Kobalt NEXUS review

Please note, im still adding content and photos. hang in there



The Nexus Laptop from Kobalt is one of the latest creations from Clevo industries, one of the most reccomended high end laptop manufacturers in the world.




The Nexus laptop (also called the M860TU and NP8660) Is one of the few machines out there at the moment that utelises the new montevina platform (Centrino 2) by Intel.
At the moment, it holds 1st place as most powerfull 15.4inch laptop in the world, Trumping the Alienwares M15X that orriginally held this position.
Although I Have not owned the laptop for an exceedingly long period of time, I have put all of my effort and time in the last 4 days to write this review. (I hope you guys apreciate this^_^)

Kobalt Computers www.kobaltcomputers.co.uk

Kobalt is only a small custom PC company based in the UK, but has not let the bigger companies scare them off. I have found them to be one of the most reliable groop of people to deal with, without having to swallow any sort of high price tag. It is run by both Andrew and Neil, who are both active members on NBR forums and are very pleasant to deal with.

Pricing: Believe it or not, but during my search for the M860TU, I discovered that they were one of the cheapest companies to go for. Even bigger companies like Rock Direct, now owned by Stone (lol) had my same configuration, but around 80pounds more expensive.
Around 2 weeks ago, I was pleasantly surprised to hear from Andrew that clevo were charging them less for the chassis and instead of keeping the extra profit for themselves, Kobalt were refunding everyone that already had an order in the difference! Immagine of someone like DELL did that. You would just say "Generosity?... are you OK?"

Contact: During my time of purchase, it was very easy to get in contact with either Andrew or Neil. They have a phone line for direct contact with builders (thats also andrew and neil) or were contactable after hours by either email, PM's through here or posting yourenquiry directly on their own kobat forums.

Anyways, enough about Kobalt. Lets talk about the main attraction^^.
THE NEXUS

SPECS
WSXGA+ glossy screen
P9500 2.53ghz dual core 6mbcache 25w
Nvidia 9800M GT
2GB DDR3 ram (2gb more on the way)
320GB 7200RPM drive 16mb cache


Shipping and packaging: Laptop was sent in and Unmarked, double layer box with cozy edge suspencers around the laptop. The laptop itself was wrapped in an anti static bag and a foam seath.
Everything else was nice and snug in the free laptop carrier bag included.
Shipping tends to be 1-4 days, but I was lucky enough to recieve it before 24hours of dispatch from Home base to where i live in Ireland. I was very pleased with this.


The lapop is also secured with 3 plastic shields for transit. One that covers the entire top panel, one for the screen, and one that covers the interface place (where the keyboard is) leaving only the power buttons and touch pad exposed for those of you that like to keep these shields on for a few days (im one of them^_^)

Design and Build: Im quite happy with this laptop's looks. Its not all flashy like the M15X but it still certainly looks sexy and powefull. This might be a strange comparison, but try this. You know how all the older batman movies like the one with Arnie were all flashy with useless gimmicks on it, and now we have that cool stealth tank one in Batman Begins? The nexus is the new generation like the new batmobile........ anywho. What I would cryticise on is the fingerprint factor. The BLACK metal finish on this thing collects prints very easily.
I difinately suggest getting a cleaner to wipe these off as it is a metal finish. If fingerprints are left long enough, they are semi permanent.
If you want more of a permanent solution, get an invisible shield. www.invisibleshield.com

This thing is built like a rock. It feels nice and strong.

Screen: People have reported multiple dead pixels apear frequently with this model. I can happily assure you that this was not the case wit me. Its one of the clearest screens that I have seeen with no grainyness. With a frame rate capability of about 64 per second and a good contrast ratio, this makes one nice screen. One thing I wouldnt mind though, is a bit more brightness.
When putting pressure on the screen panel, I notice a bit of flex. I have never done this test on a laptop before, so maybe this is not an issue.


