Aussie e-tailer Ruslan Kogan has his hands in lots of different pots: phones, tablets, TVs, and appliances, and this week, it’s a return to laptops as Kogan launches a budget laptop.
Branded with the name of the e-tailer, it’s clear that Kogan is launching a laptop, the first in, well, we can’t exactly recall. This journalist remembers reviewing one some time ago, but that was several years ago, with an Agora laptop.
But while we’ve seen the Agora name grace phones and tablets recently, the new Kogan laptop won’t be an Agora, but rather an Atlas, which appears to have taken the manufacturing reigns of this one.
Called the Atlas X1510, it’s a budget laptop plain and simple, pairing a 15.5 inch HD screen (1366×768) with more budget innards, including the Intel Pentium N3540 2.16GHz chip, 4GB RAM, a 500GB conventional hard drive, and four USB ports, one of which is a USB 3.0.
“There’s now no excuse for why every school kid in Australia shouldn’t have a laptop and be given the tools to discover that the Great Wall of China was not built to keep the rabbits out,” said Ruslan Kogan.
“Inside we have put one of the latest Intel CPUs, 4GB of RAM, a 500GB HDD and it comes with a high definition 15.6 inch screen. We haven’t skimped on the features that will make this the perfect laptop for work, school or university. There are plenty of cheap, runout, laptops available in Australia but we wanted to do more than just stuff a few mediocre features in to hit a price point.”
Based on spec alone, we’re not sure we agree with Kogan that this does more than “stuff a few mediocre features in to hit a price point,” but we’re willing to give it the benefit of the doubt, especially since it will also come with 802.11ac WiFi support, something few laptops below $500 tend to arrive with.
We’ve checked with Kogan on upgradeability, too, which has said that RAM can be upgraded and that it’s not soldered in place, which will likely improve it in the eyes of people who find that 4GB RAM just a touch limiting.
Kogan’s Atlas X1510 laptop is priced at $329 (plus shipping) and will be available from Kogan’s online store near the end of December, though we’re hoping to have a review online sooner.
I am so incredibly disappointed.
We purchased 3 laptops this year from Kogan. These items
were due to leave the warehouse on December 15th but of course this did not
happen. Tragically, all 3 are Christmas presents for 9 and 10 year olds. In 10
years of being a dad I have never had to explain to 1 let alone all 3 of my
children that their Christmas present would not be arriving until “some
time in the future”.
By the 18th of December, aware that time was getting tight I
rang the Kogan phone number and spoke to a real person, believing that I may
have found a person that not only genuinely cared but was capable of solving
the problem. Twice on this phone call I was told “rest assured, your items
will be delivered before Christmas. Of course I informed the lady that had
Kogan simply emailed me to say “that although the item was supposed to
ship on the 15th , they had been delayed and Kogan was aware of the delay and
was still delivering prior to Christmas”, then I would indeed be resting
assured but failure to manage the situation had me concerned. The end of the
call had me expecting a supervisor to ring me. Of course, this was yet another
broken promise from Kogan. The next day, another phone call, more assurances
and another promise to call. YET MORE KOGAN BROKEN PROMISES. Kogan have since
sent a manifest of the delivery to Australia Post. Of course, Australia Post
have a manifest but not the actual item.
Kogan, of course also failed to highlight that the item is
not in Australia, unlike the other items i have purchased from Kogan.com.au. I
believe it may be shipping from Hong Kong but Kogan do not seem to be
communicating much of this at all.
There is no email to disappointed purchasers of the
pre-ordered laptops. There are no returned phone calls. There are no deliveries
expected to arrive. There are no notices to be found on the Kogan website.
Apparently Kogan had to issue an apology in 2011 for the
exact same thing. Everyone got a $25 voucher and some seemed to accept it as
just another effect of a busy Holiday Period like the apology had made out.
Well this year, the same will not fly. Kogan cannot say it was an unexpected
rush as they have experienced it before. They cannot blame couriers as the
items did not ship. They cannot blame demand as they sold out and then re
listed the item after a day or two. This would have to suggest they had
overcome a supply issue and it was not simply a money grab for more items they
had no intention of delivering within the expected timeframes.
Really, the real problem is one of respect for a client
base, and the communication systems in place to work with those clients. Of
course things go wrong, of course Christmas is busy. But false promises and
broken promises cannot be mended by a fake apology afterwards. That fake
apology was the ghost of Christmas past. I am now looking to see how
Kogan.com.au intends to overcome client dissatisfaction this time.
Please Kogan, do respond as having previously requested to
speak to a manager, or to a supervisor and having requested an email or a call
back have not worked at all.
Any official complaint should start with a documented effort
to work with the provider to let them know there is a problem and request a
solution. I am once again doing this but at least with this post I now have
evidence of my complaint. Hopefully Kogan recorded each of my calls, but they
definitely have each of their communications and the website listing which
shows that the item will ship on the 15th of December. Of course they will have
a copy of my almost hourly emails to try and sell me stuff and no copies of
communications to explain how they are solving the problem.
Let’s see all those reviewers get on board, or were they paid for comment?