Purchasing a laptop from Kobalt? The situation now?

Hi,

As a potential buyer of a new laptop I'm making my first post at this forum. I reside in Cyprus (Europe) and looking at Clevo resellers in Europe I decided to purchase from Kobalt. Prices seem fair inlc. shipping and I really liked the customizabilty when selecting a product.

The only thing preventing me from making the final step is the various negative reports I read on the web (but mostly here) about poor customer service, communication and delays. Most of these reports are last year's with the company using a rush of illnesses to its employees as an excuse for the problems. This years negative reports about delays seem to coincide with the arrival of sandy bridge cpu's.

How is the situation now? Have things improved? Anyone who purchased recently surely can give some insight to the situation. Your help would be greatly appreciated

 

hi and welcome to nbr
forums are great when it come to helping out with technical problems but they are also the place that people vent their anger. sadly we dont see happy customers that much because they have no need to visit forums as they are gaming to the max and enjoying their systems.
yes there has been some rants on here for delayed deliverys but compared to the hundreds they have shipped this year alone that is a very very small percentage.
kobalt are a small family run company that has been going for over 5 years now and they have grown from strength to strength. as one of the very few bespoke resellers in the uk they do get a lot of orders and not just for laptops and when things happen that ore out of their hands,ie mass staff illness,sandy bridge recall,ssd problems and volcano eruptions that stops all flights into the uk which delays parts then yes there are hold up and back logs which are unavoidable.

before someone mentions that i am biased because im a moderator on their forum then yes this is true but i offered my services for free and i have nothing to do with the company except being a very happy customer for the past 3 years. after my nightmare with alienware and thanks to this great forum i found kobalt and havnt looked back since. i will defo be ordering from them again in the future. also my hospital that i work at has ordered 3 GS laptops and just ordered a fourth. they were so impressed with them that they have canceled their standing order with dell and now order their laptops from kobalt.
hope this helps out a bit before the rants start

 

I purchased (paid for) a laptop from kobalt around the 17 of march. I am still waiting for some bits of it. I will be writing a detailed review of my experience when I get the complete working laptop which should be sometime next week.

MrDJ is a kobalt fanboi and is severly biased I would definately take what he says with a pinch of salt.

 

Hiya,

We have had some issues with OCZ recently where we had to pull the vertex 2 and 3 lines from our lineup and we are in the process of replacing them, as well as a few other issues with odds and sods but then that is just the way it is with bespoke machines, our delivery time depending on the build is around 3-4 weeks at the moment.

Again its dependent on the chassis/spec

Pman

 

I would look around some more before you make your final decision. Other EU posters have posted in these forums and there are a lot more Clevo resellers in Europe than you think, and almost all of them offer the same level of customizability.

 

Maybe a large part of the problem is that there is no indication regarding how much stock is available for each part. If there was some kind of indication and someone chose to build a system around a part that was in limited number he would have only himself to blame.

As the situation stands right now the first thing costumers will do if there is a delay they will blame Kobalt.

Kobalt SHOULD inform customers about stock availability to avoid misunderstandings.

 

ma_t14 DON’T DO IT! Read my thread this is the current situation. http://forum.notebookreview.com/sager-clevo/583492-disappointed-kobalt-computers.html

 

I already read your post, really unfortunate situation. Where do you recommend to buy from then? I already checked out rockdirect but they don't seem to have the one with the optimous technology like the gs150 kobalt are offering.

 

all i will say is good luck.

 

Maybe I will give it a try after all with Kobalt as I cannot find another reseller that suits my needs. I'm going to university this year and classes start in October so hopefully it arrives by then, no rush Any reason for not purchasing right now (upcoming part upgrades, summer discounts etc)? I will report back regardless of my experience whether negative or positive.

 

DevilTech - High Performance Systems-_Home#

mySN.de | XMG XIRIOS XESIA | buy Schenker Notebooks

Or if you want to import from the US if it was me I would buy from:

http://www.xoticpc.com/

https://www.mythlogiccorp.com/

http://www.malibal.com/

Im not sure about import tax for Cyprus

And heres a full list of Clevo resellers http://forum.notebookreview.com/sager-clevo/91510-clevo-guide-v2-0-faq-reseller-info.html

 

Trust me, the import tax just kills it Already looked at the other two options. Still didn't make up my mind. So how is the situation with you have you purchased another laptop?

