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VPR Matrix 200A5 Reviewed
An anonymous reader writes "The hard to find VPR Matrix 200A5 laptop has been reviewed. Never heard of it? It's a laptop that's designed by F.A. Porsche and sold exclusively by...Best Buy! It seems there is starting to be a rather large following of the VPR line of laptops, but that they are getting tougher to find at Best Buy (not sure if they are discontinuing or if they are selling out stock before releasing a new version.)"
Slashdot had the story when these things were announced here. And no, it's not a dupe, this is a review.
There is no reasonable defense against an idiot with an agenda
:wq
I read somewhere that WorstBuy is dropping the whole vprMatrix line. Probably explains why I was able to get the 17" LCD monitor for $300 after rebate. I've been trying to buy another LCD for the past two months and can't find them. In fact, the store doesn't seem to have much vprMatrix stuff at all.
These look nice and have nice spec/feature sheets, but have had some trouble with reliability. The Best Buy computer guy told me that genuine failure returns are running around 10%. They run _very_ hot, even for a laptop, to the point where I think it would be uncomfortable to have it on your lap for an extended period of time.
Then after 8 hours of hair pulling and cursing, it turns out it has an ALi chipset. Not Soundblaster Live! Oh, but that's not all folks. A few days later, I call asking for motherboard info.
Frustrating. Really frustrating. The machine itself is quite nice though. Beautiful widescreen, fast RAM, and very stylish. If there is this supposed following of vprMatrix users, I wonder if they would be of better use than tech support.
IWARS.
People, in general, disappoint me. Politicians even more so.
-Lucas
"Does it run Linux well?"
Every time I drop by the local Best Buy (Woodside, Queens, NYC) the VPR laptops are missing more-and-more keys from the keyboard. Doesn't say much for the quality of the components on the things.
The speakers are also pretty deplorable (after demoing the Beethoven sample that comes with XP on various display laptops)
I hate Grammar Nazi's
This Porsche and the other Porsche are from the same family, but completely different companies.
Heute die Welt, morgen das Sonnensystem!
Dr.Ing.h.c.F.Porsche AG is the German car manufacturer that has been designing and producing sports cars for over 55 years. link.
Porsche Design is a different company that does all sorts of design work, from radios to sunglasses to pens. It was split off of the car company back in the 80's, I believe.
So, Porsche Design really didn't design the 911 (the body of the car was designed by Ferdinand "Butzi" Porsche (Ferry's son) while the engine was designed by Ferdinand Piech (Dr. Porsche's nephew) in 1963).
--- witty signature
Don't laugh, but their kettle, toaster, coffee maker and citrus press are all worthy of drooling over too.
Oh, and so is the Data Bank, a FireWire external hard disk drive that they designed for LaCie, that's styled to look like a silver ingot.
I'd link directly to their kitchen accessories but their flash-based site is annoying. If you're interested in viewing them, look at them here, courtesy of Amazon.co.uk.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
F.A. Porsche (the guys who designed the 911 and some Samsung LCD monitors)
Actually, no. If you read the previous posting you would discover that this is Porsche Designs GmbH, *not* the same as the car company, nor the designers of the 911. These folks started out in 1972 (when was the 911 first on the market?) and design everything from LCDs to kitchen sinks to scooters. But sorry, no 911.
And by reading into their website a little further, they have 12-14 employees. Makes you wonder why this laptop is so shoddy...
But I have recomended their desktops to quite a few people now that I am no longer in the whitebox business. They seem to actually get it. They balance HDD, graphics and ram nicely (unlike many OEM's that will STILL include 128MB or ram on a system with a 64MB video card and then charge you an arm and a leg to upgrade it.) So far no complaints from any of the people who bought em. In fact if I couldn't beat their prices using newegg and a free OS I would probably buy my next pc from them.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
I currently work for BB, as the lead tech at a best buy in the northern Chicago area (i'm actually typeing this while on the clock). At the moment, and from what i've been told, yes, the current line of VPR laptops are being closed out. We have carried them since before christmas, if i recall, and it the 200a5 was reviewed in Maximum PC mag. They keep saying that they are comeing out with a new line, which i hope they do, but i haven't seen nor heard anything.
It's too bad, becasue they are some REALLY nice laptops, arguably the best we carry. I haven't seen nor felt any heat issues, nor had any reliability issues with them (Sony, in my experiance, is the worst of the bunch in that catagory). I've worked with them extensivly, and i can't report any high heat issues. My only complaint was that the Northbridge, made by Ali, has absolutly horrid preformance, and in testing scored around half the memory bandwith of other comparable laptops. Also, the graphics chipset is only 32mb.
BTW, the price that a lot of places are quoteing at, and the price on the VPR website, is way off. When we still actually had an active stock, they were selling for $1600 after rebates, and when we were trying to clear them out, they went for $1350 after rebates. Good luck finding them now, though. If you can, the 180b5 was also great, pretty much the exact same thing as the 200a5, only with a 1.8 GHz proc and a 30gb hard drive, vs. the 200a5's 2GHz and 40gb.
I'm not too sure what is going on with the whole VPR thing though. I hope they are continued, they were wildy sucessful, our stores could almost never keep them in stock, desktops or laptops. We are getting a new high-end desktop in, as of 4-29-03. To my knowlage, it's the 9150, a 3GHz P4 with dual 120gb hard drives in RAID 0, and a GF4 Ti4200. So they VPRs arn't dead, i hope they are continued, but i don't know. It is nice, though, to actually carrey a quality computer, insted of selling e-machines and compaqs all day. I don't know why they would be closed out, they were wildly profitable, and customers and employees both love them.
The powerbooks have mediocre screens, horrible pointing devices, and average keyboards. They are far slower than comparably priced x86 models. Plus they're ugly; that silver that looks so cool now is going to look cheap and tacky in a few years. I suppose this is slightly better than the VPR Matrix thing, which looks cheap and tacky right now.
The ThinkPads are the only notebooks worth looking at.
Introduction
Next time you are at your local Best Buy store, you may want to check out that sleek looking laptop with the unfamiliar name. VPR Matrix is Best Buy's own line of private label PC's found only at Best Buy stores. The 200A5 is the VPR Matrix flagship laptop designed by world renowned F.A. Porsche design house. F.A. Porsche is the grandson of the legendary car designer Ferdinand Porsche. In 1963 F.A. Porsche designed the body of the Porsche 911 car. Then in 1972 he began his own design firm, Porsche Design in GmbH Austria. You may recognize some of F.A. Porsche's design influences on many consumer electronics, including Samsung LCD monitors and the entire VPR Matrix computer line. The F.A. Porsche influence is immediately noticeable on the VPR Matrix line. The 200A5 is encased in a modernistic magnesium case with an emphasis on simplistic design and function. Buttons are easily laid out on the 200A5 with inputs and controls where you would expect them. But it is what's underneath the hood of this stylish laptop that really shines.
Features
The 200A5 uses some of the best brand name components available. Upon receiving the 200A5 the first thing to stand out other than the magnesium case, is the slot loading DVD/CD-RW combo drive. For Windows based systems, a slot loading drive is almost unheard of. Apple enthusiasts have long been enjoying the aesthetic pleasures of a slot loading drive. The 200A5's slot loading drive is manufactured and provided by Matsushita, Panasonic's parent company. The 200A5 features a 40GB 4,200 RPM IBM Travelstar hard drive and the graphics adapter is a 32MB Nvidia GeForce4 420 Go. Powering the 200A5 is Intel's 2.0GHz Mobile Pentium 4-M processor. The 200A5 also comes equipped with 512MB DRAM (2x256MB) 266MHz DDR SDRAM. WiFi 802.11b is integrated. There is one PCMCIA slot available on the 200A5, but that should be all you need since the system has most of what you need internally.
