Kobalt Mojave Review

I recieved my Mojave (Clevo M570TU) from Kobalt Yesterday and I felt that I should write a small review on my thoughts about this laptop and also write about my dealings with Kobalt UK as a company.


As some of you may have been aware I was very into my Alienware branded products hence my name and was very much looking forward to purchasing the m17x however with the customer service levels that I had experienced and a complete lack of knowledge from their sales staff I put in a small phonecall to Neil at Kobalt at was blown away by the level of service that he offered. It felt like speaking with a friend from the off and he was more than helpful to take any enquiry I made. The order status change on their page actually works and both Andrew and Neil are always available on their forum to answer a plethora of questions you might have about their product and they were always first to update customers of any delays that may have arisen and gave an idea of what the situation was at all times.

My spcification is below;
Chassis - Mojave X Black & Orange
Screen - 17' 1920x1200 WUXGA X-Glass
Processor - Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T9600 Dual Core Processor 2.80GHz
Video Card - NVIDIA® GeForce® 9800M GT 512MB DDR3
Memory 1 - 2GB OCZ DDR3 PC3-8500 1066Mhz 8-8-8-27 1x 2GB DIMMs
Intel® Turbo Memory – 2GB Turbo Memory Module
Bluetooth – Bluetooth V2.0 Module
Hard Drive - 320GB 5,400rpm SATA with 16MB Cache
7 in 1 card reader - 7 in 1 card reader
Operating system 1 - Microsoft® Windows Vista Ultimate 32-bit
Operating System 2 - None Selected
Keyboard - UK Keyboard
Optical Device 1 – 8x DVD±R/W
Soundcard – Integrated Intel High Definition Audio
Mouse - None Selected
Mouse Mats - Kobalt Mouse Mat
Power Cable - UK
Warranty - 1 Year - Collect & Return [E-mail, telephone & website support]
Dead Pixel Guarantee - 30 Day Zero Dead Pixel Guarantee
Business Software - None selected
Mozilla Firefox Web Browser
Mozilla Thunderbird E-mail Client
Carry Case – None Selected


First impressions of this laptop are fantastic, the brushed metal on the top of the laptop adds a bit of class to the unit and and it feels very solid when taking it out of the wrapping. All joins seem very well put together, all connections are tight and do not move at all and the latches (that coincidentely went wrong on my old alienware) feel very sturdy and the left latch on the screen is actually a lock which locks the screen to the base of the chassis which i feel is a very nice touch. One thing that I find very good is that i can pull up the screen from the chassis without holding down the base and there is just enough give on the hinge to lift the screen up without the base moving at all. The entire computer is especially well built and extremely sturdy.

After turning the laptop on I am almost immediately greeted by my desktop and everything loaded on it. I found that with the new Turbo Memory version 2 you can populate the memory of the Turbo Memory with your own choice of applications so that it loads them all faster and i can tell you now that it works.

I have just started browsing the internet and loading all of my applications I need and the computer is very very fast.

HEAT

There is hardly ANY heat transferring from the laptop apart from the smallest amount from the right of the chassis just under the arrow keys but it doesnt get any where near as hot as my M7700 did and i would say it's about as hot as the mug if you had put tea in it and left it for an 40 minutes. HWMonitor shows 50 degrees on idle. (not sure i can explain the heat any better) but with people complaining about the np8660 m860TU heat then there is not a single problem at all with the m570tu as the heat is VERY bearable.

