Laptop Best Buy!
Written: Dec 05 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Value, Upgradeable, Ease of Use
Cons: Poor Multimedia,
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| jafre's Full Review: Sager NP3360 |
I was basically looking for a high-performance laptop for home and work use (I was traveling a lot) so that I would not notice any difference from the desktop I was using - a Dell Dimension, with a PII 400 and 128 MB of RAM. When I started shopping for Laptops, I looked at the usual brand names: Dell, HP, Compaq, and Toshiba. Then I ran across an ad for Sager, and when I went to their page, I was incredulous. They were offering laptops with similar specs to the Dell I was looking at (Inspiron 5000e) for nearly a thousand ($1000!) less. I ended up basically going top of the line across the board: with a PIII 800, 256 MB of RAM, 20 GB HD, 8x DVD ROM, Removable LS-120 Super Drive, 14.1 in Screen, and spent under $2400. Meanwhile, My roommate spent about $2000 on his Dell, with a PIII 650, 12 GB HD, normal floppy, and 128 of RAM.
If you are anything like me, in buying a laptop you are trying to find the right balance between performance and price, not skimping on features and not sacrificing service, to get the most for your money. I was a bit uneasy about Sager, considering that I had never heard of them -- but I have had my NP3360 for 4 months now, and I cannot say how happy I am that I decided to forgo a 'name brand'.
After looking for nearly 2 months, I decided that I would simply not be able to beat the "price for performance index" I was getting in the Sager. My only other reservation was about service. Dell likes to brag about its service, but I recently had a mishap with my Sager, where I had a short-circuit at my surge protector that killed the power-supply unit in my computer. I sent it into Sager that day, and they had it fixed in 2 days, and I got it back the next week (spent 6 days on the road being shipped cross country, as Sager is in CA) in perfect working order. Fantastic.
A couple caveats:
I received my Sager without an OS installed, and the software with windows and drivers on CD. It took about an hour to set this up, and for tech support was available for any questions I had.. but this may be viewed as a hassle for some and a daunting impossible task for those unfamiliar with computers. For me, the minor inconvenience of installing everything myself was worth saving $1000.
Second includes an issue that is less-sager specific and more a problem with all laptops - and that is in multimedia. The included speakers are horrible, (but even the best laptop speakers just barely manage to be below average) and the graphics and sound cards could be better. I have a ATI Rage LT Pro AGP 2x, and an ESS Maestro 2.0 Audio chipset- There was no option to upgrade these, as there are with some "build-as-you-go" vendors, like Dell. But, chances are, if you are looking at laptops, high-performance multimedia is not a priority, and the sound and video are certainly adequate.
So, if you are worried about your unfamiliarity with the Sager Name, like I was, don't be. They use quality components (my DVD drive is Toshiba, my HD is Maxtor..) and their service has passed my test with flying colors. Save some money, or get extra performance for the same price, and forget the name brands.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 2375
Operating System: Windows
Processor: Intel Pentium III
Processor speed: 701-800
Screen Size: 14"
RAM: 256
Internal Storage: DVD
Hard Drive (GB): 13-20
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Epinions.com ID:
jafre
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Member: Joshua Freeman
Location: Boston, Massachusetts
Reviews written: 2
Trusted by: 0 members
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