Third time's the charm? My EuroCom experience.

tl:dr
Ordered a Sky MX5 (Clevo P650RG) from Eurocom, had a satisfactory customer experience, and am extremely happy with my new laptop.

Intro:

After a rocky purchase and cancellation experience with XoticPC, and a disappointing Dell XPS 15 purchase, I am giving Clevo another shot by purchasing a Sky MX5 (P650RG) from EuroCom. EuroCom is the only builder/reseller I could find selling the P650Rx with a glossy 4K screen, and their customer service has been excellent in answering my barrage of questions, so I decided to give them a shot over XoticPC. My build is listed below. EuroCom's SSD pricing is a little absurd, so I have opted to purchase my Samsung 950 Pro and install Windows myself. I place my order on Thanksgiving day, based on my discussions with customer service prior to purchase, I am estimating that the machine will ship by the end of the coming week. Here's to hoping that this experience goes smoothly!

Timeline:

12-2-15: Laptop is currently in production and expected to ship out by the end of the week.
12-4-15: Still in production, expected ship date has slipped to next week.
12-9-15: Turns out the display panel had been back-ordered until now. I have been assured that the laptop is now actually finishing production and will ship soon.
12-11-15: Laptop has shipped, expecting delivery on 12-15-15.
12-14-14: Laptop has arrived! Setting up and running tests.

Review:

Purchasing Experience
The Eurocom website is decent enough. The configuration page for each laptop provides enough information for each component that their is no ambiguity about the models and specs. Eurocom was the only Clevo builder/reseller I could find that was selling a glossy 4K screen, and the display I wanted was fairly priced. Overall, the pricing of the Eurocom's laptops seems pretty competitive. Their SSD pricing is a little outrageous, though, so I opted to purchase my storage drives from Newegg and install them on my own.

Customer service was a bit of a mixed bag. I emailed back-and-forth with a sales rep quite a bit before making my purchase, they were very responsive and answered all of my questions. After making my purchase, I was assured that I would be contacted within 24 hours about my order, but at no point did a customer service rep ever reach out to me. I was able to get status updates on my order by phone, but even then, they were not forthright about delays in my order. Overall, there were no serious problems with my order or interactions with Eurocom customer service, so I am happy with the outcome. Total time from date of order (which was a holiday weekend) to delivery was about 2 weeks.

Build Quality
Overall, the build quality of the laptop is very good. There are a few minor problems, but nothing that ruins the user experience. They key points:

• The chassis is very solid and looks good. The lid flexes pretty easily, but not enough that I am worried about damaging the screen accidentally.
• It is very easy to open up the chassis and get at all of the components. Installing the SSDs was a snap, I did not run into any issues with my Windows 10 installation on my Samsung 950 Pro.
• The drivers provided by Eurocom are all very stable. There have been no component problem and no BSODs since I started using the laptop.
• The display is pretty great. A glass panel cover would have been nice, but is not necessary.
• The keyboard and trackpad are both great. Very comfortable to use and functional.
• The laptop runs very cool and near silent in MSHYBRID mode. In DISCRETE mode, the GPU fan runs constantly at a low-to-moderate volume. I am amazed how quiet this laptop is when gaming on the discrete GPU. I played 2 hours of Fallout 4 on max settings, and the fans stayed very quiet the whole time. I was actually worried that maybe there was a problem with the fans and that the GPU was overheating, but the temps stayed below 85 C the whole time.
• Battery is pretty poor. I have been getting just over 2 hours on a single charge with moderate use so far. Hopefully I can improve this with some additional tweaks. It would be nice if Clevo offered this laptop with a larger battery and no 2.5" drive slot.

Conclusion:
Overall, I am very happy with my purchase. Based upon my experience so far, I would definitely consider another Eurocom laptop in the future. If I run into any problem, I will update this posting with experiences dealing with customer service on support.

Specs:

