Quanta SW1 out. 14" widescreen

it's out on Mwave, barebones start at $465.


Features:
Technical Information:
Processor: Intel Core Solo: T1300 - T2600; 1.66 - 2.16GHz
Chipset:
# Inte 945GM/940GML + ICH7M
Main Memory:
# Zero on board and two SO-DIMM memory sockets
# 256MB to maximum 2GB 400/533/667MHz DDR2 SDRAM
LCD Display:
# 14.1"W TFT-LCD XGA,1280x800
Graphics:
# Intel 945GM/940GML Integrated graphics controller
# Intel Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) 950
Hard Disk Drive:
# One 2.5" 9.5mm PATA HDD 5400rpm
# Support 4200/5400rpm PATA HDD
# Supported capacities of 40/60/80 GB
Optical Disk Drive:
# One modularized 5.25”/12.7mm optical storage device, choices of
-24/10/8/24X Combo CD-RW+DVD (option)
-8/4/8X DVD Dual RW Double Layer(Option)
Modem & Bluetooth:
# 56K S/W Modem ,V.90/92 support
# Bluetooth : USB Interface
LAN & WLAN:
# Ethernet 10/100/1000M Base T on board
# Support dual band antenna for WLAN
Interface I/O Ports:
# 1 IEEE 1394
# 1 PCI Express Card Bus Type II
# 2 Audio jacks: Microphone-in/Headphone out(SPDIF
# 1 S-Video port
# 3 USB ports (v2.0)
# 1 RJ11 connector for Modem
# 1 RJ45 connector for Ethernet
# 1 DC-in
Audio:
# Built-in High Definition Audio, 2 Channel
# Built-in two stereo speakers
# Array Microphone
Keyboard:
# 86-key US/87-key EU/90-key JP with Windows function keys
Pointing Device:
# Built-in touch pad.
# 2 click buttons

For those unfamiliar with Quanta. Quanta is the world's largest notebook manufacturer.. through out sometime in their history, they manufactured notebooks for almost every major brand out there. The most recent being Macbook Pro line (Yes, Asus is also Apple's ODM, but Quanta is responsible for the Pro series).

 

I saw this as well, at first glance, I thought it was an ASUS(With the hinge and the silver+black colour scheme.

It kinda looks nice, but it has intergrated graphics, which is a downer.

 

you're right, it does look kinda like an Asus! Especially compared to Quanta's past models. This one is VBI like the Asus S96. And alas, I don't think they will release a 14" with dedicated graphics but they do have a 15.4" with an x1400 (a far cry from the x1600 in the S96). In any case, it's still a nice model for those who want a basic platform, and is slightly cheaper than the Z62f.

 

It may look like the Asus in picture, but up close and personal, the Quanta is a poor comparison.

It's unfortunate that Intel's VBI initiative chose chassis that look as though they were designed (and sold) in 1999, the Asus having the "best" design of the three.

My complaints with the Quanta SW1:

- the power button is so small and requires so much pressure, it's difficult to hit on your first try.
- the keyboard bows up convex, feeling hollowed underneath causing typing to have a much louder sound than it should; confirmed on 10 other units.
- the lid or screen only folds back to 120 degree angle unlike any other laptop I've owned or sold; also easy to pinch your finger.

 

if you own a Quanta SW1.. feel free to right a professional review. If you follow NBR's guidelines (i.e running various tests such as pcmark, battery eater pro, etc) you can get paid for it! either through paypal or amazon

 

<this being typed on a SW1>

Does anyone know where one can find drivers for an SW1 (looking for XP drivers mostly for sound)

Also any known issues with one big "bug" when you close the lid the unit spins up the cooling fan to 100% untill the battery dies :-(


I must say its a neet chassis - but yeah the buttons are SMALL (on/off, wireless, reset etc etc)

Thanks in advance
John

 

All notebook drivers are handled direct from Intel. It's part of their new partner program for promoting whitebooks and the like. For this particular model (which I'm also typing on) go here for drivers:

http://downloadfinder.intel.com/scripts-df-external/Product_Filter.aspx?ProductID=2474&lang=eng

As for the notebook, I'll throw my 2 cents in.

Display: coming from my previous 1680x1050 hi-res screen (Compal DL76) to the 1280x800 is a big downer. What do you expect with a 14" screen though. It has been an adjustment. On the other hand, it isn't near as heavy as that notebook was either. Screen is nice and bright, but it doesn't swing far enough back to work with the notebook while standing at a table. As someone who spends a lot of time on my feet, that's a definite downside as well. The battery gets in the way of it fully swinging down.

Keyboard: for personal use, it's great. For everyone around me, not so..... it's NOISY. Tap tap tap. You do get a good feel from it, but they could have done the same without the noise you would think.

The battery life is ok (I get about 2.5 hours of real-world time currently). However, there is an annoying "feature" that drains your battery if you don't shut it down..... someone else posted that elsewhere. Something about cpu fans spinning until the battery goes dead. If it goes dead, you need to take it out before plugging the notebook back in, or it won't go on. And with the screen thing: if you open the screen you can't take the battery out (just not physically possible).

Intel 3945abg wireless is finally working without shutting off after 10 minutes after upgrading the inf & wireless drivers. There is a known issue with Intel wireless cards and power management. The included wireless card I got on this notebook is no exception. No big deal, I went through this with the 2200bg cards too.

Haven't done a bios upgrade yet, probably should. There is an option for branding your own logo into the bootup, haven't done that. I've also

Performance is great (T2500 2ghz core duo), at least in terms of CPU. I don't do any 3d graphics or cad or anything, so i can't tell you either way how well the integrated graphics works. For web browsing, email, etc it's pretty good. I can run a couple of virtual PC's, Outlook, Word/Excel, a couple of web browsers, and performance is still pretty zippy.

Audio is _just_ ok. You won't be doing presentations with this thing. You hear the sounds, but it's not up to the standards that HP and others have set for audio on notebooks.

No built-in card reader or anything for your digital camera. You can get by with a $12 PC reader from Kingston if you need one I'm sure.

All in all I'm pretty happy with it. For what it is, it's not a bad first-go at this platform. If you want all the bells & whistles of a bigger screen, full-sized keyboard, etc then buy a notebook with that. With this notebook, you get what you get. As a no-frills traveller, it's pretty good.

 

Intel 950GMA Looks nice otherwise.

 

Hello!

I am planning to purchase a notebook, and currently my choice would be Quanta SW1. Still I have some questions.
Here is the list:

1. Display:
a) Are the viewing angles acceptable ?
b) How bright is the display if set on minimal brightness, i.e- is it possible to work in complete darkness?
c) Is the display lid rigid enough ( does it deform easily) ?

2. Is it noisy?
3. Does it produce a lot of heat?
4. What is subjective overall build quality?
5. Would you recommend this barebone over some brandname notebook like Dell or HP?

Thank you!

 

where are you from? in the US at least.. it seems that retailers are backing away from this model, not because of the quality.. but because that it's part of Intel's VBI program. Not too many resellers trust intel's strategy and support and have begun dropping this model. There are exceptions of course like the Asus S96J which is VBI and found in many places (the customer base is just too big to simply drop it).. but I think you will be better off getting something more common. the Clevo/Sager model if you like barebones, or Dell/HP/Compaq if you want brand name (and probably cheaper)

 

hi,
i just purchased a quanta sw1. i am receiving a problem that its sound driver is not getting installed. It gives failure whenever i try to install....... please help.
vivek

 

vivek:

1.Issue: Audio driver (High Definition Audio) does not work with Windows* XP w/ SP1.

Solution:

Before installing the audio or modem driver which base on High Definition (HD) Audio bus:

* Update Windows* XP Operating System (OS) to Service Pack 2 (SP 2)
* Install the Microsoft* patch: "kb888111.exe"
* Install the audio driver

 

Few things I have noticed:

 

Congrats!
How's your SW1 behaving in the noise - heat department?
Are you happy with it?

 

I've upgraded the BIOS, and yes, it's much better.

There is an SD card reader up front, you're right. I should have been more clear... the HP's I've used lately have a multi-reader. My cameras all use CF cards....

I'm still happy with it. I don't have any issues with the small buttons as someone else was stating. And the keyboard is a bit loud, but at least it has good travel. I like it better than the mushy keyboards you get on some other notebooks.

I just wish the VBI notebooks had other options for display... the 1280x800 just isn't enough for what I do.

 

Phulst, could you, please , answer my questions I 've asked in post #9 in this thread?
Thank you!

 

1. Display:
a) Are the viewing angles acceptable ?
It isn't a super-bright screen. Acceptable, depends on what you want. If you want a true-brite screen or something like that, this isn't. It's a pretty standard LCD panel.

b) How bright is the display if set on minimal brightness, i.e- is it possible to work in complete darkness?
Yes. It's not bad in the dark at all. I prefer dark to light (and being a nighthawk, it's better that way I guess).

c) Is the display lid rigid enough ( does it deform easily) ?
Not yet. I've had it now for about 6 months, still the same.

2. Is it noisy?
Not in the least.

3. Does it produce a lot of heat?
No more than any other notebook. Definitely less than the 915 chipset.

4. What is subjective overall build quality?
Less than HP/Lenovo. Better than Toshiba. (Granted, Toshiba has come a long way in the last year or so. Which doesn't say much, considering they were good 3-4 years ago and then went el-cheapo on quality.)

5. Would you recommend this barebone over some brandname notebook like Dell or HP?
For the price, you can get an awfully nice HP SmartBuy notebook with a 3 year warranty. It all depends on what you're doing with it. I would NEVER recommend a Dell, but that's a personal bias. If you're talking the difference between $1200 and $1250 for a notebook, really, is it worth it?

IMHO, the Intel VBI program is a nice idea. BUT you may have issues with warranty if you travel. Who will fix your notebook if you're overseas for 3 weeks and you smash the LCD? With HP you can get an accidental damage carepack and forget about it. With VBI, you deal with your VAR. As a VAR that's good and bad: we get the business, but you may have the headaches described above. I'm not going to ask my customer to ship the notebook back to me to get it fixed. I'm also not going to ask him to deal with a VAR in <wherever> to get it fixed as I don't know their reputation. To me, the customer is first and if I have to recommend a solution that's slightly more dollars, there is a good reason to do so.

Thank you![/QUOTE]

 

Phulst, thank you for your thorough answers!

I finally bought a laptop and it's Quanta SW1:
Celeron M 410 (temporarily)
1 GB RAM
80 GB 5400 Seagate HDD
Bluetooth, No Wi-fi (temporarily).

Overall I'm satisfied with it, of course there are cheaper laptops (this laptop costed me ~900$ here in Europe, Latvia), but the warranty is 2 years while for the others - just a year. But the main reason for choosing it was the possibility to choose the CPU, RAM and HDD whichever I want.
Despite of the low end processor it's quite zippy- I got 1:46 in SuperPI (2m ) test.

Once again - thank you for your answers !

 

My SW1 keeps turning back on - after powering it down in Windows. ALso if you put the unit to sleep it actually does not. I just flashed the BIOS and same things happen?

Does this happen to your units?

 

I just rec'd three of these for resale and demo unit. My supplier had them very agressively priced. Unit details:

MS Vista HP
2.0GB RAM
T2250 2GHZ Dual Core CPU, 2MB Cache
160GB HD
DVDRW
Bluetooth
Wireless G
Vivid Bright Glossy LCD 1280x800
4.4lbs (with 6 cell battery)
3 Yr. Warranty

My first impressions are postitive. The display quality will
please most. Brightness, colour, angles are all good. The form factor re: thinness and weight compared to 15.4" models is compelling. All without giving up performance.

Noise levels are excellent and the optical drive provided, has the typical spin up noise but reading and writing noise not distracting at all. Fan noise and heat appear well managed.

Battery life on the 6 cell using "power saving" and turning down display brightness a couple of notches should provide 3 hrs or better runtime. Not bad. A larger battery is available. I didn't try turning off the radio's to see what more could be had as most users will want the WiFi on most of the time for net access.

Most surprising to me was audio quality. I had expected horrible sound from the built in speakers but, with the exception of the lower frequencies, was very impressed with the clarity and volume levels. DVD titles were decent to listen to and music tolerable as well. These comments are relative to the norm for notebooks this small. Audio was way above average for this form factor IMO.

Vista Aero GUI ran smooth on the integrated Intel video. Impressively, DVI as well as SVideo out is provided.

Fit, finish, and tactile impressions were good. Alignment and rigidity also good. Keyboard compared to other products is average to good. As mentioned previously, hot/power buttons are small. My only complaint, and it applies across many makes and models, is the use of silver paint that is inclined to rub off over time. I wish coloured plastic was used instead so that wear and rub marks were not so cosmetically detracting.

I like this unit overall. Missing fingerprint reader and webcam but otherwise full featured. Good to excellent value. Recommended.