Help me convince someone clevo and OCZ notebooks are not "no name" brands!

Ignorance is bliss.

 

Have you considered using a pre-paid credit card or gift card from Visa, Discover or Mastercard? It doesn't link to any bank accounts, you just take your cash to a place that sells them, then load it on the card. You get all the advantages of a CC.

 

Historically there was a surprising number of Jewish mobsters. I have it on good authority that some of my not-so-distant ancestors were 'debt collectors' in the old country.

It makes sense, right? As first/second generation Americans, lucrative legitimate work might be hard to come by... and in a 'ghetto'-type neighborhood, there would be plenty of desperate people and the police presence wouldn't be too strong, would it? You're basically asking for organized crime.

Two different cultures, but nearly identical social conditions. What do you expect?

Man, this is so off topic.

 

jeez, no offence but way to hijack my thread.

okay, can someone answer my question? i forgot where it was.....

 

bump please, the thread got way off track after that question....

 

Hi,

Your problem is very common even in big companies. The solution is not that simple as it is more political then technical.

Short Version:

OCZ and Clevo aren't "no-name" brands as no brand exists without a name. They are maybe unknown.

Take for instance ASUS (or MSI). A well known brand ... I hope. They also offer barebones for desktops: http://www.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=1.

Say you buy a barebone from them, put your own CPU, Video Cards etc etc etc. Can you say that what you have in the end is really a ASUS computer? No, but you can say that is a ASUS system. You haven't change the system, you just added the missing parts according to the system spec. You see, a system is defined by its spec!

So the question is, do you parents trust OCZ or Clevo to design the system as much as they might trust ASUS. That is what you need to tackle with benefits and proof os success.

Long Version

Once a barebone is fully assembled into a working computer it is not entirely correct to say that the peace is from OCZ or Clevo since they haven't fully assembled it. They just provide the barebones and some other possible parts. The computer becomes a mix between the work done by the shop and the system as designed by the barebone builder. But as I said before it is undeniably a system created/designed by OCZ or CLEVO. They did all the R&D to create the spec and tested all possible combinations of components to be put in the barebone against its specs, thermal conditions, hardware etc etc etc etc.

Technically all that shops have to do is put the missing parts according to the system spec provided by Clevo, OCZ or ASUS, and test if they hadn't managed to screw that up, that is all.

Even that simple thing they manage to screw it up, believe me. So basically if something goes wrong be prepared to be told ... "I told you so". What I mean is be prepared to solve the issue at the speed of light as you will have no political leverage.

Wether people like it or not there is a difference in quality between a computer built by a well known brand such as HP, DELL, TOSHIBA, IBM etc etc, and a barebone assembled by a shop. That is predictability, not only in how the product will behave but also everything else that surrounds it. For instance in the case of Clevo never saw a system arriving to the market as scheduled, usually system critical parts aren't available at when needed as local stocks are low and the motherships is far far away in the supply chain, there is the question how solid is the shop finantially, there are long waiting lists etc etc etc.

If the shop has everything at hand they will be faster to fix the problem then any brand, but if they don't be prepared to wait! The good news is that usually the problem is very simple to fix, defective RAM, bad CPU, drivers, HDD problems. Furthermore, potentially the system can be much cheaper then an equivalent system built by a well known brand. I say potentially as sometimes it isn't as sometimes there isn't a fully comparable system from a well know brand, that is were things go a little strange IMHO (they call it luxury).

Conclusion:

There is a HUGE difference from this to what is commonly referred to no-name brands, or white computers. Say that you buy a case from Thermaltake or any other case maker. Now you buy the motherboard etc etc etc. Well you build all the system. Is it a Thermaltake system? Of course not, where is the Thermaltake spec for such a system? No spec then no garantee that the system works under the spec. So it is really your system, you designed it from the ground up, you made up the spec, you did the tests, you verified the temps are ok, you have choosen the mobo,. etc etc. If you choosen the wrong motherboard, the wrong CPU, the case does not provide enough airflow for SLi etc etc, it is entirely up to you. In other words you are the garantee that the components work nicely together.