System and Display EUROCOM Sky MX5
Choose your LCD Display 15.6-inch (39.6cm); 4K QFHD 3840x2160; IPS; Glossy; 1000:1; NTSC 72%; sRGB 100%; eDP; SHARP IGZO LQ156D1JX01B
G-Sync Technology without NVIDIA G-SYNC™
Display Calibration Optional - choose from the options below:
VGA / GPU Graphics Options 8GB GDDR5; NVIDIA GTX 980M (N16E-GX); 1536 CUDA; GPU/VRAM Clock 1038MHz/2500MHz; Maxwell (28nm); on-board; 75W
Processor / CPU 2.60 GHz (up to 3.5) Intel Mobile Core i7-6700HQ (Skylake); on-board/SMT; 4C/8T; 6MB L3; 14nm; HD Graphics 530; 45W
Memory (RAM) Configuration - Fully Upgradeable 16GB; 2x 8GB; DDR4; PC4-2133; CL15; 260-pin; Micron; 1.2V; 2 SODIMMs
Operating System(s) None - Choose from the options below for Pre-install or install your own
Choose Your Keyboard (Language) Backlit; English; USA/Canada; QWERTY
Office and Business Productivity Software None - Choose from the options below
RAID Options: M.2 PCIe/M.2 SATA/mSATA Storage None - Choose from the options below:
Internal M.2 (2280) SSD Storage; 22mmx80mm Choose your SSD M.2 type 2280 (80x22nm) from the options below:
Internal M.2 (2280) SSD Storage; 22mmx80mm Choose your SSD M.2 type 2280 (80x22mm) from the options below:
RAID Options: HDD/SSD Storage None - Choose from the options below
1st Hard Drive. Choose Regular HDD, SSD or Hybrid SHDD: *** Without Hard Drive; with HDD bracket included ***
2nd Hard Drive Choose your 2nd HDD/SSD/SHHD from the options below:
External Optical Drive None - Choose from the options below
Internal Card Reader 6-in-1 Card Reader; SD/MS/MMC/SM/CF/MicroDrive
Biometric Device Built-in Fingerprint Reader
Embedded Security Chip Embedded TPM 2.0 Security Chip for Data Encryption
TV Tuner (Internal and/or External) None - Choose from the options below
Wireless LAN 2-in-1: 802.11a/b/g/n/ac WLAN+Bluetooth 4.2; Intel Wireless-AC 8260; M.2 2230; up to 867Mbps; 2.4GHz/5GHz
Built-in Web Camera 2.0 Megapixels; FHD 1920x1080; 30fps
Standard AC Adapter 200W AC Adapter; 19V; 10.5A; 100-240V; Auto-Switching (Worldwide)
Standard Power Cord - included USA / Canada
Carrying Case None - Choose from the options below
Choose Your Warranty Plan 1 Year Return to Factory Depot with 1 Year of Tech Support

 

I purchased my sky x 9 on thanksgiving day as well. Similar specs with 1080p screen. Will compare shipping times for science. Florida.

 

Great, I'll be interested to hear how your experience compares. The Sky X9 looks like one beast of a machine!

 

I received my Sky X4 after about 2 weeks build time (I think there was a delay on getting the screen; I purchased the optional Sharp IGZO 4K). When I got it the logo was there, even though I requested it not be there for professional reasons (I'll be using this in an office building in an official capacity) so that's not going to fly. Awaiting their response on that.

 

I also requested the logo be removed from the laptop lid, even though I was told prior to purchase that this was not an available option. I had read elsewhere that in the past, the logo could be omitted, so I thought I'd ask anyways.

 

Yeah, I was reassured that it could be omitted by a sales rep and requested it multiple times during the ordering process (stressing how important it is to me). No dice. Kinda upset about that.

 

@mrmylanman @Uberperson : Were either of you contacted by Eurocom after placing your order? The order confirmation page claimed I would be contacted within 24 hours of purchase. Nobody has contacted me yet, which I assume is normal since I placed my order on Thanksgiving day, but I am curious if your experiences differ.

@mrmylanman : The logo is not a dealbreaker for me, I just think it is kinda big and ugly

 

I wasn't contacted. I contacted them after 24 hours and they gave me an update. They evidently ran out of no logo cases so they shipped me one with a logo instead.

Sent from my OnePlus One

 

I was contacted on Friday via email, but I think it was only in reference to the other comments I added. I basically asked a question about the black Friday sale. They answered my question in the initial email and told me they would email me a tracking number when it shipped.

 

In my experience they were quick in communicating shipping information. Before FedEx picked it up, anyway. I was happy about that. I have bought things from people before where I didn't get shipping info until the next day before.

 

Thanks for your feedback. I have reached out to Eurocom customer service to get an estimated shipment date, will post the response when I get one.

 

Received email with tracking number today around noon. Tracking number is not active yet and eurocom told me that it would become active when the laptop was picked up and scanned. So best guess is FedEx will pick it up by the end of today from eurocom. Will know estimate once the tracking number is active.

My setup was 980m i7-6700k, 16 ram. No hdd or os. So they didn't really have to do anything to it.

 

Wow, that's a fast turnaround! I still have not heard back from Eurocom yet, but it appears my credit card payment is still processing, so perhaps this is the hold-up.

 

That is probably the reason, my credit card processed the same day which i'm glad there was no issues seeing as it was 1/2 my credit card.

Update: Tracking updated, looks like expected delivery of Thursday by the end of the day(which probably means between 10am and 2pm for me .

 

That's great, I am super jealous! Please also add your impressions here when you receive your laptop.

 

Two days later and Eurocom has still not responded to my emails. I'll try calling later to get a status update. On the plus side, my Samsung 950 Pro was delivered today! Looking forward to putting it to good use!

