|
Averatec 1100The Averatec 1100 offers portability and style—with a few trade-offs. Price: $1,149
By Jeffrey L. Wilson 
For a highly portable, space-saving notebook, the Averatec 1100 fits well into any mobile lifestyle. Don’t be fooled by this ultraportable’s small stature; the Averatec 1100 packs several features available in the big boys, such as a dual-layer DVD burner and an 80GB hard drive. We just wish it included a Core Duo or Core 2 Duo processor and had better graphics capabilities.
At 10.4 x 7.9 x 1.1 inches, the Averatec 1100 is smaller than a standard sheet of paper, and at 3.4 pounds, feels almost as light. The slim but sturdy body is accented with an appealing black-and-silver color scheme. Opening the notebook reveals a gorgeous, 10.6-inch, 1280 x 768-pixel widescreen display. Web pages and images were especially sharp and colorful. DVDs looked good with the screen’s wide viewing angles, but the sound was less than spectacular. Because of the 1100’s small footprint, the keyboard is cramped, and we found ourselves making an unusual amount of typos. Nonetheless, the keys were solid and responsive. The system’s demure size also affects the two-way scroll control built into the touchpad for navigating pages; it felt as if it didn’t have enough vertical room to be useful. The 1100’s performance was a mixed bag. The 1.1-GHz Pentium M processor produced a MobileMark 2005 score of 191, which is good, but not great. Word documents, PDFs, and e-mail opened and closed without any lag, making this system fine for business tasks. Its four-hour battery life is about half an hour below average for an ultraportable, but it should be good enough for most users. In our wireless tests, the 1100 measured an average throughput of 10 Mbps from 15 feet and 8.4 Mbps from 50 feet, which is also a bit below average. The 1100 bombed 3DMark03, scoring an abysmal 117 and failing three of the four graphics tests. That means you can forget playing games, and expect a less than optimal experience with Windows Vista’s Aero visual effects. The 1100 comes with a 5,400-rpm 80GB hard drive. This is enough space to store music, video, and photos, and to load programs quickly. Port selection is standard fare, with two USB 2.0 ports, FireWire, VGA, and a 4-in-1 memory card reader. Averatec covers this system with a one-year limited warranty, excluding the battery, which receives only six months of coverage (with proof of purchase). The humble software package includes CyberLink DVD Solution 4, Norton AntiVirus, and Phoenix FirstWare Recover Pro. Overall, the Averatec 1100 is a solid choice for those looking for an attractive ultraportable with ample storage capacity. Although we’d like a roomier keyboard, road warriors on a budget won’t be disappointed with this ultraportable.
Featured Site Sponsors
|
 |
|