Trance

 

thank you for your reply....

 

Actually, if you want the Cooks Tour version of the answer, try this one on them:

You: Parents, I'd like to buy this (Clevo|OCZ).

Parents (in harmony): What company is that? We've never heard of them before!

You: Well, you have heard of _Dell, I presume?

Parents: Why, of course, silly child, who hasn't!

You: Then you've heard of Alienware, which was just recently acquired by _Dell, have you not?

Parents: Hmmm. The name itself is a little...juvenile...but, yes, we have heard of the acquisition.

You: Then, if you trust _Dell to be a quality company, I presume that your trust would extend to companies that are acquired by _Dell; that quality attracts quality, correct?

Parents: My, we have to say that your powers of deductive reasoning are much improved this year, child! Yes, we would agree that if _Dell acquires a company, that company is likely to be a quality company as well.

You: Ok. Now that we've established that, to your minds, _Dell and Alienware are quality companies that produce quality brand-name products, it must follow, must it not, that whatever company is actually manufacturing those products for _Dell and Alienware must itself be a quality company producing quality products and - most importantly - this must be the case even if you, dear Parents, have never personally heard of the company or companies that actually manufacture the products that are sold by _Dell and its subsidiaries such as Alienware.

Parents: Can you repeat that last bit?

You: Sure. If _Dell is a quality company that sells quality products, and if those products sold by _Dell under its name are, in fact, manufactured by another company - which I shall call Company X - on behalf of _Dell, then it must necessarily follow that Company X produces quality products, even if you, Dear Parents, have never heard of the name "Company X," correct?

Parents: Why of course, dear Child!

You: Great! Then, since Clevo has been the actual manufacturer of computers that, in the past, have been sold under the Alienware name, which we all agree is a quality brand-name, then it necessarily follows that Clevo produces quality product that is equal in quality to that sold under the major brand-names such as _Dell and Alienware.

As such, if you permit me to purchase this Clevo that my research has objectively demonstrated is best suited for my academic as well as personal computing needs (ok, so I'm larding it on a little ), you will be ensuring that I own a quality product that is equal, or even superior, to equivalent products that happen, by mere historical accident, to be sold under the labels of the well-known brand-name companies such as _Dell and _HP.

Parents: (Fumbling for checkbook )How much did you require, dear Child?

After that, you just have to make sure you follow up by snowing them under with the other stuff that's been offered on this thread, such as, perhaps, velo-bound, color-printed copies of Gophn's Clevo Guide (trust me, using color copies and velobinding are some of the most persuasive "arguments" you can offer to people like your parents and school administrators ).

 

My dad would then ask me:

Indeed son your reasoning abilities astonishes me. But I'm intruigued, If they are so good why don't they sell it themselfs ... sales, distribution, stocking & support difficulties maybe?



Trance

 

Why, outsourcing or, if you will, capturing the market efficiencies of specialization. The company itself focuses on doing what it does best - manufacturing - and relies on other businesses whose special strength is sales & distribution to handle the sales & distribution of the product the company makes. Nothing more than orthodox Adam Smith, all over again.

 

Well done son

Trance

 

Ignorant Parent: Son, what if the system breaks, I am accustomed to taking my other laptops to the closest Best Buy. Best buy isn't going to accept this laptop. I just don't feel right about this purchase son. You have to understand that these large Laptop sellers got their name from their sales and support and thus by GOD, I know and trust them. I see no appealing reason to buy from this "Clenvo" over Dell, I mean, can't you do what you'll normally need to do on the Dell?

 

"I see no appealing reason to buy from this "Clenvo" over Dell, I mean, can't you do what you'll normally need to do on the Dell?"

