*NOTE: That order number was the first order number I received on my e-mailed receipt and is not my RMA number.*  
First of all, this Envy 133 is an amazing machine. It is so beautiful and I don't really have any issues with it. I am 100% satisfied with my purchase. The main reason I'm writing is because of the excellent customer service that voodoo delivers. I have never seen quicker responses, personal attention and an overall general understanding for the customers and their needs. While I had the pleasure of speaking to a couple people over there at Voodoo, one man, Jason, was so great that he led me to write this review. He demonstrated such a great understanding and helped me every step of the way. He even called me to update me on things. It was so great and was a customer service experience I had never before experienced. These are not people that say they will let someone know and do something else. Everything is fast and efficient. I am in Orlando and received my laptop two days after I ordered it. While price may be something that cause concern for some when buying a voodoo product, rest assured that there will be no issues in quality and customer service.

First, after all the frustration that I went through, I do have to say that sitting in front of the machine almost makes up for it. What does completely make up for it, though, is the excellent customer service I have received since ordering my Envy 133. You all should be proud of the work you do (and your managers should be too)!  
 
I will be writing up a blog entry (in my signature, which is heavily trafficked) about working with my Envy 133 and will mention your first names (if that is ok) and the experience I had working with you (all good things). I will also be presenting at Mix this year and will make sure to mention my sweet laptop!  
 
Thanks again to all of you (especially to Judy for putting up with me for the past few weeks).  

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.

I received the 171 laptop mid May. It has dual hard drives and SLI video. Color Bacalou red. It is a incredable work of art. I have have the pleasure of previously owning a m360 which has to this day performed excellent. The new laptop is of course much larger but performace is comparable to a ultra high end desktop. Workmanship and company support are in my (an many others) opinion; the best there is. Company reps are both extremely well versed in all aspects of computers and very very helpful and curtious on the phone. Their products are expensive, but frankly worth every cent. They design and custom build a machine to ultra high performace standards. The custom finish is work of art. And customer care is and will be well beyond the standards we have all become accustom to.  
Take the time to acknowledge the extra paid is to some degree future proofing your machine in both technical benifits of excellent cutting edge hardware and if nessesary, resale in as long as 5 years....which how long I've owned my older Voodoo.....that still works with most hi res games and any other software available even today.  
With Voodoo...you indeed get what you pay for!!

I have recently had the pleasure of dealing with HP Gaming and in particular the purchase of a HP Blackbird. In all honesty, I have never really liked HP due to the fact there computers in the past were built with very proprietary parts and they just never had a good name in the gaming world. Well about 2 months ago I decided it was time for an upgrade and I started doing some research online. In the past I have always built my own PC's but with the last one I built I came to realize that its really not saving me all that much money and nothing is tested or warrantied so why bother anymore. I decided to find an already built unit and go with that. My first stop was DELL as they are the household name and I have dealt with them a lot in the past, not to mention they now own Alienware which was one of the units I was considering. During my search I happened to come across an article mentioning the HP Blackbird. At first I thought, well this is just HP newest attempt at entering the gaming world and was about to ignore it until I noticed a picture of the Blackbird, well as I'm sure most of you that are reading this know, the Blackbird is just simple put "DEAD SEXY". This perked my interested and I went to the Blackbird site which once again I was surprised with HP in that there website is ABSOLUTELY amazing. I decided to call them and see how there support was and to find out a little about there product. This is when I found out that HP had bought Voodoo and that this was the first joint venture. That gave me a huge amount of respect for this product because Voodoo's name int he gaming world is very big. After speaking with Brendan for about 30-40min I got very excited about this product. I then did some research on the Blackbird and found that it truly is a remarkable accomplishment by the HP/Voodoo team. I read almost nothing but beaming reviews and decided that yes this is what I want, cutting edge, innovative, and best of all reliable and intelligent service. I proceeded to call/bug Brendan for about a week with tons of questions and concerns and different options and he happily entertained me and answered all my questions and needs. Finally when I was about to order we were talking about some of the newer components that would be coming out and it turns out that there would be a new motherboard and processors coming out soon. Well I was antsy BUT I thought it would be dumb not to wait a little while and buy the latest and greatest. So 6 weeks went by with me on the edge just waiting for that website to update with the new products!!! Believe me when I tell you that by the end of that 6 weeks there were multiple representatives that new my name and voice. Finally the time came and Brendan told me it would be anytime now, but he would be leaving because his wife was having a baby!(CONGRATULATIONS BRENDAN), so he left me in good hands with AB(Anupam), AB has been great in staying in touch with me and making sure I was fully aware of what was going on with the website and the new products. Well today was the BIG day!!!! I just ordered my Blackbird and I got to tell you the WHOLE experience so far as been wonderful and I can't wait to add to this review once I get the machine and set it up, but if anything like the treatment I've been giving so far I know it will be wonderful. Too summarize this long winded post, the HP Blackbird is an amazing product that is supported by amazing folks and I would recommend them to ANYONE that wants not only a cutting edge machine but one that also wants the service deserved in purchasing a Gaming Rig of this caliber. BRAVO GUYS...

