HGL30 too Expensive at KillerNotebooks.com?

I'm fielding this question as the owner got quite TO'd when I mentioned http://www.powernotebooks.com
Their respective site is http://www.killernotebooks.com and the model in question..any of them if you like, but direct comparison of the "kodachi" or Compal HGL30.
Sale price is 1799 with a T7200, 1gig mem, 80gig 7200rpm HD,wireless, dvd burner, 1 year warranty and win XP, though i can't see it in the spec, but he swears it's there. At powernotebooks the same combo comes to 1540 plus shipping.. so that's a solid 200 plus less if he does indeed include winxp, more than 200 if not. what do you think.. this is what he had to say

Yea, when you go to their site the first thing I noticed was the title of their home page: "Cheap Notebooks -" I should stop here.
1. They don't carry the Kodachi, that is my brand, that's first of all. So right there saying they carry the "Kodachi" is lible.
2. I don't know how you could have configured anything on their site to match anything on my site, since they don't even offer a T7xxx series of C2D's... they offer bottom of the line T5xxx series, which I don't even carry. They MAX OUT at 1.83, and I don't even offer that as a downgrade.
3. They are known as "PowerWeasels" by my first tier distributor. All high end system builders that I deal with consider that a fair description.
4. You might want to give their tech support a call first with an issue, then tell them you want them to pay for the warranty return back and you want the system fixed and back in your hands within a week. See what they say.
5. EVERY one of my systems comes AS5, a $50 upgrade on theirs! WOW!

original post was here http://forumz.tomshardware.com/mobile/Battery-Life-ftopict47801.html

 

now, did you really expect someone to admit that "yea, powernotebooks got hell lot better prices than we do, you should totally buy from them.."

of course not. THey are going to say w/e they can to get you to buy from them. It is a simple fact based on the postulate that people want to make money.

 

that's a bit over the top though... and... kind of stupid. I mean, it's pretty easy to see that what he's saying is false.

Flames like that would lose business from me, if I was considering buying from them...

(not that you didn't bait him like mad )

 

Having run a few computer sales/repair stores over the years I can safely say that any business that talks that poorly with that poor of word choice doesn't deserve your money...
Sure.. a business is entitled to their opinion about another competiting company, but they dont have a right to trash talk them. Thats poor business skill and they should be turned in for slander against powernotebooks.

 

Ya, I don't think he read a thing i wrote, and came outright accusatory against my "A".. I'm still seeing if i can pull any info from him and reluctantly he is providing. He regularly tells people to buy from him when they post.."what notebook should i buy for XYZ". Maybe he's that good, but I don't get that feeling from his site, or his attitude.

 

Was it just me, or did he realize he couldn't say anything really negative about them (except that they don't have core 2 duo) and insult their religious views? That's more than just bad business...I wouldn't even consider it after that (I probably sound like an old church lady, but, really, I'm not particularly religious, but that's more than rude).

 

Well as i pulled more info out of him (mark) he said that they include Low Latency OCZ mem, seagate drives which retain their full 5 year warranty even if your 1 year period has expired, Every notebook comes with Artic Silver 5, he will cross ship if parts need replacement, build and ship a notebook within a weeks time, fix a broken notebook faster than a months time or close to a week likely, and offer top notch service and support. His notebooks go through testing which atleast includes 10 tests of 3Dmark06 burn in, but i hope he does more than that. Windows XP is also included with full updates, username configured and a drive image mounted as Z:/ . Perhaps there is more to this list but NONE of it appears on his site which i've encouraged him to add in updates. Unfortunately there are no real reviews of his business except for a couple threads at http://www.tomshardware.com and his own "buy my laptop" recommendations. I tend to be very weary of THG because of the throat cutting and BS that goes on there.

Anyhow, with all that intel gathered I would hesitate to buy anything from him personally. I don't really care to have an over thetop notebook so his models don't fit my needs, and as far as care goes, a 3 year warranty will do just fine.

 

You're right, I just caught that.. what a slimey no good son of a .. He did insult their religious views. Well I don't know who this guy is, but I would like to know how he was getting his hands on T7 intels 3 months before everyone else.

 

I think he got his hands on Engineering Samples which dont carry any kind of Warranty. The ES's are all over the market.....

