Sharp Actius AV18 (PC-AV18) PC Notebook

Pros: Screen clarity, integrated CDRW/DVD, truly light weight, classy build quality, Athlon XP-M1800 works great here.
Cons: Minor keyboard issues. 13" screen maybe? Should have XP Pro & 802.11b. Awful support resources.

CONTEXT I am long time ultra-portable laptop customer, having previously owned the Actius PC-A100 which I used from 1998-2000, when until it gave up the ghost. I replaced that with a Hitachi Flora 220FX and used it for 3 yrs until it died. So I'm a ...

Pros: small, lightweight
Cons: breaks a lot, minimal technical support

I purchased a Sharp AV-18 in August of 2003 thinking that I got a really good notebook at a good price. I trusted the Sharp brand. That was dumb of me. Not only did the whole thing crash in November, causing me to have to reformat my hard drive 3 times, I ended up having to send it back entirely and getting a whole new computer. It is now October of 2004 and the CD/DVD drive doesn't work. Can their technical support staff provide any other suggestions than "use the recovery disc"? No. ( I can't use it because my computer doesn't recognize any disc, period.) So yet again I have to send in my computer for service.

Spend the money and get a different brand--it will save you money in the long run. I'm a very unhappy owner.

Pros: Light weight, small size, Good size hard drive, removable CD-ROM, USB2 ports, Included utility software
Cons: No longer sold at Circuit city.

So happy with this little computer that I bought two of them. One for home and one for work. Nice to have the special software featres designed for the notebook application like Drag n Drop for Cd copying. Has all of the functionality that I need especially 2 USB 2 ports for portable pen drive and digital picture card readers. I had one of the CD-ROM drives go bad on me and now I see the advantage to taking it out when you don't need it (don't wear it out). But in the high tech electronic world something is expected to go bad eventually. This is a really light weight unit which is important to me making it worth hauling around, such as taking it camping and astronomy outings. The 40 GB drive is a really nice feature. Never run out of room for my photos.
For help with my CD-ROM the tech support line spent a lot of time with me to isolate and solve the problem.