Averatec Notebooks
 

Anyone have any opinions/experience with them?

I just bought one from BUY.COM for the pricely sum of $857 after coupon. It should be delivered on Monday. They look like they're great value for money, but if it turns out that they're junk I am going to return it.

Sams Club sells them too, and they usually don't sell something unless they are convinced the quality is excellent.

I played around with one at Staples, seemed very good as far as the speed and the screen.

I own one. I bought it at Christmas time for about 750 with discounts. I travel occasionally on business and use it primarily for email. I am pleased with its performance, given what I paid. The screen is very good. The keys take some getting used to, and I've had better (and worse), but then again for what I use it for, it is adequate.
The only negative is that the speakers are very underpowered and not terribly loud. Once again, they are not important to the use I give it.

Its light, small, and has a built in CD/DVD. All in all based on what I paid, I'm happy.
Ed

Mine arrived today. It's a slick little package, but as noted above the keyboard is a bit small and time will tell whether it suits my habits.

I am in the middle of installing my commonly used applications and it seems to be underpowered. I'm going to bring it on the road for the next couple of weeks and see how it fares. If it's not up to the task it will be returned.

My boss has one, and he really likes it.

Then again, all he ever does is email, web and excel ;)

Bought mine for $850 from office depot in December. Two weeks ago, it failed to startup (at all...nothing on the screen or any of the lights above the touchpad). Customer service promised a 3-5 day return on the warranty repair, but thus far they haven't delivered it back to me. I'll let you know how it turns out.

For the price, it was a great notebook. Main drawbacks were the keyboard (particularly the backspace key), the entire unit seemed to run hot (uncomfortably so), and the speakers are terribly weak (when turned above about 70% they would start to squeal horribly, even with no sound playing).

These guys build low cost systems.... The cost saves is coming from a design that let's just say "wouldn't pass muster at a major notebook mfr".

The actual mfr/ODM making the system for them is actually tied well into all the major mfr's, however the major's realize one service issue extra = No money made on the device....

If you don't muck around too much and can reconfig the sw easily, it's an OK buy. Just remember you pay for what you get!

I took a look at these when I visited Sams last night. The big gap between the screen and laptop body disturb me a little bit, and that is certainly not apparent on the website.

That hole is the missing battery. Averatec laptops are usually displayed without it. I bought a 3200 last week while staying in NY and it has been stolen the next day:-( One day impression was very good. Though it got a little hot and noisy because of the fan as some reviewers mentioned. There is nothing else comparable at the price.

Does anyone know where to buy it in Europe(UK) or which online store would ship here?

Thought I'd give a quick update on mine.

Overall I've been pretty happy with it. There are two main gripes that I have.

Firstly, the keyboard is too damn small and the key layout is wrong. I thought I'd get used to it by now, but my e-mails are still coming out with typos galore. Whilst my fingers are hardly pianist grade, they're not exactly bean cans either.

The hinge on the screen is a little slack. If tilted at an extreme angle (say, 140 degrees), it falls. Not a good sign of a long life ahead.

I must retract my earlier comment on it being underpowered. It's well able to run my usual six sessions of SAPGUI, multiple browser windows and a few spreadsheets concurrently.

Also, the silver paint isn't holding up too well to the TSA enforced in and out of bag routine.

Still, for $800 I think it will suit me fine for 1/2 years. I'll always have my old Dell and Toshiba bricks to fall back on.