My first post here on notebook forums.
I'd like to thank all of you here for helping guide me to this notebook - I am generally horrible at making decisions for fear of buyer's remorse. Let me just say - so far so good! My notebook is as good as I had hoped.
Ordered Sager 8790 from PCTorque: configuration follows:
3.4Ghz Northwood non-extreme edition CPU
1 GB memory
2x 60GB 7200rpm hard drives in RAID 0
1680x1050 glossy screen
Windows 2000 Pro (installed by pctorque)
Installed Omega drivers based on Catalyst 4.6
First impressions - this notebook is big, but actually thinner than my old
one (Dell Inspiron 7500 w/15 in screen - perhaps the first "Desktop Replacement".
The screen is incredible - I can honestly say that it looks better than my
CRT on my desktop. Ghosting appears to be negligible, although the jury is still out on that. The pixels are small, but not too small. Before I got this I had the opportunity to see a friend's new Dell XPS with the 15" 1920x1200 screen. This screen is definitely much easier to use. Also no dead pixels! My friend's Dell had 5, which I didn't have the heart to tell him about.
I got some backgrounds at www.digitalblasphemy.com - highly recommended. Together with the windows XP background changer powertool, I have a screen that is quite fun to watch.
The keyboard is nice - I am a fast typist and I don't feel like this keyboard slows me down at all, although it did feel a little odd at first to have the keyboard warming up my hands.
One small nit- the ethernet port seems to be slightly lower quality than I would like. Ethernet cables don't "click" into it like they should, instead simply sort of hanging in there - making me doubt at first if the ethernet port was working properly.
My notebook got hit by a virus within the first two hours of it being on - it would have been nice if PCTorque had shipped it with the windows updates already installed. As it was I had to go get them myself immediately and then run a virus scan - not what I wanted to be doing with my first few hours of use.
Something that I didn't realise from reading these reviews and from the order form is the fact that the notebook comes with a small leather case. This is a decent case, but I would definitely recommend something with a bit more padding such as a backpack for travel.
I bought the Evercool 4-fan USB notebook pad for my notebook. However, the fans blow downwards, which is the wrong way for optimal cooling. I thought I could reverse them as apparently you can on other pads such as the Antec, but as it turns out the Evercool fans are not standard fans and cannot be reversed. So I've got an Antec cooler on the way.
The fans are not what I would call "whisper-quiet" when they are running, but during normal operation they don't run much, so it works ok. I'm very sensitive to fan noise though, so YMMV.
I ran the 8-cell battery through a drain-charge-drain-charge cycle to condition the battery, and although I wasn't timing it, I doubt I got much more than an hour out of each charge. This notebook is definitely not for use on battery power alone.
Once I got the notebook working to my satisfaction, I thought I do a little overclocking and benchmarking using 3dMark03 and 3dMark2001SE. Here are my results using stock settings, the Omega 4.6 drivers, and Radlinker for the overclocking:
Core/Mem 3dMark03 3dMark01
405.00/270.00 3217 11276 (note default settings)
480.32/289.89 3593 12144
500.21/299.84 3728 12475
514.42/309.79 3833 crashed
After 3dMark01 crashed (during nature) I decided to stop. For now I'll probably use 500/300 or possibly a little lower to be safe.
Once again I'd like to give a big thank you to this forum! So far I have no buyer's remorse - an acheivement of biblical proportions for me. Thanks!
I'd like to thank all of you here for helping guide me to this notebook - I am generally horrible at making decisions for fear of buyer's remorse. Let me just say - so far so good! My notebook is as good as I had hoped.
Ordered Sager 8790 from PCTorque: configuration follows:
3.4Ghz Northwood non-extreme edition CPU
1 GB memory
2x 60GB 7200rpm hard drives in RAID 0
1680x1050 glossy screen
Windows 2000 Pro (installed by pctorque)
Installed Omega drivers based on Catalyst 4.6
First impressions - this notebook is big, but actually thinner than my old
one (Dell Inspiron 7500 w/15 in screen - perhaps the first "Desktop Replacement".
The screen is incredible - I can honestly say that it looks better than my
CRT on my desktop. Ghosting appears to be negligible, although the jury is still out on that. The pixels are small, but not too small. Before I got this I had the opportunity to see a friend's new Dell XPS with the 15" 1920x1200 screen. This screen is definitely much easier to use. Also no dead pixels! My friend's Dell had 5, which I didn't have the heart to tell him about.
I got some backgrounds at www.digitalblasphemy.com - highly recommended. Together with the windows XP background changer powertool, I have a screen that is quite fun to watch.
The keyboard is nice - I am a fast typist and I don't feel like this keyboard slows me down at all, although it did feel a little odd at first to have the keyboard warming up my hands.
One small nit- the ethernet port seems to be slightly lower quality than I would like. Ethernet cables don't "click" into it like they should, instead simply sort of hanging in there - making me doubt at first if the ethernet port was working properly.
My notebook got hit by a virus within the first two hours of it being on - it would have been nice if PCTorque had shipped it with the windows updates already installed. As it was I had to go get them myself immediately and then run a virus scan - not what I wanted to be doing with my first few hours of use.
Something that I didn't realise from reading these reviews and from the order form is the fact that the notebook comes with a small leather case. This is a decent case, but I would definitely recommend something with a bit more padding such as a backpack for travel.
I bought the Evercool 4-fan USB notebook pad for my notebook. However, the fans blow downwards, which is the wrong way for optimal cooling. I thought I could reverse them as apparently you can on other pads such as the Antec, but as it turns out the Evercool fans are not standard fans and cannot be reversed. So I've got an Antec cooler on the way.
The fans are not what I would call "whisper-quiet" when they are running, but during normal operation they don't run much, so it works ok. I'm very sensitive to fan noise though, so YMMV.
I ran the 8-cell battery through a drain-charge-drain-charge cycle to condition the battery, and although I wasn't timing it, I doubt I got much more than an hour out of each charge. This notebook is definitely not for use on battery power alone.
Once I got the notebook working to my satisfaction, I thought I do a little overclocking and benchmarking using 3dMark03 and 3dMark2001SE. Here are my results using stock settings, the Omega 4.6 drivers, and Radlinker for the overclocking:
Core/Mem 3dMark03 3dMark01
405.00/270.00 3217 11276 (note default settings)
480.32/289.89 3593 12144
500.21/299.84 3728 12475
514.42/309.79 3833 crashed
After 3dMark01 crashed (during nature) I decided to stop. For now I'll probably use 500/300 or possibly a little lower to be safe.
Once again I'd like to give a big thank you to this forum! So far I have no buyer's remorse - an acheivement of biblical proportions for me. Thanks!