 

Yes I have actually thanks for asking. I bought a Clevo P150HM from PCSPECIALIST.CO.UK - Custom PCs, Custom Computers, Custom PC, Desktop PC, Custom Built Computers, Gaming PC

Hopefully I should have it before the end of the month and I might even post a review on here. I actually did a little bit of digging and you know what they are not only cheaper than Kobalt but they have a better reputation too not a lot of people know that.

 

@ Rebel0721

They also have a fast track option, you pay extra to receive your laptop in 3 days or get refunded the extra if they miss that deadline.

 

Yeah I know that’s true! I opted to go with standard delivery though. I just kept thinking in my mind that if I went with fast track they might rush the build and miss something. LOL I'm so paranoid…… Anyway I would prefer they take their time and do it right instead of a speed build!

 

Why are even you selling Vertex/OCZ/SandForce products? It is not a question to you Kobalt but more towards the industry...

 

I don't think fast track is about the build time, it is more about the build queue. With standard builds, your laptop could be in the queue for a few days and when they build it may have taken them around 3 days in total. Fast track just means you jump the queue. However, I would still be concerned that they may rush the process anyway.

 

I bought mine from mysn, living in Switzerland. They shipped the computer 5 working days after the payment clear, and I received it about 2 weeks after placing the order. They answered all emails with a couple hours or by the next working day.

From what i can see, for the same specs (P150HM) its even cheaper than kolbat computers.

If the fact that you would need to ship it back to Germany for service doesn't bother you, I would recommend them.

 

We are not anymore, We have had problems with the Vertex 2 and Vertex 3 with the P150, P170, W150 and W170, major issues.

Basically we reported an incompatibility to OCZ and they did nothing, absolutely nothing at all.

So we off our own backs, contacted all our customers and are arranging swap outs for everyone who has a vertex and a problem in one of the above systems (thats well over 100 customers)

Swapping the drives out at our own cost as OCZ will not accept RMA's on the drives.

As for why did/do we sell them? They are simply the fastest by a long way, and before anyone mentions the corsair drives, we have one...tried it....not that impressed...

The Vertex 2's and 3's work in the X7200 and X8100 chassis as they do not use the H65 or H67 chips. But other then that its a no no.

Pman

 

I'm sorry to hear that, Pman, it must cost you a lot to swap all of the drives out...

Mr. Mysterious

 

Hi, actually most countries don't impose import duties on laptops. (Actually, I'm not sure I've ever seen a country that does) Here's some info I found with a quick Google search. You might want to contact customs in your country just to double check. Note: You still have to pay your local VAT tax on the purchase, regardless of which country you purchase from.

"Some products, such as Laptops, Mobile Phones, Digital cameras and Video Game consoles, are duty free."
Import duty & taxes when importing into Cyprus - DutyCalculator Help Center

Also, some US Resellers offer great discounts on international shipping, so that aspect of the order wouldn't cost too much either.

 

My own view is that Kobalt aren't as bad as they are made out to be, but they seem to be short-staffed in comparison to the number of orders they are now having to cover. I don't think it's deliberate but some customers with specific order configurations just won't see their ETAs satisfied on time because of time involved in sourcing parts which are likely separate from the more standard default configurations for which more stock is available.

My own build is currently in production, although it took somewhat longer than anticipated because of the OCZ problem and likely my own configuration changes. I can also confirm Kobalt are no longer offering OCZ Vertex 3 drives on their notebooks since they announced the compatibility problem several weeks ago.

For those in a hurry to get laptops like the poster of the "Disappointed in Kobalt systems" thread, now is not the best time to order if the build requires lots of changes over and above stock configurations. For those willing to wait or with no deadlines, the laptop will be built and delivered to exacting standards. As already mentioned, there are many European resellers of Clevo systems so choice should not be a problem.

 

If they are a small family owned and operated company, then they will be more prone to being hampered by any production issues... ie. shortages, recalls, illness, etc. They will not have the ability to have a surplus in parts, therefore relying on shipping. If factors such as the tsunami in Japan hit, they will be hampered. If they get overwhelmed by orders, they will be, well, overwhelmed by orders. Tahey are more likely to be hampered by any bump in the road. My guess from reading is they also may have to work harder to give customer service, because they are a smaller player in the game. I would not hesitate to order from them.

