How loud is the optical drive on your S6231?

OK, I returned a gateway which I bought. The retail version of the M210. Although I love the 14" widescreen, it just didn't meet my needs, and battery life was not quite as good as I expected.

Seems like there are a lot of happy 6231 owners, and from what I've read, battery seems to last about 4hrs with wi-fi on?

The size/wight looks like it my fit my needs more, but I have read about the optical drive being loud.

For those who own one, would you say the opical drive is unreasonably loud where I could not enjoy a dvd?

Please feel free to give your input on the oprical drive and avearge battery life, with/without dvd and or/wi-fi.

I will probably take the plunge and order one tomorrow from P1.

 

Wow, I haven't heard this concern mentioned here at all and didn't notice any abnormal noise when watching a movie on our demo machine.

Brian

www.BargainPDA.com | www.DigitalCameraReview.com | www.NotebookReview.com | www.SpotStop.com | www.TabletPCReviewSpot.com

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>For those who own one, would you say the opical drive is unreasonably loud where I could not enjoy a dvd?<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'></font id='quote'></blockquote id='quote'>Every optical drive I've used (desktop/notebook) has this super high speed mode when you first put a CD/DVD in and it's reading the directories, then it slows down to normal speed. Just to check with the 6231 I put a DVD movie in and muted the sound. Imagine you have a small fan at the other side of your room on low speed. Turn off the TV/Stereo/Radio. You can hear it, but it's not distracting. That's what the 6231 sounds like with the a DVD playing and the sound muted. Un-mute the sound and you can't hear any fan or drive operation at all.

According to my User's Guide (page 71) the specs on the multi-writer are:

8x +-R
4x +-RW
3x RAM
8x ROM
24x CDR
10x CDRW
24X CDROM

I'm happy with the battery life as well. Usually one could take a manufacturer's claim and divide that in half for real world time, however 4/8 hours seems to be true with me when brightness is set to one shade higher than the lowest setting. I never turn WIFI off. I disabled the modem and LAN port in BIOS and msconfig as I never intend to use them.

Only improvements I can see would be dedicated [home] [end] keys. How many times in comparison does one need: numlk, scrlk, prt sc, sys rq, pause/break. Lighted status LED would be nice, but secondary. An option for a dedicated gaming graphics card would be nice, but once again, I didn't buy this for gaming.

I took my 6231 to the social security office today while I waited 2.5 hours for a replacement ss card. My wifi pda didn't see an access point so I just read the User's Guide. One thing interesting on page 65 it says don't put your notebook through a metal detector. Have it hand inspected by security personnel. It can, however, go through a properly tuned x-ray machine. What is it about a metal detector that can damage a notebook computer? Magnetic forces?

-David

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Imagine you have a small fan at the other side of your room on low speed. Turn off the TV/Stereo/Radio. You can hear it, but it's not distracting.<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'></font id='quote'></blockquote id='quote'>Here's another metaphor. Put a seashell up to your ear. You can hear the ocean, even though the ocean may be nowhere near you. I'm burning my documents (2.4 gigs worth) onto a +RW. Got a seashell in my bathroom. Held it up to my ear, then went over to the 6231 which is burning, similar sound. Very relaxing.

-David

 

Sweet, I like the comparison, Relaxing. I guess that would be acceptable. Thanks for the replies.

/////////////////Update//////////////////////////////////////
Placed my order with P1 yesterday for a 6231 with 40Gig 5400HD, and super dvd multi drive; basic 512 (256x2). Prob won't be burning NE dvds on my lappy, but at least it's there if I need it.Now the waiting game. [ ]