Hi,
I'm the product manager in charge of Kolink PSU since late 2015. ChugNorris invited me here so we can provide information on our PSU from first hand. Please understand I'm in charge of PSU product management, not marketing. This will mean, I might sometimes be a little slow with replies since I have to take care of regular business first. I also need to confess I'm not a native English speaker, so my statements won't be exactly ready for print-publishing. However I know much more about the product details than most marketing managers. Anyway, I'd like to share some information.
1) Kolink does not work with Huntkey anymore. When I came on board I've switched existing products to Highpower and HEC. Both factories I knew from my old job very well. Plus, I saw more potential for new projects. I can't say Huntkey did a bad job, but HEC and Highpower offered slightly better performance for slightly lower cost in USD. This helped also us to limit the price increase resulting from EUR and GBP going down in 2016/2017. For Continuum 1500W I brought Enhance on board in 2017 and I like the result a lot.
Anyway, Huntkey is long gone and since march 2016 only the new models are shipped. The new versions can be told apart from the old one by the power label stickers. New models use green color design instead of orange. Also I've decided to be honest about capacities and input voltage, so power label data is different as well. Most Kolink Core, KL and KL-M are not ready for 115V, even if they pass 80 Plus testing with 115V input. Lifetime at 115V would be totally unacceptable, so those models should not be exported to US/Japan etc.. Currently, this is not an issue, because we sell Kolink in Europe only. If we'd decide to enter the US market I'd definately upgrade some components in primary stage. For now, we’re busy enough to serve EU markets.
For checking our OEMs I recommend RHTX database:
http://www.realhardtechx.com/index_archivos/Kolink.html However, we don't have any plans to change factory again. I'm quite happy with what we're doing now.
2) We've arranged quite some reviews of various models so far. Our marketing efforts focus on Continuum, true. Those are our high end models. Convincing people to buy new brand for rather expensive PSU is tough, so we arranged some reviews to prove our point on quality and performance. With the Continuum and especially the upcoming new revision of Continuum 1050 and 1200W (should be ready around Computex) we’re playing first league.
We also arranged reviews for other series though, including Core (Check TweakPC Germany, including Chroma ATE testing
https://www.tweakpc.de/hardware/tests/netzteile/kolink_kl_c500/s09.php). Please understand our marketing is no match for Corsair, Seasonic, EVGA etc.. We don't have budget/capacity to arrange reviews for every product at every site immediately. Also the sites don't want to review Kolink products all the time but need more popular products. In the end sites need to focus on what their customers want. We can’t force them to put same priority on Kolink like on A-brands which have much higher demand in the market. In many markets Kolink products also are simply not available. Tom’s Hardware US for example usually requires PSU to be available in the US which makes sense considering their main target audience is living in the USA.
Anyway, RealhardtechX has a nice list of the most professional reviews featuring various Kolink PSU. Only a few of them are in English, true. Kolink originally comes from Eastern Europe. It's only been rather recently when we entered Western European markets.
3) All in all expectations should be realistic. Kolink Continuum we feel 100% comfortable to send to any reviewer. There is however not much point of sending rather cheap PSU to reviewers which focus on rather high end PSU. Kolink Core series for example obviously is a simple but reliable PSU based on double forward primary and group regulated secondary design. Only 850W and 1000W use upgraded platform with DC-DC technology for much better voltage regulation. Of course, you won't find Japanese branded capacitors in Core PSU etc. Even KL series is positioned more similar to Corsair VS, for example. Such PSU usually don’t do very good in reviews at sites which focus on high end products. Therefore we arrange reviews at those few sites which test cheaper products on a regular basis. They are more familiar with usual performance in low end and price performance sector.
If any of the large professional reviewers is preparing roundups with Corsair VS, EVGA W, Thermaltake TR2 etc. I'm absolutely willing to push for media samples. If you know anyone preparing such roundups just let me know and I'll check it out. I’m confident our Core, KL and KL-M can perform same/better as similar competitors’ models so this would be great exposure. Going up against much more expensive PSU however is pretty much pointless, though. You don’t need to ask Captain Obvious to understand 80 Plus white PSU are much less efficient than 80 Plus Gold.
4) For me there is absolutely no shame in offering decent PSU for a low price even if they aren't up to the standards of more expensive PSU. We make sure though, our products actually meet spec and quality is good enough so return rate stays low. So far, return rate for Kolink PSU has always been below 1 percent. For many models RMA rate stays below 0.5%. For 2019 we’re aiming for 0.5% for all models, but this might be hard.
OCuk is not our only customer for SI business. For SI clients reliability is the key, performance is much less important. If there would be excessive RMA rate OCuk and other SIs would kick us out very soon. Despite beeing rather small company e operate our own QC/QA in Europe including static and programmable loads. From each container arriving we pull some units, check performance and build quality and repack them. Plus we go to supervise production in China several times per year. Actually I just came back from China on march 18th. We're making damn sure factory delivers what we order, because in the end we pay them. If they don't deliver what we've agreed on we'd be stupid to pay. Selling substandard product will result in losing customers and business relationships which have grown over years.
5 ) think Kolink PSU are better than most competitors’ offers, and so far reviews show we're doing a good job even for the rather low end series. Again, comparing Kolink KL series PSU to Corsair RMx for example is absolutely pointless. Even I recommend enthusiasts to go for more advanced PSU if budget allows. Electricity bill alone forces me to go for Gold or Platinum level PSU since my PC is running basically all day. I’m based in Germany, where electricity is very expensive, not in Budapest HQ or Taipei office. If you can afford high end PSU buy one – and check out our Continuum series
.
I'd feel absolutely comfortable though to put a Kolink Core 600W into a friends PC with Intel 8700k and GTX 1080 who currently cannot afford any better PSU. We also use Kolink PSU our office PCs, of course.
