable. I will not have any trouble carrying it to class in a backpack, although it’s clearly not a macbook pro where a selling point is size. Secondly yes it is much prettier in person that the pictures I had previously seen around the web. I can’t notice any fan sound, the dvd drive is a bit loud, but no louder than my desktop or any other laptop I’ve ever used. Nothing seems cheap really to me. If I press hard, firmly, on the edges of the keyboard it will sink a little, that’s it really. The touchpad is a little different than any other I’ve ever used. It’s slightly rough, which I actually like a lot. When I put my ear up to the power supply it does emit a noise. It uhh sounds like electricity flowing I guess, it’s a bit difficult to describe, but as soon as I’m more than 6 inches away I cannot hear anything. So far the only thing that’s bothered me is the 200mb wireless driver that I downloaded(I wasn’t sure if it came with a driver cd). Why the hell is the wireless driver so big?! I blame that on intel however.

Thoughts during instillation after about an hour

I got one blue screen of death. I nearly had a heart attack right there, luckily nothing serious, it just rebooted and worked like a charm. Going to blame that on Microsoft. So after sitting through the windows installation I must admit the fan is a bit noticeable. I would not call it loud, then again I’ve been sitting next to my desktop for the past three years, just noticeable. The sound it’s quieter than the dvd drive, I didn’t notice it till the dvd stopped spinning.

After drivers and everything was installed and during the rest of my evening

I really like the keyboard, typing is comfortable and the keys are easily pressed, not sticky, and overall it is a enjoyable experience. The speakers aren’t bad. You wouldn’t want to use them for a party obviously but they are by no means terrible. I’m used to listening to Logitech z-5500s and bose quite comfort 2 headphones for reference. Although to be fair I’m rather tone deaf… So take what you will from that, the speakers are better than average I would say for laptop speakers but you most likely want a real pair of speakers or nice headphones for extended listening. Obviously bass is more or less nonexistent. I have no idea if this is the fault of the screen or a fault of vista but it appears to have a bluish tint. Not bad, it just gives the monitor a “cool” feelings. I have to say I don’t really notice the turbo memory doing much, there doesn’t seem to be an app even to make me feel good showing me a meter of how much it’s helping me, perhaps I’m missing something.

The finger print scanner is weird, I don’t like it that much. It’s set in-between the two mouse buttons and I feel like it takes too much effort to get my finger in the spot and it’s a tad awkward. This is very very minor however. I think it’s just because my fingers are crooked so it takes a bit more effort/awkward angling than it would for most. However even with my awkward fingers the product works amazingly : ) ! After rebooting a few times however the wireless has gotten a tad annoying. At first it picked up my router, my neighbors, and another that I’d never seen. Great range! After a few restarts however it stopped noticing mine off the bat, just showing up a random selection of the three that I knew were there. This sorta stinks. However again this could be vista, since after a few refreshes it does find my home router. Nothing terrible it’s just a little annoying to hit refresh 2-4 times. Silent mode seems to randomly work. I’m rather convinced all it does it set a higher temperature threshold till when the fans will kick in.

I haven’t tested the battery yet or done any benchmarking but I’ll let you all know how that goes tomorrow, along with some pictures once I figure out how to host them. I’m a little worried that my choice of only 2gb of ram isn’t enough, vista really seems to chew through it and I idle at about 1.2gb used.

After about 2 days of use.

Ok a few issues have arose that are a little saddening, although hopefully someone might have some helpful comments. This section is going to sound very critical, please note that I still adore the laptop I’m just tyring to find things that don’t live up to the perfect standards I set. So to begin, the “cool” or bluish tint to the screen is getting annoying when I plug my laptop into my dell 2407 monitor. Mostly because I really am used to the look of the dell and not my laptop, I guess it’s just preference but the screen on the 5796 looks a little more dull and blue. I tried messing around with the nvidia control panel but nothing seemed like a simple fix. Second the audio jack is well a little below the quality of the rest of the laptop. Sometimes it shorts its self out when you spin a cable in the headphone jack. Also while I was using my z-5500s the left audio would cut out. Then randomly it stopped, and after listening to audio on my headphones for two hours I never noticed it again. So I wouldn’t say that was a big issue but it did scare me at the time. Also the sound doesn’t sound too amazing, I mean pretty much what you would expect from onboard sound, a little flat. Oh well. The audio is in my opinion the weakest part of the system and should be looked at by Clevo some in order to come up to the high quality build of the rest of the laptop. Finally one last very nitpicky note, the hot keys look are a little unpolished. The icons are a little lame that pop up when you click on say volume up or whatever. It looks like someone from 1970 drew it. Oh well not a big deal just a visual thing. This is all I have found that has even remotely bothered me. Everything else is amazing and worth every penny. On a good note the intel wireless chip seems to have figured itself out now and I have had no issues with it, flawless fucntioning now. One other good note, the fan noise has not bothered me one bit, it’s very reasonable.

Final words aka if all the above is too much read this.

