Kobalt Computers UK Pre Order of 260m & 280m

As a very happy customer of my Nexus/m860tu i thought id post this info:

Kobalt Computers UK are now taking pre orders for their Nexus & Mojave including the Nvidia Geforce GTX 260m 1gb & Nvidia Geforce GTX 280m 1gb Graphics card.

Nexus Details Estimated shipping from 8th April 2009

Mojave Details Estimated shipping from 2nd April 2009

 

No page for GPU only purchases yet it seems?

 

they had mentioned on their forum that if you required just the graphics card then to email Neil directly. you can find his email using the link in my sig.

 

One step ahead of you there. I've just PM'ed him after reading his response on the "Preorder..." thread. Thanks for the info, you must suffer from insomnia with the amount of notifying you do!

 

yup, you got that right.
he does get loads of emails and pm's a day so he may not respond immediately.

 

You can only expect as much. I'll give him 24 hrs... ...after that there are consequences.

Thanks very much. Better get some sleep.

Anyone wanna make a edutcated guesstimate at the pricing?

 

Neil said it was similar or something like that on the preorder thread, so looking at 500GPB+ maybe 750GPB with VAT.

 

At that price you're more than halfway to buying another M860TU.

 

ill try and do some homework for you. wont be until tomorrow though

 

Yeah, that's my highest estimate so my wallet will be pleasantly surprised when it comes time to pay. But I would go more around 500GBP for a more realistic estimate. I read somewhere it was supposed to be around 750USD but Nvidia were also talking about price cuts in the region of 200USD. I'm loving ATi for this and just wish Clevo will support the 4860 when it comes out.

 

I am not looking to swap out my 9800m gtx for a new card anytime soon but am curious as to how much faster the 280m is?

In Warhead for example, how many more FPS do you think one is looking to gain?

Thx!

 

spoke to Andrew today and he said as soon as he knows you will know.
they will put a seperate page for new graphic cards as soon as they receive the information.
hopefully not too long but maybe a little longer than 24 hours

 

any idea why the huge difference between US and UK vendors

apart from VAT, does clevo charge more for the same barebone between continents? and why

 

UK has a general level of taxation higher than US, not to mention other costs that are higher in UK (like fuel for example) to this you add the VAT and I think you get the prices you get in UK or in the rest of EU. In general in EU, if you take the VAT out you will end up with a price equal to that of US or EVEN lower. I am not sure about costums duties, it is possible that EU also charges costum duties on laptop products, costs that are not in US.

Hei, there are downsizes for our social cohesion policy

But you might still be right and the resellers are overall asking a higher price for Clevo laptops here (less competition on the market), but it is likely that the actual difference in price sometimes is the same as the difference of shipping something from US. Not to mention the issues with overseas warranty .

But if you think you can somehow sell Clevo laptops in UE (bigger market) at Xotic prices give me a call .

 

Well if that's true, and the estimates of £500 or so are also true, I'll be looking to the mainland to get a better deal.

However if history repeats itself then mainland EU prices will remain similar. In fact I remember Cizmo and Co. selling the M860TU for similar prices as the UK vendors.

 

This was discussed on a different thread and Neil from Kobalt said main differences were the UK VAT and the falling price of the GB Pound vs the US Dollar as all purchases are made in USD.

The lesser demand for them in the UK also means that there is less competition and that shipping will cost more as the more you ship the cheaper it is.

Edit: Here we have an early speculation of a US price on the 260M, and its looking good at $360USD

 

uk = rip off brittain
just for example
a litre of unleaded fuel is 91p = $1.33 yes you read correctly A LITRE not a gallon.

a 20 packet of marlboro cigarettes are £5.60/$8.21
2 years ago was the last time i went to america and i bought 1000 cigarettes tax free at gatwick airport and they cost £55/$80 if i would of bought them before i had passed through customs in the uk they would have cost me a whopping £280/$411

so you see, thats why everything is so expensive in the uk. rip off britain tax and its also been lowered from 17.5% to 15% during the credit crunch

just for comparison could someone post the equivalent items if bought in america.

 

Barely a dime for each of those items!

 

im not buying the exchange rate OR VAT excuse. yes the exchange rate will make it cost more in GBP, but when converted back to dollars , the difference is HUGE (dollar for dollar, at any given time)

stronger GBP means the laptop will cost less GBP, but when the cost is converted back to dollars at whatever rate there is at that time, the difference will again be HUGE

its been as bad a year ago when the GBP was 2:1 for a dollar, and its just as bad now when its 1.5:1. the difference is a fixed percentage (say 30%), dollar for dollar, or gbp for gbp when converted, no matter what the rate is.

