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hand471037
2003-12-29, 07:59 PM
Anyone heard anything about them? They seem to offer a lot of bang for the buck, and the (limited) things I've heard about thier service department are rather positive. Love to hear if someone is using one for Revit, and what they think about it.

Gonna buy a laptop in the next month. 8)

(really excited)

J-G
2003-12-29, 08:47 PM
I bought this one last year:

> >[1] Sager NP5620 Custom ($1,905.00)
> >----------
> >15" UXGA (1600 x 1200) Active Matrix Display [$90.00]
> >Intel Pentium 4 - 2.0 GHz Processor w/ 512k L2 On-die Cache
> >[$80.00] ATI MOBILITYT RADEONT 7500 w/ 64 MB DDR Video Memory
> >20 GB Hard Drive 512 MB DDR SDRAM -1 DIMM (PC 266) [$195.00]
> >Internal 1.44 Floppy Drive Internal 8x4x24 CD-RW w/Adaptec EZ
> >CD Creator Software [$110.00] Internal 56k Modem Internal
> >10/100 Ethernet Smart Lithium Ion Battery Included Free
> >Toshiba PCMCIA 2.0 GH Hard Drive (Offer ends June 30) Ac
> >Adapter w/ power cord Free Carry Case No Operating System
> >Installed, drivers included on CD-ROM Factory 1-yr parts &
> >labor warranty w/ lifetime techincal support
> >

I am generally happy with it. I later upgraded the ram so now I have 1 gig. I wish I would have gone for one with a DVD player becasue I ended up buying an external one for backing up. I have had no problems with it. Last year I took it to Europe and set up a little make shift office in my apartment room - worked great.

hand471037
2003-12-29, 09:15 PM
Great! Thanks.

Have you ever dealt with thier customer service?

Here's the one I'm thinking of buying:

Sager 5680, UXGA screen, P4, ATI 9600, 1 gig ram, DVD combo drive. 2 year service plan. Comes out to $2350. It would be close to the same price as yours, if I didn't have the service plan & extra Ram. Cool.

J-G
2003-12-29, 10:59 PM
I never worked with their customer service, but thats a good thing ;-). I haven't had any problems.

ArchMiro
2003-12-31, 06:01 PM
Stay away from Sager.
Our company used them for the AE's and we were constantly running into problems with them.
And our dealings with customer service on their end were not happy.

Sorry to be a negative voice but we hated Sager.

hand471037
2003-12-31, 06:51 PM
What specific problems did you have, and what would you recommend instead?

Thanks

ArchMiro
2004-01-02, 08:53 PM
Well, several problems occurred:
1. Processors overheated. Though we were MORE than adequately venting the spaces where they sat (fans running, etc) the processors continued to overheat, causing slowdown and shutdown, random reboots and FBSOD's (fatal bluescreens of death).

2. Support, when we called in the problem, was very unsupportive and uncooperative.

3. Wrong type of memory was put in the machine. When we returned it, we were charged additional costs and a return fee.

Those are the worst offenders. There were other ones. As for what I would recommend, I think that Dell is a good buy. Or if cost vs. value is an issue, I would recommend looking at pcmall.com. They generally have good deals on refurbished powerhouse laptops. I bought mine there and am quite happy with it.

Hope this helps.

J-G
2004-01-02, 09:14 PM
Try http://www.discountlaptops.com they offer a "generic" version of all of the sager models. It has the same body/specs etc, but if I remember it was a bit cheaper as well. I haven't had any problems at all. It is strange that it overheated because the body they use is elevated in the back so that you get better air flow then you would with most lap tops (my friend thought I had it propped up or something). The guy is out of Arizona or Nevada, and since the machines come from Calif he ships it to himself and then to you, so you don't have to pay sales tax. There are always limits, but speaking solely from my experience I haven't had any problems, and I use it all the time everywhere.

Discount laptops isn't "sager" so customer service is a different issue. When I had it shipped he called me personally to verify the shipping address and when I needed more memory he responded to my email so I knew I was buy the right upgrade.

hand471037
2004-01-02, 11:10 PM
Thanks for the tips. I'll have to do some more research. Reading on the Sager support and other forums I didn't see anyone having these kinds of problems with the model I'm looking at, the 5680. Is that the one you were using? something of the same 'line'?

As for Dell, it looks like a good laptop, but they don't have as good as a display card, are more expensive, and, being a geek, I hate all the extra stuff they come with software-wise, and would much rather just have a 'real' Windows XP disk than a 'recovery disk' of some kind. Also I've hard a heck of a time finding something that shows comparitive benchmarks between a desktop P4, the P4-M, and the 'Centrino' stuff. Hense why I'm leaning toward the Sager, for I *know* how Revit & Radiance perform on a desktop P4. :)

ArchMiro
2004-01-05, 07:05 PM
Well, I don't know about the centrino processors either. I've never used a laptop with one of those in them. I usually opt for the less expensive but guaranteed good 'ole desktop processors in the laptops. I honestly cannot see spending more money for a "mobile" processor when I use all of the processing power I can as often as possible. Also, I've been able to get decent video cards (128MB) in the laptops that I've ordered. It may not be the best but I do know they (Dell) have fantastic customer support.

