The Lightweight Averatec Notebook 1000

Averatec notebook computers in the 1000 series are designed to be colorful, compact and lightweight with powerful computing capabilities. Giving you a notebook designed for mobility at an extremely reasonable price, the Averatec notebook 1000 is easy on the eyes, the arms and the wallet..

Measuring roughly 10.5 by 8 by 1.3 inches and weighing only 3.6 pounds, the Averatec 1000 has a small footprint.  The 10.6 inch LCD with trademark AveraBrite technology provides WXGA graphics at 1280X768 pixels powered by the Intel 855GME Graphics chip.  The combination is perfect for the mobile user demanding a reasonably priced, easy to carry notebook with a minimal profile.

AveraBrite(TM) offers a brighter screen allowing crystal clear viewing. As with most notebooks in the light or feather-weight class, this is a fairly small screen with high resolution.

Averatec offers the notebook 1000 series with either the Intel® Pentium M ULV 373 running at 1.0 GHz or the 733 running at 1.1 GHz.  Equipped with 512 MB of DDR memory - expandable to 2 GB - and either a 60 GB or 80 GB along with a 4-in-1 media reader for MMC, Memory Stick, Memory Stick Pro and SD formats and a DVD+/CD-RW burner, the Averatec is well set-up out of the box.

Since it is oriented towards mobile computing, the Averatec notebook has a range of integrated connectivity options. Wi-Fi 802.11b/g wireless high speed LAN capability is combined with 10/100 Ethernet and a standard 56K ITU V.92 on-board modem.

The Averatec notebook also has a Type II PCMCIA expansion slot,an IEEE1394 Firewire port, 2 USB 2.0 ports and VGA out.

While the Averatec uses a 6 cell Lithium ion battery, battery life ranges from 3 to 5 hours depending on usage which is a little disappointing,

Averatec notebooks are backed by a one-year limited warranty (six months for the battery) and one-year toll-free technical support available 24/7.

This is an excellent notebook for the price, though you can find lighter ones such as Fujitsu's LifeBook P7010,
Sony's TR Series or the Actius MM20 from Sharp. At 2 pounds and a half inch, the sharp is certainly small and light, but it can't compare on the performance nor on the basic features (and the optical drive is an external).

The Sony VAIO T260P/L which is more expensive (probably between 5 and 6 hundred dollars more) includes a much more extensive software collection (though some are trial or limited subscriptions). Once major advantage is a battery life claimed to be up to 9 hours.

Another alternative worth looking at might be the IBM Lenovo ThinkPad T43. The T43 is a powerhouse and has some unique features such as a keyboard light, advanced security features, removable media bay, ThinkPad UltraNav and hard drive protection.  It is, naturally, more expensive than the Averatec.

One of the main problems is balancing performance, battery life and standard features against the price in order to find the notebook computer that will work best for you overall.  You might well start by carefully analyzing exactly what you plan to use the notebook for, say the 2 or 3 main functions.  Then any optional or less frequent uses.  What software or hardware features are absolutely required?  What would be nice but isn't really essential?  And, irregardless of how that analysis comes out, your best long-term course is get as much memory as you can afford to stuff into the your new notebook and the biggest hard drive available.