First XoticPC Experience

I have purchased a notebook from every big-box consumer brand manufacturer in the market, from Acer to Vizio and beyond. Many of them are extinct today (Zepto, anyone?). It stands to reason that I have had my fair share of disappointments. I have experienced customer service and support that spans from exceptional to questionable; custom builds of quality and then those seemingly assembled on a Friday afternoon; and warranty services both adequate and tragic. I have even had the occasion to purchase a number of boutique systems. I've trudged through the shadow of death and paid the devil more than his due. I'm here today to share what I believe is one of the more positive experiences I've had, courtesy of my first order with XoticPC.

I'm going to start this quasi-review in a weird place because I want to paraphrase a snippet from XoticPC's telephone hold message and have it be in context: " Computing Solutions for Demanding Customers'. To most people this might be a seemingly insignificant tagline but it was like stumbling across an oasis for me. I imagine my emotion to be akin to the bad credit consumer that feels at complete ease when they see the "No Credit, Bad Credit, No Problem" sign. It's almost a eureka moment, a 'Finally, someone gets me, knows what I need and will take care of me in spite of my inherent flaws' moment. It's a lot easier to cater to less demanding demographic. I am the quintessential demanding customer. I will write letters, make phone calls, send it back, debate (politely), raise the dead and carpet bomb executive e-mails until I get the ear that will listen and right the wrongs. I'm not entirely unreasonable but it's good to know my inherent flaw because if XoticPC can please me, chances are they can please just about anyone. I have exceedingly high standards for good customer service.

So onto the meat of it:

Ordering via the Web
Alright, for starters I can really only attest to the ordering process as it applies to the website. I only briefly dealt with one salesperson at XoticPC but we will touch on that later. The website itself is functional, well organized and easy to navigate. I didn't think about it until after the fact but everything was pretty well optimized to be easy on the eyes. There was little to no harsh contrast between fonts and backgrounds apart from some product specification pages that were still easy to read. I personally appreciated that the website wasn't busy and difficult to navigate.

Ordering takes forever but I can attribute zero fault to XoticPC. I configured, re-configured, swapped models and manufacturers, removed and added for DAYS! Holy options Batman! XoticPC is to laptops what Willy Wonka is to candy. If you can dream it, you can configure it. In fact, the largest portion of the build time has to occur in your own living room. You will spend more time configuring and changing things than it will take to build the system five times over. Once my order was placed, I was tortured for hours over whether I should cancel it and go back to the configuration board. The possibilities are endless! I literally had to annex myself from my phone and laptop just to forget about it. I'm currently in "Phase 1" and keeping the whole thing in the very back of my mind to minimize the Golem-like "My Precious" effect it has over me.

What's really cool about the order page is the "More Information?" link for every section. It really does a lot to make it a true "you're configuring a laptop for yourself but not by yourself" experience. I'm pretty seasoned when it comes to custom built laptops and still found myself periodically clicking it while no one watching. There really is a wealth of information there that helps to address the basic to intermediate questions that might arise.

There is one thing I absolutely hated about the customization screen but honestly, it's pretty nit-picky. A floating bar follows you through the entire process as a constant reminder to how much money you're about to spend, lingering and taunting you all along the way. My real problem with it is that it did sometimes get in the way. There were times when I wanted to minimize the screen to multi-task and found that otherwise helpful floating bar smack dab in the middle of my configuration. It has no sense of personal space or boundaries; it'll float all the way to the left if you minimize that far. Like I said, pretty nit-picky.

I got a lot of really cool unexpected benefits, like a free a Watch Dogs game, IC Diamond paste, Free Shipping, etc. For me, the perks were plentiful when I ordered. There was some fine print such as having to specifically request the free copy of Watch Dogs in the order comments even if you've already selected the radial option "FREE - WATCH DOGS for PC" instead of the "No Free Watch Dogs for PC" option. My guess though is that requesting it in the comments ensures that they see you've elected for the free copy as the radial selection might easily get mixed in with the configurations and be missed. I also had to enter the "FREESHIP" code even though it was pre-selected in the customization screen. You can get some treats but you're going to have to do some tricks for them. Again, I'm being nit-picky. None of this is the kiss of death. They specifically point out the requirements to get the discounts and freebies - it's by no means a mystery but it would be nice if the system did it for me, thereby further promoting my consumer laziness.

Payment
XoticPC has some pretty good options when it comes to payment, including the "Cash Discount". It was a little bit beyond reach for me but that's entirely because I'm lazy and it wasn't easy enough to get the discount. There's actual work involved but that's the point of the discount anyway. A great advantage for those who want to go to the trouble but I was just, bleh...I'm just going to pay sticker and go back to doing stuff. Besides, I already got a bunch of cool benefits/goodies and didn't feel like capitalizing on the additional discount.

