Sager NP9880

Design
Sager’s big black box isn’t the most imaginative of designs. Its black-and-silver exterior is rather undistinguished for a performance machine, especially one as big as this (15.5-inches wide and 12.5 pounds). Granted, adding sex appeal to a desktop replacement unit is a challenge, but Sager should try something a little more alluring.

Graphics
With Intel’s highest-clocked processor, the 3.8-GHz Pentium 4, and Nvidia’s fastest mobile graphics solution, the GeForce Go 6800 Ultra, the Sager posted gargantuan benchmark scores of 22,215 in 3DMark2001 and 11,771 in 3DMark03, both good enough for second place. The display is simply gorgeous, with WUXGA resolution that can handle 1920 x 1200 pixels of 3D-shooting mayhem.

Gaming Performance
In our gaming tests, Sager smoked the other systems in Doom 3 with a score of 153.7 fps, and came in second in Far Cry with 93.5 fps. The NP9880’s consistency is an undeniable sign of its sheer strength. This is one blazing gaming rig.

 

Features
The Sager has all of the standard USB, FireWire, and DVI ports you’d expect from a behemoth this size, but one of the more unique features is integrated Bluetooth. It’s not a killer application, but the ability to transfer files wirelessly to and from a similarly-equipped cell phone is a nice perk.

 

Warranty/Support
Standard support is for one year, but as a smaller company Sager doesn’t have the resources that giants like Dell or Alienware can throw at their customers. Technical support is generally limited to phone, e-mail, or snail mail.

 

Verdict
The NP9880 wouldn’t win any beauty pageants, but it delivers the performance you want in a high-end gaming notebook at a fairly reasonable price.