Averatec AV5428HX

My sister is in National Guard, getting ready to ship off to Iraq in two weeks. She's looking for a notebook to take with her, to be used primarily for emailing back home, and possibly watching DVDs. She's been told that some camps there have wireless networks in place.

She doesn't have a lot of $$, and also doesn't want to spend too much on a PC that may or may not make it back "alive". She's looking at the Averatec AV5438HX from WalMart. Seems like a great buy for the money, but we don't know much about computers so thought we'd ask those of you who do. Would this notebook be okay for this situation? Does she need to buy anything additional (wireless PC card, etc.), or does it all come with the notebook? Thanks in advance for any advice!

 

My mother has justbought one of these. We are having a problem with this thing just shutting off for no reason. Like it immedeatly loses power, all the way off. No switching to battery. IS this another SP2 issue?

I like this thing. Can't beat the price. The cheap screen kind of gets me, but I can live with it.

 

Thanks for the information, Mooclown. Looking through the ads in the Sunday paper I think there was something like that at Best Buy or Circuit City, for around $150. I'll go check it out.

Rod Beauvex, about your mother’s 5428’s screen being ‘cheap’, please could you elaborate? Is it flimsy, does it strain the eyes, how is it worse than other screens? Whatever notebook I end up buying will be used a lot for reading ebooks, so it’s very important to me to have a decent screen.

Fingers

 

I meant cheap in the sense that it's on of those LCDs that you have to look directly at. You can't really look at it from an angle.

I'm more worried about the power issue at hand.

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by gumpy

 

Hi all,

I saw the 5428 in a local Future Shop. I was extremely impressed with its speed and price; granted you can't play the latest 3D games on it, but that's not my intention anyway.

One thing that did bother me was the inability to change the monitor's hue and saturation settings - when I tried to select that utility (right click on desktop => settings => advanced under a tab called "S3 overlay" I believe) it gave an error message which said "cannot adjust color settings either a video file is not open or video is not YUV format, RGB data not supported with this utility". I have no idea what this means. Is anybody else able to use this utility to adjust their monitor's hue & contrast? Do you have to download updated drivers somewhere? If I can get this issue sorted out, I'm buyin'!

 

Thanks for the reply, Rod.

Btw, everyone, Linux Gazette has recently posted a review of this notebook.

http://www.tldp.org/LDP/LGNET/current/okopnik.html

 

Ok, to clear everything up this is the info on the processor scheme:

AMD processor ratings are different from clockspeeds, Intel uses clockspeeds as their processor rating while AMD doesnt. AMD's processor ratings use comparable Intel clockspeeds as a marketing gimmick so people will think that those AMD processors run as fast as Intel processors. They do not RUN as fast, but they PERFORM as good as those processors. A 2.8ghz intel processor will run games and applications as good as a 1.6ghz AMD processor (which is rated at 2800+). So when you buy an AMD processor that says 2800+, its clockspeed is 1.6ghz BUT it performs as good as an intel running at 2.8ghz. There is no ripoff, no smokes and mirrors, AMD just makes better processors than intel in that they do not have to increase clockspeed to increase performance; Intel keeps increasing clockspeeds (and gets hot) to increase performance.

Now that is out of the way, secondly, the Opteron (64-bit server)different from the Sempron (64-bit running at 32-bit mobile), is different from the Athlon XP-M (32-bit mobile). Now, what happened is that AMD had upgraded their manufacturing facilities to move up their technology to the next level. They started with the Athlon XP-M then created Opterons. They wanted to ease consumers into using the new Opteron-class processors (so they can liquidate the old XP-M technology)without alienating them or suprising them with a new name and technology so they used Opteron processors and tweaked them into looking like and performing like Athlon-XP M type processors. They called these Semprons and marketed them as the next upgrade to Athlon XP-M. So what you have is actually a fast powerful Opteron that is running as slow as a regular XP-M, and its new name is Sempron. They're still calling it XP-M to ease the transition.

Thirdly, the Opteron-class is more powerful than an XP-class (which is why it is used for servers). A 1.6ghz opteron will run the floor with a 1.6ghz XP-M. If AMD were to use opterons and label them as XP-Ms, they need to tone down the performance so they indeed RUN like XP-Ms. This is why 1.6ghz opterons are labeled as 2.0ghz XP-Ms (and given a model name 2800+ since they also run as fast as 2.8ghz intel), because they run(or perform) as fast as that comparable speed. A 1.6 opteron cannot be labeled as a 1.6 XP-M because it is just too powerful for that rating, the rating needs to be bumped up.

Lastly, the keboard is kinda bad, cant use the right edge, only middle and left edge usable. Monitor is not as clear as my sony vaio, but is good enough. dvdrw is silly pops out in front, a little louder than usual fan, ethernet cable loose. Other than that pretty good so far. Looks a little cheap and keys of keyboard are kinda raised risking some stuff to fall inside but you get what you pay for. touchpad kinda silly with its double-tap to release thing. Everything else looks good though, will stress test and find out performance.

 

oh and one last thing, there is a bios update available for download on the averatec website that fixes many of the bugs like SP2 problems. get this notebook and get the update and you should be fine.

I tried installing beta Windows64-bit OS and it would not let me, so the Semprons have disabled 64-bit extensions.

 

so nobody answered the question of which one was better the 6130 0r 5428hx

Mariella

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by mariellaortega

 

well i don't want a super machine but i don't want one that's gonna give problems in two month.....i use an averatec 3200, i have 7 month or more with it and haven't had any complaints (thanks God) but sometimes is too slow.

i really appreciate ur help cause i don't know a thing about computers, what i want is:
*price not more than 1200
*weight not too heavy (don't wanna hurt my bag)
*not too slow
*dvd & cd burner (not that important)

please advice,
Mariella

Mariella

 

the 5400 series sounds like it. I had the same needs when I got mine. out of the crop the 5400 has the dvd-burner that wont hurt your wallet. its got good power, and so far i dont have much problems with it. you do need to install updates to take care of bugs but thats true for any pc.

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by Chulke

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by Chulke

 

Actually, that's a misprint in the manual. All 4 USB ports are 2.0.

 

I have just one question, does the AV5428HX really weight 8.2lbs? That sounds really heavy. Thanks.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Computers run on smoke, when smoke comes out, they stop running.

 

I dont know much about the av5428hx. However I personally use the 6100 series it has the follwing

-intel p4 3g processor w/ ht technology
-60g hard drive
-dvd +/- rw
-512mb ddr
wireless 802.11g
-15.4" wide screen display
-ati radeon 9600 mobilty graphics card
windows xp home edition sp1 but i got mine before sp2 came out so they may be preloaded with sp2 now
and all the other stuff the 5482 has to offer

I am full time graphic design student and use photoshop 3d studio mac flash fireworks mx ect. and i have to say the 6100 is comparable in performance the 1.8 g g5 macs we use at school (lol).
I would recommend you spend an extra $250 on the 6100 series it is twice the comp offered by other companys at half the price not mention it looks pimp and you can buy them at circuit city or bestbuy. I would not recommend buying any type of laptop from walmart not due to quality but cust. service will be better at a store that focuses on highend electronics thanks for letting me share my opinion hope it helped also with regards to the amd proccesors they are very heat sensitive much more so that intel's intels can run without a heatsink for quite a while though i DONT recommend trying that. whereas the amd processors fried instantly upon removal of the heat sin. And as we laptop users know laptops get HOT.

 

I regards to the displays being crappy I dont know what the problem you guys are talking about is my display looks fine does not hurt my eyes except for those long nights staring at the screen for 1000 hours straight (lol) i do alot of high res projects on my laptop and have never had a problem with the screen in anyform wether it be hurting eyes or falling apart. I am using the 6100 series if that makes a differnce.

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by gumpy

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by gumpy

 

I am so late to this post but finally just finding out that the 5400 series has the wrong processor. I have not used servie pk2 because it was always heating up so I hardly ever used the laptop. Now I need it for a particular project and the specs being asked for is the athlon or another comparable processor. Hope eithe walmart or avaretec will not think me crazy asking now.