 

They source their parts from Mainland China and Taiwan so the March disaster should not have affected them at all, however they are much smaller in scale as a firm compared to the bigger European and North American resellers so delays like last year hit them particularly hard, that of course is the main drawback to dealing with a SME compared to the big retail firms like Dell or large resellers like Eurocom.

I'm hoping when my laptop does get shipped that the hardware works as it should and all preconfigured software has been installed and is in proper working order. Hopefully the recent chipset issues with Sandy Bridge are water under the bridge by now leaving my family with a first-rate machine to work and play with until it is passed over to me later this year. All of the delays with production and refunds will count for nothing if they can pull off the above.

 

This is almost exactly what I have to say about Kobalt as well. That and I think there is no reason for this to be considered a bad thing.

If your life is really going to change negatively in a significant way based on you getting a laptop a week late, you are either way to much in your head or you have a very intense job.

You have to think for a second, most people would rather order their product no matter what it is from a family owned company than from anywhere else, and from some reason when it comes to electronics a lot of people think the opposite.... it just doesn't make any sense for us electronic consumers to be so jaded like that.

 

Hey Guys,

Let me tell you that we do appreicate your understanding, as mentioned above we are a small business and it is not an easy balancing act.

We have been effected by the Japan situation with a couple of things, Corsair source alot of parts from Japan and we only use Corsair RAM we refuse to use anything else as it is simply not as good. Also alot of the parts for the 460M and 485M are made there, alot of builders are having problems for example Sager with shortages of the cards as well.

Alot of the other parts as Harle said we do source ourselves from the far east

The only thing to bear in mind if you do order stateside is that the shipping back if there is a problem that needs an RMA will cost you a fortune, where as some euro sellers (inc us) offer collect and return in the EU

Pman

 

Didn't know that the Corsair RAM parts and the mid and high-end Nvidia cards were from Eastern Japan, that might explain the delay with my build then since I ordered the max configuration.

@Niffcreature: Delays right now are around the 2-3 week region which has put off some potential buyers, however I trust Kobalt to do a good job with quality control so the wait is well worth it if the final product comes out as it should be. Shipping RMA for me is going to be even more of a hassle than for others if the unforeseen happens.

 

Heya,

Its not just the cards themselves, its more the parts they use for the cards such as the Vram

I have said ever since I joined, Built is as though it was mine, so far thats worked out for 99% of the time

Pman

 

Sorry to hear that. I guess you should have discontinued atleast the OCZ products after Vertex 2, which was a total disaster. Newegg ratings are very bad for these products, and they are similar to all the other SSDs that have a Sandforce controller.

I really disagree that SF are the fastest "by a long way", because reviews have shown that the difference in real world scenarios is neglible for the new generation SSDs although benchmarks show otherwise. I think you would do yourself and most importantly the customers a huge favour by discontinue with the unreliable drives, although it may backfire since people usually follow these scores you see from benchmarks reviews and want those. But like you said, paying it yourself because OCZ don`t accept RMA. That company have a long history of cheating and pushing out crappy products. I wouldn`t trust them at all.

 

Hiya,

Thats exactly what we did, we pulled the line and offered any of our customers a swap out, admittedly thats alot of hard drives and some of our customers asked us to re-install the OS as well, so we paid for collection, swap out of the drive and re-install of windows, off our own back.

We have a rather sizeable pile of Vertex 2 and 3's here now

But we decided to do what was best for our customers and swap them out after we lost all faith in OCZ

Pman

 

For my tuppence worth I bought a W860Cu back in Nov 2009. It was delivered on time, and the one issue I have had (failed optical drive) was dealt with immediately.
On this basis when I come to change this computer I will return to Kobalt.
I have followed the various complaints on NBR. They seem to be divided into two camps, firstly the ordered laptop has taken too long to arrive, and they have not been updated promptly of delays, and secondly various trolls spouting forth without personal experience of Kobalt. The first group I sympathise with, the second obviously not.
What I have not seen is anyone bashing the product or the aftersales service, which is key for me.

 

Afraid the thread I posted a short while back very much does this. My Kobalt system seems to have an installed self-destruct mechanism that was activated after two years, and aftersales service was horrible in my opinion. My case does seem to be an unlucky one too though.

