gsferrari's Sager **5670** review - Page 2

Great Review

gsferrari,

Thanks for the review, nice blend of technical and practical stuff. I'm new to this forum, and forever greatfull to PCTorque and all the experts and typical users for making this forum a joy and an indispensible resource for me. I recently got the 8887 from Sagernotebooks, but my wife and I are timesharing it alot.

hmm... maybe a 5670 for her from PCTorque is next. It will be alot easier to convince her, since it will be hers, and less expensive.
How about a pink one? Seriously, any progress on custom paint?

thanks again, it was a pleasure to read

my 5670 is on its way

hiya

if ever i was having any doubts abt my decision - lol - they have simply melted away

just one question though
on the motherboard specs - i saw that there were 2 usb 1.1 controllers and 1 usb 2.0 controller
will it mean that not all ports are usb 2.0 ?? (speculation - lol)

my desktop m/b has 3 usb controllers and each controls a differenct set of usb ports- i know this coz disabling one controller causes some usb ports to stop working while the others are unaffected

sid

ok

maybe i'm a bit ambiguous

see.... nowadays we get motherboards with built-in usb ports as well as connectors(pins) on the boards from which u can attach more usb ports.

usually, the built-in ports are controlled by 1 usb controller and the add-on ones are controlled by another usb controller, so that u can independently enable/disable both types of usb ports.

at first even i was confused coz i thought there should be only 1 controller for all the usb ports connected to a motherboard

now in the 5670 its possible that all the 4 usb ports are assigned to the usb 2.0 controller
or it may be that only 'x' ports r assigned to the 2.0 controller and 4 - x are assigned to the 1.1 controller

i mean it doesnt make sense to put 2 1.1 controllers on the m/b if u havent assigned any usb ports to them

as mentioned b4 - this is just a speculation based on observation - i'd b glad if someone could offer a 2nd opinion

Re: Note :

I asked a similar question in another thread a while ago (before I got the 5660) but no one seemed to know and I forgot all about it. I'll see if I can get some devices to test but I also mentioned that I saw a clevo/sager clone reviewed in laptop magazine a couple months ago and in their review (5660) they mentioned 2 USB 1.1 and 2 USB 2.0 ports.

My 5670 is on the way I should have it by Wednesday.
After reading your review, I'm gladder than ever I ordered the 5670.

Here's what I got. 5670, 2.53, 60 (5200), 15" UXGA, R9000 128, 512. Using Cat 3.2 and DX9.0a.

The 8887, 2.66, 40 (5200), 16" UXGA, R9000 128, 512. Using Cat 3.2 and DX9.0a. (Eventually Returned for Refund).

The 5670 is an awesome machine. "Personally" I think it rocks over the 8887. The battery time for the 8887 was about 1:10 doing word processing applications. The 5670 w/ dual battery setup is 3:00 plus as a word processor.

Screen is awesome. An LCD screen that looks the closest to a CRT in terms of viewing angles. The 5670 has no ghosting viewing Starwars EII. The pictures look clean and sharp. The 8887 has minimal ghosting and I don't consider the picture quality as good watching the same movie. Its like I could see pixellation on the screen. Its still a good screen though. But as an FYI, a thread compare the Sony's version of the 16" UXGA to the 8887 as being the same screen. If you go to your local CompUSA or Best Buy Sony has pulled the 16" UXGA and replaced it with a 16" SXGA, which in my opinion is better that the UXGA screen. I have not spoken to Sony but I don't know if they have discontinued the 16" UXGA.

I can't stress enough how awsome the screen looks on the 5670. I have used several notebooks (Sony & Dell) where I have worked. The screen is superior to any of them. The 8887 screen I consider superior to all of them (Sony and Dell) except for the screen on the Dell Inspiron 7000 which has great screen. They guys as school looked at the screen and a couple of them have decided to purchase the Sager 5670 just because of the screen quality.

The return key on the 8887 sucked. It was hard to reach. Had to take my hand of the home keys to get to the return key.

The fan on the 8887 sound like an airplane at takeoff. The fans on the 5670 are very soothing and quiet.

The 40GB HDD in the 8887 has a very loud and annoying clicking sound. Installed Inetl Application Accelerator 2.2.2 and it did not help. The 60GB HDD in the 5670 is silent. Don't have to use the IAA 2.2.2. I would definetly go w/ the 60 GB HDD 5200 RPM.

I've been running 3DMark for an hour now and the 5670 is slightly warm over the right home keys. The 8887 is warm over the num pad.

After owning both systems I would pick the 5670 hands down.

The following is 3D scores:

8887
2001SE 7201
03 1083

5670
2001SE 7229
03 1146

Have not tried any games and I don't know if I will. I have never owned a game for a pc.

