I purchased an EX7 at the end of July, and here's an early review. First the specs:
Aviator EX7
I did a fair amount of research going into this. I have owned one gaming pc in the past, which I got from Alienware. It seemed like Hypersonic had the best combination of price, service and quality of components/manufacturing. I read some bad reviews, mainly surrounding service and quality control issues, but the good reviews were by far more common.
I placed my order on July 30 over the internet without talking to a salesperson, which in hindsight could have been a mistake because I didn't establish any sort of personal relationship with the company going into my order. That seems to be a pretty common link between the people who've had great experiences with the company. Going into the order, lead time was listed as between eight and twelve days.
The only communication I received from Hypersonic was an order confirmation, and after a few days of nothing else, and my order status page being seemingly stuck at "Order pending acceptance", I gave them a call. Happily I was told that my order had been charged already, construction was well under way, and that should testing go well, the computer should be shipped on Wednesday, August 8.
Not having done enough homework at this point to realize that the order status page is rather unreliable, on August 7, with my order status only showing as being in the "Kitting and assignment" phase, I called them again. I was told that my computer had actually been built already and was being benchmarked, and even better, should be shipped that day if the benchmarking went well. Furthermore, I was told that should anything happen to prevent them from shipping the computer, I would be called at my office.
I was not called, and by the next Tuesday, my computer had not arrived.
The next Tuesday or Wednesday I called again, and was told that my computer had not been shipped because they were missing a part - the video card. Wondering how exactly a computer could be benchmarked without a video card, I didn't ask any questions, but rather assumed that something had gone wrong with the video card they might have originally put in there and that they had to order a replacement. The rep I spoke with told me that the part should definately arrive, be installed, tested and my computer shipped that week.
By the next Monday, it still hadn't been shipped and there was no word on its stauts. I called back again, and was again told that they were waiting for a part, but that it should ship soon.
As a result of this delay, no one was going to be around at my house to sign for the computer, so I had to call them the next day (Tuesday, August 22) and change the shipping address, whereupon I was told that the part had arrived, so my computer should ship either that night or the next morning.
I called at noon the next day to see if it had shipped, and was told that everything with my computer was good to go, but that their UPS pick up is actually at 6, so if I called back after 5 I could get the tracking number. I called back around 5:30 and was told that all was well and again, I believe I was given assurances that if something went wrong I would be contacted.
I wasn't called, but I did receive the shipping email with my tracking number. By the next Monday, however, there was no sign of my machine, and the shipping status was looking funny, it just seemed like the label had been printed but that nothing had actually been shipped yet. The next Monday I called UPS who confirmed this, and told me that their records showed that nothing had been picked up, so if it had in fact been shipped, something was horribly wrong, and that Hypersonic had to start an investigation.
A little scared at this point, I called Hypersonic the next morning to find out what was happening, where I was told that though the shipping label had in fact been printed, and my order was in fact showing up as shipped, it hadn't been shipped yet because some part malfunction during testing and that they were waiting for a replacement - this time it was the card reader.
I will preface my next comments by saying that up to this point, the reps I had spoken to from Hypersonic had been very polite.
Rather confused by all of this, I asked the person on the other end of the phone how exactly my computer could have gone from "good to go" to having another part missing as a result of testing. His response was, "Well we can't send you a computer with bad parts, right?" I responded by saying that this was not the issue, but that I spoke with a tech the previous week, I was told that there had been issues with my build, but that they were resolved and the my computer was good to go. How exactly then did my computer have another issue? Don't get me wrong, at this point my computer was three weeks past its initial shipping date, but that's not what bothered me, rather it was how I kept getting different answers everytime I called, with the never changing result of my computer being delayed further. I can deal with the delays, but I was starting to get the very distinct impression that Hypersonic was not being honest with me. In any event, he just repeated that they couldn't send me bad hardware and that it should be shipped fairly soon.
