Ibuypower.com Hel80 (Battalion)

Hey guys, I'm about to buy ibuypower's Battalion 101 Hel-80 [2] notebook but I got a question about the seller.

Since I already have windows xp media center and ubuntu linux, I really don't need another operating system. I was wondering if anyone out there has bought from Ibuypower before and if so could they tell me how I could buy this great laptop deal without the operating system.

Oh, you can find the laptop site at
http://www.ibuypower.com/ibp/store/configurator.aspx?mid=190

 

You can find some more info about the compal hel80 and where you can purchase it in the compal forum. http://forum.notebookreview.com/forumdisplay.php?f=1030
You can buy that computer from here without the OS http://powernotebooks.com/product.php?itemId=1480

 

Yeah I seriously considered buying from powernotebooks but I'm on a really tight budget, so for me it was either Ibuypower.com or some other worse and cheaper laptop.

 

They used to sell laptops without OS's, but they stopped doing that a long while ago.

Don't even think about buying from them. They will only give you trouble. They can't put a computer together to save their lives, and it literally takes a full year of multiple RMA's(and a couple hundred dollars in shipping costs) to get even the slightest problem fixed. Their support sucks, prices aren't perfect, their warranty sucks, service sucks, and they are incredibly slow.

I bought my Uniwill in my sig from them last summer. It took them a month to ship out my laptop. After this, it worked for about two weeks. Then catastrophic failure. After 5 RMA's in a row(they kept sending it back not even remotely fixed- all they did was format my hard disk and give me new RAM) and 11 months, they finally fixed it. Keep in mind I told them each time aside from the first what was wrong with it and what needed to be replaced. They didn't listen until the 5th RMA when they fixed it. So at this point, I've got a laptop that was a year old model when I bought it, that is now two years old, rather out dated, with no warranty. I didn't get to use it for the first year of ownership. This was to be my school computer.

The only thing good thing they ever did was fix my laptop before the warranty expired(a week before) so that now atleast the things works. But I've got my Z96J now, so I've just used the Uniwill for modding and having fun with. Working on a mobile liquid cooling system for it at the moment.

You'll be much happier if you get your Hel80 somewhere else. www.btotech.com is an awesome reseller(nothing but good things) but they only sell Asus laptops. Mind you, I'm very happy with my Asus, the first time I've ever been happy with a laptop. And I've owned laptops before my Uniwill. Different brand each time.

Just go to the Compal section of the forum and ask where the best place to buy a Hel80 is. I've heard good things about www.powernotebooks.com. You can get it there without an OS. And you have better warranty options. Not to mention they are supposed to have good service and support.

 

RJTech also sells the Compal HEL80 for a cheap price. You can get it as a barebone:
http://rjtech.com/miva/merchant.mv?Screen=CTGY&Category_Code=CPL
They also do price matching.

 

If he knows how to work with computer hardware, I would definately suggest that he get a hold of a barebones and put it together himself.

I've heard both good and bad things about RJ Tech. I was considering ordering from them for a while, but then I found G2P.

 

hey i bought an IBP laptop and i can say im pretty happy with it.
i even had to rma it a month ago because the backlights went out.
it was the lcd inverter that broke, it took about a month over all to fix it.
just let me tell you that expect about a month from when you buy it for it to reach your do doorstep, umm probably like 3 weeks actually. mine is the uniwill 259EN3, pentium M 2ghz, nvidia geforce 6600.
after listenting to others and adding in my own experience with the company, i would say don't buy from them, just because lack of service and the time you lose when rma-ing it (if you have to) and the time it takes to ship after you bought it. so i would say either buy anything asus, or dell(e1505) Core 2 Duo a must.

i even wrote a reveiw about the laptop at this site search for the Battalion 101 turbo ML.

 

The Core 2 Duo is by no means a must. If you're planning on using something 64 bit in the near future, then ok, maybe it is a must. Otherwise, the Core 1 Duo(Yonah) is almost as fast(the faster Core Duo's outperform the slower Core 2 Duo's) and a whole lot cheaper.

I'd also suggest staying away from Dell, I've seen just as many bad experiences with them as ibuypower.

 

I got the same labtop, The only problem was the conflicting network adapter programs, there was one on there that I didn't need, and it didn't work. I uninstalled it and I use the intel one that came on the cd they gave me.

I'm looking for Omega videocard drivers for it now, hope it'l boost some gaming experience

 

Anyone know where to get the barebones system? Can I add everything that normally comes with it.. do i have to buy specific motherboards to make them fit? Can I add the internal bluetooth and wifi?

Anyone know if ibuypower's battalion 101 setup includes the bluetooth ? If not can this just be added? Is the built in wifi a mini pcie card, meaning I could add even a draft N card?

 

just giving a heads up. this thread will be moved to the Compal section as its basically a compal rebranded by Ibuypower, you'll get more attention and assistance in the compal section as its far more active than the OB section.

 

I bought the computer from there, before i seen this forum and I have had the computer since august of last year without a single problem. I found thier customer service helpfull as well when i was asking questions. I may have just gotten lucky but I have no complaints at this time