Today we will analyze a device manufactured by Vulcan Electronics, they are rather new on th laptop market and it is a good opportunity to see how they do in this Vulcan Venture II laptop review.
You have probably never heard of Vulcan electronics in the laptop market before you have bumped into one of their devices from the Venture series, which now are marketed in the main retail websites like Amazon or Walmart. The main reason for that lies on the fact that this company debuted on the laptop market in 2014, even if Vulcan Electronics was founded in 1994.
Vulcan Electronics is definitely more known in the tablet PC marketing, which series like the Vulcan Challenger, which have reached a relative good amount of sales and also a satisfactory overall customer feedback.
As this post focused on the presence of Vulcan Electronics on the laptop market, let’s see how this company is doing on this Vulcan Venture II Laptop Review.
Vulcan Venture II Laptop Introduction
The Vulcan Venture laptop series is already in its second generation, which was released in the end of 2015 and dubbed Vulcan Venture II.
The Vulcan Venture II laptop is an entry level, budget laptop which focuses on portability and it’s ideal for trips or performing simple tasks like video streaming, web browsing, text editing and emails management. It can also run web based apps like Asana and Google Drive fairly easily.
Vulcan Venture II Laptop Specs
The Vulcan Venture II comes with a Intel Atom Processor Z3735F which is a quad core processor with 4 threads, released by intel in the beginning of 2014. It has a maximum frequency of 1.83 ghz, which is quite decent for this type of notebook. The main problem regarding this specs is that you won’t be able to upgrade the RAM of this laptop, it already comes with 2 GB and DDRE and it’s not expandable.
The Vulcan Venture II laptop has a hardware profile similar to the most popular chromebooks on the market, focusing on a small solid state drive and cloud based data and apps. The main difference between the Vulcan Venture II is that it comes with Windows 10 installed on its 32 GB solid state drive, which is quite an advantage for those who aren’t familiarized with the Chrome OS.
The Vulcan Venture II has two screen size options with a 11.6 inch model and the other version with a 14 inches screen. The 14 inch screen is quite a differential on this segment as most chromebooks tend to have a smaller screen, generally with 13 inches and / or below.
Thanks to its dimensions and the absence of a heavy hard drive disk, this laptop is extremely compact and lightweight, with its weight hovering around just 3 pounds (2.6 in the 11.6-inch version and 3.3 in the 14-inch version).
It also has an appealing battery life with 6 hours indicated by the manufacturer, although this can be variable depending on the tasks you will be performing.
I believe the Venture II series has brought a lot of innovations and fixed a number of problems present in the Venture I series, but, since it has been just 2 months of its release, there are not even evaluations of customers indicating what problems can be more frequent in the Venture II laptop.
Vulcan Venture II VNB11602IE
Vulcan Venture II VNB11602IE 11.6″ or 14″ Slim Laptop (White), Intel Atom Z3735F, 1.83 GHz, 2GB DDR3, 32GB Flash Memory, 1366 X 768 HD, HDMI, WiFi, Webcam, Windows 10
Both models (11.6″ and 14″ inches are available on Amazon.com).
Click here to check prices and buy your Vulcan Venture II Laptop from Amazon.
Is the SSD upgradable? I am looking for a starter laptop for my 6 year old, would this be durable enough?
I think it is as durable as any other competitor in the price range (such as chromebooks and cloudbooks, mostly with plastic chassis). In regards to th SSD if you find the same size SSD if should be upgradable, but I wouldn’t probably do it not to void the warranty. I’d probably leave the windows on the SSD and put everything else on an USB flash or external ssd/hdd in case u will need a lot of storage space.
I just received the Venture II Laptop. The instruction booklet is just that, a little booklet and the layout of the switches and other functions is not as pictured on the laptop. One was labeled as existing on the left side when in reality it is on the right side. One switch shown in the book does not exist. This makes me nervous. What is inside that I cannot see?
Did you manage to turn it on? if not, did you contact their contact support?
Can I install MS office 365? I bought it due to price to use for writing school assignments.
Yes, but bear in mind that this laptop has a very limited storage capacity. So you probably you should consider google docs and google sheets to create and edit .docx and .xlsx files
Any time I try to use the webcam, it just shows a black screen. Anytime I try to update it, it says it has the most recent update possible. I’ve uninstalled and reinstalled the needed software and it still only shows a black screen. When I go to take a video, it will pick up the sound but not the image. This has been the only problem I have found at all. Other than that this is a great computer.
Thanks for the feedback and sharing these info.
I just got mine and tonight I went to turn it on and my screen is blank . I have nothing on it .then it took forever to get it turned off. WTF. I’M PISSED. ANY SUGGESTIONS? OWNER MANUAL SUCKS.
might be the Win 10 updates, they are quite messy in all devices.
