Original Link: https://www.anandtech.com/show/1058
Sager NP8886 2.8GHz Pentium 4
by Matthew Witheiler on January 21, 2003 4:56 AM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
Test sytem provided by Powernotebooks.com.
The use of desktop components in portable systems has started a new trend in mobile computing. Whereas in the past mobile systems were reserved as systems with limited functionality and speed that catered to a fairly niche market, mobile systems of today are quickly becoming the ubiquitous electronic component. Take the desktop replacement notebook for example. By packing the power of a desktop in a portable system with an LCD monitor attached, the desktop replacement breed of notebooks today aim to do away with that big beige box that sits on your floor and replace it with a (somewhat) mobile computer.
As the desktop replacement model for notebooks evolved we saw the offerings diversify, resulting in two extremes of the concept. On one end of the desktop replacement category are the Compaq Presario 2800 and Dell Inspiron 8200 notebooks of the world that meld together portability with power. These systems are typically not as full featured as a well configured desktop system but often times possess desktop-like speed. They may be missing features such as dual hard drives or internal floppy drives, but what they lack in features they make up for in size. The powerful and portable but feature lacking desktop replacement notebook represents one extreme of the desktop replacement category.
At the other end of the spectrum we have desktop computers masquerading as notebooks. One can imagine a Shuttle XPC with a handle and an LCD as the most brute force "portable" desktop replacement out there. A system such as this may have the speed and features offered by desktops but has a large disadvantage in the size category. We can call our all-in-one Shuttle XPC the other extreme of desktop replacement notebooks.
Clearly lugging an XPC around with an LCD monitor and calling it a laptop is absurd. We bring up this concept not to suggest that Shuttle change their business model but rather to pose a question: what are the size requirements for a "notebook" or "laptop" computer? If Shuttle produced an XPC box with a fold down LCD panel and an integrated keyboard/mouse, would it be a notebook? Our instincts tell us no but it is hard to pinpoint exactly what distinguishes a notebook from a small desktop. Pegging the notebook criteria down to a measurement or weight is next to impossible.
We have seen notebooks before that push the definition of portability. Take the Toshiba Satellite 1905-S277 we looked at last year for example. The system was clearly powerful, offering a desktop Pentium 4 processor and 256MB of memory, but carrying it around did prove to be a problem. Weighing in at 8.3 pounds and measuring 13.2"x11.7"x2.0", the Satellite 1905-S277 is an even bigger pain to carry around than your high school Biology book.
While the Toshiba Satellite 1905-S277 may have been big, today we take a look at a new class of desktop replacement notebooks that pushes the size barrier even further. Measuring in at 14.2"x11.8"x2.15" and tipping the scales at 12 pounds, the Sager NP8886 includes features that would make some desktops jealous. The question is, does it qualify as a notebook and if so is it the right notebook for you?
Construction - Build, Appearance, Size
Some AnandTech readers who have been following computers for an extended period of time now may recall that a company called Sager was one of the first on the scene when the concept of notebooks came onto the scene. The computers were met with fairly good success but it seems that the force behind the brand name has fallen as of late. Upon hearing that Sager would be sending us a new notebook for review, we reminisced about our ancient Sager notebook, the first AnandTech notebook.
The Sager NP8886, much like the Hypersonic Sonic Aviator we looked at a week ago, is not actually made by Sager nor is its design unique to them. Instead, a company called Clevo based in Taiwan manufactures the notebook and sells them to resellers in various parts of the globe (note that this is the same company who makes the Hypersonic system). Before it is ever called the Sager NP8886 the notebook is given the name 888E by Clevo. You will find the Clevo 888E in the lineup of other notebook venders, much like the Clevo 5600D is used by a number of companies such as Hypersonic and Alienwear.
Clevo offers a number of ODM solutions to vendors and it happens that the 888E used by Sager in the NP8886 is the most feature-filled (and also largest) of them all. The colors on the NP8886 are conservative, sticking to black and silver. The casing is made entirely of plastic resulting in the need for a "do not place heavy items here" sticker on top of the LCD panel (because it may crack the LCD's glass).
As you can see, being large has its benefits. Opening the Sager reveals the largest screen and keyboard we have seen to date on a notebook computer. The screen measures an immense 15.7" approximately equaling the viewing size of a 17" CRT monitor. A few years ago, such a display would have been unheard of on a notebook computer but with the proliferation of LCD technology, larger and better quality screens are quickly finding their way into the notebook market. The Sager NP8886 is one example of the superior LCD technology available today (the Apple PowerBook G4 notebooks are the other systems that come to mind when considering beautiful laptop LCD panels). We really enjoyed the 1600x1200 resolution (UXGA) that the Dell Inspiron 8200 supported and were a disappointed to find that the large display on the NP8886 supported a maximum resolution of only 1280x1024 (SXGA). With a 15.7" surface area, it seems that the NP8886 is missing out by not being able to support a higher resolution.
