This order was actually placed in late 2004, it's an old order, but it will at least illustrate all the pains I have gone thru in the life of this hellish PC  
 
Originally, I placed my order in November, but changed in mid December. When I mentioned canceling, they said it would be a 25% fee to cancel, on a $6,500 PC, that's just bullshit. Dell would have let me cancel the day before it was shipped without a "fee".  
 
The order was not received until about March. A month after they had promised delivery. When I opened it, the sound card was sitting inside the case, not even in a slot, and no loose screws in the box. Despite that, system was wired and cabled neatly. Worked great for about 2 months, then the problems came.  
 
I was hearing the sounds of bubbles sloshing thru the water pump, very loud and annoying. I had to contact them about it, and they instructed me how to refill the water tank. I researched this, it was a saitek water cooling system ($200 retail), and the documentation indicated that VoodooPC mounted the tank backwards, and warned NOT to install it that way. My system was running hot, and so hot that eventually I had memory problems. This is a VERY SERIOUS problem, cause one or two bad windows updates with bad RAM will cause your system to get corrupted, so badly in fact I LOST ALL MY DATA! Eventually the leak got so bad, it actually dripped off my CPU down to my power supply. At that point I called their tech support and explained I wanted them to fix the leak, correct the improperly mounted water tank, and replace the power supply as it was now a fire hazzard. To their credit, the RMA was quick and easy, but unfortunatly because of the price declaration, I had to pay additional tarrifs on the shipping, which alerted the state tax collectors in NJ. I had to pay hundreds of dollars more for this POS because VoodooPC didn't properly assess the taxes on the PC. When I did get the PC back, I still had leaks. The top of the water tank was now badly cracked and had to use boat epoxy and caulk to seal it. I still have to refill it from time to time. Memory went bad again, and had to buy new chips to replace the bad ones. It appears that they went bad a third time just recently, except this time the PC doesn't even recognize it now. When I originally bought this system, there was a platinum upgrade plan, allowing you to upgrade it in the future. I really didn't want to buy a new PC so I figured I ask VoodooPC if they could upgrade the components. Their response was, that system is no longer offered by the company. Mine was a Rage SLi, the exact same case as their current Omen system.  
 
At every opportunity, this company and their POS system has let me down. I WILL NEVER EVER GIVE THEM A SINGLE CENT FOR ANY OF THEIR PRODUCTS. I would advise anyone considering them (or their HP equilavlent BlackBird) to look else where for a new system. It is not worth it, not by a long shot. For $6,500, you would expect pefection, and I got a big fat juicy lemon. DO NOT BUY!!!!

This review was modified by its author, parallox, on 9/9/08 3:21 PM.

I ordered a Voodoo Omen water-cooled with SLI in late February 2007. My experience since has been ongoing aggravation. It took over 2 months to receive, was delivered defective with dent on front of chassis, leaking water cooling, bad memory, motherboard defects, etc. Sent back to Canada for repairs, received back with out of box defective GForce 8800GTX cards and corrupted video. Sent back a 2nd time in Sept 07, with many calls to Voodoo staff, Chuck, Devin, Brendan, Romana, etc. Received it back last year and it seemed to work for awhile. Over past 2 months(May-June 08) multiple nonresponsive programs, freezes, slooow performance, disk drive errors, despite multiple clean reinstallations of Vista. This past week, the case lights do not come on, clicking on any file on both drives leads to "program not responding". What I thought was software appears again to be progressive hardware failure.  
Despite polite customer service, I cringe at the thought of sending it back to Canada (from Providence RI) and the many delivery problems encountered before, let alone the defects out of box. For $8000 I bought a heck of a lot of aggravation and lost time, and I'm afraid it's not over.  
6/27/08 Addendum: I looked into the darkened case with a flashlight, and note pink dried drippings on the water-cooling hoses,cards and processor they connect to, and the surface below them. Obviously the worst has happened. Supposedly the leaking cooling system had been replaced on the 1st return repair trip. This could well explain CPU temps in the 70 C degrees I have been getting for awhile. I have communicated this again now to Voodoo and found that many of the staff have been replaced, and am assured that with HP now involved procedures are improved. It is likely that I was unfortunate enough to have ordered an Omen during a period of poor technical quality in midst of a company change. This hardly eases my pain, however. All I wanted was an out of box satisfaction. At best, all I will get back is a 3 times repaired expensive computer and the need to cross my fingers. Do they have a lemon law to protect consumers from plain bad computers? How would you feel driving a new car that's had to have major repairs 3 times within its 1st year?

