Walmart's $598 ECS Wonder-Laptop

[Mercutio]

Walmart and ECS - the two deserve each other?

Two fine purveyors of Crap have teamed up with a very special offer.
Walmart, home to NASCAR-brand thong underware for toddlers, and ECS, home to surface-mount semiconductors that flake off like a week-old sunburn (I'm not making that up. It really happened to me.), are proud to offer yet another in a long line of, er, let's just be charitable and say "products":


AMD Athlon XP-M 1600+ processor
14.1" XGA TFT LCD screen
40 GB hard drive
128 MB RAM
DVD-ROM drive
Integrated 802.11b & Gigabit networking
Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition

All this for only $598.

Which, admittedly, is a very good price for a laptop that doesn't have any rebates.

Still, the first thing that came to my mind is "ECS is screwing up laptops now?"

 

[Will Rickards WT]

For all those college kids going off to school I think this is great.
Even if it is a bt slow, because it is ECS not because of the other components, who cares?
I'd like to actually see one and determine if it is usable. But that is all I think it will require for this laptop to be very popular. Unfortunately it is only available online at this time.

 

[CougTek]

Yeah, but with only 128MB of RAM, for a laptop, it will be VERY slow. RAM is crucial for notebooks. And 128MB would be intolerable even for a desktop, so for a laptop... WinXP won't be happy to run on this stuff.

 

[Buck]

Yeah, but with only 128MB of RAM, for a laptop, it will be VERY slow. RAM is crucial for notebooks. And 128MB would be intolerable even for a desktop, so for a laptop... WinXP won't be happy to run on this stuff.

I agree, 512 MB are a must.

 

[Fushigi]

Yes. Even 256MB results in too much paging with more than 1 app open. Plus, the RAM in this unit is shared with video so you won't even have the full 128MB available.

A coworker recently purchased a laptop for her daughter, who was going off to college. The college's minimum specs was 2GHz, 256MB, 30GB, and XP Pro. XP Pro alone killed off most contenders. She wound up with an HP Athlon 64 3000, 512MB, 60GB, XP Pro with 802.11g, firewire, USB2, internal DVD-RW/CD-RW combo, internal HK speakers, TV out, external USB TV tuner (WinTV), 64MB video (ATI IIRC) and a few other things for $1500 after rebate. Since it's a laptop in a college environment she kicked the warranty to 4 years & bought a locking cable. End result for everything including tax was about $1950. And that was retail at Circuit City. It was a better deal than our corporate Dell discount.

 

[Will Rickards WT]

That is if you like HP laptops.
And of course you need to up the RAM.
I did some research on the ECS web site and it looks like the laptop is upgradeable to 640MB. That is 128MB on board and a 200pin SO-DIMM slot to take up to 512MB of ram.
prices from crucial
512MB $104.99 (USD)
256MB $52.99 (USD)
128MB $23.99 (USD)

 

[Fushigi]

That is if you like HP laptops.
And of course you need to up the RAM.
I did some research on the ECS web site and it looks like the laptop is upgradeable to 640MB. That is 128MB on board and a 200pin SO-DIMM slot to take up to 512MB of ram.

True about the HP, but my direct experience with non-Dell laptops has been pretty much nil since around 1999 when I worked on a Compaq P133. I'm prepared to be open-minded about the HP and so far (after about 3 weeks), her daughter loves it. I'll get feedback over time to see if she has any problems with it.

The HP came with 2 256MB SO-DIMMs and maxes out with 2 1GB units.

My coworker, BTW, had a $2000 budget limit so snazzier machines like Viaoaioaioaioas from Sony and IBM Thinkpads were too expensive.

 

[Mercutio]

No great loss on the Sony models. Sony's come in dead last in PC Magazine's customer satisfaction three years running. Regardless of my opinion that's not a very good track record.

I have a hard time understanding why someone would want a no-name laptop. But I've seen Averratec notebooks around a time or two and been at least mildly impressed with what $1000 gets these days.

ECS, though, is sooooo hit-or-miss with their products. And more "miss" than "hit". On one hand it's amazing to see a $600 notebook. On the other, I don't know how someone - even an ignorant Walmart buyer - can justify $600 for noname no-frills hardware like that.

 

[Fushigi]

On the other, I don't know how someone - even an ignorant Walmart buyer - can justify $600 for noname no-frills hardware like that.

Look at the purdy AOL CD! That there shor 'nuf be wurth it, yep.

 

[Mercutio]

Ahem.
I shall now read from the book of Simpsons, season 4F, episode 14:

At the construction site for the dam, Cecil is paying Bob a visit. "Hello, brother. All's well I trust?"
"It most certainly is not!" Sideshow Bob replies, "The workmen you've given me don't know their asses from the hole in the ground they accidentally blew yesterday."
Cecil replies, "Come now, you speak as if they were a gaggle of slack-jawed yokels."
Just then, Cletus enters. "Mr. Terwilliger, come quick! There's trouble down to the cement mixer, sir!"

Down by the cement mixer, Cletus explains the problem to Bob, "See cousin Merle and me was playin' fetch with Geech - that's our old smellhound, and..."
Now we see Merle with a dog-shaped pile of cement, "Geech gone to heaven, Mr. Terwilliger."
"Oh cousin Merle, really!" Bob starts to scold.
"Temper Temper," Cecil interrupts, "You know cousin Merle ain't been quite right, lately."

Thus ends the reading of the Word of Groening

Oddly enough, I'm almost positive I met Cletus and Cousin Merle last time I was in a WalMart.

 

[Tea]

Aggghhaaaa!!! The world champions of sleaze making a laptop!!!!??? This is not good! Trust your data to the people who brought computer fraud up to the status of an art form?

OK, I thought about it for a while. Now that I've had time to ponder, my estimate of the in-service failure rate: 50% (measured over 3 years). Any other bets, gentlemen?

 

[Bookmage]

I see Cletus everywhere here in southern Virginia...
and yay to another laptop with service sold... Some lucky guy at CC will be keeping his job another month... wish it was my store

i think a laptop for 600$ is a good deal. Even if it is a POS. Cuz then, other companies will make laptops that cheap and soon i can buy a laptop for parts or something.

Look at it this way... first ECS, then PC Chips... soon... Dell... powered by ECS....

 

[Tea]

ECS is PC Chips.

 

[Fushigi]

and yay to another laptop with service sold... Some lucky guy at CC will be keeping his job another month... wish it was my store

Her daughter will be in college for 4 years. The laptop is now covered for 4 years. For her, making sure the laptop was covered the entire time her daughter is in school was easily the right thing to do. A single service issue (cracked screen, blown hard drive, Coke-in-keyboard) and it will pay for itself easily. And if nothing goes wrong at all, then there was still peace of mind from the insurance policy. Remember, not only is this a laptop, it's for a teenage girl and will be exposed to a campus & dormitory environment.

For laptops, when pricing them out I factor in at least a 3 year warranty. Due to their portability, the chances of a component failure are much higher than the desktop that never gets moved. On a $1500 machine, a couple hundred more for the warranty is cheap insurance.

Also, there aren't any PC techs in her family. The extended warranty helps ensure I won't be their personal tech support.

 

[Tea]

Very wise, Fushigi. A laptop without a three year warranty is like a ... er ... a very expensive thing without an ... um ... without a way to fix it without having lotz of money.

Errr .... Should I start that again?

 

[Tannin]

Tea seems to be having a lot of trouble with analogies lately. Shall I try? Yes?

(Oh, allright then.)

(Showoff.)

Buying laptops without three year warranties is like shipping a dozen eggs without a egg carton.

(Better little one?)

(Yez.)

(See. It's easy when you know how.)

(So. What'z it like buying a PCChipz laptop without a three year warranty?)

Err .... Like shipping a dozen eggs without an egg carton ... and without shells on them either?

 

[Bookmage]

hrm... did I mention I work at Circuit City....
It's a good idea to get the service plan. The only thing with laptops is, you have to ship it to get it fixed. The Circuit City ESP ships it back within 7 days though, so it's not too long. Now, if only I could custom build my own laptop...

 

[Mercutio]

It's a good idea to get A service plan on a laptop.

But I personally don't think it's a good idea to buy a laptop from the likes of Circuit City or Best Buy. I tell people not to do it, in fact.

No offense to Bookmage.

My problem with the laptops sold at retail is that they tend to - what's the word I'm looking for - Suck.

Presario and Vaio laptops are just as much vomit boxes as their desktop brothers. I hate to rationalize in favor of Dell, but its QC is so much better than anything I've seen in an electronics store (outside the Apple section, anyway), it's not even funny.

 

[Will Rickards WT]

Her daughter will be in college for 4 years.

Completing college in 4 years is becoming an oddity.

 

[Fushigi]

[Completing college in 4 years is becoming an oddity.

Well, that's the assumption from her mother. :lol:

 

[timwhit]

Her daughter will be in college for 4 years.

Completing college in 4 years is becoming an oddity.

Not that much of an oddity. I just did it, along with most of my friends.

 

[e_dawg]

My problem with the laptops sold at retail is that they tend to - what's the word I'm looking for - Suck.

