Notebook specifications, see anything wrong?

[jameslee]

I'm looking for a notebook that's not too expensive and came across this:

http://www.egghead.com/category/inv/00002942/03088999.htm

Here's the run down:

Ashton Digital Passport 2000? w/ Intel® Pentium® III Processor 800MHz,
12.0GB Hard Drive,
128MB SDRAM,
10/100 Base-T LAN,
14.1" XGA Active Matrix LCD,
6X DVD-ROM,
56K (V.90) Modem,
and Free Carrying Case (US $29 value)

Does anyone see anything wrong with this notebook? It's brand new and seems considerably cheaper than other notenooks with the same specs. I see that it has not OS installed, but that won't be a problem.

What i don't know about is the spec. above which i've bolded. I've never seen a notebook scrren described as XGA; can anyone tell me about this?

Thanks in advance,
James

 

[jameslee]

Sorry, fixed the link.

 

[bbqweed]

James,

that's normal...XGA is used a lot to describe the screens on laptops..."XGA" is used by big name companies, especially DELL. SO you have nothing to worry about....Only thing is the quality and rep of manufacturer...that's all... other than that, the LCD spec seems fine...

 

[jameslee]

Thanks bbqweed.

i can't believe i missed Dell's use of XGA. Don't suppose you know anything about how it rates compared to other types of displays? I see Dell offers a 12.1" SVGA active-matrix display, 14.1-inch TFT XGA active-matrix display, and larger displayed described as:

• Super XGA+,
• Super XGA, and
• XGA?

Once again, any help would be appreciated.

 

[AndyHui]

Generally, when talking about laptops, SVGA means a resolution of 800 x 600, while XGA is taken for 1024 x 768.

ATI Rage LT....well...you can forget about playing 3D games on that.

Other than that, the specs look quite OK to me.

 

[jameslee]

Thanks for the comments AndyHui.

Is the video card that bad (with respect to 3D gaming)?

 

[Gunbuster]

One thing is wrong, Intel does not list a mobile p3 800 yet

 

[jameslee]

Yeah, i recently discovered that. Do you think they could fit a slot 1 into a notebook? If that's the story, the notebook probably eats up power and generates a lot of heat.

Anybody out there have a 800 MHz mobil notebook?

 

[AndyHui]

It's probably an FC-PGA processor, using the entire casing as its heatsink.

 

[jameslee]

Ya' got me there. i have no idea about FC-PGA processors, sounds like a golf term to me.

That sounds bad, is it?

 

[AndyHui]

Intel manufactures processors in 2 formats: Slot 1 and FC-PGA. SLot 1 is that great big black cartridge while FC-PGA is back in the normal small square chip shape. Naturally, Slot1 is impossible to fit in a standard laptop, while FC-PGA is feasible because it is a lot smaller.

True mobile CPUs come in a completely different package called an MMC or TCP.

The thing that you should be worried about is that FC-PGA is not really for laptops.....you can have all sorts of cooling and environmental tolerance problems.

Hope that helps.

 

[jameslee]

i have the notebook now and everything seems okay, but i haven't really had a chance to use it yet.

Once again, thanks for the advice AndyHui.

The manuals don't say much, and i don't think my father would like it much if i take a screwdriver to his laptop to find out the truth, so i guess we'll never know.