This review was modified by its author, ikb, on 6/27/08 3:52 PM.

UPDATE:  
 
Unfortunately I must change my opinion on this. The information I was given was inaccurate, in fact so inaccurate that had I taken the offer without reading it, I would have paid an extra $3000 for my system. As it is I have cancelled the deal as I have no faith in this company to deliver what they have promised. If you would like further information, I do have the email strings whic I can forward to you.  
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++  
I was very impressed with the help Thomas gave me, he was able to answer the questions I had and get me the required paperwork very efficiently, I cannot wait to get my hands on my new toy

This review was modified by its author, smsoutthere, on 1/11/08 11:58 AM.

After only minimal usage of their Voodoo ENVY 15.4" Notebook the mouse pad malfunctioned. They are now charging me $160 for shipping cost to repair it. I will buy a Dell computer in the future.

I returned my computer to Voodoo to have a failed hard drive replaced (3rd one)and to trouble shoot a ram failure. Voodoo received the machine on 17 May 2007. As of today, 23 June 2007, It has not been picked up by UPS.  
 
I made repeated phone calls and several asking for status. No phone calls or emails were ever returned.  
 
On the rare occasions that I did get a real person on the phone the responses were given by people that didnt want to be bothered. Here is a list.  
 
1. Havent received it. (over a week after they had received it.)  
 
2. Waiting on parts (my most frustrating call was on Monday, 18 June. I was told they were still waiting on parts, after I had instructed them the week before to install what they had in stock and I would pay for the parts, just get it fixed. The did not do that. Once it was supposedly repaired, it failed QC check, it will another 3-4 days. I got a call back in 30 minutes and was told it was ready to ship but wanted my credit card to pay. I gave it and it still hasnt shipped. Just amazing.  
 
Maybe I am an isolated case, but I also own a Dell, which I have been using since I sent the Voodoo in for repair and Dell's customer service on a few issues I had was OUTSTANDING. I never thought those words would come out of my mouth.  
 
I guess in the end it all boils down to BUYER BEWARE.  
 
I purchased the machine soley based on comments in this website. (their prices would not attract any customers) The customer service was supposed to be the best in the business. Maybe it is, just not in my case.  
 
Glenn Lentz

I ordered a Voodoo Rage F:5 on 1/29/2005. The  
estimated build time was a month. I received  
the computer on 3/23/2005, almost a month late.  
 
There were two problems with the computer right  
out of the box. First, the rechargeable  
wireless mouse had no battery. Apparently,  
their extensive system testing doesn't include  
things like "Will the mouse work?" Worse,  
Voodoo didn't have any of those batteries and  
wouldn't credit me the cost for buying one.  
Worse still, the mouse required batteries with a  
non-standard power consumption rating,  
necessitating a bit of calling around and too  
much driving to find.  
 
Second, because of inadequate packing, the SLI  
connector on the graphics cards had been shaken  
loose, but not so loose as to look disconnected.  
After abortive attempts to get support over  
e-mail, I called and was eventually told to  
check that. Sounds easy, right? Well, another  
thing Voodoo neglected to pack in the box were  
any instructions for opening their boutique  
case. In fact, there's no information about the  
case, the power supply, the cooling pump, the  
radiator, or plenty of non-standard components  
in the machine. I was expecting a ream of  
manuals, spec sheets, and diagrams. I guess I  
should be happy that I got a motherboard manual  
and a copy of Windows.  
 
So a week after I get the machine, it's finally  
working. I proceed to play games on it. And  
the experience is...well, underwhelming. I've  
jumped through all the usual hoops like  
adjusting drivers and tweaking graphics  
settings. But Half-Life 2 still couldn't run  
well with the highest graphics settings.  
Oblivion still burps when I enter big open  
expanses. It's really disappointing.  
 
Earlier this year, my wife's laptop hard drive  
crashed, and our backup solution turned out to  
also be somewhat broken. Because the Rage has a  
RAID controller, I decided to throw a few hard  
drives into it and use it as a backup device.  
That's when I discovered that the hard drive  
SCREWS were special - lathed at the head to fit  
into the case's hard drive rack. And of course,  
no extra screws came with the machine. So I  
call up Voodoo and ask for eight fancy screws,  
mentioning that it's pretty important as it's  
for my LAN's backup RAID. Voodoo proceeds to  
fumble around for a few weeks. I called  
repeatedly and kept getting the runaround.  
Despite offering to pay for shipping, they  
insisted on sending the screws via USPS instead  
of via some shipper with a tracking number. My  
favorite incident from that period was calling  
and being told to call back on what turned out  
to be a Canadian holiday, when no one was around  
who could help me. Genius!  
 
