Customer Reviews

Averatec AV3220H1-01 Amd Athlon XP-M 2000+/256MB

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Strengths:
Amazing value for money without compromising on features. Built in wifi, CDRW, DVD, compact and light all in a beautiful Sony-like case

Weaknesses:
Could do with more memory as standard and longer battery life - about 3 hours real world.

Summary:
I didn't want a desktop replacement; I wanted a small, wireless laptop to use around the house which was powerful enough to do a little image editing on vacation and could be used as a portable DVD player when I was occasionally marooned in a hotel room. I would have liked the Sony 10" sub-notebook but my pocketbook didn't stretch that far. (...)

At this bargain price, I was expecting to be disappointed with build quality and design but it compares favorably with the alloy cased Sonys. Compared to my old laptop, the Averatec weighs half as much and is much more compact; that said, the keyboard and screen are both still very usable. The 12" screen is just big enough when I'm away from my desktop. When I want to do some serious work I go back to my 21", color balanced CRT and desktop.

The AMD processor seems to have enough horses to get things done and I've even played some of my older PC games on the machine, though it's modest graphics capabilities would probably struggle with the latest releases. The design sensibly omits com, midi, mouse, keyboard and printer ports in favor of 3 USB2 ports. If this were a desktop replacement this would be a disappointment but in an ultra-portable it makes sense.

Battery life is reasonable but not astounding. A nice feature of the design is that it incorporates a switch to turn off the wireless transceiver on the fly when you want to save power. Another nice feature is that it is not only the machine that is scaled down but it's power brick too allowing you to travel much lighter.

Overall I highly recommend this machine especially if you are lusting after a sub-notebook or ultra-portable but don't want to pay the usual premium for a diminutive laptop. All my geek friends who I have shown this PC to can't believe how much machine you get for your money in such a neat package.

Averatec (formally known as Sotec) surely knows how to enter "slim notebook" market. - the price ^^ this laptop is a excellet buy for it's price tag. similar slim note book for Sony or Fujisu cost almost double.

After did some research, i'vd decided to try this laptop.(i had Dell Inspiron before). It has been about 2 months, and here are Pros and Cons.

Pros.
1. Price - cant find any cheaper one with this price tag.
2. Portability- Previous dell was okay but this one is only 4.3Lb. Here is a laptop that you can lift with one hand ^^
3. Performance - With AMD 2000 Mobile processor with Power Saving Mode. -- not bad for games, internet, also for some video editing
4. Adjustable Video Memory - at CMOs, you can set you video memory vary from 8 - 64Mb. It is kind of cool .
5. Wireless Lan - I've been using it for a while, and the reception is excellent .Also it is Wireless G (which is much faster than Wireless B)
6. Look for Rebates (...)BR>okay Here is some Cons

1. Keyboard- this is my most dislike about this laptop . It has been improved from previous one 3150 seris but still don't like the touchy feeling when i type my report.

2. Battery Life - Avertatec claims it last up to 3 hours but i think it is more like 2 house or less. But it is still good compare to other laptops.

3. Here comes the tricky part - the Power Setting for AMD process is rather wieird.
Here is my recommandation for Power Setting
* When you use your laptop with AC power, set it to "Laptop/notebook"
* When you use your laptop without AC power set it to "Desktop/office" mode
(find this from Power Option in Control Pannel in Windows)
By doing this you can save battery life by minimizing CPU voltage use and FAN use.

I tried other setting and it uses battery faster. (talking about battery it cost only $99 to purchase extra one - other brand clost alomost double the price)

4. Hard Drive Sound - sometimes you will hear "Cling" Sound from you hard drive, i still not figured out why?
It was scary sound when i heard it first time, but now i am getting used to it ^^

Here is my conclusion.
I would recommand this notebook for anyone who is interested to purchase "slim Laptop".

Ah one more thing, their Customer Service is "Quick" when you call them they pick up less than 3 mins.
However, here is what i found after talking to several of them, most of them don't have enough knowledge to help you out, even the simplest knowedge.

I've had this laptop for a little over a month. I thought the 256 mb of ram was more than adequate, but bought another stick of 512 and sold the 256 anyway. I honestly didn't see a big improvement in my day to day programs, but there might be benefits to getting the 3225 or 3255.

I've used my laptop at simple lan parties, playing CS and UT and it works pretty decently, playable.

When on battery, I typically leave my power settings to Max battery, and can usually manage just under 3 hours, I think if I turned off the wireless, I'd be able to hit the 3 hour mark. Max Battery usually leaves the computer running at about 400 mhz, but that's been more than enough for my typical web browsing.

My sister has a Dell and for the price, I don't think I ended up too badly, it feels like the Averatec is very solidly built, but maybe because it's only a month old.

