Farewell to Sager

Well I decided to return my 5680 under the umbrella policy. My main complaint was battery time. I tried everything for extending it, but nothing worked. Even running the screen at the lowest brightness had no effect. This was curious to me. Among other reasons were: slow support response time, an unresolved problem resuming from Stand By, bulkiness, and the fact that I would have to pay shipping for warranty work (coupled with the fact that I found getting in touch Sager was harder than with Dell). I didn't really find the Sager to have much higher performance in actuality than other notebook running the latest mobile technologies.

Unfortunately, I think it is highly doubtful that the screen on the Dell 5150 I've ordered will be as good as the exquisite screen on the 5680. Nor is it likely to run as cool on my lap as the 5680. So those are some positive marks for those considering Sager.

Definitely for those seeking the best economy on the highest performing notebooks the Sager seems to be a good bet. And for sure I will reconsider Sager each time I buy a new laptop, which is basically yearly.

If Sager or Clevo could slim down their notebooks a bit, (I could care less about weight), make better use power efficiency options and beef up their warranty, support and quality control I think they would shortly become as popular as Dell, IBM, Toshiba, etc.

Lastly, this forum is great. Everyone who is here is really cool. The atmosphere of "Sagerism" is really great. You don't find quite the excitement and loyalty on the Dell forum. And their forum is really restrictive where as here you can more freely express your opinions.

Well I've gotten my Dell in and have had it for a few days, so here is my report.

I am comparing a Sager 5680 2.8ghz(800fsb Hyper) 1gig ram, UXGA to a Dell 5150 3.0ghz(mobile P4 not-hyper) UXGA 1gig ram GeForce fx5200 64meg.

The most significant thing to notice is that the Sager UXGA screen is way better. It is brighter, sharper, clearer and the wide angle viewing is much better (vertically). I think this feature is undervalued in the 5680, I have viewed A LOT of notebooks recently. The Sager screen is awesome.

Conversely, and not so "noticable" is that the battery life on the 5150 is much better. I installed programs constantly on my 5150 for 3 hours while watching movies. So the harddrive, processor and cdrom were running constantly. This was on a single battery.

Next important factor is the video card. OK here was my only test, like with the Sager, I turned up all the settings on Unreal Tournament 2003, max resolution and detail. With the Sager, I had a slight lag, which I diminished all but completely by over clocking a bit. (I only did this for test, I would not run over-clocked as a rule). I ultimately had to run UT in 1400x1050 mode AND reduse some of the detail settings to get fully smooth operations. I'm not too happy about this, but it is acceptable.

Performance wise (other than 3d gaming), I'm sure benchmarks would show the Sager as faster, but in real world use, I don't think anyone would ever notice a difference.

The Dell was $600 cheaper, and I will never have to pay for shipping for warranty repairs.

The 5150 is a little less deep, so is a little more comfortable on my lap and will be easier to use on planes. (I won't be flying first class, or that wouldn't matter.)

Truthfully, to me the 5150 is uglier open, and the Sager is uglier closed. So, they tie there.

Keyboards are equal, both acceptable quality (IBM's have great keyboards)

The 5150 seems more sturdy, the case and the monitor mounting.

The 5150 has sharper text at all resolutions.

So my final opinion is that I have not found the ideal notebook. The Dell is a compromise, to some degree fueled by the fact that I have been satisfied with several previous Dell's and Dell's service and the fact that it was $700 cheaper. Possibility is that Dell will come out with a video card upgrade, it will likely be between $300 and $400. I've gotten a good enough deal on the Dell that I will be able to resell it soon, if the right notebook comes along without a significant loss.

I will certainly be considering Sager again, largely because of that screen. Battery life was the deal breaker for me, though I was also concerned with cost and time of warranty work. Another advantage for me is that Dell is just a few hours from me and the two times I've had warranty work needed, they send me the part, it arrives the next day, I do the replacement myself, and my down time so far has been in the neighbor hood of minutes.