What tree is this? Saw a number of them down at West Coast Park. They look like coconuts and seem to be some type of mangrove tree.
Yesterday to my delight I received my Sager NP8662 which I ordered from the US 2 weeks ago! The whole process was an experience in itself as ordering something so big and costly from overseas was a first for me and a risky move at that. I ordered the laptop from PC Torque and they were exceedingly helpful in my queries, apart from having to deal with the different timezones and a small misstep where the customer service mistakenly added US$10 to the final sum for transfer. You can check out the specs from the PC Torque website but I added a few upgrades including an additional 2GB DDR3 RAM and a 320GB 7200RPM HDD. In a bid to save some money I opted not to have an OS and the carrying bag. The total? US$1460. As I was doing a wire transfer payment there was a 3% discount which brought it down to US$1416. The UPS Expedited shipping charge with insurance was US$219, so the total to wire was US$1635. To my surprise after I ordered PC Torque decided to throw in a carrying bag anyway, thanks!
At the bank (DBS), the standing exchange rate was S$1.456 and I had to cover not only the telex fee (S$20, sending bank) but the agent fee at the US side (US$9, receiving bank). Total damage, S$2,423.66.
Shipping and Receiving
The wait from purchase to shipping was an exciting week as I tracked the UPS shipping info on a daily basis, watching the package fly around the world, to some interesting places:
| SINGAPORE, SG |
06/09/2009 | 3:50 P.M. | DELIVERY |
| 06/09/2009 | 3:26 A.M. | OUT FOR DELIVERY | |
| CHANGI, SG |
06/09/2009 | 1:33 A.M. | IMPORT SCAN |
| CHANGI, SG |
06/08/2009 | 11:28 P.M. | REGISTERED WITH CLEARING AGENCY / SHIPMENT SUBMITTED TO CLEARING AGENCY |
| 06/08/2009 | 11:28 P.M. | REGISTERED WITH CLEARING AGENCY / RELEASED BY CLR AGENCY. NOW IN-TRANSIT | |
| CHANGI, SG |
06/07/2009 | 4:55 A.M. | ARRIVAL SCAN |
| DON MUANG, TH |
06/07/2009 | 1:41 A.M. | DEPARTURE SCAN |
| 06/07/2009 | 12:06 A.M. | ARRIVAL SCAN | |
| MUMBAI, IN |
06/06/2009 | 6:48 P.M. | DEPARTURE SCAN |
| 06/06/2009 | 4:22 P.M. | ARRIVAL SCAN | |
| KOELN (COLOGNE), DE |
06/06/2009 | 4:20 A.M. | DEPARTURE SCAN |
| KOELN (COLOGNE), DE |
06/05/2009 | 6:54 P.M. | ARRIVAL SCAN |
| LOUISVILLE, KY, US |
06/05/2009 | 4:56 A.M. | DEPARTURE SCAN |
| LOUISVILLE, KY, US |
06/04/2009 | 2:31 P.M. | EXPORT SCAN |
| 06/04/2009 | 1:38 P.M. | EXPORT SCAN | |
| 06/04/2009 | 12:46 P.M. | ARRIVAL SCAN | |
| ONTARIO, CA, US |
06/04/2009 | 5:51 A.M. | DEPARTURE SCAN |
| 06/04/2009 | 12:45 A.M. | ARRIVAL SCAN | |
| BALDWIN PARK, CA, US |
06/04/2009 | 12:10 A.M. | DEPARTURE SCAN |
| BALDWIN PARK, CA, US |
06/03/2009 | 7:05 P.M. | ORIGIN SCAN |
| US | 06/03/2009 | 8:20 P.M. | BILLING INFORMATION RECEIVED |
Wow, US, Germany, India, Thailand then finally Singapore. Upon arrival, there was a GST charge of S$153.93 based on a declared value of US$1,517.64 which at the printed exchange rate of S$1.449, came to a declared value of S$2,199. There was also a S$10 “disbursement fee”. The total of S$163.93 was paid in cash.