 

They are either Engineering Samples, or he imported them from the black market in Asia or elsewhere. They are definitely not through the Intel distributors, and as Justin says, will not have any Intel warranty.

After reading his rants and misinformation (low latency OCZ memory??...that's a good one see if you can find such a thing on the OCZ website) I don't imagine the fact that he is misrepresenting what he is selling will surprise anyone.

 

Ya, I did search for these so called low latancy dimms. Their 533 is advertised as such, but i'm sure it's the regular cl4 we always see. He said his 667 ddr2 was low latancy.. I haven't found such a thing yet. He's not a good salesman is he?

Nice job backing PN in the THG forum donald. Very direct and to the point, which shows a professional attitude I respect.

If only "killer" had used the same logical approach to inform me his systems were priced above you for specific reasons, instead of ranting, moaning, slandering you and treating me rather rudely.. he may have shown he was part of the higher calibur his company image seeks to reach.. sad sad sad

 

Everyone is afraid of a little competition. I'm right behind Donald on this one as a happy owner of a PowerPro 8:14

 

I wonder about that statement about the ram... if it's DDR2-667, then it runs at 667*8=5336... afaik, the 5400 is just marketing, or possibly indicative that they tested it overclocked to 675?

I wonder what "antics" he refers to too (genuine curiosity)... as, just glancing at reselleratings, he's got a company with a single review, from a user who signed up the 22nd of this month... versus powernotebooks rating, which really speaks for itself...

As for the religion thing.. it's a nice thought that I might be dealing with a company that believes in ethics. Beyond that, his mockery is immature, irrelevant, and disgusting.

I don't think I'd have a problem with his notebook (I could understand a little more expensive ram, a little more expensive hdd -- though I'd buy cheaper, myself -- especially given reliability being a nonissue with the PN warranty ), but if that's how he operates speaking of a competitor, I wouldn't feel comfortable being on the recieving end of his customer support.

 

You are correct about the PC5300 vs. PC5400 memory, except that I am not aware of a way to overclock laptop memory to 675 to actually obtain 5400MB/s. Therefore there is no "real" or performance difference between the two. The difference is purely marketing fluff based on rounding 5336MB/s up instead of down.

It is also interesting that the OCZ website states their 667MHz laptop memory latency at CL 5-5-5-15, and their 533MHz latency at CL 4-4-4-8. So, the 533MHz with a lower latency is somehow better than 667MHz at a slightly higher latency?

You decide. Would you rather have memory running at 333MHz (stated as 667MHz but memory only runs at half that) or 266MHz (stated as 533MHz), particularly when most laptops control the latency in the BIOS, and they are locked. To test this simply go into your BIOS and see if you can change the memory timing.

Bottom line is there is no measurable difference of any statistical significance.

 

Thanks to all of you for recognizing the difference

 

donald and PN all the way i like his comment about "cheap notebooks - thats where i would stop." well i don't know if he knows this, but when i see "killernotebooks", that's where i would stop, and i'm sure most people would agree.

 

Well, I guess you are only allowed to slam Killer Notebooks here, and I am not allowed to reply.

LOL, whatever
Interesting they pull my post, but don't pull the post Paladin writes about the CPU's I use which is completely speculation and defamatory. That's real cool, very professional NotebookReview.

Just a little boys club of low end system builders running the show. I have seen admin's like this before.

 

Well, Justin and Donald are operators of ACTUAL computer building companies. They are honest to their customers and because of that, they get respect. Donald was one of the best salesmen that I have ever met. He answered every question and even managed to get me my computer a day early so it wouldn't have to be shipped to university. Just take a look on Reseller Ratings.

http://www.resellerratings.com/seller1980.html
Lifetime Rating of 9.99

Justin has a lifetime rating of 10. While there are not a lot of reviews, he is also well respected around here.
http://www.resellerratings.com/seller4996.html

You don't get that by lying, or deceiving customers. You earn that by being honest, professional, and competitive.

 

That killer notebook guys should just appologise for being rude and insulting to a well respected member of this community. He might not realise the amount of people that come here before buying a laptop on the internet. If there is one place I'd avoid getting a bad name if I was a reseller, it's here and notebookforums.com . Then again I can't really make him understand that if you need to push other down in order to look better you probly are already very low.