Presario and Vaio laptops are just as much vomit boxes as their desktop brothers. I hate to rationalize in favor of Dell, but its QC is so much better than anything I've seen in an electronics store (outside the Apple section, anyway), it's not even funny.

Indeed, I cringe every time I see a 9 lb "powerful multimedia platform" with 15" LCD, a Celeron 2.8 GHz, an 80 GB 4200 rpm HD, Trident CyberBlade 3D "high performance multimedia workstation graphics accelerator" *(shared system and video memory, of course), and dynamic 3D hyper-surround audio with built-in subwoofer from Toshiba, Compaq, or HP. Tell me, do all new laptops have blindingly bright blue LEDs on them now?

As an aside: I don't know how Toshiba retains this reputation for reliable, well-built notebooks to this day, because I haven't seen a well-built Toshiba Satellite for many many years.

BTW, Merc. You would be pleased to know that after having 3 bad experiences with IBM ThinkPads at work, I am finally enjoying my ThinkPad experience, knock on wood. I can appreciate how much nicer these IBM's are than the competition. It's just on another level when it comes to build quality.

 

[Bookmage]

I normally recommend people people to get an IBM or one of the better models of Dell. Most retail stores carry the same variant and and they all pretty much suck. Those that don't suck are overpriced. So I do agree with Merc about laptops at retail stores. However, I've heard Dell's QC has been lacking as of late. I know last year I helped a friend pick a Dell Insipiron that had a power plug/socket problem. Several "fixes" later, it still has the same problem. It's more of a design issue I think. That or all the replacement parts are bad. I haven't heard much bad news about the IBM Thinkpads other than the occasional bad part bit, but they were fairly easy to fix or replace.

And for the record... over 80% of students at my school finish it 6 years....

 

[Fushigi]

When considering Dell laptops, always go with Latitude over Inspiron. Latitude machines for some reason have the better engineering. While my employer buys Dells, we have standardized on the Latitudes after numberous issues with the Inspirons.

 

[Buck]

Give your ECS notebooks to Robert Fazekas. He may have lost his gold medal, but he is still a good discus and needs something to practice with.

 

[sechs]

Latitude machines for some reason have the better engineering.

I think that you mean to say that they *have* engineering.

Everyday, I wonder more and more why anyone would buy something other than a Thinkpad....

 

[Handruin]

Granted it has been a few years, but the ThinkPad rollout for students I supported in my last job wasn't that great. I wasn't very happy with IBM ThinkPads. I'm not saying another brand is better, but the annoying things we ran into were not pleasant.

 

[Howell]

I work with Thinkpads everyday. All in the T series including 20,21,22,23,30,40 & 41. I can't say enough good things about how tough and well engineered the parts are. It is difficult to really damage one (stepping on one with a high heel will do it) and replacement parts are not hard to come by. Additionally, the number of screws required to disassemble it and contortions required are minimal. At the same time, the IBM hardware maintenance manuals are top notch and freely downloadable to anyone.

However, the price is so high I can not justify spending that much more for the quality. Yes, I know this will only lead to lower build quality in the future but I can't justify it even though I want to.

 

[Fushigi]

Just today my boss told me to order a new laptop. This is to replace my 1.6GHz P4M, 1GB RAM, 40GB disk, etc. that I detailed a long time ago in some thread I'm too lazy to dig up. It's about 2.5 years old and everything basically works. The HD is pokey but otherwise it's a decent performer.

I get to spec my own machine again, but it has to be Dell since that's all we buy. And it'll be a Latitude and not an Inspiron, so max clock speed is likely still under 2GHz. I'll post some specs once I figure out which model & how it'll be equipped.

My current laptop will become my spare laptop. My current spare laptop, a P3 500 with 256MB RAM & a 10GB HD is mine to keep. My boss doesn't want it back as it fails our corporate minimums for redeployment.

And I didn't even ask for anything. He brought up the subject.

 

[mubs]

Can I work for Santa too??!! :wink:

 

[Fushigi]

Can I work for Santa too??!! :wink:

Only if you're in the Chicago area and have a lot of experience as a technology operations manager. My manager's old job is still open.

 

[Adcadet]

my sister-in-law is just starting college. My recommendation to her father, who took it line-by-line is as follows:

Latitude D600
Pentium M 1.4 GHz with a 14.1" screen
512 MB RAM in 2 DIMMs (cheaper, and I doubt she'll ever upgrade it)
no floppy (!)
60 GB hard drive
8-24-24-24X SWDVD/CDRW combo
$1825

A bit expensive, but I know the Latitude D600 is a solid laptop (used one for about a year now).

 

[Fushigi]

The D600 actually is our corporate standard laptop. Doesn't seem too bad, but that screen would get to me over time. The apps I run really like lots of resolution.

