Well there's two mistakes I made. The first buying an this Averatec and the second buying it online at ebuyer.com.

Here's the 'out of box experience':

Open box and turn unit on.

Start the usual drill of visiting Windows/Office Update and learn SP2 was not loaded at factory and OneNote installation will not update at Office site.

Call Averatec tech support and learn that I don't actually have install disks or a complete set of cab files for the software that is advertised as being shipped with the unit. Their fix for the OneNote update problem is to uninstall OneNote from the hard drive, download the trial version from the MS site and install it using the key on the license paper they shipped. Upon further discussion, turns out that if you remove any Windows components, the only way to get them back is to use supplied ghost image of hard drive! If you want to add options, say IIS for local web development - *you can't* - end of story. Even if you wanted to buy tablet OS, you can't - it isn't sold retail. XP Pro CD might work for options, but then it's a Frankenbox from day one.

Pen track is erratic, figured maybe new battery would fix it. El cheapo styuls snaps when I try to unscrew it and is now an auxillary paper weight to augment the larger $1200 one I bought.

For added laughs, turns out that you have to use the $1.99 stylus that comes with it, and if you try to order one you can't it's back ordered.
Brand X digitizer is not support it all apps that support Wacom unit found on other tablets, and aftermarket Cross pen is not supported at all.

Now keyboard is bugged out, and enters digits instead of top row of characters. Hmm. no pen, no keyboard, but fortunately at 5.5 lbs. this thing will hold a door open even in a good breeze - bargain.

I saw good reviews for this thing before I bought it, so I guess it could be a QC thing, but the stylus and keyboard definately feel cheap.

Sometimes they must actually work.

Hey there,

Sorry that it didn't go well for you. Yes, the SP2 and OneNote have been discussed here.

In terms of the pen and digitizer - it should be made clearer that the pen from Cross is for other digitizers. Averatec doesn't use an EMR pen. In addition, the digitizer isn't Wacom.

Now, the Averatec is excellent for the intended market; it is perfect as a low price alternative to the other Tablet PCs on the market.

Have you contacted Averatec support to see if they can help you? Maybe they have replacement pens available for you. I'd love to see this turn around for you so that you can discover some of the cool Tablet PC features.

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Sorry to hear about your experience. Most of them are discussed here and elsewhere in gory details.

I keep hearing about how Averatec does not provide the original CD's, I don't think this is unique to them, I have a 2 different Compaq/HP desktops, both don't have the original CD's. I have a no name computer, no original CD's, had a Toishiba laptop, no original CD's I bet this has something to do with the licensing model, any ways, to your complain about "If you want to add options, say IIS for local web development - *you can't* - end of story." have you tried looking for the required files in the local harddisk? all the required files should be available in c:\windows\i386, give it a try.

Shankar.

<snip> I keep hearing about how Averatec does not provide the original CD's ..
</snip>

Yes, the issue isn't so much about the lack of CDs as it is about the lack of software. Even without CDs, I expect to receive that CAB files that make up and permit me to use the *entire* product that I purchased. I wouldn't jump for joy that I didn't have install CDs', but I would definately rate it at most as an annoyance, and wouldn't be all that surprised given that it's an easy corner to cut to get the price down.

Being unable to install IIS was verified by Averitec tech support rather matter-of-factly, as well as the requirement to do an all-or-nothing reinstall of the hard drive ghost image if you removed Windows components that where shipped installed on the drive if you later wanted to reinstall them - I honestly could not believe what I was hearing.

There may be some driver support on the hard drive/restore master, but it is definately not a complete version of XP or OneNote.
(Yeah I tried installing IIS too, I mean there's always hope until there isn't)

If the install CAB files where correctly loaded onto the hard drive image, I wouldn't have had to go download trial versions to complete an Office service pack update (Averatec's supplied workaround). Unfortunately there is no trial version of XP Tablet, nor any version outside of what ships on tablet hardware (or at least is supposed to ship with the hardware) or in MSDN (subscription costs more than the tablet).

It's really hard to believe that Microsoft would permit an OEM to ship an incomplete operating system, but apparently they do. Maybe Averatec is shipping some flavor of XP embedded and calling it TabletPC - I don't know.

Honestly, I can tolerate quite a bit at this price point but not shipping the entire software package is unacceptable and probably false advertising unless you note somewhere that that is what you are doing (before the sale).

The stylus it ships with is really a piece of garbage, and/or the digitizer is flakey because even for the few minutes that it worked it was pretty erratic tracking the sylus, like you had to wiggle it around to get the digitizer's attention before it would track. I just grabbed on to the false hope that maybe it had a weak battery. A BIC pen feels like a piece of granite compared to this thing.

Maybe Averatec victims can find some underworked lawyer in California to file a class action against them for failure to deliver the product that was advertised. With people winning lawsuits that blame cigarette companys for their cancer because they smoked 3 packs a day, seems like there's better than an even money chance for success. From what I've read they are selling a lot of units...

Of course with a door stop, that's the least of my problems at this point. I called them originally when the only issue was being unable to update One Note, and have sent several e-mails to follow up just on the software issue with no response.

I really wish ebuyer.com would respond to my request for an RMA but they are silent too. I would be a lot less irritated if they even bothered to return my emails and blow sunshine up my butt and tell me lies. Any group of idiots with some venture capital can assemble a bunch of parts and make one of these things, but there's a world of difference between producing product and keeping your customer's happy so that they might actually buy something from you again.

If either company does anything to even move towards something that resembles an attempt to satisfy this disgruntled customer - I'll let you know, but I'm not counting on it.

OK Shanks - you where right, the files where under Windows\i386, apparently that isn't where they where loaded from so it asks for a CD when you tried to add them. I looked for C:\i386, and didn't look under the Windows directory because I was being a dope. I realized after reading your post that I still had access to the touchpad, so I tried it and it loaded.

I've been pretty busy lately and I don't really know if I'm coming or going at this point. The *last* thing I needed was this pain-in-the ass right now. If someone at Averatec had come back with that suggestion in a an email I'd probably only be really pissed off instead of the state I am in.

Now if I could get a keyboard that enters characters that correspond to the letters on the keys and a decent sylus (or any stylus) I might have to find something else to hold the door open...

Thanks for the reply.

You welcome, glad at least one of your problems is taken care now

Shankar.

Ebuyer agreed to authorize RMA for refund and that thing is just a bad memory now, and the credit has been posted to card.

I'm out the shipping, but at least it was a cheap re-education of what I already knew but wanted to overlook because of the cheap entry price : you get what you pay for.

Maybe I'll wait for the next generation to see if anyone comes out with a device with a form factor of the NEC, the speed of the Toshiba, and better battery life than either - probably be a long wait...

I agree that the next generation will probably be a whole lot slicker. For example, maybe they'll have some new molds made up and the screen will integrate better with the main section when folded back into tablet mode.

But I knew exactly what I was getting when I bought the computer, and have not been disappointed at all. Absolutely no hardware problems. I usually have good luck with this kind of thing, though. The only computer parts I can ever remember dying on me are a desktop power supply a couple years back and power management board in a laptop about five years ago. Well, I did have a laptop screen die about three years ago but I was able to find a bad surface-mount capacitor and replace it.

I haven't had any substantial hardware problems either - the computer has worked exactly as expected including the SP2 and One Note upgrades. I've even got Suse Pro 9.2 running on here without any problems.

The only real issues I've encountered are the heat, and really, the fan is ridiculous. I really, really wish I could do something about that. I am using the software to throttle the processor in WinXP, running the LCD on a v. low setting, and using a chill pad at home, which has helped a lot, but it's still pretty awful.