Novatech X50

I know Novatech are a clevo reseller but it has been suggested that this is a Compal:
http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/range.html?t=nb&c=all&r=X50

Can anyone confirm if this is true, and if so what model and what the screen quality (brightness/contrast) is like on these (nits/cd/m2)??

 

Hello

this laptop is a uniwill laptop and has the 9600gt but its DDR3 so it should be better than the compal model in that respect. One thing about uniwill, they seem to have good laptops but their website is awfull, i could not find that model on their website but i contacted novatech and it is definately made by uniwill.

i do not know about the screen though youll have to ask the novatech sales team. actually have a look at the pegasus rockdirect 680 laptop its the same chassis. I have been searching for a DDR3 15 inch laptop for months and this seems to be the best bet ( i dont want the 8800gt - its too powerful for my needs )

word of advice - wait a little while before you get this because novatech irritatingly prebuilt their laptops with set HDDs and memory/processors BUT this will change soon i read on the novatech forums - they will be more customisable

 

Thanks 5777 that's great info.

If the HDDs are user upgradeable I'm not too fussed. I don't want to wait a month or more, I'm looking to buy and get hold of one in the next week or two at most.

 

umm...thats impossible, simply due to the fact that it is available from the 25th of july check the page on novatech, btw i read you were going to apply an anti reflective coating on the screen to use outdoors, how do you plan to do that can you give me details please?

 

www.bto.eu There is a non glare folie

Uniwill is like Alpha romeo compared with MB ( compal )
If you do not believe, try it!

 

I spoke to a sales person who assured me they could get one built and shipped for next week (wed/thur). They were merely waiting for the hard drives to arrive. I guess a sales person could lie (shock horror lol).

Is the bto site available in English? The .eu one always redirects me to .nl

 

They will be ready to ship from the 15th (according to Donald/Justin from Sager forum) onwards. The 15th is the official release date.

 

Just to hear that it is using DDR3 it opens my appetite.

 

Do you know what exact Uniwill model is it?

 

Yes, trying to find Novatech lappy reviews is hard. I'd still love to know more about the 1680x1050 screen - LED LCD/single or double lamp???

 

Had a chat with Novatech Sales/Customers Services/Tech Support today.

None of them could tell me anything about the screen other than its dimensions.

However, I did get the model - a Uniwill L55II0 UV Finish - although a google search produces this: http://www.uktsupport.co.uk/advent/laptop/7208.htm

Hmmm...

 

of this is using P processors AND DDR3 is this not a montevina platform??

 

You'd think so eh? Bottom from elbow job methinks.

 

As stated there won't be reviews for a while yet for the Novatech model but I've been looking at reviews for the Pegasus with results.

PCPro put a review up here for the Pegasus 680, the similar model mentioned.

PC Advisor also review it to a better score here.


The Pegasus 680 doesn't use the new processors or the new 9600M GT like the Novatech model. So the battery life and the graphical capabilities should be quite an improvement.
I believe that release of the Extreme 620 (M860TU) and Pegasus 580 (Asus) will be replacing it so there is no hope in Rock updating the model. Which is too bad because it looks much better than the 580.

 

I went on to chat today, waited in line for over 30mins, then it took him, starting out 10mins to reply at first, 5 and then 2 minute replys!

Basically:

They don't have anymore pictures, battery life is around 3 hours, they are expecting parts today or tomorrow and if they get them tomorrow they'll arrive in about a week.

I'm really edging towards this, think I might order now!

 

Hi All,

For clarification the Novatech X50 MV is based upon the "Top-Notch" chassis from a Turkish company called Vestel. This is the same chassis used by the Rock Pegasus 680, however due to Rock's recent troubles, they haven't and will not be shipping this chassis as they are switching to an ASUS alternative. Not many laptop manufactureres use Vestel as their OEM as until now, their products have had a few flaws (just look at all the threads about the Rock Pegasus 670 on the Rock forum about poor build quality and awful keyboards!). Do not however let this put you off this chassis as from all reports I have heard, most if not all of the flaws in the Vestel Jazz Chasiss (Rock 670) have been corrected in the Top-Notch. Here is a link to the Vestel Site for Reference: http://www.vesteldigital.com.tr/. I really recommend Novatech - They are a Top-Notch company (no pun intended )

Here are some more pictures of the X50MV. Please bear in mind that even though some of these are from Novatech, some of them were sourced elsewhere so may have a slightly different paint job because Vetel allows its customers to Customise the paint-job of their notebook through their "Design-Your-Own" Software

Novatech Pictures:









Other Pictures:
(Sourced from www.notebookcheck.com)

 

Is there any chance Vestel would sell barebones lappies individually to customers?

 

Damn, the X50 MV looks hot! Cheers for those pics henry!

Question: the screen on the back? I presume that controls pictures, music and movies? Vista only? "say no!"

