Review Time!
Ok review time:
I'll break it down by the order of the things in the first post of the thread.
Display: 17" WSXGA+ LCD:
Coming from an older way of thinking, the screen absolutely blew me away. That fact that it has that smooth, glassy, wet look to it is amazing. Also, coming from a 14 inch LCD to a 17 inch WSGA+ is a big improvement I wasn't ready for.
When I pulled the cellophane off, I noticed it's not as easy as I'd thought it would. It literally gave the screen the "ripple effect" that laptop owners cringe about.
I e-mailed Luke asking him what the best cleaning solution would be for the screen, he told me to go with the Belkin LCD cleaning system. (Can be found at Bestbuy.com)
Color:
Nice and simple, black. No worries about scratching the smooth paint job and no big deal if it gets fingerprinted.
Processor: P4 3.2GHZ Northwood CPU
Let's see: Moving from a 1.2 GHZ Celeron to a 3.2 GHZ P4 w/ HT... hmm... my reaction was something like this...
Damn!!. This monster is the fastest thing I've ever seen, hands down. My girlfriend's lil brother felt bad after he built his desktop with a 2.2 GHZ Celeron. Poor bastard.
I knew I was going to be happy when I'm: Playing a DVD, surfing the web, having 10 IMs open, running Steam, typing a report in Word 2003, and listening to web radio through WinAmp without any hesitation.
Video: 256MB ATI Radeon Mobility 9700
Something tells me that I was, in no way shape or form, ready for this thing. Remember, I was playing on a 16 MB video card in my old laptop. I fired up my trusty version of Half Life 1, configured TFC, and...
was amazed that it couldn't go past 72fps. I also didn't realize OpenGL was so damned smooth. I use HL because that's the only game that I could decently play, and most of you remember playing at some point.
RAM: 512MB 400DDR Dual Channel (2-256MB)
Old Machine: 256 MB RAM, not sure what the exact specs were, but the Sager seems to work with the P4 quite nicely. From button to login screen, it takes maybe... 15 seconds.
Main Hard Drive: 60GB 7200RPM
When I built the Sager, I believed in the method of finanically-acceptable overkill. Laymans terms: best bang for the buck. Since the 60 gig 7200 was only $66 more than the stock, I went for it and I'm glad I did. It responds so quick for applications and games, it's unbelieveable. I remember, with the old one, double clicking the icon, going away to grab something to drink downstairs, come back upstairs, and it's still booting up (game as example was Black and White).
Media Drive: 8x DVD+- combo drive with DVD+R DL
I'll be arrested sooner or later with this thing. I burned a CD last night in... 40 seconds, from click to ejection. Watched a DVD on it, and it responded beautifully.
LOOKING FOR RELIABLE DVD-R MEDIA (Sony, Duramax, Memorex, etc.) Any recommendations would be appreciated.
Subwoofer:
I wasn't expecting to be bleeding from the ears or passing out from the sound, but while fumbling around with the sound settings, and ask anyone who has tried it, when I set the 8790 up for surrond sound testing the speakers, I double clicked the subbie and a big bad sound boomed from the bottom of this thing. Anyone who has done this probably reacted the same way I did: A big s***-eating grin.
8 Cell battery:
With the power of this thing, I knew that I might as well hook up a gerbil on his wheel, fabricate a USB plug to it, and run it on gerbil power. Warning to all prospective buyers: the review is no lie: the stock 8-cell battery life is no more than one hour. On the other hand, I expected this to be a DTR, and last time I checked, a desktop is plugged in 24/7, so I knew what was coming.
Floppy Drive (required to install RAID): No
No RAID on this puppy, no this was no big deal. I think it will be useful since most modern day computers, both desk and lap, don't come with internal floppys anymore, so I think of this as a nice gesture from the people of Sager.
Modem: 56K RJ11 Phone Modem
Same idea here. I have a home network connected with ethernet and Wireless G, so a phone modem is no real necessity.
Network Card: 10/100/1000 NIC
Not really noticing a difference with speed, simply because the router i'm using isn't equipped with a Gigabit slot, so I'll have to wait until I find a place to harness the power of the NIC with the 1000 bit portion.
Operating System: No Operating System
I found out before I bought this that the girlfriend could pick up a full student copy of Win XP Pro from college for $20. Well, technically speaking, I am a college student, and even though I don't go to that PARTICULAR college, I still am a college student, do therefore decided to have her grab me a copy.
Case: Basic Black business case
It is as it says, a basic black business case. It fits the 8790 exactly, and has a small side pocket that can hold no more than the AC adapter without showing strech marks.
AC Power Adapter:
I think that PCTorque.com should re-label this as a power brick. I'll make a safe bet that the adapter ALONE weighs 3 pounds. Anyone who has a 8790, or maybe a 9860 can vouch for me, that this thing is a big brick with a cord attached to it.
Wireless Network: Internal 802.11g TURBO (108Mbps) wireless (Out of Stock)
So help me God, I'm going to pick up a WarDriving book and finding a 108MBps network or Linksys G+ w/ SpeedBooster technology. Right now, I'm using 54MBps, which moves pretty good right now. So, all is good with it.
Card Reader: Internal 7-in-1 Card Reader
I found this to be somewhat useful.. after someone told me to re-enable to damned BIOS setting. The Noob of the week thread of mine can be found in the 8790 tech support group. I'm acustomed to using a USB adapter for these lil cards, but I'm slowly starting to use it more often. (I've still got the cover on it, no crumbs getting in there
)
Camera: Integrated Digital Video Camera
Still haven't played with this yet, details to come.
Office Software: No
Remember when I said I got XP Pro for $20?? I got Office 2003 for $30 from the same store.
Warranty: 3 year warranty -under $3000(Phillips, US Only)
I went with Phillips for three years and under $3000 because, snooping around the forums at one point, and although it wasn't explicitly said, the NBForums seemed to lean more toward Phillips. Plus, It's a company I've actually heard of.
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Wel, that's all. I'll be sure to edit this when I've sat down more with it and really try to puch it to it's limits. One thing I'm not doing is overclocking it. I don't want to attempt to push the hardware, which can't be changed/swapped out, past the points it can't handle. I didn't blow $2500 to burn up the ATI card.
I guess I'll be asked to post 3DMark specs and crap like that, so I'll do that later.
All in all, I love this lil machine.
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w00t! Glad to hear that you got your new beastie. Hopefully XP will find its way to your 8790 soon.
