Topic: Does anybody here own a Averatec Laptop???

[coloartist]

How does it work?  How is the Battery Life ?

I need to get a laptop for work, but I want to use it as a backup for my Micro Tracker when it comes out, and once I feel comfortable with the performance of the M-Tracker, I would just store the the data off the Smart Media Card on it, until I got home.

They have this Laptop at Costco for a good price. Averatec say's the battery life is 5 hours, and the new batteries won't be available for a few weeks.

AV4270-EH1

CPU Intel® Pentium® M 730 (1.7GHz) 
OS Microsoft® Windows® XP Home Edition
LCD Size 13.3" WXGA with AveraBrite™
Optical Drive Multi-Format DVD +/- Burner
Hard Drive 80 GB
Memory 512MB DDR
Wireless LAN 802.11b/g
USB (3x) 2.0
DimensionsWxDxH) 12.44” x 8.81” x 1.3”
Weight (lbs.) 4.7 lbs.
Part # AV4265-EH1
   

[OFOTD]

I believe Martin Medley on ts.com has one or had one that he used with his VXPocket.

 http://taperssection.com/index.php?action=profile;u=6431   

 PM him

[coloartist]

Thanks, I know Martin. I'll shoot him an email.

[OFOTD]

What is Costco selling that lappy for?

[coloartist]

$1199. And it really looks pretty nice.  All the comparable Fujitsu's and Sony's are $1525-$2000 .

[NewHomebrew]

there's actually an Averatec forum out there on the web somewhere

3 of my friends have bought them, from Costco or the Avertec website, and here's some thoughts for you:

+ lots of features for the price
+ costco has pretty liberal return policy

- a little heavier than other notebooks
- video memory on many models is shared with RAM, ie the vid card doesn't have dedicated memory
- performance was a little slower than expected for the given specs (subjective, but that's what they said)

from seeing and using them I think they look a good deal for the money.

[coloartist]

I ended up buying the 4270 model. They were down to their display model, that had been on display 2 weeks, so they gave me $50.00 off, and then when I went to the checkout, they said it had a $100.00 coupon. So it ended up being $1050.00. It looks like a Mac powerbook. All white with a real nice screen. It only weighs 4.7 pounds.

All my video work will be done on my desktop computer.

I'll be able to just stick my m-audio microtrack compact flash card (if it ever comes out) right in the multi card reader at set break and copy it over and delete it, without the USB. I'm guessing it should copy over real fast, that way.

Plus with a DVD burner/player on the road, I think it will do the job.

[Cooker]

my parents have one, and they love it. mom's had about 14 toshiba notebooks previously, and doesn't have a single complaint with the averatec