Sager NP9260 Laptop Review

Intro

After experiencing the blistering performance of the Alienware Area-51m 9750, an appropriate machine to play with next is the high performance, Sager NP-9260 from PCTorque. Both are top-of-the-line models in the notebook gaming class. The results from comparing the two machines in benchmarking and gameplay are as expected.

Laptop History
2000 Gateway 2000 450 15’’
2002 Alienware Area-51m 5620P 15’’
2003 Alienware Area-51m Sentia 244 14’’
2003 Sony S-Series 13.3’’
2003 T23 Thinkpad 14.1’’
2004 Dell 9700 17’’
2005 Alienware Sentia 223 12.1’’
2006 Alienware Area-51m 5750 17’’
2006 IBM T60 Lenovo 14.1’’
2007 Sager 5460 14.1’’
2007 Alienware Area-51 m9750 17’’


I provide the list of notebooks I have experience with so users can get an idea of what I am used to seeing in gaming or portable notebooks. I also provide links to each notebook throughout the review in case readers are unfamiliar with the models I reference. In this review, I have added a few more tests that I have not included previously.

The Sager NP-9260 is indeed a “Desktop Replacement”. Its huge size and weight ensures one will not be carrying this machine on many planes, trains or automobiles on a regular basis. However, this machine is perfect for college students who live at school and play games, but when they go home for holiday breaks they are not wishing they were back in school pining for their desktop.

I tried specing out this notebook to the same specs as the 5750 since they are both have 17 inch screens, but the NP-9260 has a CPU option that I could not resist getting: the Core 2 Extreme Edition X6800 running at a cool 2.93 Ghz. The NP-9260 is actually quite different than the 5750 because of the CPU options. The NP-9260 only has desktop CPUs to customize with while the 5750 carries the mobile line of Intel Core 2 Duos. We will find out below if the Desktop CPU package becomes more of an advantage or disadvantage for the NP-9260 versus the 5750.

Specs:

NP-9260
Processor: Intel® Core 2 Extreme Edition X6800 (2.93GHz, 4MB L2 Cache, 1066FSB)
Operating System: Genuine Windows® XP Pro
Display: 17" (16:10) WUXGA (1920x1200) Super Clear Glare Type Screen
Memory: 2GB Dual Channel DDR2 800MHz
Hard Drive: (RAID 0) - 320GB (160GB x 2) Serial ATA 1.5Gb/s 5,400 RPM 16MB Cache
Primary CD ROM/DVD ROM: DVD/CD-RW Combo drive, DVD±R/RW Combo drive
ATAPI Interface
Video/Graphics Card: Dual nVIDIA GeForce Go 7950 GTX 512MB GDDR3
SLI Enabled
Sound Card: Built-in 8ch Azalia Sound System (with 8 external speakers output without Ext. decoder)
Wireless Network Card: Intel 3945ABG 802.11a/b/g Wireless LAN Mini-ePCI interface
Communications: Integrated 10/1000Mb Gigabit Ethernet & 56K V.92 Modem
Warranty: 1-Year AlienCare Toll-Free 24/7 Phone Support w/ Onsite Service

Credit Price: $4,227 .00
Cash Price: $4,100.19
Shipping: $38.10 (Ground)
Ships in: 21 days.
Tax: $0.00
Order Total: $4,138.29


What’s in the Box:

Upon opening the box, two things will become apparent. First is the free standard notebook carrying case, which is very convenient for any notebook user. The second thing users will notice is the notebook itself, perfectly placed in a nice tight package.



Design

Taking the notebook out and placing it on the desk will draw a lot of attention, not only because of eye grabbing LEDs or bizarre colors, but because of the massive size. The notebook not only carries a 17-inch screen, but stands at a whopping 2.35 inches in height.


Screen:

The screen is remarkably sharp and bright, containing a lot of qualities from the Sager’s earlier 5460 model. This model contains the 17" WUXGA (1920x1200) Super Clear Glare Type Screen. The screen is glossy, so declaring it “super clear glare type” is not really boasting it is glare free, as the screen definitely has glare when used in the daylight, but it is manageable. The viewing angle is at least 175 degrees; that is how well the screen can read to both the left and right. There is barely any screen fade because of the LCD technology. The 9260 also shipped with zero dead pixels, which is always a good thing. Like most laptops today and all Sagers, the 9260 has eight levels of brightness settings that can be adjusted using the function key (FN) + the F8 key to lower the brightness and F9 key to raise it.


