Today I got my hands on the Uniwill 223 series notebook that I blogged about yesterday. I can't say it felt perfect, but it's still the most interesting of the notebooks I've tested so far. On the negative side, the lightweight 1.9 kg computer actually felt quite heavy anyway. The difference from the HP Pavilion dv1011EA was hardly noticeable (weighing in at 2.4 kg). Of course, the HP is just a Celeron 1.4 GHz, with a slow (4800 rpm) 40 GB hard disk, so it's a slower, heavier system overall. And worst of all, I think it has a Broadcom wireless chip. Nevertheless, it's at least SEK 1500 cheaper.
Other negative things about the Uniwill computer was that it felt a bit soft and plastic, as if it would easily break. If you closed the notebook, you could squeeze the screen so it almost touched the keyboard. You could also press your finger behind the screen and the LCD crystals would change color. I don't know if that's common in notebook displays, but I will definitely check with the HP model to see if that one has the same problem. Not sure if it really is a problem though, but it gave the computer a cheaper feeling. The last negative detail was the annoying placement of the Fn key, where the Ctrl key is supposed to be. This makes it hard to adapt, since I use Ctrl so often.
On the brighter side, the wireless LAN card is an Intel PRO/Wireless 2195 (hmm or was it 2915?) (a/b/g), so appearantly it was slightly better than what I thought. Also, you get a bag for the notebook with the price, saving me a few hundred SEK:s (making the actual price difference between the Uniwill and HP models even smaller).
The screen was definitely not too small. I had expected a 12.1" widescreen to be hard to use, but it was actually of great quality. Bright, crisp and sharp. The screen looked like it was made of glass, very glossy and shiny. Perhaps that could be annoying if it reflects too much of the environment. I heard that Sony Vaio users often complain about that.
I haven't decided if I will buy it or not. I will take a closer look on the HP Pavilion dv1011EA and see how it compares. Of course, the Uniwill is more interesting since it's smaller, more lightweight, and has better hardware specs. To summarize:
| Uniwill | HP | |
|---|---|---|
| CPU | Pentium M 1.6 GHz | Celeron M 1.4 GHz |
| Wireless | Intel PRO/Wireless 2915 | Broadcom? |
| Hard Disk | 60 GB 5400 rpm | 40 GB 4800 rpm |
| Screen | 12.1" widescreen, 1280x800 | 14" widescreen, 1280x768 |
| Weight | 1.9 kg (4.19 lbs.) | 2.4 kg (5.29 lbs.) |
| Price | SEK 11000 (USD $1554, €1209) | SEK 9500 (USD $1330, €1035) |
Yes, laptops in Sweden are not cheap. The alternatives are not worth it though, because of keyboard layouts, toll fees, different power plugs, etc.
Posted by djst at April 5, 2005 10:17 PM"1.6 MHz"
:shock: ;-)
Posted by: DJC at April 5, 2005 10:48 PMPentium M cpu's are way better than a Celeron M with the same clock-speed.
Pentiums usually have more cache than an equivalent Celeron. Besides, the Celerons lack some power-saving features the Pentiums have (intel probably deactivates them).
The Uniwill seems more interesting, but in the end, it all depends on your needs, eg: battery-life, screen size and confort, features (a/b/g wifi, firewire, DVD recording...).
I would also check Linux driver support for the components.
Have you considered a dell laptop ?
David, I just called Dell in Paris. They can ship a laptop with the locale you want. Swedish keyboard, swedish system, swedish docs if you want. No problem.
Posted by: Daniel Glazman at April 6, 2005 10:05 AMI've got a Dell Inspiron 8600c and have trouble with the keyboard. It's probably me, but the keys travel down far enough that you can get your finger caught under the adjacent keys on the way back up again (if you see what I mean)! other than that, the Dell is fantastic, if heavy!
To me at least, it's agravating enough that I'm looking for a new laptop.
Posted by: Rob... at April 6, 2005 11:54 AMHej
Har du kollar på Acer?
Säljs bla av www.datorbutiken.com
och www.overclockers.se kolla under "våra märken" dom har dock bytt webbutik så allt finns inte upplagt ännu men kontakta dom.
MVH
Mattias N/
Posted by: Mattias N at April 6, 2005 11:29 PMDaniel, thanks for taking time to call Dell. Actually, Dell is quite cheap even in Sweden, and I'm seriously considering buying a system from them. I'm slowly beginning to drop the requirement to have a small and lightweight system, as I realize it will be used mostly at home anyway. However, dell.fr is not cheaper than dell.se, so importing from France wouldn't give me a better deal.
Mattias, I've always ruled Acer out because of their heavy weights, but since I'm beginning to consider a Dell system, I can might as well read up on the Acer systems as well. :)
Posted by: David Tenser at April 7, 2005 12:09 AM