Review: Battalion 101 E Turbo-2

Specs:

Screen:
15.0" SXGA+ 1400x1050 TFT LCD
CPU:
Intel® Centrino™ 1.8Ghz Mobile CPU
Video Card:
128MB ATI Mobility Radeon 9700 Pro
RAM:
1024 MB DDR-333 Memory
HD:
60GB ATA-100 HDD (7200)
Optical Drive:
4x DVD+R/RW & 16X CD-RW Combo
NIC:
10/100Mbps LAN & 56K V.90 Fax-Modem
Intel Wireless LAN Wi-Fi 802.11g 54Mbps Mini-PCI Module
Misc:
3x USB 2.0 and 1x Firewire IEEE-1394 Ports
3-in-1 Build-in Media Card Reader

General Build/First Impressions
Very solid. quite sturdy when closed. Slight creaking sound if you hold it real tight at the optical drive area. only thing i can come up with is that it lacks really strong support there. It's not too heavy nor is it light, 6.4 on my digital scale. ibuypower.com shipped this thing very nicely. double boxed and wrapped in plastic everywhere, from the screen to the notebook itself.

The Goods:
It's damn fast. The one gig of RAM comes standard and the 128 as well. The screen part of the laptop is quite solid. i can slam it close with one hand with not a single worry. cool tran-lucent keyboard and since it's a moblie chip, it doesn't get hot at all. it's got 2 quick launch button on the left side as well as 3 pre-determined buttons (wifi, mail, and web browswer). there's also audio above the keyboard layout but to be honest, I'll never use it with the advent of MP3's. I haven't tested if it can be used with Winamp or MMP. it's quiet... very quiet. i haven't heard a fan noise or a HD noise at all. The keyboard feels sythetic but I can type on this keyboard faster and more accurate than my IBM one. I don't know why... it's odd. The feel isn't as great...huh.. i'm confused but whatever works.
Plenty of USB and a 3-1 Card reader... wish it had CF but i've got SD on my Ipaq so it's kinda cool i can swap MP3's on that card and on to my ipaq right away.
It does not have propritary power supply. I can use my IBM power plug to recharge it. It always sucks to be forced to buy a manufacture's hardware with little options.
Not a single dead pixel. Very clear screen and good viewing angles. my gf sits next to me looking at used cars and she said that it's like as if she's looking at the screen dead on. SXGA for ya!
it comes with protective wrist/arm clear cover... it's like a film covering where your wrists would be so don't stain/wear the chassis out. Cleaver.

The Bads:
Stupid optical drive bay is facing you so if you have it on your lap and at an angle, you'll end up pushing the eject button at least once. VERY VERY ANNOYING!!! grr.... Another thing that bothers me is that it's got these nice lights on the top of the laptop... that's all well and good but i would rather have that LED on the inside of laptop and double up as a keyboard light than just something pretty. ah well, spoiled by IBM's i guess.
It's only got a touchpad. Now this is just a matter of personal preferences but it would've been nice of them to tack on a pointstick as well. I don't know why they put speakers on this thing; it sucks. sorry, it's patheticly pitiful.. i can fart louder and cripser than these on the bowl!
Wifi card is stupid. i don't know if it's just me or the card is configured like this but it takes forever for it to log onto a wifi network. the only way i can make this process faster is if i set up a profile and force it to find the SID... even then it takes 30 seconds to 1 minute. annoying...

The Ugly:
This scroll thing.. it's a round button that you can press to scroll pages but the only problem is that you can't tune it. you can't say to have one click =3 lines.. it's predetermined or i haven't found the tuning of this button. it's great if you use something like AUTOCAD where you will be scrolling left and right and stuff but it's not as useful as the scroll button I had with the IBM... nevertheless, it's nice to have.
This translucent keyboard... it would ONLY make SENSE to make they keyboard light up in the dark right? not an option. if it was, it would have gotten it. it's strange of them to do this... it's pretty.. it's nice... but it could be a little more functional and give them an edge if it just lights up. FUnction button is fine but there aren't much functions worth using and the location of the button is someplace i'm not use to. I can control the brightness and that's it.. no contrast. dunno.. confused.