The space created by producing a notebook that is as wide as the the NP8886 allowed for the placement of an impressive keyboard. The Sager NP8886 comes with a 102 key keyboard very similar to the ones found on desktop computers. The extra keys come in the form of a full sized number pad on the right of the keyboard. The number pad mimics those found on desktop keyboards and came in very useful when entering numbers into the computer (in Excel, for example). Despite its large size we did have a few complaints about the keyboard on the Sager NP8886. First, like many other notebooks on the market, the function key is located in the space normally reserved for the control key. As frequent computer users, we make fairly extensive use of the control key and ended up quite frustrated with the position it was placed at. Switch the location of the function key and the control key and we would much happier with the keyboard layout.
The second complaint come with the location and style of the enter key. The keyboard on the NP8886 makes use of the "old" style of enter key. The reason we call it "old" is because we haven't seen U.S. keyboards with this layout in years. As a result we have gotten quite used to the current layout which features a long, skinny enter key as opposed to the upside down L shaped enter key. We occasionally found ourselves hitting the enter key inadvertently; an action which could potentially be disastrous in today's world of instant IMs.
The touchpad on the Sager NP8886 is fairly standard incorporating a normal touchpad surface and two fairly good sized buttons. The buttons are fairly tactile, in fact perhaps a bit too tactile as a good amount of pressure was necessary to click. Between the left and right buttons lies a bi-directional scroll button which came in useful.
The top portion of the NP8886 is reserved for the power button, the function buttons, and status LEDs. The function buttons are grouped together on the left side of the system and provide one touch access to the default browser, the default mail application, and a executable of the user's choice. We are seeing more and more laptops come with function buttons such as these and are fairly neutral on the subject: it makes the computer a bit easier to use but really only eliminates a single click of the mouse (if the application can be launched from your desktop).
To the right of the function buttons are four status LEDs, one for hard drive access (lit when the hard drive is being read), one for num lock status (lit when num lock is on), one for caps lock status (lit while caps lock is on), and one for scroll lock status (lit while scroll lock is on). To the left of these lights is the unit's large power button.
The oddly placed rectangular box to the right of the power button is actually for a fingerprint identification device that the NP8886 can be outfitted with. Although our unit did not come with the device. to our understanding the integrated fingerprint scanner works like some of the USB ones currently available on the market. You may notice that between the power button and the fingerprint space is a small groove with a button inside of it. This button is a switch that is supposed to turn off the LCD panel when the system is shut but in our unit it did nothing. We have noted this problem in notebooks before and are always a bit disappointed to see the Sager notebook share this problem since turning off the screen's backlight when not in use can save battery life significantly.
On the bottom of the LCD panel lie three additional LEDs: one for battery life (amber for charging, green for charged), one for power status (green while on), and one for new mail notification (setup via software).
Construction - Build, Appearance, Size (continued)
As large as the Sager NP8886 is one would fully expect it to be a feature rich desktop replacement. Looking at the front of the system gives us a peak of what the NP8886 holds in store for us. The front face of the system includes an "Audio DJ" system for CD playback while the notebook is powered off. With the press of a few buttons, the Audio DJ system provides the user with all the features of a standard CD player. The advantage of this system is that the unit does not need to be booted in order to play audio CDs, saving immense amounts of battery life if all you want to do is listen to some music. It also eliminates the need to bring a separate CD player on trips where music is desired.
The unit's speakers are located on the left and right side of the front face of the NP8886. The unit was large enough that the speakers were not covered while typing thanks to a large wrist rest area.
We had a slight problem with the screen release lever on the NP8886. Soon after receiving our test unit, the lever started getting caught while attempting to open the screen, preventing it from locking once the notebook was closed. The spring may have been getting caught or the plastic a bit bent but regardless of the cause it was a bit frustrating to continually have to force the lever closed.
Just the left side of the Sager NP8886 offers more features than we are used to seeing on all sides of other notebooks. At 2.15" thick (that larger than two of the ASUS S1 machines stacked on top of one another) there is plenty of space for components on the system. Towards the front lies the unit's drive bays. The floppy drive is non-modular and rests on the top half of the notebook. The bottom half is reserved for the optical drive of choice. In our case the unit was configured with a DVD/CD-RW combo drive operating at 8x24x10x24x but the system can also be shipped with a 24x CD-ROM (the standard optical drive), an 8x DVD-ROM drive, or a 16x10x24x CD-RW drive.
