Advent 7014 Review

Overall Rating

Not expensive. Standard PC architecture. High-end desktop CPU, top graphic chip, lots of memory. Works well.

Stereo sound only. Ports missing. Battery problems.

First of all, this product is a "desktop replacement". It means that

- it is heavy,

- it consumes lot of power,

- when it runs from battery the performance is low,

- when it is plugged in it is fast and

- it is cheap.

It is very important to note that when it is unplugged the performance is significatly lower to save battery life. Even though it has a 2.8GHz CPU a notebook with a slower CPU optimised for mobile usage may outperform it.

Let's speak about Advent 7014. When it is unplugged you can still watch a DVD movie, so the performance drop is not a problem in this case. If you have a cheap printer which needs everything calculated by the PC (most of colour jet printers are like this) then you will feel the difference.

This machine is not designed to be carried all the time, so there is even an internal floppy drive in it. I will never use it, but it is there. Nowdays a memory cards are much frequently used, but the designers left it out. There is not any serial port, but it is not really needed nowdays. PS/2 port is missing too, so if you want to use your old mouse or trackball you have to buy an PS/2-to-USB adapter for L18-20. If you use an external mouse/trackball you have one remaining USB port for your printer, memory card and scanner. Not too much.

Maybe the most important problem of all is the sound output. You can connect stereo speakers only. The sound chip itself supports quadrophonic and 4.1 output, but the microphone input somehow cannot operate as rear output. Therefore you cannot enjoy special sounds effects of games and DVD films. If you find a way to overcome this problem, please, post a comment saying how you achived it.

The battery said to be Li-Ion. It is written in the User's Manual that when the machine operates from AC then the battery is not used. I made an experiment. When the battery was full I switched off the PC and removed the battery. Next day I plugged in the charger and took back the battery. It started to charge. Such thing must not happen to a Li-Ion battery! So either the battery is not Li-Ion or the controller of the battery charging is far from being perfect.

Charging the battery too often may shorten its lifetime. So I decided not using the battery at all. I switched on the computer without the battery in and started to use it. Everything was fine for five minutes when suddenly Windows XP shut down the PC. It seems that it received a signal from somewhere, because XP made a proper shut down saving all data. It was not battery low signal, because in such a situation a note should appear. No note in Event Log. Unfortunately it is reproducible. I do not know what happens, but it seems that the hardware is not compatible with Windows XP. At least not without battery.

I am thinking on returning the PC and ask for another type.

Members' Comments onSam J.'s Review

• danny boy. on 16th Jun 2003

  chap...... buy a soundblaster extigy for a mear £150 then see what sound you get.
  hope this helps