Asus UL30VT-X1 Now Shipping

[Alienwho]

I just ordered this on amazon for $799. I was having hard time deciding between this or the UL80VT, but decided on the UL30VT because the DVD isn't necessary, I like the added bluetooth and the slightly smaller form factor.

One thing is I am seeing a lot of bitching that this one uses the "smaller battery". They both have 8 cell but the 30 has a 4400mah instead of the 5600mah. Are the nerds just nitpicking or is this really going to be that big of a deal? Asus still lists both as the same hours.

 

[Alamat]

Not to hijack ur thread but I am also looking for a laptop for my son who games a lot. Would the combination NVIDIA GeForce G210M + Intel GMA 4500MHD be good enuff for say MW2 of L4D2? I don't think he needs them on ultra or even high settings. He just wants to be able to play with no stutters on it.

 

[Alienwho]

Not to hijack ur thread but I am also looking for a laptop for my son who games a lot. Would the combination NVIDIA GeForce G210M + Intel GMA 4500MHD be good enuff for say MW2 of L4D2? I don't think he needs them on ultra or even high settings. He just wants to be able to play with no stutters on it.

From what I hear, this machine should be just fine, assuming you don't expect a super high end gaming notebook of course. This is one of the reasons I got it. Take a look at people's gaming reviews for the UL80VT, which is exactly the same hardware wise as this one. The overall consensus is that people are very pleasantly surprised at gaming performance.

 

[Gooberlx2]

I'm watching this thread for confirmed specs, user reviews and impressions.

I'm interested to see how the CPU holds up against the 2.26 in the Macbook Pro.

For me it's pretty much down to the ul30vt vs 13" MBP 2.26 ($999 refurbished).

 

[Alienwho]

I'm watching this thread for confirmed specs, user reviews and impressions.

I'm interested to see how the CPU holds up against the 2.26 in the Macbook Pro.

For me it's pretty much down to the ul30vt vs 13" MBP 2.26 ($999 refurbished).

Yeah I've been watching that same thread. I was also looking at that MBP but the 2 gigs of ram, inferior graphics inferior battery life and much higher cost pushed me away from my desire of wanting a mac. Not to mention the mac's will get a refresh in January and I can't wait that long.

 

[Gooberlx2]

Are the nerds just nitpicking or is this really going to be that big of a deal?

Also only a 1 year warranty vs the two year available on the ul30a-a1. Possibly there could be a ul30vt-a1 around the corner...we'll just have to wait to see. I can't buy anything until after the new year anyway.

 

[Alienwho]

Also only a 1 year warranty vs the two year available on the ul30a-a1. Possibly there could be a ul30vt-a1 around the corner...we'll just have to wait to see. I can't buy anything until after the new year anyway.

I'm not too familiar with Asus's lineup. What is the difference between the "-A1" and the "-XT"? Does the A1 specify better battery and 2 year warranty?

 

[Gooberlx2]

I'm not too familiar with Asus's lineup. What is the difference between the "-A1" and the "-XT"? Does the A1 specify better battery and 2 year warranty?

I think that's exactly the difference....at least for the UL30a's

 

[Gooberlx2]

Not to mention the mac's will get a refresh in January and I can't wait that long.

Could be longer than January. I think Arrandale is being released in January...so I would have guessed the mac refresh to be a bit behind. Also, I wonder how the on-chip Intel graphics will perform...because I doubt the 13" MBP would be getting a discrete upgrade option (which would be too expensive anyway).

Of course, an arrandale refresh may drive down the price of the current MPB as well...or they might skip refreshing the 13" altogether if the integrated graphics underperforms. (in which case they might as well label the current 13" MBP as the regular macbook and segregate the Pro line to the larger laptops with discrete GPUs)....a lot of people were happy with that arrangement to begin with.

 

[Alienwho]

The guy on the first page of notebook review just posted some pictures. Looks pretty slick. This is my first laptop since a Dell D600 so I'm looking forward to it.

 

[Alienwho]

I might as well ask, what is the proper battery usage these days? Should you top it off and plug it in whenever you can, or should you always deep cycle by running the battery until it dies then charge it up full?

 

[Gooberlx2]

I might as well ask, what is the proper battery usage these days? Should you top it off and plug it in whenever you can, or should you always deep cycle by running the battery until it dies then charge it up full?

I really don't know. Seems like you ought to be able to just plug-in/unplug willy-nilly nowadays. If there's a recommended usage for the MBP, I'd probably follow that since these are LiPoly batteries as well.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1490

 

[Gooberlx2]

Scrounged together some money, redeemed a bunch of credit card rewards and just ordered mine on Amazon with the free Prime trial. Should be here on Monday with the $4 one-day shipping.

Hooray! I haven't had a new laptop in about 8 years. I'm pretty sure it'll be a solid step up from my old 1ghz PIII Dell Inspiron 4100.

 

[maziwanka]

i ordered one of these late last night too after doing some research. im wicked excited too. in the past 2-3 days i did all my xmas shopping (for myself - haha). once i get it, i'll try to post pics/review (amazon prime ftw)

 

[Gooberlx2]

Bah, I had updated the phone number on my Amex acct today, so the billing keeps refusing to go through (guessing Amex doesn't officially update records until a business day?)...had to change that over to my MC. Hopefully that doesn't delay the order.

edit: Well, it must have worked this time because now it says it's preparing for shipment. Sweet!