I’d give the sager 5796 a 8.5/10. It’s everything they say and in my short time using it haven’t found a single thing worth complaining about that would make me regret my choice of laptop for the next three years. It doesn’t however offer anything new or breathtaking other than amazing performance for the right price, so I find it hard to say that the laptop is “perfect”. So I’ll just give a quick rating for every piece of the laptop.

10 – a new innovation that changes the way you would otherwise use the product
9 – a perfect product that doesn’t add anything new to the industry
8 – nearly perfect with a minor flaw that just nags you only in very specific unusual situations
7- minor problems arise that are noticeable in everyday use

Screen 9/10
Hotkeys 8.5/10 (the icons for windows are lame in my opinion but it works perfectly)
Keyboard 9/10
Mousepad and fingerprint reader 9/10
Audio jack 7/10 the quality and crackle that arouse make it hard to give it a higher rating
Webcam 9/10 (I’ve never really used one before and the quality sorta sucks but it says it’s only 2mega pixels so I knew that ahead of time and it’s exactly as it says)
Performance(internal parts) 9.5/10 (It’s a bleeding edge laptop, 3dmark 06 score was 9300)
Battery life ?/10 I haven’t really tested it yet but I’m a little disappointed. I was hoping for an easy two hours with basic web browsing. It seems like an easy hour is more like it where two hours is if you try to max out life. I guess I should have really expected this though.

Overall 8.5/10 yeah I know it’s not a mathematical average it’s just what I feel it deserves. So basically if you want a desktop replacement that is portable and of an above average quality for a great price I would highly recommend this laptop.

Also I know there are probably a few contradictions in here but these are my thoughts over the course of a few days of use, my thoughts changed and evolved over time. I hope this is helpful to at least someone.

here are some pictures, tell me if you want more/others

 

nice review. Good Job!

 

Indeed a nice review. You're off to a good start here on NBR.

 

get some pics, please .
I'm always interested in looking at other ppl systems.

 

gaming videos for sure, youtube NOT FRAP

 

Great Review,thx!

 

i really hope the NP8660 battery life is ALOT more impressive than the NP5976... or els im really going to regret not getting a M15x with smartbay battery ithink

 

Hmmmm…..?

Is this smartbay battery free or something? If not, then what more battery life will it give over just getting a second battery for your system?

 

No the Smart bay battery is not free but the point of the smart bay battery is so you can run it at the same time as your regular battery so you get extra time rather than plugging it in and then changing the batter or turning the computer off and then changing the battery it helps but yea it is an extra cost which should be added to the cost of the M15x

 

I have a D810 with smartbay battery and smartbay hard drive. Both cost me 4 times as much, as just adding a second battery and using a USB drive. I used the battery only once, now it’s lost. The hard drive bay is somewhere in my closet, since it’s not being used anymore.

 

well i think its just a personal thing... if you need the battery life and dont wanna lug around an extra battery it helps but as everything is in this world its personal

 

I agree!


I used my DVD/CD ROM far more, and had to lug it around in addition to the bay drives. I’m kicking myself now for buying into that. If they ever come out with a two bay option or an extra bay, that would rock!

Anyway…nice review ech230!


EDIT: read this article, and get those pictures posted!

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=125037

 

Nice review!! What specs do you have?

 

Good to see another positive review of this model... I'm anxiously waiting for mine to arrive .

I'm curious what specs you've got as well.

 

I've got a 2.53ghz proc, 9800gt, 2gb of ram, 1900X1200 screen, and the Intel turbo memory. That's all the noteworthy specs i can think of.

 

I knew it, they never fixed the GJOD (green jack of death)! Eventually, it will fail.

 

How would they, it`s basically the 5793 updated with more ports.

 

Same loud fans, too, unfortunately. Instead of new drivers for toggling the fans, why didn't they just replace them with quieter ones?

 

Hey hey! It's not green anymore! It's gold and err looks like all the rest with no color differentiation. : \ yeah that doesn't really help the issue at all it would seem though. Dang...

 

Do you get that hiss when using external speakers as well? I'm just going to put mine on the auction block and hope to get a grand for it, and buy another Dell. Known problem here, Known problem there, and known my ***! All I heard was how good Sager was, and based that on my decision not to get the HDX. If I'm disappointed Thursday, be ready to get a nice deal on mine. I might just pay you to take it off my hands, since I'm sure it would receive damage from being tossed out of the window!

 

When using headphones i didn't notice the issue at all. If i flexed the port it would do some weird things but err your not supposed to put pressure on the port with the plug that's in it. I just spent the past (literally three minutes while a song was playing) twisting the cord around in it again with my speakers, before i was at my friends house. This time i had a much better quality cord. It crackles when you put pressure on it(a lot, enough to bend the port) and if you twist it in a circle hmmm say five times or so i'd say you might hear at one point a small crackle. I'd say if you're gentle with your audio port, and use a decent cable that you didn't get from your bathroom(lol yeah that's what i had originally used it with) it will be just fine. I hope that makes you feel better or offers some reassurance. I might say i was a little harsh on the audio. Although in the long run perhaps i should be worried?

 

I got my self the creative card so that i would not have to worry about the GJOD at all. And the sound quality is so much better and can make use of 5.1 headphones!