FAN NOISE:

Again I am used to the noice transferred by the fans of my old m7700 and they were much louder in comparison. The fan noise can be heard but it is in no way disconcerting or annoying and infact probably makes the same amount of fan noise as a plasma screen does these days.....very little. Then it gets even better when you press silent mode as the fans decrease again in noise and stay at a constant volume and speed. This i would say is ideal when surfing the web or watching a movie as you want it to obviously be as quiet as possible and not really need to use that much CPU power.
I suggest to listen to this with headphones on, i did the best i can trying to capture the sound but it's ver quiet. The button i press is from silent mode to normal mode. So the beginning of the video is silent mode half way through you hear the fans kick in.
<object width='425' height='350'> <param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/NQqbcrJqo_g"> </param> <embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/NQqbcrJqo_g" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width='425' height='350'> </embed> </object>

Performance

At the moment I am just installing 3DMark 06 then I can run that and get relative temperatures then for my idle and being driven and in silent mode and out of silent mode. The first set of results will be worked on the stock drivers and then I will use results from laptopvideo2go drivers.

3DMark06 Benchmark

Silent mode: Stock Drivers
7443

Normal mode: Stock Driver
9522

Silent mode: 177.92
7413

Normal mode: 177.92
9613


Overall


For the moment my overall impression is fantastic, my mate owns an m17x and i'm so glad I went with this laptop instead, it's a wolf in sheeps clothing and the icing on the cake for my which like the lights on the alienware is the fingerprint reader that works flawlessly and even lets me log into Windows.

Lastly I would like to recommend Kobalt in Coulsdon Surrey as a number 1 Clevo reseller and a brilliant bunch of guys to do business with. The entire process went flawlessly and I am one very very happy chappy. The only problem i now have is getting used to this shocking Vista....lol

Pictures:













The can was to give you an idea of size




PS: I will update this when I have run more test and changed drivers and things.

 

woo hoo!

We get to have a boat load of reviews, and College football!

Congrats on your new system, waiting for more to come (pics).

 

congrats Alienwarez.
great mini review. (are you sure your not after a job at Kobalt)

i would just like to second the comments above.
Andrew & Neil have been very helpfull (ordering this week,i promise) and make you feel like youve known them for years. so for anyone in the uk who is still contemplating where to buy your next computer from i can highly recommend Kobalt.
website & forum links below.

 

Thanks for this nice review, it explained the most important things (sound/noise).

 

Yes, they have been very nice even with me! I've been modifying my specs so many times.

 

Sorry to go OT, but 10910?!??!? Dude. THat is awesome 3dm score.

Nice review btw!!!

 

you're gonna have to change your username to Clevoz or sumtin now lol

 

pics added

 

Sagerz maybe? lol,if seriously,congrats m8!Glad you like it!

 

congrats on the new beast.

make sure to take care of it.

 

yeah "get a cooler and use it on only hard surface" (c) Gophn

 

^^ i see you have been paying attention. (nagging works)

 

Nice!

Now get a nice cleaning/polishing cloth if you haven’t done so already, you will need it. And if you get a backpack with zippers on the inside, be careful not to scratch your lid. It almost happened to me, but I was able to rub it out (thank goodness!).

 

EDIT:Benchmark's posted

 

This is getting better with age, thanks for posting the video! Noise is definitely not a factor with your notebook. Now if we could get some screen shots of the test, that would make it complete. Screen shots of GPU-Z, CPU-Z, HW Monitor, wPrime, 3DMARK06, HD Tune and a few game shots just to put your review over the top. Everything is so laid out, and it will be something some people will look at and most likely base their buying decision on your review. This is only a suggestion, as your review is already kick azz!

 

nice benchmark scores.

 

What resolution for the 3d mark?

 

Boo! You got yours from Kobalt earlier than I did!!

Just kidding. Great review! I hope I'll be just as satisfied with mine as you are with yours.

Congrats.

 

okay, well i need to buy crysis and get my ps3 controller working with it. I hate playing games on the keyboard.....one thing i have noticed is the volume output is not overly loud on this computer.

 

That was the first thing I noticed, the low volume. But after looking at the green sticker for a few days (SRS) and wondering where the hell or what the hell it was, I searched the forum and realized you had to press FN +2 to get it working. When you do this, you will quickly find that your notebook has been set to low volume the whole time. When you play music or video, use the equalizer from whichever program you’re using, and it will help maximize the volume output.