I’m reviewing my new/old D470K here after 1 month of use. I purchased the notebook well after the newer round of 17inch dtr’s had replaced it knowing full well I was purchasing a piece of hardware that was upcoming on legacy status. Still the notebook has a lot to offer. It’s still a 17inch widescreen lappy with an awesome wsxga+ display. With that in mind I’m going to review this laptop in with the intention of doing nothing other than babbling on and on about a piece of hardware that I’m psyched about and upping my post count. 
I ordered the barebones Clevo D470K from www.rjtech.com as a whitebox unit. The only thing included with the laptop was the battery, chassis, optical drive and carrying case. From www.ewiz.com I purchased an AMD64 3000+ 62w cpu, 1024mb of DDR400 and a 40gb Toshiba 5400rpm 16mb drive.
The ordering process was painless from each vendor. They both provided quick response via email notifying me that my order had been received and 1 day later notifying me that my order had been shipped. One quick note was that I had specified FedEX with ewiz.com and they sent the shipment UPS. Also another interesting note is that RJTech.com states that shipping is free for the D470K when you do a shipping estimate. However when you actually purchase the notebook there is a $20 shipping charge. It honestly did not bother me I was just a little confused when I first saw the charge. I didn’t bother asking about it and simply completed the order.
Both orders came in on the same UPS truck. The Ewiz order was sent to me in an oversized box for what I was ordering and all the items ordered were loaded sandwiched in a nice load of bubble wrap. The RJTech order was loaded in the stock box from Clevo. I was a little disappointed in this figuring that for my $20 I could get some kind of peanut/box combo that would provide some shock protection if need be.
Once the laptop was opened and all the components were installed my initial fears of having a DOA unit or tons of dead pixels were erased. The notebook has zero dead pixels and everything runs smooth as glass.
The screen really is something of beauty. RJTech only offers the glossy WSXGA+ screen on the d470k. If it had been an option I probably would have foolishly purchased the WXGA+ option and been screwed out of the glossy goodness that is this screen. It really is hard to look at anything non-widescreen or glossy after using this thing for a while. There are, as I mentioned, zero dead pixels and no ghosting what so ever. I’m not sure what the response time is but it’s good enough.
The video system runs flawlessly as well with a set of Omega drivers loaded up. I have not overclocked as of yet and with the system fresh out of the box with only 2 hours on the XP Pro install the following 3dmark01/03 scores were obtained.
3dmark01se – 12545 Stock
3dmark03 – 3709 Stock
Not bad for a mobility 9700 which is at this point nearly 3 year old technology. It plays KOTOR and Mechwarrior 4 without a problem. America’s Army and Battlefield 1942 are very fluid as well. I have yet to get into any other fps games but I will update this if I do.
The thing I was really concerned about with ordering an AMD64 3000+ was that it wouldn’t be enough giddy up to feel like a new pc, especially considering that it does not have support for dual channel ram. I am, however, happy to say that the “feel” of the machine is just as fast as my desktop which is running a 3.06 P4 with 1024mb of ddr333 in dual channel mode. The cpu also rarely trips the fans into operation at high speed. Even when locked on the high power mode on speedswitch XP the fans only kick on for seconds at a time. The speedup is audible and slightly aggravating. At the time of the fan speedup the exhaust from the back of the system is hot and so the system is simply doing it’s job.
Transitioning over to heat the hard drive never quite heats the wrist area up to the obnoxious levels that I’ve heard others complain about with this system. It is just warm enough, in my opinion, to be soothing in a cold server room which is where this laptop sees most of it’s operation.
The hard drive, while we’re on the subject, has impressed me a lot. It never boggs down like I’ve seen with other 4200rpm drives from older lappy’s. I am able to easily open windows media player 10 with music going in the background, while surfing the web and downloading linux on bittorrent at the same time. The disk simply works like it’s supposed to.
Next on the list is the CD-RW/DVD-Rom drive. I didn't opt for the DVD-RW drive because This isn't my only machine. It's fast, it doesn't make an objectable amount of noise and it burns CD's at an ok rate. I'd say that this is just about average.
Sound is, however, another story all together. I’m kind of an audiophile at heart. I appreciate good sound but try to get it on the cheap. I thought that with this onboard AC’97 VIA sound card I would be ok with a good set of sony headphones. I guessed wrong. With the speakers built in the sound is ok, it’s nothing better than I had expected from a laptop. They just work. With a set of 2.1 boston speakers the sound is a little muddy or muffled but it sounds alright. Plug in my sony MDR-V700 headphones and we have a problem. The sound is horrible. I can hear the optical drive spin up through them and when the sound actually starts coming through the phones it’s muddy, distorted and generally just crappy. I would, if I were against using a usb port or pcmcia slot, return the laptop. It’s that aggravating. Luckily this is sitting on a desktop as a DTR when the sound is being used so it’s not that big of a problem. Next week I will be purchasing a Creative pcmcia or Turtle Beach usb sound card for it to see if I can improve things. Oh and while I’m on my soap box about the sound card I figure I’ll attack the placement of the audio outputs. Who the hell thought it was a good idea to put them on the front of the laptop? Left side right side pick a side but don’t put them on the front. It’s a great place for them to get hit and break the sound jack completely off.
