6. Warranty

Eurocom includes one year of "return to factory depot" hardware warranty and one year of tech support with their notebooks. This can be extended to two years of each for an additional $145, or three years for an extra $245.

M-Tech includes lifetime toll-free tech support with their notebooks, assuming you purchase an operating system with the notebook. This is a pretty impressive offer. The hardware warranty is the standard one year and includes free UPS 3-day shipping to and from the depot. The purchaser can cut $40 from the cost of their notebook by choosing a standard one-year mail in warranty, presumably without the UPS shipping included. If a three-year mail-in warranty is desired, it costs an additional $320. For the full three-year hardware warranty including free UPS shipping, the extra charge is $400.

Pricing

Using the M-Tech and Eurocom websites, we managed to price out what these notebooks would cost.

The Eurocom 900C Phantom test sample was equipped with:

Windows XP Professional A 120 GB Fujitsu HD A Core2 Duo E6800 Extreme CPU 2x 1 GB 333Mhz DDR2 RAM

According to the Eurocom website, with this equipment, the unit should cost about $4,485.

The M-Tech 900C is a different animal and is priced accordingly. Our test sample came with:

Windows Vista Business A 100 GB HD A Core2 Duo E6400 CPU 2x 1 GB 400 MHz DDR2 RAM

According to the M-tech website, with this equipment, their model should cost about $3,158.

That’s a pretty huge price differential, but keep in mind that these machines sport some really significant differences, such as the Eurocom’s CPU being much more powerful and expensive than the M-Tech’s as tested. For a more fair comparison, we used the manufacturer’s websites to make a similarly-equipped machine as follows:

Windows home Premium A Core 2 Duo E6400 Extreme CPU A 100 GB HD 2x 1 GB 400 MHz DDR2 RAM

According to the websites, the Eurocom would cost $3,781 with these options, while the M-Tech would be $3,130. This still results in a pretty significant $651 spread between two very similar machines. Of course there are other factors, such as different warranties and slightly different accessories, but for similar end-user hardware this price discrepancy is hard to ignore.

We should also mention that both manufacturers offer many extra options, from game controllers to docking stations to car adapters. A multitude of software bundles is also available.