Could someone share with me your experiences with Averatec laptops? I would
like to know how reliable they are and if you would recommend it.

Thank you!

I'm with you....I'm looking at that ultralight portable one right now. I
read they are based out of California and are fairly new.



"Morgan" <morgan@notetext.com> wrote in message
news:8ab1ad4119b047449c141dde72520d81@news.teranew s.com...

Morgan <morgan@notetext.com> wrote:
Haven't had mine long enough to vouch for reliability, but it works
just fine so far. Not sure I'd wanna do intensive keyboard stuff on
it though, the keyboard is a bit weird. More info here -

http://www17.tomshardware.com/mobile...eratec-04.html

Andrew White <nospamers@allowed.at.all.net> wrote:
Not sure I'd call them no-name, they've been around for quite a while.
And it's likely more than a couple hundred price diff. And why assume
it's junk?

The Wench wrote:
Averatec is the former Sotec, recently renamed.

Q

I've had my 3150HS (Sam's Club model) for about two months and been very
impressed. I highly recommend them. You won't find any small notebook
comparable to it in the $900 price range in terms of options and features. I
did return the first one I bought due to a very noisy and slow hard drive
that was going bad, but the replacement machine has been outstanding and
working beautifully.

Like the other poster mentioned, its only downfall is the rather small
keyboard... but you're willing to overlook these things if you want a small
notebook.

I don't consider Averatec a "no name" brand. Sotec, Averatec's former brand
name, has been around a few years with a great reputation making laptops for
various resellers. Even if the machine does go belly up in a few years and
parts are no longer available, I bought Sam's very reasonable $55 three year
extended warranty that should replace it if it's not serviceable. Sam's six
month laptop return period is also nice. You can also buy new Li-Ion battery
packs direct from Averatec for $99. Overall not a bad deal at all...

"Morgan" <morgan@notetext.com> wrote in message
news:8ab1ad4119b047449c141dde72520d81@news.teranew s.com...

"jcwhit" <jcwhit@aol.com> wrote:
And certainly nothing comparable for the $750 (after rebates) I paid
at Best Buy.

Although, everything else being equal, I'd much prefer to buy at
Sam's. I asked Sam's if they'd maybe split the difference with Best
Buy - they looked it up and told me their profit on this was something
like 5%, no way to reduce the price. Oh well...

On Sun, 12 Oct 2003 16:54:21 -0700, Steve <kb@dg.inv> wrote:


Are you sure both places had the same model, same specs? ISTR that
the one at Best Buy locally had 128 MB RAM, 20 G hard drive, and the
one at Sam's was 256 Meg and 40 G, respectively.

Best Buy, along with most other retailers, sells the 3150H. Only difference
between it and the 3150HS is hard drive size. 3150H has 30 G... 3150HS has
40 G. AFAIK the 3150HS is only available via Sam's. Best Buy did sell a
model 3120V earlier in the year that had specs like you describe, but I
believe it's now discontinued and it last sold for $550 after rebates.

No doubt $750 is an outstanding price for this laptop since it's a $900
laptop after rebates everywhere else, but I hate spending big money at Best
Buy. Never have good luck with their rebates, they can be downright hateful
to deal with for returns, and they want a fortune for extended service plans
which I've heard many horror stores about along with their computer repairs.

"Bob Ward" <bobward@email.com> wrote in message
news:fhsjov4r8ldmt99jafhljh0aqah2rnuolp@4ax.com...

Bob Ward <bobward@email.com> wrote:
Mine is 256 MB and 30G.

"jcwhit" <jcwhit@aol.com> wrote in
news:vok3s4aqpt88aa@corp.supernews.com:

I would agree.

Bestbuy is notorious for shafting customers on rebates. Another one is Frys
Electronics. I have never had that much luck with Frys either.

I am wondering if there should be some expose on rebate scammers.

Andrew White <nospamers@allowed.at.all.net> wrote:
Got my $150 Best Buy rebate on the Averatec in 4 weeks. The
additional $50 from Averatec came about a week later.

Andrew White <nospamers@allowed.at.all.net> wrote in
news:9tpmov0i7r25k1r0jv3c6oarbfrja3ktt0@4ax.com:



Do you have any better data to support your argument? Sounds like you are a
Bestbuy operative and/or simply one who defends Bestbuy just for some cheap
coupon.

By the way, what the hell does it mean by marker leader in retail
electronic sales"?" The wise consumers know well that "bigger" does not
necessarily mean "better".

