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Averatec 3150P Review

ACompactBargainWithJustOneProblem

June 20, 2003
By Eric Grevstad

ACompactBargainWithJustOneProblem

If the Averatec 3150P cost just $25 less, it'd be tempting to call it a baby grand. Even at $1,025, it stands out amid budget-priced portable PCs -- there are lots of good values in this price range, but most are full-sized, fairly heavy laptops. Newcomer Averatec's, however, is a 4.5-pound subnotebook that measures just 9.6 by 10.6 by 1.2 inches -- yet has a bright 12.1-inch, active-matrix screen, AMD Athlon XP-M 1600+ processor, 30GB hard disk, and DVD-ROM/CD-RW combo drive, not to mention 802.11b wireless as well as 10/100Mbps Ethernet, 56Kbps modem, and USB 2.0 ports. It even comes with Windows XP Professional (a 3150H model with Win XP Home and no wireless adapter is $919).

If you're looking for a comparably capable lightweight from a name brand, you're looking at models like Fujitsu's LifeBook P5000D -- which has a smaller 10.6-inch LCD and slower 900MHz CPU -- or Sony's Vaio 505, and at price tags between $1,500 and $2,000. So Averatec certainly knows how to make an entrance (or re-entrance; the company took a brief shot at the U.S. market last year under the name Sotec America).

And there's lots to like about the 3150P, from a small but smooth touchpad with up/down scroll as well as left/right mouse buttons to handy headphone and microphone jacks -- plus an honest-to-hardware audio-volume dial, not one of those Fn-key controls that don't work until Windows and a software utility have loaded -- located on the laptop's front edge.

Unfortunately, there was one thing about our test unit we disliked a lot -- actually, hated so intensely we're slashing a four-star to a two-star review. The Averatec had the crummiest keyboard we've seen in years.

Part of the problem was the keys' flat, rubbery feel and space-squeezed layout: While there are dedicated Home and End keys at the top right, their cursor-control colleagues PgUp and PgDn are relegated to auxiliary duty (with the usual Fn or special shift key) on the up and down arrows. The Delete key is at the bottom right, not near the top right where you expect it, and the Backspace key is both tiny and moved one slot in from the right edge. So we found ourselves making numerous typos.

Much worse, however, was that we typed our first couple of sentences, then looked at the screen to realize we'd typed one long word: The 3150P's space bar needs not just a touch typist's thumb-tap, but a hard jab with your index finger to register a space. Again and again, we noticed the space bar hadn't worked and backspaced to try a second time, only to find ourselves trying a frustrated third or fourth time or trying not to throw the computer across the room.

A hunt-and-peck typist might have tolerated our 3150P, but we're left hoping the almost-stuck space bar was a fluke problem with just our test unit. (Of two other Averatec reviews we've seen, one warned the keyboard was "spongy" and the other didn't mention anything about using the system other than specs and benchmarks.) As is, we'd gladly pay $100 more for the same computer with a better keyboard -- it would still be an impressive bargain.

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