4080 Users

Anyone know the brightness and contrast ratio of the 4080's screen?

I would like to see some more reviews too! Hey adam....wheres your 4080 review? I like reviews...I wish I could do a review....I am depressing myself....I will stop now....

Hi Trick,

I made the choice of buying the sager 4080 just under a month ago. It was an incredible powerful laptop (i got a 3 gig version) and the graphics of the radeon 9600 pro were absolutely amazing. I was also really impressed with th eglossy screen, at 1400 x 1050 resolution. I ran games such as postal 2, c&c generals and unreal2 at 1400x1050 with 2xfsaa on and they still ran fine (using the omega drivers).

However I have since used sagers 1 month no quibble return warranty to return it back to them.

Why?

Well the three niggles I had with it are these:
1) It gets so incredibly hot on the palm rests and around the keyboard. I had the 7200 rph hdd which is positioned under the mouse touchpad and it gets very warm. For my needs I need a laptop that I can sit on my lap to do work on.
2) There is a large intake fan on the underside of the computer - again when i sit the computer on my lap it gets blocked. Not only that it makes a lot of noise when on the "quitest" of its settings (when you are playing a game I expect it to go full, but the sound of the game would drown out the fan. The fan kicks in even when you are doing simple tasks like using word).
3) The battery life. I am not expecting to play games on battery but would have liked to get more than an hour when writing code.

These are my personal niggles. If you only use the laptop on a desk and dont need the battery life, its a fantastic computer. I only wish it came with a pentium centrino CPU! This is why im going for a 1.6 centrino dell inspiron 8600 now. Basicly same spec but with a cooler centrino.

Hope these comments are useful to you!

Well, I just receive my 4080 earlier this week and haven't really had a chance to give it a good review here. My initial impression is WOW. This is a powerful laptop. The screen is amazing and and it seems well built.

I have to agree with holr though, it does get a bit hot on the keyboard and hand rests. The fan is somewhat loud, and the battery life is fairly short. However, to get this level of performance I expected it to get hot and have a fairly short battery life. I also use it on my lap, so it means I will have to purchase a lap work station or cooler to prevent blocking the fans. Other than that, so far I love the 4080 and I'm fairly impressed. I primarily use it for work, but I also play a few games (DF2, HALO). I work at a university and move around campus a great deal, so far I've found the 4080 completely portable. My students are wowed by the screen and the performance.

I purchased the 4080 after looking at and owning a couple of other laptops. Dells seem to be good machines, but to get the same performance you pay a bit more. Also, the big seller for me was the customer service of PCT and Sager, as well as the help of folks on this forum. I've dealt with Dell and Toshiba in the past, and I just like the impressions regarding customer service and tech support that I've received from PCT and Sager so far.

Anyway, look for a full review to come this weekend when I have a chance to give it some attention.

I bought a Clevo D410V (= Sager 4080) A month ago here in Finland and I am very pleased!

PROS:
+ The screen is really good - bright and crisp
+ The keyboard is great, not like the Dell D600 at work which is feels mushy
+ ATI RADEON 9600 PRO!
+ The card reader

CONS:
- The fan is quite loud when it's on, but that is just about 10-20 seconds now and then (Pentium 4, 2,6GHz HT needs cooling)
- Battery time is not so good, but this is desktop replacement so it does bother me

OVERALL:
A superb change from my desktop computer. It has all the desktop power, without the weight and space!

You are all saying that the keyboard and the palmrest get hot. Does it happen only if you're playing 3d games, or does it happen regardless of what you're doing? Like, if you were running Word and IE for 6 hours, would it still get hot?

It gets hot no matter what you are doing. The difference between running games and IE or Word is the frequency and duration of the fan running.

with mine, my keyboard barely gets warm until i get the processor up to about 30% load, then it starts to get quite warm. my palmrests barely warm up, but my toutchpad (thanks to my decision to get a 7200 rpm drive) is always a bit warm. just for reference, a godauful lot of IE windows, AIM, and Winamp takes the processor to 5-10%, and BF1942 at highest setitngs the monitor supports takes it to about 55%. ive only managed to use 100% by running a benchmark program and a brute force passwrd cracker at once (neither is SMP aware so the hyperthreading caps it), and they keyboard doesnt warm much past what it does at 50%.

Unfortunately it happens all the time. I returned my 4080 because of it. However I think if you changed a few options you could reduce the heat substantially - if you buy a slower hard drive (not the 7200rpm like i had) that should help a lot in keeping the palm rests cool.

I also had the 3gig cpu which got pretty warm. If you dont need the power, go for a slower cpu. The ram gets really hot too, but there is a small exaust fan on the underside of the computer to blow air.

My suggestion is if you are looking for a portable machine, go for a centrino based system (cooler, longer battery etc). If you are looking for a straight desktop replacement (which is very portable) then the sager 4080 is right for you. Keep your sager on a flat surface like a desk so the fans can do their thing and it will be fine.


holr

I've noticed it only gets hot if you run games. I can run word and ie for hours and it won't be hot. Also if you give your computer good air flow underneath, like place it raised up off the table or desk by about half an inch it helps reduce the heat.