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From: C.Joseph Drayton on 7 Mar 2005 23:42
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Hi All,

I haven't seen a review of this laptop/tablet on this group so I
thought I'd give one.

On Thursday I bought the Averatec at CompUSA. Let it charge like the
little card in the box said. When the light turned green I pushed
the power button, it lit up and I could hear the hard drive
spinning. I looked at the screen with a flashlight and there was
writing on the screen. Went to CompUSA and they swapped it for
another one. Spent a couple of hours installing software then called
it a day.

Friday I go to load MS Office and nothing. I try 11 disk and none of
them were being read.

Saturday, I took it in and they tested it and they confirmed the
DVD/CDRW was dead. This time they gave me an older C3500 (I know
this because it had WinXPte SP1 while the other two had WinXPte SP2.
Not a problem since I downloaded the service pack when it first came
out.

I spent Sunday working with it and installed about 30 of the core
programs that I use.

Now then to the review;

On the plus side:
1. The screen (XGA) is very easy to see (the screen is only 12.1" so
I expected problems)
2. The built in wireless works very well
3. It has status lights for hard disk, DVD/CDRW and wifi where they
can easily be seen when set as a laptop
4. It converts from laptop to tablet very easily
5. It is for me very light weight (my primary laptop is a HP
zd7010us that weighs in at 10.4lbs including power supply

On the minus side:
1. In real world usage the battery last for about 2 hours (not the 4
that is listed in the manual)
2. The keyboard layout leaves a lot to be desired (for example, to
go end you have to hold down the [FN] key and press the [Home] key)
3. The pen doesn't always get read.

All in all for its price (1,299), it is a usable laptop. If you have
those times when you NEED a tablet but some of the time need a
laptop, this machine is definitely the way to go.

Ciao . . . C.Joseph

That which a man buys too cheaply . . .
He esteems too lightly
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From: Donn Miller on 13 Mar 2005 07:09
C.Joseph Drayton wrote:
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>
> Hi All,
>
> I haven't seen a review of this laptop/tablet on this group so I
> thought I'd give one.

Can't comment on this model, but I just got the Averatec 5428HX from
eBay. I thought it was pretty decent, as well as solid. The keyboard
was a different matter -- it SUCKED big time. I especially hate the
space bar. I found that I have to give it more pressure than usual, and
in the right place, in order to get a space. Otherwise, all my words
run together. The other keys worked good, but the keyboard had a
strange hollow feel to it.

Also, the fan runs a good bit, but not constantly. All is not lost.
I'm thinking of getting a keyboard from a different model laptop as a
replacement. Any ideas on which brands/models would be compatible?
Pretty much every laptop keyboard I've seen looks very similar, except
for the minor differences, like where the screw holes go, and the
"function" keys to activate certain features, like the wireless and CRT,
etc. I really hate the keyboard on this particular notebook.
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