Do You ASUS?

Buy ASUS Laptop

2009-11-10T10:02:00.000-08:00

Purchasing a new laptop can be a fun and confusing time for you. Gone are the days when you only had a handful of laptop options to choose from. Now you have more choices from laptops than ever.

Buying an Asus laptop, in my opinion, is the best choice to make. Even when buying an Asus laptop you have a plethora of choices to make.

Asus laptops are leading in the laptop computer industry for performance and durability. These laptops are drop tested, shock tested, twist tested, pressure tested, open-close tested, and vibration tested before being put on the market. Because ASUS laptops do these tests on their laptops and notebooks they have less of a recall rate and boast a higher approval rating than most other brands of laptop.

When you buy Asus laptops you will find that the styles of them are actually quite stylish, But just because the computers are stylish does not mean they are fluff computers. These computers are built strong and come with warranties and customer support. If you buy Asus laptops you will not be disappointed, I know I sure wasn't. I once dropped the computer on the ground and it still worked with only a little scratch.

These laptops come with the one of the best complimentary notebook warranties, are high quality, very durable, recognized for excellence, the World's first TCO'99 certified notebooks, and come equipped with the ASUS 360 notebook service program. This program offers a 2 year global warranty, zero bright dot LCD policy, have 2-way overnight standard shipping, and offer 24/7 phone support.

By George Christodoulou, EzineArticles

Laptop Review : ASUS G51

2009-11-10T06:14:00.000-08:00

By Kevin O'Brien

The ASUS G51-series is a 15.6" gaming notebook offering dual hard drive bays, NVIDIA GTX 260M graphics, and an optional quad-core processor. To enhance the multimedia experience this notebook offers a 1080P 16:9 display, a backlit Chiclet-style keyboard, and Altec Lansing speakers. Base configurations start as low as $1,049 with a dual-core processor and a single drive, and go as high as $1,699 with the quad-core processor and dual hard drives. In this review we see how well this system performs in a number of new games, to help you decide if this is the right gaming notebook for you.

Our review unit of the ASUS G51VX-A1 features the following specifications:

Windows Vista Home Premium (SP1, 64-bit)
Intel Core 2 Quad Q9000 (2GHz, 1066MHz FSB, 6MB Cache)
Intel PM45 + ICH9M chipset
15.6" WUXGA FHD LCD display at 1920x1080
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260M 1GB GDDR3 memory
Intel 5100AGN Wireless
4GB DDR2-800 SDRAM (2GB x 2)
Two 320GB Seagate 7200RPM Hard Drives
DVD SuperMulti
Webcam, Altec Lansing speakers, Backpack, Razer Copperhead USB mouse
120W (19V x 6.32A) 100-240V AC Adapter
6-cell 53Wh 11.1v 4800mAh Lithium Ion battery
Dimensions (WxDxH): 14.6" x 10.3" x 1.3-1.6"
Weight: 7lbs 9.0oz
2-Year Global Warranty/1-Year Accidental damage
Price as configured: $1,699

Build and Design

The G51 is part of the Republic of Gamers lineup from ASUS, meaning it incorporates the ROG logo on the front cover and a more aggressive notebook design. The outside cover has chrome trim around the side and bottom edges, and a futuristic pattern painted onto the lid; both helping to push the overall gaming theme. The sides are black plastic, with a silver strip painted on the sides and front of the notebook. You can tell these strips were painted separately, since you can see some faint overspray near the border edges. The inside of the G51 has a more back-to-basics look with a rubberized black palmrest, black backlit keyboard, and glossy black trim around the display. I personally think the design could have been helped by using the rubberized on more surfaces around the notebook, but that might be the ThinkPad fan inside of me talking.

Build quality is above average, with sturdy plastic used throughout the notebook, but there are some areas that could see some improvement. The screen cover feels very durable, and protects the screen against any distortion from impacts to the back cover or flexing the screen side to side. The palmrest and keyboard have absolutely no flex at all, which is something you need if you are going to be playing high-stress games and occasionally taking out some of your anger on your computer. The two areas that I think ASUS could have improved are the painted silver trim pieces, which shows some overspray, and the keyboard itself. It looks like this notebook was designed with a different keyboard in mind for it, since the Chiclet-style model included is sized just slightly small for the bezel around it. It is loose enough that with some careful prying, you can pop the keyboard out of its tray. This is a small gap of about 2-3mm, but it is just enough to let the keyboard slip past the notches that secure it in place.