I really enjoy the Blackbird I ordered. AB was very helpful in my ordering process. I'm impressed with the whole setup so far and I'm looking forward to putting some games on the system next. Thanks AB.

This review was modified by its author, lp01, on 4/13/08 9:42 PM.

SUPERB...!!! I'M VERY HAPPY TO HAVE PURCHASED MY BLACKBIRD.. IS AN AWESOME MACHINE..!! I PLACED MY ORDER THRU A CUSTOMER SERVICE AGENT, ANUPAM (AB), WHO HELPED ME BUILD MY SYSTEM AND REALLY WAS A GREAT HELP.. I RECEIVED IT TWO DAYS AGO (ONLY 7 DAYS AFTER I ORDERED IT)..AND I'M IN LOVE WITH IT.. !!! THANKS SO MUCH AB..  
A.S.

Excellent buying experience. AB, the sales rep, was particularly helpful when configuring the system without trying to push for some of the unnecessary options. The machine works wonderfully.

excellent transaction and professinal staff. a pleasure to deal with. AB was very helpful with ordering my blackbird and was excellent communicating with me after the fact. i would reccomend you call them instead of ordering over the web. great people!!

This review was modified by its author, gtodave, on 3/22/08 6:06 PM.

I recently purchased a HP Blackbird computer and the experience was nothing but informative and enjoyable (a rare thing these days-particularly in computers) and Thomas Kerekas was the reason for this. I have a tendency to investigate purchases I make very intensely - some would say to the point of annoyance, but not Thomas . He went out of his way to answer all my question’s and was just as enthusiastic on the first call I made to him as he was several days later when I finally decided to purchase.  
I wish to thank Thomas for all his help and HP for allowing their people to take the time to work with their costumers. It is rare and pleasant that after you make a large purchase you feel as good about the experience as you do about the item you bought.  
Thank you again Thomas  
 
Keith Johnston  

This review was modified by its author, KJDJ, on 3/1/08 3:27 PM.

Since this item is such a high end product and due to how new this product has been out I figured two things would happen. One the customer service was absolutely Top Notch and two I figured there would be some issues with development and delivery timing. But since I was prepared for this and with AB (that is his name) expertise and professionalism I was very pleased with the over all outcome.  
 
I look forward to working with this group of experts again.  
 
One thing to take note is if you are buying with credit card, make sure your card company doesn't charge for international fees, since this is coming from Canada I was charged for the fees and since it was against the US Dollar the pricing isn't based on the quoted they give you that day, check a exchange rate online before you actually buy it.  
Besides that I give HP/Voodoo 5 stars!

Customer service was excellent. My sales rep. Thomas Kerekes answered all my questions and explained everything about all aspects of my purchase. Thomas took me step by step with the whole configuration of my blackbird to best fit my needs. Talking with Thomas made me feel more confident with my purchase that I chose the right pc and configuration!

My experience with hp/voodoo started great but took a downward spiral up until now. My sales rep is AB who I purchased my blackbird through. I first purchased my bird on Dec 1, 2007 and it was deliverd a couple weeks later but I had problems with it as soon as I turned it on. I ended up having to send it back because of a video card and motherboard problem. I was told that it did not go through the quality control phase and was overlooked. The problems should of been caught before it left. After it was returned it sat on a table at hp/voodoo for over a week before it was looked at, eventhough I was told it would be looked at asap and as a high priority due to it being brand spanking new. Yet it took another week and a half to replace my 2nd video card and replace the motherboard. It was finally fixed and shipped back out to me but I later found out that is was shipped out ground and not 2 day air as promised. I was told that managment at hp/voodoo made a last minute change to ship all birds ground and not 2day air unless otherwise stated by the customer. Well, my sales rep was not told this as well as myself. His manager said that only new birds would ship ground and it does not effect repaired birds but mine again slipped through the cracks and was overlooked. To top that i was told a couple days later that managment changed shipping back to 2 day air. Well, to make it worse it was held up in montana for a week and I live in New Jersey and I knew it would never reach me at the promised delivery date of Jan 23rd, so I decided to cancel my order and have the bird recalled by ups. I then placed a brand new order on Jan. 19th and it was expedited through production thanks to AB and his manager Chris Sutton. I received it 1 week after ordering it and everything works perfect now. I almost gave up on hp/voodoo becaused of all the frustration and inconvienence that I had gone through but I gave them one last chance and it paid off. If it was't for AB and his professionalism I would have never bought from hp/voodoo again. I really wanted a working blackbird as I knew how great of a product this was. Thanks AB and Chris Sutton for making this happen and for taking care of the customer in the end.

I like other reviewers went through the processes of elimination for choosing my next PC. After some reading and research the choice was easy. HP Blackbird 002 was an easy winner. The only question in my mind was value. Am I getting what I pay for or is this just another PC in a pretty case?  
That is when Jordan was very helpful in picking the right configuration suitable to my needs. He and Brendan later on were very knowledgeable, courteous and patient even though I did manage to change my configuration couple of times. What is more impressive was the fact that they kept constant contact with me to make sure that I am happy with the whole process.  
After my experience with HP/Voodoo PC I can honestly say that if you do your home work it is possible to come up with a price/performance that is hard to beat even if you build your PC yourself.