Ok, I apologize for not having any pictures and I know everyone is waiting for pictures to see what the 100 dollar paintjob from ibuypower looks like. I am really sorry but I just ebayed my digital camera and the new one will not be here for a few days. I will get the pictures up as soon as it is here and I know Rince will be nice enought to host them for me, right?
Specs:
Ordering: It was simple enough. I was going to use the website to order my laptop but had to call in to find out some compatibility issues. Lee from sales asked if I would call in once I was ready to order to which I agreed. The entire process took about 10 minutes. Lee did not give me a customer ID number, Order number or any kind of number that would identify my order. I did not even receive an Email. I went to check my order status online and I had an order there but it did not have any information associated with it.
2 of 5 rating
Waiting: I really don't mind waiting for a product but what I can't stand is understating your estimate to make the product seem more attractive.
Ordered May 25th
Credit Card charged 26th
Estimated ship date June 1st
2nd estimated ship date: June 8th
Actual ship date: June 14th
They actually let a week pass by and didn’t even call me to let me know that it would be late, I had to call them. When the laptop was shipped, I didn’t receive an Email with the tracking number or anything. I called to cancel my order and they told me that it was shipped already.
Rating 1 of 5... A drunken monkey can reasonably estimate ship dates better than Ibuypower.
Shipping: Packaging was excellent and protected. Not a problem at all with Fed Ex.
5 of 5 rating.
Initial Impressions: All I could say when I took the laptop out of the box was "wow". I was very impressed at the weight, how thin, and how shiny the paintjob was.
5 of 5 rating
Paintjob: Petrified!! That is the only word I could use to describe how I felt about the paintjob for 100 dollars. This laptop was for my wife and she wanted the computer to be pink (yes, I know that this limits my manhood if I were ever to be seen in public using the laptop). Take in mind that the only paintjobs I have to compare to are the ones that I see in photos. The paintjob is exactly as the voodoo, hypersonic and other laptop paintjob photos that I have seen that run 300 - 500 dollars. The surface is smooth, reflective and there is no orange peel effect. There is one imperfection under the touchpad about the size of a lint ball and it is a tiny chip in the paint.
4 of 5 rating
Display: JEEZUS... what do I have to do to get a laptop that displays colors correctly and has decent viewing angles? I just had to return the sager 5690 I ordered because it was not displaying colors correctly. This laptop is just as bad but it really struggles to produce the blue color. After an hour of playing with settings and downloading the one calibration profile I could find, the laptop is producing colors a tad better but it still looks completely washed out. I watched Return of the Kings and everyone that had blue eyes no longer had blue eyes. They had grey eyes =(. The viewing angle is a joke. It is absolutely absurd that you can’t change your posture in a chair or you won’t be able to see parts of your screen correctly. Once you are strapped into the sweet spot, you can't move from it or you will lose quality. I was lucky to not get a dead pixel though.
Here is a serious incident to consider about this LCD. My father in law who doesn't have any computer knowledge at all came down as I was watching Lord of the Rings on the laptop and asked "This movie is in Black and White?" That is how bad the colors are.
1 of 5 rating
Sound: Exactly what I expect from a laptop. The sound on the Sager 5690 was better. I can hear the sound from the laptop when I watch a DVD and it isn’t distorted. That is all I expected.
2 of 5 rating
Fan Noise: It almost scares me how silent this laptop is. Even with extreme gaming sessions, I hear my desktop's PSU over the laptop. The desktop sits under my desk and the laptop sits right besides me and I still hear the desktop. I had a dell 8200 previously so this is a silent submarine compared to that
5 of 5 rating
Heat:I was a bit concerned about the heat issues on this laptop since the exhaust vent is on the right side. I am right handed but my son is left handed and we had to return his laptop since his arm was getting heat rashes from the exhaust on the sager 5690. After 3 hours of watching Return of the Kings, after 2 hours of playing world of warcraft and 1 hour of general surfing and downloading drivers and such, I did not feel any heat dissipation at all. The palm rests were cold to touch. The exhaust vent on the right did not blow hot air onto my arm even though it was blowing warm air out. When I put my hand close to the vent, I felt the warm air coming out. I didn't feel any heat when I had my arm on the mouse beside the machine though.
5 of 5 rating
Case:It does seem to have a bit of flexing and isn’t as sturdy as the 5690. There also seems to be some flexing on the palm rests. The LCD also seems to be less sturdy than the 5690.