 

@ Chobo, Vestel's Minimum Order Quantity is 100 PCs so I think you are out of luck there

@ Shroomy, The screen on the lid is for Windows SideShow and is only compatible with Windows Vista. I believe you can use it to control media and check email and such like, also without booting the machine. For More information visit this link http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-vista/features/sideshow.aspx

According to a Rep from Novatech, the X50 has a "3D" Paint Design which apparantly is difficult to capture with a camera so it looks better in the flesh

For more information on the X50, I would recommend visiting www.techpond.co.uk as there are two Novatech Reps who regularly visit the forum . A more specific thread can be found here: http://forum.techpond.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=284

 

@ ShiningWit

Here is some info on the Screen http://www.techpond.co.uk/james/vestel/panel/x50mv_tft.jpg

I dont think that it has info on the lamps though. I am pretty sure that the screen is an LCD (not WLED)

 

Oh, Thanks again henry! I'm getting the X50 with XP, but my brother is gonna enable dual boot with Vista Home Premium, I hope it still works after that, but I probably wouldn't use it that much anyway!

I want more pictures, someone get one early and show meh!

EDIT:

I called em today, turns out they are expecting parts on the 27th now, order around now and you will likely get them in the start of August! oh well! Need to be patient, especially with their Online chat!

 

All going to plan, I will be visiting Novatech next tuesday to pick up a review model of the X50 MV and the Solo so hopefully I should be able to get some pictures for you

 

Hi experts, any opinions on how the X50 compares to the Rizeon JHL90 ( http://www.rizeon.com/laptops/rizeon_jhl90.php ) , I'm trying to decide between the two. At the moment I tend to be in favour of the Rizeon because it's £60 cheaper and includes Vista Home Premium in the price, there's also a 9 cell battery as standard. Apart from Windows Sideshow, the spec 'seems' to be pretty much the same as the X50.

 

the X50 uses superior video memory GDDR3 the rizeon still uses GDDR2, and thats convinced me!

 

Okay, ordered the X50 earlier! £16 to ship to Northern Ireland the ****s!

4th of August expected delivery date! :'( I can't wait 2 weeks! *sobs*

 

Congrats on your purchase

 

Hmmm, I'm not quite sure what diffence that would make, I tend not to play games so I assume it would be of little consequence to me.

I have only just noticed that the X50 can have Windows XP Pro installed at no extra cost so that's a bonus

 

The X50 also has windows SideShow which is a quite a cool addition... the entire machine looks a lot better as well

 

Is it actually called "Top-notch"?

 

yeah, check the link on the previous page, (strange how novatech quoted it as being a uniwill, ! im slightly disappointed with that)

 

Maybe they got confused with another forthcoming/similar laptop?

 

Has anyone else ordered/received their X50 MV, out of curiosity?

I feel like I'm the only one who ordered, could be more though!

 

i am sort of waiting for a review , but i think im going to order it anyway in the first week of august because it ticks all the boxes.... ( and the port layout is very decent ie 4 usb ports and the fan is at the back of the notebook not the side and it had hdmi and the battery doesnt stick out....hint hint : rizeon jhl90)

 

I just couldn't justify paying £130 more for the X50 over the JHL90, I've placed my order for the Rizeon. Just in case anybody is interested I found a link to the manual, bios, software, pictures etc for the JHL90.
Scroll to the bottom of this page:-

http://www.bizcom-us.com/support/TechSupportDriversDownloadPage.htm

 

£130 more? From the same specs I got about £20-£30 more! what sort of machine did you make?

Those JHL90's are fugly!

 

Intel® Core 2 Duo P8400

NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT 512MB

15.4" WSXGA+ TFT Screen (1680 x 1050)

3GB DDR2 800MHz RAM

320GB Serial ATA Hard Drive

8x Dual Layer (-/+) DVD Writer

Intel Pro 802.11a/g/b/n Integrated Wireless LAN

Gigabit 10/100/1000 LAN

2 Megapixel Webcam

Fingerprint scanner

HDMI Out
WoW audio & video processing system

Mega Bass reflex speakers

Built-in Bluetooth 2.0EDR

9 Cell Battery giving approx 3.5hrs battery life

Arctic Silver 5 thermal compound

Microsoft® Windows® Vista Home Premium with disc

No Bloatware!

Insurance Backed European Collect & Return Warranty

£770.75 inc VAT & Delivery

The price for the basis spec laptop is better with the Rizeon and the things that were important to me were included (9 cell battery, very good sound quality, original Vista Disc - that really annoys me when manufacturers don't include it). You've gone for a top spec possibly for gaming and from what you say it seems Novatech have worked out cheaper for you.

 

Ah yeah I see now, ordering a X50 MV with XP is the same price as having no operating system installed, my brother has a Vista disk lying around so he's gonna dual boot so saves money!

That machine you listed is a pretty good price, but the X50 is only out, and it's style looks great so I guess I'm paying for that ontop of some extra speed!

 

I went down to Novatech on Tuesday and they let me have a play around with the X50 MV. I have to say that the paint finish looks amazing and it generally looks a lot better in the flesh than it does in the pictures

 

Thank you for reassuring me henry, take any pics? any other things you notice about it? windows slideshow?

 

Wow, really? I've had my doubts since the last group of pictures were posted here but now I'm doubting those doubts. Since I only live up the road I was thinking of transversing to Reading to have a look at the model myself.