The space to the left of the optical drive bay is actually a second drive bay. The bay can accept any of the optical drive solutions or a hard disk drive as it was in our case. Obviously when configured with an optical drive the system contains two optical solutions, useful for those who do regular CD copying and until now a feature that we have not seen on a notebook computer. Perhaps more useful is the ability of the bay to accept a hard drive, resulting in two internal system hard drives. Also the first time we have seen this in a notebook, our NP8886 came with two internal hard drives. Although the drives are not RAIDed (there is no RAID chip in the system), a software RAID could be setup using an appropriate application. Being bulky does have its advantages.
There are also two type-II PCMCIA slots on the unit's left side. You can get an idea of exactly how large the NP8886 is by noting how little space is taken up by the two slots. Whereas some other notebooks have trouble fitting two slots on the system it looks as if the NP8886 has room to stack at least five type-II PCMCIA slots vertically.
Moving further left on the NP8886 we find the system's internal memory stick reader. The port is used to read memory stick devices produced by Sony and frankly we are not too sure why the NP8886 incorporates this reader. Typically only Sony produced electronic components support the memory stick format such as Sony cameras and PDAs. As a fairly proprietary technology the memory stick reader is of limited use except to those who already have a strong base of Sony products. Why did Sager include the reader in the unit? Probably because they could, incorporating the "everything but the kitchen sink" mentality of the NP8886.
The final items on the left side of the NP8886 are the system's IR port (small black square) and audio-out ports. Like the Hypersonic system we looked at last week, the NP8886 is also able to output in S/PDIF digital output.
What is not offered on the left side of the NP8886 is most likely located on the back of the system. The NP8886 includes your standard ports, an ethernet and modem jack, PS/2 port, a parallel port, a serial port, and a s-video out port, but also includes some special features. The NP8886 is one of the first laptops we have seen offer a 6-pin firewire port as opposed to the 4-pin min-firewire port that is prevalent on many of today's notebooks. We have heard talk of manufacturers switching over to the 6-pin port on notebooks due to customer demand: very few devices use the 4-pin connection out of the box and even fewer come with 4-pin to 6-pin converters necessary to use 6-pin devices on 4-pin ports. Keep in mind that the IEEE-1394 port, although 6-pinned, is unpowered. The port is of the big type that is normally powered but does not carry power along the two power pins. This design is implemented to prevent firewire devices from draining the system battery while the notebook is unplugged.
Also on the expansion port side are a set of four USB 2.0 ports. More and more notebooks are coming with USB 2.0 standard and we could not be more pleased, it is a very useful feature to offer especially on a laptop where upgrade paths are fairly limited.
One real special feature of the NP8886 is its built-in TV tuner with remote control. Frankly this is something we never would find its way into notebook computers but Clevo and Sager found a way to put a full TV tuner inside the NP8886. The TV tuner is similar to desktop solutions by ATI or Hauppauge, albeit less refined. The small hole below the serial and VGA-out port on the unit is where the cable input is placed. A small threaded dongle is used to extend this hole slightly out of the system's back to allow for the coaxial cable to be secured. As you will see in the software section, the TV tuner allowed us to use the NP8886 as a television and even supports PVR (personal video recorder) functions. Again, we never suspected that TV tuners would find their way into notebooks any time soon (their analogue components take up a good amount of room and there are a number of USB TV tuner solutions on the market) but if it can fit in the 12 pound box that is the NP8886, Sager put it in there.
Along with the TV input is a composite/s-video input connection. Again, this is something we have never seen on a notebook before and it gives the NP8886 a feature that many desktop systems do not have.
The most eye catching item on the right side of the Sager NP8886 is the large cooling vent on the bottom back side of the system. Clearly there is some intense heat exchange occurring in this region, something we would investigate in more depth when we took the system apart. For now it is important to know that this portion of the notebook got up to 139.5 degrees
If you look closely at the right side of the NP8886 you may notice something else: a small silver button and a rectangle shaped cutout towards the front of the system. The rectangular cut is actually the home to the NP8886's internal and removable MP3 player and the small silver button is the release lever. Much like the removable player seen on the ASUS T9 notebook, the NP8886's MP3 player is a pocket sized player. The unit, called the Newtrend MP3 player, accepts SD or MMC memory chips at up to 128MB in size. The unit ships with a 32MB SD card to get you started right away and takes two AAA batteries.
As an MP3 player, the unit is very basic. There are buttons for power, play/pause, track forward, track back, stop, volume and equalizer (to choose between a number of set equalizer settings). The LCD panel displays only track number and play time of the current song, a far cry from the advanced features of MP3 players today. The simple display makes navigating songs fairly cumbersome, able only to go from 1 to 2 to 3 and so on without being able to see any of the MP3 tag information.