 

Very good customer service if you ask me. Hopefully the rest of the resellers etc follow and SF is forced to redesign their controllers while OCZ change their attitute towards the customers. Yeah, and fluffy bunnies come falling down from the sky

 

after sale service was first class.
battery died after 10 months and was replaced as it was found to be faulty. batterys are covered for 6 months - 1 year as they are wearable parts. the new one is still holding 98% charge after almost 2 years now.
9800GT graphics card died in march and as i took the extra warranty out it was replaced with the faster 260GTX the same day. luckily im only 50 miles away from kobalt so i drove down and waited for them to finish their builds for the day and it was replaced there and then for me.

also take ashman56's 3rd post with a pinch of salt as there are many many customers that have been helped out with repairs on the same day if they are lucky enough to live close by. while i was there there was another customer that was in a pannic as he was on his way to the airport and his lappy failed and the guys at kobalt bent over backwards for him while his taxi waited outside.

 

Just read your thread. You RMA'd your computer with a cracked screen (someone might have stood on it!), and it was totally inadequately packed. When it arrived at Kobalt the chassis was also cracked, the MB mounts damaged ,GPU dead and debris floating about inside. Then you argued for months about shipping costs - which were clearly your liability.

Do you have any sense of personal responsibility?

 

That would skew the level of service to those who do live nearby Surrey, for customers who have to ship everything back across multiple time zones there's probably a limit to the level of care we can get. Still, it's nice to have positive experiences posted instead of the recent bad press on this forum.

 

Just trying to get a refund back from kobalt, just been delay after delay. Placed my order at the start of April, with an ETA end of april. Then the GT555 came out, I asked could I have the upgrade to this card which they did and gave me a new ETA of 25th May. At this point I was hppy with the service provided.

That ETA came and went, chased for an update and they said that the cables for the matt screens are not correct. I found this strange that they have just found this out as they have offered the GS150 for a while...
I agreed to wait while they sourced more cables (they said a few days).

At the end of that week they came back to me and said their had been a communication error and this issued had not been looked into.

By this point I had had enough false ETA's and requested a refund. I dont know how long getting a refund is going to take though, im not optimistic.

 

Unfortunately it wasnt us who changed the cable type provided with the chassis, we had 2 options, get new screens with the cable connector on the left instead of the right (Which we cant do as the screens are all made in the same place and only 1 or 2 models fit correctly) or 2: get longer cables.

Unfortunately the only place we can get cables from is Clevo and we can only go by thier ETA's

Sadly there is nothing that we can do to change this when an aftermarket screen is picked and Clevo change the cables on us. If I remember correctly we did offer the customers effected (it wasnt just you) an alternative screen.

Our sales guys will acknowledge your cancellation request in due course.

 

Yes, to be fair, you did offer me a non matt screen.

I think my frustration was born out of not being updated and then a "communication error" happening when I was updated. Also i was only updated when I chased you numourous times.

You really need to hire more staff to cope with demand!

 

@MrDJ Surely you will agree you don't have an impartial view of Kobalt computers as you are a moderator on their forums and presumably know some of them personally. Would you feel comfortable recommending someone buy a product from one of kobalt's competitors I bet you wouldnt. So although Kobalt may not be paying you a salary you are for all intents and purposes a kobalt employee.

 

of course im not going to recommend mesh,dell,alienware because all 3 were total crap and trust me when i say they were bad. i have had lots more laptops but high street spec so pointless recommending them as well.
after finally finding a company on nbr after my nightmare with alienware that has put my faith back into computer companys of course im going to recommend them as i find them all very decent guys that work their butts off to keep their customers happy. this is why i offered my help on their forum when it was hacked 2 years ago (if it can happen to sony it can happen to kobalt).

ive had many many pm's on nbr and on the kobalt forum from customers thanking me for directing them to kobalt. they cant all be wrong can they?

in 3 years ive met the guys 3 times. twice when ive taken my laptop in to be repaired with battery and graphics card and once at the gadget show in 2009.
if you class this as being a fanboi then so be it.
im too old to continue back and fourth explaining myself on here.
nuff said.