Then the overheating started. The machine would  
start up, and the CPU temp would skyrocket. I  
called Voodoo up, and they told me to add  
distilled water to the reservoir of pink  
antifreeze. I did that.  
 
A few days later, the machine overheats again.  
I start looking around for leaks, and lo and  
behold, there's a little pink crust forming  
around one of the reservoir screws. I call them  
back, and after asking me some questions about  
my system, they tell me that they'd identified a  
design flaw in my machine's separate pump and  
reservoir setup, and the thing to do is to  
install a unified pump and reservoir. Of  
course, since my machine is out of warranty,  
they had to sell me the part, so he arranges to  
have sales call me to pay for it the next day.  
The tech support person tells me this on  
December 12. I end up getting the part on  
1/3/2007, despite paying for it promptly. Seems  
that they sent the part to my old address, even  
though they sent the screws to my new address  
just months ago AND that I confirmed my current  
address as my billing and shipping address when  
I bought the part, then was told that it was  
being changed in their system. They never saw  
fit to give me a tracking number (again!), and  
they never noticed that the part wasn't  
successfully delivered.  
 
And what do I get when I get the part? Do I get  
the complete installation instructions, as  
promised? I get two hastily-photocopied pages  
describing installation into a bare machine,  
full of uselessly blurred diagrams. Nothing  
about the RAGE. Nothing about how to drain my  
system. And all this for a markup of 50% above  
what it would have cost me to buy this part  
myself online and have it shipped to my correct  
address. And all this, remember, because of  
Voodoo's design mistake.  
 
I've told Voodoo repeatedly that I'm frustrated  
with them and that they need to make this right.  
They've done nothing.  
 
For the amount of money I paid for this machine,  
I could have purchased a car, driven to a big  
chain store on the day after Thanksgiving,  
bought a commodity computer and two games,  
waited in line for hours to pay for it all, and  
still come out happier and wealthier.  
 
Please, please, PLEASE don't make the same  
mistake that I made! If your experience is like  
mine, the only thing you'll get when you open  
that box "Sealed with a Hex" is a curse.

This review was modified by its author, mrarba, on 1/7/07 11:55 AM.

After three months of trying to fix my Omen PC I gave up with VooDoo as I could not leave it with them indefinitely.  
 
I asked for my money back but they refused.  
 
Basically, the computer continues to experience stability issues when one uses the front USB ports. As it sits now the front memory card readers are connected with a USB cable which loops to the external back USB port where it now takes up one of these ports. When I recently tried to do an update on me Garmin Street Pilot the system crashed. I ended up having to do the update with my old Dell.

As with most so-called "boutique" manufacturers, this company is a RIP-OFF. They charge you a 50% (or greater) premium for shoddy tech support (Only available 9-5 mon-fri and I've often called to recieve nothing more than an answering machine that was FULL), crappy warranty coverage (they max out at 3 years and PCs must be shipped back to Voodoo HQ in Calgary, Canada at the owner's expense) and they offer NO incentives for returning customers on the grounds that doing so would "cheapen their brand".  
 
DO NOT buy from the company, I CANNOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH. They only care about their image and their ego. I feel like a fool and a sucker for wasting the kind of money I did on one of their machines.  
 
The offer nothing to justify their extreme price and fail in many areas where much cheaper companies succeed. Do yourself a favour and avoid Voodoo at all costs! Ironically, it will end up costing you a heck of a lot more if you don't.  
 
Summary: All style and no substance. Don't be seduced by their fancy webpage and glossy photos. While their PCs may look special on the outside, on the inside they are nothing remarkable and certainly not worth anywhere close to what they charge. That and the customer care is ABYSMAL. They will excuse everything on the grounds that they are a "boutique" company. Allow me to translate. Boutique = A Scam to mark up thier products and provide inferior support because they are too small and greedy to compete with the big manufacturers.  
 
If you wonder why they sell ANY machines whatsoever, remember what P.T. Barnum said, "There's a sucker born every minute." Don't be that sucker. Stay FAR FAR away from Voodoo PC.

I purchased an OMEN, formerly the F5 liquid cooled machine in December of 2004. A couple hours after starting the order process, Rahul Sood, the President and founder of the company, called me to confirm. That was kind of cool. I guess it gave me a little piece of mind.  
 
