Venom Blackbook 13 Zero Review

[nicklmg]

Amazon: http://geni.us/2eTe
NCIX: http://bit.ly/1pTud5A

 

While it doesn't have a dedicated graphics card, this little laptop has some pretty killer features for productive individuals who are on the go.

 

 

 

[Thebman712]

interesting.

 

but im going to go watch it on vessel so i dont feel like i wasted $3 for scrapyard wars

[Samsonsuperco]

@nicklmg I think there might be an audio issue at 0:19.

[duckwithanokhat]

3 minutes ago, Samsonsuperco said:

@nicklmg I think there might be an audio issue at 0:19.

yep there's obviously a leftover audio clip during the editing phase of the video

[nicklmg]

5 minutes ago, Samsonsuperco said:

@nicklmg I think there might be an audio issue at 0:19.

Damnit Taran.

Getting fixed :P...

[Lordmac14]

Last time I was early enough to get the video through forum you had to fix graphs and stuff! Good video though 

[Lordmac14]

I'm sorry Nick but the annotations also seem to be missing?

[TheWoollyMammoth]

Hey, look! It's another somewhat interdasting product review! I'm liking what I've been getting here lately! Good job, guise!

[nicklmg]

1 hour ago, Lordmac14 said:

I'm sorry Nick but the annotations also seem to be missing?

There's a new version coming due to audio issue. Since annotations/cards don't carry over from video to video I'm waiting for the new version rather than wasting time on this one.

[WarWeeny]

i gotta ask, what is the market for ultrabooks?

 

Taking this ultrabook as an example, a Lenovo IdeaPad Y50-70-59444967 (i7 4720Q - gtx 960m 16GB ram) is a LOT faster, and is around same price (1000~ dollar/euro).

 

Why would anyone take this venom over the lenovo?

[aflyinghotpocket]

20 minutes ago, WarWeeny said:

i gotta ask, what is the market for ultrabooks?

 

Taking this ultrabook as an example, a Lenovo IdeaPad Y50-70-59444967 (i7 4720Q - gtx 960m 16GB ram) is a LOT faster, and is around same price (1000~ dollar/euro).

 

Why would anyone take this venom over the lenovo?

I'm not a "market expert" but my 2 cents would be that if you are looking for value in your purchase with great price to performance systems then the Y50 is about as good as it gets in the $1000 range. Alienware has a 13" system in that price bracket, but with 1 stick of $20 4GB of RAM, I almost fell out of the chair laughing. Some companies try to extend this value by added external GPU such as Razer and Alienware, but I have never seen someone in the wild using one.

 

Some people actually don't like having dedicated GPU in their systems and ones such as the Y50 don't appeal to them because every second of battery life matters and many systems (not all, but most) that have dedicated GPU get less battery life as a result. Now, there are many variables to consider in my point such as battery size, processor, SSD or HDD but the point is still the same. An "ultrabook" with no dedicated GPU, SSD, and minimal moving parts with a good sized battery would be much more appealing to someone who is just checking their email and typing some office documents. You would be surprised at how little horsepower is needed to run Windows 10 these days. In my opinion, ultrabooks these days are an extremely appealing option for people who choose battery life over performance. (opinionated) 

 

A real world example of this would be my 2015 Macbook Air. I am by no means an Apple person, but I got a sick deal on one during a Woot Off on Woot.com and could not pass it up. The system has Intel's HD 6000 under the hood and gets the 12-13 hour battery life that Apple quotes it at. sure, for the money I paid I could have gotten a much better Windows based laptop and I would honestly never pay $1000 for the thing if performance mattered but I was looking for something that was light, easy to carry, and got great battery life. The standby life is also crazy... some form of voodoo magic powers this thing, I swear... haha. 

[WarWeeny]

17 minutes ago, aflyinghotpocket said:

I'm not a "market expert" but my 2 cents would be that if you are looking for value in your purchase with great price to performance systems then the Y50 is about as good as it gets in the $1000 range. Alienware has a 13" system in that price bracket, but with 1 stick of $20 4GB of RAM, I almost fell out of the chair laughing. Some companies try to extend this value by added external GPU such as Razer and Alienware, but I have never seen someone in the wild using one.