Audio and video enthusiasts will love the 15.2" widescreen display and Sonopur audio system. Rumor has it that the display on the 200A5 could possibly be manufactured by the same company that produces the displays for Apple's PowerBook line. VPR Matrix is proudly promoting the Sonopour sound system in the 200A5 as rivaling that of most home theater systems. What the Sonopur sound system does is up-sample the audio by interpolating between samples to effectively double the quality of sound. Although the Sonopur audio system sounds good in theory, you will need to use headphones for a noticeable difference in sound, the speakers on the 200A5 do it little justice. One cool feature the 200A5 has is the ability to play CD audio with the notebook side turned off giving you the same functionality as a portable CD player using the front controls.
The 200A5 features Microsoft's Windows XP Home Edition as well as Microsoft Works 6.0, and CyberLink's PowerDVD video player. Those that despise the hundreds of useless preinstalled software will enjoy the included necessities on the 200A5.
Use and testing
The first thing you will notice about the VPR Matrix 200A5 is the beautiful widescreen display. Our 200A5 came with no bad pixels and is very bright and easy to see from most viewing angles. Maximum resolution on the 200A5 is set at an unusual 1280x854 pixels, but is pulled off nicely. DVD playback is smooth and looks great on the widescreen LCD display. While the display is not a true 16:9 aspect ratio, the 200A5 does a great job of creating a widescreen feel. The slot loading DVD/CDRW drive works good, but is relatively loud compared to Apples' PowerBook line featuring their slot loading drive.
We tested the VPR Matrix against two other machines, a Dell C640 Latitude and a Toshiba Satellite 5205-S503. All three systems have very similar specs, the Dell only has 256MB of memory however and the Toshiba has a more powerful video card. Both the Toshiba and VPR Matrix systems have the same IBM Travelstar 40G 40GB hard drive. In our 3D benchmarking tes
HOWEVER, there are _quite_ a few issues with it. For one, the damn built-in NIC doesn't work 99% of the time. I have resorted to using my external PCMCIA NIC (or wireless, when it is available). Seems pretty bad to me, but mine could just be defective (or I could have just fsck'd it up testing out all those Linux drivers, heh). Also, the keyboard is VERY fragile, ugh. Keys pop off all the time -- there are 4 posts, one in each corner under every key... the bottom 2 hinge onto the board and the top two snap on... those top two break very easily. What I find questionable is the fact that Best Buy salesmen were trying to tell me the keyboard is very fragile and really used that to try to get me to buy the warranty (I didn't, but I might go back to get it, ugh). Also... (and I should've done my research on this ahead of time) it uses an Ali chipset, which I'm _not_ very fond of. Getting apm working properly is a B*TCH. (I haven't succeeded thus far)
Overall, I made a decision, and I'm stuck with it, so I guess I better be happy with the vpr Matrix 200A5. Since hindsight is 20/20, looking back, I should have waited, for pretty much all other laptop manufacturers have put out better stuff out there (though not as light or stylish) for considerably cheaper since I bought it. My original plan was to buy the 15" PowerBook, which I didn't for various reasons, so I bought the 200A5 instead. I regret it. I would've boughten the 17" PowerBook, but cost is an issue for me. My suggestion to other people? Stay away from it (if you can even find one), and get either a PowerBook instead, or if you like x86, get a Toshiba or a Compaq/HQ or whatnot. There are some very nice laptops out on the market with better hardware specs and cheaper prices. Just my $.02.
If you have the service plan then the manager's will probably more than willing to exchange it the next time it breaks down. Ask for the General Manager and also try more than one store. If you only have manufacture's warranty then you are going to have a VERY hard time getting a new one seeing as most manufactures have a no lemon policy of 6 repairs wheras the best buy service plan is 3 (then on the next one you get a new laptop unless the manager is anal and wants to send it in to have it looked at). As a general rule tho, you can get what you want if you have the service plan and its not your first or second repair in a short amount of time.