The hinges are quite sterdy. There is no wabble whatsoever and no creaking in the hinge like that of the M15X. Its quite a strong fit, so you have to use both hands to open it, wich is like any descent laptop anyways.


Keyboard: Nothing special here. Just an ordinary notebook keyboard. The keys are shallow and quite quiet. The space bar makes a bit of extra noise, but it is a bigger button so its expected.
When i first recieved it, i noticed that the top right corner was sticking out a bit. It easily snaped back in place though and has not been of any trouble so far.
I do find it a bit annoying though that there is no indicator for cap lock by the keyboard. theres only a light down bellow my right wrist. Not a great place since my hand is in the way to see any indicator.

Touchpad: It may be small, but in no way is it inneficient. Unlike what it may seem from the photographs, the pad is actually slightly depressed in a shallow. You wont be meandering off the pad without knowing it (this was a common complaint for the M15X) The sensitivity is quite good on this thing, so i never find myself scratching the pointer around. Its also quite flexible with sensitivity if you want to adjust it.
The scroll function works well too and is nicely marked on the touchpad itself.


Fingerprint reader: I dont know much about this technology. All i can say is that it does what its meant to do and works as a nice devider between the left and right mouse buttons.

Noise: For a gaming laptop, this machine can stay descently quiet. At idle, I can barely hear the fan going. When gaming though, it does rev up and become quite loud. If, at any time you find that you need utter silence, this laptop has a feature called silent mode. This feature downclocks the cpu and makes the fan pretty much stop, creating a silent machine.

Speakers: For laptop speakers, they fare quit good. I dont find them tinny in any way. It would be nice to have a bit of base sound though, wich it seems to be lacking completely. This shouldnt matter too much though, as many of us will just use headphones. They are discreetely placed in the right and left corner by the keyboard as shown in the photograph.


Power Brick: FYI, mine does not have a fan in it. it does get quitehot after about 4 hours of being used.

Heat: Since i have a seperate section for benchmarks on games, I will leave the actual results for there. What I can tell you though, Is that this whole overheating Hard drive was thrown way out of proportion. I don know if maybe other peoples HDD gets hotter, but i have reached the temps that other owners reported when their palm rest would get hot. It gets a little toasty, but not that much. Ifthey are feeling the same heat as me and complaining about discomfort, well then they are all just big babies!

Its true that it does get hotter than the average HDD, but it also has a higher than average heat thresh-hold. While on Idle, this machine stays a cool 40-41degrees. When gaming for around 2-3 hours it can reach up to 59degrees, or even 60.
If I use the notebook cooler though, i can keep this high temp down to a nice 53degrees.
The cpu and gpu are not any worry. They never get close to hot. (see? I told you that the one fan design would be efficient)

Battery: I have not had a chance to do any extensive battery tests, but i will add them to the review when available.

3Dmark results:

If you cant see in those photos, it 9273points
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[B][COLOR="red"]Game Benchmarks[/COLOR][/B]

[B][COLOR="red"]Conclusion[/COLOR][/B]
I can honestly say that I love this machine. I works perfectly, performs well and doesnt let me down.

Positive: Powerful
Sturdy
Nice design
Loads of features
Best cooling on a 15.4inch laptop
Negative: shows fingerprints
hot hard drive
screen could be brighter
Doesnt have a centrino 2 sticker

 

Just...
Thanks for the review. It makes waiting even more difficult...

One quickie... What do you mean about the Caps Lock? The set of LEDs on the front of the laptop (by your right wrist), should have a LED for the CAPS LOCK. Doesn't it work?

 

nope, no light.
why arent my photos actually appearing instead of just giving a link?

... oh wait, just noticed it now. I would still prefer one up around the keyboard though

 

I did. oh well, watever.

 

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Men... You made me get into hysteria mode!!! I even sent emails to Andrew... Poor him!

Regarding the pictures, try uploading them in imageshack.us.
You have a tool to make upload multiple pictures and then you just need to use the hotlink for forums/websited and voila.