3 of 5 rating
Touchpad: perfect. 7 laptops that I have owned and this one takes the cake. I love the feel of the clicks.
5 of 5 rating.
Keyboard: A bit flimsy. It doesn’t have the responsive feel to it as the Sager 5690 had and my previous Dell Inspiron had a better feel also. The stroke of the keys just does not feel right to me. They keys are in fact the see through type but not noticable unless you get close. They look dark blue in tint.
2 of 5 rating.
Gaming experience: This is a work in process. Out of the box, this machine was horrible running World of Warcraft. The world details were off and the frame rates were not great. There were patches of snow in areas there was not supposed to be any. There were flickering lights all over the place and crazy instances of all white streaks. I quickly started to try to resolve the issues revolving around the poor colors, the crazy problems in World of Warcraft and whatever else I could try to do to try and not RMA this computer. First I downloaded the new catalys drivers.. Modified them, installed them. That fixed the gaming issues immediately. I played with the color setting as best I could and the screen still looks terrible but at least it ran world of warcraft better. The FPS compared to the Sager 5690 are comparable. I ran it smoothly and was a slight 4 to 5 frames per second slower than the 5690. Impressive to me.
4 of 5 rating.
Benchmarks:
Default Settings:
Core: 392 Memory : 202
3dmark03 : 2889
CPU score: 621
AquaMark:
CPU Score of
GPU Score of
Battery Life: HOLY SHEET!!! I can't believe it ran for 3 hours and 3 minutes on battery power watching a DVD on high volume right out of the box. I am sure that once the battery is conditioned that it will last a bit longer but to run 3 hours watching a DVD is much more than I expected. I don't know how long it will last just doing minimum computer tasks but I am not sitting there for 4+ hours to test it!!!!
5 of 5 rating... hell 6 of 5!
Portability: After carrying a Dell 8200 around Greece for 2 months while on vacation, this laptop is a joke to carry. I think I will even make my wife carry it this year since it is so light.
Media Card Reader: I'll get to this soon enough
Wireless Network: Got the wireless all connected and it works awesome. I was able to walk 100 feet from my house and get an excellent signal. I am a novice when it comes to wireless but the process of connecting and setting up was cake. I took the laptop to the top floor of my house too and it worked well.
I'll get around to finishing up the review.. sorry in advance
Took some pictures of the laptop and PM'ed Rince to host them... waiting for his response.
Specs:
- 2.0 Dothan
- 1024 Kingston Memory
- 7200 Hard Drive
- 9700 Radeon with 1400 x 1050 LCD
Ordering: It was simple enough. I was going to use the website to order my laptop but had to call in to find out some compatibility issues. Lee from sales asked if I would call in once I was ready to order to which I agreed. The entire process took about 10 minutes. Lee did not give me a customer ID number, Order number or any kind of number that would identify my order. I did not even receive an Email. I went to check my order status online and I had an order there but it did not have any information associated with it.
2 of 5 rating
Waiting: I really don't mind waiting for a product but what I can't stand is understating your estimate to make the product seem more attractive.
Ordered May 25th
Credit Card charged 26th
Estimated ship date June 1st
2nd estimated ship date: June 8th
Actual ship date: June 14th
They actually let a week pass by and didn’t even call me to let me know that it would be late, I had to call them. When the laptop was shipped, I didn’t receive an Email with the tracking number or anything. I called to cancel my order and they told me that it was shipped already.
Rating 1 of 5... A drunken monkey can reasonably estimate ship dates better than Ibuypower.
Shipping: Packaging was excellent and protected. Not a problem at all with Fed Ex.
5 of 5 rating.
Initial Impressions: All I could say when I took the laptop out of the box was "wow". I was very impressed at the weight, how thin, and how shiny the paintjob was.
5 of 5 rating
Paintjob: Petrified!! That is the only word I could use to describe how I felt about the paintjob for 100 dollars. This laptop was for my wife and she wanted the computer to be pink (yes, I know that this limits my manhood if I were ever to be seen in public using the laptop). Take in mind that the only paintjobs I have to compare to are the ones that I see in photos. The paintjob is exactly as the voodoo, hypersonic and other laptop paintjob photos that I have seen that run 300 - 500 dollars. The surface is smooth, reflective and there is no orange peel effect. There is one imperfection under the touchpad about the size of a lint ball and it is a tiny chip in the paint.
