Laptop search Complete!

This is not a review necessarily, but a tale of intrigue and suspense. This is a story of my laptop search, ending with the climactic event, of receiving and unpacking my new laptop! Well...hopefully you will find it as exciting as I did.

I needed a new laptop for work, as my current eMachines M5305 overheating problem had gotten much worse. I did get 1 1/2 years of heavy use out of it, after buying it refurbished from www.tigerdirect.com. I am an electrical engineer/computer programmer/home machinist, so my needs are probably a little different than most. My company was going to pay for it this time. I decided to get my ducks in a row and find something good but inexpensive.

My boss suggested a desktop computer and I would still have my crippled eMachines M5305 to work at home on. I told him "That would be a pain in the A**". He reluctantly agreed.

Basically, I needed good processing power, a decent amount of memory, a nice 15" screen or so, not too big, not to small, laptop. The video wasn't that important but CAD work, and video editing were on my software list so it had to be fairly good. I started off on these forums, but my research took me all over the world and back again. The internet is a wonderful thing. I couldn't convince the company to pay my travel expenses to facilitate this anyway.

After the first day of searching, I made up my mind that I wanted an AMD 64 processor. This reduced my search options by about 85% or more I would guess. After the second day I made up my mind I wanted a dv5000z customized from HP.

My boss, who was actually footing the bill, questioned my wanting an AMD 64 processor. I didn't have a good answer at the time so I think I threw a temper tantrum and said "just because I do". I also tried to convince him with this e-mail: "The P4 vs AMD 64 debate is like the Chevy guys vs Ford guys. They both have their strong points. I am an AMD guy!" That didn't work either. I then continued with some real research and found more info:

Here is one example (I must have lost the other links): http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/ProductInformation/0,,30_118_9485_9487%5E9492,00.html

I found these points (somewhere) that seemed to have merit:
1) The AMD 64 does more processing than a P4 with the same speed grade. (Has to do with pipelining and cache size I believe.)
2) Virus protection through a memory overrun detection. (Does this actualy work? Hopefully I wont find out.)
3) Runs cooler as lower frequency equates directly to lower power. (My eMachines was an AMD also and I still have burn marks from that, but this sounds good.)
4) Future 64 bit support (Actually I doubt this will ever be useful to me or if it will I will be looking for a new notebook by then.)
5) Memory controller built into the processor (This seems to boost memory performance but also causes some compatibility problems from what I understand)

Because of the delay in ordering the HP I wanted, I became unduly obsessed. The search continued night and day for the perfect laptop. I found this computer from Sager. http://www.discountlaptops.com/index.php?section=specs&model_id=989&category_id=36&category_theme=c1. It was more expensive than I would have liked. Plus, I usualy carry my laptop home every night from work, so a 17" screen was a bit much.

I soon found this however: http://www.ibuypower.com/ibp/store/configurator.aspx?mid=126. This looked like it had everything, and then some, at a bargain price. Too good to be true? Maybe this will take some more research.

So I researched ibuypower on http://www.resellerratings.com/seller2001.html. They have a good rating but alot of recent bad reviews. I was a bit concerned.

I researched the computer. It is actualy a Uniwill N258KA0. www.uniwill.com



I read reviews such as this: http://www.amd64notebooks.com/reviews/uniwill/index.php

Other Info included: http://notebookforums.com/showthread.php?t=35212, http://www.notebookreview.com/, http://www.amd64notebooks.com, www.google.com of course.

Nearly the exact same system is sold by MANY other resellers under different names. Most all of these allow you to configure (mostly identical) options. The prices however, are not the same. The quality of the system build and service after the sale by some of these resellers will vary also. So don't choose one based on price alone. There may be more than what is listed here as every time I look there seems to be a new AMD 64 laptop that looks amazingly like the Uniwill. Coincidence? I think not.

www.Mwave.com NB-BA20408
www.ibuypower.com Battalion 101 S-Turbo [AMD]
http://www.cyberpowersystem.com/ XPLORER X64-8000/9000
www.abspc.com ABS Mayhem G3
www.newegg.com ABS Mayhem G3 (not configurable)
http://store.ekm.com/ 258KA
www.digitalstar.com.au PowerNote 258KA
http://www.acnt.com/ ACNT 258KA
http://www.fujitsu-siemens.com/products/mobile/notebooks/amilo_a.html AMILO A1630
http://www.xtremenotebooks.com/index.php?section=specs&model_id=810 The Raptor 64
http://www.gamepc.com/shop/systemfamily.asp?family=noteb4 GPN-A64B
http://www.cbwstores.com/cart/product_info.php?cPath=27_63&products_id=7467&osCsid=c6c933026e4809f7bcd7f6cf46e2075a
http://www.rayservers.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=21&products_id=43
http://www.leadertechmobile.com/notebooks/controller?event=displayNotebookDetails&item_number=150.
http://www.unitedmicro.com/specs.cgi?NT3UN019+NT