 

[Alienwho]

Any adventurous wiling to try out the hackintosh on this?

 

[maziwanka]

picked it up from ups today and just now finished reinstalling and adding software. ill try to post more about the process later, but if you have questions, ill try to answer

 

[Alienwho]

I got mine yesterday and here are my impressions (much of which you can read about at the notebook reviews thread).

I love the size of it. Big enough to be comfortable but small enough to be portable.

Screen is adequate for its purpose, but it definitely has some viewing angle issues, especially if you have a dark background and you can see the light seeping in from the bottom of the laptop. I wish the resolution was 1440x900, minimum, 1600x900 would be incredible.

The laptop looks very sleek and nice. I like the keyboard. Build quality seems great IMO.

First thing I did was format and install win 7 ultimate. Then I installed the drivers and apps necessary for the function keys. Everything seems to work fine.

I charged it up fully yesterday and took about 5 or 6 hours to get the battery down to 10% (I didn't keep exact track, I unplugged the battery at about 1pm and used it sporadically throughout the day until 8pm when I plugged it back in). Most of the time was spent in high performance mode with overclocking and discreet graphics turned on. During this time I installed programs/browsed the web/tested out dragons age and torchlight.

Speaking of gaming performance, Dragons age performed at what I would expect from a laptop like this. I'm used to playing DA on my gaming desktop, so it's not fair to compare, because their is no comparison. At native resolution and settings turned to medium, I got playable framerates, but it obviously didn't look or perform anywhere near my gaming desktop (not should I expect it to, considering the size and weight of this model).

I don't plan on playing games like DA or other FPS on this notebook anyway, that's why I have a desktop. This is not my desktop replacement, it's my portable computer. It runs games like torchlight and world of goo just great, and those are the only kinds of games I would play on a machine like this anyway.

Overall, I'd give the laptop a 5/5 for living up to its claims.
When it comes to my desires in a laptop, I would give it a 4/5. This would be kicked up to a 5/5 with a screen with better viewing angles and a higher resolution.

 

[LongTimePCUser]

....
First thing I did was format and install win 7 ultimate. Then I installed the drivers and apps necessary for the function keys. Everything seems to work fine.....

Alienwho,
I was thinking of getting an Asus ul80vt upgrading to win 7 ultimate to get bitlocker for security reasons if the notebook was ever lost or stolen. Was that the reason you went to ultimate? Are there other reasons?

Did you try using "Windows Anytime Upgrade" and just entering a valid win 7 ultimate product key? Would that be easier than a format, install win 7 and then install drivers and Asus utilities?

 

[Alienwho]

Alienwho,
I was thinking of getting an Asus ul80vt upgrading to win 7 ultimate to get bitlocker for security reasons if the notebook was ever lost or stolen. Was that the reason you went to ultimate? Are there other reasons?

Did you try using "Windows Anytime Upgrade" and just entering a valid win 7 ultimate product key? Would that be easier than a format, install win 7 and then install drivers and Asus utilities?

I just did it to get rid of the crapware. I had a few extra copies around thanks to MSDNA. Sorry I can't help you.

 

[Gooberlx2]

I just did it to get rid of the crapware. I had a few extra copies around thanks to MSDNA. Sorry I can't help you.

QFT. Initially I didn't want to do a clean install..but caved because I think the utter load of crapware was ridiculous and causing serious performance issues for me with the hotkeys.

My impressions pretty much echo Alienwho's exactly. 5/5 for living up to its claims, 4/5 for my desires (resolution is fine for me, but a better quality screen would have been nice), 2/5 for software: Win7 is nice, power4gear is nice, the hotkey guis are nifty..the load of bloat is absurd.

PCdecrapifier should use the bloatware on these systems as a benchmark.

 

[Alienwho]

Anandtech posted the official review for the UL80VT (same laptop as UL30VT, except 14" and DVD drive). They love it and gave it the silver award (whatever that means).

http://www.anandtech.com/mobile/showdoc.aspx?i=3689&p=1

 

[Alienwho]

Last night I installed Dirt 2 on the UL30VT and I am very surprised at how beautifully it runs. I have it at native res with all the settings at medium and it is smooth as butter. Very fun having a game like this that you can play without a mouse on the go.

 

[Kahlil]

Are there any new laptops coming out Mid January that I should wait for? Honestly, the only reason why I'm considering this laptop is strictly for the battery life, I desperately need a laptop that can go more than 6+ hours, the UL30A I read can do this

Alienwho: I'm considering this laptop as well, the non discrete video card version (UL30A.) Could you tell me how long the batter lasts if used without using the discrete video card? Considering if I should look at the VT version just in case.

 

[Alienwho]

Well the A version comes with a 5600mah battery, while the VT comes with a 4600(i think, somewhere around there), so the VT battery isn't quite as good as the A, but it has nothing to do with the discreet graphics. I still easily get 7 hours on regular web browsing with the brightness all the way up as long as discreet graphics are turned off.

That said, in January they're releasing the VT-A1 version which is the same as the VT, but it comes with the 5600mah battery, and is silver.

My recommendation: Get whatever is cheapest if you think you will not have use for the discreet graphics. Keep in mind though that more programs are displacing loads onto the graphics these days, so it will be a bit more future proof.

I am personally very satisfied with my black VT, I love the option of discreet graphics and even with the weaker battery I still can easily get an entire days worth of work on it if I turn the brightness down a bit (I find the max brightness to be VERY BRIGHT in the first place).