So......after my Genius Ergo 525 Review...this is my 2nd Review on TE.Dont expect too much...just a short nice review ...as its already 2:30 am
As usual some OT & POS to begin with :bleh:
My frend who is in Air Force was asking me to get a laptop at arnd 47k (max ) for quite a few days, but i was so busy at work that I coudn't even take out a day for almost a month....(Infy sucks ). Anyway me & frend decided to go to watch Omkara on Sunday in Rex, Brigade Road, Bangalore. Somehow we got the tickets....the show was some time away..so was strolling arnd &
seeing the volupturous chickshyeah: there...there were quite a
helllot...anyway suddenyl i saw that computer shop(mr sabir's shop) is open....I went inside & shit he was not there....anyway went back to the movie & came back to the shop & finally found mr sabit...told him I need a V3018TU laptop somehow....he said wait & somehow he called up some guys & he told he would give it...so enough of OT guys( its like hindi film yaar....my review is way too short....so had to extend this OT )
Specs of V3018TU(lifted off HP India Online Store)
Compaq Presario V3018TU - FreeDOS;
Intel® Core™ Solo Processor T1350 with Intel® Centrino® Duo Mobile Technology (1.86GHz, 2MB L2 cache);
14.1" colour WXGA High-Definition BrightView Widescreen Display;
512MB (1 x 512MB) DDR2 SDRAM (533MHz); 60GB (5400 rpm);
Super Multi Drive Dual Layer DVD±RW/±R;
Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 950 (up to 128MB shared with or more than 512MB system memory)
Build & Design:
The build quality is quite good for a laptop in this price range. There aren't any little sounds when the laptop is picked up from any corner, but the screen makes some ripples when the lid is pressed hard from behind.
Screen
Well the screen is strictly ok....the vertical viewing angle is pretty average though the horizontal one is quite good.Brightview screen really make a lots of difference. Its really glary...when u put the laptop on to the mains power,the LCD really brightens up & looks very pretty.On battery though the brightness & contrast is toned down by almost 40%.
Speakers
Compaq has replaced the position of the speakers to right above the keyboard. The speakers are Altec Lansing and have decent bass that are slightly better than the average laptop speaker. The sound gets a bit distorted when the volume is at the highest. If you are an audiophile headphones are recommended, but otherwise I found the speaker to be of acceptable sound quality.In fact quite better than those cheapo chinese speakers that creeks like Hell in Acer laptops.
Performance
Well I didn't run any specialized general benchmarks like Sandra 2007, Rightmark n all.....all I was concerned was abt playing some games & tunning 3d mark on it. Well I was expecting pretty less...but I was highly surprised by the capabilities of the GMA 950 onboard solution.
3D Mark 2001 : 4970
3D Mark 2003 : 1272(its almost at par of a Xpress 200 desktop mobo)
Tried the following games:
FarCry: Playable only at 800*600(didn't try any widescreen res)
in low settings(no AA,AF evreything else at low)--arnd 27 fps avg
NFS UG2: Played at 800*600 at medium settings----arnd 28 fps avg
CS Source: Dont know why this game was lagging so much....couldn;t get up to even 10-15 fps even at 640*480 at lowest settings...I guess some driver issues.
Other games like Quack3, Fifa 2006, AOE III is a breeze at 1024*768 at medium settings.So all in all quite a decent lappy for gaming once in a while. Of course u can't expect the performance like that of a XPS:bleh: frm this.
Keyboard & Touchpad & Layout
The keys have good comfortable feel and the key press is registered at first stroke.The keyboard is not full size but compaq has done a fair trade off. See the pics to get more of this. Touchpad is as usual synaptics one.
There are 4 buttons located on top of the keyboard which control the power on/off, speaker volume, mute and Quickplay buttons. The latter 3 buttons are touch sensitive and produce a popping noise to indicate that the button has been activated/deactivated. The volume increase/decrease buttons also follow the same principle and sliding the hand over the markings increases or decreases the volume. All of these buttons are lit blue and look very good, especially in a dark setting.Again see the pics to get more idea.
Heat & Fan Noise
This is the thing i liked in this lappy. It was very cool even when i was running 3d mark 2003....i think it uses a lot of heatpipes as all the exhause of hot air is done at the behind..just below the LCD....even the back part of it gets warm enough...if generally usage its very cool & quite.The processor steps down to 782 Mhz for general/idle usage...idle temps of CPU was arnd 37 degrees & load temps while 3d mark was arnd 53-55.
Wireless/BT
It comes with an integrated Wireless module (802.11 a/b/g with BLuetooth 2.0).Got to test only the BT when i shared my internet connection using that only betwen the laptop & my desktop. worked quite well.
Battery:
Well its with me only for a day & half...so can't comment much ...but as it is based on Core architecture & its single core...its battery life is quite good....i used it for general purposes (listening songs.word processing, movies) on battery for arnd 3 hrs at a stretch...it still had arnd 18% battery left...quite good it seems.Anyway it comes witha default 6-cell battery pack...can be upgraded to 12 which will make the battery life to arnd 5 & half hrs.
Price:
Rs 46750(incluive of all taxes,etc etc)
To Sum up the pros & cons
Pros:
=Gorgeous looking laptop -- one of the best designs out there.(HP Imprint design)
=Light Weight and definitely mobile even with the extended battery.
=Excellent battery life
=Quck Play,mute,volume change
=Price
=Firewire,S-Video out, DVD RAM Drive
Cons:
Screen is pretty average
Not even the driver cds were budled , I had to download everything
Oh...gotta wind up..already 3:30 am....how will go office tomorrow
Finally enjoy the pics & thanks for bearing this dreaded :bleh: review
Comments are welcome:hap2:
As usual some OT & POS to begin with :bleh:
My frend who is in Air Force was asking me to get a laptop at arnd 47k (max ) for quite a few days, but i was so busy at work that I coudn't even take out a day for almost a month....(Infy sucks
). Anyway me & frend decided to go to watch Omkara on Sunday in Rex, Brigade Road, Bangalore. Somehow we got the tickets....the show was some time away..so was strolling arnd & seeing the volupturous chicks
hyeah: there...there were quite a helllot...anyway suddenyl i saw that computer shop(mr sabir's shop) is open....I went inside & shit he was not there....anyway went back to the movie & came back to the shop & finally found mr sabit...told him I need a V3018TU laptop somehow....he said wait & somehow he called up some guys & he told he would give it...so enough of OT guys( its like hindi film yaar....my review is way too short....so had to extend this OT
)Specs of V3018TU(lifted off HP India Online Store)
Compaq Presario V3018TU - FreeDOS;
Intel® Core™ Solo Processor T1350 with Intel® Centrino® Duo Mobile Technology (1.86GHz, 2MB L2 cache);
14.1" colour WXGA High-Definition BrightView Widescreen Display;
512MB (1 x 512MB) DDR2 SDRAM (533MHz); 60GB (5400 rpm);
Super Multi Drive Dual Layer DVD±RW/±R;
Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 950 (up to 128MB shared with or more than 512MB system memory)
Build & Design:
The build quality is quite good for a laptop in this price range. There aren't any little sounds when the laptop is picked up from any corner, but the screen makes some ripples when the lid is pressed hard from behind.
Screen
Well the screen is strictly ok....the vertical viewing angle is pretty average though the horizontal one is quite good.Brightview screen really make a lots of difference. Its really glary...when u put the laptop on to the mains power,the LCD really brightens up & looks very pretty.On battery though the brightness & contrast is toned down by almost 40%.
Speakers
Compaq has replaced the position of the speakers to right above the keyboard. The speakers are Altec Lansing and have decent bass that are slightly better than the average laptop speaker. The sound gets a bit distorted when the volume is at the highest. If you are an audiophile headphones are recommended, but otherwise I found the speaker to be of acceptable sound quality.In fact quite better than those cheapo chinese speakers that creeks like Hell in Acer laptops.
Performance
Well I didn't run any specialized general benchmarks like Sandra 2007, Rightmark n all.....all I was concerned was abt playing some games & tunning 3d mark on it. Well I was expecting pretty less...but I was highly surprised by the capabilities of the GMA 950 onboard solution.
3D Mark 2001 : 4970
3D Mark 2003 : 1272(its almost at par of a Xpress 200 desktop mobo)
Tried the following games:
FarCry: Playable only at 800*600(didn't try any widescreen res)
in low settings(no AA,AF evreything else at low)--arnd 27 fps avg
NFS UG2: Played at 800*600 at medium settings----arnd 28 fps avg
CS Source: Dont know why this game was lagging so much....couldn;t get up to even 10-15 fps even at 640*480 at lowest settings...I guess some driver issues.
Other games like Quack3, Fifa 2006, AOE III is a breeze at 1024*768 at medium settings.So all in all quite a decent lappy for gaming once in a while. Of course u can't expect the performance like that of a XPS:bleh: frm this.
Keyboard & Touchpad & Layout
The keys have good comfortable feel and the key press is registered at first stroke.The keyboard is not full size but compaq has done a fair trade off. See the pics to get more of this. Touchpad is as usual synaptics one.
There are 4 buttons located on top of the keyboard which control the power on/off, speaker volume, mute and Quickplay buttons. The latter 3 buttons are touch sensitive and produce a popping noise to indicate that the button has been activated/deactivated. The volume increase/decrease buttons also follow the same principle and sliding the hand over the markings increases or decreases the volume. All of these buttons are lit blue and look very good, especially in a dark setting.Again see the pics to get more idea.
Heat & Fan Noise
This is the thing i liked in this lappy. It was very cool even when i was running 3d mark 2003....i think it uses a lot of heatpipes as all the exhause of hot air is done at the behind..just below the LCD....even the back part of it gets warm enough...if generally usage its very cool & quite.The processor steps down to 782 Mhz for general/idle usage...idle temps of CPU was arnd 37 degrees & load temps while 3d mark was arnd 53-55.
Wireless/BT
It comes with an integrated Wireless module (802.11 a/b/g with BLuetooth 2.0).Got to test only the BT when i shared my internet connection using that only betwen the laptop & my desktop. worked quite well.
Battery:
Well its with me only for a day & half...so can't comment much ...but as it is based on Core architecture & its single core...its battery life is quite good....i used it for general purposes (listening songs.word processing, movies) on battery for arnd 3 hrs at a stretch...it still had arnd 18% battery left...quite good it seems.Anyway it comes witha default 6-cell battery pack...can be upgraded to 12 which will make the battery life to arnd 5 & half hrs.
Price:
Rs 46750(incluive of all taxes,etc etc)
To Sum up the pros & cons
Pros:
=Gorgeous looking laptop -- one of the best designs out there.(HP Imprint design)
=Light Weight and definitely mobile even with the extended battery.
=Excellent battery life
=Quck Play,mute,volume change
=Price
=Firewire,S-Video out, DVD RAM Drive
Cons:
Screen is pretty average
Not even the driver cds were budled
, I had to download everythingOh...gotta wind up..already 3:30 am....how will go office tomorrow
Finally enjoy the pics & thanks for bearing this dreaded :bleh: review
Comments are welcome:hap2:
