Killafornia's 5680 review!!

Welp, after many months and research on this forum I have finally purchased and received my very first sager! So in return for all your help and responses…with no further ado, I present to you my 5680 review . I will break it down in sections from the day I ordered it to final thoughts and screenshots.

1. Ordering

The day I found out the 5680 was released…i had placed my order right away and wired my money on the 20th of august…the following was what I ordered


40 Sager 5680-S Notebook: 5680-S 1 $2549.98
459 Display: UXGA Wide Angle View 15" LCD
682 Color: Standard Grey/Blue
855 Processor: 3.0GHZ P4 800 FSB w/Hyperthreading
558 Video: Radeon 9600 PRO 128MB DDR (M10-P)
849 RAM: 1024MB 400DDR Dual Channel (2-512MB)
842 Hard Drive: 60GB 7200RPM
854 Media Drive: 2X DVD-RW/CD-RW
372 #2 Bay Media Drive: No
372 #2 Bay Hard Drive: No
350 Modem: 56K V.90
853 Network Card: 10/100/1000 NIC
494 Operating System: No Operating System
702 Keyboard Layout: USA
353 Floppy Drive: 3.5" Floppy Drive
354 Battery: Primary Li-ION battery pack
355 Case: Basic Black business case
439 #2 Bay Dual Battery Setup: Li-ION battery for Bay 2
372 Spare Battery: No
372 Spare Power Cord: No
372 Port Replicator: No
372 Wireless Network: No
372 Bluetooth: No
754 External Sound Device: No
750 Software Bundle: No
291 Office Software: No
356 Warranty: 1 year warranty, lifetime tech support

Let me just tell you that the whole ordering process was a cinch….once I had placed my order, I had received a confirmation report on what I ordered, how much it was gonna cost and the options for shipping, needless to say I had chose the express because im in Canada and that I wanted this fugger ASAP!

Than came the waiting game…what to do , what to do. Well, let me tell you this, for the first week or two, I kept checking the forums to see if there were any updates on the shipping and/or the sager itself. Questions were also asked to Laura and let me reassure you all that she was real polite and very helpful! KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK!

Well after 4 weeks or so I finally received my tracking number!!!! Out of my whole experience through the order process , there was only 1 negative (however it was not pctorque’s fault). Because I ordered express shipping, I was suppose to be guaranteed next day shipping by 10:30AM right?, instead I received my package at about 5:20pm on 9/11/03….ah well , I was just happy to finally own my own sager!!!
Let me just say that the taxes from this, did alotta damage to my wallet!!! About $500+ in taxes was what I had to put on my visa when the UPS courier delivered my package.

2. First Impressions

The box was smaller than I had expected! The sager was packaged really well, it was double-boxed and as I opened it…there it was, my first laptop! I felt like an 8 year old kid opening up presents on Christmas day! The laptop was packaged very well as mentioned before which was held securely by 2 pieces of Styrofoam with the laptop inserted in a bubble-wrapped plastic bag and the screen protected by a plastic non-reusable cover.

I took out the sager and it was not as heavy as I had expected it to be, however it was BIGGER in physical appearance than what I had in mind. It’s design and built is sleek and strong as the hinges to open and close the screen take a bit of strength. Anyhow I loaded it up, hoping there would be no dead pixels and with a sigh of relief…..NO DEAD PIXELS!!! YES!!! I was a bit worried too as I had noticed some people on the forums had experienced 1 dead pixel on their lappy. However, I am fortunate and happy to have none. (For those who want to see pics of the box and whatnot follow this link to Karatekid3d’s review: http://sagerforums.com/showthread.ph...5&pagenumber=1


3. Setup and Installation

Ok, once I took this badboy out of the box, I was ready to set it up and turn it on. Considering I was so excited to get this thing up and goin I quickly pressed the ON button but nothing happened! I thought to myself UH OH!!!! WTF!@!$@! But I realized that you sorta have to hold onto the button for about ¾ of a second and than it will turn on…WHEW! (So let that be a note to any new sager/notebook users). From here on out, setting up windows and partitioning my hard drive was real easy. The following is the order In which I installed everything

-Windows XP
-Installed LAN drivers from the included cd
-SP1
-Patches and updates via windows update
-Installed rest of drivers included in the cd
-Finally all the goodies such as my games and apps