VAT only covers a small portion of that difference. exchange rate my a$$, i'd blame the rest to higher costs and just plain market mentality.

i thought that clevo had different pricing policies across countries, but if thats not the case, then i'm just plain disapointed.

apologies for hijacking the threat, i'll probably start a new one

 

Its just launched, and there aren't that much competition, if you expect bargain, I'd say my good sir your dreaming.

Can't say I'm interested in any of those UK reseller, if they chose are sell at 2-3 times more than internal price.

 

And this was supposed to be Utopia, the dream of having the government manage our pension and healthcare turned out to be more of a nightmare. It all goes to the immigrants if you ask me, but I'll be nice and stop there.

I can understand the cigarettes as they have massive taxes to discourage smoking but the prices of most everything else is down right thievery. Think a pack of Malboro in the US costs around $5USD.

VAT bumps the price around 200GPB and that is just unfair. If you take off the VAT then I would be quite happy with the prices, they still won't be a steal like they are in the US but they would be more affordable. Market Mentality does have a fair bit to do with the prices but its everything together that causes the extreme pricing. If they had more competitive pricing they could sell more but instead people are being driven mostly to HP or Asus for gaming rigs in the UK.

 

Lets say hypothetically that a chassis with GPU cost $1000 this time last year when the ex rate was 1.98 - 1. That would have cost us the equivilent of £505 - don't forget that ultimately everything in IT is purchased in US $ from chassis to CPUs to HDDs.

Now that the ex rate is 1.45 (and it's been down to just below 1.4) that same chassis ends up costing us £689. So over the space of the year the $1000 chassis has gone up by £184 ex VAT and the same price increases are across the board on all the components in the laptop. So the exchange rate alone means that the sale prices have rocketed over the last year.

If you look at an 862TU from us compared to importing it from North America it now works out at the same price, give or take £20, after you add the UK 15% VAT and shipping so actually our prices are very competative. If you also look at the other european sellers that are in the Euro we are about £200 cheaper, again mostly because of the weak £!

There's lots of arguments you can throw in like higher cost of living, different markets etc but unfortunately the US will always be cheaper purely because they pay less for their components and buy everything in USD.

One last thing to point out is that UK VAT is national where as US and Canadian sales tax is state based so it's never quoted in online prices - 4% to 10% at most.

 

Thank you Neil, very good post.

I did look at importing from the US and was annoyed that it came to roughly the same price as I could buy in the UK.

 

i concur, thanks for clearing that up Neil,verry weel put young man

also dont forget,if you do buy direct from the states and you need a repair you will have to foot the bill on courier and insurance or get it repaired here also at your expense.

 

is about 20% overclocked, a 55nm chip (G92b), and a little more stream processers (128 instead of 112).

Nvidia said 57% increase in performance in Crysis, but I think this is bs. I personally think about 20% increase FPS.

 

Hey thx for the reply! Yeah 57% sounds like bs to me also.

 

thanks for the clarification, but i wasnt pointing out prices going up in GBP, but when converted to USD.

you said last year a part that cost 505GBP was sold for 1000USD at the same time at 1.98. so far so good.

you said this year the same part costs 689, but this STILL equals 1000USD

yes it did go up in GBP, but NOT in USD, correct? (due to the exchange rate)

so why, at the current rate, the exact same configuration, with the UK price converted to USD its still 20%+ more expensive (didnt include VAT in that one) in the UK?

just to clarify, i'm not trying to prove that kobalt has high prices, on the contrary, they're one of the most competative in the uk, i'm just dazzled by the huge price difference between continents

thanks again and sorry for the highjack

 

Yeah, prices in rest of EU are higher now and about 6 months ago they were actually a bit lower than UK on certain systems. D@mn exchange rate.

 

Blacky - your avatar looks remarkably like a die shot of a 200M GPU!!!!!

Ah ok. I've just compared our ex VAT price to a well known CLEVO reseller (!) in the States. I understand what you're saying but there's only a 5% difference atm. If also include the UK VAT then that adds up to a 20% more expensive product. Look at it from the other way round - we (Kobalt) sell an 860TU to a customer in the US:

Zero rate the VAT on our sale price = £1094 = $1586

Well known US based CLEVO reseller = $1499

Obviously there's much more of a difference when you add ~5% US sales tax compared to adding 15% UK VAT.

Main price difference will be because the company in the States we are refering to is huge so their purchasing power on chassis and components is also huge. Components in the US are just simply cheaper, maybe down to a larger distrbution/consumer base, maybe the market simply demands lower pricing.