It did in fact ship soon thereafter, and it arrived last Friday. I didn't get a custom paint job, but the computer looked great, it just radiated power. I turned it on for the first time on Saturday morning (didn't want to turn it on unless I could spend some time gaming), and as soon as windows came up, I got some funny message saying "When trying to update the password the return status indicates the value provided as the current password is not correct", there was an ok box that I tried to click, but my cursor just went wild, and after about 5 seconds, my computer rebooted. This kept happening over and over for a good 10 minutes. Being as quick as I am, after about 10 minutes I caught on to there being something wrong with this picture and gave the Hypersonic 24x7 support a call as it was a Saturday. I spoke with a dispatcher who took down my problem, and within 20 minutes a tech called me back. I guess these guys aren't actually employed by Hypersonic, they must be a third party. My guy took no time in telling me that it looked like there was a bad OS load on my computer. Of course, if that were the case, there's no sense in trying to use my disaster recovery disk because that would just be a ghost of my bad OS load. The only other possibility he said, was that the computer could have been exposed to a very strong magnet in transit which could have corrupted some of the system files. I decided to skip the disaster recovery disk in case it was just a bad OS load, and to instead just re-install windows. The tech was very helpful in walking me through the whole process, as the EX7s apparently have problems recognizing the hard disk during a windows installation, so I had to go get a USB floppy drive and copy the hard disk drivers onto a floppy etc... Thankfully I live a 10 minute walk from a Best Buy, but not so thankfully they were out of USB floppy drives... Thankfully that Best Buy is next to a Staples, and there I found my equipment. After about 7 hours Windows was re-installed (I decided to eliminate as many variables as I could, and re-formatted my hard disk as well, which added a lot of time to that process), my drivers were for the most part re-installed, and I had about half an hour to game before I had to go out to dinner with some friends... sigh...
Well, I realize that the vast majority of my review has been devoted to the problems I encountered with service and quality control, as a matter of fact, all I have said about the computer itself so far is reserved to its external appearance. To be honest though, I think this is appropriate, as 1, I have only had this computer for four days, and 2, I chose Hypersonic because it had a good reputation for service and their well touted quality control process. Regardless of the one month lead time (which to be honest is what I think is appropriate for a gaming pc), the frustration caused by the customer service/sales/tech people I spoke with was disorganized at its best, and possibly just downright dishonest at its worst. I hope that someone from Hypersonic reads this review (I am going to refer this review to them via their nice little review incentive page), and actually does something about this. Okay, these computers aren't as expensive as Falcon or Voodoo, but Hypersonic's prices still reflect their desire to reach the high-end gaming audience. One of the reasons that people pay top dollar for things is for top-notch service. I might be mistaken, perhaps the information that I was given was really accurate about my computer's status, but it certainly didn't feel like it. And even if it was, I didn't receive any communication from them explaining what was happening with my order, even when I was told that I would be contacted by them on more than one occasion.
And of course we get to the issue of the OS load - again, perhaps a magnet was to blame (anyone know how to test if a recovery disk would just give you a bad load?), but if there were no magnetic issues, to send out a computer with a bad OS load is just disgraceful... I have read of other people having this problem as well, and I imagine that the probability of people's computers being shipped next to massive magnets is small enough that at least some of them really did get bad OS loads. I don't know if turning on the computer after deleting all the benchmarking software and re-installing the OS is part of Hypersonic's 128 point quality control process, but it should be...
With all that said, once I dealt with the OS issues, the computer has been running magnificently. I have only been playing two games so far, Oblivion and Rome: Total War. Both run very smoothly with the graphics cranked up to the max, though I have noticed a few seconds of choppy play in each. I imagine it was other stuff running in the background, nothing that distracted from the play though. I do have a couple of problems: My volume control buttons don't seem to be working, does anyone know how to deal with that? Otherwise, its been great. I'll post again after another month or so.
