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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
The new BMW line of desktop computers, each with an inline six processor engine and delivering 500 megaflops of power at 3 GHz. AND 4 wheel drive!
"I hate quotations. Tell me what you know." -Ralph Waldo Emerson
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.
...website served by Yugo.
Another innocent server Slashdotted...
Arr! The laws of physics be a harsh mistress!
"Never heard of it? It's a laptop that's designed by F.A. Porsche (the guys who designed the 911 and some Samsung LCD monitors)"
I'd prefer a laptop designed by the guys who did the Firebird. They could put a red light ping-pong'ing back and forth and going 'whoosh whoosh...'. That'd be much cooler than this Ferrari laptop that probably can't even Turbo Boost.
"Derp de derp."
I thought that the Porsche 911 looked like a whale trying to surf.
Not impressed with this laptop either.
The laptop looks like a good set of compromises that all laptop manufacturers have to make. I don't see what all the negative comments are based upon! Now, the question that should have been asked and answered by the review is: DOES IT RUN LINUX WELL? Who wants to buy a computer only to be stuck with Windows? Do all the components have Linux drivers or at least have freely available documentation for those of us who can write drivers?
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.
As the market for the Porsche 911 is filled with short, pudgy, balding men, it seemed only natural that the designers of the 911 also produce a product that caters to the short, pudgy, balding men of the IT market.
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.
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
A lot of people at my work have powerbooks, ms office for mac is actually better product then it is on the pc, go figure. Only problem people at work have experienced with the powerbook is that suspends when you close the screen.
Have you ever been to a turkish prison?
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
http://www.vprmatrix.com/ (video card)
http://www.matrixnetsystems.com/ (networks)
http://www.matrix.com/ (hair salon)
http://www.matrix-orbital.com/ (serial interface displays)
http://www.matrixgames.com/ (video games)
http://www.alfa-matrix.com/ (connecting "hearts and brains) (?)
http://www.dakotamatrix.com/ (mineral sales) (!)
and on
and on
and on
Is it just me, or has the Matrix buzzword been beaten to f****ng death?
Because you know that nobody can be *told* what the matrix is.
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...
While the machine looks very nice, and performs well when it's running, I've had mine 3 months now, and out of that time, it's been working 5 days (so up and running for 5 days, down for around 85 and counting).
It died 3 days after I bought it (I really was liking it was working; light, fast, looks nice). Just dead (wouldn't turn on, no lights, etc.)
Called in to their tech support, and they sent me a box to sent it in. Took about 2 weeks total, then I had it back. They said the mother board and CPU had to be replaced.
When it came back, it was making a "thumping" noise. Two days later, the LCD died. Called tech support again, and they sent another box out.
About 2 weeks later, I got a call saying they were waiting on parts. Once I week I now get a call saying they're waiting on parts... *sigh*
So, I've spent around $2k on a laptop, and, excluding the first three days and 2 days a couple of weeks later, I haven't been able to use it.
So, my review:
1. Nice looking machine. OK performance for the money.
2. Their tech support is very good about getting the machine in for repairs (always helpful and polite, lets you know when they are having trouble and can't get it back).
3. Based on my own experience, these things break very easy.
4. They don't appear to be able to get replacement mother boards (what I'm waiting on), so if you're vpr dies, you are SOL.
I personal regret buying this laptop. I really need to have a laptop now, so I'm now in the position of having to buy another one, if I can't get Best Buy to either fix it, send me some other comparable laptop, or my money back (haven't been able to do any of these three at this point).
Any suggestions on getting them to send me some other laptop or my money? I've been trying, but they've refused to this point. Not sure what I can do, as any legal action I take against Best Buy is likely to exceed the cost of a new laptop....
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.
OK, that Amazon.co.uk link doesn't want to work any more (although it seemed fine when I previewed the post), so either follow the link and then search the kitchenware section for Porsche or try the following links for some visuals and specs:
Siemens Porsche Cordless Kettle
Siemens Porsche Coffe Maker
Siemens Porsche Cool Wall Toaster
Siemens Porsche Citrus Press
Siemens Porsche Blender
And for those of us with flowing locks:
Siemens Porsche Hair Dryer
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
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.
and I'm very happy with the performance. Everybody ask about it..of course they get confuse and then you have to explain too much (is a clone...is sold by Best Buy) I run Mandrake 9.1 and it works like a charm. The only two things that did not run out of the box was resolution, but it took little time to fix it, and ACPI stuff. I still have to try this: http://linux.brasileiro.net/misc/vprmatrix/ The screen is a samsung (same as Apple) and it is very nice. I purchased it at $2K with $300 in rebates and I primatched twice getting it down to $1,300. If you can find a Titanium at that price let me know. This is by far the best compromise in performance/functionality/design, etc. I really like it and recomended for personal use. By all means this is not a corporate laptop. OhRock
Althought they do look pretty damn cool, it appears that Best Buy just isn't up to par as far as maintaining/servicing these notebooks. A mere 2 months after the release of a lesser, 1.8 Ghz model, they started removing them from thier site. Even their own VPR Matrix website refered back to the Best Buy site for purchase a couple of months ago after the review. As told to me buy a Best Buy employee (which I always take with a great salt lake after overhearing one say "Wi-Fi will always be faster than ethernet cable becuase wire has resistance, and air has none...", they have been told for a couple of months now that new models are coming, but he had his doubts. He also said that they had a tremendous amount of returns. Somewhat dissapointing due to the fact that this was the notebook I wanted to buy. Although early critics compared it to a "x86 Powerbook", sadly, the design sorely lacks behind Apple's effort. It's heavier - the ergonomics just aren't there -and although IMHO it's probably the best looking PC notebook out there, the Powerbook still takes the cake as far as design. It's unfortunate Apple doesn't make it's great products for the masses.
