First two weeks experience with my 8887-V

Okay… Why did I wait a more than a week before making a review? Well, how about I wanted to be sure of what I would be talking about and not write approximative crap? ;-)
So, like I said in an earlier thread, I lurked for about three weeks in the Sager forums before taking the plunge, then one fine day took the phone off its cradle and rung PC Torque…
First things first, I can’t recommend these people enough. Adam and Laura were extremely patient with my whims (changed the conf three times), were exceptionally understanding and flexible with payment methods (I live in France), overall I’m sure I was quite a pain, but they handled it always nicely and courteously. I’d buy again from them in an eyeblink.

Let’s get on with the 8887-V… Opening the box (the thing’s very well packaged), and gingerly lifting the beast out of it, it does feel a bit heavy, obviously, but is somewhat less bulkier (!) than I expected. I guess I exaggerated the thing’s size in my mind’s eye after reading all the messages saying it was HUGE. Well, it’s bigger than any laptop, but it remains quite manageable.
It feels like it’s very solid, built like a tank. This inspires confidence. The adapter I got with it does have a fan, but it’s quite silent. I mean, if I listen closely, I can hear it running from time to time, but it’s really nothing to write home about. The adapter gets warm, but nothing more.
So here I go switching it on, and first very nice surprise: NO DEAD PIXELS! Whoohoo. That’s a nice one, I was worried about that, really. The screen is so gorgeous (really it is) that it’d really be a shame to have even one of those bugs on it. Contrast is very good, and since I don’t use my puter from sideways, the less-than-5660 viewing angle doesn’t bother me in the least…
I scrupulously read the procedures written in the forums and the manual (which is well written) regarding drivers’ installation, and went on to install XP Pro and said drivers, and everything went like a breeze.
Well, since then, I reinstalled two more times, but the problems were related to XP/HT/DX9, and never to the machine itself.
Basically, I first installed it with HT enabled, but DX9 doesn’t fancy it too much, and I was beginning to have random freezes (not even BSODs, pure and simple freezes) while playing games, so I was forced to go back and reinstall without HT. In the immediate future, anyway, HT benefits are not that much clear, very few apps use it effectively, and by the time most apps do use HT efficiently, the DX9 gremlins will be ousted out. I hope. Lol…
I didn’t benchmark the machine while it had HT enabled (3dMark2k1 froze every time I tried to run it in that configuration), but with HT disabled it scored 7340 with 3dMark2K1, and 1045 with 2K3. Not bad… (all this with Catalyst 3.2)

The keyboard is quite nice (it gets a little while to get used to though), and really spacious. The num keypad is the eighth wonder on a laptop, really. Makes life so much easier…

So, as of now, my conf appears to be rock stable, and it really does a lot of things.

Here’s a partial list of proggies that I’m running on it right now:
-Photoshop 7
-Dreamweaver MX
-Coldfusion 5.0
-SQL 2000 server
-Wavelab
-Cool Edit Pro 2.0
-Cubase SX + tons of VSTis and DX Plugins
-MS Office 2000

plus all the usual from IIS to games like CC Generals, Age of mythology, etc

The Radeon is overclocked via Powerstrip to 270/190 Mhz.

Everything works, and fast! For now the 8887 has crunched everything I’ve thrown at it without wavering in the least, and it’s quite fun to watch to perf bar in Cubase barely climbing whenever I load up effects and instruments

For audio, I got an Echo Indigo, which is working to perfection, associated to Koss Porta pro headphones. The sound is really, really powerful and crystal clear, it’ll be ideal for mastering on the Sager. Very impressive. The card does get hot, but then again that’s the story of every PC Card…

I haven’t tried the Wifi yet, but plan to in the next few days at work, so I’ll report accordingly when I’ve make it work.
I’m not that much of a reviewer anyway so feel free to shoot questions and I’ll do my best to answer them.

Anyway, until now, it’s a 10/10 experience… Long live Sagers

Well, as far as I can tell, all three servers -IIS, CF and SQL- run together without a hitch. I run CF 5.0 and not MX though, so with MX performance could be a tad slower. Regarding screen res, I just tested all the pipes and looked for potential problems, but I haven't had time yet to resume development. But I don't think I'll step down to 1024 when I'll build sites, as I'll get a feel visually of what to do and expect by browsing a lot at native resolution. I mean I will step down for final testing and all, but not for development, it's not necessary IMO.

Hope this helps...