Personally, I prefer the Athalon XP processor line. I've had no problems whatsoever running Revit on one of those machines (or the Xeon processors either, for that matter but xeon, as far as I know, doesn't come in a laptop). I do know that PCMall has Athalons with good video cards.

I, too, am a geek. As such, I have purchased a version of Windows XP with multiple seats (since I have so many darn computers) so whenever I get a new laptop, I just format the thing and put my own software on. Since I have a "core few" programs I use, I just do a ghost image onto the hard drives. It comes in quite handy, actually.

As for the line of the Sager laptop, I honestly don't remember what model it was. I've since left that job, so I don't use it anymore.

Good luck finding a laptop!

hand471037
2004-01-05, 07:22 PM
Yeah, I love the Athlons as well. My home computer is a dual-Athlon MP. Other than some heat issues, and the fact that it sounds like a frickin' jet plane due to the numerous fans, it's been a great computer. :)

The Centrino thing is interesting for three reasons- one, is that it's more AMD-like in that the've made it faster by making the chip be able to do more rather than Intel's old ways of just cranking up the clock speed (so a 1.5 Ghz Centrino is roughly equvelant to a 2.4 Desktop P4) and two is the fact that they have 1 gig in on-chip Ram, which actually can make it faster for certain tasks than the Intel Desktop processors. Third is that 'Centrino' also includes a specific chipset & built-in Wifi, all made for low-voltage use to get more battery life. Seems like a good deal to go. I've also read that some people think that the Desktop processor laptop might not live as long as the moble, just due to the high heat that they tend to have in a laptop configuration. And, as you say, you had problems with bluescreens due to that (and even with my Desktop at home I had major heat headaches crashing Linux until I upgraded my processor fans to something bigger). So while I've never heard any hard evidence, it does make sense that having a lower-heat processor, even if it's a touch slower, in a laptop might make for more stable computing...

I've got my own copy of Windows 2000, but it's OEM and when I sell my dual-Athlon (anyone interested?) after I get the laptop it will go with it. I'll probably wipe the laptop when I first get it so I can set it up to dual-boot anyways, for I use Linux for running Radiance.

GuyR
2004-01-05, 08:08 PM
Also I've hard a heck of a time finding something that shows comparitive benchmarks between a desktop P4, the P4-M, and the 'Centrino' stuff.

Had the same problem Jeffrey, the best I found at the time was the Intel site. It's not independent but allows you to compare centrino and P4-M etc:

http://www.intel.com/products/roadmap/index.htm?iid=ipp_dlc_procp4phtxe+prod_roadmap&

click on the "Intel processor performance benchmarks" to the right and you should get a popup with tabbed panels and sysmark charts.

Guy

hand471037
2004-01-05, 08:21 PM
Actually, the closest I was able to find was something on Tom's Hardware where a Centrino 1.5 from Dell beats out a Toshiba 2.2 P4 (thier top-of-the-line use the desktop processors) on certain benchmarks. I think this is mostly due to the 1 gig cache that the Centrino has, which would make it run certain tasks faster than a P4. So it seems, while confusing, the Centrino processors are fast enough to do real work. But I still want to try one, for real, before I buy.

Other than that all the things I'm able to find are P4 moble to Centrino. I really wish Tom's Hardware would include laptop processors in thier 'processor round-up' chart where they show benchmarks from a old 486 up to a overclocked P4.

PeterJ
2004-01-05, 09:24 PM
Jeffrey

If you can get hold of Partition Magic you can repartition for your Linux dual boot at any time. The beauty of this is that if you end up with a need for more space for one or the other you can adjust the partitions.

Its not quite live but all it takes is a reboot and a few minutes patience.

hand471037
2004-01-05, 10:13 PM
Actually, if you don't have a complex Windows install (like having sepirate partitions for Booting and Windows) then Mandrake's built-in partition resizer tool works fine. I've used it three times, and every time 'cept one (where I had the aforementioned set-up) it's gone fine. Added bonus of this is that then you can use the Lilo or Grub boot-loader, and not Parition Magic's bootloader, making things a little simpler in the future if you make changes. However there is a chance of it screwing up, and you losing everything. :evil:

What I'm more concered with is all those 'added features' that are typically included in a vendor-specific OEM Windows install, 90% of which I don't want. :)

GuyR
2004-01-06, 12:46 AM
From the Intel site:

Centrino (Pentium M)
"
New micro architecture including power optimized 400 MHz processor system bus, Micro-Ops Fusion and Dedicated Stack Manager for faster execution of instructions at lower power. And advanced instruction prediction to reduce re-dos for increased performance.
Support for Enhanced Intel SpeedStepĀ® technology w/ multiple voltage & frequency operating points, enabling a better match of performance to application demand
Support for IntelĀ® Mobile Voltage Positioning, which dynamically lowers voltage based on processor activity to lower thermal design power enabling smaller notebooks.
1MB power managed L2 cache increasing system performance

From their Mobilemark figures - using the 1.7GHz centrino as the benchmark:

1.7GHz ,195,
2.6GHz P4-M ,179, 9% slower,
3.06 GHz P4-M,216, 10% faster
2.4GHz P4-M ,197, as fast

Seems strange the 2.6 is slower than the 2.4, must be system differences?

