Karatekid3d's Sager 5680 Review. . .Lots of pictures

Karatekid3d's Sager 5680 Review!

First off Adam and everyone at PC Torque was great about every aspect of my order. All my e-mails were answered VERY promptly. I'm sorry in advance to anyone I'm copying off of in this review, just think of yourself as my role model . I'll try to be as detailed as I can and run some basic benchmarks but I'm sure I'll forget a lot of stuff, so feel free to ask me to try out or take pictures of anything I left out. Keep in mind to that I'm trying to deal with high-school and college courses at a local community college, so I'll try my best with any demands or whatever, but just be patient. For those of you who didn't know already from my spamming on the forums I was the FIRST order Sager received from any reseller, which if my math is right makes me the first person to order a 5680 in to world...great for bragging rights .

Anyway with no further ado here's the specs of my system.

Sager 5680-S Notebook: 5680-S Base price $2,560

-Display: UXGA Wide Angle View 15" LCD
-Color: Standard Grey/Blue
-Processor: 3.0GHZ P4 800 FSB w/ Hyperthreading
-Video: Radeon 9600 PRO 128MB DDR (M10-P)
-RAM: 1024MB 400DDR Dual Channel (2-512MB)
-Hard Drive: 80GB 4200RPM
-Media Drive: 8X DVD/24X10X24 CDRW Combo Drive
-Modem: 56K V.90
-Network Card: 10/100/1000 NIC
-No Operating System
-Keyboard Layout: USA
-Floppy Drive: 3.5" Floppy Drive
-Battery: Primary Li-ION battery pack
-Case: Basic Black business case
-#2 Bay Dual Battery Setup: Li-ION battery for Bay 2
-Spare Power Cord: Extra AC Power cord
-Wireless Network: Integrated Wireless
-Software Bundle: Business Suite AND PC Works Deluxe
-Warranty: 1 year warranty, lifetime tech support
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subtotal
$2560.00
UPS 2nd Day Air
$60.00
Total
$2620.00


I got my system at about 1:30PM on 9/11/03. The package weighed exactly 20Lbs and was in very good shape. Here is a picture of the box as I received it, before opening. Oh and for this and all pictures, ignore the weird crap my mom has in the background, I have no control over it.



Here is another picture of after I opened the first box. You can see that there is a second box inside to protect it further, which is always a good thing.



And here's how everything's packed. Sorry I probably should have taken it at a steeper angle but you get the idea. You can see the standard carrying case which offers limited protection (I would recommend getting a laptop backpack, I personally have the Jansport Lapstation and love it). In the middle is my 5680 very well protected. And finally a box containing the power supply, Users guide, Drivers CD, Nero CD, and all that fun stuff.



Here's a picture I took really quick of everything that comes with it, the only thing not pictured is the extra power supply I ordered.



Here you can see that the LCD has a protective layer of plastic on it, which again never hurts.



And here's a shot of the LCD with the Cover removed.



Yet another one from when I first began installing XP. I did a full format in NTFS and it is SLOW. . .took my roughly and hour to format the drive, but the rest of the process is going pretty fast. Keep in mind however I am comparing that to the 2GB HDD in my old laptop and the 7200RPM drives in my desktop, so I guess it's really not that bad. Sorry the picture came out kind of blurry.



Here's a picture of the 5680 in my Jansport Lapstation backpack. With all my books and everything else in it this backpack was pretty damn heavy to carry in hand, but seemed surprisingly light on my back.



Here are some shots of the screen while running X-Men the movie. One VERY IMPORTANT NOTE here is that these pictures do not even begin to do the screen justice. This screen is absolutely amazing. One thing that surprised me was the my dad (who knows NOTHING about computers) was walking by the screen suddenly stops, and goes "What the hell, all the guys at work. . .you can't see their laptop when your walking past them. This one I can see fine even standing here! That thing is beautiful, it's clearer then any TV i've ever seen, WOW." My only problem is that I have one dead pixel in the top left. I named my pixel hulk because sometimes he's normal and you don't know he's there, other times he's green and angry. It's really not that big of a problem though since it's VERY small and not near the center.


Notice Hulk in the upper left?he looks bigger then he is.



Well that's all the pictures for now. I'll post more as I think of what else to take them of, or upon request when I get time.

My Final Feelings about the 5680.

Overall this is without a doubt money well spent. I'll try to go into specifics about what I do and don?t like so here goes.

Screen:
AMAZING, like I said I'm not too fond of my stuck pixel but once I stop staring at it I'm sure I'll barley know it's there. Viewing angles are also amazing. . .there is absolutely NO reason anyone out there should pass up this screen. Text isn't too small IMO. Keep in mind that I've ALWAYS run 1024x768 on my desktop and was always very pleased with that, after using this thing for less then a day I went on my desktop and the first thought that went through my head upon turning my desktop on was, "WTF IS THIS, WHAT THE HELL'S WRONG WITH MY MONIT. . .ohhhh, ha..." Oh and i would recomend downloading the latest video drivers from Sager's site or, like me, going with the Omega drivers.

Keyboard:
Very nice keyboard, it has a little bit of play in the middle and right but not nearly enough to get on my nerves. The placement of the FN key doesn't even bother me too much, but I guess if it does I'll just install the firmware Adam provided to switch the two, thanks again for that Adam.

Games:
I was absolutely blown away at how well games run. I ran SOF II: Double Helix at max everything and 1600x1200 and it never skipped a beat. I also ran 3dMark 2003 after installing A LOT of games and different applications but I forgot to write down my score . I?m pretty sure the score was around 2850 or so, I'll edit this post and change it as I re test.

Battery Life:
I ran X-Men the DVD on full screen and had exactly an hour of playback on dual batteries before it reached 52%. I would have run it until it shutdown but I had to go to work, sorry. I don't care THAT much about battery life, and I personally don't think it's too bad.

Sound:
From everything I had read I was ready for a disappointment in this area. However this was not at all the case. Granted they don't get super low base notes but overall I thought the sound quality was pretty damn good for a laptop.

Touchpad, Audio DJ:
Not much to say about these, they do what they're supposed to. Audio DJ's great for if you shut the system down and left a CD in the drive.

Overall:
Overall this appears to be VERY well constructed. Even I was surprised at the design quality and how sturdy everything felt. The fans seem pretty quite, most time I can't even hear them over the other noise in the room unless I really listen to them. Heat isn't as bad as I thought either, but when playing games it does throw out quite a bit of heat, not enough to worry me, but just enough to let me know the cooling system doing its job. Oh and on a side note it appears that some driver for the USB 2.0 can't be installed untill you upgrade to a the most recent service pack, i guess because they contain the support for 2.0'
For now that?s really all I can think about saying. Let me know if you have requests or anything like that. Also I'm sorry to the dialup people, I know I went a little overboard with the pictures. Oh and let me know if any of them don't work, hopefully they do.

-Enjoy

Wow that was quick, lol.

Yeah the stuck pixel's kinda a bummer, but it's really not too bad for me. Out's outta the way and VERY small.

I'll do a side view sometime tommorow, my room's kind of messy so i don't have a free flat surface to put it on. Right now it's on a laptop desk that raises the height a little bit. Overall i'd say it's A LOT sleeker looking then you'd think from the pictures, and not really as big as i expected.