I convinced my boss that this is the way to go....and he agreed. I quickly snapped up his credit card to make the transaction and ordered the one from www.ibuypower.com for $1,627. After placing the order I proceeded to troll the boards to share my newly gained wisdom. I had only been a member for a couple of weeks but no longer a Newbie at least. I suggested the ibuypower system on this thread: http://www.notebookreview.com/forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=9194. Although, I apologize for nearly hijacking the thread with an inappropriate suggestion after finding out he was realy looking for an apple iBook....Oops. "bootleg2go" seemed to have something against ibuypower.com here, but I was going on blind faith that they were going to deliver the laptop on time and in working order.

These are the options: (All the options are not listed here if there was only one choice):
Case ( Battalion-101 S-Turbo[AMD] Series 15.4" 16:10 Wide Screen WXGA 1280x800 LCD TFT Notebook, Deluxe Carrying, Original Metallic Silver Color )
Processor ( Mobile AMD® Athlon-64 3400+ CPU )
Memory ( 1024MB [512MB X2] DDR-400 PC-3200 [Notebook Memory] Major Brand )
Video Card ( Mobility 128MB ATI Radeon 9700 Pro 256-bit 3D Video )
Hard Drive ( 60 GB 5400rpm ATA-100 Super Slim Notebook Hard Drive )
CD-RW/DVD-RW Drive ( 8x DVD-ROM & 24X16X24 CD-RW Combo Drive [S-Series] )
Sound Card ( 3D Premium Surround Sound Onboard )
Wireless Network Adapter ( [FREE] Wireless LAN Wi-Fi 802.11g 54Mbps Mini-PCI Module )
Operation System ( MS Windows XP Professional Edition )
Warranty ( Warranty Service Standard 1-Year Limited Warranty + 1-Year i-Care Deluxe 24/7 Phone Support )
Rush Service ( Rush Service Fee (not shipping fee) No Rush, Ship Out in 5~10 Business Days )

I ordered it on Monday the 13th of December. The credit was approved on Tuesday and they sent an email that it moved into production. 5 to 10 working days is what they promised when I placed the order. The email that it shipped came on Tuesday the 21st although FedEx had actually picked it up on the 20th. After reading about several other customers delivery problems I was pleasantly surprised to see this. It arrived on Wednesday afternoon.

There is already a good review on this laptop (see above) so here are some benchmarking tests I ran to give you some idea of the performance. As far as my likes and dislikes about this laptop they are pretty much the same comments as the other review. The CD drive was making some strange noises but seemed to work ok.

Performance results (never done this before so not sure if these are good or not):

Super PI calculation of 2 million cycles: 1 minute 36 seconds. (That is very close to the fastest time taken from that thread from what I saw.)

Using the SiS Sandra benchmarking program:

Files system Benchmark: 26 MB/sec

Ram bandwidth Int. buffered: 3067 MB/sec

CPU arithmetic benchmark: Dhrystone ALU 10073 MIPS

CPU Multi-Media Benchmarking: Integer x4 aeMMX 20934 it/sec
Float x4 isse2 22601 it/sec

Anyway, whether these numbers are good or bad, this machine flies compared to what I am used to. It didn’t take long to install everything I needed and get up and running. The only things installed were the operating system (XP Pro) and s few extra utilities. No garbage to clean off.


-------------------------------
Battalion [AMD] (Uniwill 258KA5) Athlon-64 3400+ CPU, 1024MB DDR-400 PC-3200, 60 GB 5400rpm ATA, 128MB ATI Radeon 9700 Pro

 

Hi reddragon,
I'm impressed that they got it to you that fast, everyone else I know of around here who has ordered a notebook from them has had to wait over a month to get it. Perhaps they are making an effort at imporving their reputation. I hope it works out for you and there is no reason to require service from them because that was the biggest compliant after the long waiting periods.

good luck and happy holidays
Jack

"They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security" (Ben Franklin)
http://pbase.com/joneill

 

So far so good. I was concerned about the quality and the service also but small companies are sometimes better to work with than large ones.

Also, it came with a FarCry 3D game demo disk. I was just playing it on High settings for about half an hour with no slow downs that I could tell. The machine gets quite warm to the touch in the process but still functions well.