Users looking to upgrade components inside the notebook will find it very easy, thanks to a single panel giving you access to all user-replaceable components. The only "warranty void if removed" sticker is covering one of the screws used to tension the processor heatsink, meaning that if you want to change out the processor or graphics card you will be forfeiting your 2-year warranty. Given the configuration of this notebook, I only see users really looking to swap out the RAM for larger modules or the hard drives for SSDs.

Screen and Speakers

Considering that this notebook will be used for gaming, an excellent screen is a must. The display on the G51 looks above average with good color saturation and better than average viewing angles. The glossy surface helps make the already good looking colors "pop" out at you more than they would on a matte display, as well as improving the looks of dark colors. While gaming I didn't notice any lag or abnormal backlight bleed in dark scenes. Vertical viewing angles were very good, offering a broad sweet spot before colors started to invert if you tilted the screen forward or back. Horizontal viewing angles were excellent, keeping colors accurate, albeit slightly washed out, at very steep angles. Backlight brightness was more than adequate to be viewable in a bright room, but unless you stick to a shaded area underneath a tree, it won't be viewable outdoors.

The Altec Lansing speakers sounded nice, but given the overall size of this notebook we had hoped for a subwoofer as well. Audio from the speakers consisted mostly of higher frequencies, with some midrange coming through. Bass was lacking, but without a subwoofer that is normal for most notebooks. As a gaming notebook I think headphones should be required, especially surround sound-enabled headphones so you can hear your surroundings and react accordingly.

Keyboard and Touchpad

The keyboard was comfortable to use, and really helped solidify the overall look of the notebook. The keys and inner trim were all matching black, with white lettering that lights up when the backlight is enabled. The individual keys were easy to press, and felt very solid with very little wiggle if you moved your hand around the keyboard. Support was very good, with no flex noticed in the primary typing region. The only complaint we have, is the size of the keyboard itself inside the tray area; it's small enough to move around and come out with little effort.

The G51 includes a large Synaptics touchpad with a very smooth barely- textured surface. Tracking speeds are excellent with no lag noticed in our game testing, and the sensitivity was great even with the default settings. The touchpad buttons were easy to trigger, but didn't give as much feedback as longer throw buttons.

Ports and Features

Port selection was pretty good for a 15" notebook, with 4 USB ports, an eSATA connection, HDMI and VGA out, Firewire 400, LAN, and three audio jacks. The expansion ASUS included an ExpressCard/54 slot and a spring loaded SD-card reader. ASUS also found a creative use for the ExpressCard blank, turning it into a handy storage card holder. Considering that most of us will keep that blank card in the slot most of the time, it now becomes a handy storage device.

ASUS is always big on including freebies with notebook purchases, with the G51 being no different. They included a very nice padded notebook backpack, a Razer Copperhead Gaming mouse, and a pair of Eee Stick game controllers. The backpack provides more than enough protection for the G51, with enough room to spare for accessories or even a book if you wake up in time for class. The Razer gaming mouse is a nice step up from standard generic freebie mice, and the Eee Stick controllers are good for games that might support them.

Performance and Benchmarks

System performance and gaming is the main attraction for the ASUS G51-series notebook, offering NVIDIA GTX 260M graphics and in our notebook's case, an Intel Q9000 quad-core processor. In our review besides running the standard assortment of benchmarks, we also tested its performance in five fairly recent games. These included Call of Duty 5, Left 4 Dead, Crysis: Warhead, BioShock, and Batman: Arkham Asylum. All of these games were tested with Anti-Aliasing disabled, high detail settings across the board, V-Sync disabled, and the resolution set to 1920x1080, which is the native setting for this notebook. All of the games performed very well, with the exception of Crysis which stayed at or below 20FPS. Left 4 Dead gave us the highest framerates, with peaks as high as 170FPS, with the average being between 100-120FPS depending on action. Both BioShock and Call of Duty 5 stayed at or above 50FPS, with no noticeable dips in framerate even under heavy action. The Batman demo stayed right around 30FPS depending on how many characters were on the screen, but still remained very playable. For both Batman and Crysis, lowering the resolution and tweaking some of the detail settings would speed up the performance.

