my 9860 vs. xpsGen2 dilemma - Page 3

Well to be fair...dell's rating is actually worse on resllerratings

Anyways, most people that order sagers will order through resellers and if you look at the sager resellers you'll see that satisfaction and service are among the highest rated.

If I'm not mistaken I believe PCTorque will soon be offering direct Tech Support through them in the near future (correct me if I'm wrong adam) so any future problems will be handled by them and not sager if I remember right.

I am developing mostly server side stuff on Windows 2003 server using SQL Server ASP and occasionally Oracle and I think that 9860 is far superior to XPS2 for this kind of work for following reasons :

1. PERFORMANCE : P4 offers hyperthreading and almost twice memory bandwidth. Also RAID 0 helps - at least at boot time. The difference is very noticeable if somebody has all servers and databases installed and also runs Visual Studio on the same machine ( and tv in background). P4 has huge floating point performance advantage which may be important for people running all sorts of CAD software.
2. DISK SPACE AND RELIABILITY : obviously 2 hdds are better than one - current notebook hdds are much smaller than desktop ones so this is important for DTR to match a desktop.
3. UPGREABILITY : Microsoft introduces Windows 64 bit next month - 9860 would be able to run it; XPS2 never. Microsoft will be pushing more and more users to adopt it over time making XPS2 obsolete. In addition to that 9860 has 2 MiniPCI slots one containing WiFi card that can be upgraded next year to upcoming 811m standard. XPS2 has WiFi implemented in the chipset and will get obsolete in that area too. Second slot contains tv tuner which can be upgraded to one compatible to MCE 2005. XPS2 does not have this option either.
4. GAME PERFORMANCE : all games are designed to run very well on any chipset that implements DirecX9 and has 256 RAM. If this is Ultra or not does not make much difference. Besides, later this year Sony introduces PS3 based on new Cell chip which has 9 cores . Sheer power of this chip invalidates any PC as a gaming machine in the nearest future. There will be a lot of games that never make to PC.
5. HEAT : no problem in 9860 after applying new BIOS. The temperature never exceeds 60C. Fans run all the time but still more quiet than my Dell desktop at work. I have not experienced any throttling
6. MOBILITY : XPS2 is significantly better than 9860 here, especially regarding battery life. 9860 size and weight does not bother me that much - I still can occasionally lift 13 lbs and I keep it on my desk rather than laps. XPS2 is not that light either.
7. RELIABILITY : did not have any problems sofar. I also have 8886 for 2 years - did not have any problems with it either.
8. SAGER SUPPORT: no problems so far. I asked them for some parts to upgrade 8886 and everything went very smooth. They are much more efficient on email than phone. I would recommend Alienware for a warranty similar to DELL one.

Summing up XPS2 is better for people that do not need P4 power and want some edge on gaming. Pentium M matches P4 in INT benchmark and users of productivity software do not benefit from P4.at all. The same goes to many games..
If somebody needs upgradeability and P4 power 9860 offers clear advantage. It is especially beneficial for somebody who develops on a server with multiple services running at the same time or for people who need floating point performance like CAD users who also have option to get nVidia Quadro 1400.

Yeah, I think it's important to give detailed reviews of each company's service record, but I can't say Dell has a much better reputation. CompleteCare is really the way to go, but many Dell customers would comment on the same or worse treatment.

My personal experience with Dell has been 50/50 -- everything from an overnight return for a replacement LCD (yay) to weeks for service (boooo), and multiple internal modems that decided to die, with hours on the line with tech support.

Oh, and with the Dell warranty -- get the warranty you need at the outset. If you try to upgrade later on or extend, they'll charge you an obscene amount (I think I tried to extend 1-2 years and it was like $500-$600 more for Completecare) - that's a solid down-payment on a new laptop. :P

Let's not forget that the XPS2 hasn't actually shipped yet, it's still possible that by the time it does Sager will have released the Go 6800 Ultra for the 9860, we already know that Clevo are testing this card and some D900T (9860) vendors claim to have already trialled sample units.

Clevo have also reportedly been testing WUXGA LCDs and once again some vendors are claiming they expect shipment on these within a couple of weeks (admittedly, how good these LCDs are and when they'll actually ship is yet to be seen).

Nevertheless, IMO the ONLY major advantages the XPS2 has over the 9860 are it's superior battery performance and lighter weight - if these are very important to you then the XPS2 is of-course a winner, if they're not all that important, then I don't think there's any good reason to buy anything else but a D900T (9860).