I got the 185A5 a few months back and immediately wiped the hard drive in favor of a real operating system.
So in your haste to be Ub3r-1337, you nuked what was probably the best method of finding out what hardware is in there. Brilliant. Booting into Windows Whatever for five minutes would have saved you eight hours of banging your head against the wall, but at least you preserved your geek/anorak/H@x0r status, didn't you? You even got to complain about it on
You know, when you drink the $OS_OF_CHOICE Kool-aid to the point where you do something dumb like this, you really should take up a different hobby.
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
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.
Ok... I bought the 200A5 a while back and I have found it to be a great laptop functionally. I run windows 2003 Server on it and haven't had any problems. The major qualm I had about buying it initially was the keyboard. As I've seen the keyboard fall apart on the display models in bestbuy I was really worried about that. I have found however that it holds up quite well under regular use. I only had one incident when I poped a key out but it simply snaps back into place.
The integrated wireless is nice but lacks signal strength. I'd say it has about half the signal strength/distance of a standard orinoco/wavelan card. The battery life is decent. I get about 2 and a half hours on it after 6 months of use. The performance initially is limited by the harddrive that is in it. The Go420 video card is good for most things but driver support sucks. They haven't updated since the original version and nvidias drivers bluescreen the system given the nonstandard display. I'm not sure how this translates on the linux driver side.
I got so pissed at the harddrive I decided to open the system and add a 5400rpm travelstar to replace the 4200rpm drive in it. It took quite a bit of work to get the casing off (lots of screws - needless to say you can't replace the harddrive easily on this thing) and of course the thing has to support only the 9.5mm drives... There is a sleeve that holds the harddrive in place. I took a dremel to the sucker and was able to hack off the top of it so that a 12.5mm drive would fit.
All is well not... the drive fits inside the casing although the left palm rest runs a little warmer than usual now =P. Performance is much better now though. If you decide to mod your 200A5 be careful after you open it because the molding that covers the cdrw/dvd drive is very thin so the bottom part of the slot can snap off easily (nothing a little epoxy can't repair though)
Last thing of note is that I've been experimenting with using it as a peer to peer bridge between my Toshiba e750 and work lan. It works great. Activesync through 802.11b is so much faster and I can now browse the web/rdp into boxes from my pda.
Don't you dare mod me down for running windows. I work closely with my linux engineering friends and we all have a much more tempered view of both operating systems. Each has its own strengths and weaknesses. Can't we all just get along?
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.
That's what I thought, too, after I thought about it. If it had been clearly written, we wouldn't have had to think about the meaning. Thus, the feeble joke.
Whether that's better or worse than a Mac OS and Mac functionality, well, I won't comment.
Me, either.
As I recall, there is a Windows emulator for Macs, right? If so (and if not, there's always Wine!) Macs DO have some ``Windows functionality''.
As for the tech support issue, I have one comment: buy it on a decent credit card. You get the equivalent of Best Buy's protection plan (one year extension on the manufacturer's warranty) for free, as well as protection in the unlikely event that the thing doesn't show up.
Absolutely. This is a good idea, for all products and all vendors.
One of the few positives to buying Dell over VPR Matrix or a whitebox machine is Dell's protection plan ... if the machine gets damaged in any way other than intentionally, they'll fix it.
I've had fairly good experiences with Dell's laptop warrenty. Of course, there was the time the floppy on my Inspiron died ... the phone call to tech support went something like this:
A long, tedious interlude, in which the tech support guy read his script, and I told him what he would have seen if Windows had been installed. Finally, the script told him that the floppy was broken, and that I'd have to send the computer back for repair.
[tech support] Your floppy drive is broken. You'll have to send your machine in. We'll airfreight you a box in which to return it. ...
[me] Why don't you save your company a lot of money and send me another floppy by mail?
[tech support] You will need to remove all the parts from the machine before you return it.
[me] What parts?
[tech support] The RAM, the hard drive, the floppy drive
[me] THE FLOPPY DRIVE IS THE ONLY THING THAT"S BROKEN! HOW ARE YOU GOING TO FIX IT IF I DON'T SEND IT?
[tech support] I don't know. (Long silence)
[me] Maybe I should talk to your supervisor?
[tech support] (Obviously relieved) Yes!
The upshot, after quite a bit more time on hold, was that they airfreighted me another floppy, and we were all happy. If I hadn't known a bit more than his script, things wouldn't have turned out so well. I had two other, similar experiences. I think that if you don't know enough to fix the machine yourself, Dell's service may not be very smooth, though they seem to honestly try.
I picked up the low-end VPR Matrix laptop for $950 (plus a $150 rebate on top)...
Wow. My last laptop purchase was a 486 Latitude for $20 at a garage sale. That may seem high, but the guy threw in a working HP-65. That's cheap enough that I don't worry about carrying it around. I installed Woody, and it (the latitude) does email or some web browsing or text editing.
See what I've been reading.
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