Unpacking
The box was a large white cardboard box with a bright red SAGER printed on the side. I noticed there was some water damage on the corner of the box which was heavily taped over. Upon opening it I noticed no actual damage to the interior which was additionally packed with white styrofoam chips. The free carrying case was in together with a small box containing the power brick and CDs and another larger box containing the laptop. The first thing I checked was the power cord provided, which was indeed the US plug (2 flat left and right, 1 round top), but more importantly the power to brick cable head was the triangle configuration one:
You’ll need to get universal plug converter or look around electronics shops for the right cable to replace. I got the head changed from the US to the SG 3-pin one.
Installing
I had already set up a Vista x64 SP1 install on a 4GB USB stick and booting up the USB stick was a breeze; the BIOS already set the USB as first in the boot order. Upon boot-up I noticed something: the CPU installed was a P8700 (2.53Ghz), not the P8600 (2.4Ghz) I ordered. PC Torque did mention that my order was delayed due to P8600 stock issues. Did they upgrade me for free? Woooo thanks PC Torque!
The HDD was preformated into a single 320GB so I broke it into 1 100GB and 1 220 GB partitions, and immediately encountered a problem, that “This computer does not contain a valid system volume”. Eh? I tried to format the partitions again and retried but same error. Strangely enough, I revisited the BIOS, went thru a few things but essentially did nothing then tried again and the problem disappeared. Note that the manual states that Vista SP1 is required, likely due to SATA drivers; the HDD was detected by my Vista SP1 installer. Installation was quick and I went on to installed the drivers from the provided driver disc. The driver disc neatly arranged the drivers to install via a small autorun program and also noted which drivers I’ve installed and which I haven’t, nice. Meanwhile here’s a few pics of the laptop itself (sorry for the darkish room it was night):
Benchmarks
Now to the fun stuff!
After installing the CD drivers I ran the Vista Index:
For comparison I have a nearly identical desktop on Vista x64, a C2D6600, 4×1GB DDR2-667, Nvidia GTX260 (192), X-Fi XtremeMusic, which had the exact same score except CPU at 5.3. I decided to run a benchmark on both rigs, bearing in mine the Sager was a clean system and the desktop had a few apps running including Spybot, FW, AV, IM, etc. Both also ran a Vista Service Tweak. The benchmark I decided to use was the X3:Terran Conflict Rolling Demo. In some circles it is known that the X3 game taxes the CPU and GPU heavily, sometimes causing cheap PSUs to blow due to the loads involved. First up, the desktop.
Operating System: Windows Vista Home Premium Service Pack 1
DirectX Version: DirectX 10
Graphics Card Info: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260 [2671 MB] Driver: 7.15.0011.8250
CPU Info: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU 6600 @ 2.40GHz (2 CPUs), ~2.4GHz
Usable System Memory: 4094 MBVideo Settings During Benchmark:
Screen Resolution: 1680 x 1050 * [32], fullscreen
Using Shader Profile: 3.0
Antialias Mode: NONE
Anisotropic Mode: 8xGraphics & Shader Settings:
Texture Quality: high
Shader Quality: high
High Quality Bumpmaps: enabled
Environment Mapping: enabled
Glow Filter: enabled
Ship Color Variations: enabled
More Dynamic Lights: enabled
Used Vertexsize: 40 bytesFramerates
——————————————————————————–
Scene “Trade” 31.1 average fps 9.0 minimum fps 68.0 maximum fps
Scene “Fight” 67.5 average fps 24.0 minimum fps 157.0 maximum fps
Scene “Build” 86.9 average fps 51.0 minimum fps 133.0 maximum fps
Scene “Think” 38.9 average fps 14.0 minimum fps 65.0 maximum fpsOverall average framerate: 56.1 fps
The Sager?