My basic opinion: i do not regret it one bit. It was only $1945 shipped (there was some special thing for the week that I got some % off) and i can't ask for more for the price. This laptop is sometihng that I can see myself using it for another 5 years easy. Battery life lasted 3.5 hours before it hibernated itself due to power specs that I didn't change... oops!! but it had 15% when it did that and i was watching a family guy DVD, installing games, updates, surfing the web, torrenting movies etc.. not bad at all. I just wish they moved the optical drive to the side and put 1 usb port on the side as well for something like a memory key. i'm just being picky.. it's a great laptop. i give it 9/10. it loses a point for the annoying wifi card and the optical drive location.

For pictures and 1 video:
www.americandan.com/laptop
please forgive me for the video quality or narriation.. it was done on a whim and with a Canon A80 digi cam. BTW: dialup users, don't bother DL'ing the video, it's 47 megs.

hey, sorry didn't respond sooner. the creeking sound went away. i took the drive out and reinstalled it (i was curious about the whole damn thing so i took everything out and apart).

Oh, when i took everything apart, the wifi now works faster and better... strange. could have been sittin loose but i didn't touch the wifi card.

One more thing that i wish it has is BlueTooth. my Nokia 3650 has bluetooth and would like to connect to without using a ubs key.

the battery, i have found out, lasts really long... it could be a fluke but mine lasts almost 5 hours doing some regular stuff (sufing, playing WC3 or CS).

i do hate how the 7200 rpm drives only came in 60 gig format. i need something bigger.

about performance. my friend has a Gateway (ug) PC and we were loading up WC3 at the same time... this thing just blew his away. His system has 512 gigs of ram, P4 3 gig, and a 128 vid card (ATI). he's got an old system but nevertheless, this thing just loaded so much faster... thanks 1 gig of RAM! :-)

If anything, this is by far the best laptop for the money. It's not super fast (like them P4 desktop replacements) but it's definately lighter and moblie and can run with the best of them. It's got all the doo-dahs one could as for (DVD-RW/CD-RW, one gig of ram, etc) but i wish it woud have gotten rid of the parallel port for other better things (more USB or even a CF card reader) since who on earth uses parallel man? that's like so 1999.... :-P

the video card fan does make a little more noise when playing games (like CS) but it's nothing that'll wake the neighbors or the gf who's sleeping next to you. it also does get a little warmer but not hot. the screen is still outstanding and still haven't noticed any dead/stuck pixels.

sorry to dig up my own old thread but i'm sorry to hear your bad experience wtih IBP. i have been looking at their selection of notebooks and none of them really appeal to me right now.

doing an almost-one-year follow up on my laptop and i can't be happier. been playing CS and other things. i have loaded up a lot of crap on my laptop and it has slowed it down but still runs faster then i expected it to with all the shizzle it has. transfering data between my USB portable drive and the laptop has been challenging when i'm surfing and watching a vid at the same time. i though the parallel port was going to be useless until i was at work and "borrowed" someone's cube and needed to print something. it was either use a network printer (on a Novell network which i couldn't join) or use the local printer sitting there. thank god for the parallel port. did come in handly ONCE. worth it... eh.. probably not. i could have waited for something else. the DVD Burner has an attitude problem. the DVD-+R's i've bought doesn't work. i have tried HP to Maxwell's and it doesn't burn. what does work, though, is the ridiculously expensive Fujifilm DVD+R's pissin' me off a bit but i don't really burn dvd's unless it's data dvd's. can't figure out what the problem is but Nero just rejects it. wifi works great now. i was pimping off connections all over NYC and it picks them up right away. i really wish there was BT. it would complete this laptop so much. i don't think i can add a BT mini-pci card in here with the wifi card either.. screen is still as bright and hasn't had any problems. keyboard is getting worn but only the keys i use on CS. quick launch buttons comes in handy when i need just those certain things. i still have the plastic protective cover and on a hot summer day like today, i would put a tissue down to suck up the sweat since it doesn't let my hands breath... not a big deal.
i have noticed the fan coming on more often and longer. i opened it up to see if it's dust or something clogging it up but it wasn't. now that i put it back together, it's quiet again.. huh.. imagine that.

i forgot the specs to this laptop but can i max out at 2 gigs of ram? if so, i'm game!


EDIT: i've also noticed the battery life is shortening. it was 3.5 when i first got it and now it's like 2.5ish.. i should get another new battery before it's too late to find a quality replacement part. i do plan on keeping this for sometime so better stock up on the parts that "wear out".