Writing to the memory card inserted in the MP3 player is accomplished not by a proprietary application (like in the case of the ASUS machine) but simply by clicking and driving MP3 files to the player which shows up as a removable storage device under Windows XP. This proved to be much easier and more reliable than the ASUS software we encountered before.
The top of the MP3 player features a headphone jack and a mini-USB port for connecting the player to systems other than the NP8886.
The bottom of the NP8886 gives us a glimpse of the extreme cooling that the unit employs. There are two large fan cut-outs towards the back left side of the system. These fans suck cool air from beneath the unit and blow it across the heatsink surface via the exhaust on the unit's right side. In order to ensure that the fans have a sufficient pool of air from which to draw upon, the NP8886 rests on four large feet that place the unit almost a half inch off the surface that it is resting on; a bit high in our opinion especially considering that the large height of the system already places it fairly height. The feet on our review sample quickly fell off under normal use but it was nothing that a bit of super glue or double sided tape could not fix.
There are two removable access panels on the bottom of the NP8886. On the left side, by the fans, is an access panel that removes to show the system's heatsink. Removing the heatsink reveals the system's CPU, making access to the desktop Pentium 4 processor easy.
To the right of the fans lies the TV tuner module. Since the TV tuner is a factor option, it can be removed or added in at later times via this access panel. Removing this access panel is also necessary to gain access to the removable drive bay located on the back right side of the unit.
The battery in the NP8886 is actually screwed into place. Located on the front side of the system, the battery can only be removed by unscrewing four screws. An interesting setup if you ask us; clearly the battery on the NP8886 is not meant to be removed often (to reduce travel weight, for example). The battery is rated at 6000mAH, making it quite powerful. Once the battery is removed, the primary internal hard drive is revealed which is perhaps the reason that Sager turned to screws to keep the battery in place. Removed in the picture below, the primary hard drive rests in a caddy that sits at about the middle of the system's front.
Construction - Under the Hood
There is no question that the Sager NP8886 is a desktop replacement notebook. Measuring 14.2"x11.8"x2.15 and weighing 12 pounds, the NP8886 better come loaded hardware wise to stand a chance in the ultra competitive world of notebook computers. Luckily it does. Our test system came configured with a desktop Pentium 4 2.8GHz processor (533MHz front side bus), 1.0GB of PC2100 DDR RAM, two 5400RPM 40GB mobile hard drives, an internal TV tuner, an internal MP3 player, a 8x24x10x24x DVD/CD-RW drive, and an ATI Mobility Radeon 9000 video chip with 64MB of DDR memory. With a feature set as long as that on the NP8886 your desktop is probably feeling a bit envious.
Our NP8886 system came with the highest speed processor that the system currently supports. Running at 2.8GHz, the processor is actually a desktop Northwood based Pentium 4 processor. The 2.8GHz processor is the second fastest processor we have seen in a notebook to date, being beat by only the 3.06GHz based Hypersonic Sonic Aviator. The 2.8GHz processor is one of the new breeds of Pentium 4 processors and runs on a 533MHz front side bus setting (133MHz quad pumped FSB with a 21.0x multiplier). As we noted in our initial Pentium 4 533MHz front side bus review, the switch from a 400MHz FSB to a 533MHz one benefited the Pentium 4 platform. We were happy to find Sager opting for the 533MHz front side bus Pentium 4 as it further demonstrates the fact that notebooks computers are rapidly becoming more desktop-like (especially in systems as large as the NP8886). Note that the Pentium 4 in the NP8886 does not support Hyper-Threading, as this feature is only enabled in certain 3.06GHz and higher processors.
The processor, being of desktop variety, does not support any of the power saving features implemented in Intel's dedicated mobile chip, the Mobile Pentium 4-M. SpeedStep technology is the main item missing; a technology that gives the Mobile Pentium 4-M processors to dynamically alter its clock speed based on demand. Battery life of the notebook is certainly penalized because of this but the system does get an immense performance boost. The fastest Mobile Pentium 4-M chip currently out runs at 2.4GHz, 400MHz slower than the 2.8GHz desktop processor found in the NP8886, and supports only a 400MHz front side bus.
Since the processor is simply a desktop one it can be upgraded easily down the road. To gain access to the socket 478 CPU, one simply needs to remove the access panel and lift out the heatsink. This means that if you are concerned with keeping the price of the system down at purchase time but are concerned that a specific processor will be too slow, you can opt for the less expensive processor and upgrade it at a later time with any 533MHz Pentium 4 processor.