Now that I have that out of my system let me get to something that I really like, the keyboard. I wanted something with a full sized keyboard so I could easily enter in ip addresses when working remotely on systems from my laptop. The response of the keyboard and the keypad are second to none. They give good feedback and response when touch typing and other than the addition to the fn key and the placement of the del key on the keypad it’s just about perfect.
I have not tested the battery performance just yet. I had figured that having used it for an entire month by now I would have atleast tested this once or twice. Usually when I’m presented with a chance to actually test the battery I’m in a place where if I lose what I’m working on because of my battery suddenly dieing I’d be in for a serious reaming. At this point I’ve taken the notebook down to 50% battery with 1:20 minutes of use before plugging the AC adapter in. This was with the screen on approximately 70% brightness, Speedswitch XP set to battery maximize and doing simple config changes to a server via the onboard network connection.
The aesthetics of this system are something else that are worth mentioning. My boss is a big HP fan. He likes their looks and how they lay out notebooks. When he first saw this notebook he was totally floored. It’s very a minimalist in its approach to styling. The chassis its self is not black but a very dark grey. The lcd lid is a lighter grey with the logo circle directly in the center of the lid. The last gripe I have with this machine lies in the f#@%ing logo stuck on the center of that lcd lid. Who the hell decided it was a good idea to put “Notebook” in the logo spot? I would have taken “Dogpoo” or even “Hello Kitty!” rather than the word “Notebook”. I can’t remember how many times I’ve received condescending or sarcastic remarks about that f@cKing badge. I honestly can’t blame these people. It’s the most insane thing I’ve ever heard of. “Notebook”, it’s so obvious it’s painful. If anyone knows how to change this I’m all ears. I’ve even considered putting a damn “Hello Kitty!” sticker there just to get rid of the “Notebook” thing. Can you tell it bothers me just a little?
I’ve rambled a bit in this review and so I’m going to bring it to a close with the original question that I posed when I first started this review. Also I’m sick and I just took NyQuil and it’s starting to take effect in a big way. 1 year later and this notebook is still quite a contender. Maybe it’s not as powerful in the video department as when it was first released but it holds it’s own in my opinion. For those of you who are looking for a well built 17inch DTR with a lot of potential that is not going to be used primarily as a gaming machine then look no further. If you do want a gaming machine then you’d be better off with a Z71V or Z70V which can be had for cheaper and will offer roughly twice the gaming performance. I’m still stuck on stupid about Knights of the Old Republic, Mechwarrior 4 and World of Warcraft so this suits me fine.
I hope I’ve provided a solid review of a machine that is aging gracefully. I’ll add pictures as soon as I can find my digigal camera. At this point with the NyQuil kicking in I think I’ll be lucky if I find my bead.
I ordered the barebones Clevo D470K from www.rjtech.com as a whitebox unit. The only thing included with the laptop was the battery, chassis, optical drive and carrying case. From www.ewiz.com I purchased an AMD64 3000+ 62w cpu, 1024mb of DDR400 and a 40gb Toshiba 5400rpm 16mb drive.
The ordering process was painless from each vendor. They both provided quick response via email notifying me that my order had been received and 1 day later notifying me that my order had been shipped. One quick note was that I had specified FedEX with ewiz.com and they sent the shipment UPS. Also another interesting note is that RJTech.com states that shipping is free for the D470K when you do a shipping estimate. However when you actually purchase the notebook there is a $20 shipping charge. It honestly did not bother me I was just a little confused when I first saw the charge. I didn’t bother asking about it and simply completed the order.
Both orders came in on the same UPS truck. The Ewiz order was sent to me in an oversized box for what I was ordering and all the items ordered were loaded sandwiched in a nice load of bubble wrap. The RJTech order was loaded in the stock box from Clevo. I was a little disappointed in this figuring that for my $20 I could get some kind of peanut/box combo that would provide some shock protection if need be.
Once the laptop was opened and all the components were installed my initial fears of having a DOA unit or tons of dead pixels were erased. The notebook has zero dead pixels and everything runs smooth as glass.
The screen really is something of beauty. RJTech only offers the glossy WSXGA+ screen on the d470k. If it had been an option I probably would have foolishly purchased the WXGA+ option and been screwed out of the glossy goodness that is this screen. It really is hard to look at anything non-widescreen or glossy after using this thing for a while. There are, as I mentioned, zero dead pixels and no ghosting what so ever. I’m not sure what the response time is but it’s good enough.
The video system runs flawlessly as well with a set of Omega drivers loaded up. I have not overclocked as of yet and with the system fresh out of the box with only 2 hours on the XP Pro install the following 3dmark01/03 scores were obtained.
3dmark01se – 12545 Stock
3dmark03 – 3709 Stock
Not bad for a mobility 9700 which is at this point nearly 3 year old technology. It plays KOTOR and Mechwarrior 4 without a problem. America’s Army and Battlefield 1942 are very fluid as well. I have yet to get into any other fps games but I will update this if I do.