 

Thank you for that great part of your review! Was Vista already installed? Those temps were with the driver fix right?

 

Thanks Heliosvector, great review. + rep
as milcs said,it makes you even more excited after reading reviews and even more so from the same company.

i had a look at the link you put up for the invisible shield but they dont have sager at the moment.

 

i havnt done any driver tampering yet (i have been moving into my dorm so i have been busy) so unless kobalt did it themselves, NO

 

Doesn 't have a fan? Mine has... It's in the side... From where the cable goes to the laptop...

 

i havnt done any driver tampering yet (i have been moving into my dorm so i have been busy) so unless kobalt did it themselves, NO

 

Im making a custom at the moment, so once i have it finished, ill post info on it so others can order one too.

 

nice one mate. ill keep an eye out for it.

ps. with the pictures you can directly link them using the forum.when you click post reply scroll down and click on manage attachments.

 

Good review, rep given.

 

Nice review sir.

Would you mind taking pictures of each side of your power brick? The end that connects to the computer should have vents, and that's where the fan should be.

 

Did you had Vista preinstalled on it? Maybe the driver fix was already installed...

 

Hi Heliosvector, glad you're happy with the NEXUS and that you recieved it in under 24 hours. DHL state shipping to Ireland and the rest of Europe as 1-2 days (I think Greece is 2-3 though) so occasionally people are surprised but they are very good, that's why we use them


livesoft:

Vista was pre installed by us but we don't add any driver fix as we haven't found a problem with temps. The whole laptop will run warm but that's just because it's a 15.4" chassis packed with performance hardware.

 

Thanks for the effort Helios, very good review. One small suggestion - may be worth spell checking the review in Word or OpenOffice before posting, just helps readability a little.

Many thanks again!

Petrov.

 

Have you received your Petrov?

 

I guess I can put my issue in this thread. I ordered the same laptop from kobaltcomputers a while ago and made a bank transfer September 1st. I got a mail from KC the same day saying they would check the payment with the bank soon after. After this I sent a mail on the 5th and on the 8th just asking about the status of my payment but haven't gotten a response yet (the mail exchange at first when I was asking about the laptop went smooth and I got replies quickly). Now obviously I should call them but I have no idea what the costs would be (I live in Finland) so is there an alternative option regarding contacting them?

NOTE: I am by no means saying I got scammed and the firm looks really reliable but naturally I'm a bit concerned since I haven't heard from them in 8th days while at first I usually got responses in 0-2 days. Just getting a little worried.

 

Go to their forum and post your concearns there: http://www.kobaltcomputers.co.uk/forum/index.php

I wouldn't worry though. It does take time... I know they have quite a few orders and are dealing with them as fast as they can. I ordered mine around the same date as you and I'm still waiting.

In any case, I'm sure that a phone call won't be very expensive and, it's probably, the best way for you to get hold of them.

In any case, rest assured, Kobalt and their people are completely straight and trustworthy.

 

Hi Babalatexi and welcome to the forum.
the lads are very busy at the moment building to try and get as many out on time. i think the turnaround is 10-14 days which is very good for a built from scratch gaming computer.
firstly did you receive the order notification email. if so have you been here to check your status order status page
secondly have you joined the Kobalt Forum yet (link below). Andrew & Neil are always on the forum in between builds to help members out so my advice is to join now.

 

10-14 days sounds more than reasonable for the building, remember alienware took almost 2 months for the same thing. The build from scratch thing is a bit inaccurate since they get from clevo the whole thing minus processor, hdd and memories but still 14 days sounds about right.

For the OP, beautiful review and I will place my order at the end of the week since all I was waiting for was a review on the unit. I wouldn't go out calling it better than the m15 though, in numbers they are perfectly matched the platform is newer but I don't expect to see a huge improvement in gaming between the nexus and the m15. Then again I can do the comparison when I'll get a nexus since I got the m15 for my girl earlier this year . But taking into consideration AW's customer support when I was placing the order I will probably not repeat the experience and order from them anytime soon . Good to hear that Kobalt excel in this department .