This is probably the only area where I would have had a potential issue with XoticPC. They quote 24-48 hours to process your order and payment. I thought it was sort of like when AT&T tells you to allow 24 hours for your phone to port but it always happens instantaneously, like one of those things you say to back you up 'just in case'. It didn't actually end up being an issue for me apart from having what I felt was a little bit of a crass response from a salesperson. XoticPC had my payment processed the same day and in the end it didn't rise to be an issue. I did speak with the lady processing my payment and she was super friendly ( a special shout out to Susan who I understand is a new processor at XoticPC. Keep up the fantastic work, Susan!) and I felt that she understands the dynamics of customer service. I imagine it's a good thing that Xotic takes the time to verify everything before charging random cards and they went about it in the friendliest way possible.

Customer Service
The customer service is probably close to the finest that I have ever had the occasion to deal with and that's factoring the salesperson that I didn't necessarily care for. I contacted customer service regarding the processing time and initially reached a salesperson. I called at 10AM to inquire about processing time and was told "We only opened two hours ago." which equated to a bit of dismissal of my concern, at least by my perception. I would have much rather he just explained the process to me so I had an understanding as to why payment processing took a bit. All in all, I could tell that he was trying to give good customer service which is more than I could say for a lot of company reps. There was definitely a tone of annoyance and maybe a hint of condescension that lead me to believe that demanding customers probably weren't his specialty. He finished the call by assuring me that I would be taken care of which I did appreciate. I don't feel the need to mention him by name because he wasn't bad - just not my cup of tea. I only found out that he was a salesperson after the fact which pretty much lead to automatic forgiveness and water under the bridge. That's not to say sales people can't be fantastic at customer service, just to say that it's not their primary focus.

I reached back out at around 1PM and got Josh on the line and let me just say that Josh is absolutely fantastic. This guy is a credit to the entire idea of customer service. He took the time to explain XoticPC's entire payment process and then got Susan (also fantastic and mentioned above) on the phone to process my payment then and there. We spent a good amount of time on the phone talking about the configuration of my machine and wow, Josh is super knowledgeable. He seemed to know a great deal about the product lines, configurations and components. He isn't merely a smiling face to qualm customer concerns - he's the real deal, knows his stuff, walks the walk and talks the talk. Thank you Josh for being fantastic at what you do.

With the help of Josh, I moved into phase 1 on the first day. In fairness, he mentioned that it likely would have happened anyway, I was a rush order and I guess that tends to speed up the processing. Nonetheless, I appreciated Josh being so spectacularly nice and attentive. I have a real warm and fuzzy feeling about XoticPC as a result and I will assuredly ask for him by name in the future.

Overall
Take it from someone who has been in the game and played on most courts; XoticPC is the real McCoy. How can I say that confidently having not received the system yet? At this point, XoticPC, in my mind, has fulfilled the largest portion of their initial obligation. Sure, there's some end user support after this but they've made the order process a fantastic experience. I wouldn't complain about having to go through their process again as it was quite pleasant. I feel as though they genuinely care about what they do and they care about their customers. I asked Josh about the quality of the Sager QA process and he responded, "If they weren't good at it, we wouldn't let them do it because we're the ones that provide the support". Measure twice, cut once. XoticPC gets it.

I will now anxiously await the arrival of my laptop and review that upon it's arrival. In the meantime, I'm more than pleased to wear the XoticPC bling in my signature line and I've never been the sort for brand loyalty. Here's my configuration for those interested.