-------------------------------
Battalion [AMD] (Uniwill 258KA5) Athlon-64 3400+ CPU, 1024MB DDR-400 PC-3200, 60 GB 5400rpm ATA, 128MB ATI Radeon 9700 Pro

 

reddragon, certainly hope the research and pains of traveling the web backwards and forwards for this search pans out. As we all know, there's no such thing as the perfect laptop, but some people will just keep chasing that mirage by constantly buying and selling via eBay...see recent article by Perry "how to buy a used laptop" (http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=2138), he's one of those guys that's on the same constant search that you went through. You have to admit, since we don't get the thrill of the hunt in chasing our food for survival like our prehistoric ancestors did, hunting for cool technology and laptops is a good -- and safer -- replacement to that psychological need [8D]

 

Hi Red,

How's the laptop performing so far? I'm interested in buying an AMD 64/Radeon. I started looking at some refurbished eMachines 68xx from TigerDirect. I'm now leaning more towards a Uniwill. Do you have any tips for me?

--Creo.

 

Tips? Well I duno, it depends on what you are after. I've had this for about a week now and am very happy with it in general.

The few things I don't like were expected from what I had read. The HUGE power supply adapter that makes this thing kind of a chore to carry around. The laptop isn't on the light side either.

I would say this machine is a good bargain desktop replacement if that is what you are looking for.

-------------------------------
Battalion [AMD] (Uniwill 258KA5) Athlon-64 3400+ CPU, 1024MB DDR-400 PC-3200, 60 GB 5400rpm ATA, 128MB ATI Radeon 9700 Pro

 

Hmm. The funny noise I was hearing from the CD drive was apparently more than a noise. Some programs wouldn't intall at all from brand new disks. Mostly Microsoft disks for some reason. Visual studio and Microsoft office 2003 both new.

After spinning the CD by hand in the drive it seems a little lopsided. Drive runs slower than it should or craps out sometimes.

Looks like I will need service after all. Ibuypower agreed to ship me a new drive for me to swap out. I was glad they are not making me send the notebook back anyway. Have to see how this pans out.

-------------------------------
Battalion [AMD] (Uniwill 258KA5) Athlon-64 3400+ CPU, 1024MB DDR-400 PC-3200, 60 GB 5400rpm ATA, 128MB ATI Radeon 9700 Pro

 

You get the replacement yet? I tend to get the feeling that there's some shadiness going on if the better business bureau gave them a "C" rating, and the reviews on reseller ratings are done with somewhat broken english by people who have only left 1 review... If I can get some sort of reassurance that these guys aren't god friggin awful, I'd consider going with them for a laptop myself.

 

I did receive the replacement after a week. Seems to work ok now.

As I mentioned in another post it seems resellerrating.com only shows the pesimistic views. People will go out of their way to complain but will hesitate to post "it was great, I had no problems" kind of coments. Not very interesting post I suppose.

Go read some Dell or HP reviews. Not saying they are bad companies, but it might give you some perspective on what the ratings mean to you.

From www.Reseller.com for a few companies.
Company Rating:
I.B.M 5.56
HP 4.22
Dell 4.55
ibuypower 7.86



-------------------------------
Battalion [AMD] (Uniwill 258KA5) Athlon-64 3400+ CPU, 1024MB DDR-400 PC-3200, 60 GB 5400rpm ATA, 128MB ATI Radeon 9700 Pro

 

I also purchased the uniwill model(from ibuypower) except i got the dvd burner, and I love it. I encountered the same problem as you with the rom. I have also installed SUSE 9.2 on a dual boot system. SUSE finds all the hardware except the WLAN card but the module is easy to find on the web. All in all this is one of the better laptops I have owned. As far as Ibuypower goes, they didn't send me the drivers cd; so I had to have them ship one out. But, all in all they come through with no hassle on their warranty.

 

I recently purchased my Uniwill 258KA from MWave for a very nice price of ~$1500, which includes the sales tax and next-day FedEx shipping.

My specs are: Athlon64+3200, 1GB RAM (512x2 Apacer PC3200 DDR), Radeon 9700M, 60GB Toshiba 5400RPM HDD, Windows XP Home SP2. The DVD drive is a Liteon model. My system didn't come with an internal Wi-Fi card, so I'm using a Microsoft 802.11G PCMCIA card I found in a local bargain bin.

The Radeon 9700 Mobility holds its own pretty well, particularly with Omega drivers (GPU overclocked to 451.8MHz, VRAM overclocked to 248.4MHz), though it doesn't hold a candle to nVidia 5600 PCI-X cards. It performs comparably to Radeon 9600 Pro desktop cards. It would be nice if the video memory were faster (248MHz is the fastest I can OC the VRAM without losing stability), but given the design constraints of a laptop, they didn't do too badly. My system turned in a score of 8108 using GL Excess V1.2 (http://www.glexcess.com).

My review would be very much like those already listed in the first post here. This is a very capable, competent, well-built desktop replacement system. Although MWave does not provide any kind of software support for its systems, I am extremely satisfied with them! Overall, this is the best laptop in its class, and a hell of a good deal for its price!