What Clevo Model is this?

http://www.shopvenom.com/globalstore/blackbook-zero-14/

 

Clevo.com I couldn't find it there.

 

It's not a Clevo chassis.

I do know what it is, but it won't help as you will not find any reviews of this chassis from the manufacturer's name or the model number - in fact you'll find nothing at all!

 

Maybe it's just a CGI gag to get thinbook fansboys all excited about another sample of filth to choose from in an ocean full of turdbooks. Looking at the recessed keyboard and what little bit of space is left for hardware and heat sinks, I wouldn't expect much from it. Nice form-factor for a smartphone CPU and Chrome OS.

 

Zero 14 is a 4.5w TDP cpu with passive copper sheet cooling.

 

Correct, no fan - just passive cooling.

It's real ;-) Actually it's a pretty decent chassis and for the purpose that it serves - for people who want an ultrabook rather than a higher performance laptop - or even as a second laptop it would do the job very well. Performs well under testing, it's a lot better than some of the other questionable ultrabooks that have flooded the market recently!

 

That's what I'm thinking! Maybe a better option than the expensive surface book or pro or razer blade stealth or the cheap looking msi ghost laptops?

 

This is a turdbook from Australia. Soldered RAM, 1 x M.2... good if you don't play games... might as well buy 2 Chromebooks or several Android tablets for the same amount of money, or less. I understand everything has a place and it's not supposed to be viewed as a high performance product (even though the name might suggest otherwise) but, $1,000 for a disposable web browsing appliance seems pretty steep. This product should be priced under $500 for what you're getting, and it would be worth it for web browsing and email at that price point.

 

Well not from Australia, from China really but that's where everyone's Clevo's come from too ;-) I won't comment on the price or anything else, but it's surely only a t@rdbook if the technology limits the intended performance or usage, which in this case it doesn't - "t@rdbook" has a completely justifiable place in the market if it does what and expect it to.

 

Some people want a device that does not need to connect to the internet to function properly

 

Venom are well known here for taking a generic chassis, painting it black and overcharging for it. Which is why they don't even sell many machines in AU (vastly out-sold by Metabox which is a clevo reseller).

They've pushed more internationally as a result I suspect.

As for the Venom 14, I haven't found where the chassis is sourced from. Could be any number of system builders or even custom.

The front 1-finger opening cut-out is fairly distinctive though. AFAIK it's only seen on MacBooks and Razer Blades, so it may be sourced from wherever Razer get their stuff from.

 

I was referring to Venom, not where it the notebook itself is manufactured. As noted in the video at 00:22 - "They are a company based out of Australia..." Maybe the reviewer is wrong and it's not really important enough for me to want to investigate it. Doesn't really make any difference where the company is based from. It's not often we see a brand with HQ operations based in Australia though, so that is a little different and interesting. Otherwise, I would not have mentioned it.

Otherwise, I think we all know they are not made in Australia. Just as Dell is based out of Round Rock/Austin, Texas (except for pieces of the disintegrating Alienware brand, which based out of Florida) and their notebooks are manufactured and assembled in China, including those with an Alienware label. HP is HQ'd in Palo Alto, CA and theirs are made in China as well. As far as I know, almost all manufacturing of tech hardware, and in particular notebooks, is performed in China. Intel processors are an exception and there could be a few more major components that are made in the USA that I'm not paying attention to.

 

@Mr Fox - yes yes I know hence the winkey face smilie thingimy.

I'd be very susprised if you could find out which ODM it is unless you're pretty knowledgable inside the ODM industry (that's the only reason I know), it's pretty much impossible to google the answer.

Not the same as Razer/Apple etc though - in fact Razer bought a manufacturing plant from another ODM (that's public information so I'm not leaking anything incase the mods are concerned!!) so they actually are their own ODM. I won't run through the rest....

 

Yes, most OEMs are largely very secretive about their ODM partnerships and I agree... could be very difficult to find out who makes it without access to the motherboard and chassis to look for logos or other distinctive markings. I also doubt it would be revealed by searching the web.

 

Yup exactly. The laptop itself is actually a good product, nice quality, reasonable keyboard, feels like decent quality and the ODM made a couple of changes to the pro-production sample chassis in order to improve a couple of little things before it was available on the market.