The cooling system used to keep the Pentium 4 processor running at an operable temperature is extreme. To keep the processor cool, the NP8886 utilizes two large fans and a large copper heatsink. The fans are temperature controlled and do not spin at full speed often under normal use. We did notice that the two fans on the NP8886 spun up more regularly than the fans in other desktop replacement computers we have seen, producing a good amount of noise. Silent PC buffs beware.
The housing on the cooling fan also serves to cool the system's northbridge. The small thermal pad on the back of the fan sit on top of the 845E MCH (aka northbridge) core.
The copper heatsink that serves to transfer heat from the Pentium 4's core to the air passing over the fins is among the largest we have seen on notebook computers. The heatsink is attached to the CPU surface via a thermal pad. It was interesting to see a small plastic loop around the heatsink which acts as a handle by which one can lift the heatsink out of the notebook.
Removing the heatsink shows that the CPU actually sits in a plate of sorts that isolates the Pentium 4's heat spreader from the rest of the components around the CPU. This plate can be removed by unscrewing two screws and most likely serves to facilitate transfer of heat from the CPU surface to the heatsink.
We coved the details of the Intel 845E chipset here, but in summary the northbridge of the 845E chipset is essentially the same as the northbridge of the 845 chipset except the 845E officially supports a 533MHz FSB. The northbridge maintains its predecessor's DDR266 memory support and AGP 4x controller. It's placement close to the socket allows for it to be cooled via the same fans that cool the CPU.
The system's southbridge is also located on the bottom of the NP8886's motherboard. As an 845E chipset solution, the NP8886 makes use of Intel's ICH4 southbridge solution. This gives the system ATA/100 and USB 2.0 support.
The O2Micro OZ165T is the chip that controls the CD player portion of the NP8886. It is this chip allows the NP8886 to act as a CD player while the unit is off by taking control of the CD drive. This is the same chip that the Hypersonic Sonic Aviator used to power the CD player.
The ethernet port of the NP8886 is enabled by the Realtek RTL8100BL 10/100M fast ethernet controller with power management.
The additional logic chips on the bottom of the NP8886's motherboard include the National Semiconductor PC87393 Super I/O controller and the Winbond W83L518D I/O and smart I/O controller which enables the memory stick and SD/MMC reader.
The National Semiconductor PC87393 super I/O controller.
The Winbond W83L518D smart I/O controller.
Both of these chips are located on the right side of the motherboard, as seen below.
What is missing from this picture is the TV tuner module which was removed from its home on the back middle of the motherboard. The tuner is an analogue tuner mated with a Conexant Fusion 878A PCI video decoder. For those of you out there already planning on making the Sager NP8886 into a PVR by using Windows XP Media Center Edition, think again. As we reported last week, XP Media Center Edition works properly with only a handful of desktop decoder cards and the unit used in the NP8886 is not on the list. We will see exactly how the tuner performs in the software portion of this review.
Attention also must be given to the power portion of the motherboard located on the bottom left. Using a desktop processor and components requires some serious power and the block of capacitors on the motherboard help take care of this. The power circuitry took up a good portion of the motherboard.
Construction - Under the Hood (continued)
The top of the NP8886's motherboard holds additional goodies that give the system as much power as it has. Most prominently featured on the top of the motherboard is the Mobility Radeon 9000 graphics solution. The Mobility Radeon 9000 core is surrounded by four pieces of Samsung memory. The graphics chip and memory is mounted directly onto the motherboard and while in the system is covered via a thermal plate to facilitate cooling. This metal plate distributes the heat generated from the graphics chip up to a large metal sheet that lies under the keyboard.
 The video heat spreader. |
Like the Hypersonic system, the NP8886 turns to Texas Instruments to provide the IEEE-1394a, aka firewire, controller (likely because both systems are ODMed by the same company). The chip is a Texas Instruments TSB43AB21 controller which powers the single 6-pin unpowered firewire connection present on the notebook.
Also like the Hypersonic notebook, the NP8886 uses a VIA USB 2.0 controller as opposed to using the controller integrated in the ICH4 southbridge. The VIA VT6202 is likely used in place of the integrated controller because the previous 845DDR design of the notebook used the external USB controller and Clevo has not altered the design yet.
The AC'97 audio codec used by the NP8886 is the Realtek ACL201A chip.
The memory slots are located in the middle of the system and are user accessible by removing the keyboard and a few screws. Our unit came with 1.0GB of memory in two 512MB sticks.
There is a free mini-PCI slot on the motherboard ready to take any number of mini-PCI solutions. The system is not pre-wired with a wireless antenna, meaning adding an 802.11b wireless mini-PCI card to the system could prove to be a difficult task.