Keyboard

After discovering the 9260 comes with a desktop CPU, I was afraid the heat would cause the keyboard to become excessively hot. This is not the case. The keyboard does get warm during normal use but it is bearable. The 9260 ships with a full size keyboard, which includes a numeric keyboard and 12 function keys. Pressing Fn + the ~ key will play or pause DVDs, F1 will toggle the touchpad, F3 will mute the sound on the notebook, F4 will initiate sleep mode, F5 and F6 will decrease and increase the sound volume respectively, F7 toggles the display through each output, F8 and F9 decrease and increase the LCD brightness respectively, F11 toggles Wifi on/off and Num Lk toggles Scroll Lock on/off.

Two disappointing observations with the keyboard features are made clear in the manual that ships with the 9260. In the diagram that lists the function keys, it lists F10 as enabling/disabling the built in 1.5 Megapixel digital camera. However, looking at the keyboard, there is no marking on the F10 that would make this obvious. The key is blank. The diagram in the manual also points out the number 1 key as switching between Fan Automatic Control and Full Power mode. However, again there is no marking on the number 1 key that would suggest this. Testing the Fn + 1 key confirms this does turn the notebook fans on high, if the user wished to give the notebook extra ventilation, which is a good feature but just needs to be advertised better on the keyboard.

A second disappointment is the comfort level with typing on the keyboard. Since the notebook is raised so high, daylong typing becomes an uncomfortable chore because your wrists have nothing to rest on. Your forearms end up resting on the front of the notebook, which is an unnatural position.

Touchpad

Great is the word that best describes the touchpad. Again shares similar qualities to the 5460 as well as looking almost exactly the same. The touchpad has a great texture providing excellent tactile feedback, giving users a wonderful sense of direction and acceleration while using it. To the left of the touchpad is the scrollpad, which is extremely useful for scrolling through documents or websites. Sometimes while using the touchpad user’s fingers may venture into the scrollpad area. To prevent this, the designer could have split up the touchpad from the scrollpad, but once users get familiar with the touchpad this will not be a problem.


Features:


Multimedia Keys –

There are three Application Hot Keys located at the top of the keyboard and two Game Hot Keys located to the left of the keyboard labeled G1 and G2. Three hot keys on notebooks are pretty standard these days and usually are set to generic functionalities as these are. The first Application Hot Key launches your default e-mail client. The second Hot Key launches the default internet browser and the third hot key can be set to different windows applications such as Microsoft Word or Virus Software. The Game Hot keys are a good idea, however most people who will be using this notebook for gaming, will probably be using their own keyboard, and own built-in hot keys instead of the ones on the left of the notebook keyboard. However, if you do end up using them, you can set them to pretty much any macro or command you wish.


LEDS -

There are two sets of LEDs on the 9260. The first three are built into the bottom of the LCD panel and represent the power and communication indicators. The first icon is the generic Power icon with what looks like a wall plug when AC power is in use. When Orange, this represents the battery power is being used. When Green, the Computer is On and when Blinking Green, the computer is in sleep mode. The second icon looks like a battery; when Orange, the battery is charging, green when the battery is fully charged and when blinking orange, the battery has reached a critically lower power state. The last icon resembles a wifi signal; when green this represents wireless LAN is powered on. When Orange, this represents bluetooth mode is powered on.

The second set of LEDs is located above the keyboard to the left of the hot keys. There is five LEDs, all green, which represent typical keyboard indicators such as number lock, caps lock and scroll lock (LEDs #3, 4, and 5 respectively). There is also a hard drive activity LED (#2) and a card reader LED (#1)which indicates when the notebook is accessing a card in the 7-in-1 card reader.

Wifi –

Wifi is an optional setting in the 9260. Wifi has become almost a standard feature on notebooks in today’s market for notebooks and have been integrated nicely to the point where even computer novices can turn a notebook on, search for a wireless connection and logon. There were no problems using the 9260’s wireless card.