Batman: Arkham Asylum @ 1920 x 1080	Left 4 Dead @ 1920 x 1080
Crysis: Warhead @ 1920 x 1080	Call of Duty 5 @ 1920 x 1080
BioShock @ 1920 x 1080

Multimedia playback was excellent, with HD video barely fazing the quad-core processor. In fact I am pretty sure this system could decode two 1080P videos at the same time, displaying one on the display and another through the HDMI connection.

Heat and Noise

The ASUS G51 got warm in our tests, but nothing we were not expecting given its internal components. The palmrest and bottom panel near the heatsink got to the upper 90's, which was pretty warm but nothing uncomfortable. While gaming with the processor and graphics card under stress the heatsink output temperature was 140 degrees Fahrenheit, but the case around the vent never went past 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Fan noise was noticeable while gaming, but during normal activity it stayed pretty quiet, with small bursts as temperatures crept up.

Battery Life

We kind of knew from the start that the ASUS G51 with the Q9000 Quad-Core processor and NVIDIA GTX 260M graphics wasn't going to be breaking any records in our battery test. With the screen brightness set to 70%, wireless active, and the system set to dynamically adjust the processor, the G51VX-A1 managed 1 hour and 26 minutes before it shut down. Power consumption during the test was between 31 and 35 watts, quite a bit higher most notebooks we test. The Gateway P-7805u, which is a 17" gaming notebook that had similar levels of performance managed 3 hours and 29 minutes under the same test.

Conclusion

The ASUS G51VX-A1 gaming notebook performed quite well in our tests, easily coping with modern games at its 1080P native resolution, with the exception of Crysis. In a gaming-only setting I think users might see similar performance with a dual-core processor, instead of the quad-core this model had. It would drop power consumption as well as price. Overall the build quality was great, with the slightly too small keyboard being the only problem on our review unit. If the keyboard fit was not a problem, this notebook would definitely be very high on our list of recommended gaming systems.

Pros:

Great build quality (not counting the keyboard)

Solid gaming performance

Good looking design

Cons:

Short battery life

Source : LaptopReview.com

My Experience on Asus MV50 Laptop

2009-11-08T10:57:00.000-08:00

Until today, I've been using my Asus MV50 for 6 months. I thought that it will give me some problem after 3 or 4 months but actually I was wrong.

Most people like to play games. But most of them prefer to play by using desktop computer rather than laptop. They are afraid of causing their laptop performance become slower or heating fastly.

Me myself had tried playing some 'heavy' game on my Asus MV50. The latest one, EVE Online which requires 2gb RAM and 6gb free space on Hard Disk, is one of them.

EVE Online

This game was introduced to me by my friend who also installed this game on his non-Asus laptop. He said that EVE Online runs slowly on his laptop and it's true. I saw it myself. So, I wonder how it will be after being installed in my laptop.

Suprisingly, it runs smoothly on my laptop! I think this is because of the NVidia Garphics implented in it.

From the machine side itself, it doesn't easily become heat as happen on most laptop such as HP Compaq. It was technologically created to handle multiple works. For your information, I don't use cooler for my laptop since I bought it. I only used it once, but it's only to try the cooler. What I found is, the cooler is nothing but just an additional non-useful accessory. Hehehe!

Next time I'm going to write something about.... no idea. That's all. Thank you.

Laptop Review : My ASUS M50VC

2009-09-10T23:06:00.000-07:00

Hello! I'm glad to share with you my review on ASUS M50VC, the one I'd bought in this year. It was pretty cool and so far never give any problem to me.

With USD 873 (<> MYR 3050), I got one laptop with various main features like 1.3 megapixels webcam, 4 gigabytes RAM, Dolby Home Theater system, and graphics by NVIDIA GeForce. There are many other features and I will show them to you, generally =)

1. The Multimedia Touchpad

The multimedia touch pad puts digital entertainment all at your fingertips! It has convenient dual-mode switch, and you can choose to switch on the multimedia function, or it will switched off when not in use and works as normal cursor control. It was very user-friendly and I can enjoy watching video and listen to music with ease.

The touchpad has many functions for
multimedia as well as web browser instant key
and monitor brightness controller!

2. Cinematic Audio Enjoyment with Dolby Home Theater

Enjoy rich cinematic audio performance for audio enjoyment with Dolby Home Theater sound systems. You will get true-to-life audio performance for enhanced digital entertainment experience. The sound quality was very great that no need for you to buy external speaker.