Great review gsferrari. Man I am glad I bought the 5670
I wanted a laptop with the best screen available and I'm glad I did get the wide angle for $63 extra hey it's worth it.

I hope when I put in XP Pro that I can run all the Sandra tests on my own with only 512 RAM. Though Adam is an honest dude so if he say's so then it probably is true.

I do recommen the dual battery setup though because so far I am getting only about 1 hours worth of normal useage on my single battery and I cycled it twice since Friday. Do I have to charge all day or what. It takes forever to fully charge the main battery when the laptop is off, and only once while at school studying for 8 hours did the battery fully charge while I was online and watching lectures from school Windows Media 9 player, etc...

Has anyone tested the battery because I hope it lasts. At this rate I might as well take the battery out and just plug in all the time. I want my batteries to last as long as possible.

Any adivce appreciated.

A review within a review (5670)

After consulting with Gsferrari (amazing review), I have decided not to write my own separate review but to kind of write an addendum to Gsferrari’s Let me start with the reasons I needed a laptop at all and why I went with PcTorque. I will try and skip a lot of the technical specs behind the 5670 that Gsferrari already covered.
I have wanted a Desktop replacement for quite some time now as I spend the majority of my time behind a computer doing Computer Graphics work. I decided that if I had to spend so much time behind the comp, then I should at least be able to switch up the scenery a bit. The straw that broke the camel’s back (do people say that anymore?) however was a project that I am working on in conjunction with two departments here at Purdue University (I am a grad student in the Computer Graphics Dept.) Anyway, we are working on a live virtual dance that will incorporate 4 different media feeds all in real time. 3 of these feeds will be motion capture the other is live video. All this will alternate on three different screens while dancers dance around in conjunction. Anyway, this is going to take a lot of computing power but we didn’t want to have 4 or 5 huge Desktop systems sitting on the side lines. So it was decided to use laptops and it gave me a “legitimate” reason to get one. Now real quickly, I decided on Sager for every reason that has ever been stated on the forums. (You all know what they are, or you can ask me later) But mainly the processing power/graphics card was what I really needed to use some of the software I run on a daily basis. Here is a short list: 3d Studio Max, Maya, Filmbox/Motion Builder, and Combustion (Well and of course Ghost Recon, Freelancer..etc…)
Okay, so let’s get to the part where I actually have a laptop. I ordered a 5670 (specs shown below) the Friday before they started shipping. That was a really hard weekend to know that your laptop wasn’t even going to START shipping until Tuesday. Anyway, needless to say I wore out the refresh button staring at the tracking info at UPS.com for the next week. Jump ahead to Monday. I held the laptop at UPS cause delivery is a mystery around here. It can happen anytime in like a 10 hour window. So I finally picked up the laptop, now here is the one part where it gets bad…prepare yourself. I had work that was due, and deadlines were tight so it couldn’t have been put off. So I had to go straight into lab which meant my laptop sat in an UNOPENED box in the back of my car for 5 hours. I tell you that rendering out animation in lab never took so long. Finally, I got it home and started the customary OS install and all the driver installs from the nice pink disc.

In part two, I will get some benchmarks and some render comparison times from my old desktop and the new beast. If there is anything else you guys want to see let me know. I will toss in some pics as well.

Specs:
5670 w/ UXGA screen (wide angle)
3.06 w/ Hyperthreading
ATI 9000 w/ 128 mb
512 mb (will get another chip when I have money again )
Dual Battery Setup
No Os

Re: Re: Note :

My guess is the two 1.1 controllers control the Memory Stick reader and the mp3/SD-Card reader. One each.

The 2.0 controller controls the 4 external ports.

GS: There is NO difference between a USB 1.1 PORT and a USB 2.0 PORT. They are one in the same. The CONTROLLERS are where the difference is. This is one problem with USB (and naything that is limited by legacy compatabilities).

-myrkat

I do not believe there are two controllers for the same ports. The USB 2.0 controller IS also a 1.1 controller (if it needs to be).

So there is no controller switching involved. At least, not to my knowledge.

-myrkat

yep

i agree with mrkat

the USB 2.0 controller is supposed to take care of backward compatibility in itself

if it isnt so - then computers with ONLY usb 2.0 controllers can never connect to a usb 1.1 device

and thats too hard to believe

My 5670 comes today and I have never been so excited about anything before. Today will probably be the happiest day of my life. But that's okay, I'm only seventeen, I have many more days of happiness ahead. And I plan to write some or a lot about my 5670 on this thread.

I recieve my 5670 today as well

I will post some info, but first I got to play with the system

Excellent

Excellent EXCELLENT review GS...definitely on the Beebs/Adam tip...and you actually went to pctorqe hq? coool...also, others who have the 5670...POST. Create a Knowledge base!!
GS put in alot of time and effort with this so, the seeds been planted now let it grow!!!