Friday, October 17, 2014

Sager NP2740 Review - A Linux Powerhouse

When I buy a piece of hardware I generally use it until it becomes completely non-functional. Because of this, my old Sager laptop I bought five years ago was finally needing an upgrade so I set about doing research trying to find a replacement.

I was looking for something powerful to stream some games on, but also light enough that it was not going to feel like a brick next to my Chromebook. Since Linux is my OS of choice, having reasonable Linux support is also on my list of desires. Because of this I wanted to stay away from ATI graphics cards and nVidia cards with optimus.

The winner you ask? After a good deal of research it ended up being the Sager NP2740:


The Hardware

The NP2740 ended up being one of the few pieces of hardware out there that met all my specifications. At 4.2 pounds the NP2740 is just a small bit heavier than my HP14 Chromebook. When ordering from PowerNotebooks.com the hardware also came with a no-OS option.

One of the things that draws me to Sager laptops is how customizable they tend to be compared to other laptops. The few pieces of hardware on the NP2740 that have to stay as is are:

That leaves us the memory and storage space to customize. The memory comes stock at 8gigs, but for my system I opt'd to push the memory to the maximum 16gigs as I knew I would be running virtual machines on my system.

Storage space is the one place where the NP2740 really comes out ahead of other laptops in this form factor. In addition to have a standard 2.5" mobile drive, the NP2740 also has an mSATA slot that you can add an SSD to. Personally I have a 240gig, Intel 530 SSD in my unit.

The Performance

On a system this powerful I never expect a reasonable battery life, so I was fairly surprised with the NP2740. When under a constant heavy load (virtual machines running, code compiling, audio going) the battery in the NP2740 lasts for just under three hours. While doing light office work that life extends to around five hours.

In terms graphics performance I must say I have been thoroughly impressed with the Intel Iris 5200. For specifics on performance you should see the benchmarks here, but I will say this little card has handled everything I have thrown at it - including streaming some of those games using OBS.

Most importantly - the cooling on the laptop is excellent. I can use the device on my lap for hours without any discomfort from heat discharge.

The Linux Support

Starting with Ubuntu 14.04.1, all of the hardware on the Sager NP2740 is functional by default. If you are using an older Linux distro the RTL8723BE wireless chipset might give you some trouble, but there are workarounds. Because the graphics chip is Intel based you should have full 3D support with the open source drivers present on most Linux distros.

Best of all is that I was able to get the hardware with no OS pre-loaded, so I did not have to pay a premium to get a copy of Windows with my new laptop.

The Wrap Up and Price Point

I always do a lot of research before making a large purchase and I must say that even after days of research the NP2740 blows all the other competition away. Even with my wife's company discounts, other brands such as Dell, Toshiba, and Lenovo could not come close to the $1,300 I ended up paying for the NP2740. You can configure your own starting just under $1,000.

All in all I have been very happy with my Sager NP2740. If you are in the market for a Linux PC that is portable, but does not sacrifice performance - this might just be the laptop for you.

Cheers,
~Jeff Hoogland

18 comments:

  1. I'm currently in the market for a mid-range Linux laptop for coding. I adore the Lenovo, lust after the Mac hardware but am not a fan of the hipster aluminum. I'll check out the Sager -- thanks a lot!

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  2. In the past I have found that Sager and other laptops based on Clevo hardware were not reliable. This has prompted me to stay away from them for several years (I think around 8). Perhaps it is time I gave them another chance, but I must say that after dealing with my one laptop and several that other people had back then, I'm still a bit wary. Does anyone have any information about the improvement of Clevo hardware since then? (unless Sager have moved to another ODM, which I would like to know if they have).

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    1. Sager systems are still Clevo based. 8 years is over a life time in terms of computer hardware. Likely work giving them a try again. Zero issues with my last two Sager systems.

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  3. Great article, Jeff. I've been looking around for a Linux friendly laptop( other than System76) so I'll check out Sager.
    Thanks!

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  4. I'm curious to know why you went with Ubuntu instead of Bodhilinux. I'm guessing hardware support?

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    1. The latest versions of Enlightenment have left me feeling frustrated. Since this system isn't light on resources it is fine running a heavier desktop like KDE.

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  5. Very useful write up for some who is looking for a fast linux laptop. Would you mind sharing the final spec you went with? Thanks.

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    1. I ended up with 16gigs of RAM and a 240gig SSD on top of the 750gig platter drive.

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  6. Great post on the NP2740. I'm looking at it to run Solaris 11.2 x64. Would you be king enough to run a device driver tool on your unit and report the result ?

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  7. I guess a simple lspci whould be fine (with and without -n) and (with -v) ?

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    1. Here you go -> http://paste.debian.net/149884/

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    2. Thank's. This looks good! So the built-in network is an Intel gigabit! My last request is can you run lspci -nn ??? I'm not a big linux guy, so I would need to see the pci numbers of the devices in the output, so I can confirm all components, like pci8086,0x0f31 for the Intel Iris 5200 Pro. You've been very helpful!

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    3. Enjoy -> http://paste.debian.net/150283/

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  8. Great! Thank's The Intel Iris 5200 Pro is really pci8086,0d26 and it's supported. You just got me sold on the NP2740!

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  9. How is the display and keyboard quality?

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    1. Fairly standard chicklet keyboard. I bang away on it for almost 8 hours a day and have zero issues with it.

      The screen has a nice matte finish that doesn't glare even at odd viewing angles.

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  10. Thanks, Jeff. Just ordered one with a 1TB BX100 SSD.

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