Battalion 101 ML-Turbo(Uniwill 259EN3)

I did not have time to test everything out completely. Unfortunately I had a few problems with my unit so I chose to return it for a refund rather than play the depot game with iBuyPower.

2.0Ghz P-M
1 gig DDR-2
60 gig 5400rpm SATA HD
GeForce 256 meg 6600Go
Also has onboard Intel GMA900 graphics (can switch between the 2 depending on the battery life you want)
15.4" WXGA 1280x800 LCD
Instant On DVD Playback

Remember these are just my opinions. Should you get this machine your experience may vary.

First Impression:
Very well packed. A total of 3 boxes to unwrap before getting to the laptop itself. Props to IBuyPower on this. The free shoulder bag is pretty decent. Very plain but that should be expected of a free bag. The laptop itself was very light and looks simple and sexy in my opinion.

Build:
On a positive note, build quality is good. No squeeks or creeks. The LCD is the most flawless LCD I have ever had on a laptop. No dead pixels and virtually no light leakage. The keyboard types very well. No flex and good key response.

On the negative side, the ports have the worst layout I have ever seen. Having the power plug, USB ports and PCMCIA slot on the right side is a slight inconvenience to putting a mousepad and USB mouse on this thing. I guess I will have to get over it. The touchpad is a bit close to the keyboard. I hit it a bunch when I type. I had to disable it in the bios.

Heat:
This thing puts out more heat than I ever thought possible in a laptop. It is very noticeable on the right half of the laptop. The CPU and GPU appear to be on the right side of this machine. On top of that the exhaust port blows out all the hot air on the right side. It actually made my hand hot and managed to heat up my metal mousepad pretty good. This is pretty irritating to me. It is hot enough to be uncomfortable. This laptop is not usable on your lap in my opinion. I will definately be picking up a laptop cooler for this thing.

EDIT: After reading several other reviews it leads me to believe my cooling system was malfunctioning or had some issues. Dont let my review deter you.

Gaming:
The 6600Go is very capable of some gaming. I have only had a chance to load up WoW and 3dMark05 but it handled them like a champ.

3dMark05 score= 2751

I was using the XtremeG 77.76's at the time.

Video card clocks:
Core= 375
Memory= 600

I alt-tabbed out during WoW a few times and saw 90 degrees once. Threshold is 105 so I was not terribly worried but the cooling on this thing pretty much sucks.

WoW was having a slight hiccup issue. I do not believe it to be the GPU. The hard drive light would flicker each time the game hiccuped. I cant see it being a pagefile issue since I have a gig of ram but who knows. Maybe a driver issue? The game ran at 50-60 fps @ 1280x800 at maxed out settings.

Media:
I did pop in a few DVD's and will say they look just fantastic on this LCD. I have not had time to play with Instant On yet. I have not had a chance to read the pdf instructions quite yet. It is installed though.
Edit--- I forgot to make mention of the speakers. They sound like crap compared to an Inspiron 9100 and Inspiron 9300. Overall they are not terrible though. It is very nice having them on the LCD panel since they do not point at your waist when you are using it. Sound is clear but makes that "tin" can sound.

Battery:
I have not had any chance to try out battery life really. I got 30 mins with 78% charge left on the battery but did not have a chance to run it down. So I would expect 2-2:30 hours using the 6600Go.

Video Cards:
As this laptop comes with no instructions it took me by surprise when the machine booted up w/ the intel GMA graphics. I could not figure out how to change it at first. Then I realized the switch is right on the front of the machine. DUH! Good to know both video cards work.

Overall:
I would give this laptop a 7/10 rating. You get what you pay for. Very poorly designed by Uniwill for my own preference. Some of you may like the layout better than I.

I think my unit had a cooling problem as a couple other reviews indicate it gets warm but not hot. Mine could have burned me it was so hot. Please keep that in mind after reading my review. Other than the heat it ran like a champ.