The computer arrived the first week of March 2005, kind of a long build time, but to be expected from a high end custom builder. The computer arrived with all necessary hardware, but not one single article for instructions on how to set it up (e.g., which video card slot out of four possible to attach the monitor). It required a call to tech support for someone like me who is a relatively inexperienced computer user. Tech support returned my call the next day and got me up and running. One thing about this call that was curious to me was that the tech guy was following a set of written troubleshooting instructions to solve my problem. This is the same thing you get at Dell, and quite surprising based on the technical expertise that Voodoo touts on their website. Regardless, the problem was solved.  
 
I must say the computer looked very nice: well built case, artistically wired, and custom tweaked decorations including cool lights. I was quite mesmerized by it.  
 
One issue that I had was the noise. Voodoo advertises the OMEN on their website as "silent". It is nothing of the kind. It is at least three times louder than the Dell 8250 I purchased 5 years ago. I was a little disappointed in the noise, but decided to accept it. But a warning to anyone looking for silent computing: this isn't what you are looking for, trust me.  
 
The computer ran well and I had no major problems until about August of 2005. I began to have bootup failures that occurred about once every couple of days. Shutting down with the power button and repowering would allow for startup after a couple tries. This problem became more frequent as time passed. I notified tech support and they passed it off as a BIOS problem. I didn't buy this because curiously, my liquid cooling pump had begun to make very loud gurgling noises which coincided with the frequent bootup failures. Eventually, I began to get errors telling me that the CPU fan was failing. This was strange because the CPU is cooled with liquid in this machine. There is no fan on the CPU. Soon after this, the liquid cooling pump showed no signs of life and the computer would no long startup.  
 
I contacted tech support at Voodoo. They told me that I needed to replace the liquid cooling pump myself and proceeded to ship out a new liquid cooling pump. Now, for someone with almost no technical computer experience, the thought of draining the liquid out of my computer and replacing the cooling pump was quite daunting. Therefore, I talked them into allowing me to ship the computer back and replace the liquid cooling pump with fans. Quite frankly, I no longer trusted the liquid cooling technology that they told me pre-purchase was completely reliable.  
 
So I recieved the computer back a week later. It came back to me without plastic covering, which I found troublesome considering the distance it's travelling. They just stuck foam pieces on the end and stuck it in the box. I put more effort into shipping it to them for service. Anyway, it arrived with a broken optical drive cover. In addition, one of the harddrives in my RAID array is failing. On top of it all, I still cannot start the computer reliably because I keep getting CPU fan failure, disk boot errors and RAID array failure errors which prevent startup. Folks, this is after shipping the machine back to them for service. Shouldn't it come in tip top shape?  
 
Guess what they told me when I contacted them this second time? They said that I could take care of those problems myself. They told me that it costs them too much money to have me keep shipping the computer back for service. They also indicated that shipping the computer is what probably caused these problems in the first place. They take no responsibility for anything. Everything is blamed on either shipping or the customer.  
 
I filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau which got me nowhere. The BBB really did nothing for me.  
 
Long story short, I am stuck with a dead computer containing the most expensive computer hardware available. I paid $6000 plus for a machine that I can't even use. Voodoo shows no willingness to help me and frankly they don't seem to give a damn once they have your money.  
 
My advice is to run far and fast from Voodoo computers. You do not get what you pay for here. Far from it. From my experience Voodoo engages in false advertising (e.g.-"silent machine").  
Also, when something goes wrong, it seems that the problems fall on the shoulders of the customer. Not something you want to see from a company that claims to have stellar customer care. Don't believe their hype.

Working in a high-end "custom" environment myself I can honestly say that I know a little bit about what kind of client Voodoo PC is attracting. Just like our own clients, Voodoo Clients are expecting customer service before, during and after the sale. I'd like to share my own experience with Voodoo and hopefully I can help educate them in the art of the high-end client.  
 
We decided to buy a hot pink laptop for a gift for someone who was graduating high school. After picking out the options we wanted we called to make sure the laptop would be ready for graduation which was over 8 weeks away. We were told that it shouldn't be a problem and we placed the order.  
 
6 weeks came and went so we called to check the status and after many calls we were told that the laptop would be done soon. A week prior to graduation we called again and were told that it would be express shipped to guarantee arrival. Three days before graduation the machine still had not shipped so we called again, this time we were told it would not ship in time and that we should print out a picture of it to give to the person who was graduating. What kind of customer service is that?  
 