3. Numeric Keyboard

ASUS M50Vc was adopted with numeric 0-9 keyboard, one of ASUS specialties that is unavailable in other brands, I think =) With the help of numeric keyboards, you can instinctively enter numbers without any hesitate, especially if you are an accountant. Hehehe! Very useful in Microsoft Excel.

4. Privacy Protection

This notebook offers a comprehensive security feature that protects the notebook and its stored information. Data security is uncompromised with a built-in AuthenTec fingerprint scanner with TruePrint® technology that reads from the live layer of skin, preventing common skin surface conditions from impairing scanner accuracy. Embedded TPM is a hardware solution that helps to avoid attacks by hackers looking to capture passwords and encryption keys to sensitive data. Copied. Bla bla bla... Hahaha! My word is, it makes me no longer need to type password during log on.

built-in AuthenTec fingerprint scanner with TruePrint® technology

5. High audio/video performance with Blu-Ray playback

To accommodate the increasing demand for high-definition data storage and true-to life image quality enjoyment, M50Vc with Blu-Ray support delivers unmatched picture quality. But, in this model, what I know is, the player only support playback, and you cannot write or burn Blu-Ray disc on it. Anyway, for me it is not a big matter as long as I can burn any other disc. Besides, with LightScribe, I can make a disc labeling. I can print my face on disc and sell it! Hahaha!

6. ASUS Total Video Communication

With three cutting-edge technologies - LifeFrame, SmartLogon and Virtual Camera, ASUS offers you a complete solution to communicate wirelessly, making it easier for you to log on to your system, capture and edit images, and video conference with multiple parties in separate locations at the same time. With this cool features, I can log on to my OS just by sitting in front of my laptop, and smile ;) No need to type password and I can jut forget this step. Totally convenient and totally innovative - that´s the ASUS way!

7. Extensive Connectivity

The built-in WIFI 802.11 a/g/n support ensures wireless Internet access whenever reception is available. Do you alert with this code -> a/g/n, that placed after 802.11? I will tell you later. The important is, with 'n' code in wireless definition, my M50VC can detect wireless more far than my friends' can. Interesting huh?

This model also provides Bluetooth 2.1 EDR - an enhanced data rate that transmits three times faster than the standard Bluetooth, for increased connectivity and synchronization between digital devices. Awesome!

8. ASUS Express Gate for instant online!

With this special feature, I can start surfing the internet faster while the others are still waiting the boot up progress complete. Just hit the button, and wait for this great machine to boot up and complete in 8 seconds, and you are online now! Besides, you can even listen to your favourite songs and watch your cute face in captured photos.

9. Graphics by NVIDIA GeForce

With 512MB VRAM, watching video becomes a great experience although on 15.4" WXGA screen. Playing game? No problem!

Pro(s) :

The multimedia touchpad for multimedia enjoyment
Dolby Home Theater for better sound quality.
ASUS Express Gate for instant online
It has 802.11n wireless connection
Graphics by NVIDIA GeForce
Easy log on by face detection
15.4" WXGA screen with HD Vision
etc.

Contra(s) :

The contra is, it doesn't has any contra to be listed in. That is the contra =P
Actually, for me, there is only one slight problem, that is, the screen is too wide that made the whole machine became big, and a little bit heavy compared to other model (<> 2.9kgs)

Do You ASUS? An Introduction...

2009-09-10T07:27:00.002-07:00

Yeah! Know something about ASUS? Or never heard about this world-brand? I'm here to share with you some information about ASUS - especially its notebooks.

I'm one of their customers. I'm thinking to create this blog so I can share with you my experiences in using their products. I know that this brand is not well-popular in Malaysia. Many of my friends in my university are using brands other than ASUS such as HP Pavilion, HP Compaq, Acer and Dell.

ASUS won actually 3056 various awards in 2008, and 1666 so far in 2009! It means, ASUS has high reliability in their products. Because I know, so I'm going to show you the specialties of ASUS in this simple blog, and in the same time, I want to learn and improve my skills in English language ( your hands on this are really appreciated).

I will focus on ASUS various notebooks and awards they'd won. After you had finished reading this blog, don't waste your time, search on ASUS products that you interested in, make some research, and buy it!

I'm looking forward to share with you guys any information about notebook. Don't forget to share yours with me.