Solid laptop, reasonable price

I have owned this laptop for six months and am extremely impressed by it. It is small, has a great average battery life of 4 hours, and performs well enough for the basics and some gaming. The screen may be small, but it's beautiful, the keyboard is not as cramped as it should be for a computer of this size/weight and, by far the best part: it is incredibly light at 3.6 lbs. The reason for 4 stars instead of 5: the touchpad is a bit 'jumpy', though that can be fixed with methods found in online forums (I did and it now works well). The built-in wireless, like most, is fairly weak, but that can be taken care of with a 20 dollar wireless adapter. Overall, though, the machine is an excellent value.

Rating:


Seems like an awesome value for money .. but be careful

Bought the 1020 in a jiffy a couple of months ago - specs and pricing looked awesome, almost too good to be true.

However, it was - Too good to be true.

The laptop is quite quirky and loaded with issues - my biggest problem is the lack of a recovery CD with the laptop. You end up having to use Phoenix Recovery software (Trial version included -- so, prepare to shell out more money $$$ to be forced to upgrade if you ever want to recover your system) .. The Phoenix software is quite buggy, and requires you to be technically savvy (Which I am; but, good luck .. all of you out there)

Other problems with the laptop (I tried 2 new ones) included intermittent hard disk failure, which is further compounded by a poor BIOS that fails to manage 60GB harddisks. Not to mention the poor sensitivity of the touchpad, and, the horriblly designed ports (Network ports covered by flimsy cover)...

The ONE thing that works for the laptop is it's looks .. WOW .. the laptop looks cool .. and, really nice. So, as long as it's a showpiece and all you want to do is wave the laptop around in public - BUY IT.. But, If you want a computer -- go elsewhere -- choose another brand!!

Look at the Toshiba U205 instead - which is what I ended up buying..

Rating:


Excellent Value & Fun to Own

I bought this UltraPortable in the summer of 2005 and have loved it since It came with only the most basic of software which I appreciated after having a totally loaded down presario with 30 day subsciptions to this and that which kept popping up and slowing down my laptop. This is probably the only Sub Notebook on the Market under $1200 normally anything with a 10.6" screen weighing 3.3lbs or less will run you close to $2,000.

I am very happy with it and use it for gaming, Watching Movies and internet. The battery is strong enough to watch a 2-21/2 movie internet probably 4hrs plus on wireless and 6 on normall windows AP's . The only drawback is the DVD is read only no Burner . BTW If you haven't heard of Averatec I'm not supprised but check out there website you will see they are well on there way to becomming a Signifigant Contender in this market . & as for Customer service I have used them 1x and I was able to speak with somone in less than 20min knowledgeable on the differences in products and general availablilty. I also ordered an extra batter from there web site and recived it in a timely manner the $99 price is higher than I would have liked




Rating: