Averatec 3220H Review

[Aikeo]

Ultra portable, ultra nice price.

Just got the Averatec 3220H in a few days ago. I'll skip over some of the more obvious stuff you can glean from things like the THG review. Here's my take:

ordered online on a monday, laptop arrived on friday by regular ups ground. not bad at all...

What you get in the package (bought from circuit city):





It's pretty sparse in terms of accessories. Really all you get is the laptop, charger, and recovery disk. But then again, what else do you need? =0


ok so let's get into the good stuff

Build quality:
Very nice. I've always been a fan of the "metallized silver" color, and this chassis is pretty snazzy looking imo. Reminds me very much of the Mitac8050's coloring / style. The frame is quite sturdy, very little give when I push down hard on the palmrests. There is almost 2 inches of space between the edge of the LCD and the frame, it gives the screen a little bit more sturdiness (less flex)

top view:


side view:


full view:



Keyboard:
Probably the biggest improvement over the 3150. Well laid out for an ultraportable. Key travel and response is very good. I don't have large hands, but I don't have overly small ones either, and I'm a very fast touch typist. I don't miss keystrokes on this keyboard when using the normally sized keys; they feel big and robust. Very pleasant to type on for the most part.


I can't say the same, however, for the non-normally sized ones; the greatest culprits being the period / comma keys. These comma key isn't so bad because it's in about the right place, just undersized, but the period key location really sucks (shifted over a bit). I often missed when first attempting to type a period, it took some getting used to. I still find myself looking down to make sure I hit it right. The backspace key is also kind of crappy, there is a lot of wobbly movement / rattle when you hit the key because it's so thin, plus it's not easy to hit correctly. The number/Fn keys are also annoyingly small, but this is probably the case with most ultraportables. The KB is nearly identical to the one you would find, for example, on the Asus S5N:



Power Brick:
Decently sized. Real light. You can get an idea of how big it is from the pic:



Battery:
Fits kind of loose. Not really that big of a deal unless you go fiddling with it all the time, doesn't appear to be in danger of falling off or anything. It was a little disappointing that they couldn't make the batt flush with the back of the chassis, as you can see here it kind of sticks out a bit:






really not a big deal, though, it's mainly an aesthetic thing


Sound:
Wow, I think it's actually pretty loud for such a tiny laptop. My old sharp AV18p could not hold a candle to how how loud this thing can get. Of course it's by no means quality sound, but with these kinds of speakers as long as I can hear them over the background noise, that's all I'm looking for.


LCD Quality:
Quite good imo. Clear, sharp. Horizontal angles are excellent. Vertical angles are not so good. Here's an .ogm file i was watching. If it appears a little washed out it's because the video quality is kind of washed out, not the screen itself:


The one problem I had with the LCD is that there are very few brightness settings. I can't lower the screen more than a few levels down from the optimum brightness. Dunno yet how this figures into the battery life.


Finally:
From first impressions, I really like this laptop. It appears to be a great machine for word proc'ing / surfing, and I'm sure it will handle office apps fine. I haven't done much benching yet cause I really don't expect much out of it, but I did test the wireless right out of the box-- it picked up my router and my neighbor's router within about 10 seconds. A test transfer maxed out at ~200 kps, everything looks real good in that department. A friend had her Dell C-something over with a wireless PCMCIA card stuck in it; she was having all kinds of reception problems... I had none. Here's a few pics in comparison to that Dell, just to illustrate the relative size of this laptop:




And one last large picture to finish it out:


Hope this was useful to those of you needing a very affordable ultraportable solution.

[Enderet]

Great review... this is a very high quality one, and I hope that you enjoy your Twinhead/averatec notebook. I was very close to buying one, except for the fat that I got a great deal on another notebook (but with pretty much the same specs).

[PangYu]

Nice review. My g/f is thinking about getting one of these. Anyone know of any good prices for them online?

[Aikeo]

the circuit city price with rebate is the best i've seen (900 after ship).

mwave also sells this laptop for around 950 before ship.

[Enderet]

Hey Aikeo, I sent you a PM.

[AzN]

Right now it is 800 at http://www.circuitcity.com/detail.js...&oid=91173&m=0

[Enderet]

Mail in rebates... blah. They try everything to make sure you dont get any of that money. Besides that... those mail in rebates take a long time to go through... last time I tried one, it took about 2-3 months.

[Mike00Z]

The 3225HS (Difference being it has 512MB of memory rather than 256MB)was $669 at Microcenter a few weeks back. It was $899 - $100 Averatec rebate - $100 Microcenter credit card rebate - $30 Microcenter rebate. Unfortunately, the deal is dead.

[Aikeo]

was out of town for a bit sry
enderet, i sent you a response to your PM, let me know if you need any other info.

wow the price went down even farther i bought it for $850 at CC (before ship, after MIR).

ill post how long it takes the MIR to come through

[PangYu]

Anyone know of anywhere that has this notebook for a good deal right now?

[Faredegyn]

wow, eva clip >< good to some other anime fans

[Aikeo]

Shinjiiiiiiii?