 

I am using that same SSD. You definitely wont be disappointed

Sent from my OnePlus One

 

Did you do a fresh install of Windows onto that drive? Did you run into any issues? I have heard some people have had issues with BIOS recognizing the drive and getting the correct drivers installed during Windows installation.

 

I installed Linux on the 950 Pro, and Windows onto a SATA M.2 drive so I can't say for sure if the installer works, although it did recognize the drive.

 

I actually originally planned on purchasing the Samsung 950 Pro, but got a 500gb ssd for $100 during the weekend sales and decided to hold off for a while and see if it drops in price. It looks cool though, although I have heard that it reduces boot speed because it has to initialize or something to that effect.

 

Just called Eurocom and spoke to a sales rep. My laptop is currently in production and expected to ship out by the end of the week. Should be getting an email with the tracking number before too long.

 

Just received mine this morning . Popped open the rear panel which felt very sturdy and didn't flex at all and installed my SSD. I was a bit confused as to where the sata/power slots were until I remembered the laptop was thick enough to house them under the top layer of things. I ordered mine with brakes that came for mounting the drives. I ended up using the plastic spacer that came with my ssd to prop it up high enough to connect to the sata/power connector, but the laptop did come with foam spacers as well for this purpose. Getting ready to install windows 10.

 

That must be one roomy chassis. Which GPU did you opt for? I would hope that unless you went for a dual-GPU config, it would run cool and quiet.

 

I ended up going with a single 980m gpu. I was pretty close to getting the p750dm-g until i saw the black friday sales. After I ran some benchmarks I started wanting the second 980m...but for the price you can buy a whole gaming laptop with an 960m in it lol....I think it will serve my purposes pretty well, if I ever upgrade, I will probably go for whatever laptop version of a desktop gpu comes out next.

 

So what are your impressions of the build quality of the laptop? Any issues? How would you grade your overall experience with Eurocom?

 

Didn't receive any shipping notification, so I decided to give Eurocom a call. Looks like my laptop is still in production and will now be shipping at the beginning of next week. Not a big deal, but I am itching to get my hands on this thing!

 

So far I think the build quality is very solid, Eurocom seems like a solid company as well. I would probably not buy accessories from them due to the prices they charge, but for the barebones everything is running great. Some mentioned that the keyboard was lacking, but I find it very good quality even if it is not a chiclet keyboard. The usb slots are a bit stiff, it takes some oomph to push the usb connector in, but I would rather it be stiff than loose. The I/O is great, I have not played with the fingerprint reader yet. The speakers are good for when I need them, but I use a Fiio amp and headphones most of the time. The 1080p Display is high quality and has way better contrast than my external benq led screen. It is very hefty, I am a 200 pound + guy and in my mid twenties and I am a bit skeptical when I try to lift it with one hand unless I am holding it like a textbook. The touchpad is pretty good, I don't have too much experience with touchpads, I prefer glossy ones personally but I keep a mouse with me wherever I go. The eurocom Logo looks pretty good. I will have to give it more time to really appreciate the different things about it, but so far so good. i undervolted the i7-6700k in it already because of people mentioning that the voltage runs high. I am about to install adobe premiere pro cc on it, so I will update you on how the editing experience goes.

Yeah I get that, just keep up daily routine and it will be here in no time.

 

@Uberperson : Thanks for writing your impressions of your build and buying experience! My biggest concerns about buying a Celvo build versus a more well-known brand were build-quality and customer service (should something go wrong). It sounds like Eurocom is pretty solid in both areas.

I am a bit nervous about the timing of the purchase. I need to return my XPS by the end of the month, so if there is a problem with my Sky MX5, it will be a tight timeframe for getting it fixed and back in my hands. Going without a computer for an extended period of time would make my job a royal pain.

 

Yeah, I get that. I have a desktop at work I can edit and do other things on if needed. I also have a surface pro 2 that can hold it's ground pretty well for the size of it. My first high performance laptop was my Lenovo Y500, I loved the thing but about a year in the motherboard went on it. I had to send it in to get fixed and it was about a month before I got it back and than the motherboard died again a week or two later. After that experience I decided not to go near Lenovo again. I think even if you did have a problem with a component in a clevo/sager you could quickly get a temporary part until the original was fixed. For example if the CPU, RAM, or even the GPU went you could pretty quickly find a replacement, while on a mainstream BGA laptop you would not be able to.

 

As someone else who owns an x9, the build quality is great except for the keyboard.

 

I would not use it as my main keyboard, but for someone who just uses it as a mobile thing it is pretty average I suppose. Luckily my tenkeyless Leopold FCR750 fits pretty well for my desk.

 

I really wish clevo used something similar like the keyboard on the titan.

