PC Magazine's Review of the Voodoo Envy 133

Click here to check out PC Magazine's review of the Voodoo Envy 133.


What do you guys think of the critique? Does it sound more or less spot on?

 

Personally I think the Envy is nothing special.
It has old tec. really small keyboard and over priced.

I have to say it makes the macbook look good (and I dont like macs)

still the x200 and x300 easily have it beat. Unless you only buy for looks.

 

it was actually designed by ziba design in Oregon when the intel metro concept was introduced as a prototype.
Voodoo took the designs Ziba made, and brought the prototype to life.
However it looks like a simple thing but it takes time to make a chassis viable and to follow all of the industry standards for build and such.
The intel metro concept had two screens, one lcd like a normal laptop and one on the rear, so that one can use the laptop with the lid closed.
The screen gives most of the structural rigidity to the life, so to compensate, voodoo removed the second lcd and used composite plastic and carbon fibre to make the lid strong enough for the consumer and to pass the standards. The insides remain the same as the intel concept, except for the touchpad, which they modified to make their own, aka the porous like look. Everything else is the same as the metro which Ziba designed for intel just over a year ago.
The specs are on the old side, but most users are 1) either looking for portability , or 2) just want a cheap voodoo.

so is it a rebrand?
well yes it is, but its not, it is a modified rebrand. They do glorify over these small mods, but they did not design the laptop, they only modified a previous design which was already done.

the macbook air, the sharp transmeta, and the toshiba and fujitsu ultraportables are all fair competition. Some are designed for different reasons, like having the ability for tablet, some with a built in optical drive, some with 2.5" harddrive and so forth. Each one is special and conforms to a slightly different niche of people.

personally I think the new dell inspiron mini is going to be really cool, and its going to be cheap, so its going to give the others a good run for their money.

K-TRON

 

I believe this review is of a pre-production unit, so there may be some changes.

 

That's really stupid that they put a power key on the keyboard, next to the delete key. I could see a lot of people accidentally turning off their computer in the middle of doing something important. I'm sure they did that to make the Envy as thin as possible. As long as they have an option to disable the key from turning off the system and only to turn it on, then it'll probably be fine for most people.

 

Both the Wireless and Power Button work on a delay so just tapping it will not shut them off. You'd have to hold the button down for about a second.

 

Very low tech at very high prices. Just don't get who will pay for this (it is not even a tablet).

Yes it is thin and light but not more then the Apple Air. If you want something that slow and ultra portable, just buy an UMPC for less the $1000 (to take to meettings anf work with office). Then buy a decent lappy for $1500. Just my own opinion.

Trance
PS: It does look cool, but so does my UMPC with integrated GPS

 

what UMPC are you talking about?

 

Here you have plenty to choose from:

http://www.umpcportal.com/products/product.php?id=202

This one is fast enough to run any application such as the ones that probably one would run in the Envy.

http://www.umpcportal.com/products/product.php?id=184

This one with a 1.6 Mhz Atom Processor.

Just to explain where I come from:

4 years ago I bouth a tablet PC (M200) from TOSH with 1.8 Mhz Centrino. Spent arounf $2.5 on it. I really like the lappy (still have it as my wife uses it for office and surfing). I'm a developer so basicaly for my work it did well for 6 months, after that I started getting frustrated due to the fact it was not fast enough! Games, what games ... solitaire and chess and that is it in a NVidia with 32MB (but that is not why I bought it). When I go to meatings basically I don't need much power there as basically is all about word and powerpoint, and some emails. But when I'm on the desk I really need more power.

Anyway the decision 4 years ago was not that bad concidering the options available back then.

A year ago I bought the the Clevo below (office and home multimedia/games) and the ASUS R2H (meetings, classes and travelling). Granted the R2H is not really that fast but for MS Office, Email, Internet Nav and some movies is as good as my Toshiba M200 and much cheaper, lighter, fits in big pocket. I use the pen to take notes from time to time, and the GPS when I travel.

R2H: http://www.asus.com/search.aspx?searchitem=1&searchkey=R2H

Considering that the envy133 shares more or less the same specs as my 4 year old M200 well ... Yes the envy133 is lighter and a tad thinner, but is not smaller as my M200 had a 12inch screen with res up to 1400*1050 pixels. Here is a review: http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=2127&review=Toshiba+M200.

The dimenstions of the M200 were: 9.8 inches x 11.6 inches x 1.5 inches; 4.4 lbs (without SSD). This in contrast with the R2H that weights .... well in the order of grams.

I wouldn't buy a M200 nowardays so I wouldn't buy an envy133. So as you can see, that is why I don't get the envy133 for todays standards (as I don't get it for MacBook Air and other simillar light PCs). Maybe for beauty, but definitly not for coolness (you should see some of the new UMPCs).

I definitely would like to see a VoodooPC UMPC for a $1200 tops. This since I believe the envy133 is not a gaming system such as the laptops and desktops that made the VoodooPC brand. A beutiful, light and with great HP/VoodooPC looks, and acessible UMPC (with a Pen) that would for me be a breakthrough. This with the 5 secs boot speed of the OS in ROM as the envy133 gets would be unique. Paired with a powerfull laptop (my preference) or desktop as the main station, what more the regular user (or even extreme gamer) would ever want in terms of mobility vs power?

Forthcoming UMPCs: http://www.navigadget.com/index.php/category/umpc

Trance