Today Wassim looks at the AVATAR Mercury Ultrabook AVIU-145A2. Read his review here:
http://www.overclock...ook_aviu_145a2/
Posted 30 April 2013 - 12:28 PM
Today Wassim looks at the AVATAR Mercury Ultrabook AVIU-145A2. Read his review here:
http://www.overclock...ook_aviu_145a2/
Main Gaming Rig
Intel 6700K
MSI Board
32GB Gskill
Titan X
Samsung 1TB SSD
Corsair 600T White
Noctua D14 CPU Cooler
Corsair 1200 Watt PSU
Asus 32" 4K Monitor
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RIP Verran and Nemo gone but never will be forgotten.
Posted 30 April 2013 - 02:51 PM
Is this their first product? Never heard of them.
Current System
[CPU]Intel Xeon W3670 (i7-970) @3.20Ghz---[CPU Cooling]Thermalright Silver Arrow---[MOBO]ASUS Rampage Gene III---[RAM]G-Skill Rip Jaws (24GB)(6x4GB)---[GPU]ASUS GTX 780 OC---[PSU]KingWin Lazar LZ-1000---[CASE]Bitfenix Colossus Venom Edition---[HDDs]WD Dives(6.5TB total storage) and Samsung 250GB SSD(boot)---[Monitors] 3X NEC 24" LCD2490WUXi ISP Panels and 1X Seiki 39" 4K monitor
PC Audio System (Speakers) Triad InRoom Silver's --- (DAC) Schiit Modi --- (AMP) Emotiva MiniX-a-100 --- (Headphones) Sennheiser Momentums and Paradigm H15NC --- (Headphone AMP) --- Schitt Magni
Posted 30 April 2013 - 03:18 PM
The company started selling on Newegg and Amazon a few months ago. Not much of an online presence but the website is coming together nicely and the product lineup is pretty impressive for a so far unknown brand.
Posted 30 April 2013 - 11:54 PM
Descent product for a newly formed company.
But, that driver DVD with an ultrabook looks really lame.
Posted 01 May 2013 - 04:42 AM
Descent product for a newly formed company.
But, that driver DVD with an ultrabook looks really lame.
The company is technically 14 years old, it's presence in NA online retailers is pretty recent. It's in the intro lol.
Agreed on the DVD, it does not make sense to me either .
Posted 01 May 2013 - 06:33 AM
Descent product for a newly formed company.
But, that driver DVD with an ultrabook looks really lame.
The company is technically 14 years old, it's presence in NA online retailers is pretty recent. It's in the intro lol.
Sadly, I just went through the BIOS, OS & performance tabs. Design doesn't matter to me as long as it actually performs nicely.
Posted 01 May 2013 - 01:54 PM
If you're going to buy a product, I don't care what you say, most people need it to look good. Take Apple for example, their products are very well built and look the part although not necessarily the best performers.
i7 920/GA-X58A-UD3R/3x2GB Corsair/XFX HD7950/Seagate 1TB/Fractal Design Define R3 Case/Seasonic X-Series 760W/Acer H235H Monitor/Windows 10
Posted 21 February 2014 - 07:26 AM
First a real big thank you for the review...Really userful for my choice
I like to compare the AVIU-14A2 with the Aspire S3-391-6497 because they are really similar in term of specs and design.
it have notable différences like the RAM size (4Gb vs 8Gb), Bluetooth (I think AVIU-14A2 don't have it), battery capacity (6600mAh vs 3260 mAh) but for the rest it is similar.
The think I dislike about the S3, it is the keyboard feeling; the race of the chiclets is to low. It seem to be much better with the AVIU-14A2
Posted 21 February 2014 - 10:04 AM
First a real big thank you for the review...Really userful for my choice
I like to compare the AVIU-14A2 with the Aspire S3-391-6497 because they are really similar in term of specs and design.
it have notable différences like the RAM size (4Gb vs 8Gb), Bluetooth (I think AVIU-14A2 don't have it), battery capacity (6600mAh vs 3260 mAh) but for the rest it is similar.
The think I dislike about the S3, it is the keyboard feeling; the race of the chiclets is to low. It seem to be much better with the AVIU-14A2
Glad the review was useful , let me know if you want any extra details.
The AVIU-145A2 has Bluetooth integrated through the Intel Centrino Wireless-N 130 module, Sorry for the oversight!
A few things I noticed after using the AVATAR for a while:
Not sure where you live but I wouldn't buy this at full price. In Canada, it's on sale for $479.99, in the US it's going for $649.99... really NewEgg ?
Posted 21 February 2014 - 12:04 PM
Thank for your quick feedback. Your right I found it on NewEgg.ca at 479.99 CAD. That's a fair price for this set of specs.
My Idea is to backup the Avatar folder of the factory setup and install LlNUX dsitro on. I'll try Flashcache instead Intel Smart Response Technology for the SSD caching.
Edited by sauros73, 21 February 2014 - 12:31 PM.
Posted 28 February 2014 - 09:03 AM
Hi,
Here is my feedback after a week of usage.
PROs
I tried 3 Linux distros:
Elementary OS (Graphic env.: Enlightenment) - Ubuntu fork
This distro is really based on a neat and elegant presentation. Not too much stuff to confuse you. On the AVIU-145A2, is really present a noble experience: pure, simple and elegant. Even more then what you expect OS X on a Mac Book. The hardware detection is good except for the touchpad that is working but without specific touchpad functionalities (see comment below). If you like esthetic of Apple, Elementary OS is a good candidate.
Manjaro (Graphic env.: OpenBox) ArchLinux fork
Manjaro is based on ArchLinux so mean that is more for experienced user that like to play with the configuration files. The experience was more a Space Geek one (dark style). Elantech Touchpad experiments a known bug with some Linux kernel: the cursor jump from right to left seconds... It can be fix bug not easily by a non-technician user.
LinuxMint (Graphic env.: Cinnamon) Ubuntu fork
Mint is a really popular distro but also could mean resource s**ker. With i5 CPU and 8Gb RAM, AVIU-145A2 don't suffer, the animations are smooth and snappy. As Manjaro, the cursor jumping bug has been seen here too.
Specific touchpad functionalities
In all distros the Elantech touchpad is by default recognized as a standard PS mouse. That mean the functionalities like 2-fingers scrolling or 2-fingers zoom are not working. It have a way to fix that but it mean experimented user configurations.