 

I should get mine tomorrow apparently. It was ready last week, but I asked them to hold off shipping because I was about to go to the US until Monday, and I wanted them to sort out the 4gig memory issue (which they have now) before shipping it to me.

Petrov.

 

That must be highly irritating. I'd minus points too.

 

most boutique computers dont have any stickers on them at all.

 

Just an update: everything's been sorted with kobalt now, they'd just been really busy. Now just eagerly waiting for my Nexus.

 

Aren't we all!?!?!

 

good news.
join the Q

 

Congrats Heliosvector Happy you got it!

 

So... when is the 2nd nexus coming along for a review?

 

mine and milcs will be getting ours next week so i think Petrov will be the next review we see.

 

Petrov already has his.
AsoO (or whatever), already has his.
Someone else in the UK got his M860TU from OCUK.

So there's already a few British M860TU spreading the Queen's language around!

I'm not receiving mine soon though... I guess that the ETA for tomorrow will probably be missed (since they didn't even start building my laptop ).

Oh well... patience is a virtue. I waited allllll my life to get my hands on the perfect laptop... What's a week more!?!?!? (despairrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!)

 

Cong m8,enjoy

 

milcs it looks like you're not the luckiest laptop buyer out there eh? I remember waiting with you for the m15, now you're waiting for the clevo... . What happened now, the supplier says no parts for milcs?

 

I think no one else will sell me a laptop again...
They say I complain too much!

Nah, I'm not really waiting for such a long time. ETA was 12th, but I was told that might not be possible. And in any case, this time my wait is filled with confidence and trust. Not like when I was waiting for the m15x...

 

i'm not so sure

i ordered my laptop 13 days before you and they haven't even started to build mine

 

Did you order a Blue Ray Drive? Or something fancy???
I want mine next week...

 

I ordered Mojave instead of Nexus. Mine specs are pretty basic, nothing special or fancy. I originally ordered Nexus, but as they already had Mojave's in stock, I hoped to get it a lot earlier than Nexus, but as you can see, still nothing.

 

Hmmmmm... Did you contact them? Did they tell you anything about what's delaying your shipment?

 

they said they are very busy. probably there's lots of people who ordered before me and they are just trying to build theirs first as it should be

 

Oh men... I don't want to have to wait for at least 12 days longer!

 

was told yesterday that it would be mid next week.
your order doesnt count until the money has been received by Kobalt.
i ordered on 3rd, confirmation was on 7th, estimated delivery was 12th
thats only 5 days and unless Andrew & Neil work 24hrs a day that would be almost impossible. they said mid next week so that would be 17th or 18th and that is still only 14 days which i think is still very good.

ok, like every one else i am really looking forward to receiving mine especially as ive been stuck in my room for 5 weeks with a fractured foot but when you compare it to alienware i had to wait 6 weeks 3 days for the m15x, now that was taking the biscuit a bit but we cant really complain with 14 days can we. i think after the experiances we had from AW i would rather it take a little longer instead of it being rushed so as we receive it on the estimated delivery date.

 

Havent checked the forums alot lately, but its atleast positive that some has recieved their nexus laptops, nice review to.

Im returning my xps m1330 tomorrow, didnt figure the delivery would run this late, dell hasnt responded to my question of keeping it an additional week, would be kinda bad otherwise, cant work without a lappie

 

I'm still waiting on viewing a test sample of laser etching I want done on the lid. I'll probably be one of the last ones to receive my laptop due to this, so I'll be reading all your reviews with extreme anticipation.

(Helios... I'd add rep if I could but it says I must spread some more around first!)

 

I have my Nexus, but I'm not British, I'm Portuguese=)

 

Me too... Where did you order from???
Fala-me do computador!

 

eu queria saber a mesma coisa, de onde você começ seu.

 

I didn't know you were fluent in Portuguese!
Although... it does sound a bit funny!

 

it does sound a bit bablefish translator