Otto.

 

Well Otto, it's hard NOT to get a bad name here.
I mean, my posts got deleted, we have kids running around saying whatever they want about where I get my components, we go people insinuating that I am not an ACTUAL system builder... we got the whole nine yards.

I am going to sum this up real quick here.
Deal with who you want, but I would recommend dealing with a straight shooter.
Being a good salesman is great, but so far from what i have seen is we have a company hiding behind religion, then that got called out and then they threatened litigation, then when that didn't work a quick run to mommy gets my posts pulled.

Just exactly what are they affraid of?

Maybe when you read right on their site this:

Ok, do you understand what that means?
You guys are slamming me and from what I am reading here, if you have a problem, Powernotebooks is gone baby. I on the other hand, have the NO B.S. warranty, I stand behind my product. The manufacturers warranty is still there, but I am going to tell you something brother. A manufacturers warranty is these horror stories you see on the internet. That's a fact.

Read up on it, you're going to see things like "Original Purchaser", and "freight You will pay for shipping the Product to our repair facility " (that's your dime), far cry from the email you receive with a FedEx lable to slap on your package that is PAID for by KillerNtoebooks. "All "Third-Party" software and peripherals are not covered...", so I would assume they mean the OS here and any software they install (correct me if I'm wrong Donald, in another thread you say, "PowerNotebooks.com offers 24/7 tech support. Call our support team and we will arrange an RMA number with shipping instructions to send your laptop back to Sager so they can give you a new screen and fix your touchpad."). So YOU as PowerNotebooks doesn't actually warranty the product, correct?

Does that sound like an ACTUAL system builder to you?

These guys, who have never dealt with K|N sure know a lot about our business. I mean, if PowerNotebooks can't get Core 2 Duo's no one can... right? Wait, DELL has them, WidowPC has them, I have them... Are all these guys like me, out on the " Black Market" getting their components? When I was getting all my components from the Black Market, I figured, "Hey, it's not like these guys can call the cops..." so I just hijacked them. Sounds like an aweful lot of drama and speculation to divert attention from the fact HE DOESN'T HAVE THE C2D 7xxx series CPU!

I love how we are using mathematical calculations to determine 5300 or 5400 Mhz RAM, pretty confusing. A person could go to Google or NewEgg and just look that there are 2 different classifications of RAM in 667, 5300 and 5400. Real simple. Simple tends to work because it is based on understanding rather than optimization of the facts.

Does that sound like an ACTUAL system builder to you?

I use Seagate retail hard drives with a 5 YEAR warranty. This is essentially the last component with moving parts. This is really your weakest link.
Does that sound like an ACTUAL system builder to you?

The next thing is that you can get as many positive reviews as you want in this business with enough advertising dollars. I learned that first hand. NO ONE wanted to review a system without an advetising commitment. Hmmmm, does that sound like the best thing for the end consumer?

Guys, buy it from whoever you want... when there is an issue, that is when you will see who the ACTUAL system builder is.

 

Why two different PC2 ratings? PC2- 5300 and 5400 are all the same modules and run with the same speed but different manufacturers like to label their product bit differently. 667 x 8 = 5336 so what is the correct answer in your opinion; 5300 or 5400? Marketing is marketing and because of that you should always make sure you know what you are buying.

-Also-

Memory rated at 5400 is just tested @ 675mhz to run at 5400 and without changing BIOS settings which are unable to be changed on an HGL30, will still run at 667 instead of 675.

 

Well your post was pulled because it was largely a personal attack and such posts are not allowed. As you are someone that runs a company and building a reputation I thought it was doing you a service to remove such a thing -- it wasnt exactly professional.

And as a reminder to any and all resellers -- you are welcome in this forum to provide information but no self promotion or direct links promoting products on one's site and no banter/attacks/degradation of other resellers is acceptable as you will not be considered an unbiased and independent source -- leave that to the other forum members to provide opinions on and stay out of such discussion.

And as a note, we don't build systems low-end or high-end and nobody involved with running or moderating this site has anything to do with selling any type of product.

This thread is closed, I think all that needs to be said has been and we don't need any more arguing.