Two weeks after graduation (a full 10 weeks after ordering the machine) it finally arrived. I thought we were done dealing with Voodoo once and for all until we started having a battery problem.  
 
The recipient of the laptop, a week before college classes were to start, flew cross country to go to school. While flying she decided to use her computer to watch a movie and it wouldn’t turn on. When she landed she tried shore power (mains) and it worked fine. This began a 5 week process to get a replacement battery.  
 
I called tech support on 08-15-05 and told them we needed a new battery. I was told it would need to be ordered and that they do not stock things like that. (Who doesn’t stock batteries for a laptop they sell?) I asked that someone call me back with an ETA. I also said it needed to be shipped to the college, not to Arizona. I never got a call back with an ETA so I called back on the 17th and was told that the battery was backordered from the vendor and that I would need to wait. I asked that it be drop shipped and I was told it could not.  
 
After emailing and calling for 10 days (literally every day!) I finally got a hold of the COO, Trevor. He told me who the manufacturer of the computers (and thus the batteries) was so I could find it on my own. After making a half dozen phone calls I found out the exact model number I needed and had a battery fedexed from a the manufacturer. I was also able to find out that these batteries were chronically bad and that was why they were out of stock. I was displeased, as you can imagine, that I had to do the leg work for Voodoo and that they were not willing to work outside of the scope of their original provider/distributor. Soon after I secured a battery on my own I went back to Voodoo to press them for a replacement for the one I paid for. (Not a bad request in my mind since I had to shell out $150 of my own money for the battery I found myself) This time I spoke with Lance who said he would get the battery and send it directly to the college dorms for me. I was promised a number of times that I would get a return phone call or a tracking number and never did. I finally got an email today from Lance, after asking him to have his COO call me again, that the battery had shipped. This process took 5 week. 5 weeks for a battery! 5 weeks this poor college student could not use her laptop unless plugged into the wall. This is by far the worst customer service I have ever received on a “high-end” product. I figure once I calculate my time I spent over $1000 to get this battery replaced. This is unacceptable. The worst part was, and I told this to Trevor, that when they didn’t have an answer instead of calling to tell me they didn’t have the answer yet, they simply did nothing. I tried to explain this basic concept to Trevor but it didn’t seem to register. Bad information is better than NO information. Voodoo will see no future business from us, which is sad because we buy 10-12 laptops a year and don’t mind paying for the “good stuff.”  

I received my Envy m:858 from Voodoo in June. The computer itself is decent, although the customer service has been profoundly disappointing. The company I’ve dealt with bears almost no resemblance to the one I’ve heard praised so highly.  
 
Here’s my “Voodoo Experience:”  
 
ORDERING AND SHIPPING  
 
Once I placed my order I received no communication from Voodoo, not even a message to let me know that they had received my order. It took a week, and at least three phone calls, to confirm that they had received my $3,500 and that my laptop was in the production queue.  
As the date of delivery approached, I was concerned that Voodoo had not contacted me with a shipping notice or a delivery date. When I called them, I learned that the computer had shipped and was scheduled to arrive on the same day I called. Fortunately I was able to rush home in time to meet the UPS driver.  
When the computer arrived, I discovered that it had been shipped to the wrong address. Thanks to the UPS driver who spotted the error and stopped by my home to double check.  
 
THE COMPUTER  
 
The computer itself is beautiful, and (aside from a broken optical drive) performs adequately. It sports a bright yellow paint job that was apparently finished with car wax and buffed to a high shine. I know this because the person who did the buffing failed to wipe off several hard-to-reach surfaces. Even six weeks after the computer arrived, it’s still shedding little bits of wax in my briefcase.  
 
TECHNICAL SUPPORT  
 
As I mentioned above, the computer performs adequately. Unfortunately, because of a broken optical drive, I haven’t been able to install anything on it. Actually this isn’t entirely true, after three weeks of waiting I purchased a USB CD drive. It’s slow and inconvenient, but at least my laptop can be more than a paperweight.  
I contacted Voodoo technical support about the optical drive three days after I received the computer. The person I spoke to was friendly and helpful. After we tried a couple of fixes, he offered to send me a new drive. One week later, remembering the shipping notice I didn’t receive the last time Voodoo shipped something to me, I called tech support to check on the status of the new drive. Once again, the person I spoke to was friendly and helpful, but he informed me that the original work order had been deleted and that he would write up a new one and send out the drive right away.  
Three weeks later I called again. This time, the friendly and helpful person could find no evidence of request for a new drive. He also discovered that they had no drives of that model in their facility and that they would have to order a new one. It should be ready to ship to me in a couple weeks.  
I still haven’t received it.  
CUSTOMER SERVICE  
 