My boss probably won't care unless I go decently north of $4K. With that in mind, so far I'm looking at a D800 with the 2GHz CPU (with 2MB L2 cache), 1GB RAM (2 DIMMs), 60GB 7200 HD, WUXGA 1920x1200 LCD, and a docking station. Undecided on the graphics - 64MB GF4 52xx or 128MB 56xx. Don't really need the extra, I suppose. Was wondering if the 56xx series would be significantly faster since I run dual-monitors. No Floppy.

So, what's a SWDVD?

 

[mubs]

Fushigi must be Mr. HawkEye #2.

 

[e_dawg]

Latitude D600
Pentium M 1.4 GHz with a 14.1" screen
512 MB RAM in 2 DIMMs (cheaper, and I doubt she'll ever upgrade it)
no floppy (!)
60 GB hard drive
8-24-24-24X SWDVD/CDRW combo
$1825

No floppy... a few years ago, that would be really inconvenient if you needed to share assignments and transfer files with friends. But you still need some type of removable storage device for that purpose -- I would add a 128 MB USB key to the list as well.

Also, would it be an option to get 256 MB of RAM (1 DIMM) and a 30 GB 4200 rpm drive and upgrade it yourself via a 512 MB DIMM and a 40 GB Seagate 5400 rpm drive (or 60 GB Hitachi 5k80 if more capacity is desired)? It wouldn't cost any more in the end, but she would get better components.

 

[e_dawg]

Actually, scratch that. I didn't realize that the 40 GB 5400 rpm drive was an option at a fairly modest price increase.

Speaking of which, what was the rationale for recommending a 60 GB 4200 rpm drive over a 40 GB 5400 rpm drive for more money? Notebook hard drives are such a bottleneck that I would categorically rule out 4200 rpm drives unless 80 GB of capacity were required. And I doubt she would even fill up a 30 GB drive, let alone a 40 GB drive.

 

[e_dawg]

The D600 actually is our corporate standard laptop. Doesn't seem too bad, but that screen would get to me over time. The apps I run really like lots of resolution. [...] WUXGA 1920x1200 LCD

You and Pradeep... 1920x1200 on a 15" LCD is madness! Hope you have vision coverage benefits at work

Was wondering if the 56xx series would be significantly faster since I run dual-monitors. No Floppy.

So, what's a SWDVD?

How do you run dual monitors? (is it a stupid question?) I would dearly love to run dual monitors on my laptop at work, with the 17" CRT showing something and my IBM ThinkPad T23's screen showing something else. But when I toggle into dual display mode using Fn + F7, they show exactly the same thing.

SWDVD... isn't that DVD with software MPEG-2 decoding or something?

 

[Fushigi]

You and Pradeep... 1920x1200 on a 15" LCD is madness! Hope you have vision coverage benefits at work

Yes, we do, but as I near 40 my vision still tests at 20-20. My current laptop does 1600x1200 on the 15" screen. The new one would be a widescreen. Also, my primary viewing is actually the external CRT, which is a 21" Dell (Trinitron) running 1600x1200.

How do you run dual monitors? (is it a stupid question?) I would dearly love to run dual monitors on my laptop at work, with the 17" CRT showing something and my IBM ThinkPad T23's screen showing something else. But when I toggle into dual display mode using Fn + F7, they show exactly the same thing.

SWDVD... isn't that DVD with software MPEG-2 decoding or something?

I use the native XP functionality (in 2K as well; dunno about other releases). Right-click the desktop, Properties, Settings, click on screen 2 (should be the external monitor) and hit the "Extend my Windows desktop onto this monitor" checkbox.

Videos & Powerpoints can auto-play full size on one screen while the other is free for other tasks. Really nice for Powerpoints; edit on one & preview on the other. Nice for multiple browser or terminal server sessions and really nice when cutting & pasting across apps.

 

[Santilli]

Well, I just can't see putting that kind of money into laptops. I've got two, one a Panasonic Cf-37 toughbook, I use most of the time, and the other is a Lombard, Mac.

I paid two grand for both, with a bunch of add on's for the mac jacking the price up. They still work, and with current hard drives, I see little reason to upgrade.

With the drop in PC price, vs. value, I just can't see buying another laptop with the POS hard drives, and speed they offer. I run old os, 9.21 and 2000 and they are fine.

What's the minimum laptop stats that work for XP and playing DVD's, and what kind of mileage do you get out of them?

s

 

[Santilli]

Oh, and I think for most people, laptops are WAY too expensive, and way to easy to steal, or destroy.

Spill test: dump a glass of wine on the keyboard, and see if you can get it fixed, and how much it will cost...

s