TravelMate 8204 Reviewed - Page 4

Thank you. I'm gald you enjoyed my review.

It's a very solid build. No flex and the corners of the keyboard are very stiff. All the seams including the ones you made reference to are very tight. That was one of my concerns originally as well. In my research I had seen some very up close pictures of the TravelMate 5672 and the seams did not appear to be very tight and it seamed very plastic. So when our local CompUSA got one I went to check it our and it had a bit too much of a plastic feel and the keyboard did have a bit of bounce and was kind of soft and there were some gaps in the seams. So I was nervous but convinced myself that the 8200 was at the higher end of the laptop chain. Sure enough it is. Much better build quality. Not that the 5672 is bad and that's a great value for the money, it's just that the 8200 is definitly a lot more solid.

The only noise I had was a horrible chirping. It started happening about a week ago for a couple of days. Come to find out one of the programs I installed turned my mic on and very high too. So it was feed back. Once I turned the mic down a bit, it went away and hasn't come back.

I'm still extremely satisfied and happy with my purchase decision. I don't know that I would wait to buy one only because IMO it will be May probably closer to June before any major updates could come. But the one known acknowledged problem which is the LAN is driver problem and from the sounds of it is being worked on. Other than that, I can't think of any other major things they could be looking to update, and the RAM contraversy doesn't count since that seams to be more of a mistake.

Good Luck.

Glad I can help.

I'm impatient too, so once I decided that this was it, I opted to order it right away. I figure if I have to pay that much and the price isn't going to go down, I might as well start enjoying it as soon as possible.

The Q-Tip thing is wierd. I read it somewhere a long time ago and never tried it. The last few laptops I've had were dead pixel free. So when I fired this baby up and there was a glaring bright spot I panicked. Then I remembered what I had read. For a "stuck" pixel you down load this software that can over time fix it, and with a dead pixel you can massage it out with a Q-Tip. I laughed it off at the time, but man seeing is believing. I figured I had nothing to lose to I tried it. It worked. I was amazed. I had always thought maybe it was a myth or something. But it did the trick. Hasn't come back either. Makes me think of all those times I did have a notebook with a dead pixel and I could have fixed it. Oh well, live and learn right.

This is a killer desktop replacement but it goes one further and is really protable. Desktop replacements tend to be not so travel friendly. I've had many of them. This truly is the best of both worlds.

The speakers are dull. They do get loud but in my opinion they sound worse loud because there's not much base. Their great for listening to the news or talk radio or I guess a little music. I was able to get them to sound a lot better than when I first took it out of the box by adjusting the RealTek settings. But honestly, if you are a music fan or just want really good sound, a set of head phones or some desktop stereo speakers will be in order to fit the bill.

Good luck.

I don't know what the software is because I have never used it. I only read about it a long time ago. I didn't need it because I didn't have a "stuck" pixel, I had a dead pixel. I started off gentle and then put enough pressure on it to see ripples in the screen and as I rubbed it started flickering (the dead pixel). Then it went away so I was like yah! Then it came immediately back. So then I started again and just kept going for a minute or so. It was then gone. About 5 minutes later after restarting the laptop after installing some software it came back again, only it wasn't so bright. I massaged it again and it was gone and it hasn't come back since. It's been a couple of weeks not. If it comes back again, I'll just massage it again. Hell I'm getting good at this massage thing, I figure I'll get a license and open a practice

The frame around the LCD is definitely solid. It's especially sturdy at the bottom and near the hinges. It seams like the roundish design to the bottom portion gives it even more strength.

All great questions.

Good luck.

Just tried it. No problems at all.

Let me know if you have any other questions.

First of all, no problem at all, glad I can help. Like I stated before, I go throught this same thing everytime I'm shopping a new system so don't sweat it. If I didn't want to answer I would just ignore the questions

It's a HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GSA-4082N (Hitachi-LG), Modular variable-speed Super-Multi drive (DVD+R, DVD-R, DVD-RAM) swappable in AcerMedia Bay:
Read – 24X CD-RW, 24X CD-ROM, 24X CD-R, 8X DVD+R, 8X DVD-R, 8X DVD-ROM, 4X DVD+RW, 4X DVD-RW, 3X DVD-RAM, 2.4X DVD+R (double-layer)
Write – 24X CD-R, 8X DVD+R, 8X DVD-R, 4X DVD+RW, 4X DVD-RW, 4X CD-RW, 2.4X DVD+R (double-layer), 2X DVD-RAM

Yes everything is indepentant and I am not experiencing any problems at all. I just came from a system with an X700 card and this is va very noticeable omprovement in performance to that (not to mention the 3DMark05 score being nearly 55%+ better).

Just so you know, I couldn't wait either, that's why I'm typing on it right now

Let me know if you have any other questions.

I won't comment on things that do not directly relate to this laptop and are of a review nature. There are other parts of the forum that cover those types of things. Besides then I get myself into a tech support situation and I don't need the headache. It's a good question I would just rather not give advice on it. No affense and it was worth a try

The latch works just fine. The palm rest area is very solid. Not flimsy at all. I just closed my lid and gave it several good tugs. It's solid! There's not even any play or room for slack when closed. Like I said in my review, it latches closed like a vault with a solid click. Not flimsy at all. Good observation and another great question.

Ordering tomorrow?

I'm sorry. I still haven't gotten around to setting it up. Don't know when I will. I still haven't switched to VOIP Phone service yet. I've heard the phone is adequate and that it does the trick, but nothing to do back flips over.