Spoiler

1x Sager NP8258-S (Clevo P157SM-A)
- Current Promotion: FREE - WATCH DOGS for PC! (While Supplies Last / Must be requested in comments box during checkout)
- Free Shipping: FREE!!! – U.S. UPS GROUND SHIPPING (Use Coupon Code "FREESHIP" in Checkout) [U.S. Lower 48 ONLY / Restrictions Apply]
- Display: 15.6” FHD 16:9 LED Backlit Wide screen (1920x1080) Super Clear Matte Type Sager Screen (SKU - SSC005)
- Dead Pixel Warranty: FREE! - 30 Day No Dead Pixel Warranty
- Monitor Calibration: NO Professional Monitor Color Calibration
- Processor: Sager - 4th Generation Intel® Haswell Core™ i7-4810MQ (2.8GHz - 3.8GHz, 6MB Intel® Smart Cache) (SKU – SPU401)
- Thermal Compound: FREE! - IC Diamond Thermal Compound - CPU + GPU
- Graphics Video Card: NVIDIA® GeForce™ GTX 880M (8.0GB) GDDR5 PCI-Express DX11 [User Upgradeable] (SKU – GPU02X)
- Copper Cooling Upgrade: No Copper Cooling Upgrade
- External Display Video Adapters: No Video Adapter
- External Mobile Display: No External Mobile Display
- Ram: 16GB DDR3 1600MHz [2x8GB] Dual Channel Memory (SKU - RAM04S)
- Branding: Sager Branding
- Exterior Finish - Graphic & Textured Wraps: Standard Laptop Finish
- Exterior Finish - XOTIC PC Laser-Sketch™: No Laptop Laser-Sketch™
- Exterior Finish - XOTIC PC Custom Painting (A Panel Only): No Custom Laptop Painting
- mSATA SSD Drive - Configuration Option: Non-RAID Storage
- mSATA SSD Drive ( Slot 1 ): 120GB Crucial M5 mSATA SSD - Preconfigured as an OS Drive ( Operating System – Drive C: )
- mSATA SSD Drive ( Slot 2 ): NO mSATA Solid State Drive
- Primary Hard Drive: 1TB 7200RPM [SATA II - 3GB/s] (SKU - HDD097)
- Second Hard Drive: None Standard
- Raid: HDD Raid Settings - OFF
- Optical Drive Bay: 6X Blu-Ray Reader + 8X DVDRW/CDRW Super Multi Combo Drive (Sager) (SKU - ODD084)
- Optical Drive Bay Hard Drive Caddy: No Extra Optical Bay Hard Drive Caddy
- External Hard Drive (Back Up): No Back Up Hard Drive
- External USB Optical Drive: NO External USB Optical Drive
- Bluetooth: Bluetooth Included *With select wireless cards only* (See “Wireless Network” Section Below)
- Wireless Network: Sager - Bigfoot Networks Killer™ Wireless-N 1202 + Bluetooth 4.0 (SKU - WIFI93)
- Wireless Network Accessories: No Network Accessory
- Memory Card Reader: Internal 9-in-1 Card Reader (MMC/RSMMC/SD/Mini SD/SDHC/SDXC/MS/MS Pro/MS Duo)
- Camera: Built in 2.0 Megapixel Camera
- TV Tuner: No TV Tuner
- Sound Card: Sound Blaster Compatible 3D Audio - Included
- Case: No Carrying Case
- Battery: Smart Li-ion Battery (8-Cell)
- Car Adapter: No Car Adapter
- Spare AC Adapter: No Spare AC Adapter
- Port Replicators / Docks / Adapters: No Dock/Hub/Adapter
- Fingerprint Reader: Integrated Fingerprint Reader
- Headsets: No Headset
- Keyboard (External): No External Keyboard
- Mouse Accessories: No External Mouse
- Notebook Cooler: No Notebook Cooler
- XOTIC PC Redline Boost™ Extreme Performance: No Thanks, Please do not Overclock my system (Overclocking will add 3-6 business days to build time)
- OS Redline Boost: No Operating System Redline Boost
- Operating System: ~Windows 8.1 - 64-Bit (64-Bit CD Included) + MS Office 2013 Trial
- ADDITIONAL SOFTWARE: None
- Antivirus Software: No Antivirus Essentials Software Bundle
- Back Up Software: No Back Up Software
- Cloud Backup - Unlimited GB Storage: No Unlimited GB Cloud Backup
- Microsoft Office Software: - No Microsoft OFFICE Software
- Software Bundle (Not Installed): No Software Bundle
- XOTIC PC Global Anti-Theft Protection: No Global Anti-Theft Protection (Options below require an operating system)
- Warranty: Sager 3 Year Parts & LIFETIME Ltd Labor Warranty w/ Lifetime 24/7 DOMESTIC Customer Support - Special! (SKU - WTY097)
- The XOTIC PC Difference: * 24/7 LIFETIME U.S. based technical support
* Extreme QA testing by dedicated technicians
* 24-72 Hour stress testing and benchmarking to ensure top performance and stability
- Build Time: Rush Build (Ships in 1-4 Business Days After Order Is Successfully Processed) (Subject to Parts Availability) [List Unique Delivery Requirements in Comments Box] (XPC Service)
- Outside of U.S. Shipping Coverage: No Outside of US Shipping Coverage
- White Glove Premium Packaging: No thanks, standard double boxed packaging is okay with my order
- XOTIC Gear: No XOTIC PC Gear

Total: $2,190.00 w/o Cash Discount