Aviator EX7
- Integrated V.92 56K Fax/Data Modem - Qty: 1
- Built-in ATA Hardware RAID Controller - Qty: 1
- Integrated 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet Controller - Qty: 1
- MS Windows XP Professional CD & Manual SP2 Pre-Installed & Configured - Qty: 1
- Aviator EX7 in Silver with Graphite Accents - Qty: 1
- Intel® 915P+ICH6 LGA-775 Mobile Motherboard (EX7) - Qty: 1
- Internal 802.11G 54Mbps Wireless Mini PCI Network Adapter & Bluetooth - Qty: 1
- 7 in 1 Flash Media Card Reader Bay - Qty: 1
- PCMCIA Sound Blaster® Audigy® 2 ZS Notebook - Qty: 1
- Aviator EX7: State of the Art 17" Desktop Replacement Notebook - Qty: 1
- 17" WUXGA 1920x1200 VividView™ Display w/ Super Clear Glossy Surface - Qty: 1
- 1 Year Platinum Warranty with 24/7 Toll-Free Tech Support - Qty: 1
- 3.80GHz Intel® Pentium® 4 Processor 670 (with EM64T) - Qty: 1
- 100GB 7200rpm Serial-ATA Hard Drive with NCQ & 8MB Cache - Qty: 1
- 1024MB Mushkin PC5300 DDR2-667 SODIMM - Low Latency (5-5-5-15) - Qty: 2
- 8X DVD ± R/W Drive Dual Layer w/ DVD Recording Software - Qty: 1
- Custom Hypersonic Disaster Recovery DVD (Recommended) - Qty: 1
- Nvidia GeForce Go 7900 GTX PCI-Express 512MB GDDR3 - Qty: 1
I did a fair amount of research going into this. I have owned one gaming pc in the past, which I got from Alienware. It seemed like Hypersonic had the best combination of price, service and quality of components/manufacturing. I read some bad reviews, mainly surrounding service and quality control issues, but the good reviews were by far more common.
I placed my order on July 30 over the internet without talking to a salesperson, which in hindsight could have been a mistake because I didn't establish any sort of personal relationship with the company going into my order. That seems to be a pretty common link between the people who've had great experiences with the company. Going into the order, lead time was listed as between eight and twelve days.
The only communication I received from Hypersonic was an order confirmation, and after a few days of nothing else, and my order status page being seemingly stuck at "Order pending acceptance", I gave them a call. Happily I was told that my order had been charged already, construction was well under way, and that should testing go well, the computer should be shipped on Wednesday, August 8.
Not having done enough homework at this point to realize that the order status page is rather unreliable, on August 7, with my order status only showing as being in the "Kitting and assignment" phase, I called them again. I was told that my computer had actually been built already and was being benchmarked, and even better, should be shipped that day if the benchmarking went well. Furthermore, I was told that should anything happen to prevent them from shipping the computer, I would be called at my office.
I was not called, and by the next Tuesday, my computer had not arrived.
The next Tuesday or Wednesday I called again, and was told that my computer had not been shipped because they were missing a part - the video card. Wondering how exactly a computer could be benchmarked without a video card, I didn't ask any questions, but rather assumed that something had gone wrong with the video card they might have originally put in there and that they had to order a replacement. The rep I spoke with told me that the part should definately arrive, be installed, tested and my computer shipped that week.
By the next Monday, it still hadn't been shipped and there was no word on its stauts. I called back again, and was again told that they were waiting for a part, but that it should ship soon.
As a result of this delay, no one was going to be around at my house to sign for the computer, so I had to call them the next day (Tuesday, August 22) and change the shipping address, whereupon I was told that the part had arrived, so my computer should ship either that night or the next morning.
I called at noon the next day to see if it had shipped, and was told that everything with my computer was good to go, but that their UPS pick up is actually at 6, so if I called back after 5 I could get the tracking number. I called back around 5:30 and was told that all was well and again, I believe I was given assurances that if something went wrong I would be contacted.
I wasn't called, but I did receive the shipping email with my tracking number. By the next Monday, however, there was no sign of my machine, and the shipping status was looking funny, it just seemed like the label had been printed but that nothing had actually been shipped yet. The next Monday I called UPS who confirmed this, and told me that their records showed that nothing had been picked up, so if it had in fact been shipped, something was horribly wrong, and that Hypersonic had to start an investigation.
A little scared at this point, I called Hypersonic the next morning to find out what was happening, where I was told that though the shipping label had in fact been printed, and my order was in fact showing up as shipped, it hadn't been shipped yet because some part malfunction during testing and that they were waiting for a replacement - this time it was the card reader.
I will preface my next comments by saying that up to this point, the reps I had spoken to from Hypersonic had been very polite.