 

I never actually got a chance to respond to my thread, so just thought I'd clarify here. I RMA'd the computer with a broken GPU and a cracked screen. The only time period where it could be argued that I was not cooperating in getting the computer back would be between April 1st and May 3rd, where I was arguing about them not repairing my GPU because they could not determine whether the damage could have occured in transit. This was despite the fact that I reported the problem before shipping the system (I understand now that the policy regarding repairs is based on bureaucratic guidelines rather than reason).
The computer was picked up for repair December 9th and I got it returned May 26th with nothing changed except for a crack in one of the hinges and two disconnected fans. I have yet to notice the damage to the motherboard mounts or any major crack in the chasis, although I am not denying this.
The inadequate packing and damage caused by this was definitely my fault, but I do believe the fact that the GPU was reported broken BEFORE shipping proved valid evidence that it was not caused by transit, which was my reason for not accepting their evaluation between April 1st and May 3rd. I sent several enquiries and emails to different people from Kobalt regarding my disstatisfaction during this time period, none of which were responded to before May 3rd. My arguments were never addressed. After this I accepted that I was going to have a broken GPU and agreed to their terms, yet I did not get any response before posting on their forum two weeks later and when they did ship the computer on May 23rd, they had forgotten to repair the screen (and reattaching the fans after diagnosing the GPU). The second GPU broke the day after I receieved and replaced the screen myself.

Sorry for hijacking this thread for personal purposes, but I did get the impression that your reply was slightly uninformed (please do not take this as a criticism, as I believe the reason for this was the responses to my thread, which I never got to address). I also apologize for giving the false information that I was charged 40 pounds for the cleaning of the laptop in my thread; I was simply not aware that this charge was cancelled as I was never informed of it.

 

The situation for me is I have a total order time of 3 months + for my laptop and counting, some of which is due to various component issues which were not their fault.

It has now been in the build queue for over a month and in testing for 3 weeks (!)

Throughout this time I've found communication to be VERY poor.

 

Does anyone else find it ironic that MrDJ asks potential customers to ignore or discount the personal bad experiences of Kobalt customers here, yet he advises against buying Mesh, Dell, or Alienware because of *his* personal bad experiences with those companies?

No, that aurgument doesn't make sense to me either.

@MA t14: MrDJ is techically correct in saying that anyone who purchased from Kobalt and had no problems isn't complaining, but the same can be said of every manufacturer/distributer of any product on the planet.

However, products *do* fail, especially boutique, cutting edge laptops. If there does turn out to be a problem with the laptop you buy, that's when you'll be glad you bought it from a company with good customer service. The complaints on these forums seem to indicate that Kobalt is not such a company consistently.

If you do decide to buy from them, then roll the dice and good luck to you.

 

As an outsider looking in, I would buy from kobalt if that were one of my options. And realistically, reading what I have, I would go in knowing they might not make ETA but they will deliver as promised. Peoples expectations are so unrealistic these days. I speak from experience. I've blown up in situations where I had no business being upset. I'd rather pay more and wait longer for quality.

On a humorous note, if they really are family run, sounds like they need a bigger family.

 

oh here we go again

do i have to explain everything or would you prefer pictures

there is a thing that you might of heard called freedom of speech.
if you had read the posts previously (that means all the ones before this one) you might have noticed ashmans post stated "MrDJ is a kobalt fanboi and is severly biased I would definately take what he says with a pinch of salt."
THAT is what i was telling people to ignore as i find it insulting being called biased when he doesnt even know me.
yes ive had bad experiences with the previous mentioned companys.
this is why i have every right as a HAPPY CUSTOMER to recommend kobalt.
i have had 1 computer from them that is almost 3 years old now. my hospital where i work has now bought 4 and were so impressed with them that they have ended their laptop standing order with dell and will now buy from kobalt. this decision was from the IT director and my input was only that i showed my computer to my manager. i get didely squat out of it.

if you look at the what notebook should i buy page this is where potential customers of any company ask for advise. if i point them in the direction of kobalt and they ask more questions then i explain that as they are so busy they cant always guarantee the eta deliveries.
at no time do i hold a gun to their head or threaten to send the boys round to sort them out if they dont buy from them.
it is totally down to the individual to decide who they buy from.

have a nice day

 

After five pages, we have reached the end of this thread's life.

Original poster, feel free to start a new thread if you did not get your question answered. Thanks.