Decision to be made- M90 or Sager 5760?

Well, I've been reading around these forums for a few months now trying to read up on what should be the laptop to replace my old PIII desktop and I narrowed it down to the Dell M90 and the new Sager 5760.

I want a 17 inch display, 2 gig of ram, a decent sized hd and merom upgradability and I was pretty sure that I was going to pick up the Dell from the for sale forums, mainly due to the 512 mb gpu that was unavailable in the sager.
After doing some more digging, it looks like the sager will also have the higher spec card in the near future and so now I'm back to my choice again.

The Dell looks really well built but I have my concerns about the screen quality and I think that the WUXGA resolution might be too high for me as I use 1024x768 at the moment.

The sager has the option of a WSXGA+ dislay and a full keyboard and I can get it for the same price as the Dell.

This is the Dell forum so I'd be interested to hear any reasons that you think are valid for choosing the M90 over the Sager.

 

The M90 has a Quadro video card. This card performs better in OpenGL apps than DirectX. You want a model with a GeForce card. The Quadro is still a good card, but it's not as good a gamer as its GeForce twin.

I had a Sager 5720 and really just didn't like it. My XPS M170 had a better feel to it. The full keyboard is nice but I didn't find myself using the num keys very often. Dell seems to be real good about fixing problems. I have seen numerous cases where people had problems and Dell replaced the unit or bumped them up to a better one.

 

Great answer I agree 100%

 

I'm sick of everyone throwing around the whole "Quadro cant do games" thing. The best Quadro that comes with the M90 performs nearly the same as a 7900GTX.

 

Here you go; http://www.notebookforums.com/forums/thread151672.html

 

Who said it can't? I said it doesn't game as well as its GeForce twin.... and it doesn't.

 

I'm gonna have to disagree with that one. The Quadro FX 2500M is a beast of a card, quite the same as a 7900 GTX. Currently, I have an M90 on the way from Dell with the Quadro FX 1500M, which outperforms the 7900GS with the same amount of RAM. And I'm pretty sure that an M90 with the FX 2500M got over 10,000 in 3dmark05 before an XPS M1710 over on notebookforums.com. Here's the link

XPSvsM90

So to answer your question, the M90 will perform great. In a world where an x1600 with 2-3 times less power than the M90 can play F.E.A.R. nearly flawlessly, you will be fine. Go for the M90. It also has a WXGA+ screen (1440x900) if you don't like the WUXGA.

 

Thanks for the feedback.
From what I've been reading, despite the claims of many people that the FX 2500 isn't as good for gaming, it is actually identical.

My main concern with buying a Dell is the quality of the screens. My friend has an inspiron 6000 and the screen is pretty bad. When watching movies on it you have to be at the perfect viewing angle or everything looks washed out and has bad contrast. Even though the M90 is a higher model, there have been loads of reported problems with the 17 inch screens and I don't know wetehr to take the risk or not.

Does anyone have the 1440x900 screen in an M90? I think it might be the same as the one in the E1705 which I've heard has a lot of light ;eakage and a bad viewing angle.

This is whats pushing me towrds the Sager- a WSXGA+ LCD that I have only heard good things about.

 

I've ordered my M90 with the WXGA+ screen, and as soon as I get it in, I'll let you know how it looks. I'm hoping it will be fine too. I haven't heard too much about the M90 having as many problems as the Inspirons with the 17" screen, but I've heard a few things about it not being evenly lit, having a little light leakage, etc. But like I said, I'll post something up when I get it. Estimated ship date is next Friday.

 

Another thing you should know about the M90. While the Quadro does perform just as well if not better than the 7900 GTX, you may run into some compatibilty issues now and then, but I haven't heard too much about that in the big games like F.E.A.R. and BF2, etc.

 

Please don't cross post between two forums. If you want to get a comparison between the two different manufacturers, then post one thread in the What Should I Buy Forum.

To reply to this subject, please post here:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=60813

SG