As we mentioned before, our sample Sager NP8886 came with not one but two 5400RPM mobile hard drives. Each bay was equipped with a Toshiba MK4019GAX 40.0GB for a total of 80.0GB of storage space. We were pleased to see that the system came with drives of the 5400RPM variety, as they do a good deal to lessen the I/O bottleneck that plagues notebook computers. Each drive was installed in a caddy system of sorts that made for fairly easy installation and removal.
Although we could not get the speakers out of the NP8886 out for a picture (they are glued in), the sound was comparable to other notebooks we have seen; they were fine for Windows sounds but left a lot to be desired when playing music or games. Speakers are one aspect of notebook computers that we wouldn't mind receiving some more attention from manufacturers. it seems that there must be something out there capable of producing better sound in an enclosure with limited space.
Features - Software
The Sager NP8886 comes with a fairly standard set of pre installed applications.
The user has a choice of operating systems from the $75.00 Windows XP Home option
to the $145.00 Windows XP Professional or Windows 2000 Professional options.
We are not used to having to pay extra for an operating system (there is no
operating system installed by default) and the option does force users to pay
more at the bottom line which is never good. At the same time this does reduce the overall system cost for those who already own an operating system or plan to use a free OS such as Linux (
Although much more basic than the refined solutions we are used to seeing in the ATI All-in-Wonder and TV-Wonder products, TV Studio did get the job done, albeit with some bumps along the way. On the whole the system worked as advertised, giving the user the ability to watch TV on the notebook, change channels using the IR remote, capture video and still pictures, ect but the problems make an external solution (such as ATI's USB Wonder) all the more attractive.
First, and perhaps most importantly, the TV quality of the TV-tuner in the NP8886 is far from the standard we have come to expect from current generation TV-tuners. Compared to the current generation All-in-Wonder products, the integrated TV-tuner in the NP8886 looks like a very immature product. As you can see in the video capture below, the video stream was constantly plagued with horizontal lines (artifacts from the deinterlacing the video).
Secondly, some of the features of TV Studio did not work as promised: Attempting to turn on closed captions resulted in an error message that read "This version does not support Closed Caption function" and trying to time shift video consistently crashed the program. Both these issues demonstrated that the product is far from up to par.
On the bright side, the basic functions of the TV-tuner system worked fine. Capturing video to MPEG2 was no problem nor was capturing still images (although in both cases the video quality remained as poor as it it is during normal TV viewing). In our opinion, if you are looking to watch television on a notebook computer we suggest you turn to a USB TV-tuner from a company already established in the business such as ATI or Hauppauge. The improvement will be well worth the extra pound or so it would add to the travel weight of the notebook.
The Test
|
|
Windows
XP Professional Test System |
||
|
|
Hardware |
||
Sager
NP8886 |
Hypersonic
Sonic Aviator |
Desktop
System |
|
| CPU(s) | Pentium
4 2.8GHz |
Pentium
4 3.06GHz |
Pentium
4 3.06GHz |
| Motherboard(s) | Sager
845E |
Hypersonic
845E |
Intel
D845EBT 845E |
| Memory | 1.0GB
PC2100 512MB PC2100 |
1.0GB
PC2100 512MB PC2100 |
512MB
PC2100 |
| Hard Drive | 40.0GB
5400RPM Toshiba MK4019GAX |
40.0GB
5400RPM Toshiba MK4019GAX |
IBM
Deskstar DPTA-372050 20.5GB 7200 RPM |
| CDROM | DVD/CDRW |
DVD/CDRW |
Philips
48X |
| Video Card(s) | ATI
Mobility Radeon 9000 64MB 128-bit DDR |
ATI
Mobility Radeon 9000 64MB 128-bit DDR |
ATI
Radeon 9000 Pro 64MB 128-bit DDR |
| Ethernet | Realtek
RTL8100BL Onboard Ethernet Adapter |
3COM
920-ST06 Onboard Ethernet Adapter |
Linksys
LNE100TX 100Mbit PCI Ethernet Adapter |
|
|
Software |
||
| Operating System |
Windows XP Professional |
||
| Video Drivers | ATI
7.77 (latest available for Sager) |
ATI
7.77 (latest available for Hypersonic) |
ATI
Catalyst 2.5 |
|
|
Benchmarking Applications |
||
| Bapco
SYSmark 2002 |
|||
Our Sager NP8886 system came outfitted with 1.0GB of PC2100 memory. For testing purposes, we thought this was a bit excessive: the last thing we want is manufacturers to send us souped up products that are not representative of most units sold. For this reason, we only ran a limited number of test with the full 1.0GB of memory installed and ran the remaining tests with 512MB of memory. All the 2D performance applications were run with both 1.0GB and 512MB of system memory while the 3D and battery life tests were run only with 512MB of memory. This should provide an accurate representation of how a typical NP8886 as well as a fully loaded NP8886 will perform.