 

Some people actually don't like having dedicated GPU in their systems and ones such as the Y50 don't appeal to them because every second of battery life matters and many systems (not all, but most) that have dedicated GPU get less battery life as a result. Now, there are many variables to consider in my point such as battery size, processor, SSD or HDD but the point is still the same. An "ultrabook" with no dedicated GPU, SSD, and minimal moving parts with a good sized battery would be much more appealing to someone who is just checking their email and typing some office documents. You would be surprised at how little horsepower is needed to run Windows 10 these days. In my opinion, ultrabooks these days are an extremely appealing option for people who choose battery life over performance. (opinionated) 

 

A real world example of this would be my 2015 Macbook Air. I am by no means an Apple person, but I got a sick deal on one during a Woot Off on Woot.com and could not pass it up. The system has Intel's HD 6000 under the hood and gets the 12-13 hour battery life that Apple quotes it at. sure, for the money I paid I could have gotten a much better Windows based laptop and I would honestly never pay $1000 for the thing if performance mattered but I was looking for something that was light, easy to carry, and got great battery life. The standby life is also crazy... some form of voodoo magic powers this thing, I swear... haha. 

wouldn't a chrome book be more ideal for writing documents and checking email then? it is compact, dirt cheap, and it probably has a long battery life, seeing its components are low power.

[Razor512]

What is with premium laptops having crappy webcams?

Seriously, we have $60 smartphones which come with a 5 megapixel camera that while not very good, performs far better than those webcams.

 

I can understand a $129 11.5 inch netbook having a crappy webcam, since the money is focused on building a system that will run the x86 version of windows 10, but at a steep price, there is no excuse.

[shdowhunt60]

7 hours ago, WarWeeny said:

wouldn't a chrome book be more ideal for writing documents and checking email then? it is compact, dirt cheap, and it probably has a long battery life, seeing its components are low power.

Probably more secure as well, because Chrome OS. I mean, for $330 the Celeron based Toshiba Chromebook 2 is ridiculously good if you're just looking for something to piss around on the internet.

[indrora]

I'd love to see a comparison of this vs. the Asus Zenbook UX303U(A/B) -- an i5 1080p/i7 UHD that I've personally come to quite like after carrying a 16in device for years..

 

The first thing I thought of when I saw the Venom 13 Zero was: "Hey that looks like a black version of the Zenbook I have!" Indeed, the keyboard is almost identical with one I have on my zenbook. The biggest differences I see between them are:

 

• UX303UA (mine) only has a 2.5in drive bay -- no M.2
• 4GB dedicated onboard RAM, but you can add a 12GB stick (according to the specs)
• UX303UB comes with a dedicated NVidia onboard graphics card
• I get 3...4 hours of battery life with VMs running on the i5 -- 6 if I'm just dooting around in Chrome or Edge.
• Mini DisplayPort *and* HDMI* plus a dedicated charging-during-sleep port

No USB type C (zenbook pros are starting to ship with them, though). Oh, and no touchpad lag. And a touchscreen. For less.

[JCHelios]

Some of the folks on Youtube* have pointed out that this laptop seems to be... I don't know what to call it—a generic?  A rebadge?  The point is, it goes by many different names: Sometimes it's the Medion Akoya S3401.  Sometimes it's the PC Specialist Lafite II.  Sometimes it's the Scan Computers 3XS Graphite 13.  

 

Is this perception of nigh-identicality correct?  Is this normal in the world of Windows laptops?  And does it make sense for Linus to review the Venom Blackbook 13 as though it were its own thing?  

 

-----------

*Hat-tip to Town159, adam, and Chris W.  

