When will the 6970m be available in (UK) clevo systems?

As in the title.

Can someone from Kobalt (UK) and PCspecialist (UK) give an ETA on when the AMD Radeon HD 6970M will be available in their Clevo laptops in the UK? Or any one else who may know?

They seem to be making an appearance in Europe, but no sight in a Clevo in the UK yet.

Thanks

 

a post has just been replied to on their forum so yes the 6970 will be available from kobalt soon but there is no eta on that yet.

 

Hiya,

I would expect them within a week or two, as for pricing at the moment its TBA but it should pitch somewhere between the 460 and the 485

Pman

 

Thanks for your responses

If the pricing is between the 460m and 485m, I'm guessing it will be similar to the 470m then?

 

cant believe anyone considering Kobalt due to their horror-like stories and very disgusting reputation which is documented in this forum - go with another UK/European reseller if you are not ready to wait months for the system. Seriously

 

Im sorry I have to take exception to that, Our average delivery time is 2-3 weeks for new systems, currently we are working alot of hours to get through the backlog created by Intel, the same issues everyone is having to deal with.

I was a member here, a customer of Asus, Alienware and Kobalt, long long before I worked for them.

It is no secret that Kobalt had a rough end to 2010, we cant control the weather, imports or the availability of parts, however you only have to look at the recent threads on here, talk to our customers or go to our forum to see how things have and continue to improve.

Pman

 

Your statements are aggressive, and yet you haven't exactly read what had happened to Kobalt; they had a hard time managing with unexpected delays and incidents. Horror stories? No. Do you see anymore "disgusting" anecdotes from Kobalt orders? No.

They are just accounts from unfortunate people in an unfortunate turn of events in UK. Read the horror stories properly, maybe a light will shine upon you.

 

Yes I've read a few of the past threads of very upset people. Which in most cases seemed wholly justified. However, my feeling from reading the threads and the following discussions was that Kobalt is a relatively small company that got hit by numerous problems and bad luck, pretty much all at the same time. Due to staffing issues these problems accumulated and also led to very poor communication which grievously exacerbated the situation.

From what I have seen Kobalt seem to be trying very hard to get themselves back-on-track, and seem like a decent bunch of guys. I believe they are making headway, and as long as they remember that particular episode, learned from it and have the necessary protocols in place (e.g. be straight up about order ETAs, timely refunds for broken orders, etc.) to deal with such incidents in the future, I'm sure they will become a household gaming name in the UK. Especially when they start expanding their laptop brand range like XoticPC did.

I for one would be willing to give them a chance when I'm ready for a new rig.

Anyway, back on topic. When you (Kobalt) get the 6970m in let us know will you.

 

I'm sorry that you feel that way but really, please do understand what happened to them during that timespan when all the complaints surfaced up. But really, a few months of these "horror-like stories" doesn't mean they're actually that sort of company. In fact, I really do not think that all the good services they've done over the past few years should be erased just because of multiple unlucky coincidental events that happened back to back. Some of the complaints are probably even blown a bit out of proportion...

I got my second kobalt notebook and all I have to say is, they're already pretty much back on track (probably ). My order didn't take too long for them to get on to (Sure it's a week or two late but considering the circumstances, understandable).

I'm vouching for their reliability. They're really a good company that tries their best to fulfill the customer's wishes as soon as possible. Heck, I had some problems on the first few days of my new notebook and they really do try their best to help me fix it Thanks Pman!

 

Hopefully Kobalt will have 6970m batches ready for testing and shipping within the next week or 2. My current laptop is starting to act a bit dodgy lately and I'm looking forward to getting the order in town for pickup when I leave for home early next month.

 

Oh Dont worry when we are ready we wont be keeping it a secret



Many thanks to you all for your continued support, I can say for certain that quite alot of the kobalt crew do read feedback and believe me when I say that we are never happier then when we have happy customers. Even if it means working through the weekends which has been happening recently to try and get through the back orders with the Sandy bridge issues.

Regards

Pman

 

I recommend Deviltech.de, they are much cheaper than Kobalt.

Plus you can have your keyboard in english as well.

 

Yes you are right they are significantly cheaper, and that is including tax and shipping, however most the site is in German. The most important part (the warranty conditions) is in German which you can't cut and paste into Google translate because it is a .gif. I have no idea whether the shipping is inclusive if delivered outside of Germany, but within Europe.

All in all they look really interesting, but they haven't really done themselves any favours if they want to sell externally due to all the important information being in German. Also no payment method information, and you have to login to go further into the purchase, which I imagine is also all in German. As much as I would like to drop £1500 on a tenuous Google translated blurb, I think I would have to pass. Thanks for pointing them out though

 

From Deviltech

devil care: 2 years devil care and 2 years warranty (included in the price)
devil care: 3 years and 3 years warranty devil care [+150 €]

I think shipping is around 70€, at least that is what they charge to ship to Spain (where I live).