With 3.2 P4-M HT available and the ATi 9600 Pro mobile card available it's a hard decision to make.With regard to extra applications with Dell, I didn't find it too bad, removed 2 applications. And the rescue disc is the full XP OS as far as I can tell, and certainly behaved like the real thing when I needed it:-)

Guy

hand471037
2004-01-06, 01:45 AM
Yeah, do I go for something fast, or do I go for an interface I know I like a lot. And will that interface make me more productive, even though the computer isn't as fast?

Hard questions indeedy. I'm down to either a fast Sager/Toshiba or the Centrino Tablet.

It's funny tho, that after all these years, Intel is finally having to change thier tune about clock speeds being the main number by which to measure the performance of a processor. These 'Centrino' chips have high FLOPs and MIPS ratings, but lower clocks... Kinda like the AMD's and Macs! :twisted:

GuyR
2004-01-07, 12:00 AM
Just to put a cat amongst the pigeons :-) . If you can wait....

From extremetech:

Advanced Micro Devices shipped is first Athlon 64 microprocessor specifically designed for notebooks on Tuesday, along with a faster 3400+ chip designed for desktop PCs.

The new mobile Athlon 64 chips are designed for more mainstream laptops, and eMachines Inc. will design a notebook around the new chip, to be available later this month.

"Sales of our AMD Athlon 64 processor-based desktop products are already exceeding our expectations and we expect similar results for our M6000 Series notebook launching in January," said Ed Fisher, senior vice president, global sales operations for eMachines, in a statement.

High-performance system builders Alienware and Voodoo have both announced plans to release notebook systems based on the AMD Athlon 64 processor 3400+ for desktop-replacement notebooks in the first quarter of 2004

Guy

hand471037
2004-01-07, 12:14 AM
two things: can't wait, gotta get the system by the end of the month or so.

And second, as much as I love AMD, and as much as the Geek in me loves the thought of using a 64bit processor, nothing I use now really makes good use of it. Linux's 64bit support isn't anything to jump around about, from what I understand, and Windows won't have anything ready for more than a year, and might even make it broken for AMD so that Intel can get it's foot back in the door in regards to 64bit computin...

That's why I make such noise about the G5. It's the *only* consumer-grade 64 bit system available right now that fully supported at the OS level, if not the application level just yet. It's gonna be a long time before the Windows camp catches up to that. And, by that time, there will be versions of Mac-only software made to make full use of the 64-bit processor and gobs of Ram.... at least Discrete is going to take advantage of this, even if AutoDesk Revit isn't. :)

As I see it, the only real possiblities for 64 bit computing are the G5, with Sun, SGI, and Alpha-based systems far above that and out of reach from mear mortals like you and I... :)

GuyR
2004-01-07, 02:20 AM
Some real world application Centrino/P4 comparisions

http://www.digitalvideoediting.com/2003/09_sep/reviews/cw_dellm60.htm

Hope the G5 really is that much better,because the G4 doesn't seem to be:

http://www.digitalvideoediting.com/2002/11_nov/reviews/cw_macvspciii.htm

Hopefully they'll do a part iv with the 3.2P4HT and the G5

Guy

hand471037
2004-01-07, 02:54 AM
From my limited understanding, and from using both my Wife's G4 800 & a friend's G5, there is a *huge* difference between the G4 and G5. Remember that the G4 is rather old, as processors go. However, seems like the Mac processors are 'shallow but wide' whereas the Intel/AMD ones are 'narrow but deep'. The new G5's are both wide & deep, but still probably not as fast as the top-end Intels in raw benchmarks. But raw clock speed isn't what matters as much anymore, as you can see with this whole Centrino thing...

A real-world example of what I mean is that my home dual-Athlon by benchmark is much faster than my Wife's G4; however guess which one can play music, have several large applications open, and be burning a CD at the same time without a skip, and which one has to stop playing Mp3's until something stops hogging the system? ;)

(But then again guess which one finishes Renders faster... :) )

GuyR
2004-01-07, 04:25 AM
however guess which one can play music, have several large applications open, and be burning a CD at the same time without a skip, and which one has to stop playing Mp3's until something stops hogging the system

This has little to do with the processor and is mainly the OS. Unfortunately NT/2000/XP's multitasking isn't the same as *nix systems such as OSX (BSD). You would probably find linux/OSX behave similarly. Remember OSX is really 2 different systems. BSD(Darwin) and the Apple candy on top.

Guy

lennartik
2004-01-09, 09:45 PM
I have the Sager np5620, 2.4 ghz w/ gig of memory. I've had it since June 02' and used it at work and home since then 8-12h a day. I have not had any problems with it exept a broken transformer. So I highly recomend it.

I just found this:

http://www.voodoopc.com/systems/m855.aspx

The first 64ibit lapop!
very interesting!