Performance - Content Creation and Business
Unfortunately our test system would not complete the Office Productivity portion of SYSmark so we were forced to leave this portion of the test section out. The cause behind the SYSmark 2002 error remains undetermined and could be something isolated to our individual system or a problem that runs throughout the NP8886 line. There are some known errors in the benchmark and it is possible that we just discovered another one. Overall stability of the system did not seem to be effected by the timeout error encountered in SYSmark.
The Internet Content Creation portion of SYSmark 2002 did, on the other hand, complete properly.
|
376
350Based on a slower 2.8GHz processor, the Sager NP8886 had a bit of trouble keeping up with the 3.06GHz Hypersonic Sonic Aviator in the Internet Content Creation portion of SYSmark 2002. The NP8886 ran the benchmark 7% slower than the fastest notebook we have seen and was a mere 5% off the 3.06GHz desktop system.
|
This test shows the Sager NP8886 battling it out for the top notebook spot against the Hypersonic Sonic Aviator. The two systems managed to score the same amount in Content Creation Winstone 2002 even though the Sager unit uses a slower performing processor. Content Creation Winstone 2002 is a very I/O intensive benchmark and it is the fact that these two units use the same hard drive and are based upon similar processors that the systems perform comparatively.
|
Because we just added Business Winstone 2002 into the test mix we are unable to compare the NP8886 to many other notebook systems. The one system we could compare it to, the Hypersonic machine, outperformed the Sager machine by 3% when configured with 1GB of memory and 7% when configured with 512MB of memory. In comparison to the 3.06GHz desktop system, the performance of the Sager machine was about 20% off.
Performance - MobileMark 2002
|
Although the Sager NP8886 is almost too heavy to carry around, it actually proves to be a fairly decent machine on the road when it comes to battery life. The battery life of the system was considerably longer than that of the Hypersonic machine which offers fairly similar performance numbers. Helping the NP8886 last longer than the Hypersonic Sonic Aviator is an LCD panel that gets darker than that on the Hypersonic Machine and a processor that is clocked lower. At the same time, the NP8886 has to expend a considerable amount of energy to keep both 5400RPM hard drives spinning and ready which is a task the Hypersonic machine did not have to handle. Just because it was good in comparison to the Hypersonic machine doesn't mean that the battery life of the Sager NP8886 did not leave anything to be desired; it ran 30 minutes less than the Compaq Presario 900 and a massive 165 minutes less than the dual battery Dell Inspiron 8200.
|
The battery life of the Sager NP8886 met the 90 minute requirement necessary to output a battery performance score, something that we were not able to do on the Hypersonic machine. Not surprisingly, the NP8886 easily dominates the other notebooks we have taken a look at in the Mobile Mark performance test because of its fast CPU. What the performance chart does demonstrate for us is that the Sager NP8886 runs at its full speed while on battery life. We have seen other desktnote systems out there that lower their clock speed while on battery power to preserve battery life but this is not the case with the NP8886.
Performance - Startup Times
|
With all the components the Sager NP8886 must initialize and drivers that the system must load it should not be a surprise that the boot time of the machine was the longest we have seen on a notebook system. It took almost a minute to go from off to Windows XP Professional.
|
Interestingly enough, the amount of time required to return from standby did not seem to be as effected by the dual hard drives, TV tuner, ect present on the NP8886. The out of standby time of the NP8886 is about average.
|
Again the NP8886 drags when return from hibernation. It took the system 9 seconds longer to return from this state than our previous slowest notebook and was 19 seconds slower than the fastest notebook we have seen in this test.
Performance - Unreal Tournament 2003
|
Since all the notebook systems here are based on the Mobility Radeon 9000 graphics card with 64MB of DDR memory, the differences in speed can mostly be attributed to driver build and processor speed. At 800x600x32 it makes sense that the Hypersonic system ranks atop the performance charts because of its 3.06GHz processor. What may be a bit confusing is how the performance of the 2.0GHz Dell Inspiron 8200 is above that of the 2.8GHz Sager NP8886 notebook. This is can almost certainly be attributed to driver optimizations. As we discussed in the Hypersonic review, notebook vendors must work with graphic chip vendors to produce driver builds specific to their individual notebook. The Dell system we tested used a more recent driver build than that used in the NP8886. Because Unreal Tournament 2003 is extremely demanding on the video system, CPU differences are not as prominent as video differences. We fully expect that a more recent driver build would put the performance of the NP8886 above that of the Dell system.
|
The same logic can be used to explain the performance of the systems at 1024x768x32. Here all three notebooks tested perform almost identically due to the stress on the video system, with the difference between the fastest and the slowest measuring only 6%.
|
As the resolution is increased the performance differences between the notebooks remain the same. About 6% separates the fastest notebook from the slowest under the stress of Unreal Tournament 2003.
