Does a laptop by any other name run as sweet as a name branded one? Absolutely! You would be surprised at how little the differences are between most comparable notebook computers. This is a personal review of my experience with Powernotebooks.com. But first, a little laptop lore.

Name brand companies like Hewlet Packard, Compaq, IBM, Dell, Gateway, Sony, Micron, Toshiba and others; including Alienware and Voodoo do not make their own notebooks. The exceptions are Asus and Apple, and Apple doesn’t even make all of theirs. Original Design Manufacturers (ODM) make the laptops for Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM). They, in turn, add their preloaded hard drives and sell them to the consumer. Some ODMs are Quanta, who make laptops for Sony, Dell, and IBM; Inventec and Arima, who make the Compaq line; Compal, who also make IBM and Dell lines, as well as Hewlet Packard; and Clevo, who make the popular Alienware and Voodoo gaming laptops.

Recently, I found myself in need of a computer to be used primarily for video editing and encoding which meant it must be very powerful. I needed the capability to capture video from several sources; copy and burn DVDs, and it had to be portable. I knew a notebook computer like that would need to be state of the art, and therefore be quite expensive. But I also knew about Powernotebooks.com. I’d visited their website before and read through their customer forums, in which the owner participates, so I was familier with their products, customer service reports and management. So that’s where I started.

I found a laptop called Sager NP8890 made by the ODM, Clevo which happens to be the same machine as Voodoo’s biggest Envy class gaming rig. So I compared. At Voodoo’s website I configured their biggest Envy rig to my desired specifications (almost) and the price was $4225.47. That laptop did not have hardware video capture or an extra DVD-CDR/W as options that I needed. Next, at Powernotebooks I configured the Sager 8890. It had built in hardware video capture and I was able to add the extra DVD-CDR/W drive, plus a 6 In One memory card reader. The laptop bag was included. The price was $3369. I also received a $100 discount for paying via bank wire transfer instead of a credit card. The final price; Sager $3269 vs Voodoo $4225.47

Sure, that is an extremely high end PC, and most people don’t require a full on Pentium 4 Northwood desktop CPU or an ATI Radeon 9600 Pro GPU, or a 16 in. display, or some of the extras that I needed. For those who want very light, fast laptops with P4 M CPUs (Centrino rigs), Powernotebooks.com offers 4 others made by ODM Compal (see above) starting at $1099 up to $1460. You can even get an ASUS, who make their own laptops, for $1429.

The only thing about this company I like better than it’s PCs is it’s people and service. I called 2 or 3 times to ask questions and each time I was treated as if I were their next door neighbor. After the first call they knew me by name. The same goes for the one technical support call I made. Ordering is a dream. Within 36 hours of my order I received confirmation of shipment and had my tracking number.

Powernotebooks.com is a small privately owned business. The owner, Donald Stratton (who also happened to be my salesman) has a beautifully simple business model designed for one thing. To deliver the best quality laptops to his customers with the best personal service available. The fact that he runs it based on Christian values is just icing on the cake.