Operating System: Windows Vista Home Premium Service Pack 1
DirectX Version: DirectX 10
Graphics Card Info: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260M [2799 MB] Driver: 7.15.0011.7927
CPU Info: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU P8700 @ 2.53GHz (2 CPUs), ~2.5GHzUsable System Memory: 4090 MB
Video Settings During Benchmark:
Screen Resolution: 1680 x 1050 * [32], fullscreen
Using Shader Profile: 3.0
Antialias Mode: NONE
Anisotropic Mode: 8xGraphics & Shader Settings:
Texture Quality: high
Shader Quality: high
High Quality Bumpmaps: enabled
Environment Mapping: enabled
Glow Filter: enabled
Ship Color Variations: enabled
More Dynamic Lights: enabled
Used Vertexsize: 40 bytesFramerates
——————————————————————————–
Scene “Trade” 32.7 average fps 1.0 minimum fps 72.0 maximum fps
Scene “Fight” 62.6 average fps 25.0 minimum fps 120.0 maximum fps
Scene “Build” 71.0 average fps 45.0 minimum fps 105.0 maximum fps
Scene “Think” 34.9 average fps 23.0 minimum fps 63.0 maximum fpsOverall average framerate: 50.3 fps
Not bad I think, in fact I was surprised at the nearly equal performance by the 260M chip, possibly let down by the onboard RealTek soundchip, but more likely due to the combined fact that this is a laptop with laptop components.
Conclusion
Overall, I’m very pleased with the look and performance of the Sager NP8662. My total damage to bring this laptop from the US to my room? S$2,587.59. Is it worth that price, considering that the same laptop is available in Singapore? Considering buying local means an actual valid warranty? Well that’s a decision that every potential customer has to make and I made mine, though I hope every other potential customer can use this write-up to decide better!
Lots of media attention on “curry bashings” right now, with the recent spat of attacks against Indians (or Indian-looking people) in Melbourne. Interestingly there was a Time article on the rise of Nationalism by Australia’s (mostly white) youths and the author feared it was racism wrapped with a flag.
I studied in Melbourne’s RMIT for 4 years and enjoyed my stay there, having met people from all walks of life and countries including Australians of all colours. During that time I must say I didn’t really make friends with many white Australians or even Singaporeans for that matter. My friends were largely Australians of all races and others from other countries who, like me,came to Melbourne for an education.
During my 4 years I did hear of a few horror “racism” stories including one that hit quite close. One was a Singaporean architecture student who was living only a few floors below me in our apartment block. He was apparently in his 4th year and was in the school compound on his way home when he was accosted by some men, while in the school compound mind you tho I think it was late at night, and beaten into a coma. I think he died.
I personally did encounter a few cases, but was counseled by mates that it likely wasn’t an act of racism just an act of idiocy: I vividly recall walking down a street heading for home when someone driving by threw a cup of “water” at me. It missed completely tho, and I think it was a cup of piss. And then there were the smatterings of “go home” taunts. But frankly it doesn’t help when some students act like they are lords or princesses, flaunting their parents’ wealth and having a good time of it while under the pretense of getting an education. Driving fast cars and wearing flashy clothes tend to draw the green eyes of envy in any country.
Still, people will tell you that racism in any country is strictly confined to a small hateful minority, but when it happens to you, you don’t care about that. It is just plain senseless that some people get hurt for simply being.
When I was in Melbourne I got the sense that “White Australia” has been too deeply embedded in the national psyche, and it didn’t help that the “Whites Only” migration policy was only abolished in the 1970s. I recalled an incident in the school library where I personally encountered a white lady stealing unattended personal items and she was bold-faced enough to take my friend’s wallet while she went to the loo. I asked what she was doing and she cooked up some lie about picking up the wallet for her friend. I immediately stopped her and got the wallet back but let her go, not realising she had in her hand a few other stolen items. Later I saw a few students walking up to security to report their loss and I stepped forward to identify the thief and agreed to watch the security tapes to finger the lady. I eventually did spot the lady, but don’t know what became of it.
I recalled this event because when I stepped forward, the security guard asked me a simple, legitimate yet nuanced question about the thief:
“Was she Australian?”
A belt-fed foam dart-firing machine gun! Is that bloody cool or wat? Check it out in action:
It can be yours for $99.90 at Toys R Us =)
Too expensive for my tastes, but to satisfy the inner-child in me, I succumbed to a cheaper purchase:
Only $34.90 =) Very fun and cool Western-style aka Terminator 2 rifle cocking action!
Saw this drawn on a stairwell wall in Bedok…
No idea how long it’s been there.
What a great sweet song!
BTW support local!
And since we’re on the topic of music and talent, go YT and search for Sungha Jung. You won’t regret it.