Speakers – One of the most impressive features on the 9260 is the four speakers built into the 9260’s chassis. This gives a subtle surround sound-like tone when playing games and watching DVDs. Usually notebooks, even desktop replacements, have only two speakers, but the 9260’s speaker quality is definitely a cut above average.

Input and Output Ports- It is annoying that all the USB ports are on the right side versus placing them evenly around the perimeter like Alienware did with the 9750. Sager then took the rest of the ports and put them on the left side, including the CD/DVD tray. There are four sides to the notebook; vendors should utilize them for the convenience of users.

Front



Webcam Pictures

The quality of the webcam pictures are typical 1.5 MegaPixels equal to the quality of cell phone shots. 5750..


The front of the notebook also has a Line-In audio jack, S/PDIF Out jack, Microphone In and Headphone Out jack. There are also two latches, which hold the screen down. On the very front of the notebook are two surprisingly large speakers. Two more speakers are located to the left and right of the keyboard.

Right Side: The right side of the laptop contains 4 USB ports and the standardized security lock.


Left Side: The left side is packed with components. The external monitor VGA output is the first feature starting from the left. There is also an S-video and CATV port, RJ-11 modem and RJ-45 LAN jacks, an IEEE 1394 Firewire port, Express card slot (34/54), an optical drive and 7-in-1 card reader. Every laptop every made should have a 7-in-1 card reader which consists of supporting formats: MMC (Multimedia Card) / SD (secure Digital) / MS (Memory Stick) / MS Pro (Memory Stick Pro) / MS Duo (requires PC adaptor) / Mini SD (requires PC adaptor) / RS MMC (requires PC adaptor).


Rear: The back of the notebook has the widely popular DVI video output port, DC Power in connection, an S-video in jack and fan intake/output.


Bottom: The bottom of the laptop is where the four fan outlets are located for air intake and ventilation. The bottom is also where users can get access to the primary and secondary hard drive bays and secondary battery.


Size and Weight


Rated: 17" WUXGA 11.75" (w) x 15.5" (d) x 2.35" (h) and 11.5 lbs
Actual: Weight: 11.5 lbs

Heat and Noise


Battery Life

A desktop CPU does not help the battery life of this notebook. The notebook idles on the lowest brightness setting for less than an hour before getting to critical battery levels.

1/8 – 7:31-8:29 58 minutes (idling)
8/8 – 8:16-9:13 57 minutes (idling)


Synthetic/Gaming Benchmarks

Here is a list of tested synthetic and gaming benchmarks. All results are with stock hardware settings.



Software

The 9260 ships with Security Manager, Cyberlink power DVD player and Nero home Essentials SE for burning CDs/DVDs.


Pros:
Screen – Incredible sharpness and amazing viewing angles
Performance – At 2.93GHz the 9260 puts up incredible benchmarking, better than the 5750 Alienware notebooks.
Touchpad –great texture, great acceleration scroll pad built in
Speakers – Four semi-surround speakers add a lot of depth to gaming, web browsing and movie viewing
Noise – Is surprisingly quiet while on auto speed
Free Stuff – Ships with free laptop carrying case

Cons:
Keyboard - very uncomfortable to type on, forearms rest on end of notebook
Battery Life – 1 hour max battery at /lowest brightness while idling
Weight – 11.5lbs this desktop replacement does not try to hide its size and weight

Conclusion:

There is no doubt the 9260 is a performance power house, putting up dominating benchmarking numbers and bringing smooth gameplay to users who want to have a great video game experience. It is an excellent choice over a desktop machine providing mobility and performance. As with most things in life, there are tradeoffs and compromises in computer selection. For people who need less mobility and want bragging rights on their benchmarking numbers and FPS rates, the 9260 is an excellent choice, but for-on-the move gamers who don’t have a need for top-end performance and even college students who schlep their PCs to class or across long stretches of campus, they may be better off going with another 17-inch notebook that is easier to transport and easier to type on. In some cases sacrificing the extra frames and benchmark scores is worth the 3 or 4 less pounds.


If you have any questions about anything written here you can e-mail me: Dukefrukem[at]notebookforums.com