Averatec 2300 Series

The Averatec 2300 Series is a solid ultraportable at a very affordable price. Weighing only 4.1 pounds, it’s the lightest dual-core notebook here and is easy to carry. The angular, black metallic flake chassis is attractive. Averatec hasn’t stripped down the configuration to make it come in at under $1,000, either, delivering 1GB of RAM, a 100GB hard drive, an integrated dual-layer DVD burner, and Windows Media Center Edition (or Windows Vista Home Premium, depending on the build date). That said, the AMD Turion 64 X2 dual-core processor trails the others here in performance.

 

The small size and glossy 12.1-inch widescreen make the 2300 Series feel more like a portable DVD player than a PC. And indeed, the screen looked good during DVD playback, with very little motion blur for a budget entry. The panel’s 1280 x 800-pixel resolution makes for crisp text and images but also mighty small default fonts and icons. Sound quality was a bit thin but more than acceptable for a machine this size. We do wish the unit offered dedicated multimedia controls, or at least volume buttons.

 

The keyboard used in the 2300 Series feels a little cramped but is still usable. Keystrokes are quiet, though the key plunge feels shallow. The wide-aspect touchpad is smooth and responsive and offers both vertical and horizontal scroll areas. The Media Center Edition OS lets you easily store and enjoy your digital music, videos, and photos, and Averatec will issue buyers a coupon for a free upgrade to Vista Home Premium. The only other software of note is the bundled CyberLink DVD Solution 4 for making use of the DVD burner.

 

The unit scored 177 on MobileMark 2005: not abysmal, but low for a dual-core notebook. The Nvidia GeForce Go 6100 integrated graphics engine is no powerhouse, either. We had to drop back to 640 x 480-pixel resolution to get a barely playable 35 frames per second on F.E.A.R. Wireless throughput from the 802.11b/g radio was good (14.5 Mbps at 15 feet), but battery life (2 hours and 33 minutes) was quite below average for an ultraportable (we recommend buying a second battery for $99.99).

 

Don’t miss our comparison product roundup: Dual Core Notebooks Under $1000.