Custom laptop builds = Scam?

[spaceweezle]

About a week ago I discovered companies such as Metabox that offer custom build options which currently have some super-mega-ultra-promotion sale event for upgrades.

This looked pretty good initially until I started doing some math and digging deeper into the products themselves.

The current promotion allegedly gives massive discounts on upgrades or add-ons. However the base price for the upgrades are grossly exaggerated to the point the normal price is actually more than what you normally pay anyway.

Looking at the Alpha-VX model:

Ryzen 7 - 8845HS
RTX 4050 6gb
16" QHD 240hz display
8gb DDR5 4800mhz
1TB M.2 SSD

CPU:
Can't complain. Good laptop chip for extending battery life.

4050:
Serviceable graphics. Suits price point.

16" no-name screen, of which has propensity to fail going by reviews.

8GB ram:
Cheeky, insufficient for any modern OS. This is essentially "forcing" an upgrade out of the customer. The next two tiers of ram upgrades are both 1 stick. So you lose dual-channel bandwidth. The first "viable" solution being 32gb for $200..

1TB SSD:
Metabox branded, or more accurately, cheap Chinese non-name brand. Okay, not the most critical component.

OS:
There is none. Unlike any other retail that ships with Win11, you will have to pay $200 for Win11 home at the very least.

Verdict:

So while the base price of the system might seem good at first, it is configured in such a way that upgrades become more of a necessity.

But easily the scummiest part is the way they market the upgrades. Let me elaborate;

Slot 2 SSD upgrade $169 - "MASSIVE SAVINGS" according to them. Base price reads $299, when in reality proper brand name SSD's of that size at $150. But what they offer is non-name stuff.

Ultimately you are not getting the deal you think you are. You are essentially getting a few normal parts (GPU-CPU) and the rest is Clevo, Chinese no-name for your Chassis, Motherboard, Ram, SSD, Keyboard etc etc..

I did quite a bit of digging and the failure rates for this brand is staggeringly high. The company does seem to honour warranty claims and does offer reasonable warranty, however the parts used, excluding GPU/CPU, are not designed to last more than the warranty period, often times quite a bit less, according to user testimony.

I was tempted to buy one solely on the merits of being able to customize it, but in the end what you are getting is mostly Non-name junk that is prone to degrade rapidly. The chips, componentry, chassis, screen and keyboard all apparently inferior quality to what you would get for a normal pre-built.

[ˢᵈˣ FatCat]

I dont think it's a scamm , more like gimmick, oh if you buy a house now you will get 32tv , why would i spend 100K usd for a tv kind marketing gimmick stuff
for Quality every brands are chinese or taiwan , their quality are getting better, hell my Ci-fi are all Chinese

[spaceweezle]

Originally posted by ˢᵈˣ FatCat:

I dont think it's a scamm , more like gimmick, oh if you buy a house now you will get 32tv , why would i spend 100K usd for a tv kind marketing gimmick stuff
for Quality every brands are chinese or taiwan , their quality are getting better, hell my Ci-fi are all Chinese

I think everyone knows at this point where most componentry comes from, but the difference here is specification. The boards, chips, screens, chassis aren't built to the same standard as other name brands. You can't even query which grades of chips are being used in this case.

Most name brands pride themselves on using specific grade componentry on their motherboards, often openly advertising this. Metobox or "Clevo" uses random no-name junk for all we know as there is no disclosure there. That would at least coincide with the limited longevity of those parts.

Marketing ploy might be a better word for it, but it is ultimately deceptive advertising.

The product itself, when factoring in the above criteria works out to be a pretty bad investment.

[Omega]

All just Clevo/Tongfang hardware.

The quality of these machines is really hit or miss and they usually sit at the same pricepoint as more premium devices.

[spaceweezle]

Originally posted by Omega:

All just Clevo/Tongfang hardware.

The quality of these machines is really hit or miss and they usually sit at the same pricepoint as more premium devices.

Yeah that's the main issue I have with them. It is as you say, very hit or miss. I found it very hard to find a single long-term review that did not have multiple warranty claims well within the warranty period.

After reading so many, it seems that people simply got tired of repeated claims and losing access to their device over and over.

It's cool that they honour warranty, but ideally I would just rather not have problems to begin with. Not saying that doesn't happen on trusted brands, but in this case, there is disproportionate failure rates on the same "Clevo" components.

Personally I think one of their biggest mistakes was their flaky power system. If they are offering no-name motherboards with sub-standard chips, the least they could do is offer batteries on par with name brands. Not even their top models can match Asus mid-tier battery specifications. That was a major detractor for me. A lot of people reporting below average battery performance.

They also use Intel HX chips almost exclusively, which is honestly a terrible chip to pair with laptops. Power hungry and with power management issues. I was relieved to see they had one option for Ryzen 7, but the system is not good value regardless.

[Omega]

I have had dozens of Clevos deployed, I didn't have a higher failure rate with them than with the Lenovos. And a big benefit of the Clevos was that if I required any support or spare parts, I could just email the seller an have the parts ship the same day no questions asked.

Clevos do have a few advantages over big-brand laptops. They are repairable, these machines are usually hand-assembled by Clevo resellers.

Their stock BIOS is not very locked down, you can for example stick in almost any Wi-Fi card, it will just work, big-brand laptops often have hardware whitelists and will refuse to POST with non-whitelisted parts.

And they often have Coreboot support, so you can replace parts of the UEFI firmware with something open source. Some models can even disable the Intel ME when Corebooted.

[spaceweezle]

Originally posted by Omega:

I have had dozens of Clevos deployed, I didn't have a higher failure rate with them than with the Lenovos. And a big benefit of the Clevos was that if I required any support or spare parts, I could just email the seller an have the parts ship the same day no questions asked.

Clevos do have a few advantages over big-brand laptops. They are repairable, these machines are usually hand-assembled by Clevo resellers.

Their stock BIOS is not very locked down, you can for example stick in almost any Wi-Fi card, it will just work, big-brand laptops often have hardware whitelists and will refuse to POST with non-whitelisted parts.

And they often have Coreboot support, so you can replace parts of the UEFI firmware with something open source. Some models can even disable the Intel ME when Corebooted.

How long have you had them deployed and for what usage?

All the positive reviews for Metabox are short-term, but a staggering amount of people reporting issues around the end of warranty period. Most of them being identical issues. Screen, Chassis, Keyboard or power issue. That just so happens to be all the no-name components on the system.

[A&A]

Yeah, they are kinda scam because the only things you can upgrade more than others are the CPU and GPU (only if soldered), so it is the motherboard.

[Omega]

Originally posted by spaceweezle:

Originally posted by Omega:

I have had dozens of Clevos deployed, I didn't have a higher failure rate with them than with the Lenovos. And a big benefit of the Clevos was that if I required any support or spare parts, I could just email the seller an have the parts ship the same day no questions asked.

Clevos do have a few advantages over big-brand laptops. They are repairable, these machines are usually hand-assembled by Clevo resellers.

Their stock BIOS is not very locked down, you can for example stick in almost any Wi-Fi card, it will just work, big-brand laptops often have hardware whitelists and will refuse to POST with non-whitelisted parts.

And they often have Coreboot support, so you can replace parts of the UEFI firmware with something open source. Some models can even disable the Intel ME when Corebooted.

How long have you had them deployed and for what usage?

All the positive reviews for Metabox are short-term, but a staggering amount of people reporting issues around the end of warranty period. Most of them being identical issues. Screen, Chassis, Keyboard or power issue. That just so happens to be all the no-name components on the system.

About 6 years, most machines were replaced after 3 years.

9-5 usage monday-friday. Roughly 30 machines in the first lifecycle, around 20 in the second.

I think in total I have to do maybe 5 RMAs/repairs. Broken fans, screens, drives and hinges, I don't recall any laptops dying due to the issues with the main PCB.

[spaceweezle]

Originally posted by Omega:

Originally posted by spaceweezle:

How long have you had them deployed and for what usage?

All the positive reviews for Metabox are short-term, but a staggering amount of people reporting issues around the end of warranty period. Most of them being identical issues. Screen, Chassis, Keyboard or power issue. That just so happens to be all the no-name components on the system.

About 6 years, most machines were replaced after 3 years.

9-5 usage monday-friday. Roughly 30 machines in the first lifecycle, around 20 in the second.

So no problems with the first batch that lasted 3 years? Or they were replaced on failure?

Might I enquire as to which model and when they were purchased?

[spaceweezle]

Originally posted by A&A:

Yeah, they are kinda scam because the only things you can upgrade more than others are the CPU and GPU (only if soldered), so it is the motherboard.

But at least you can add more memory, storage and even have options for different base build. You don't really get that option from most pre-built systems.

I actually wouldn't mind paying a premium for that service alone. But the base parts, Motherboard, display, chassis, keyboard being largely unknown quality scares me frankly.

[Omega]

Originally posted by spaceweezle:

Originally posted by Omega:

About 6 years, most machines were replaced after 3 years.

9-5 usage monday-friday. Roughly 30 machines in the first lifecycle, around 20 in the second.

So no problems with the first batch that lasted 3 years? Or they were replaced on failure?

Might I enquire as to which model and when they were purchased?

Novacustom NV40/41, NS51, NH55, NH77.

They were purchase in waves, whenever we needed more we bought more.

[spaceweezle]

Originally posted by Omega:

Originally posted by spaceweezle:

So no problems with the first batch that lasted 3 years? Or they were replaced on failure?

Might I enquire as to which model and when they were purchased?

Novacustom NV40/41, NS51, NH55, NH77.

They were purchase in waves, whenever we needed more we bought more.

Hmm not seeing anything by that listing on Metabox. Likely not applicable to their range in recent years I would say.

[A&A]

Originally posted by spaceweezle:

But at least you can add more memory, storage and even have options for different base build. You don't really get that option from most pre-built systems.

Most pre-built systems have at least two RAM slots. At least one or two M.2 maybe more, depends on the model. You probably won't be able to change the GPU, but you can always use an external one if needed. The processor will remain the same.

[spaceweezle]

Originally posted by A&A:

Originally posted by spaceweezle:

But at least you can add more memory, storage and even have options for different base build. You don't really get that option from most pre-built systems.

Most pre-built systems have at least two RAM slots. At least one or two M.2 maybe more, depends on the model. You probably won't be able to change the GPU, but you can always use an external one if needed. The processor will remain the same.

Yeah but they don't allow you to configure it yourself. I think that's possibly the best part about Metabox. It just sucks that they don't use quality components across the whole system.

[nullable]

Originally posted by spaceweezle:

Originally posted by A&A:

Most pre-built systems have at least two RAM slots. At least one or two M.2 maybe more, depends on the model. You probably won't be able to change the GPU, but you can always use an external one if needed. The processor will remain the same.

Yeah but they don't allow you to configure it yourself. I think that's possibly the best part about Metabox. It just sucks that they don't use quality components across the whole system.

How much extra would you be willing to pay for higher quality components?