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The 3.5 casing - sure. It does say that it comes with other variant as well.

cheers ...

approved

I have a 8662 as well, with specs almost identical to thread starters. Whilst I agree that this is a great laptop - no laptop is perfect and this one is no exception. The mousepad on this particular laptop is...well...atroucious. You almost have to hit the mouse buttons with a sledge hammer to get a click out of this thing. I'm talking extreme resestance here people. If you buy this, make sure to have a wireless mouse ready to use instead. You'll thank me later.

And one other thing - i'm getting max of about an hour worth of usage with this laptop just surfing the web. So yeah, don't take this laptop outdoors much, at least, not without a very long extension cord I spose its to be expected since it is a gaming laptop with high end specs chosen but still!

Now I know what i've said is all very negative so before the flamers pounce please note - i'm sure other people want both sides of the coin and my issues with this laptop are not subjective.

hints to extend battery life:
a) turn off the pretty vista stuff to reduce gpu use.
b) turn down screen brightness to the minimum you can accept. The screen can cut battery by up to 40%
c) dont use the battery in high performance mode
d) the mousepad is horrid... I'm getting a mouse.

The reason we hold the laptop so high is because for a 15" laptop it's simply devastating in terms of performance. Those of us who have one went into it knowing what it was going to have as shortcomings (battery life and the mouse) and chose to overlook it in favor of the good things it offered. I'm not going to start a flame, or give a reprimand for a dissenting opinion. In fact, I'm going to rep you for being honest and bringing up something nobody else did. Good Job and thanks for pointing out something we all missed

Jason

Hey, thanks for the props . It refreshing to see someone use reason in their discussion rather than emotion. You are right of course, the performance of this laptop is hard to rival. I've actually dumped vista in favour of win7/linux combo and no sooner have i turned the thing - its already booted to login. However unfortunatly for me, I bought this laptop blind. Yeah sure I did extensive comparison/research online, but I never had an opportunity to actually physically try it out. Hence the mouse issue.

On the topic of battery life, i'm actually gonna email sager and see if i can get a more powerful battery. Although I don't have high hopes because of the shape of it. A greater cell battery usually means a larger battery which would off-balance the laptop due to the batteries shape.

Side note: If you do buy from sager, their delivery times are ridiculously fast. I waited all of 3 days before mine came, and I don't live anywhere near the U.S.

I agree with the off-balance having a larger battery

My Gateway 7811FX back sticks out like a sore thumb.

cheers ...

I do not like batteries that protrude either. But they sometimes elevate improving airflow. XPS 1330m and 1530m come to mind. Just the silver lining behind the storm cloud. But I would bet about 100% you cannot get an extended. You see when you buy a second battery is the only option.

On track pad button being stiff? Oh do I know what that is like. Different model but my synaptics touch pad is crazy hard. I have worn the paint away and working on a hole less than a year on my sig rig.

This is designed for performance and that is not a track pad issue. Weight, battery life are unavoidable.

A good observation here, pp.

cheers ...

what i do to keep good battery life is when i'm using the mains, or ac power, i tend to keep the battery OUT of the computer... heat is a battery's enemy. The other thing to do is get a 2nd battery, sager doesn't make a "extra life battery", so if you really need lots of battery time, get a 2nd battery and keep that one at the ready.

Jason

PS: no problem, i welcome debate so long as it's justified.

No debate you sound like you do all well. That said let me say more, and this is not to address what you do but it might overlap.

As Jason said heat is the enemy. He is correct. Also if storing say long term OK a couple of months consider 40% to 50% charge. That also matters.

Edit: I also do not want to be NBR's joke. Consider you give them power by your response? I had more reps from members than Chaz the big man. I did not worry about this stuff. I was #1 and I said f you? Do not tell me about jokes? Only one who makes one a joke is ones self! Don't work on Saturday? cool with me but back the f' off on the rest of us who don't work on Monday? Oh yea you are more special? I thought so? Only people who make us a joke are people like you.

NBR pays people to write! Hello rocketman?

Very true about NBR paying peoples to write review; and this has shown that NBF (with the current Admins team) is attracting more and more serious peoples to come and contribute/share great reviews.

We all have differences in opinions here, and we keep discussions healthy and factual.

Peace, good peoples.

cheers ...

Powerpack, I'm thoroughly confused. I don't bash people for working on saturday at all. The whole "I don't mod on shabbat" was an inside joke between myself and yoob, as at the time I was the only mod who was jewish on NBF. I have quite a bit of rep myself on that forum (NBR), and I'm not sure if you're trying to bash me, or if you're trying to help me. I like to take my responsibilities of moderating with some seriousness, and I don't want to degenerate my thread into some sort of war. If there is something you'd like me to clarify, PM me to keep this thread civil.

Let's also stay somewhat on topic too, we'ver really moved away from the point of the review, and while the diversions are nice, do we need 37 different topics in here? k? (This applies to all)

Jason

PS: big news, SSD on its way... new benches to be posted!

Actually, when I mentioned the off-balance due to the battery shape, i wasn't refering to just the laptop being tilted up at the back thus improving airflow - which I wouldn't mind in the slightest. Its the fact that because the battery is only located in the back left corner - increasing its size would actually tilt the laptop down and towards the right.

I don't know about you, but i'm not gonna use a laptop like i'm sitting on a hill .

Who says I'm sitting on a hill? The Sager likes a flat, hard surface, and that's what it has. One thing though, is that removing the battery preserves the battery, and when I'm using the plug, I don't want either of my 2 batteries to receive undue stress / heat. The "tilt up" feature is mainly found in laptops that are mainstream yet do not have sufficient cooling on their own to keep such a profile, as well as for laptops that will find themselves isolated from an AC/DC supply for extending periods of time. The NP8662, if set up with a profile for economic usage, will last a little over 3 hours on battery, and its cooling setup is nothing short of amazing. Even with a P9700 @ 2.8GHz, a GTX 260m with 1GB GDDR3 (it's almost a desktop 9800 GT speedwise), and a 500GB 7200rpm HDD, the fan blows cool air when doing day-to-day tasks, and very little dust enters the system.

Status update: The x25-m is in the pipeline, and the addition of its first USB-based peripheral, a Microsoft Habu. It's a strange hybrid of an intellimouse and a mid-level Razer. It happens to work VERY nicely with the np8662. As for the x25-m... WHEN WILL IT GET TO NEWEGG?!

New Benchmark (win7) done with New SSD (INtel X25-m G2 160GB). Score: 6.4 overall.

See attachment for scores.