The wireless works very well also, my friend has a Dell D400, very nice and small, but more expensive. At some places, I could connect to wireless accesspoints he couldn't even see.

One night, we got our new accesspoint, one with WPA and I couldn't get it to work with the Broadcom software. I called around 4:00 am local (eastern) and got a personal customer service person to answer my question immediatly.

One gripe I had was the LCD. It seems somewhat washed out, especially next to a desktop LCD. It's also difficult to read at an angle (compared to other laptops I've seen), but that wasn't a problem at all, since I'm really the only one that needs to see it.

Overall, the laptop had been great, especially for the price paid. 3 USB ports, no unnecessary Parallel, Serial or PS2 ports.

I bought this for my father, who is a realtor and travels almost once every other week. I was looking for a light and durable laptop with an affordable price.

Actually, I liked to buy a 700m from Dell, but I'm tired of wating for a good deal. I mean a really good deal, which is less than $1000. And I found this Averatec. First, I didn't like the name Averatec. It sounded like an average machine. But I found that the mother company of Averatec was TG, which is a quality desktop computer manufacturer for a long time.

Both my father and I are not tech-savvy type of guys. So please consider that for reading the review. We don't have any problem so far, so here are only the pros I found.

1. Price: $400 cheaper than Dell 700m, which is the cheapest among rival big guys such as Sony and Toshiba.

2. Weight: very light. (like nothing for a man)

3. Noise: Not bad. (I found it has less noise with 512ram)

4. Battery hour: 3 hours (word, powerpoint, etc) 2.5 hours (DVD)

5. Accessories: also very cheap

6. Durability: Feels very durable (you will see what I mean)

7. Design: Simple and smart (Kind of mixture of Dell and Sony)

I have had the 3200 series for about 8 months. It works great, though the fan is loud and comes on a lot, otherwise it's excellent...small, slim, light weight and enough RAM and memory for everything I need. I have experienced a hot power supply and have been trying to get it replaced, since the unit is under a one year company warranty (always, always buy the extended b/c I have a feeling that I'll have to wait for that to begin to get this issue resolved) and Averatec refuses to help out. Their options for the consumer is to either send in the defective part and they'll ship out a new part, taking around 4 weeks according to one CSR, thus giving you no way to charge the battery and rendering the unit dead for the duration or to keep the fire and safety hazard of a power supply and hope nothing happens. I recommend the actual notebook, but if you experience any problems with any part, expect a fight from the customer care dept.

In principle, and often in use, I love Averatecs. My first one had a 30 gigabyte hard drive with 256 megabytes of ram and had upgradable memory, of which I took full advantage. I purchased it from a store with a six month return policy. Shortly before the six months expired, the PCMIA port burned out, making it unusable for Sprint Merlin card usage. The store exchanged it with me for a HP-Compaq with which I have experienced no problems. Frankly, all things being equal, I like the Averatecs better because of the compact size. When a new and improved model (40 gigabytes, wireless) presented itself, I purchased that in April 2004. It carried a one year warranty. I purchased a Targus chill pad for use with the computer and that seemed to solve overheating problems. I advocate purchase and use of the Targus or equivalent product to be on the safe side). When the 80 gigabyte wireless hard drive became available with a DVD read write drive at that, I was ecstatic! I purchased that as well, and have also combined it religiously with cooling pad use. The product itself well deserves the PC Magazine award it received for 'Laptop Best Buy.'

THE PRODUCT, HOWEVER, IS UNFORTUNATELY MARRED BY SERVICE ISSUES!

The manufacturing and design department gets A's. The "customer care" department has been in my experience, to put it kindly -- lacking! The power supply suddenly went bad on the 40 megabyte 3200 series model. I called, miraculously located my receipt and an RMA was issued. The service technician repeated it to me twice and I read it back to him, and recorded it in my permanent journal. The package was duly taken to the Post Office, insured and tracked. The USPS website indicated they delivered to Averatec offices in Fremont, California on February 10th, Year of Our Lord 2004, at 1:22 p.m.

Initially, I could not track the RMA on screen. It turns out I was given one too many digits by the initial number provider. However, the company acknowledged both to me and twice to my secretary (who made followup calls when I found it too frustrating an exercise) that they had located the package and either the repaired unit or a replacement would be shortly enroute to me. Several times we were asked to give them "a few days to get to the bottom of it." Every time, we get charming people bereft of answers.

Now, I am reasonably certain they are not out 'repairing' the defective power supply. They still offer that power supply. For nearly six weeks, I have been deprived of the effective use of a computer ,while the warranty period on anything else that might go wrong is perhaps conveniently running for Averatec!

