220 A5

[Unregistered]

Greetings Everyone.......

I need to buy a laptop and have been looking at the 220 A5. I've seen so many mixed reviews about this product that I am about to pull my hair out. Generally speaking, are people on this board happy with this product. I was thinking about buying Gateway 200XL, Toshiba R100 or the IBM T41p.......I am interested in something that looks nice, thin and excellent performance

What seems to be consistent on this board and the CNET board is the issue with the build quality of the 220 A5. Some on both boards have indicated buttons have popped off and things just break not to mention the shi**y customer service.

I would be very interested in everyone's opinion . The bang for the buck with the 220 A5 is just amazing......All the computers I mentioned above don't come cheap!!!!!

Cheers

[Ioman]

Hi Welcome to the Designtechnica forums. Please register so we can chat some more.

Personally, I sold my VPR Matrix laptop and now I am using the Gateway 200XL. The 200XL is the perfect laptop in my opinion. It looks great, has a very long battery life, big keys, DVD writer, and is super slim and sexy.

It works everytime, never locks up (even when going into standby mode) and is incredibly fast. I found out that it is actually made by Samsung, which in my opinion is pretty cool. It also has FireWire and USB support.

I doubt that VPR Matrix will be around as a company anymore, so if you do decide to go that route, watch out for poor customer service.

Here is Designtechnica's review of the 200XL: http://reviews.designtechnica.com/review488.html

[Cloud]

This really is a no brainer. I would stay away from the VPR products at all cost.

I would look at the Gateway 200XL or the Sony VAIO PCG-Z1A

[spankers]

Depend how much you want to spend and what you want from the machine. My 185A5 cost me half of what the 200XL goes for and has performed flawlessly aside from the crap built-in wireless (which I've replaced with an Xterasys XG-600 802.11g for about $65).

The downsides for the VPR widescreens: they run hot, they have less than stellar IDE performance, and VPR/Best Buy/Quanta really suck in the product support department (no BIOS updates, no list of supported accessories (e.g., mini-PCI wireless cards)).

All in all, I'm pretty happy with the bang/buck ratio... but then again I am a cheap bastard and have a backround in computer science/engineering.

Good luck.

[Ioman]

The 200XL starts at about $1400 and goes up from there. Not bad if you ask me.

[kahleeb]

I have had my VPR Matrix 220A5 for a few weeks now and am really impressed by it. It is sleek, sexy, and powerful. While this particular model doesn't come with WiFi, I have put an order in for the Intel card they stick in Centrinos for 42 bucks.

I have had a few minor issues with the machine. First off, it can get hot. To resolve that, I purchased a Targus Cool Pad for 30 bucks at Fry's. It dropped the temp over 10 degrees. Besides this, it also makes a nice stand and you know that heat wno't build up.

The only other problem I see is with drivers. I don't see any new drivers being introduced. But I don't usually update my drivers very often unless it is a video driver. The only reason I do this is for gaming. I won't be doing much hard-core gaming with only 32 MB of Video RAM so I don't see this as an issue.

Overall, I got this machine brand new for 1100 bucks after sales tax and rebates. For the cost, you won't find a better notebook.

[geekrock99]

stay away from VPR!

1) keyboard broke
2) dvd-cdrw stopped working all together
3) case has an 1" crack

this all heppened in the first four month of use. it's a ****ty laptop.

geekrock99

[kahleeb]

I guess I will find out in a few months if I agree with you or not. From what I have read and experienced, if you are going to have problems with hardware, it will happen within the first few months of use.

It seems like not many people like the VPR machines on these boards. Are there any happy VPR users besides myself?

[spankers]

Hell yes I'm happy with the vpr!!! I have had very good luck with my 185A5 and have had it since March. No casualties. I have yet to see another NVIDIA equipped widescreen at the price I got mine for ( < $1000). The IDE performance is less than stellar but acceptable and the stock wireless sucked but that was a cheap fix with a Xterasys XG-600 ($65).

The OpenGL performance is pretty good. Every now and then I play Quake or Return to Castle Wolfenstein on the 185 and have had no performace issues with 3D rendering.

The Toshiba MK-6022GAX HDD I put in helps the IDE perfomance (particularly post boot) due to it's 16MB buffer and seems to run cooler than with the stock hard drive. (If you don't feel comfortable mucking around with delicate laptop bits, don't try upgrading the internals of the vpr... it is a tedious task)

Best of all it does an excellent job running Linux!

Cheers.

[flecrone]

I'm also very happy with mine -- 200A5 purchased in January and used as my primary computer (for work) even since. The only real problem I've had is the screen buzz, which was easily corrected (and it wasn't all that noticable to begin with). Love the wide screen and prefer watching DVDs on it to watching them on my 39" TV.

As with most forums, people tend to post when they have a problem or are not satisfied. with something. People who are happy with their product don't tend to post very often.

[BladeRunner]

Everyone,

Thanks for the input. It seems like it will be random pot luck to get a VPR machine that has no problems with it. I think all laptops have some percentage of failure problems out of the box. The problem is that how high is the percentage rate. What really seems to be consistent across all boards is that perhaps there is a quality issue with the VPR. I realize some have an agenda to bad mouth another product, but, you can tell the real honest post from the agenda ones. For example, there is no question about the quality of an IBM. I used to have an IBM Thinkpad at a previous job. While there were issues with the laptop, IBM customer service was outstanding in resolving them. Unfortunately, they are some of the most expensive laptops out there and they are not cool/slick to look at.

I am befuddled at the fact that VPR/Best Buy can't get there friggin act together regarding this quality issue. I think they are on the verge of an awesome product. Looks, thin, performance and price are outstanding. But, when your customer service and the quality is supposedly shi**y, then someone needs to let us in on the joke. I guess when you produce an inexpensive laptop, you have to cut corners somewhere....

I am basically looking for a laptop that is thin (under 1 inch) with a 14 inch screen or higher that is cool to look at. Apple is out......My search will continue......

Cheers

:rock

[Ioman]

Did you check out the Gateway 200XL like I said?

http://reviews.designtechnica.com/review488.html

It is exactly what you are looking for. Read the user reviews on it as well: http://reviews.designtechnica.com/user_reviews488.html

[CYberDog]

Just got my 220 A5 last 30 Oct, so far so good. Bought mine for $999 before tax ($1,199 - $100 instant rebate - $100 mail-in rebate) and for its specs, it is worth every penny (see http://www.vprmatrix.com/products_notebook_220A5.asp). I am currently using a belkin 54G wireless card and it works with no problems at all (except for the belkin 54G wireless router, which has WEP encryption that doesn't work so I had to use MAC address filtering for security purposes).

I agree with flecrone, the screen buzz is not that noticeable and it does not bother me at all. Notebooks do warm up but you can get a USB cooling pad for that (which is also portable and does not restrict your "mobility", usually has small 0.2 to 0.4 wattage - depending on the number of fans it uses). I got mine from Ebay for $20.

Tech support have also improved, as VPR now has a 24/7 technical support at 1-800-332-4800 (of course you can always take it to your local bestbuy store for repair).

To sum it up, if you are looking for a bargain laptop with great specs and stylish as well, I would say that the vpr is well worth its price.

CYberDog

[Armstead]

I've had mine (2205a)for about four months so far and it rocks. I 'm not gentle with it and use it every day for no less demanding tasks as video editing and 3D animation. The USB 2.0 and firewire ports are a godsend, the screen is nice n' large, plus it's beautiful to look at. Not to mention it was relatively cheap. (I hope you don't need that rebate too soon, because I JUST got mine three days ago.)

Drawbacks? The sound went out, but looked at this board and found a quick solution. (remove drivers, allow windows to find them again) and the rear rubber feet fell off. Hell if I know where they are now.

I reccomend the macine.

[aguynamedace]

I've had my vpr for about 2 months now, and am incredibly happy with it. For the price you can't go wrong.

[Madgenius]

I'm another happy vpr customer.