Performance - Serious Sam: The Second Encounter
|
Unlike Unreal Tournament 2003, which places stress on the video portion of a system, Serious Sam: The Second Encounter is very CPU dependent. The graph above shows what we should expect at a low resolution in the game. It is interesting to note that the 2.8GHz processor at the heart of the NP8886 was only 3% behind the 3.06GHz processor that powered the Hypersonic Sonic Aviator.
|
The story is pretty much the same as the resolution is increased to 1024x768x32. The gap between the Hypersonic machine and the Sager one increases slightly here to 4%. Both systems are still dominated by the power of the Radeon 9000 Pro in our desktop system.
|
The lead offered by the Hypersonic machine over the Sager one creeps up to 5% while at 1280x1024x32 but the story still remains essentially the same: the faster the processor in the notebook, the faster Serious Sam 2 plays.
Performance - Jedi Knight 2
|
Like Serious Sam 2, low resolutions of Jedi Knight 2 are very CPU dependent. At 800x600x32 the 2.8GHz NP8886 performs about 4% behind the 3.06GHz Sonic Aviator. This falls almost exactly in line for what we were seeing in Serious Sam: The Second Encounter. Let's see how the story changes as we increase the resolution.
|
The performance lead offered by the Hypersonic machine disappears as the resolution is pushed up to 1024x768x32 in Jedi Knight 2. Now the NP8886 is tied with the Sonic Aviator as the fastest notebook. The performance lead that the Hypersonic machine had has now vanished because the increase in resolution shifted stress from the CPU to the video system. With the video system acting as the bottleneck, both Mobility Radeon 9000 systems with similar processor speeds are now limited by what the graphics chip can do.
|
The story is the same at 1280x1024x32, with both the Sager and Hypersonic machine performing tit for tat. The Dell Inspiron 8200 gains the lead for top performing notebook in Jedi Knight 2 in this resolution thanks to the more up to date video drivers that are available for the unit.
Conclusion
Part notebook, part desktop, the Sager NP8886 is the largest desktop replacement system we have seen to date. Sure, being big has its advantages but do the pros outweigh the cons? We tend to think no.
As we alluded to in the introduction, there is really no way to determine what makes a computer a notebook. Sure, the Sager NP8886 is a far cry from the "luggable" of the 1980s but it is also a far cry from your standard notebook. Its size, at 14.2"x11.8"x2.15", and its weight, at 12 pounds, make the system difficult to carry even for short distances. Indeed, the NP8886 is most at home on a desk but what advantages does the system offer over a standard desktop?
Well, it is nice to be able to move the system around easily on occasion. It is certainly more portable than a standard desktop system despite its weight and size. It also offers many of the features we have come to expect on only desktop systems, such as a fast processor, dual hard drives, and a TV-tuner. The NP8886 is, without question, the must feature rich notebook we have seen. The desktop speed is there too. On the whole, performance of the 2.8GHz Sager NP8886 was about 5% slower than the performance of the 3.06GHz Hypersonic Sonic Aviator in CPU intensive situations; not a large performance difference at all.
Although the desktop features are there, not all of them are up to par. The internal TV-tuner, while interesting in concept, proved to be more a novelty than a useable feature thanks to buggy software and poor video display. The internal MP3 player is a neat concept but it is far from ideal. The simple player is really limited in functionality by incorporating such a small LCD panel and the inability to read MP3 tags or filenames.
Despite these problems, they all seem trivial when compared to the largest thorn in the NP8886's side: its size. It seems that taking the system on a trip would require it to be packed in the luggage compartment, that is unless your idea of fun is strapping rocks to your back. On top of its weight, the physical size of the unit also makes it unmanageable. Fitting the system into a standard laptop bag proves to be an interesting task. Luckily, the unit comes with a basic carrying case but this does not make the notebook any lighter.
The best analogy we can give to describe our feelings on the Sager NP8886 is that it is a desktop system trying to be a notebook, not a notebook trying to be a desktop. We can see the concept of an all powerful notebook working but not this time around.
The Sager NP8886 starts at around $1900 and is available from a number of online resellers such as Powernotebooks.com who provided us with our review sample. The system as we reviewed it tops the price scales at around $2700.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