I wasnt aware of that little black hole there, they also dont cover my state with their warranty so there will never Be any reason for me to look @ dells with the intentions of buying one.

Yes the battery life is a plus on the dell, but the difference between 8 lbs and 12 is not really noticeable. Unless youre in your preteens...

Zbutor makes some pretty good points. Mostly reiterated, but he points out some facts no ones noticed yet. A key point being the upgradeability issue..survival of the fittest, no?

Yeah, I can't tell you how pissed off I was at Dell.

Getting the 3-year warranty with CompleteCare was $100-$200 extra when I originally configured my system. I asked the service rep if I could add Completecare later on or extend my warranty, and they said "Sure, no problem!"

When I got to the end of my first year and I wanted to extend, they told me it would be over $500 (I think it was close to $575).

The rep was one of those low-level managers that wouldn't budge. I was like, "you've got to be frickin' kidding me!!!! It's $400 more now?"

I'm sure they price completecare cheaper to start because they just want you to make the purchase. Once you've made the purchase and you've had the laptop for a year, they know you're screwed. They also know that you might be extending because there's something wrong with your machine.

Had a Dell and had pretty good experience with it, though probably because I dind't have anything go wrong and never had to deal with tech support.

I posted this over on another thread here but I'll mention it again. I recently bought a 9860 fully loaded and it broke after 1 hour. It suddenly started rebooting itself. Then I noticed I didn't hear the system fan so I figured it must be rebooting due to over-heating.

It was probaly just a fan problem but still, it's not what one one expects when one pays $4500 for a laptop.

I sent it back to Sager. Since I work at an American Embassy overseas it took two weeks to get here and now it'll be two weeks to return, a couple of days to get fixed, and then another two weeks to send it back. All total, it would be close to 50 days after giving them my hard-earned $4500 before they give me a working computer.

Grrr....

I told Sager to just issue a refund in accordance with their 30-day money back gaurantee while I shop elsewhere. I'm out the original $85 shipping and another $91 to ship back (priority and insurance). An expensive $176 lesson.

Next time I'll try PCTorque instead of Sager direct. Not that PCT could have somehow prevented the problem but dealing with Sager tech support was not easy. Also, PCT might have got Sager to try and figure out what the problem is and mail out a replacement part instead of having to mail back the entire computer--a one month solution to what is likely a simple problem.

When will the xps2 be available in europe? I'm in Ireland.

I agree with andrepeterhill, and I will get the D900T IF it comes out with the Ultra before my XPSG2 ships. It is a race to April 14.

I'm not sure why you blame this on Dell or Complete Care. Adding ANY warranty to a used machine is more expensive - just try getting Warrantech or someplace like that to sell you a warranty on a used laptop for the same price as new. Of course they subsidise the cost for new laptops at the time of purchase; Complete Care is nothing more than a form of insurance, and statistically it is cheaper for them when someone buys it in the beginning than after they have had it for a year.

It's not great but it is hardly specific to Dell. Lesson learned here: Buy it up front next time.

I love PCTorque and bought my 5680 from them, but outside of the first 30 days they are going to send you directly to Sager anyway. That's what happened to me when I had to replace my RAM after 7 months.

We typically refer customers to either our technical support or Sager's depending on who would be best suited to answer the questions. In the event that Sager becomes unreasonable with their request or seems to for one reason or another not meet the customers expectation we step in to assist and see how to best mediate the situation. Most issues forwarded directly to Sager are ones that are going to more then likely be dealing with an RMA under Sager's manufacturers warranty.

There's two aspects of this: first, the CSR made it seem like buying now and buying later would be the equivalent price. So obviously, there was a bit of a shock to see that the price had functionally tripled for equal coverage. Even if it were reasonable, the customer would walk away feeling cheated or deceived.

Second, insurance is just that: insurance. There's no guarantee anything is going to go wrong for the machine, so pricing insurance at almost $600 for two years seems a bit ludicrous, unless you have absolutely no faith in your own product (which speaks volumes about their expectation).

If you're going to build a $3000 laptop and expect that it has a functional use life of 2 years without a major problem, that's pretty sad...keeping in mind that the people who don't need their insurance should [hypothetically] be paying to offset the costs of the people who do.

I don't think there's anything wrong with criticizing a vendor's pricing if it seems unreasonable -- that's a responsibility of the consumer, and it's up to the vendors to decide where to draw the line on where they set their pricing, often based on what the market will accept or reject and their cost of doing business.