This configuration is quite nice:

James Camerons AVATAR Extended Collector�s Edition: James Camerons AVATAR Extended Collector�s Edition
Bildschirm: 15,6" Full HD 1920 x 1080 LED Backlight Widescreen mit Non-Glare-Technologie
Betriebssystem: kein
Sprache Betriebssystem: Spanisch ( Falls Betriebssystem ausgewählt )
Garantie: DevilCare: 2 Jahre DevilCare und 2 Jahre Garantie
Prozessor: Intel® Mobile Core i7 2720QM / 6MB L3 Cache, 2.20GHz - 3.30GHz Turbo Modus [+159€]
Speicher: 8 GB - 2 x 4096 MB Hochleistung - DDR3 SDRAM mit 1333 MHz [+119€]
Grafikkarte: ATI Mobility Radeon HD 6970 mit 2GB GDDR5 Speicher und DirectX 11 [+109€] LIEFERBAR AB ENDE APRIL
Festplatte: Seagate Momentus XT, 500GB, 4GB Hybrid, 7200U/Min. [+80€]
CD DVD Blu-Ray: DVD-Brenner: 8x Dual Layer DVD+/-RW / 24x CD-RW Combo
Kommunikation: Integriertes 10/1000Mb Gigabit Ethernet und 56K V.92 Modem
Soundkarte: Intel® High-Definition Audio (24-bit, 192KHz) mit Surround Sound
Wireless Netzwerkkarte: Integrierte DevilTech Wireless-Karte
Bluetooth: Integriertes Bluetooth-Modul
WebCam: Integrierte 2.0 Megapixel Kamera
Fingerprint: Integriertes Fingerabdruck-Lesegerät - Sperren Sie Eindringlinge und Schnüffler aus!
Keyboard: Notebook-Tastatur - Spanisch
Maus: keine
Headset: kein
Office-Software: kein
Anti-Viren-Software: kein
USB-Stick: kein
Diskettenlaufwerk: kein
Zusätzlicher Akku: kein


Summe Produkte (netto): 1.315,97 €
zzgl. MwSt.19% Betrag: 250,03 €
Summe Produkte (brutto): 1.566,00 €

Versandkosten: 0,00 €

Gesamtsumme: 1.566,00 € = 1,384.27 GBP Not too bad

 

Hi alstrike. Yes I must say the price seems nice for the laptop config I would be looking at Deviltech.

A comparison of the clevo P170HM (total cost) from Kobalt (with 470m) and Deviltech (with 6970m) is about £130 cheaper with Deviltech. However, this isn't a fair comparison until Kobalt provide their pricing for the 6970m.

Can you tell me if the Deviltech warranty is a European "collect and return to base" one? As that would make a big difference as well.

Thanks

 

I don´t think the warranty covers shipping or collection, however I´m not 100% sure as I haven´t bought anything from them.

I´ll check with someone over here that received his laptop last week.

Anyway I guess Kobalt will slap a nifty +300 GBP at least if you wish to upgrade to a 6970M, seeing their prices listed on the website I think is quite a fair assumption.

 

Guess what arrived just half an hour ago?
My Clevo ofc. :O

Anyone want benchies?

 

will kobalt sell the 8130?

 

You could ask their sales department for more info, but if I'm not mistaken the only difference between the 8130 and 8150 is the power supply provided and indirectly the maximum configuration of hardware supported.

 

and the stock screen..
8130 = matte
8150 = glossy

 

Dont make any assumptions

Regarding our warranty we offer 2 years collect and return, or for a small extra we do 3 years collect and return

Pman

 

I didn´t want to sound offensive or anything so excuse me if that bothered you.

I based my opinion purely on the prices listed on your website, nothing more.

Regards

 

Thanks I would appreciate that

Once Kobalt and PCspecialist have pricing for the 6970m I will do a price comparison including Deviltech to see if there is any significant difference between them.

For me though the most important things are the Unit price (the config I like), warranty length (T&C, and cost), company country location (UK makes the most sense for me, unless the previous two points supersede that), and current customer care/support feedback.

 

This I imagine would be a deal breaker for me a lot of people in Europe, as I believe that this is a European Collect and return as well. Of course this would depend on config. pricing for the laptop. If there was a significant difference between pricing I would forgo this for a RTB only, depending on company location.

 

Techno - I've emailed PCSpecialist and they replied saying they have no plans to include the 6970M do you have any different information?

 

Hi DJJ1, I've used their live chat support option to ask them whether they will be getting the 6970m option for their Vortex II (clevo P170HM). The guy I communicated with didn't have a clue that this card even existed, but when I mentioned Kobalt has this option for their P170, he said no doubt they would get them in too at some point.

My impression was that PcSpecialist aren't too clued-up on their high performance systems, as they sell a lot of other type of laptops/PCs. If enough people ask them, I'm sure they'll provide the option though.

