Uniwill M30IIO Review (Vega M30)

With the Vega notebook we’re dealing with one of the lesser known brands in the industry. It hasn’t got the same known and respectable reputation as that of Asus, HP or IBM for instance. That doesn’t mean you can’t get a decent notebook and not all cheap ones are lousy ones either. In some cases the warranty and the final touch are missing but you can’t expect everything from a budget notebook.

The Vega M30 is a sub-notebook with a 13” display and although we’re moving on the edge we still consider it to be a sub-notebook. This makes it very lightweight and easy to transport as you’re not hindered by too many kilos. It’s also worth a note it hasn’t got any standard locking mechanism to hold the display with. Instead they’ve put their money on a magnetic locking mechanism. The design of the notebook is reasonable and it kept in black when looked upon from the front. On the back of the display there’s a centred Vega+ logo surrounded by a silver coating. Overall it’s a fine design for a notebook that’s also of good quality.

The notebook weights 2150 gram with an included 300 gram battery but excluding its 450 gram power supply. It measures 31.5 cm wide, 22.0 cm deep and 3.5 cm tall.

CPU	1700 MHz Mobile Intel Pentium M 735 (Centrino)
RAM	512 MB DDR RAM
Harddisk	40 GB HD – 4200 RPM
Optical Drive	DVD-RW Dual Layer
Graphics Chip	Intel Extreme Graphics integrated chip with 96 MB of shared RAM
Display	13,0" WXGA (1200x768)
Communication	V.90 modem, 10/100/1000 Mbit Ethernet, IEEE 1394 FireWire, 802.11 b/g WLAN
Battery	Li-Ion
Operating System	Windows XP Home/Pro med Service Pack 2
Pointing Device	Touchpad w/ scroll-wheel
Weight	2150 gram
Other	4-in-1 Card Reader
Price	USD $1,120

The Vega M30 is configured with a standard keyboard though it’s a little small in size. Since we’re dealing with a 13.0” display the chassis is naturally smaller in size leaving less room for a regular sized keyboard. Most of the keyboard however comes with standard sized buttons and the only small ones are all centred at the right side of the keyboard around the Shift key. It’s just a minor issue but from time to time the keyboard can feel a little cramped in that particular area. If you’re a hand-coding web developer who’s using the bigger than and lesser than button for the various tags you’ll most likely find it ideally placed right beside the Space bar on the left side. I particularly like this placement when I code.

Apart from that they’ve also switched the normal placement of the Control and Function keys. Personally I prefer to have the Control button to the outmost left on the keyboard with the Function button thereafter. Even though they’ve reversed the order it shouldn’t cause any harm. Finally there’re two hotkeys at the top right side of the notebook. The first hotkey activates the Media Player while the second button makes the notebook go into “Silent Mode”. If you want an even quieter computer you can push the button which activates this neat feature. Lastly there’s the power button at the top right.

Full size | Medium size

Full size | Medium size

The display of the Vega M30 is one of the smaller widescreen models as it’s only a 13.0” screen. It operates with a native resolution of 1200x768 and features a special High Glare coating. This special coating gives the display a more vibrant and colourful image on screen that looks quite nice. The downside of using this technology is it’s very exposed to reflections. You can see yourself and the surrounding environment in the display and you need a good setup if you don’t want it to interfere with your screen reading. Besides that small point the overall image quality is better than that of the regular uncoated displays.

Starting on the back from left to right there’s an external VGA port followed by the power plug. Then there’s the detachable battery and finally a Kensington lock. Not much on the back which is only a good thing when the more important and more used features are located more ideally in the sides and on the front. On the rear left side of the notebook there’s the modem port and a single USB 2.0 port. They’re followed by the DVD drive and another USB 2.0 port that’s sitting above a 4-in-1 card reader for easy connectivity. The rear right of the notebook has a fan for cooling followed by an Ethernet port and the S-Video Out port. Then there’s a FireWire plug with the third and last USB 2.0 port in addition to a single PCMCIA card slot. Lastly there’s the front view of the Vega M30 which has a button on the left side which turns on or turns off the wireless connection. There’re also two well placed jacks for headphones and microphone.

When you open the display you’ll find an array of glowing LEDs in the lower left corner of the notebook. They’re flashing in different colours and are representing power on and battery status as well as showing whether you’ve activated the WLAN or not. They’re also flashing to indicate disk activity and the usual CAPS LOCK and num lock features. The last and most special LED lights when you’ve activated “Silent Mode” by showing an S. It’s a good way of informing you when the Vega M30 is running with reduced capacity and makes it easy to switch when you need the extra power.