4. Screen and display

Let me tell ya that this UXGA screen is really amazing! I have NO DEAD pixels or any wiggling screens at non-native resolution whatsoever but as I went down in resolution (aside from 1600x1200 and 800x600), the font and icons looked kind of faded and blotchy looking…I noticed some have problems with the wiggling but once I installed the “BETA” drivers from the installation cd, it was non-existent, mind you I did have the wiggling before installing the drivers, but after that…it was completely fine and my screen continues to look beautiful. I tried out warcraft 3 and counterstrike at max settings and my god, my jaws dropped! Everything was smooth, colorful and bright. Keep in mind that im coming from a p2 400mhz so everything looks heavenly. (There is now a 5680 bios update that resolves this for those who haven't been informed)

5. Keyboard

I have never typed on a laptop before but comparing this to a standard QWERTY keyboard it is gonna take some time getting use to. Don’t get me wrong though, the keyboard on this thing is really sturdy and heavy duty! The only thing I don’t like about this keyboard is that it feels as if im typing on a flat surface, so sometimes my fingers either have to flatten more or travel further to reach the keys (Ill have to get use to laptop keyboards).

I also noticed that letters on the keys are stickers? I guess this is a good thing hoping that sager will offer replacements if they DO start to fade, which I doubt they will. Also…noted by a friend and member of the forum (mmarkin) is the 2 key-things on top of the arrow keys, when either of them are pressed down, the whole right side of the keyboard wiggles. This is just something REALLY minor that should not cause a problem for anyone but for those who care can maybe talk to sager to provide a solution for this. Personally I don’t care. On a brighter note let me just say that typing on this thing is heaven especially if you take in account the noise you DON’T produce! It doesn’t make loud tapping sounds like you notice on some keyboards, so if you wanna use this in lecture halls or the library…you wont have to worry bout anything except for maybe the fan. All in all, the keyboard is wonderful and will definitely take some time getting use to.

6. Battery Life

The first time I had run the laptop on the battery I got about 1 hour 5 minutes…..however after conditioning the battery I got about 1 hour 12 minutes. This was by just surfing on the internet and talking on instant messaging programs. I have yet to test it with dual battery, but once I do I'll post an update as to how it goes in response to watching dvd’s and playing games. Personally the battery life to me is not a big issue because I don’t plan on lugging my laptop around everywhere. However if I do, it will most likely be at Lan parties.

7. Sound

Well to no surprise at all, I didn’t expect booming sounds coming from the laptop cause it IS a laptop afterall. However much to my delight, it wasn’t as bad I expected it to be…comfortably I was able to watch a movie and listen to a few mp3’s at a fair distance. I do plan on getting headphones and speakers so im sure this baby will pump tons of decibles once I have them up and running.

8. Touchpad

Like the keyboard, this touchpad needed some time getting use to…after about 1-2 hours I was comfortably able to use it. The touchpad is definitely beneficial if you are on the road because its easy to get use to and convenient…however if you plan on gaming with it, don’t even think about it! Why? Well try it out for yourself and get back to me if you can prove me wrong. In the end it wasn’t for long till I bought a new mouse which in turn took over my touchpad experience. However, when i did install my mouse the trackpad was still enabled..which was quite annoying because it sometimes got in the way when i was typing. However i disabled it by going into control panel/mouse/device settings and disabling the synaptics touchpad.

to be continued....

9. Audio DJ

One of the many things I like about the Audio DJ is that it makes this laptop look slick. This feature is very useful if you plan on just listening to music while on the go. From what I hear, you can get 3+ hours on this thing with dual-battery so you can consider not only a laptop but a boom box I use this from time to time when I have friends over to pre-drink so it is quite convenient if you don’t want to turn on your computer.

Oh yea, on a technical note in order to turn your computer back on the AudioDJ must be turned off! I found this out as I wondered why my computer wouldn’t turn back on. Also I wasn’t sure if this Audio DJ would be able to play “burnt” cd’s and to my delight it certainly does!! No problems at all! Sure this might be a “toy feature” but I actually enjoy it, Cheers to sager.

10. Heat and Fan

Rest assured, this laptop as well as most other ones produce heat. The heat from this is not as bad as I had expected it to be. My room and palm do get a little warm but come winter, this laptop should be even MORE convenient! In regards to the fan, I hear no sign of it being used once I have booted, but 2 minutes after booting the fan will turn on, in a nice and quiet manner. However if anything intensive occurs such as gaming, this is where the fan kicks in, it is loud but not to a point where it will annoy me. The fan’s also adjust to your cpu activity so if you were gaming and than decided to do your homework , it goes from loud to quiet. Cool stuff...

more to come...

