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Notebook Reviews Averatec 3150PPosted August 12, 2003 by Lisa Gade, Editor-in-Chief Averatec makes full-featured ultra-portable notebook computers at very reasonable prices. Formerly known as Sotec, the company changed their name to Averatec in April 2003, coinciding with the launch of their latest generation of thin and light notebooks. The 3150 series models weight in at only 4.3 lbs, yet offer full-sized notebook features such as a reasonably speedy AMD Mobile Althon XP1600+ processor, integrated DVD+CDRW drive, an XGA display, an internal modem and 10/100 Ethernet. The 3150P models also include 802.11b WiFi, while the 3150H does not have WiFi built-in. The 3150H comes with Windows XP Home Edition, while the 3150P comes with XP Professional. In other respects, these two models are identical. We received the 3150P for review.
Side view with PCMCIA slot, Ethernet jack, VGA port and power connector
Horsepower Ultra-light subnotebooks are not speed demons compared to their full-sized counterparts. High speed, state of the art processors don't jibe well with "miniaturization" because of heat dissipation issues. The cost of high-end processors is also a concern, since you're already paying extra for that small size. Despite this, the 3150P offers very impressive tech specs for its size. The notebook has an AMD Althon XP-M 1600+ processor with PowerNow!™ and QuantiSpeed™ architecture running at 1.33 GHz, a 384KB cache (128KB level 1 and 256KB level 2), a 266 MHz system bus, VIA motherboard chipset, 256 megs of DDR RAM expandable to 640 megs and an ATA 133 30 gig hard drive. Screen, Sound and Battery Life The Averatec 3150 models have 12.1" XGA displays running at 1024 x 768 resolution with 16 million colors. They can also drive an external display and has a standard 15 pin VGA port on the rear. They support both external video out and dual display output. The 3150 series has an S3 Pro Savage8 video processor that offers 128 bit 2D and 3D acceleration and uses 32 megs of shared memory. Screen updates and re-draws in business applications and Photoshop were plenty fast, but gamers take note that most current intensive 3D games will not run on a shared memory architecture. The LCD itself is not particularly bright or razor sharp, but it is definitely usable. For this price, you aren't going to get a super-bright, ultra sharp display. For you movie watchers, the Averatec has DVD hardware assisted decoding, MPEG1 and MPEGII hardware acceleration and comes with Cyberlink PowerDVD software. If you want to listen to MP3s, CDs or movies, you'll be happy to know the Averatec has a stereo headphone/speaker jack. The built-in stereo speakers are mounted on the wrist rest area. They're reasonably loud and sound quite good, though built-in notebook speakers can't approach good headphone quality. Averatec claims battery life is about 3 hours on max power saving settings. The battery is a smart Lithium Ion rated at 4,000 MAh, which is good capacity for a unit of this size. We got about 2.5 hours when using the Internet frequently via a WiFi PC Card. |
Ports, WiFi and Expandability
The 3150 has all the ports you'll need for most endeavors. It has three USB 2.0 ports (compatible with USB 2.0 and 1.1 devices), a standard VGA port, an RJ11 modem port, RJ54 Ethernet port, a mic in jack and stereo headphone out jack. The Averatec has a single type II PCMCIA CardBus slot and the 3150P has built-in WiFi 802.11b. You'll get everything except FireWire on the 3150 line, and the USB 2.0 ports are a definite plus.
The Averatec has a built-in DVD/CDRW drive that's 8x for DVD playback, 24x for CD reads, 16x writing CDRs and 10x writing CDRW media. Not bad for any notebook, especially one that's this small and light. Base memory on this line is 256 megs, and it's expandable to 640 megs using DDR RAM. The notebook has a small door on the bottom that you'll remove to upgrade memory. It has 128 megs soldered to the motherboard and a 128 meg DIMM in the single RAM slot which you'll replace if you upgrade memory.
Both the 3150H and 3150P come with internal 10/100 Ethernet and 56k V.92 fax/modems. The 3150P has internal WiFi 802.11b that uses the very common and reliable Prism chipset. Most Prism-based internal and card WiFi products get good signals and throughput, but the 3150P's WiFi wasn't a good performer for us. At distances of 30 feet from an access point, the unit fell back to 2 Mps from 11, and web pages loaded as if we were using a dialup 56k modem. Other notebooks and PDAs in our office haven't had these kinds of performance problems.
Conclusion
The
3150 series offers a great deal of value for the price. It's rare not
to pay a hefty premium for a thin and light notebook in the 4 lb range.
It's got all the ports you'll need, including three USB 2.0 ports and
integrated Ethernet. The built-in DVD-CDRW gives good performance, and
you won't have to lug around an external CD drive. Performance is more
than adequate for business applications and Internet use. Memory is expandable
to 640 megs, which should satisfy most users. I only wish the integrated
WiFi performance were better on the 3150P. The display isn't top of the
line, but it's very usable and didn't leave our eyes aching at the end
of the day. For the price and unit size, the display is as good as we'd
expect.
Suggested Retail:
3150H: $919
3150P: $1,025
www.averatec.com, available direct and at retailers such as Office Depot and Best Buy
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