5690 - the drama unfolds!

A few weeks ago, i finally decided to take the plunge and order a 5690. Here are the reasons for doing so:

1. It has most of the features I want, uncluding the uxga screen, swappable bays (so it has some upgradeability) and it had a reasonable price and warrenty. If this was my Ideal laptop, it would use an a64 cpu, have upgradble graphics and a wuxga screen. The 5690 comes close enough, besides it would be a long time before a laptop with those specs was for sale in the $2k price range.

2. I was considering the ecs g556 as an alternative, but after much contemplation i figured, i would rather have the power and upgradability than the battery life offered by a centrino machine.

3. For me good service is a must, since $2050 is a large investment for a student on his 3rd year of college. Pctorque seems to have the best; they have the forums with all of you helpful people and were pretty responsive with my questions. Not to mention they offer an extended warrenty for $80, compared to $200and up like some other sager resellers.

My maximum monetary expenditure was limited to $2000 and my order came out to be a bit more, but no big deal. I am just happy that I got what I wanted. So onto the ordering process:

I placed my order at 10:58 am on june 18. I ordered the following:
Sager 5690-v
UXGA screen
3.2 p4
ATI 9700 graphics
1024 megs of ram
80 5400 rpm hdd
internal wireless networking
2 year warrenty - under $2000
standard carrying case.

I opted for the 80 gig drive over 60gig 7200 rpm, because, frankly, i need the space, besides it was $15 cheaper and I can leave more free space on the drive. Since drive performance has some relation with it capacity and the amount of data on it, I figured they would be about the same. Besides I can always throw in another drive if necessary.

One other thing: After playing around with some different configurations, I realized that I could get the 5690v model with the 3.2 and a gig of ram cheaper than i could get the 5690s model with a 3.0 and a gig of ram, in fact it was $3.40 cheaper!
total came to $2022.40 with $26.17 for ground shipping

I used cash to pay for this beast and did a "bill pay" through my bank which is free but can take up to 5 days to process. I dont mind waiting the 2+ weeks to get this since I am saving $75 in doing so. It also gives me time to wait for a price drop or news of new technology. Hopefully my payment will go through by monday the 28 at the latest. If all goes well, I will have my 5690 by the end of next week on the second or thrid of july.

Once I receive my unit, I will do a complete and comprehensive review with pictures.

Once again, I would like to thank all of you for helping me decide on my purchase and I am glad that I can finally give something back to the community.

OK, here is a little update on my situation. I am doing this to document my experiences with ordering, paying, shipping and dealing with pc torque.

My bank is terrible. I used their online payment service to get the cash to pc torque. I knew this would take up to 5 days, but it has been over a week. I guess there was a little confusion with accounts and such, but I got it cleared up. The thing that bothered me the most is the fact that I never received any notices from my bank or any word on the status of my payment other than "it was taken out of my account". Everything has been cleared up, even though it took longer than I expected. Since I know the situation, everything is fine now.

I must say, PC Torque was responsive and helpful through this ordeal.

If all works out, I will have it by saturday or monday at the latest. The only H ave to do now is smash some 'nanners.

Hope thats enough!

Thanks guys

UPS prob

Tracking number received! Lappy to arrive on the 8th!

I have been tracking it online at the UPS website and they havent update the status in 3 days. I know it was a holiday weekend, but it is 2:00 on monday and the sites says it is still Cali. I am hoping that this is normal and that the next update will show that it is in michigan or atleast in the greatlakes area (I live in northwest michigan).

Is there any chance of that happening if I used the standard ups ground shipping?

well, it shipped on the 1st, should arrive on the 8th (still says it is on time).

OK, now I am getting it is now 9 pm monday night, it should arrive here in a little over 2 days and it is still in Cali, no updates yet. I was hoping to have this at least by thursday night, so I could have time to set it up so I could use it at this LAN party over the weekend. I guess I will have time to set it up there, but I am getting tired of waiting.

I WANT MY SAGER NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!
oh well, not much I can do about it now....

Update: 5690 received

Need more time to play around with it, but full review comming shortly

No dead pixels, everything working great so far. I have a lan all this weekend and I will do soem hefty benching for all.

so far, at 470/299 aquamark 30104
@ 500/300 32260
@ 540/335 34105 no artifacts

while running aquamark the things gets kinda warm, but not hot, infact it is very nice on these cold michigan days!

anyway, great machine, pics and review to come

I have been busy with classes and work, but I have had enough time to put some fun stuff on it. I had a Lan at a freinds house over the weekend and got some time to stress test it with some games and benchmarks. The thing i absolutely love about this machine is that it can benchmark competatively with my freinds $1800 alienware desktop that had to be sent back twice for repairs. Mine weighs 1/10 of what his does, has a better screen, same hdd, athlon 3200+ and same vid card, produces less noise, and doesn't have a finish tht flakes off.

I was able to bench just under 35000 in aquamark by proping the back up a bit to improve airflow. when he overclocks his cpu and vidcard he can do a solid 37000. (other benchies to come)

Other than sheer performance this thing is a solid computer. It will run things effortlessly that made my 2 year old desktop sweat. At this LAN I was able to run ut 2k4 with max settings and resolution (1600x1200) with 32 bots and still have enough overhead on the cpu to host the game for 8 other poeple and only in extreme conditions did the frame rate drop to below 30 fps. Most of the time it stayed around 35-50 fps.

Other things to note is the noise from the fans. When on high, they make barely make enough noise to be distracting. There is a fridge and heater in my room that will almost drown it out. definitely not noticeable at a LAN, not too bad for taking notes in class (not distracting to others, unless you forget to mute the sound when windows boots )

Sound quality is pretty good for a laptop IMO, I could turn it up pretty loud at this LAN and it didn't distort unless there was alot of base. Other than that they are pretty crisp and clear, better than I expected.

Weight and build quality were pretty good too, it isnt too heavy for me, and I dont do that much weight lifting. It just feels a little "flakey" when removing it from its case. I dont know if this is the case with other 5690's but the rectangular pad at the top of the screen sticks out too far and prevents the pads on the side from resting on the lower chassis when I close the lid. This makes the screen flex a little when I grab it by the side or carry it under my arm. Other than that, it is pretty solid, the is no creaking or flexing on lower portion of the chassis. The hinges don't seem to be too tight, but they creek a little when adjusting the lid.

The screen is Fantastic! No dead pixels! Running in max res it looks sharper than my 19 viewsonic when it runs at 1600x1200. The is some light leakeage on the left and right, but it is only noticable from extreme angles and doesn't seem to effect light distribution on the lcd.

The other thing that just totally wowed me was when I hooked my 19" crt to the vga out. It was clear and other than having the color and picture be a little off (which is adjustable), it looked spectacular, I was able to run 3ds max on one monitor and the unreal editor in the other with no problems. I was also able to change the primary monitor to my crt and play games on it. So for those wondering the vga out on the 5690 is accelerated.

That is it for now, time to get some work done on this thing!