WootBook Metal II - Thoughts

[weelzSA]

I'd bite the bullet and get it. It's a damn good deal, especially considering you will easily pay R4k more for the same performance elsewhere.

Before lockdown happened I was looking at importing one, and with customs and everything worked out I could not get the price lower than about R15'000, and that was the best possible scenario.

This is a steal IMHO, and if I didn't find a Ryzen laptop a few months ago I would have bought one of these.

Yeah more than likely going to order the WootBook from Wootware today. It seems a great deal just trying to find reasonable ram prices (if I can find 3200MHz) and see what total cost will be. It helps a lot that I have a Nvme drive already.

Should I bother with upgrading Ram to 3 years (additional cost of R1199) or just stick to 1 year as nvme and ram will have own warranty?

Also should I look at getting 1x 16GB for now and later adding a second 16gb or rather go for 2x 8gb now and if need be down the line sell 2x8gb and upgrade to 2x16gb.

 

[weelzSA]

OK going to order now - just need to check does it make sense going for extended warranty? Surely if something happens to ram or ssd then warranty won't be with wootware but whoever I got those items from?

 

[PhireSide]

OK going to order now - just need to check does it make sense going for extended warranty? Surely if something happens to ram or ssd then warranty won't be with wootware but whoever I got those items from?

I'd go with the extended warranty for the notebook itself. SSD's normally have a 3 or 5 year warranty and RAM is usually lifetime.

If you purchase the RAM and SSD separately then those warranties will apply. The Wootbook warranty should only apply to the items you purchased it with (as configured).

 

[weelzSA]

I'd go with the extended warranty for the notebook itself. SSD's normally have a 3 or 5 year warranty and RAM is usually lifetime.

If you purchase the RAM and SSD separately then those warranties will apply. The Wootbook warranty should only apply to the items you purchased it with (as configured).

OK thanks.

With regards to the RAM, should I look at getting 1x 16GB for now and later adding a second 16gb or rather go for 2x 8gb now and if need be down the line sell 2x8gb and upgrade to 2x16gb.

Will look for decent priced 3200MHz for now and see what I can find.

 

[PhireSide]

OK thanks.

With regards to the RAM, should I look at getting 1x 16GB for now and later adding a second 16gb or rather go for 2x 8gb now and if need be down the line sell 2x8gb and upgrade to 2x16gb.

Will look for decent priced 3200MHz for now and see what I can find.

I'd personally go for 2*16GB now and then you should be sorted for the life of the machine.

There is an argument to be made as to how much RAM is really necessary, but if you have lots of browsers open and tabs and apps then 16GB can be very constricting, especially as the Vega 7 GPU will also allocate some RAM to use for the GPU.

Going for one RAM stick now will hurt performance slightly, not so much an issue if you aren't gaming but you will feel it in day to day stuff as well.

 

[weelzSA]

I'd personally go for 2*16GB now and then you should be sorted for the life of the machine.

There is an argument to be made as to how much RAM is really necessary, but if you have lots of browsers open and tabs and apps then 16GB can be very constricting, especially as the Vega 7 GPU will also allocate some RAM to use for the GPU.

Going for one RAM stick now will hurt performance slightly, not so much an issue if you aren't gaming but you will feel it in day to day stuff as well.

Yeah my thought is either go full 16gb x2 now and dont take the 3 year warranty or take the warranty and only get 1x16gb now and then later on add a second 16gb stick when I can.

The warranty is R1300 for the extra 2 years so not sure how "worth" it is as ssd/hdd's are normally the first to go and that wont be covered by warranty.

 

[PhireSide]

Yeah my thought is either go full 16gb x2 now and dont take the 3 year warranty or take the warranty and only get 1x16gb now and then later on add a second 16gb stick when I can.

The warranty is R1300 for the extra 2 years so not sure how "worth" it is as ssd/hdd's are normally the first to go and that wont be covered by warranty.

If that's the case I'd say maybe go for the 1x 16GB now and add the warranty, and try and find the same model RAM and add more at a later stage.

Just to be clear, is this warranty you speak of for the WootBook?

 

[weelzSA]

If that's the case I'd say maybe go for the 1x 16GB now and add the warranty, and try and find the same model RAM and add more at a later stage.

Just to be clear, is this warranty you speak of for the WootBook?

Yeah warranty is for the wootbook change from 1 year warranty to 3 year warranty.

 

[PhireSide]

Yeah warranty is for the wootbook change from 1 year warranty to 3 year warranty.