The thing I was really concerned about with ordering an AMD64 3000+ was that it wouldn’t be enough giddy up to feel like a new pc, especially considering that it does not have support for dual channel ram. I am, however, happy to say that the “feel” of the machine is just as fast as my desktop which is running a 3.06 P4 with 1024mb of ddr333 in dual channel mode. The cpu also rarely trips the fans into operation at high speed. Even when locked on the high power mode on speedswitch XP the fans only kick on for seconds at a time. The speedup is audible and slightly aggravating. At the time of the fan speedup the exhaust from the back of the system is hot and so the system is simply doing it’s job.
Transitioning over to heat the hard drive never quite heats the wrist area up to the obnoxious levels that I’ve heard others complain about with this system. It is just warm enough, in my opinion, to be soothing in a cold server room which is where this laptop sees most of it’s operation.
The hard drive, while we’re on the subject, has impressed me a lot. It never boggs down like I’ve seen with other 4200rpm drives from older lappy’s. I am able to easily open windows media player 10 with music going in the background, while surfing the web and downloading linux on bittorrent at the same time. The disk simply works like it’s supposed to.
Next on the list is the CD-RW/DVD-Rom drive. I didn't opt for the DVD-RW drive because This isn't my only machine. It's fast, it doesn't make an objectable amount of noise and it burns CD's at an ok rate. I'd say that this is just about average.
Sound is, however, another story all together. I’m kind of an audiophile at heart. I appreciate good sound but try to get it on the cheap. I thought that with this onboard AC’97 VIA sound card I would be ok with a good set of sony headphones. I guessed wrong. With the speakers built in the sound is ok, it’s nothing better than I had expected from a laptop. They just work. With a set of 2.1 boston speakers the sound is a little muddy or muffled but it sounds alright. Plug in my sony MDR-V700 headphones and we have a problem. The sound is horrible. I can hear the optical drive spin up through them and when the sound actually starts coming through the phones it’s muddy, distorted and generally just crappy. I would, if I were against using a usb port or pcmcia slot, return the laptop. It’s that aggravating. Luckily this is sitting on a desktop as a DTR when the sound is being used so it’s not that big of a problem. Next week I will be purchasing a Creative pcmcia or Turtle Beach usb sound card for it to see if I can improve things. Oh and while I’m on my soap box about the sound card I figure I’ll attack the placement of the audio outputs. Who the hell thought it was a good idea to put them on the front of the laptop? Left side right side pick a side but don’t put them on the front. It’s a great place for them to get hit and break the sound jack completely off.
Now that I have that out of my system let me get to something that I really like, the keyboard. I wanted something with a full sized keyboard so I could easily enter in ip addresses when working remotely on systems from my laptop. The response of the keyboard and the keypad are second to none. They give good feedback and response when touch typing and other than the addition to the fn key and the placement of the del key on the keypad it’s just about perfect.
I have not tested the battery performance just yet. I had figured that having used it for an entire month by now I would have atleast tested this once or twice. Usually when I’m presented with a chance to actually test the battery I’m in a place where if I lose what I’m working on because of my battery suddenly dieing I’d be in for a serious reaming. At this point I’ve taken the notebook down to 50% battery with 1:20 minutes of use before plugging the AC adapter in. This was with the screen on approximately 70% brightness, Speedswitch XP set to battery maximize and doing simple config changes to a server via the onboard network connection.
The aesthetics of this system are something else that are worth mentioning. My boss is a big HP fan. He likes their looks and how they lay out notebooks. When he first saw this notebook he was totally floored. It’s very a minimalist in its approach to styling. The chassis its self is not black but a very dark grey. The lcd lid is a lighter grey with the logo circle directly in the center of the lid. The last gripe I have with this machine lies in the f#@%ing logo stuck on the center of that lcd lid. Who the hell decided it was a good idea to put “Notebook” in the logo spot? I would have taken “Dogpoo” or even “Hello Kitty!” rather than the word “Notebook”. I can’t remember how many times I’ve received condescending or sarcastic remarks about that f@cKing badge. I honestly can’t blame these people. It’s the most insane thing I’ve ever heard of. “Notebook”, it’s so obvious it’s painful. If anyone knows how to change this I’m all ears. I’ve even considered putting a damn “Hello Kitty!” sticker there just to get rid of the “Notebook” thing. Can you tell it bothers me just a little?
I’ve rambled a bit in this review and so I’m going to bring it to a close with the original question that I posed when I first started this review. Also I’m sick and I just took NyQuil and it’s starting to take effect in a big way. 1 year later and this notebook is still quite a contender. Maybe it’s not as powerful in the video department as when it was first released but it holds it’s own in my opinion. For those of you who are looking for a well built 17inch DTR with a lot of potential that is not going to be used primarily as a gaming machine then look no further. If you do want a gaming machine then you’d be better off with a Z71V or Z70V which can be had for cheaper and will offer roughly twice the gaming performance. I’m still stuck on stupid about Knights of the Old Republic, Mechwarrior 4 and World of Warcraft so this suits me fine.
I hope I’ve provided a solid review of a machine that is aging gracefully. I’ll add pictures as soon as I can find my digigal camera. At this point with the NyQuil kicking in I think I’ll be lucky if I find my bead.
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