I have to disagree and an owner of one of these I've been able to use it comfortably as a "lap top" for hours without having it get painfully hot. This contrasts with the latest PowerBooks and my previous laptop a Sony Vaio (ain't it cute) which both got up to scorching temperatures within minutes of lap top use.
Maybe I just got a lucky cool one...
they have a shitty returns policy, and they Quality control really sux. I've had mine in 4 times. spend the extra $$ and buy a named-clone
I had a ton of issues with this laptop. In the process or dealing with the highest of the high ranking ppl in customers service, they told me this line was being dropped anyway, thus the huge rebates.
I have the same laptop and have had terrible problems with mine. Actually, most of the problems have been with Best Buy support, but still...
Upon opening the packaging, I discovered no power supply. Back to the store I went. Several days later, keys were falling off the keyboard, and I couldn't get them to stay on. Back to the store yet again (and remember, this is Best Buy. A trip to get service necessitates at least 1 hour in line, waiting for the one guy in the service department to get around to you). Finally, a week later, I discovered that more than half of the screws had fallen out of the case. Once again, back to the store for replacements. When I got home from that service trip, I plugged in the laptop at home, only to see a curl of smoke rising lazily from the power supply connector. Needless to say, the laptop would no longer boot.
That is when the fun began. I took it back to Best Buy (4th time in 2.5 weeks!!!!) and was told that it would be fixed in 14 days. 14 days came and went. Phone calls revealed that the 'service center' had not even opened the package until the day before it was due to be back in my hands. Once service did finally open the box, they discovered, not surprisingly, a burnt out motherboard. Oops, that part has to be shipped in from overseas. Imagine that, a laptop service center that doesn't have a single spare motherboard in stock! Once again, this is Best Buy, so don't forget that each of my phone calls required at least 40 minutes of time on Hold, occasional accidental hang ups, circular redirections to multiple departments, the works.
Finally, nearly 2 full months after I had sent it in (well over 30 business days), I gave up and sent my story to the technical editor of every relevant magazine in the industry, and filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau. The very next day, I got a call from the Best Buy service tech with tnews that the laptop was shipped that day. I imagine they just ripped teh motherboard out of a new model to avoid bad publicity.
I finally received the laptop, which I had delivered to Best Buy on 2/12, on 4/4. Meanwhile, I had been accused of taking the laptop apart myself, since it had mismatched screws in the bottom, and was told that the missing soundcard (huh? Turned out, the parts sheet the service tech was looking at was incorrect) would have to be replaced by me at a cost of about $500. THat was resolved after a bit of yelling and screaming on my part, but not before I was hung up on by one tech. I won't say I wasn't being rude, but still...
The thing is still working now, in late April, but I have still not owned it for even half as long as it has spent in service (no, I didn't do the math).
The good news is that Linux works really well on it, except for ACPI support. The nvidia drivers for the video card seem well supported in Linux with at least one update since I purchased the hunk of junk. The sound card works fine, but doesn't have ALSA drivers. The wireless card was a no brainer, but has terrible range. It can't find the linksys access point in my kitchen from my bedroom, 30 feet away, through open doors. Actually, I suspect that the tech neglected to reconnect an antennae or something. I just shove in my old wavelan card and don't worry about it for now. The wavelan ahs excellent signal strength at the same distance. I am not about to relinquish the thing for another 2 months in order to have them look at it.
Win2K support was terrible. I dumped XP both because my work required Win 2K and because I couldn't stand the way M$ took such an active interest in my registration status. Getting drivers and such to work was a royal PITA. Downloading the latest drivers from the VPR website resulted in malfunctioning everything. Reverting to the drivers from the support CD did eventually get most things up an running , and selectively applying some of the updated drivers fixed the rest.
The widescreen is great, and the slot load DVD/CD-R would be nice if it