3 x USB 2.0 ports
4-in-1 Card Reader
1 x RJ-11 jack
1 x RJ-45 jack
1 x IEEE 1394 (FireWire)
1 x Line-In jack
1 x Line-Out jack
1 x DC-in jack
1 x 32 bit Type II PC Card slot
1 x External VGA port
1 x S-Video Out
1 x Kensington Lock

Full size | Medium size

Full size | Medium size

Full size | Medium size

Full size | Medium size

There’re two operating modes in which the noise level of the Vega M30 differs. The first is the most normal operating mode and the most common with the average day-to-day work in office and business applications. In this mode the fan is noticeable when the computer is at work and even when it’s not working. At times it’s somewhat quiet but not enough to be known as a completely silent notebook if that’s what you’re looking for. The second operating mode is enabled by a button on the upper right side of the notebook. When it’s on there’s a glowing S logo found on the front left of the notebook appropriately indicating you’re in silent mode. It lowers the overall computational power of the Vega M30 making the fan spin less often thus generating less noise.

It’s much quieter in this mode were it’s ideally suited for web surfing or PDF reading due to its lesser need for computer power. If you try to do advanced stuff in Silent mode the fan will spin a little which is natural though not that bad. If you can spare the computer power and want to browse the web or read a document you can generally do so without much irritation from the fan making it fairly quiet in Silent mode.

The accompanying software bundle is pretty standard as it comes with Nero and PowerDVD 5 in addition to a driver CD for Intel’s WLAN capabilities. It’s nothing out of the ordinary and what you can expect of a standard software bundle. It hasn’t been shipped with too many manuals either except for a warranty leaflet and a couple of quick start guides. The quick start guide is actually pretty good as it contains an easy overview of the various ports and plugs found on the notebook along with brief descriptions of the hotkeys and LEDs. This is certainly a nice thing to ship any notebook with for easy reference for the end-user.

The warranty on the battery is the standard six months while there’s a two-year guarantee on the notebook. Though it’s worth noting it’s only governed by a standard two-year guarantee appointed by law and not by a full two-year warranty from a top company like Asus for instance. Support is also given over the phone for free within the first three months. Overall it’s not the best support a notebook can get when weighting its poor guarantee but luckily there’s a fine driver collection online that makes a little up for it.

The performance of the Vega M30 is nothing spectacular. Its scores are the lowest in all of the office and business applications we’ve tested in SYSmark, MobileMark and PCMark! Not the best sales pitch you can get if you’re in the market for a business notebook that can deliver the work on time. The main reason would have to be its slower hard disk that’s only running at 4200 RPM. A regular desktop computer has a 7200 RPM hard drive and a medium notebook a 5400 RPM hard drive. As can be seen in the tests and felt in the applications the difference does matter in performance terms. It’s perhaps not the speediest notebook but one that’s lightweight and reasonably silent instead at the expense of the performance.

The overall battery lifetime of the Vega M30 is fairly good. It’s capable of about 3.5 hours of unplugged web browsing or office usage. The latter is a good result when considering its working in business applications though it’s the natural result when it’s not that fast overall so the battery consumption is less. It easily packs 2.5 hours of DVD playback which is long enough to watch most movies these days. In the end the battery life of the Vega M30 is quite good and with the light weight it’s suitable for on the go mobility.



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Utterly unplayable! In those two short words the 3D performance – or lack thereof – can be described of the Vega M30. This isn’t due to any internal error of the notebook but merely the fact that it’s configured with an integrated Intel “Extreme” Graphics chip. I’m even surprised it could start yet alone run the 3DMark03 and 3DMark05 benchmarks! Naturally this notebook isn’t targeted at gaming or intensive 3D applications at all due to its poor performance. So if you’re looking for a capable gaming notebook this it not it and neither is it intended for that particular segment.





All tests results are available here.

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If you’re looking for a high-performing notebook for use in business and office applications you can find better. Not to say it can’t run them but the overall performance could be even better with the inclusion of a speedier hard drive.

This is definitely not a gamer’s notebook though that’s not its targeted segment. On the other hand it’s very lightweight making it portable and handy due to its smaller size. In addition to this the battery is good and able to preserve power making it good to go for even long hours of unplugged mobility. When you’re on the go you can switch on its Silent mode making it quiet for low-demand tasks like browsing the web and be able to read without any disturbing noise from the fan.

When the price is compared and given the fact it’s a sub-notebook you get a lot of value for your money.
Therefore if you’re looking for a cheap sub-notebook that’s handy for having with you on the go and not interested in gaming the Vega M30 is a really good notebook that’s recommendable in its price class.

+
Lightweight, good display, good battery life, quality, moderately quiet in Silent mode, price
–
Poor office performance, absent 3D performance, poor warranty period





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