Okay here is my review of the two 4780 systems I ordered from PCTorque. One is a 3.2ghz p4 800fsb 60gb 7200rpm drive and the other a 2.8ghz p4 800fsb and a 4200 rpm 60gb drive. I ordered around November 22 and paid through a paypal e-check. I recieved my tracking number on Nov 26 with everyone else who preordered and got my system 9 days after on December 5th (Friday Afternoon) here in china. I paid around 200 dollars for shipping and paid a 2000 RMB customs tax on the systems. 2000RMB = 250 US Dollars. The computers arrived in a giant box and the systems were individually packaged inside the box filled with foam pellets. The large box was somewhat moist/wet probably due to the humidity in Hong Kong from what the delivery service said. :O
I took the systems home and plugged them into the chinese outlets no problem. China has 5 differnt sockets so I found one that fits the american standard 3 plug on the sager. Booted the system up and installed bought a copy of windows xp professional chinese and installed my software and some games and played around with the systems w/my relatives over the weekend.
LCD: No problems whatsoever with the LCDs. They're pixel perfect with no dead pixels at all. Only with such perfect screens when I thought I spotted a dead pixel it turned out to be a speck of dust.
Also it's a very beautiful screen with no ghosting effect I can see. I have a viewsonic lcd at home and I can see obvious ghosting on it. I got use to it and thought all lcds were that way. But now I'm wrong cause this lcd on the 4780 is georgeous with very sharp and bright colors. If people are complaining this isn't USVGA or whatever and isn't sharp enough. Screw them cause I think this is plenty pretty for me. :P
Fan noise: The fan turns on and off by itself. It's a little whirling sound that is akin to... If any of you have a desktop and kept the tower case on the desk that you were using and can hear the desktop fan noise, bascially the 4780 is the exact same. It's not very loud but it's noticable. I'm totally use to the noise and it doesn't distract me at all since all desktops I've used (3 in total) were louder then this and they NEVER turned off AND I would keep them running at night while I slept.
Playing games you can hardly hear the noise but if it bothers you you can probably just plug in some headphones and that'll be fine.
Sound: The speakers are great. At least in my opinion it sounds great. 4 speakers around the laptops edges and a subwoofer. What more could you ask? Only thing is if you turn up the volume all the way up and play music or what not you might hear a little buzzing or rattling of the speakers. But honestly I don't think anyone wants to be using their laptop as a school boom box and wouldn't need the sound at full blast at anytime. Comfortable hearing levels I use with this system don't even reach 1/3 of the volume bar on the settings and they sound fantastic. I haven't hear the speaker systems of other systems so I can't compare but I'm fully satisfied with this system as it is.
Heat: It's warm and the fans do their jobs. The keyboard gets a little warm. If you have a cell phone charger or battery charger and you leave them on overnight and feel them. It's about that warm. Probably like a warm bath feeling. Quite good since it's quite cold here so I got a nice little auto heated keyboard that warms my fingers while I type. The vents in the back you can feel them fanning out the hot air so nothing else to say about that.
Keyboard: Very sturdy. I can't feel it give anywhere. It's comfortable and really springy? If that's even a word haha. FN key and Ctrl should probably be swapped but it's not anything I can't live with. Keyboard shortcut keys are nice to use. I had a internet keyboard but I hardly ever used the buttons on that thing and I'm using the shortcuts on this laptop a lot more then on my desktop.
Sager laptop case: It's hardly as ugly as that pic pctorque lists when you order the system. It's standard black carrying case as the description implies. Has a little pouch to carry your charger and cord and another sleeve that holds any paper or cds you might want to carry with you. I ordered a targus backpack so I'm still waiting for that but I'm not ashamed to carry around my free laptop pack. People can't even tell there's a laptop in here.
I think I addressed all the concerns I read about on these forums before I ordered. I'm 100% completely satisfied with my order and I'll recommend these sytems to anyone who wants a 17" notebook. My first and best notebook I'll remember it even when I buy my 23ghz 1 terabye Sager in 10 years. HAHA
Anyway everyone here whos seen this laptop thinks it's georgeous and huge at the same time. But if you want a 17" notebook this is what you're going to get. It's about the size of two of those high school history books you used way back when set next to each other. Oh it's quite slim too. About a inch thick. Very slick looking. I use to think the system was quite ugly but now I think it's georgeous and I would think a painted 4780 would just kock someone dead over. Maybe if they added a little blue lcd clock instead of that SAGER logo on it'll be even more slick looking? :O
Anymore concerns you can ask me. I played some games over the weekend like dungeon seige and they were very crisp and fast. I don't have any benchmarks installed but I'm sure other 4780 owners will post their results so I'll just save my time enjoy using this system.
