Sager 3880 review is up - Page 5

*warning: newb post*

First thanks everyone for your comments and reviews. Adam, your review was especially helpful in making my choise to go with this model.

I ordered my custom 3880 on May 31st with the WUXGA, 2ghz, 2GB ram, 60gb/7200rpm, dvd+-rw, 802.11abg w/bluetooth, xp pro. Unfortunatly it's delayed until next Friday (the 10th) as the bluetooth module is out of stock. Anyways I just wanted to say I can't wait to get it in! It's like Christmas in June

I'll take some good pics of the screen and anything else if anyone wants pics/comments/whatever when it shows up.

Jeff

edit: I should have ordered from PCTorque, I could have saved $250. Oh well

I wish someone would post a review. I am decideing bewtween a fully loaded Sager 3880 for 1650 or a Dell 9300 with basic options but 6800 and ture-life screen. Man I can not make up my mind

ask urself if battery life/portability is a factor...if so 3880, if not 9300

Ok so I am trolling the lappy sites and went to sagernotebooks.com to see what their deal was. I went through their configurator and it gives you the ability to buy the 6 cell battery instead of the 12. Question...has it always been that way or is this a recent change and if so will this option show up on pctorque? I'll be rotating out my 5670 for the 3880 and of course will buy it from pctorque even if they don't offer the 6 cell but I was just curious.

Any info on WUXGA and WSXGA screens about the angle of viewing? I have the impression that I've seen somewhere that the WUXGA is worse than the WSXGA by this aspect. Unfortunatelly I am not shure and couldn't find again where was this info.

Whatever is the case, is WSXGA nice running at lower resolution?

I've just seen a Dell WUXGA screen and it's almost as sharp as an CRT monitor when it comes to resolutions lower than default . While my 1280x1024 17" BENQ desktop LCD is noticeably uglier running lower resolutions . This is relevant running games at these 2nd line VGAs .


* non english speaker gives thanks for the smilles invention

I Have The 3880 With The Wsxga 1680 X 1050 Display.
This Looks Great, At Any Angle The Pix Is Clear.
Some Say Wuxga Is Better For Graghics.

Any battery benchmarks with the 6 cell battery? Not expecting anything spectacular but if it's 2 to 3 hours of surfing that'd be good enough for me. I don't want the 12 cell but if the battery of the 6 cell can't get past the 2 hour mark then I'll stick with the 12. The 5670 I am on now is a juice hog and can only do about 55 minutes on a good day...then again that's what happens with dtr. Thanks in advance...

I've been considering getting the 7620 for graphic arts. I'd be using it for everything from PhotoShop to Studio Max and a generous amount of gaming and internet. Now the 3880 comes out. I'm concerned about how they perform compared to each other as well. Power is important for the graphics, but I'm still going to school, and the 7620 would be pretty hard to lug around to classes. Whats everyone here think?

Edit: Plus the 3880 has that beautiful screen....I fell in love with that screen

i may be in the market for a mobile laptop with decent specs that can play games and this one looks like it could be it. but, i have some questions and hope someone can answer them. i am trying to see if this laptop has some of the same annoyance that my 9860 has.

1] does the system turn on instantly when you press the power button, or do you have to press abd hold for a second or so?

2] does it get as hot as the 9860 in any particular spot? can you put it on your lap and work with it?

3] the 9860 exhibits a symptom where when you open the lid while the system is still running, the screen might not turn on, forcing you to close the lid and re-open it again. does the 3880 exhibit the same thing?

4] does the system boot up quick from hibernation or a cold boot? i have had experience with the dell i 9300 and that system boots up real quick even with the battery.

5] does the system beep if you place it on a surface (like on a bed) where it starts to overheat like the sager 7620?

6] can you run games under battery power or does the system severly under-clock the fsb like the 9860?

7] how long does the 12 cell battery last under light loads like surfing the net or video conferencing? for example; on an 8 hour flight to europe, i wish to video conference with people since planes have wireless internet on board and i would like to surf the net the entire time. based on what i read so far, i am looking to see if it can last 5 hours under power saving settings (like screen dimmed) and simply surfing the internet for that long plane ride.

8] is there an anolog volume control knob or even a digital one to control the volume? i hate to use the fn+keys because if the computer locks up you can't lower or mute the sound.

9] is there a fan control firmware like the 9860 where you can press fn+f2 to control the fans?

10] does the card reader support ms pro and sd?

i will post more questions if i think of any. thanks in advance!

You'll have to pry my 3880 from my cold, dead fingers. It is the best balance between portability, battery life, gaming ability, price, and cpu power on the market today.

To be frank, I'm not sure...so I'd assume its pretty immediate if I haven't noticed. You need to hold it to turn it off...don't think you need to hold it to turn it on though.