11. CD-RW/DVD-RW drive

I just had to get this added on to my 5680 because I have too much crap that needs to be recovered from the old computer. Even though I love this DVD burner, there is one flaw to it – I find that the drive is too flimsy once its opened. I worry sometimes when I place a cd/dvd in it hoping that it wont snap or crack. I’m pretty sure its sturdy but I get worried sometimes. Also, im not sure if it’s the hdd and/or dvd burner but when I insert a cd…I hear 2 or 3 clicks – is this normal? Anyhow on another topic…BURN TIMES – I have yet to burn a dvd but as for burning a cd it took about 7-8 minutes at max speed (16x write) which was quite impressive imo. In regards to burn times for a dvd…I will get to it and provide you guys with the info.


12. Benchmarks

(5680 – P4 3gig, 1024 ram, 60gig 7200rpm, M10-P 128mb, BETA Drivers from cd, DX 9.0b)

3DMark 2001 SE (Build 330) – 10346
3DMark 2003 (Build 330) – 2977
Pcpitstop.com – 1557

These are all the benchmarks i could provide as i dont have UT2k3, splinter cell or any other graphic intensive game to test flyby's and such, however these benchmarks should give an indication on how well the 5680's put up towards graphics.

13. Final thoughts

Welp, after being an owner of the 5680 for about a week, i am greatly pleased with it. I have not experienced any huge problems with the laptop and everything seems to be running flawlessly! For those considering getting a Sager i would highly suggest it as the quality is superb and the tech support from pctorque have been nothing but great. In the mean time i will update this review as my experience lingers on.....If there are any questions or anything else i didnt cover feel free to ask and ill do what i can to respond!

14. Screenshots and pics


Pic of the lappy closed, aint she a beaut


This screen has awesome viewing angles..gotta love it


Since no one took pics of their AUDIODJ in action, ill be the first to do so

Here's a pic of warcraft 3 in action with full max settings

Bunch of homo campers i see!

CS 1.6 @ max settings, here you can see the new shield

*UPDATE (Sept 25, 2003)*

Welp, after another week here's an update on my review. This time I will cover my experiences with the microphone, dual battery, external speakers/sound, DVD burn time, hyper threading and reboot time. If there is anything I haven’t covered and you would like me to look into, ask away and ill see what I can do!

First off, to answer the request of Jason Spaceman, here is a picture of the keyboard, as you can see, the letters on the keys sorta stick out so im assuming they are stickers unless someone can prove me wrong.


Microphone: I find that the mic on the 5680 is useless…it hardly picks up any sound and if it does it also picks up background noise. I tested it out using this in counterstrike with a buddy of mine and was told that it was very difficult for him to hear what I was saying unless I was about an inch from the mic. If you plan on using the mic for dictation or even gaming, I would highly suggest an external headset/mic. Just my 2 cents.

Dual Battery: Ok well I finally put the secondary battery fresh from the bubble package and I got roughly 2 hours 43 minutes. After cycling it the batteries both showed improvement and I this time I got 1:52. Fully charging both the batteries took about 4:55 to 5 hours while the lappy was off. (All this being done with the default settings and just surfing the internet, listening to music and talking on IM)

External speakers/sound: So I just recently bought a 2.1 altec lansing speakers and my god does it pump huge decibles! I can crank this up so loud that the whole street can hear it! However I’m now asking myself, should I of bought 5.1 speakers even though the 5680 is 2.1 compatible? I know that the 5680 is 5.1 for dvd playing but considering the 5680 is only 2.1 for gaming, will the 5.1 system automatically turn into a 2.1 (leaving the other 3 disabled) when I’m playing a game?

Dvd burn time: I burnt 4.7 gigs worth of files onto a blank TDK dvd-r using 2x write speed and it took 0:29:43 to write!! - I was surprised as I was expecting it to take about an hour or so to complete! The burn process was real easy as I used Nero ultra 6.

Reboot times: After about 2+ weeks with this 5680 I have installed a lot of games and apps. With that being said, rebooting the system takes 45 seconds from the point I restart it, to the point where windows has been loaded. Not to bad if you ask me.

Hyper Threading – This thing is full of wonders…while I was burning my dvd I was able to play counterstrike without a single hitch of lag. At the same time I also had winamp opened and it was STILL smooth as peanut butter. It’s amazing how fast this lappy can process things with HT because im sure like you guys, I love to multitask - I always have more than 2 or 3 windows/programs opened and with all this in place, the lappy always feels as if it just had a fresh format and new windows installation.

HT @ work

Additional pics...enjoy







More to come as time progresses....

heh strange...they were workin fine before...would anyone be willing to host pics or suggest another site other than villagephotos.com?

Edit: workin on gettin a host from adam

damn your lucky....but id assume you only get gst off anything that relates to your business? or is this everthing? (ie. food, clothes? lol)

Because i want to keep the usb ports opened for other stuff and considering there is a ps/2 port for a keyboard or mouse why not use it up?

If i did it would be real hard to see....ill see what i can do