Averatec 3700 3715-EH1

You can't judge a book by its cover, but you can always recognize an Apple iBook when you see one. Or can you? Averatec's 3700 draws more than a few double-takes when iBook users look, look again, and then look away when they don't see the glowing Apple logo on the Averatec's lid. Getting down to business, the 3700 is a stylish, capable working partner that's easy to carry and easy on the eyes. At $949, it continues the Averatec tradition of offering great specs at great prices.

Similar to the Apple iBook, the Averatec 3700 features a clean, white keyboard, and a white shell with rounded edges. It weighs a comparable 4.2 pounds and measures a compact 10.8 x 8.8 x 1.3 inches. The unit's 12.1-inch display is fine for working on documents or watching DVDs, but it's hard not to glance around with some envy at widescreen machines.

The configuration of the 3700 we tested boasted an 80GB hard drive, with plenty of room for loading photos using the 4-in-1 memory card slot or transferring video from a camcorder via the Firewire port. There's a DVD burner, which a pleasant surprise given the 3700's low price, but you shouldn't expect to apply many fancy 3D video editing effects without bogging down the system.

The 3700's touchpad offers the appealing ability of fingertip edge scrolling without mouse "tapping" turned on, as most other Windows notebooks require. This feature is a definite plus for those who prefer to actually click the mouse button instead of tapping the pad, which is prone to mis-taps, while still being able to scroll through Web pages and spreadsheets with the flick of a finger. We had to download the newest driver from the Averatec Web site for the scrolling to work, but even then it was spotty and didn't work at all with Firefox, our Web browser of choice.

Other quirks include a right Shift key that is painfully small and easy to miss, resulting in an accidental up-arrow keystroke until you train yourself on the layout. What practice won't help are the three USB 2.0 ports lined up on the right side, making plugging in multiple peripherals at once difficult. The wrist rest area of the 3700 warms up noticeably, but thankfully not too uncomfortably so.

On the inside, the 3700's AMD Mobile Sempron 3000+ processor performed on par with other value-priced notebooks. The graphics adapter's shared video memory rules out serious gaming beyond Solitaire, but it's fine for everyday Windows productivity duties, watching DVDs, and viewing digital images.

Battery life with built-in 802.11b/g Wi-Fi turned on lasted a reasonable three hours in our run-down test, but real-life use (browsing the Web, using Outlook to check and reply to e-mails, and listening to both CD music and tracks ripped to the hard disk), allowed slightly over 2.5 hours before it was necessary to search for an outlet. A dedicated button in the upper left corner, above the keyboard, forces the machine into extra-savings Efficiency mode, pushing down the processor speed to trade prime performance for better battery life.

For students and home business users looking for an easy-to-haul, easy-on-the-eyes notebook that's also easy on the wallet, the 3700 is a solid choice. Be ready for all of those double-takes when you take it out of the house.