Genius… he managed to mix more than 1 track and play it as a single track on his guitar…
Heard that Hong Kong recently quarantined an entire hotel due to possible H1N1 infection.
Then I read in my Facebook, my friend was also quarantined cuz he went to the same hotel to meet his Beijing friend during the danger period and got quarantined 7 days! The crap thing was that the mexicans were asking for the sky during the quarantine period (like PSPs and condoms!).
And when the Mexican government complained, the mexicans got to go home, yet the Hong Kongers continued to be kept in quarantine!
Wow…
Check out this link: http://www.zaobao.com/wencui/2009/05/hongkong090504t.shtml
My friend is 謝先生 aka Nic Tse (no not that one!).
I’ve seen people queue for Hello Kitty, expensive Italian/French fashion labels and for lottery. But I’ve never seen people queue for casual clothes. Casual clothes in the same category as G2000, Giordano, etc.
Well, there’s a first for everything! It’s Uniqlo, the new Japanese casual clothes chain in Singapore, at the new Tampines One mall. LOL?
Anyway here’s a random pic from a place I like, Terra Cafe at Vivocity. I love their Honey Milk Tea!
Went well with my toasted ham and cheese sandwich!
Today I saw something amazing. I was at Vivocity Giant and was shopping for groceries when I saw two Singaporean aunties chatting away and winding out the clear plastic bags used for fruits and vegetables.
As they chatted, they wound a good length of the plastic roll, then tore it off the roll-stand, folded it into a smaller square, then put it into their bags.
Then they left, continuing to chat the whole time.
WTH? So cheapskate?
Last night my wife’s PC’s PSU went “POP” in my face. Before that there was the distinct odour of soldering/burnt wire coming from the PC.
I’m guessing the PSU is dead since I don’t dare using that PSU again. 4 years old.
Tomorrow I’ll be swinging down to get a new PSU. And some RAM. Darn I can’t believe PC-5300 DDR2 is considered obselete, cuz you can’t hardly find anyone carrying PC-5300 RAM anymore!
The FedEx plane that crashed has fueled some speculations on what happened, with the strongest culprit being wind shear. Apparently Narita Airport, where the plane crashed, has some pretty fierce winds this time of year. Just look at this video.
Hats off to the pilot.
Yeah I’m finally on Vista! Wasn’t that painless to be honest.
The next litmus is games tho. I have an X-Fi and apparently it has big issues with EAX and Direct3D. But I wanna see DX10 on my GX260!
Emotionally moving stuff…
Who Is It.
I like it cuz it’s one of the few MJ songs that he doesn’t go crazy vocally. And that the video tells a very interesting story to go with the lyrics.
And while I’m on the topic of digging up videos, here’s one of Adrian Pasdar, who plays Nathan Petrelli in Heroes. I remember watching this TV series called Profit, where Adrian starred as the main character Jim Profit, who worked in a company and was driven by ambition, career and yes profit. I enjoyed watching Profit alot and was glad to see Adrian appear in Heroes.
Four minutes to park a car!
Look at that! Is that a huge ship suspended in midair on some rig? Amazing! That thing must be at least 30 storeys high! I took this pic from the West Coast park, where the Mac is…
Ever heard or seen one before?
Recently heard about this and trusty Youtube delivers…
Wow… there are times I wished I could do that to some people…
Posting early cuz sick so wanna sleep early…
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
I don’t think there’s some magic trick here. I think I’ve got a good nose for talent, so I hire really good people. And I’ve got a pretty healty ego, so I’m not scared of hiring the smartest people, even when they’re smarter than me. And I have a low tolerance of nonsense and turf battles and game-playing, and I send that message very clearly. And so over time, I think, people start trusting each other, and they stay focused on mission, as opposed to personal ambition or grievance. If you’ve got really smart people who are all focused on the same mission, then usually you get some things done.
Barack Hussien Obama
Singapore played right into the Vietnamese strategy: wear Singapore out, frustrate them, get them to commit more men up front, then sucker punch them in a rapid counter-attack.
And it worked. It just took 15 seconds to string a counter-attack with only 2 men while the larger Singaporeans struggled to backpedal.
Haven’t seen Singapore win in the National Stadium for a LONG time. BTW didn’t the National Stadium get its “last match” like 2 matches ago? Exactly when is the last Old Dame match and exactly when is the National Stadium to close?
Pretty nice place to go just to sit back, relax and enjoy the breeze.
Went down to Sitex in the evening, picked up a Sennheiser CX400 (UP $179, now $149 + free DECT phone), Samsung CLX-3175 colour laser printer all-in-one (UP $698, now $498, with 1 set of extra CMYK toners 20% off), Logitech G7 cordless laser mouse ($139), and last but not least, a notebook cooler worth $19.
Notebook cooler cuz I intend to get a Zepto Nexus A15 15.4″ notebook.
=)
One interesting thing. Sitex was selling this device called the Mini Sun Power Stabilizer that is supposed to save up to 30% of your electric bill by cleaning the power draw from ur entire house’s electrical supply, just by plugging into any wall socket in your home. Sounds too good to be true. In fact it’s probably BS, considering the Mini Sun website sells it online for $169. Ahem. If it sells for $169 online why would I get it for $209 at the “special price” at Sitex?
Today I ate at the same place for lunch and dinner. It’s Tao’s Modern Pacific Cuisine down at B1 of Paradiz Centre. Really nice food with even better service.
Lunch is a 6 course lunch, where 4 courses allow a choice between several options. For example for the main you have a choice of steak, chicken, 2 fish, a stingray and pork ribs. I highly recommend the steak. For beverage there are like 9 choices including 5 floral teas. I highly recommend the grassjelly mint tea.
I ate it for lunch and liked it so much I made a reservation for dinner for 5. The staff was nice enuff to extend a 10% discount for lunch AND dinner. Kudos!
And both trips I enjoyed the food and service. Well done Tao’s!
And then it’s onto this week’s top priority mission: to buy or not to buy a Zepto laptop during Sitex 2008.
Anyone rememeber the movie Deep Impact? One of the two asteroid-crashing-into-Earth movies released a few years maybe 10 years back. The other one was the Aerosmith/Bruce Willis/Liv Tyler/Ben Affleck one. Deep Impact is universally regarded as the better one, with a stronger cast of Morgan Freeman, Tea Leoni, Robert Duvall, James Cromwell, Elijah Wood, etc…
Anyway in Deep Impact, Morgan Freeman acted as a black president of the USA and being in the best job in the world had the misfortune of being in a time whether he faced the extinction of the world as he knew it. Right place at the wrong time.
Deep Impact has parallels to current events. Barack Obama made history by being the first black president of the USA. Like Morgan Freeman’s character, Barack Obama is about to enter office with literally shit on his hands. 2 global theatres of war, a lame economy, world opinion of the country at an all-time low, etc.
There are many reports floating on the net talking about how the West Wing drew similar parallels to Barack Obama’s ascension. But unlike current affairs, the parallel character in West Wing wasn’t black (hispanic) and the circumstances in which the minority race president takes over is vastly different from Barack’s.
I prefer Deep Impact’s parallel =)
Can Barack Obama fix all that has been done in 4 years? Hard to say, but it’ll be an uphill climb. If he doesn’t do it, he’ll be exactly like Morgan Freeman’s character: right place, wrong time.
See it to believe it!
Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi; you’re my only hope!
Went to watch Dead Space Downfall, a free screening as part of the Singapore Film Festival. Alright movie I suppose considering it was free. We watched the DVD version (which together with the Blu-Ray version comes out pretty soon on retail). Typical xenomorph fare but it had a nice twist ending. It’s part of a multi-media hype effort for EA’s new game Dead Space. They were even giving out $10-off vouchers towards the purchase of the game! Too bad I already bought the PS3 version.
The movie was screened at the Fusionopolis, one of the new complexes as part of the Biopolis. Actually I’m not even sure that area’s part of Biopolis, but it’s basically the stretch of industries near MOE along Buona Vista Road. One-North? The area nearest to the AYE exit and the Ayer Rajah Industrial Park.
Anyway the building Fusionopolis has some really nice architecture including a series of space-agey escalator bubble tubes.
Oh and here’s a pretty “funny” picture. I think you get my drift =P
Here’s a trailer of Downfall.