I took the systems home and plugged them into the chinese outlets no problem. China has 5 differnt sockets so I found one that fits the american standard 3 plug on the sager. Booted the system up and installed bought a copy of windows xp professional chinese and installed my software and some games and played around with the systems w/my relatives over the weekend.
LCD: No problems whatsoever with the LCDs. They're pixel perfect with no dead pixels at all. Only with such perfect screens when I thought I spotted a dead pixel it turned out to be a speck of dust.
Also it's a very beautiful screen with no ghosting effect I can see. I have a viewsonic lcd at home and I can see obvious ghosting on it. I got use to it and thought all lcds were that way. But now I'm wrong cause this lcd on the 4780 is georgeous with very sharp and bright colors. If people are complaining this isn't USVGA or whatever and isn't sharp enough. Screw them cause I think this is plenty pretty for me. :PFan noise: The fan turns on and off by itself. It's a little whirling sound that is akin to... If any of you have a desktop and kept the tower case on the desk that you were using and can hear the desktop fan noise, bascially the 4780 is the exact same. It's not very loud but it's noticable. I'm totally use to the noise and it doesn't distract me at all since all desktops I've used (3 in total) were louder then this and they NEVER turned off AND I would keep them running at night while I slept.
Playing games you can hardly hear the noise but if it bothers you you can probably just plug in some headphones and that'll be fine.Sound: The speakers are great. At least in my opinion it sounds great. 4 speakers around the laptops edges and a subwoofer. What more could you ask? Only thing is if you turn up the volume all the way up and play music or what not you might hear a little buzzing or rattling of the speakers. But honestly I don't think anyone wants to be using their laptop as a school boom box and wouldn't need the sound at full blast at anytime. Comfortable hearing levels I use with this system don't even reach 1/3 of the volume bar on the settings and they sound fantastic. I haven't hear the speaker systems of other systems so I can't compare but I'm fully satisfied with this system as it is.
Heat: It's warm and the fans do their jobs. The keyboard gets a little warm. If you have a cell phone charger or battery charger and you leave them on overnight and feel them. It's about that warm. Probably like a warm bath feeling. Quite good since it's quite cold here so I got a nice little auto heated keyboard that warms my fingers while I type.
The vents in the back you can feel them fanning out the hot air so nothing else to say about that.Keyboard: Very sturdy. I can't feel it give anywhere. It's comfortable and really springy? If that's even a word haha. FN key and Ctrl should probably be swapped but it's not anything I can't live with. Keyboard shortcut keys are nice to use. I had a internet keyboard but I hardly ever used the buttons on that thing and I'm using the shortcuts on this laptop a lot more then on my desktop.
Sager laptop case: It's hardly as ugly as that pic pctorque lists when you order the system. It's standard black carrying case as the description implies. Has a little pouch to carry your charger and cord and another sleeve that holds any paper or cds you might want to carry with you. I ordered a targus backpack so I'm still waiting for that but I'm not ashamed to carry around my free laptop pack.
People can't even tell there's a laptop in here.I think I addressed all the concerns I read about on these forums before I ordered. I'm 100% completely satisfied with my order and I'll recommend these sytems to anyone who wants a 17" notebook. My first and best notebook I'll remember it even when I buy my 23ghz 1 terabye Sager in 10 years. HAHA
Anyway everyone here whos seen this laptop thinks it's georgeous and huge at the same time. But if you want a 17" notebook this is what you're going to get. It's about the size of two of those high school history books you used way back when set next to each other.
Oh it's quite slim too. About a inch thick. Very slick looking. I use to think the system was quite ugly but now I think it's georgeous and I would think a painted 4780 would just kock someone dead over. Maybe if they added a little blue lcd clock instead of that SAGER logo on it'll be even more slick looking? :OAnymore concerns you can ask me. I played some games over the weekend like dungeon seige and they were very crisp and fast. I don't have any benchmarks installed but I'm sure other 4780 owners will post their results so I'll just save my time enjoy using this system.
