Where are all these Walmart laptops coming from? Tongfang is the source

Much like the in-house Best Buy "Insignia" brand, the Walmart "EVOO" or "Motile" brands are often seen as cheap alternatives to bigger name brands. If you don't want to pony up for that fancy Samsung or Vizio, then that Insignia model sitting on the left can often offer many of the same features at a lower price.

The Walmart EVOO and Motile are cheap alternatives to more well-known gaming laptops and Ultrabooks, respectively. Since Walmart doesn't manufacture its own laptops, however, the company must buy white label laptops from original design manufacturers (ODMs) en masse to rebrand as their own. The actual source or ODM is usually kept under wraps because resellers like Walmart don't want their customers to simply purchase that same laptop elsewhere from another reseller or directly from the ODM, but we can definitively say that the ODM for the Walmart EVOO Gaming 15, EVOO Gaming 17, and Motile M141/M142 has been Tongfang thus far.

Tongfang is a Chinese ODM in contrast to the Taiwan-based Clevo ODM. Higher-end resellers are purchasing the same white label Tongfang laptops that Walmart have including Maingear and Schenker. The Maingear Vector and Schenker XMG Neo 17, for example, are exactly the same as the Walmart EVOO Gaming 15 and EVOO Gaming 17, respectively.

The takeaway message here is that users can often buy the same laptop from Walmart at cheaper prices than other resellers with the only difference being the branding. The Walmart EVOO Gaming 15, for example, is currently retailing for $1100 USD compared to $1300 for the identical Maingear Vector. Everything from the 144 Hz display to the GTX 1660 Ti graphics, Core i7 CPU, 512 GB SSD capacity, and 16 GB of RAM are all the same between them. Warranty and support may differ, but the core product will not be any different.

If you're on the fence for a laptop from a reseller like Walmart, Maingear, Eluktronics or Schenker, then it would be worthwhile the check other resellers to see if they are offering the same chassis design. Chances are good that you can get the same laptop for less from a different reseller.