One more thing, I myself had problems with Bestbuy rebate. So I incline to
agree with poster "Larry" than with your commercial-flavored and bias
argument.

Morgan <morgan@notetext.com> wrote in message news:<8ab1ad4119b047449c141dde72520d81@news.terane ws.com>...
Bought a 3150HS last week at Sam's. First one had a bad CD Writer
(although CD reading was fine), so I swapped it for another. So far
so good with the new one.

Sams's recently changed their return policy to 6 months satisfaction
guaranteed. I had been looking at the Big Brand Name notebooks with
Dell, Best Buy, etc., until I saw the Sam's 6 month return policy, so
I checked out Sotec online, and it seemed about as good as any other -
for 1/3 to 1/2 the price of the Big Name Brands such as Dell,
comparing similar feature sets. How can you beat 6 months
satisfaction guaranteed, no questions asked?

I upped the RAM to the max (640MB minus the 32MB video shared grab)
with a $100 generic 512MB stick from Circuit City. Advice: RTFM
before changing RAM modules in this thing - there is a trick to
removal and insertion that makes the changeout much easier and less
likely to cause damage.

Performance is mediocre, but what do you expect with an AMD Athlon
XP-M 1600+ in an ultralight notebook? It varies the CPU clock speed
depending on load, which means it's at a slow speed when sitting there
idle, but kicks into higher gear when you tell it to do something.
This, along with the lower top speed and mediocre-performing chipset,
IO architecture, and typically-slow notebook hard drive, will not give
you a speed demon machine. But if you want faster, it's going to cost
you more, be larger or a desktop, and use lots more power (meaning
bigger/heavier batteries and/or shorter battery life). The 3150HS is
a smaller, lighter machine combining decent performance and battery
life. Try minimizing the Windows XP bells and whistles, and rip out
the unnecessary background software services & apps that load by
default, and this will help.

Using a Buffalo g54 wireless card in the CardBus slot. Works fine.

I do see a few corners cut, such as the case (display panel is flimsy
compared to a 12" Sony I saw), sound (my better Koss headphones pick
up an RFI (?) background hum that can be reduced by placing
thumbs/fingers near the headphone connector - weird - although my
other headphones do not exhibit this hum with the 3150HS), and display
(usable viewing angles seem slightly less generous than some other
notebooks). But overall it seems to deliver what it advertises, and
it's usable.

The CPU cooling system uses variable fan speed - I'm still deciding on
whether it's annoying to have the fan speeding up whenever any task
whatsover is executed by the CPU, followed by return to slow/off fan
mode.

Battery life is 2 to 2-1/2 hours. The Averatec claims of 3 hours or
3-1/2 hours must be typical marketing BS. (I notice that mobile phone
makers also make exaggerated claims about battery life...)

The keyboard...well, if you want a good ergonomic experience, get a
good ergo desktop keyboard and optical mouse. Ergonomics are not the
forte of notebooks.

I tried the VGA video out facility to play a DVD on a computer CRT
monitor. Works as advertised. Hint: If you want to do this,
configure the 3150HS S3Display properties to add "CRT", then disable
"LCD" and close down the properties dialog boxes, then reopen display
properties and set CRT refresh rate to (the highest you want on your
CRT). Otherwise, you will be limited to 60Hz on the CRT, the default
for the LCD. Dunno about you, but 60Hz on a CRT makes my eyeballs
bleed.

The installed WinXP Home is mickey mouse in some key areas. That's
about all I can say about it. XP Home falls short in networking
security, critical if you're going to do wireless. (I think MS did
this because they figure the average user couldn't handle the
additional complexity that comes with the additional configurability
of XP Pro.) Otherwise XP Home is pretty similar to XP Pro, in terms
of performance. I'm going to install XP Pro next week. Also, the
lack of full install CDs for the bundled software sux, too. MS Works
is worthy of the trash can IMO, but it might be nice to have the CDs
for things like the bundled DVD playing sw.

Sorry for the book-length reply, hope it's useful to someone.

___

Bob;
Can you let us know what the trick is to install the 512 meg RAM chip in the
3150? I have a Sotec 3120X, which is very similar and would love to know
what I can do to up my RAM. Thanks.
--
Ken Wolf
kwolf8380@comcast.net

"Bob H." <bobhgd@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:b2168c03.0310191110.17390945@posting.google.c om...

"Ken Wolf" <kwolf8380@comcast.net> wrote in message news:<SL2dnWP-As3Ung6iRVn-tw@comcast.com>...