The machine is as you say: light, pretty solid, seems to have good potential. BUT I have found no way to make audio device work; Windows gives no support or guidance for the trouble and I can see no way to load and build one.
ALSO Vulcan/Windows shipped with no real power options other than rudimentary screen and sleep settings; there is no battery indicator icon, a pretty essential tool for a laptop. As far as I can see there’s no way to get one other than through an app.
Windows 10 is still very faulty, especially when dealing with drivers. From the machines I’ve tested so far, thereis always some issue with the keyboard/mouse/wireless adapter/sound, etc. For the sound, if nothing else works, you can get a cheap USB external sound card, maybe that will do the trick.
Thanks so much for the audio suggestion. Any help to settle the lack of a battery icon issue?
For the battery icon, you can check this website: http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch001232.htm
Thank you for your cogent help. Your thread was the only one I found that seemed to come up with something tangible.
In the end, I gave up on Windows. I have been a faithful Linux fan for nearly ten years and finally found a distro (in beta) to run a 32-bit UEFI native system: Debian Jessie. Am still having problems with the audio, though now I think it’s an issue with non-free firmware. I don’t really need audio now, but will work on it some time in the future and might stumble on something that works on it.
Again, thanks for your help. It meant a lot to me in the dark soup of my confusion.
Jeannie
You are welcome! Good choice into changing to Linux. With the high amount of open source software available, Linux is just excellent, and free.
Hello, I got this laptop for Christmas and I was wondering if you have found a way to get Ubuntu or any Ubuntu based distributions to work on this. If I install it, the installer fails to install grub. Please help. Thank you 🙂
I’d firstly install Ubuntu on a USB stick, and see if it boots / runs from there. If it does, you will be half way there. Alternatively you can try other Linux distributions.
hi., my brother bought me the laptop just past 6 weeks and now the laptop doesnt seem to turn on..,and esp my laptop had been drained overly.. i tired to recharged it .over 10 hrs… and the laptop doesnt turn on… what would i do now?
If it doesn’t turn on at all, it can be a number of different problems. Does it show anything on the screen? I would recommend you taking it to a technician if you don’t have any idea of what could possibly be the issue.
1. Did anyone spill anything on the keyboard? my keyboard went out because few wine drops. There is no way to turn it on. Im trying to find the “power on pads” on the motherboard, waiting to see if support will answer my ticket. Other then that 2. There is an issue with the adapter, the end tip of it is very sensitive and it breaks from the inside. Make sure the small side orange light is on when connecting the charger. Then charge 2 hours then try again.
Does ithave a power button i dont see one?
Top right corner on your keyboard is your power button.
How do i find out what kind of motherboard i have in my computer?
My computer is a Vulcan Venture II 11.6″ with Intel N2808 1.60Hz
I want to change the processor.
Go to command prompt on Windows 10 and type: wmic baseboard get product,Manufacturer,version,serialnumber
After typing this, hit Enter, it will give the information on your motherboard
However, I would guess that the Vulcan Venture II has the processor soldered on the motherboard, which is quite difficult to replace. Even if you can replace it, there is no guarantee that the new processor will work properly, apart from voiding the warranty.
This product is terrible for ibternet surfing…takes forever to load the pages and will not open tabs…i wish i never bought it
Hi! I Just need know , how i can enter to the bios… i need check Uefi, my lap Showme “Innaccesible_ Device_ Booteable” in windows 10, is this model cnb116021sa
Thanks for you help.
I can’t help as I don’t have the device with me at the moment. Try some forum, this error is pretty common on Windows 10 especially after updates.
I use this product and I get low batt warning.So I plug in charger to finish my busines. And the product still drains and cut off. Is this a normal function of this product?
how long have you used it for? It may be that your battery has ended its life cycle.
I’ve had laptop for 8 months. and charged battery properly. Does this unit just operate off battery power and not AC charger?
I’ve used it for less than 8 months. And I charged it properly at first charge. How long is the battery life? I like this unit for the size and weight for what I use it for. Are you saying I’ll have to buy a new one every 6 months? Or do you think I have a bad Laptop?
There are a lot of complaints in regards to its battery life indeed.
Can anyone tell me how to reset the BIOS/CMOS please? When I turn it on, the green light shows but the screen shows a blacklight and just stays like this. I have drained the battery, charged it. I opened the back but can’t find the CMOS battery or anyway to reset the BIOS/CMOS. Any info will be appreciated.
I haven’t used mine for about 5 months. When I turned it on I just get a black screen. And once I got a battery lightning bolt for about 3 seconds. I only need it for my ITunes but can’t even get there. I only charged it for 3 hours. Is that too short.