[TAG] averatec laptop review

[John Karns]

On Tue, 9 Nov 2004, Adam Williamson wrote:

> On Mon, 2004-11-08 at 23:05 -0500, John Karns wrote:

> This is definitely true. I wouldn't buy my machine again *now*, it's
> just too old. But I bought it three years ago and it was a year old
> then. It cost me literally less than half of what it would have cost
> new, and it's given me sterling service all that time; the only thing
> it's needed is a new battery (which is inevitable with LiI batteries).

Ditto here - I paid a maximum of 50% of what the machine sold for new.  I
did have to replace the hd (thread tie-in: it had likely been cooked by
high in-case operating temps), but drives are cheap, and I gained a lot of
space.  The Li batteries are a bummer.  If I had a choice, I would choose
a Ni* type battery instead.


> The only problem with buying off eBay is being stuck with a banana,
> which is more or less a risk you just have to take. I'd certainly
> consider buying a later machine in the same series used, or a TR series
> system (they succeeded the Picturebooks).

Using an escrow service can help somewhat, at least as far as receiving 
*something* for the payment rendered.


>> The features of a well-equipped, two year old P3 (assuming one wants a
>> desktop replacement type of laptop) can compare pretty favorably with the
>> current market offerings, with the possible exception of the absence of
>> USB 2.0.  As one example, an Inspiron P3 with a 15-inch, 1400x1050 LCD,
>> 1.2 Ghz clock, firewire, 32 MB video, 512 MB RAM, DVD, CDRW, ZIP, s-video,
>> 80 GB hd, etc, doesn't pale much next to most 'tops on the market today,
>> for a fraction of the cost.
>
> Connectivity is the only problem, really - a lot of current laptops have
> 802.11g WPA-enabled wireless and Bluetooth both built in, which is very
> useful and saves hanging dongles off all the USB ports.

Agreed.  Although there can be some flexibility, in regards to wi-fi at 
least.  Depending on the model, many of the older P3 generation laptops 
sported the modem / nic (some offered as a combination of the two) as a 
mini-pci device.  AFAIK, the form factor is a standard, and if one is 
willing to sacrifice the modem / nic for a wi-fi card as a replacement 
[1], one can avoid the dongles; or use a pccard in place of one or the 
other.  But I've never had enough interest in the bluetooth to really look 
into that side of it.


[1] It's definitely a smart move to do a little research about what make & 
model of mini-pci wi-fi card has been proven to work with the make & model 
of the laptop one is dealing with.

-- 
John Karns