[aflyinghotpocket]

22 hours ago, WarWeeny said:

wouldn't a chrome book be more ideal for writing documents and checking email then? it is compact, dirt cheap, and it probably has a long battery life, seeing its components are low power.

ehhhh... you're not wrong really. But some (if not most) people out there REALLY want full windows on their laptop. With Microsoft starting their "signature" brand of third party systems you can get a great Windows 10 experience for less then $400 and even $300 USD in some cases. I mean, they have a system on Microsoft's store claiming to get 10 hours of battery life for under $300 (link). lets be honest though, as much as I love the "idea" of a chromebook... i'm not going to live everyday with one. It simply is to big of a compromise for me to make in my everyday life and Google is not really getting these things to fly off the shelf. If only they ran android apps *sigh* . :-(

 

 

[Voids]

I personally think that for the price is pretty damn high considering a lack of a dedicated card in most of their systems. Not only that but they ask $999 then another $99 for a UK keyboard which sucks. So essentially $1098 for a decent system but far from the best within this price range.

[ShadowCaptain]

Its certainly nice, but without a GPU its not a product I would ever buy and if I wanted a none gaming laptop id get a 13/15 retina

[shdowhunt60]

11 hours ago, JCHelios said:

Some of the folks on Youtube* have pointed out that this laptop seems to be... I don't know what to call it—a generic?  A rebadge?  The point is, it goes by many different names: Sometimes it's the Medion Akoya S3401.  Sometimes it's the PC Specialist Lafite II.  Sometimes it's the Scan Computers 3XS Graphite 13.  

 

Is this perception of nigh-identicality correct?  Is this normal in the world of Windows laptops?  And does it make sense for Linus to review the Venom Blackbook 13 as though it were its own thing?  

 

-----------

*Hat-tip to Town159, adam, and Chris W.  

It's not a rebadge. Venom just does what a lot of smaller shops do: they source their designs from other companies. Namely, Clevo. You know Sager? Those are all Clevo laptops as well.

 

It's not a rebadge though, because venom quite likely makes the machines themselves. Linus already noted in the Blackbook 15 that the build quality is extremely high, and Venom does a lot of personal touches to their machines. That's the key difference here, and that's what you pay for here.

[Duh_tech]

If Nikey V says it is good it is good. "Ball'n"

[Duh_tech]

NICKEY V

[JCHelios]

6 hours ago, shdowhunt60 said:

It's not a rebadge. Venom just does what a lot of smaller shops do: they source their designs from other companies. Namely, Clevo. You know Sager? Those are all Clevo laptops as well.

 

It's not a rebadge though, because venom quite likely makes the machines themselves. Linus already noted in the Blackbook 15 that the build quality is extremely high, and Venom does a lot of personal touches to their machines. That's the key difference here, and that's what you pay for here.

Hmm...  I just wonder what, if any, are the specific differences.  It'd be nice if Linus could compare a whole set of sister laptops (whether these or some other set), and also talk about the phenomenon in general.  (The nitty-gritty of the tech supply chain is something which I suspect that he could share more insight on, and still have it be interesting.)

[shdowhunt60]

2 hours ago, JCHelios said:

Hmm...  I just wonder what, if any, are the specific differences.  It'd be nice if Linus could compare a whole set of sister laptops (whether these or some other set), and also talk about the phenomenon in general.  (The nitty-gritty of the tech supply chain is something which I suspect that he could share more insight on, and still have it be interesting.)

Depends on who you get them from really. Some places like Venom and Origin focus on high build quality, and fine tuning system performance. Others like System76 have a specific gimmick (e.g. in System76, all their machines are installed with Ubuntu). Xotic and PC specialist offer a ton of user configurations and are built-to-order. It just depends.

[Markmjb]

You know, prices aren't expensive, laptops with prices are   (start of the video).

Just a heads up for your text writer. Also, good that you guys try to mix it up, but I'm not sure the hate on Apple was all that necessary. 

 

I'm not a fan of those straight power plugs on the laptop side, It almost never makes sense for the cable to run there.

 AND: By this time with all these camera's in smartphones and all, what is so hard about making a good webcam? It's really maddening at this point. 

 

If I had to buy one from their brand, I'd go for a 15 inch model though.Way more IO (including LAN) , same storage capacity, 16Gb ram included, full keyboard without that arrow key bullcrap, for around the same price. 

http://www.venomcomputers.com.au/globalstore/venom-blackbook-15-zero-a12928/?

But than again I'm not in their target group for this model, so that's fine. 

 

P.S.:  If there is some Aussie IT guy on this forum who needs work, offer them a better website. Seriously what the fuck.