Rather confused by all of this, I asked the person on the other end of the phone how exactly my computer could have gone from "good to go" to having another part missing as a result of testing. His response was, "Well we can't send you a computer with bad parts, right?" I responded by saying that this was not the issue, but that I spoke with a tech the previous week, I was told that there had been issues with my build, but that they were resolved and the my computer was good to go. How exactly then did my computer have another issue? Don't get me wrong, at this point my computer was three weeks past its initial shipping date, but that's not what bothered me, rather it was how I kept getting different answers everytime I called, with the never changing result of my computer being delayed further. I can deal with the delays, but I was starting to get the very distinct impression that Hypersonic was not being honest with me. In any event, he just repeated that they couldn't send me bad hardware and that it should be shipped fairly soon.
It did in fact ship soon thereafter, and it arrived last Friday. I didn't get a custom paint job, but the computer looked great, it just radiated power. I turned it on for the first time on Saturday morning (didn't want to turn it on unless I could spend some time gaming), and as soon as windows came up, I got some funny message saying "When trying to update the password the return status indicates the value provided as the current password is not correct", there was an ok box that I tried to click, but my cursor just went wild, and after about 5 seconds, my computer rebooted. This kept happening over and over for a good 10 minutes. Being as quick as I am, after about 10 minutes I caught on to there being something wrong with this picture and gave the Hypersonic 24x7 support a call as it was a Saturday. I spoke with a dispatcher who took down my problem, and within 20 minutes a tech called me back. I guess these guys aren't actually employed by Hypersonic, they must be a third party. My guy took no time in telling me that it looked like there was a bad OS load on my computer. Of course, if that were the case, there's no sense in trying to use my disaster recovery disk because that would just be a ghost of my bad OS load. The only other possibility he said, was that the computer could have been exposed to a very strong magnet in transit which could have corrupted some of the system files. I decided to skip the disaster recovery disk in case it was just a bad OS load, and to instead just re-install windows. The tech was very helpful in walking me through the whole process, as the EX7s apparently have problems recognizing the hard disk during a windows installation, so I had to go get a USB floppy drive and copy the hard disk drivers onto a floppy etc... Thankfully I live a 10 minute walk from a Best Buy, but not so thankfully they were out of USB floppy drives... Thankfully that Best Buy is next to a Staples, and there I found my equipment. After about 7 hours Windows was re-installed (I decided to eliminate as many variables as I could, and re-formatted my hard disk as well, which added a lot of time to that process), my drivers were for the most part re-installed, and I had about half an hour to game before I had to go out to dinner with some friends... sigh...
Well, I realize that the vast majority of my review has been devoted to the problems I encountered with service and quality control, as a matter of fact, all I have said about the computer itself so far is reserved to its external appearance. To be honest though, I think this is appropriate, as 1, I have only had this computer for four days, and 2, I chose Hypersonic because it had a good reputation for service and their well touted quality control process. Regardless of the one month lead time (which to be honest is what I think is appropriate for a gaming pc), the frustration caused by the customer service/sales/tech people I spoke with was disorganized at its best, and possibly just downright dishonest at its worst. I hope that someone from Hypersonic reads this review (I am going to refer this review to them via their nice little review incentive page), and actually does something about this. Okay, these computers aren't as expensive as Falcon or Voodoo, but Hypersonic's prices still reflect their desire to reach the high-end gaming audience. One of the reasons that people pay top dollar for things is for top-notch service. I might be mistaken, perhaps the information that I was given was really accurate about my computer's status, but it certainly didn't feel like it. And even if it was, I didn't receive any communication from them explaining what was happening with my order, even when I was told that I would be contacted by them on more than one occasion.
And of course we get to the issue of the OS load - again, perhaps a magnet was to blame (anyone know how to test if a recovery disk would just give you a bad load?), but if there were no magnetic issues, to send out a computer with a bad OS load is just disgraceful... I have read of other people having this problem as well, and I imagine that the probability of people's computers being shipped next to massive magnets is small enough that at least some of them really did get bad OS loads. I don't know if turning on the computer after deleting all the benchmarking software and re-installing the OS is part of Hypersonic's 128 point quality control process, but it should be...
With all that said, once I dealt with the OS issues, the computer has been running magnificently. I have only been playing two games so far, Oblivion and Rome: Total War. Both run very smoothly with the graphics cranked up to the max, though I have noticed a few seconds of choppy play in each. I imagine it was other stuff running in the background, nothing that distracted from the play though. I do have a couple of problems: My volume control buttons don't seem to be working, does anyone know how to deal with that? Otherwise, its been great. I'll post again after another month or so.