The video clock speeds are set that way for a good reason. The vidcard hits 94 degrees under load easily. I put it through a 5 hour WoW gaming session and everything for the most part runs fine. Just runs EXTREMELY hot. I have had laptops with full desktop chips not ever get this hot. I personally will never use the onboard video card so I have not tested it besides accidentally switching to it. It works. The laptop was not that hot when it was just idle. As soon as you start putting stress on it, it gets real hot real quick. The cooling solution on this thing is horrible. It might help if the vent didnt blow out the right side onto your hand as well.

So in the end, Yes - The main problem with this laptop is heat and the layout of the ports. The LCD is fabulous. The 6600Go performs well. It is not heavy or large. Very portable and capable gaming platform.

If you were not going to game much, this laptop might work out better for you. Since all I do with my laptops is use them as a mini mobile game platform I personally cannot get by the problems with this thing. I may pursue finding a replacement for this thing already. I will give it another day or 2 before I decide I guess.

No the fan does not get terribly loud. It actually remains pretty quiet.

In the end I chose to return it. I got an RMA from IBuyPower this afternoon. I know I did not give it a huge chance. If I had no other recent laptops to compare it to, I may have been happier. I also think, if your main reason for using this laptop is not gaming, you would be much happier as well.

I will explore other units to replace it. I was tempted by the MS-1029 offering but it seems that it suffers from the same layout scheme and the heat exhaust is also on the right hand side. I also notice it does not like running 2 sticks of ram.

I think it will come down to the Inspiron 9300 (again) and the Asus Z70Va refresh. The Sager 3880 has an outside chance as well.

Please ask any more questions you guys have on this Uniwill unit. I will have it for the rest of today. I will get it ready to ship back tomorrow. I will answer whatever I can for you guys.

It would be hard to say. Without actually hooking one up and trying it I could not be sure how much the heat would be reduced. Perhaps my fan does not work as good as it should. That could be another problem alltogether.

There were complaints about the heat this thing put out on the previous model that used this chassis. I will confirm that my unit got scorching hot. I will play with Powermizer and Speedstepping tonight before I pack it up to see if I can lessen the heat this thing produces a little bit.

I dont feel like purchasing anything more for this machine at this point. I also do not like the layout of the plugs/ports. These issues were enough for me to ship it back for a refund.

I hope your experience turns out better than my own. Maybe I am just being too picky this time around. I have never disliked any laptop purchase previous to this one. It was actually weird not liking a laptop that I purchased.

I have no idea. I have not owned a decent pair of headphones in years. Sorry but I have no way of testing.

I sure did write down the wrong clock speeds. They have been edited in the original post. Sorry it was late when I wrote the review

Ya this notebook is fast and light. I would recommend it over the HP.

It does not support a built in TV tuner

After using the notebook another day, I would say that the heat would not bother me so much if it was on the backside of the laptop. It is made much more noticeable since it is on the parts that my right hand/arm are always in contact with. I dont know that a laptop cooler would help too much as most of the ones I see use fans in the middle or back area of the pad. The GPU and CPU are along the right side of this laptop where the fans are not going to really touch.

On a scale of 1-10 for heat I say this laptop gets a 7
For comparison my i9300 would have received a 4
My i9100 would have received a 6

The main difference is the heat is in such a compacted area. This notebook is super thin. The right side palm rest gets uncomfortably hot on my unit and the right side of the keyboard gets noticeably hot. Heat pours out of the exhaust area as you can imagine. Its a good thing besides the fact that my hand is in the exhaust area a bit.

Other than these complaints this notebook has handled very well. It plays games just fine. It scores rather well in 3dmark05. Both video cards worked flawlessly. The DVD burner was quiet. The LCD was flawless. Keyboard and sound were decent. The port layout was my other complaint. Very inconvenient layout.

Now for other people this laptop may work out just fine. Obviously these are just my opinions. I use my laptop as a mobile gaming/media platform. There is practically no office use done on my laptops. As an all around unit this thing would work just fine. The heat only gets real bad when gaming or putting a good amount of stress on the system.