You can definitely use it on your lap. Left palmrest gets warm during gaming, not hot.

Nope

It boots very fast, one of my favorite "features". Takes about 30 seconds from a cold boot with all the stuff I've installed. I don't bother using Stanby anymore.

I don't think so but it might. I don't think I've ever overheated yet, but then I haven't overclocked my card either...

I haven't played games on battery as I always have an outlet near me when I game. I've read on the forums that it underclocks to about 1.3 Ghz though so you may want to check that out if its an issue. There may also be a solution...

My battery lasts barely over 4 hours with net, Word, adobe and screen not fully dimmed. If you truly optimize by dimming you may get some more battery but I doubt itd go to 5 hours....more like 4h30 to 4h45.

No, unfortunately you're stuck with fn-keys. It may be possible to change one of the buttons to program "mute" on it...that'd be awesome actually! I must look into...if someone knows, please post an answer..

Not sure. I use speedfan for the temp meter only, I never play with the fans...fn+f2 doesn't do anything as far as I can tell.

Dunno, it doesn't support the one in my Canon Powershot s50 camera..a CF card? Anyway, card's too big for the slot so I still use the USB wire...

So there you go! Feel free to ask about anything else, you can also check my 3880 review which is linked in my sig.

I'm researching the 3880 for someone who would use a somewhat lower resolution. I'm curious which would be better:

3880 - Native Resolution (1280x800) - running at 1280x800
or
3880 - Native Resolution (1920x1200) - running at 1280x800

I would much rather prefer getting the laptop with a higher resolution if needed later, but running it at a lower resolution when needed now. Does anybody know if there is a visual penalty (blurriness?) for not running at an LCD's native display if I went with the WUXGA instead of the WXGA?

Thanks!

Yes there degridation of clarity with running in lower than non-native resolution and it gets worse the lower you go.

I posted screenshots of the various resolutions in my review (the link is in my sig) if you want to compare on-screen real estate. There may be some loss of clarity but not much..I've just checked by lowering the res to 1280 x 800 and I'm still unsure if its bluriness or just the fact that everything's so big that annoys me.

Pharoke and pplepiew,

Thanks for your input. I did some research and it seems that because there's a slight chance of blurriness/fuzziness if non-native resolutions are used, I decided to play it safe and just go with the 1280x800.

I see that only a half (960x600) resolution of 1920x1200 would be able to get away with an accurate reduced screen resolution. 1280x800 would be between 66% and 67% of the native resolution which might do weird visual innaccuracies and things with fonts and such.

Thanks!

just curious...why would you use the non native resolution anyway? I never do...

The main thing I was after was being able to run the resolution at 1280x800 because the person who will end up using it mainly uses standard Windows apps and doesn't play games or do graphics, but will be doing a lot of text reading and writing on it. Since I don't want to run in a non-native resolution if it causes any blurriness/fuzziness and increasing the font size on a 1920x1200 so that it compares with an 1280x800 isn't a perfect solution I decided to play it safe and go with something I know they wouldn't have any problems with versus getting a higher resolution that may not work for them. I often will look at mainstream laptops (HP, Toshiba, etc) to see what they offer and they almost always had 15.4" paired with 1280x800 which is assumed to be the most popular. Here's one article I read that summed up the needs of the average user pretty well and did a good job explaining things:

http://news.designtechnica.com/print..._article6.html

I have 3880 with 1920 by 1200, but my desktop is set to 1280.800. The reason why is, font increase doesn't solve everything and I really would like to save my eyes - vision is already bad as it is. At lower resolution it should be slightly more responsive, however didnt' test it all the way. Whoever plays at 1920.1200 is plainly is just an amauteur, serious gaming requires high frames if you want to be competitive (of course if you play online). I got 1920.1200 b/c it is a higher quality screen compared to 1280.800 and it was only 50$ more at the time. Maybe one day i will find a use for it, however as it stands right now, I don't use anything above 1600.1000 - thinking about eye health ahead.

I haven't notice any difference between running it at native or non-native resolution, not very significant. Of course when you go down in resolution you see a major difference in quality. But 1920.1200 vs 1600.1000 doesn't look much different to me.

I have crap vision but that's what my glasses are for...I use a LOT of text and never lower the resolution. I usually have a document open on the left and another open on the right of my screen. Font size is small on screen but no smaller than any book you're likely to read. At a normal distance from the laptop I have no problems at all..

Anyway, different strokes for different folks I guess...

Oh, and I play CS:S at 1920 x 1200 and still manage to kick ass...

Hi, this is my first message, and I also have the same laptop, but this is manufatured by Clevo. I think that is a great laptop, which you can do anithyng job and also play to the latest games.

I post here a picture of it: