4 out of 4 people found this review helpful.
Useful with minor flaws
Date of Review: Oct 28, 2008
The Bottom Line: Good low cost laptop with the basics.
I purchased this laptop in Jan. 2007. About 9 months into it, the built-in wifi interface failed and I had it replaced under warranty. It seemed to be a common problem with this model.
I use the laptop mostly for : spreadsheets, word processor, web browsing. The performance is fine with 2 Gb of RAM.
It also came with these buttons that allow one to turn on the computer purely for watching media without booting up the computer.
The computer came with Windows XP Media edition. I had to install XP Pro in order to use some business software. In doing so soft touch button to operate the media player no longer worked. It wasn't a big deal for me. When I researched this, it seemed like many others had this issue.
After about 1.5 years of use, the plastic case just below the keys of the keyboard are worn. The shiny black plastic is worn down to bare plastic.
The laptop runs pretty hot in my opinion. Actually too hot to put on my lap.
Pros
- Low cost
- decent performance for basic business applications
- hardware button to disable touchpad (useful for partly addressing one of the issues below)
Cons
- only 2 USB ports
- touch pad is too far to right. My right hand often accidentally touches is when I type
- all ports are on the sides. I use laptop mainly as a desktop replacement and prefer the ports on the back of the computer