Kobalt are doing a great price on an upgrade from the nvidia 460m to ati 6970m of £43. This brings the total cost of the system down considerably, while still maintaining a high performance gfx card. The only thing that lets them down is they don't have enough options for their base spec to bring the cost down more.

For example their base option for their primary HDD is a 500GB at 7200 rpm, and their ram is 4GB, whereas PcSpecialist have a base of 250GB at 5400 rpm, and ram at 2GB. This means PcSpecialist can provide an lower base cost by over £100 (with their free delivery). Also another slight negative is Kobalt do a £75 cash back if you choose not to have an OS. I don't really get this, why not just take it off the total purchase price straight away. Most people associate cash backs with small-print no pay-back scams (though I'm pretty sure they aren't doing this).

All in all if PCspecialist get the 6970m they will out compete Kobalt for this system on price. However it is worth noting Kobalt offer a cost effective upgrade of a 3 year collect and return warranty (Parts,Labour, and Delivery) while PcSpecialist at most only offer 2 years P&D and 3 years labour.

Personally, I'm still thinking about this system and a Alienware R3. There is no hurray at the moment, barring my current system holds up.

 

The only reason Kobalt put the £75 cash back option is that their website system does not give them an option to do minus values. After you order, you'll get £75 credited back to you.

 

Re-read what I said before. I said I'm sure they are not doing this. That's obvious other as people would have been posting about it on this forum long before now.

However there is some negative association with cash-back options, usually due to cash-back promos on the high street (e.g. some mobile providers) that do not honour it once the product is bought. Either due to small print or simply not providing it. My advice would to fix the website to take this amount off the total. It can't be that hard, PcSpecialist among others are able to do this without any problems for the "no OS" option.

This isn't a big thing, but I'm sure it may put some people off who aren't familiar with their reputation, which I'd imagine is the majority of potential customers.

 

let me just clear a few of these options you have mentioned up once and for all.
kobalt are a bespoke high end supplier in the uk
just compare their 6970 upgrade of £43 compared to alienware £200

you also mentioned base spec.
the 500gb hard drive is actually a free upgrade:

but if you want a smaller hard drive for the same price im sure they would be able to sort you one out

just by looking at this forum and the kobalt forum i think you will see the majority of people now a days run 64bit operating system so it would be pointless offering 2gb of ram as you would not get the full use of your operating system. even with 32bit you can see and use roughly 3.1gb ram

the £75 cashback on no operating system.
as far as i know the majority buy with an operating system so its easier to give the minority a cashback option.

lastly the warranty.
imo kobalt offer by far the best warranty compared to pc specialists.
my nexus is 3 years old in september.you get 2 years full cover included.
i upgraded to their 3 year cover for £70.
a month ago my 9800GT graphics card died. this was replaced with a more powerfull 260GTX free of charge under the warranty. if i had bought from pc specialist even with their gold cover i would of been covered by labour only and had to pay for courier,insurance and graphics card myself.

hope that clears a few things up.

 

Hi MrDJ, I already mentioned that Kobalt are offering a great £43 upgrade for the 6970m (in the bit you quoted). Not sure what point you are really trying to make here.

I suspect the HDD is included in the base cost, and isn't free. That sounds like a marketing ploy. If it isn't, maybe they could send me a spare one for free, I'll pay for delivery

I'd imagine most people will try and keep the overall cost of such a system to a minimum, so it would be helpful to offer lower base spec options. In this case it would (optionally) lower the cost for people who wish to buy the extras in their own time rather than paying upfront beyond a particular budget they have. Also some people will be replacing systems, which means they may already have spare hard drives and ram to put into their new machines.

I still don't understand why this just can't be removed from the total before purchase. Is it really that hard to do? Surely a cash-back involves more work for Kobalt than not taking the money in the first place. Taking cash to then just return it doesn't make any obvious sense.

Again, I mentioned the warranty already, in the bit you quoted from me. Which is very good value.

 

Let me try and clarify a few things for you

Our base hard drive is the 320gb Western Digital Black, we offer a free upgrade on that one TO a 500Gb WD Black, as with any free upgrade we give you a better part in exchange for the lesser spec part, if you want a 320GB thats fine but it will not decrease the price as this is a free upgrade.

Regarding 2Gb of ram, no one ever brought it when we offered it, so we stopped offering in, in the hundreds of laptops we have shipped this year alone, not a single one has asked for 2gb of ram.....besides 2gb of ram on one of these machines? its like putting a ford engine in a Ferrari...however if a customer really wants 2Gb of ram then we can do that and knock all abit off the price, but the price difference is so small that its not worth bothering tbh

Regarding our cash back option, we have no plans to change this, you would be surprised how many people select no OS and then drop our sales guys an email saying actually can you add Home prem on it...The refund will be complete by the time your laptop ships.

As for the 6970, we are the lowest on the upgrade price by quite a way

Regards

Pman

 

For a fair comparison people should build the configuration they need identically at both stores. Also take into account that the german sellers do not have collect and return for computers sent outside of germany.