Some point after the third call to technical support, I went from “patiently optimistic” to furious. I wrote an email, detailing my experience and requesting information on Voodoo’s return policy. That was two weeks ago. As of today I still have not heard anything from them.  
After some digging on my own, I found Voodoo’s return policy and discovered that returning my laptop will cost hundreds of dollars in “restocking fees.” At this point, I’m frustrated enough that I may return the computer anyway, just to get out of this ever-more-disappointing relationship with Voodoo PC. But I have some small hope that their highly-praised customer service may actually appear and remedy the situation.  
 
Added 12/23/05:  
 
This is Voodoo’s response to my comments above:  
 
*  
We have really done everything we can to get back with you -- including emailing you, at least 3 phone calls, etc. We haven't heard from you, hopefully you have everything you need. If not, please respond to our requests, and thanks.  
*  
This is not true. Within half a day of posting my original review, I received a call from one of Voodoo’s customer service reps & he agreed to send a new drive. The drive itself took weeks to arrive, and when it did the original problem persisted. Two weeks after that, the speakers began to buzz, very loudly.  
 
I called Voodoo again and asked them to repair the optical drive and the buzzing sound system at their facility. This was almost 2 months ago. I’ve talked to tech support about once a week. Progress reports have been wildly inconsistent. Most recently the tech told me that the optical drive problem persists but that they have “no idea” what’s wrong with it. He told me that they would ship the computer back as soon as they were able to solve the problem, but there was no longer any timetable for the repair.  
 
At this point I am angrier with Voodoo PC than I have ever been with any company. Beginning on the 26th of December I will begin seeking legal assistance to recover the full amount I invested in this computer. It has been over six months since the computer arrived and I have nothing to show for it except a mountain of frustration.  
 

This review was modified by its author, scrbl, on 12/22/05 5:09 PM.

I am very dissatisfied with this company. I would not recommend them to anyone and I will certainly never buy from them again. I ordered from this company after reading the good reviews here. Please read about my experience:  
 
I purchased an Envy m:380 laptop on Feb. 10, 2005. I work for the US Dept. of State and live in Almaty, Kazakhstan for work. I have a US mailing address, which is my billing address for my credit card. When I ordered the laptop, I asked them to send the laptop to my address in Almaty and not my credit card billing address. I called and talked to someone from sales and I told them again to send it to my Almaty address. I again sent an email to their customer care with the proper address.  
 
I did several build checks and they said they hadn't started building it yet, still collecting components. Then I requested another build check and they told me it had already been sent, but "Sorry" we forgot to tell you. They sent it to my mailing/billing address. It took three weeks to receive it because they shipped it to the incorrect address.  
 
When I got it, the sound on the laptop was extremely low. I had all the volumes at max and I could hear the DVD audio only if I had my face two inches from the screen. The same problem if I connected headphones to the headphone port in front, volume was too low to hear. I contacted their customer service, WHO WERE VERY HELPFUL! Unfortunately, they were not able to help me correct the problem.  
 
Then I found another, even worse problem. The PCMCIA cage was damaged. My hobby is photography and I used a PCMCIA card reader to read the flash cards. I couldn't even insert the card.  
 
I contacted Customer Service and they essentially said I was lying, that the laptop never would have been sent out with the PCMCIA card like that. They also said they never claimed their laptop speakers were the best in the world, I would think you should be able to hear them though.  
 
Another couple of flaws: the rubber foot on the bottom front was torn off and they didn't completely paint the area around the serial port.  
 
I sent the laptop back hoping to get the problems resolved. I just recently got it back. The PCMCIA slot is fixed, but they didn't replace the rubber foot and they didn't fix the system sound.  
 
I orinally ordered this laptop 4 months ago and I still don't have my MX1000 color matching mouse or the backpack that I ordered with the system.  
 
I am very very dissapointed with this company and very dissatisfied. I only chose this company after reading their good reviews on this site. I paid over $5,000 (US) for this laptop and it still doesn't work and I still don't have all the accessories for it. I have just asked them for a refund. I will post an update on any action they take. I have also retained all email traffic between myself and them.