4 of 5 rating
Display: JEEZUS... what do I have to do to get a laptop that displays colors correctly and has decent viewing angles? I just had to return the sager 5690 I ordered because it was not displaying colors correctly. This laptop is just as bad but it really struggles to produce the blue color. After an hour of playing with settings and downloading the one calibration profile I could find, the laptop is producing colors a tad better but it still looks completely washed out. I watched Return of the Kings and everyone that had blue eyes no longer had blue eyes. They had grey eyes =(. The viewing angle is a joke. It is absolutely absurd that you can’t change your posture in a chair or you won’t be able to see parts of your screen correctly. Once you are strapped into the sweet spot, you can't move from it or you will lose quality. I was lucky to not get a dead pixel though.
Here is a serious incident to consider about this LCD. My father in law who doesn't have any computer knowledge at all came down as I was watching Lord of the Rings on the laptop and asked "This movie is in Black and White?" That is how bad the colors are.
1 of 5 rating
Sound: Exactly what I expect from a laptop. The sound on the Sager 5690 was better. I can hear the sound from the laptop when I watch a DVD and it isn’t distorted. That is all I expected.
2 of 5 rating
Fan Noise: It almost scares me how silent this laptop is. Even with extreme gaming sessions, I hear my desktop's PSU over the laptop. The desktop sits under my desk and the laptop sits right besides me and I still hear the desktop. I had a dell 8200 previously so this is a silent submarine compared to that
5 of 5 rating
Heat:I was a bit concerned about the heat issues on this laptop since the exhaust vent is on the right side. I am right handed but my son is left handed and we had to return his laptop since his arm was getting heat rashes from the exhaust on the sager 5690. After 3 hours of watching Return of the Kings, after 2 hours of playing world of warcraft and 1 hour of general surfing and downloading drivers and such, I did not feel any heat dissipation at all. The palm rests were cold to touch. The exhaust vent on the right did not blow hot air onto my arm even though it was blowing warm air out. When I put my hand close to the vent, I felt the warm air coming out. I didn't feel any heat when I had my arm on the mouse beside the machine though.
5 of 5 rating
Case:It does seem to have a bit of flexing and isn’t as sturdy as the 5690. There also seems to be some flexing on the palm rests. The LCD also seems to be less sturdy than the 5690.
3 of 5 rating
Touchpad: perfect. 7 laptops that I have owned and this one takes the cake. I love the feel of the clicks.
5 of 5 rating.
Keyboard: A bit flimsy. It doesn’t have the responsive feel to it as the Sager 5690 had and my previous Dell Inspiron had a better feel also. The stroke of the keys just does not feel right to me. They keys are in fact the see through type but not noticable unless you get close. They look dark blue in tint.
2 of 5 rating.
Gaming experience: This is a work in process. Out of the box, this machine was horrible running World of Warcraft. The world details were off and the frame rates were not great. There were patches of snow in areas there was not supposed to be any. There were flickering lights all over the place and crazy instances of all white streaks. I quickly started to try to resolve the issues revolving around the poor colors, the crazy problems in World of Warcraft and whatever else I could try to do to try and not RMA this computer. First I downloaded the new catalys drivers.. Modified them, installed them. That fixed the gaming issues immediately. I played with the color setting as best I could and the screen still looks terrible but at least it ran world of warcraft better. The FPS compared to the Sager 5690 are comparable. I ran it smoothly and was a slight 4 to 5 frames per second slower than the 5690. Impressive to me.
4 of 5 rating.
Benchmarks:
Default Settings:
Core: 392 Memory : 202
3dmark03 : 2889
CPU score: 621
AquaMark:
CPU Score of
GPU Score of
Battery Life: HOLY SHEET!!! I can't believe it ran for 3 hours and 3 minutes on battery power watching a DVD on high volume right out of the box. I am sure that once the battery is conditioned that it will last a bit longer but to run 3 hours watching a DVD is much more than I expected. I don't know how long it will last just doing minimum computer tasks but I am not sitting there for 4+ hours to test it!!!!
5 of 5 rating... hell 6 of 5!
Portability: After carrying a Dell 8200 around Greece for 2 months while on vacation, this laptop is a joke to carry. I think I will even make my wife carry it this year since it is so light.
Media Card Reader: I'll get to this soon enough
Wireless Network: Got the wireless all connected and it works awesome. I was able to walk 100 feet from my house and get an excellent signal. I am a novice when it comes to wireless but the process of connecting and setting up was cake. I took the laptop to the top floor of my house too and it worked well.
I'll get around to finishing up the review.. sorry in advance
Took some pictures of the laptop and PM'ed Rince to host them... waiting for his response.
