M11X questions before buying

There are thousands of threads about the M11X. I was reading about them weeks ago however with the muliple threads by the minute looking back through will take forever. So if these were asked before be kind and inform again.

Is the cpu upgrade worth $100, yes/no
Is the hd upgrade from 320 to 500g worth it yes/no
any issues with wireless yes/no
anyone regret going to the smaller 11.6 screen yes/no
if you had to do it over would u still buy the m11x yes/no
would this be a better choice than the asus ul30vt yes/no

thanks

 

1. Not really unless your benching or running virtual systems. Don't know much about it. Probably not. Both run at the same Freq, only diff is that the SU7300 has 1 more mb of cache

2. Depends on if you need more space.

3. No, havn't seen any yet

4. Opinion based, depends on what you want

5. Havn't found somone who would say no yet

6. Depends on what you want, M11X is a mini gaming beast. Runs just about anything except CPU intensive games.

 

For #4 I would say that coming from a person who works strictly on desktops and never owning a laptop, the 11.6 screen didn't really phase me at all. It took a couple of hours to adjust my eyes to it but the images are crystal clear. Way better than my 4 years old desktop monitor (hmm...need to replace with a 1080p monitor...)

The M11x is a mini BEAST. I OCed the GPU to (575/1400/850) as can be seen in my thread and ran Mass Effect 2 with forced on Vsync, 8x AA and some other tweaks (plus all other settings at max) and it plays SMOOTH! Do not take this little laptop lightly.

 

1) Benchmarks show it is a very marginal increase in performance. With that said, the CPU is the weakest component of the m11x, so IMO, every little bit helps. I'd take it for the better (C2D) architecture and VT support if this is something you need.
2) Entirely up to your personal needs. Will you be storing a lot of media on the m11x? I have the 256 GB SSD, and it's plenty of room. Granted, I have over 3TB of external storage for all my non essential media files.
3) I've experienced none.
4) Again, personal preference. It's best to look at the m11x as a superpowered netbook in terms of form factor, and if you can manage to use a netbook for everyday use without problems, the m11x will be no issue. I adjusted to the screen size rather quickly, and the WLED is quite good.
5) I'm not sure. I like it for what it is, but there are several other laptops with a similar overall form factor that offer similar or better performance (Vaio Z, much more expensive however). I still feel like an m13x or m12x would have been a better choice, with more screen real estate and more room to cool the system. Again, this question is based mostly upon what you need it for. Had I not purchased the m11x, I would've bought the Z and would not have needed the Adamo. Still, I don't regret getting the m11x.
6) I've owned a ul30vt for several months. I sold it when I ordered the m11x. Honestly, the Asus is a good machine, but the build quality is both terrible and incomparable to Alienware. Honestly, the Asus is made of cheap, flimsy plastic that has rather noticeable flex, is far too shiny, and just doesn't look attractive. The "aluminum" cover looks better in pictures, is also a nasty fingerprint magnet, and feels like it's .001mm thick. Very ofputting. The 210m is apples to oranges to the 335m (no comparison), so if you're doing a lot of gaming the m11x is a no brainer.

With that said, I also picked up an Adamo to fulfill the other role occupied by my old ul30vt: office work. Using the 11.6 inch for extended periods of time with office work was a bit uncomfortable for my tastes.

Instead of having 1 machine do it all, for my needs, it was better to seperate them. Overall, I'm satisfied. Hope this helped.

 

1) It was for me as I still need to use some engineering programs under windows XP.

2) Depends on your needs, I went with 320 and have a lot of heavy steam games installed plus my design applications and I'm still less than a half full.

3) Not yet. Haven't tested bluetooth though, some people have reported connection drops.

4) No, perfect res/screen combination.

5) yes

6) I too got my ul30vt on december and sold it right away after the m11x was announced. The laptop is super light and the battery life is amazing, however... the build quality was not very good, and the WHOLE damn thing attracted finger prints like crazy, top part, palm rests, bezel etc... everything. While the 210 runs almost everything its a different class video card...

I have to admit that the weight is quite different...buuut its a better quality laptop.

 

Sitting in class taking my ul30vt out of my bag I used to be embarassed. The thing looked like it trudged through a jungle, and then fell into a sewar.

I'm happy to report, even after a lot of use, my m11x in Lunar Shadow looks squeeky clean

 

I've read somewhere they are both based on the C2D penryn core design. No idea what's the deal with the name...

Now that was very.... visual. LOL!

 

Is the cpu upgrade worth $100
NO - Unless you use Virtualization, or have a coupon to offset the price.

Is the hd upgrade from 320 to 500g worth it
NO - There will be no performance gain, just additional storage.

any issues with wireless
NO - Range has been called "very good" for the system size.

anyone regret going to the smaller 11.6 screen
NO - Most people were willing to make that sacrifice for the portability.

if you had to do it over would u still buy the m11x
Can't answer yet, don't have mine. I would based on what I've seen though as long as i didn't have to spend 30 days waiting for my order to leave build.

would this be a better choice than the asus ul30vt
YES - If you're looking for great gaming experience in the smallest package. This question is really subjective to what you're looking for though.

 

wireless on M11X makes macbook look sad.

 

I second what Zlog said.

Depending on what you pay it is an awesome ultraportable computer. If you don't need the ultraportable form factor, I'd look at something else.

 

On the SU4100 vs SU7300, isn't the other difference SU4100 doesn't do SSE4? Does that even matter?

 

Nope, not really. across the board the difference is at most 5% and that was a synthetic test. Real-world you'll probably never notice even side by side.

 

Personally I would get it for a couple of reasons.

For one, the CPU is soldered on and therefore you are stuck with w/e you have.
Second, if it would add 1-3 fps to games when we are talking about playing games at 25 fps, it is a big deal. It could be the tipping point to making some games playable.

 

Maybe. I think the angle I'm going to look at it from is that it's suppose to be cheap, might as well keep it cheap, ya know?

 

Keep in mind I did say if it would add 1-3 fps to make something playable at 25 fps. Most things people are throwing at this laptop are playing anywhere from 30-40 fps. So if you are tight on money then it is something that can be overlooked.

 

Yeah, I forgot about OCing too.

 

1-3fps =/= $100

You can slightly adjust the video settings in a game for free to make it playable.

 

Hey....you got 2 SU7300s!

 

I had tons of coupons ;-) I paid $735 each after tax/shipping.

The SU7300 actually made the price high enough to allow me to use a $100 off coupon I had so it was a wash... and it stacked with other coupons i had.

 

Yeah, I gotta agree with everyone. Unless you're going to be using the virtualization (a lot of vmware or virtual box use) or need the SSE4 instruction for some reason (some of the newer emulators use this. I think the playstation 2 emulator does) than it's not worth getting the SU7300. Both will overclock the same.

 

With the PS2 emu, I was seeing, after googling, that SSE4 was only important in software mode. I dunno exactly though