 

For a moment, I thought that was an actual mechanical keyboard on the laptop... Are those keys like those on the Alienware laptops?

 

They are just rubberized keycaps similar to these on newegg. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...7073&cm_re=rubber_keys-_-26-997-073-_-Product
I was into mechanical keyboards before enthusiast laptops so I should be fine with a below average laptop keyboard. Althought the keyboard is small enough to actually fit on top of the touchpad palm rest area of the laptop. I would imagine with a 60% Mech you could easily fit it.


MX Blues on left and MX Clears on right. I think my Galaxy note 2 is getting close to kicking the bucket the camera has been awful lately.

 

One thing I have to say that I really appreciated when I tried buying from XoticPC a while ago was that I would get an email notifying me every time the status of my order changed, or some issue came up that might affect my order. It was also nice to be able to log into their website to get a recap of these communications and see the current status of my order.

This is in sharp contrast to Eurocom, where there has been radio silence since I placed my order. Granted, this is how things go with most online purchases, but that extra bit of information is nice, especially when it comes to system building, where component shortages or build problems can affect the delivery timeline. As far as I know, my laptop has shipped by now, but I have not received any notification. I'd like to get an update, but I don't want to keep pestering their customer service, since the status has been the same each time I have called.

 

So it turns out that the display that I ordered (Sharp 4K IGZO) was backordered and is only now back in stock at Eurocom. This would have been nice to know when I placed my order. I was told before placing my order that, based on my configuration, it would ship within 5 days. I've called three times now, and every time they have told me that it is finishing up production and would be shipping in the next day or two. They said the same thing today, but then finally coughed up the backorder detail after I pressed them. Very annoying.

 

@frank_the_bunny, I'm sorry that you got the run around. Problem is the stock is not automated like in larger companies. When you placed the order, the display was most likely in stock. If you DM me the order number I will follow it through the final stages.

ET

 

That is totally fine, I understand that. There were a couple days between the email exchange with the sales rep and my order being placed, so of course there would be the risk of the remaining panels being claimed. What bugs me is that your website claims that customers will be contacted about their order within 24 hours of purchase. Nobody from Eurocom has ever reached out to me, and every email I have sent since making the purchase has gone unanswered. It took three phone calls to get someone to admit their was an issue with my order. I don't think I am asking for a lot, just an honest status update. I'll send a DM with the order info.

 

I think part of the issue is sales/support people don't really want to contact people just to give them bad news. Eurocom did contact me quickly, here is a timeline of the contact for myself.

Nov 27, 2015 00:13 - Order placed
Nov 27, 2015 at 10:34 AM - First Contact, told me the amount being billed to my credit card(I had included a question about the black friday sale which they answered)
Mon, Nov 30, 2015 at 2:51 PM - Invoice and tracking # sent to me via e-mail
12-03-2015 at 9:14 AM - Delivered

 

I can understand them not wanting to deliver bad news, but I would have much preferred to have known the full story from the beginning. If I had known that panel was backordered and that laptop wouldn't ship for an extra week, I wouldn't have been obsessively checking my email for shipment tracking information for the past week. When you tell someone to expect shipment notification the next day and then no notification comes, of course you are going to think something is wrong.

 

Pretty similar to my experience. Same display and all. Feel some consolation that when you get it the display is amazing!

Sent from my OnePlus One

 

And that is really all I care about in the end. So long as the laptop gets here in one piece and works as advertised, I will be happy.

Speaking of which: got notification that the laptop shipped! Expected delivery is Tuesday. Very excited!

 

My Sky MX5 has arrived! I have spent the better part of the evening installing and configuring Windows, drivers, and various software. Installing the Samsung 950 Pro was a snap. Have not yet installed my secondary drive, Samsung 850 Evo. Initial impressions:

• Build quality is good. The chassis is not quite as solid as the Dell XPS 15 9550 that this is replacing, but it is good enough. Significantly thicker, but not obnoxiously so. My one gripe is that the lid flexes very easily, similar to my old Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro.
• The Sharp 4K IGZO screen is fantastic, though not quite as crisp as the one on the XPS. It almost looks like there is a very slight anti-glare coating on it. There is a bit of backlight bleed. I was able to reduce this a little by massaging the bezel of the screen.
• Keyboard is pretty great. The layout is different than I am used to, but I will adjust. It is very quiet and has a satisfying travel to the keys. Trackpad is not as nice as the XPS, but still good. I like the separate mouse buttons.

More comments to come as I put the laptop through its paces.

 

Added some more thoughts and a summary of my experience to the initial post. Overall, I am very happy with my new Eurocom laptop.

 

Your thoughts kind of mirror mine. I actually like the matte coating compared to glossy screens but I suppose that is highly dependent on your environment . Glad you're enjoying it so far

Sent from my OnePlus One