It's on page 27 & 28 of the 3120 User Manual, see

http://www.averatec.com/images/pdf/3120-doc.pdf

The "trick" I mentioned is

1:_Removal_

Spread the latching tabs apart to pop the RAM module out.

2:_Insertion_

Insert the RAM module at an angle to the computer (female) RAM
connector, to pilot the connector into the mating RAM (female)
connector block in the computer, then press down on the RAM module
until it clicks into place, flat.

*****************

I guess it's not really a "trick" if you already know about RAM
packaging in notebook computers?

(I did it without benefit of the Users Manual, and therefore did it
the difficult & wrong way, without either of #1 or #2 techniques
above...I wiggled it out using a ball point pen as a lever, and
inserted the new stick sliding straight into the connector, flat,
using other makeshift tools...my erroneous methods are NOT
recommended, as there is significant potential for damage...

--

Morgan <morgan@notetext.com> wrote in message news:<8ab1ad4119b047449c141dde72520d81@news.terane ws.com>...
Further thoughts on the Averatec 3150HS:

I bought one because it was relatively cheap and had the requisite
features, on paper at least.

But mounting frustration with its mediocre performance got me looking
again, and today I picked up a 1.3GHz Pentium-M Centrino machine - the
Acer 290LMI - at Best Buy.

The 290LMI with a 3 year service plan & rebates tallied works out to
about $400 more than the Averatec 3150HS at Sam's ($1100. plus 250.
Service Plan for the 290LMI, vs. $900. plus $50. Service Plan for the
3150HS).

But for that additional $400 you get additional stuff (vs. the
Averatec):

- Longer battery life (5 hours vs 3 hours rated) mainly due to better
pwr mgt
- Better performance (1.2GHz Pentium-M beats the crap out of Athlon
XP-M 1600+)
- More RAM (512MB vs 256)
- Better display, also larger (15" vs. 12" - 1024x768 is more viable
on 15")
- Better graphics controller (dynamically varies UMA shared RAM from
16 to 64MB)
- S-Video out, parallel port out
- DVD burner: DVD-RW/CD-RW (vs. DVD-ROM/CD-RW only in 3150HS)
- Built in 802.11b (albeit only good for public hotspots imo, since no
WPA)
- Better keyboard with more keys
- Firewire, Bluetooth
- Cooler & QUIETER running machine
- Only a couple lb heavier and an inch or two larger dimensions
- Feels better-built (more solid)

I also like the placement of the DVD/CD drive better - in front. And
the CardBus slot - left-rear, less likely to be bumped.

Admittedly, Best Buy has only a 14 day return policy with a restocking
fee. But they take VISA, and say they will waive the RS fee if you
wanted to trade for another model in stock.

Check it out.

On 20 Oct 2003 18:51:44 -0700, bobhgd@yahoo.com (Bob H.) wrote:

You are really comparing apples to oranges. The Averatec is an
Ultraportable laptop. The Acer model you bought is not. Typically
Ultraportables cost more for the same functionality.

That can be a big deal if you travel a lot, hence the higher cost of
Ultraportables



---------------------------------------
What could possibly go wrong?

Kevin Davis³ <zkevindavisz@cfl.rr.com> wrote in message news:<u2pbpv0kgltb222g3t3idpt8nra7q5lc8r@4ax.com>. ..
<snip>
True.
True.

But, the shortcomings of the 3150HS are not limited to
size/weight-driven compromises. I guess you get what you pay for
(more or less...if you shop around carefully...

I'd wager that a year from now Averatec will have a Centrino-based
ultraportable that will compare favorably with other Centrino stuff
out right now by other vendors. The Athlon/VIA platform is simply no
competition for Centrino's Pentium-M/Intel 855 in combining good
performance with good battery life, and the Centrino's cooler-running
Pentium-M with a better cooling system design (such as found in the
Acer 290) yields a cooler-running notebook with MUCH QUIETER operation
- a big consideration for me personally. (The Averatec 3150HS would
crank up its fan LOUDLY at every single taskload executed - even
simple things like opening Windows Explorer and drilling down a few
folders. Geeez.)

Cheers - Bob

bobhgd@yahoo.com (Bob H.) wrote in message news:<b2168c03.0310220302.6432872a@posting.google. com>...
I was looking at these, too. Has anyone tried to play any PC games on
this? Every now and then, I like to fire up and play and was wondering
how this laptop does.

thanks!