Ah okay, it shows as R1200 on my side so I thought perhaps you had another warranty I wasn't seeing.

Best of luck with your purchase!

 

[weelzSA]

Ah okay, it shows as R1200 on my side so I thought perhaps you had another warranty I wasn't seeing.

Best of luck with your purchase!

Ahh sorry yeah I rounded it off and somehow got to R1300

Last thing sorry I see can also add 90W charger - does that mean laptop doesn't come with one or rather can upgrade to faster charger?

 

[PhireSide]

Ahh sorry yeah I rounded it off and somehow got to R1300

Last thing sorry I see can also add 90W charger - does that mean laptop doesn't come with one or rather can upgrade to faster charger?

I'm not 100% sure but it will definitely ship with a charger - this may just be an extra one to keep in your laptop bag or car etc.

The stock charger should be 90W as well, but you can always give them a call and ask. Their support is great and they are quick to respond

 

[weelzSA]

I'm not 100% sure but it will definitely ship with a charger - this may just be an extra one to keep in your laptop bag or car etc.

The stock charger should be 90W as well, but you can always give them a call and ask. Their support is great and they are quick to respond

Yeah purchased a few items from there over the years.

Thanks for all your help.

Realized why they not showing their config with 3200MHz ram, doesn't look like any place really has any stock at reasonable places.

 

[SirFooK'nG]

Ahh sorry yeah I rounded it off and somehow got to R1300

Last thing sorry I see can also add 90W charger - does that mean laptop doesn't come with one or rather can upgrade to faster charger?

The laptop comes with a charger, I think that's for an extra. I wouldn't concern myself with faster ram, you not going to see that benefit for the money. The nvme makes it pretty fast as is. 16gb is good enough.

 

[weelzSA]

So 2x 8gb or 1x 16gb for now and extended warranty ?

Yeah will use Samsung 970 pro nvme (I think it’s called).

 

[PhireSide]

Yeah purchased a few items from there over the years.

Thanks for all your help.

Realized why they not showing their config with 3200MHz ram, doesn't look like any place really has any stock at reasonable places.

No worries.

I see Raru has a Samsung module for R1457, so just shy of R3000 for 32GB:

Samsung 16GB DDR4-3200 Notebook SO-DIMM Memory Module

Visit the Raru Electronics shop and purchase the Samsung 16GB DDR4-3200 Notebook SO-DIMM Memory Module online. Check out prices of other Memory Modules available

raru.co.za

I paid this for 16GB two years ago

 

[mr_norris]

IMO, I'd drop the warranty, and get 2 x 16GB 3200MHz memory instead. If your plan was to buy another 16GB stick later, rather buy the warranty later instead (I think you can do that).

The difference between 3200MHz and 2666MHz is not menial. Perhaps it seems that way if the difference of some game is 35FPS instead of 30, but that's still upwards of 10% improvement there. On top of that, 2 x 16GB gives you dual RAM instead of single channel.

I haven't looked at specific uses cases, etc, but there is a lot of info out there. Here is one example.

 

[weelzSA]

Just waiting for Wootware to get back to me regarding the warranty upgrade at a later stage. I am hoping it can be purchased within 3 months (even better before 1 year expires) and also asked if the laptop will be marked down more for Black Friday.

While I wait, would it be possible to at a later stage - if I had to get an eGPU and connect via USB-C while docked at my desk - would this laptop be able to then make use of the eGPU for games etc or not really? Honestly not too clued up of all that is needed for eGPU.

I know they are expensive so just to be clear, it not something I am planning on getting unless I find a really food deal.

 

[ponder]

While I wait, would it be possible to at a later stage - if I had to get an eGPU and connect via USB-C while docked at my desk - would this laptop be able to then make use of the eGPU for games etc or not really? Honestly not too clued up of all that is needed for eGPU.

NO, you need Thunderbolt 3 for that.

USB 3.1 Gen1 Type-C has no PCIe lanes which you need to interface with a GPU.

 

[weelzSA]

NO, you need Thunderbolt 3 for that.

USB 3.1 Gen1 Type-C has no PCIe lanes which you need to interface with a GPU.

Ahhh thanks I thought it might be the case.

So in my price range there nothing I can really get then? Don't want to spend more than R15k max.

 

[simstim]

Bought a Metal II a few weeks ago. Excellent machine for the the price. Battery life is reasonably good. Definitely works with DDR4-3200 memory (2 x 16GB Samsung in mine). The 4800H is a great processor for multi-threaded tasks. The only negative I have come across so far is that the fans are noisy under CPU load.