The company has a product that almost sells itself. Its various 3200 models run efficiently and well (with the proviso that the cooling pad is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED). Had the service department been in the least effective/responsive, I would unhesitatingly give the product 5 stars. But, without a power supply, the laptop is nothing more than a potential doorstop.

The quality of the product is obvious. Let's hope that soon the quality of their customer care matches!

I bought this computer about two months ago and exchanged it for another unit because of the "cling" sounds from the hard drive that was mentioned by A PC Hardware Fan on May 17, 2004. To me it sounded like the head of the hard drive hitting against something. Well, the new unit has the same problem. The "cling", or "click", sounds don't occur often, but they are more frequent when using Windows Media Player. I called Averatec customer support thinking they might have documented this problem before, but they were unaware of it. If anyone can shed some light on this matter, please do.

Overall, the computer is a fine product--I use it all the time now in place of a Dell Inspiron. I love the light weight, and the AC adapter is compact too. The keyboard is durable but feels flimsy. The rotary dial for volume control is a nice feature, but the fan is a bit on the noisy side even after calibration. In my opinion, Averatec made the right decision in leaving out the parallel port, serial port, etc. Beside this, I agree with the reviews others have given on the product--incomparable ultra-portable performance for the price. I would, however, strongly recommend spending a little more for 512MB RAM.

After dealing with Dell for many years, I decided to take a chance on the Averatec AV3220H1. I have to say I'm really surprised at this little laptop. It's fast, built very well, and has had no problems so far. The built-in wireless, 12" screen, and 40-gig hard drive were all perfect for an ultra-compact laptop. It's also very fast. It's NOT a gaming laptop, but it is a great little workhorse. The price makes it an exceptional bargain. Note that the reviewer below doesn't even have the model being reviewed here. That's a totally useless review. I'd say, give this model a chance. Try it out from a place like Staples. It you aren't happy, just return it. If you DO like it, get an extended warranty. The total is still WAY cheaper than a Dell or other big name brand.

This laptop gets real hot, though that is a testament to AMD Athlon chips which notoriously consume more power than Pentium chips. Since the CPU is always running so hot, it always sets off the fan, which seems to go off every 2-3 minutes with light web browsing, and is almost constantly on when doing anything more intensive. The schizophrenic nature of the fan is noticeable and somewhat loud compared to sound level of any Pentium notebook I have ever heard.

Also, the hinge design is very poor. I have had laptops in the past with similar hinge covers that broke off after about 12 months of use- why can't these guys just make metal hinge covers like IBM???

For more information, do a google on the "unofficial Averatec support forums" on the web, and read for yourself...

Pros: Dirt cheap Cons: Gets real hot, fan makes more noise than most notebooks, shared video memory, poor hinge design.

Averatec (formally known as Sotec) surely knows how to enter "slim notebook" market. - the price ^^ this laptop is a excellet buy for it's price tag. similar slim note book for Sony or Fujisu cost almost double.

After did some research, i'vd decided to try this laptop.(i had Dell Inspiron before). It has been about 2 months, and here are Pros and Cons.

Pros.
1. Price - cant find any cheaper one with this price tag.
2. Portability- Previous dell was okay but this one is only 4.3Lb. Here is a laptop that you can lift with one hand ^^
3. Performance - With AMD 2000 Mobile processor with Power Saving Mode. -- not bad for games, internet, also for some video editing
4. Adjustable Video Memory - at CMOs, you can set you video memory vary from 8 - 64Mb. It is kind of cool .
5. Wireless Lan - I've been using it for a while, and the reception is excellent .Also it is Wireless G (which is much faster than Wireless B)
6. Look for Rebates ( I purchased mine at Bestbuy with $200 Rebate, overall cost was $750, not bad huh?)
okay Here is some Cons

1. Keyboard- this is my most dislike about this laptop . It has been improved from previous one 3150 seris but still don't like the touchy feeling when i type my report.

2. Battery Life - Avertatec claims it last up to 3 hours but i think it is more like 2 house or less. But it is still good compare to other laptops.

3. Here comes the tricky part - the Power Setting for AMD process is rather wieird.
Here is my recommandation for Power Setting
* When you use your laptop with AC power, set it to "Laptop/notebook"
* When you use your laptop without AC power set it to "Desktop/office" mode
(find this from Power Option in Control Pannel in Windows)
By doing this you can save battery life by minimizing CPU voltage use and FAN use.

I tried other setting and it uses battery faster. (talking about battery it cost only $99 to purchase extra one - other brand clost alomost double the price)

Here is my conclusion.
I would recommand this notebook for anyone who is interested to purchase "slim Laptop".

Ah one more thing, their Customer Service is "Quick" when you call them they pick up less than 3 mins.
However, here is what i found after talking to several of them, most of them don't have enough knowledge to help you out, even the simplest knowedge.