To BarryB -

What put me off the Rizeon was the lack of GDDR3 memory for the graphics card, which the X50MV has. Of course whether it justifies the extra £200 is as you've both stated down to the person. Would buying a P9500 and an extra gig of RAM be worth that much?

 

Fair comment, the appearance seems to put most people off

As I don't intend to use it for games I don't think the DDR3 or CPU will be of much consequence to me. I think it's a lot of laptop for the money and worth paying the extra couple of hundred quid over a fairly basic spec laptop. My main concern is how noisy it will be, they told me it was quiet when compared to other laptops in its class, I'm hoping it will just whisper

 

As for noise, I didn't notice any fan noise while i was using it (for about an hour). This also included running 3DMark06 which is quite graphics / cpu intensive. (Just incase you are wondering, it scored 5005 on AC Power because I forgot to plug it in first :S)

@ Shroomy, Sorry I didn't take any pictures of it but I should be getting a forum review unit in about two weeks so if you want to hold off until then, I can get some pictures for you As for Windows SideShow, I had a very breif play around with it but as the unit I was using was a sample, the choice of SideShow applications was limited although i did try out solitare

@ Oiad, The notebook isn't actually in their showroom at the moment but I guess it will be soon . Also, most of the pictures I posted were from another laptop which uses the same chassis with a different paint finish so the Novatech actually looks quite different. Also, the novatech photos I posted do not really look much like the laptop does in the flesh to be honest. I think cameras really struggle to capture the 3D paint effect.

 

Two weeks? I'm getting mine in 4 days!

Solitare on slideshow? hell yes that's awesome! I thought it was emails only!

 

Hey Shroomy, looks like you'll be posting those pics first then. Do us proud and show us some better photo skills than the one's we've seen so far.

Ah, that must be the fabled Pegasus 680. Was gonna say, doesn't the X50 have a really lush, black finish?

 

The pictures weren't actuall from the Pegasus 680 - they were from a notebook from a german company called "one", who offered it with santa rosa, however, looking at their website it seems they have replaced it with the JHL90 from Compal now.

The X50 doesn't actually have a black finish. It is a lovely shade of dark blue, however this might change slightly in the final product as the one i saw was a pre production sample.

 

Hehe, no bother mate I'll have em up on Tuesday afternoon/Wednesday morning with a review soon after, will take videos of Cryis and whatnot being played!

The wait is killing me, everyday is SOOO long waiting for it! The Novatech website has a 3D view of the X50, which gives you a better look at it.

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/range.html?t=nb&c=gaming&r=X50

Look at the tabs, on the left side below the main picture!

 

Don't worry only, what *counts* 50-72 hours to wait then.
Hehe, interesting little gimmick btw. But I think I'll wait to have a good look in person and test out the build quality before I want to make any further judgments, you pictures aside too. It at least think it looks better than the Compal equivilent which brings me to...

..uck, the JHL90. I guess they must have felt the same way about the chassis as Rock did. Rock replaced it with an Asus model (I don't know the name, it's like the C90S without the huge, quad-fan on the back) which is also highly rated on the chassis list, IMO. Yet again their photography isn't exactly great, choosing some awful angles.

The fact that it's also only DDR2 with the 9600M GT is a bit of a put-off and I don't know why you'd give it 1GB memory, which it will never be able to fully access with the 128-bit interface. It's the same thing as with the C90S 8600M DDR2/GDDR3 cards all over again I swear...

Anyway, too off track. You'll have to excuse my eyesite really dark blues and greens can look black to me and sometimes blacks look like dark colours too. I any case, it wouldn't bother me, whichever shade they choose.

 

I think that the JHL90 looks pretty bad. I would say that ONE went for the compal because it is probably cheaper. As for Rock, I would say that they switched for a couple of reasons - they have been taken over by Stone Computers who sell business laptops, and the Pegasus 520 (Asus Z97V) is much more business like than the 680. Also, I would imagine that the parts for the Asus barebone are easier to get hold of which would fit in the the onsite warranty that stone offers. Also, I think after all the trouble Rock had with the build quality of the previous vestal (P670), they were probably put off vestel slightly :S. Apparantly, the Pegasus 520 will have a feature which will set it apart from the competition, however more information hasn't been released because apparantly it is under NDA until next week .

I would have said that in the pictures it looked grey / dark blue. I think it would look good in most colours though!

 

Soo close, yet so far! :d

That Rizeon JHL90 is one ugly Laptop, so plain looking and not eyecatching at all! :/

Henry, I misunderstood your last comment, you mean to say that they replaced the X50 with the same chassis as the JHL90? please god no!

 

Think he meant that it is a replacement in their lineup for what the Vestal (X50) model use to fulfill. A 15" with the strongest, mid-level GPU card available and most recent mobile chipset.

Correct me if wrong, but I'm betting you visit the Rockforum a lot. I've browsed through and you're right, none of them seem satisfied with the P670's quality. This of course makes it very hard because then no-one bought the P680 to say whether the new Vestal model was a vast improvement or not, based on the older models problems. And now they've stopped selling it altogether no one will know until the X50MV arrives on Shroomy's doorstep.

Learning to love those NDA's. Wonder what it could be though - 'we have... a slideshow screen too!'