Averatec 4100

Unlike other value notebooks that tip the scales at six pounds or more, Averatec designed the 4.6-pound 4100 with a compact frame that makes it ideal for business users on a budget, students, and anyone else who’s constantly on the go. It’s not terribly fast and we wish it lasted longer on a charge, but you get a lot for a little over a grand.

The 4100 is an easy travel companion. It has a small footprint of 12.3 x 8.8 inches and measures one-inch thick. It also has style, thanks to its silver base and glossy black lid featuring the Averatec logo embossed in a silver flourish along the top edge. Adding to the cool look is the special hinge that closes with a gentle snap to hold the lid securely against the base without any need for the traditional latch.

The lid opens to reveal a white keyboard and touchpad, as well as a sea of white surrounding the keyboard and screen. The touchpad comfortably lays flush with the palmrest, which matches the widescreen aspect ratio of the screen and features both vertical and horizontal scroll zones. The keyboard is very comfortable given the 4100’s compact dimensions.

Running at 1.6 GHz and featuring a full megabyte of integrated cache memory, the AMD Turion 64 processor inside this machine offered solid application performance in Excel and Photoshop, but its 4,200-rpm hard drive slows load times a bit. A healthy 512MB of DDR memory allows for effective multitasking.

Given its strong real-world performance, we expected a good MobileMark 2005 benchmark score of around 170, but were surprised with a very low mark of 123. We’re not sure why the benchmark came in that low every time we ran it, but we don’t agree with its results.

What we can’t dispute is the 4100’s mediocre battery life. The Turion 64 consumes only 25 watts of power, but this system lasted less than 2.5 hours while unplugged. That’s below average for notebooks in this class. The fan was very quiet, but the base of the notebook got uncomfortably warm during demanding tasks when we used it on our laps.

On the upside, that runtime was unaffected by the activation of the integrated 802.11g radio, which can be turned off using the switch located on the front panel. The Wi-Fi adapter’s range, in turn, was largely unaffected by its distance from our access point, averaging 9.5 Mbps at 5 feet and 8.2 Mbps at 50 feet.

This notebook’s vivid and glossy 13.3-inch widescreen display is ideal for watching DVDs, which play buttery-smooth through the installed InterVideo WinDVD application. The system’s audio output is also surprisingly full for such a portable laptop.

The optical drive installed in the 4100 is a multiformat DVD burner, but because of the 4100’s SiS integrated graphics, we don’t recommend editing video with this machine. The burner is best suited for other tasks, like burning backup discs, burning TV shows recorded from an external TV tuner or transferred from TiVo, or for creating large DVD music mixes or photo slide shows.

Averatec complements the optical drive with a spacious 80GB hard drive and an SD/MMC/Memory Stick reader. A PC Card slot, FireWire connector, and three USB 2.0 ports offer plenty of connectivity options, while VGA and S-Video outputs handle external displays.

As one might expect from a system with integrated graphics, the 4100 turned in a stillborn 3DMark03 score of 179. Far Cry was playable on this notebook only when we cranked the resolution down to 800 x 600 pixels and pegged all of the detail settings at their minimums.

Averatec throws in a nice selection of software, including Microsoft Works 8.0, Norton AntiVirus 2005, and CyberLink DVD Solution. The company backs this system with a one-year warranty and 24/7 toll-free tech support.

As long as you don’t need to work more than a couple of hours away from an outlet, this stylish thin-and-light notebook can get the job done. It’s affordably priced, packed with features, and delivers good productivity performance.