Sager NP8957 Review – Great Gaming Machine for 2021?

by CT | Last Updated: March 1, 2021

One of the Best Thin Gaming Laptops for 2021

One of Sager’s newest gaming laptops, the NP8957, is something incredible. Getting this much power and extraordinary specs for around $1,500 is something gamers could have only dreamed of a few years ago.

Sager is one of those brands that is fairly new, compared to some of the staple brand names like Alienware and TUK, but they build high-quality machines, especially for gaming.

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• Thin Sized & Lightweight
• Excellent Performance
• Best Bang For Your Buck

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• Battery Life
• Audio is Poor When Fans are Running

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No other gaming laptop beats this for the price. This laptop is just LOADED for this price point.

If you’re looking in this price range around $1,500, the Sager NP8957 might be the one for you.

Design

The Sager NP8957 has a sleek look, but can come off bulky if you’re looking for anything more than a gaming machine. The cover of the laptop has a nice looking “wing” and the Sager branding that glows when the screen is lit up.

The laptop itself is extremely thin, coming in around at just .78 inches thick.

One of the downsides to this machine is the bezel around the edges of the screen. It’s quite large, especially for a machine in 2020. This isn’t something to necessarily downgrade the rating but is something to keep in mind if you’re really looking for a super sleek looking laptop.

Display

The matte screen is visible from all angles and in most lighting conditions, which is a huge plus. Although, after a lot of use you can see fingerprints showing up because of this Matte finish. I guess you have to take the good with the bad.

144HZ refresh rate with wide-angle view.  This 1920x 1080 Matte display provides a detailed and sharp picture quality. The display offers minimal blurs and ghosting.

The screen gets really bright, and while it does not have the best high refresh rate, if you are editing video and playing games it looks great, especially at this price point.

Processor

The Sager comes with the EPIC 9th Generation Intel Core i7-9750H-6 Core Processor. Honestly, this thing is a beast.

Any gaming laptop needs a processor that is highly powerful and reliable enough not to causes glitches while gaming. The Intel Core i7-9750H is a great option for this laptop.

A processor like this makes it necessary to have a performance cooling system to avoid overheating of your laptop, and the Sager does not disappoint here. The fans definitely cool down this machine, and the plus side is you can always go grab a cooling pad for this laptop.

Graphics Card

The Sager NP8957 comes with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 with 8GB GDDR6 (Max-Q design). I’m just blown away that you can get this graphics card included with a gaming laptop around $1,500. This is pretty spectacular considering all of the other things that come with this machine.

Real-Time Ray-Tracing (RTX) creates immersive experiences that honestly make games look super realistic. RTX really brings out shadows, reflections, and lighting.

The Max-Q design was built for power efficiency in thinner laptops and was built to extend battery life. Although, gaming machines notoriously have pretty bad battery life as a whole, so this is not going to allow you to run your laptop unplugged for hours and hours on end.

Counterstrike Global Offensive and Tomb Raider are some of the most demanding games and can be highly taxing on laptops. The Sager performs well with both and showed minimal ghosting when running on 1080p (not 4k), and has a frame rate of around 65 frames per second.

Ports & Connectivity

The Sager NP8957 is loaded with ports.

• 1 HDMI 2.0 output Port (with HDCP)
• 1 Mini DisplayPort 1.3 output Port,
• 1 DisplayPort 1.3 over USB 3.1 Gen 2 Port (Type C)
• 1 USB 3.1 Gen 2 Port (Type C)
• 2 USB 3.0 Ports (1 x powered USB port, AC/DC)
• 1 2-in-1 Audio Jack (Microphone / S/PDIF Optical output)
• 1 2-in-1 Audio Jack (Headphone / Microphone)
• 1 RJ-45 LAN (10/100/1000Mbps); Bluetooth V5.0 + LE

Having an actual audio jack is definitely nice when gaming and using specific types of headphones. Bluetooth just doesn’t cut it sometimes.

You can also include up to 3 external monitors with this machine if you are keen on using multiple screens (and why wouldn’t you be?!).

One thing to note here is the port for the power jack is in an awkward spot. If you move the cord to the back it ends up in front of the fans, if you move it forward you’re cutting into the HDMI port area. Not a deal-breaker, but something to keep in mind.

Battery Life

The battery life on this Sager is a touchy subject. Although, if you’re gaming, editing videos or programming, it’s unlikely you’re just outside without a power source.

However, if you’re in a college class and need reliability without external power, this might not be the machine for you. While basic use may get you around 3-4 hours without charging, if you’re doing anything intensive like video editing or gaming, you’ll probably only get around 1-1.5 hours without needing to plug-in.

Keyboard & Touchpad

The keyboard on the Sager NP8957 just works. It feels great to move around quickly and it pretty quiet when typing fast. The keys are not mushy when in use and offer a good clicking.

The backlit keys look great and the colors can be changed out to customize for your style and needs. You can adjust the keyboard in 3 zones or have all 3 set to the same color.

There is also a number pad included, while it does feel a little flimsy, it’s a great feature to have. There are also no built-in buttons on the touchpad, so you won’t accidentally hit them when moving around the screen quickly.

Touchpad also has Windows Precision Drivers so you can use all the windows 10 shortcuts you want.

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Who the Sager NP8957 is Best For

The Sager NP8957 has a lot of great features, but also a lot of drawbacks. If you’re a college student or travel a lot and need a long battery life, you may want to look elsewhere.

Battery life aside, this machine is great for:

• Video editing – the display and graphics card work great with Premiere Pro and other programs
• Photo editing with the likes of Photoshop and Lightroom
• Beginner to advanced gamers – most high-requirement games will run great on this machine
• Developers and programmers who need powerful processors and graphics
• Anyone looking for a powerful machine at a great price

Not sure if this is for you? Here are some other great gaming laptops for $1,500.

The Sager NP8957 Specs

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CT loves marketing, entrepreneurship, and learning about the latest tech. She blogs about laptops has always been a nerd at heart from the young age of 8 when she got her first computer. She now owns multiple machines and spend 10-15 hours a day on them learning about tech and working from home.