Why Sager wasn't in the Maximum PC Laptop Faceoff ???

I think they had the Voodoo equivalent of the 8790. So you can just pretend they had Sager on it. No sense in reviewing two identical laptops. (Although they did review two identical desktops a few issues back. They went for humor in that one: the two reviews were identical)

Most likely the reason is SAGER doesn't normally send out "samples" for reviews. I suppose they have on very special occasions, but I've seen more reviews in these forums on SAGERs in the last year than I have in all other locations in the last 10 years combined. By a factor of perhaps 20x. Maybe more.

SAGER has never really cared about reviews. They prefer word of mouth and to date, its never let them down. They generally have as many orders as they can fill. If they get a flood, they call CLEVO and have them air ship a pile more. They carry a fairly large inventory so they can do the 96 hour burn-in on standard models. So they can generally weather the floods and droughts.

Sager is still a little less known than companies like dell. Also, and probably most importantly, is Sager doesn't do much advertising as far as I can tell so it seems logical that they would also not pour money into paying magazines to review their products.

The reason is money. Sager doesn't pay Maximum PC money to advertise for them (other than the occasional 1 page ad). From the standpoint of a business, this makes sense. Why advertise a product by even mentioning its name if the product's manufacturor doesn't contribute to the income of the company. Same rationale that gives us commercials that say such phrases as "Beats the competition in clinical studies" or "Rated better than the other leading brands." Two fold reasons: lawsuit liability and free advertising for the competition. So we will never see Gain commercials where they say their product is better than Tide or <name of competition here>. Tide would just laugh and thank the Gain people for marketing their product for them.

It doesn't matter that claims of superiority are made, but that now everyone who reads that magazine has the names of the notebooks in their heads (regardless of what they thought of the product). Name recognition is everything; even if people didn't like the product or the commercial or the article, the names Dell, Alienware, Voodoo, etc are now out there. They don't have to convince everyone, just a few. Then those few will buy the product based on name recognition (and some thought too: not all people are sheep) and/or tell others about the article/review/comparison and spread the word.

Rinse, lather, repeat.

Therefore, it is not in Maximum PC's best interest to piss off their contributors by offering free advertising to their competition. Believe me, Dell would demand compensaton or renegotiate the advertising price in a heartbeat if word got out that Max. PC gave a free review (advertising) to Dells direct competition. As it is, Max. can say, "we charge everyone this price" and they don't want to screw it up.

The same principle applies to my local games/minitures/hobby shop, the Green Dragon (plug ). It was there, that the proprietor explained to me why they like playing some older games, but refuse to participate in them or play them in the store (during work hours).

Scott (the owner), told me to think about what would happen if he or his son played a game in the store.
I replied that there would be people (regular clientelle) that would want to join in.
Scott: Ok, now what would happen if I played a game that required the players to purchase items to play (card games: Magic the Gathering, Pokemon, L5R, etc, or minitures: Warhammer, Warmachine, Mage Knight, other Clicks games, etc). I could let newbies play with practice armies I had pre-assembled and brought with me to give a taste of the game to the interested?
Me: If they liked it, and saw a dedicated group or interest in forming regular group, then they would most likely purchase the necessary items from you to play the game.
Scott: Right, and therefore my participation would lend credence to the game and be considered a tacit endorsement. Given my credibility ([believe me if Scott says something regarding a product or game, people shut up and listen]), people would assume that the product or game is really good [because I don't play games that suck even to push stock through].
Me: So therefore, what?
Scott: Therefore it is not in my best interest to "advertise" products that I don't sell. I may like the old games or other games that I don't carry, but why talk about them unless directly questioned, if I don't have them in stock or can order the items for someone? I wouldn't make any money off of it. If I can't make money off of it, then I am wasting "store time" in an activity that does not help keep the store in business; and that is not smart business.
Me: Thank you for your information. Please continue to stay in business, you are the only hobby store in about 100 miles.

As the old saying goes, "Follow the money"
It will almost always lead you to the answer to nearly anything.
Even the great religious wars were really rooted in money. The infidels (those other guys) have lots of money, we (the sainted believers) want it. Its our diety's wish and command that we take their money for the glory of our diety and if we bash their heads in and steal their women in the process, that's ok too.

Just wanted to let you know that a "Eurocom" was reviewed in Mobile PC Mag, in the last issue. Of course it was a Sager... a 8890 if im correct.

I believe I saw the same review. If my memory serves correctly it was the 8790 equivalent. It may have been a different mag however as I was just quickly perusing to kill time.

Who won the "face-off"?

i don't have access to maximum pc mag where i am at the moment

anyone care to summarize?

thanks

There's a review for it in that issue.

Voodoo red m780 review is in the PC gamer issue that celebrates it's 10 th anniversary. That is the equivalent of the 8790

The latest Dell XPS system won, with the Alienware 51-M coming in a strong second.

Of course the Dell XPS won. Money money money. Not to say the Dell XPS is a piece of crap, whose review is paid for, but I wonder (will pick up issue today and read it myself), but I often find out that the system specs of the notebooks are often not comparable to each other.

As a guess: a 3.4ee processor, 9700 128mb video card, 60gb 7200rpm hd, maxed out settings all the way around

versus

a 3.2 processor, 512mb pc2700 memory, 60gb 5400rpm drive, and a 9600 64mb/128mb video card. Gee, I wonder which one will win.

This is usually not the reviewers' fault. The companies are asked to send them the best machine they've got, and the reviewer stick with what they received.

actually... you are partially right... the problem with MaxPC is... they really like to see the $$$ come in.

an example comes to mind... Plextor (their favourite product of all time)... Plextor released a particular burner... that they gave high marks for in a review... then a firmware was released (that had little impact on the drive)... they RE-reviewed that same product for high marks again. then there was the Yamaha... 2100EZ to be specific... they reviewed it... gave it piss poor marks... a firmware was released to correct it (and it DID)... did they re-review it? nope. okay fine, did they even mention it? nope... they simply stood by the original review... even later in a comparison of burners.

many times, they reviewed products and gave em poor marks for some of the stupidest reasons... of course looking back... what others said about advertising seems to ring somewhat true... as the amount of advertising for a particular product decreases... so too does marks from the review.

All I can say is Adam's 8790 benchmarks have scored higher than all the laptops in that review. Most of the top benchmark scores at futuremark for 3dmark2003 regarding the M10 (including the top score) were made by clevo/sager machines. Sager machines have consistently topped scores/fps with each new model...mag review or not. Seems like a no-brainer as to the top performing machine imho.

isn't Van Fanel from Escaflowne?

anyway... no-brainer... assuming you even KNOW of the product. mainstream consumers go by brand naming... or at least if they've even hear of it.

word of mouth is great... but it doesn't reach like ads on national tv.

ive seen sager ads.....in magazines......before i came to this forum.....but i saw the prostar ads to.......and noticed sager and prostar looked the same lol......didnt know about clevo at all until the forums

another indication of Maximum PC's attitude, they featured a Go-L on the cover not long ago. You'd think they would check into something very thoroughly before they feature it on the cover. Either they did not check or they did not care what the check revealed. My guess is they got to keep the machine which garnered it serious bonus points.

I never buy anything simply because its advertised on national TV, I am actually less likely to buy something that's got a lot of hullaballou. Its one reason I went with SAGER in the first place 10 years ago. I much prefer word of mouth and hard facts. Well, low prices too.