Sotec 3120x
1.2ghz Mobile Celeron / 12" XGA / 256MB RAM / 20GB Hard Drive / DVD-CDRW/4.4lbs
Available at Sams Club/Walmart, Best Buy and Office Depot
Who should buy this?
This is perfect for people that understand that "Laptops should be portable"
and not "Desktops in a bag". Its lightweight, packed with everything
you need and cheap as heck.
Who shouldnt buy this?
Power fiends, over-masculine men and rich folk. This plays games like counter-strike
and the sims good enough for me, but it definitely isnt the power notebook that
most people out there are looking for. Its plenty powerful, but its no Compaq
2800.
Price:
At $949 retail then this is a steal. You can get it much cheaper at places like
walmart/sams club, bestbuy.com or with coupons at office depot. Yes, there are
faster, more powerful notebooks out there but those are in another class. This
is an ultralight with onboard dvd/cdrw so for what you get its very affordable
Exterior:
Magnesium Alloy case. I always love laptops that use that. It looks silver in
pictures but mine has a hint of blue in it.
Performance:
Well, I understand that laptops don't need to be equivalent to your home desktop.
So the processor being "only" 1.2ghz Celeron doesn't bother me at
all. Its plenty fast for any normal sensible user. Its nice to see that despite
the low price it comes with 256mb RAM. My last notebook only came with 128mb
so I had to fork over some extra money right away. 256 here will keep me happy
for a while.
Ports:
3USB 1.1, Ethernet, 1 PCMCIA, VGA out, headphone and mic jack and modem. Pretty
standard stuff. A bit TOO standard for me. No firwire? No S-Video? What about
my divx files? This would've been a great portable Divx player. The port positioning
for some things are weird too. The usb are all on the right side. Meaning, when
I put in my USB mouse then its awkward. The usb shouldve been on the other side.
Headphone and volume are on the front of the machine and the vga is on the left
side. Weird.
DVD/CDRW Drive:
Works like a charm. At 10x burning then its very handy when on the road. Plus
DVD's are always a good time waster. Everything worked as promised.
Battery Life:
I timed it at 2:10 before my 10% warning came up while installing. It ran another
20 minutes before hibernating. I figure that during less strenuous activities
then you'll average 2:45
Screen:
1024x768 on 12" screen takes some getting used to. But since I had that
before on my Gateway 3150 then it wasn't too tough. It is small though compared
to what the other guys out there have but again, it's a laptop. Personally 13"
is the sweet spot but 12 is just fine on this guy.
Keyboard:
By far the thing that I hate the most here. Whoever designed this thing in Japan
obviously doesn't understand how keyboards should look. I may be exaggerating
but still, this keyboard takes some getting used to. Primarily due the backspace,
insert, delete and arrows layout. (See Picture) I am constantly hitting "end"
instead of backspace and "del" instead of the right arrow. "PrtSc",
"Scroll Lock", "Num Lock" and "Pause Break" all
get their own dedicated buttons on top while "F11" "F12"
"Pg Up" "Pg Dn" are forced to requiring holding down the
"Fn" in order to work. Pretty ridiculous.
Audio:
At first I was upset by how quiet it was. I could barely hear anything. But
then someone on the newsgroup pointed out this link on Sotecs site. Once I enabled
3D sound then everything is fine. As far as quality goes, its pretty standard
stuff. I do like volume wheels so that you can control the volume quickly without
using hotkeys and having it located in front is growing on me.
Click
here for 3d sound directions
Noise:
Pretty quiet machine. There is a fan on back and on the bottom which turn on
when needed and so far they don't turn on much. Ive had some loud laptops before
so this one is pretty good so far.
Software:
WinXP Home, WinDVD 4, Roxio Easy CD Creator 5, MS Works. Well, outside of the
incredible WinDVD, the rest are all suck. I partitioned immediately, reformatted
and tossed on XP Pro. The thing that irritates me is that you don't get install
CD's for the software included. Only a restore disk (which is how everyone seems
to be doing it nowadays). So I had to get WinDVD 4 through other avenues even
though it came with the computer originally.
Upgradeability:
1 slot for Ram upgrades and there already is a 128mb chip in there. So if you
want to max it out to 356 MB then you need to dump the 128 and buy a 256. The
processor has a "void if removed" sticker and a few screws so it looks
upgradeable but outside of that then this is a disposable machine. Hard drive
and cdrom and both fixed so 20gb is what you're stuck with.
Pros:
- Extremely affordable for an ultralight
- Onboard DVD / CDRW
- Quiet
- Magnesium Case instead of plastic
Cons:
- Keyboard layout takes getting used to
- Sotec? Popular in Japan but who knows how they'll do here
Click for more
info on My Sotec 3120x