Sure, but I can do it on my Sager for $2000 LESS. And that's money I can spend in the future on upgrades (more HDDs, 2nd GPU, faster CPU...)

 

"upgrades?" "you can do that with laptops?!?" "i did not know that you can even open laptops" "i thought they were magically slim boxes with screens that help me get online to look at email and secretly help my find some pr0n behind my wife/husband's back."

 

You're corrupting this child's mind, Gophn!

 

really?

I would say that mass marketing and inaccurate ads is what screwing with the masses' minds... making them ignorant of what they do not know, which makes them fear the unknown.... which leads them to being hostile towards unknown things, then leads them to hating them, which leads to suffering.



"Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” -Yoda

 

Well, agreed. But *in best authoritative voice* he should still wait one more year before even thinking about pr0n (if he said he was 17 - i don't quite remember)

 

just tell them that it's an Alienware if they're into that brand hype thing.

 

Or you can do it like this:

Son/daughter: Mom, dad....I'm going to hold my breath until you buy me that Clevo/OCZ.

Parents: fine with us, you'll just pass out first.

Son/daughter: Umm....if you buy me that Clevo/OCZ, I promise I won't pierce my nose and or tatoo my a** crack.

Parents: Deal! (whips out check book) How much do you need, dear?

 

View attachment 23238 View attachment 23239

 

haha nice. i think i might just give them a long lecture on clevos and hope for the best

 

I have the XPS1730 and no way in hell does it look better than say the Clevo M570xU...
But it`s like a space ship and packs quite the power...

Also,remember..sweet talking always helps.\
Put it this way: for a similar Dell/Alienware/HP you`d pay at LEAST 1000$ more, money which could be spent on an accidental warranty, and other cool stuff. Like parents` day's gifts and such

 

i doubt theyd be sweettalked into getting a clevo, i prrobably have to give some evidence

 

The Clevo Guide is not "cold evidence".

 

lol, i dont know what i meant with cold.

agh, the criterion looks so sweet!

 

how futureproof do u think dual 3870s will be?

 

As repeatedly mentioned, pointing out that Clevo and the other ODMs are really behind the big names your parents trust should be good enough. The BBB and Resellerratings.com reports are also excellent evidence of the track record of Clevo resellers compared to the big names.

As to the dangers of buying from an unknown company, using a credit card would be the method I'd prefer because of the ability to both prove and dispute the charge.

In the end, you buy from a smaller company because of the after purchase support you receive. There is usually a great deal more individual care and personal concern for your issue, as opposed to the big names which have to become faceless juggernauts because of the volume of their sales.


--------
About buying everything with cash and not using credit cards. I was raised that way as well, but when I got into my twenties it became an issue that I had no credit at all. In this day and age everybody wants to check your credit report, and if you don't have any you usually pay premium prices for things because you're perceived as an unknown quantity presumed to be a credit risk.

 

I don't think anyone will really know since there aren't any benchmarks out yet. I would say that they should at least max out games for a year and run everything else medium/low for the next two years after that.

 

gophn's d900k has been good for a couple of years now.

 

I take care of my investments.

This thing I am typing on is still near mint in 2.5 years of use.

 

Another point you can use in your favor is that some of the resellers offer warranties that are actually backed up by a third-party insurance company - technically these are called service contracts, but in effect they amount to the same thing - which will give you exactly the same sort of confidence in the strength of your warranty as one supposedly gets from buying a product from a so-called brand-name like _Dell. Typically, these contracts are issued by a company called Repairmaster (which is a subsidiary of a larger company called warrantech that actually stands behind many of the warranties issued by even some of the so-called brand-names), although I believe there are other companies that issue these service contracts as well.

Basically, the benefit to be gained here is that the company backing the service contract is frequently treated as a type of insurance company, which means that it is regulated, must maintain a certain level of reserve capital to back up the contracts it's issued, and can be checked out with the insurance regulator of the state(s) in which it does business. The benefit there is that you can get solid, objective evidence of just how good your warranty/service contract actually is.

Further, if you go with a service contract like this, then you no longer have to rely on the warranty issued by your particular reseller, which means that the relative size of that reseller's business is no longer relevant to the question of whether or not you should buy from that business - in essence, if you go with a strong third-party service contract, the reseller is doing nothing more than acting as an exchange agent helping to facilitate your purchase of a computer from the ultimate OEM - in this case, typically Sager/Clevo.

So, since Clevo is, in fact, one of the companies that actually manufactures the products that are sold as the so-called brand-name computers (e.g., _Dell), and since you can get just as good, if not better, warranty coverage via a third-party service contract, there's simply no reason at all to prefer one of the so-called name-brands over a Clevo solely on the basis that it's a brand-name and carries the implied assurances that the name-brand company will stand behind its product (which, by the way, is frequently not the case, as I can attest to viz. _HP and _Sony).

 

i talked to them and they are reconsidering their negative views!

woot!

 

Good deal, keep us posted. Perhaps reason will triumph over big brand name power.

 

Just show them this thread

 

Lol, might not be a good idea. I mean, we know what we are talking about. But what stops us from coming across like a bunch of intellectual fanactics?

It'll be best if they heard our words from his mouth. That way there is some credibility to it since he appears to have no bias *cough* like us *cough*.

 

If all else fails, my method is fool proof! No piercing, no tats in exchange for a Clevo/OCZ. You might have to throw in getting a nice haircut for a whole year, depending on the parents. If it was my kid, I'd say DEAL!

 

As a last resort he could have photoshopped a pic of Mike Dell in a hot tub with Stalin. Too much?

 

Why not Putin? It'll have the same effect and be more beleivable.

 

Yeah, showing them the thread probably isn't a good idea, unless you can cover some posts with sheets of paper while they read. I think there were a few comments back there calling them brainwashed idiots, and some suggesting he blatantly lie to them. That's paraphrasing, but it was something similar. If memory serves, parents usually frown on that kind of talk.

 

i showed them notebookreview forums and in particularly this thread.

after reading a couple of posts, there were impressed. i want to thank shyster and others for making long and informative posts, giving the impression that the residents on nbr are highly intelectual people and know a fair bit about notebooks.

after showing them some resellerratings, i showed them what OCZ is. I told them that they were renowned RAM, HDD and other notebook component manufactorers.

My mum was fairly convinced and decided that she would call my uncle who lives in the USA (who is quite the comp whiz) about clevo, ocz and his opinion on barebone laptops. if he approves it, im all good to get a 'no name' laptop!

Just want to thank you guys on NBR for being so helpful. Because of you people, i might just get the OCZ Whitebook after all.

Thank you all and +rep to Shyster (not that he needs it)

 

It was my good looks, wasn't it?

Nahhh...couldn't have been that.

 

lol!

_____

 

I'd hardly call 2x3870's in crossfire the perfect notebook lol ,they would be nice but they are no 9800M GT's/GTX's, but the backlit keyboard sounds sweet and the quad core even sweeter.

I'm sure your parents will catch on.

 

most nvidia GPus (according to the insider) are defective.

crossfire scales much better than SLI

crossfire 3870s are arround 9800GT performance, which is all that i need.

perfect IMO

 

only certain models like the 8600m

 

From what I saw, it was all 82, 84, 92, 94 cores (iffy on the 94), which is a whole lot of cards, and not just certain models.

 

As far as i know it was a lot of the 8400M GS's and 8600M GT's "only" that were defective, no other models that i know of.
as far as i know, the problem has been/is being corrected.

 

that was only speculation with drivers. I dont remember nvidia releasing a statement with all those cores in mind.

 

no, remember the news annoucement that every card (except for the 9700GT and some others) were defective..

its not been confirmed but its better to be safe than sorry

 

wow, i might be ordering one the day it starts shipping (19th)