Edit: Now, a little more than a year after I bought my computer, I must say that I have become very unimpressed with both the workmanship and the customer support voodoo supplies. I am now on the third motherboard in this computer, and have had to deal with numerous other problems. I am on the verge of having to send the computer in again, only 10 hours after having recieved it after its second trip back to the factory. The tech support has been less then perfect, which I have pointed out to voodoo several times. I have often recieved no replies to emails sent to voodoo, no attention after posting on their forums and flagging their tech team, and no answer nor returned messages on phone calls made DURING the hours listed on their website. I'm rather dissapointed in voodoo, a company with something like a 9.5 rating here on reseller ratings when I was buying, delivering such a lemon, and then not adequately supporting it with their "award winning technical support".  
 
 
 
 
 
 
I bought an M:860 a couple months ago after salivating over the prospect of a voodoo for months. True, they're pricy, but the machine itself is more than enough to make up for it. The entire community is helpful, and the forums really helped me while i was making the decisions on what to buy as my primary computer for the next 4 years.  
 
Only a couple of days ago I was sitting on a ferry, completely bored. I remember my computer in my backpack (the targus one offered by voodoo, more on that later). The next minute im playing Call of Duty, max specs, at 61 fps, which is where the game caps it. This is ON BATTERY POWER. The only problem with having the computer is having to pause the game every 5 seconds to answer questions or thank complimentors.  
 
There were some shenanigans regarding shipping of the computer. This is in part do to a crazy schedual and a misunderstanding which took time to work out. I was on a very tight schedual, and had a very narrow window for reception of the computer, however i luckily received it within this window.  
 
Two days after receiving the system, I went to Fragapalooza (a massive LAN-party in Canada). Even amongst the creatively modded systems, I still turned heads with my sleek orange machine. I was complimented on every aspect, especially the wopping hi-res screen built in. Also, in mockery of the entire community, a temporary power failure wiped out everyone in my section, yet I was able to keep gaming until power was restored.  
 
Peripherals: I ordered a custom painted mouse, Targus VoodooPC backpack, and Zalman Theater 6 headphones from Voodoo. The mouse is awesome, with the exact same color as my computer. Lightning fast and accurate, with no problems that I could detect. The backpack was on backorder when the system was shipped, but was eventually sent via UPS. I learned that appearances are very deceiving, as the backpack looked very small apon arrival, however, it is in reality HUGE. Although I do not have a 5.1 surround sound card in my computer (felt I didn’t need one), I still love the headphones in their regular mode. Great for games and movies, but bass isn’t wonderful and needs to be cranked up for music.

This review was modified by its author, orthanc4, on 8/23/05 2:24 AM.

Not every experience with Voodoo is the dream you hear about. From my side since ordering my laptop in Dec 2003 I've had the machine working properly for around 10 days. Currently its back with support for the 2nd time with no idea when I will receive it back.  
 
My reasons for selecting Voodoo was to get a high end laptop that was extremely reliable as I depend on it for a minimum of 12 to 14 hours a day 6 to 7 days a week. Given I am an overseas customer that travels a lot reliability and international support were important for me. I've had problems with support with the main branded machines so was prepared to pay more to remove these problems - what a mistake!  
 
History:  
 
- Ordered my m460 laptop on 31st Dec.  
 
- Full delivery took 2 months. The order was shipped in two boxes and UPS was holding the first box until the second box caught up with it. Then the 2nd box got lost. It’s the couriers fault but to sort it out between Voodoopc and courier took an unacceptably long time. Finally I managed to get the first box delivered and the 2nd one replaced under insurance.  
 
- The machine was well packaged and the contents pretty much what I expected. The only let down was the binder. It’s a small thing but the web page had made a big thing about the quality of documentation and the leather binder. I think I had a total of 3 pages in this huge binder. There was a generic brochure type manual that told me next to nothing about the pc. When I requested more information on a few things, I was referred to an online guide which from memory I don't think added a lot of value at all.  
 
- I turned the machine on and spent two days loading data from my old laptop. Within the first day I started experiencing problems. The machine would freeze completely or just turn itself off without warning. Given the problems were intermittent I ignored them and kept persevering for the next few weeks. Finally after losing some vital data and having it crash in the middle of an important presentation I gave up. I arranged a backup laptop and sent the laptop back to Voodoo support.  
 
- Getting the machine returned was relatively straight forward with a streamlined RMA process. The machine was gone for 2-3 weeks including delivery time. It was sent back, saying it was a known problem and had been fixed by replacing the motherboard.  
 
- It was at this time I found the laptop that I had purchased was removed from the Voodoo product line in January. Given I had brought on the 31st Dec, I would have appreciated being informed of this – I would have delayed my purchase by one month and buying the new model. I had asked the sales people when the next release of laptops would be and was told they didn't know. – a need to clear any old stock?  
 
- Anyway, I get the laptop back, turn it on, and 30 mins later it freezes. So much for the Voodoo testing policy. After calming down and stopping myself from throwing the machine out the window, I thought it was a one off problem. A week later after continued crashing and freezing, an intermittent mechanical fan rubbing noise and a problem with the screen hinge, I contacted Support again. It seems that the crashing problem is not fixed with their known solution in all cases - I was informed that in rare cases another fix is also required. They wanted to send me the parts to do the fix myself but with the other problems I pushed them to take the machine back.  
 
- The laptop has been with support for almost a month now. They sent me an email a week ago that the machine was with UPS to be returned with me. I requested that they update me on the fix and found they had only resolved the crashing and not the screen hinge. I had this horrible image of the machine travelling all the way back to me only for me to have to return it directly to them to fix the screen. Luckily they managed to get it out of shipping to relook at this problem. I'm now waiting for the final verdict.  
 
Good Things:  
 
- Kim Davis from Customer Service has been excellent throughout. Without her I think I would have given up on Voodoo a long time ago and written off the machine as a lesson to not believe the marketing and go buy another Dell.  
- The machine is fast  
- You don’t pay for shipping on support  
 
Given the price and the hype I recommend international customers think twice about touching voodoo. So far I've wasted countless days transferring data between my voodoo and backup pc, trying to resolve the support problems, and struggling with a crashing PC in a demanding business environment.  
 
By the time I eventually get my machine back it will be 6 months old and has only been used trouble free for 5 to 10 days. All of this after paying a premium of around 30 - 40% over one of the common place laptops is not acceptable. I had hyped the new voodoo purchase a lot with family, colleagues, and friends and now they are all saying 'I told you so'.  
 
Mark  

OK, I picked voodoo because of all of the positive reviews on this site and because of the hype in the various magazines. However my experience has been anything but positive. I ordered a Voodoo Doll around the middle of January of this year and recieved it a few weeks later. Upon starting up the computer, the initial start up screens would appear, but the computer simply would not boot into windows and the screen would instead go black. After several attempts I called voodoo for some help, but only got an answering machine asking me to leave a message to which they would reply. I waited until the next day and was not called and finally had to resort to their instant messaging screen on the website to get through to some one (I had another computer available). A technician called me back and we went through the bios settings, but nothing was out of order. He suggested that I send the computer back for repairs. So I sent it back, and received it again a week later and it still had the same problem. The tech at voodoo told me that they had restarted the computer 100 times with no problems. He then suggested that it was an "environmental" problem. I proceeded to plug the computer into several outlets in my apartment and also tried two different monitors -an LCD and CRT which were both known to be working fine. I have 10 years of experience with computers and I let a friend with even more experience take it home to see if it would start at his house. It would not. So I called voodoo back again and told them that I needed to send it back to them again. At this point, I spoke with Kim Davis and she promised that they would rebuild the doll and if it still had the same problem, she would give me a full refund. So back again it went. Again I recieved it a week after that and exactly the same thing happened - no windows. So I immedently arranged to have it sent back to Calgary for a third time over the phone with Kim. At this time she informed me that I would be responsible for the cost of shipping it back and she was doing me a "favor" by not charging me a restocking fee and it was my "choice" to send it back. I had been very patient up to this point, but now I was disgusted. I was insulted that she would even mention a restocking fee (20% or aout $400) and I asked her how she was doing me a favor by making me shell out $66 for returning a computer that obviously didn't work. I then asked to speak to a supervisor and she replied that she was "the end of the line" and she did not have a supervisor. So the computer reached them on 3/11/04 as confirmed by fedex and I waited for my refund. On 3/30 1611.29 was posted to my bank account. So I emailed her and told her that this was a far cry from the 2067.61 that I paid for the PC. She replied that it was a mistake and she'd take care of it right away. Two more emails and a phone call later I recieved another 395.30 today, 4/14/04. This totals $2006.59, $61.02 short of what I paid. So in summary, I am out about $127 plus several hours trying to get the thing to work, trips to fedex, etc. And I have now been without my own computer for about 3 months now. Thanks voodoo!!!