New 14 inch G-Series Notebook

So BestBuy uses different types and shapes of AC Adapter for the G46?? Raptor says his is diff and code also.

 

Maybe some revision, i have no idea. I bought mine at best buy on Long Island. They have 1 more here =P

 

Whats the model number on that brick.. and whats the volts? mines the 180W brick from the G73's i think -.- Are there smaller ones with the same output like yours?

 

P/N 0A001-00260 200
MODEL FA180PM111
INPUT 100-240v ~50-60Hz 2.5a
OUTPUT 19.5V --- 9.23A

For some reason its showing dell chargrers on google lol

 

The chargers probably are made by delta or flextronic, and the model correspond to charger used by dell.

 

Sigh - not getting access to new goodies / toys would have to be one of the things that is most frustrating about being up here in Canada.

Anyone have any idea / heard anything about when this laptop will be making its way up North? If i am down in the states i would be all over this thing, maybe this will have to be a weekend road trip...

 

So I'm trying to do some research on whether or not this board has msata or not, and I'm leaning towards the option that it does. Asus did say they are not upgradeable, but it leads me to think its because its not a user serviceable area. I wonder what their definition of user serviceable is, if it means just taking one cover off then that's rather silly -_-

Anyway, on the G46
1. The memory is cake to get to. (The only place on the back that looks like it opens, and it does, one phillips)
2. HDD is somewhat rather easy aswell, lift the cover just enough and you should have enough space to get it removed, although I'm not sure if there is anything "extra" there to prevent you from doing it or to void the warranty. So far i only saw the black strip of tape for removing the top cover.

Now let's look at the facts:
1a. According to the official page, it will have SSD combinations as listed below aswell:
ASUS - Notebooks- ASUS G46VW

MarshallR@ASUS said this on ROG forums

Source: G46 - possible to add msata? - Page 2

1b: In my opinion, it wouldn't make sense for them to make a different board for the ssd variations, and since there are specific options listed, I would believe they install it at factory, close it and that's it.

2. MarshallR@ASUS confirmed the G55VW has mSata, and that one looks to be of similar design but slightly bigger, but here is some key words which looks like they will apply for the G46 aswell:

3. This is pure speculation and guessing but if you look at the mainboard of the G55VW you can see that the mSata port is on the same side as the memory sticks. When you open the top cover on the G46 the memory sticks are actually on the other side of the motherboard. So if it's maybe somewhat related to the G55VW, then ill guess the msata is on that side aswell, but in order to get to that, you basically have to remove the motherboard, which would make sense for Asus to say that it's not user serviceable, as this is rather involved rather than opening a backdoor and changing out memory sticks.

Picture of G55VW Mainboard: http://gentechpcforums.com/system-images/Asus/G55VW-mainboard.JPG

I'm not too sure I'll be brave enough to do this though.
What do you guys think?

 

I saw that you were thinking about returning your G46VW and getting a NP9150. If that is the case then I don't think you should try it. Sounds like a lot of trouble to get mSATA in but possibly ruining your warranty haha.

 

I'm debating between the two, haven't made a concrete decision. I would want to know about mSata for future reference, if i do undertake the task, I'll see if it's doable without pulling any traps for warranty void ^_^

 

Well I gave you what I thought on the thread but if you decide to take the challenge and trying to do it kudos to you. After seeing the pictures of the interior, starting to think I might head into a different direction myself.

 

Decided I'll keep it :smile:

 

Wait... you were considering getting something else? any specific reasons, or just wanting some more customization / SSD options etc?

How thin is this laptop btw? the no optics drive is something i really like - but is it much slimmer without the optical drive?

 

See my post here;
http://forum.notebookreview.com/wha...asus-g46vw-vs-sager-np9150-3.html#post8990643

 

You can always get a monitor to plug it into at home, it's also worth checking to see later if the display cable is dual LVDS or not.

 

I have my desktop for that.

 

Just did a Nvidia inspector overclock to about 1101MHZ for help in far cry 3 on Very High.. runs perfect! Temps dont go over 64 degrees Celsius laptops fans do ramp up though not too loud..

The cooling on this thing is godly!

 

So I managed to get to Best Buy with a friend of mine after finals were over. Luckily they had a model for display so I got to play with it. Got to admit I really like how this laptop looks and how it feels. Now to wait for the mSATA and the i7 versions to come out before I make a decision

 

I'm probably going to buy this, if my M14x R2 becomes a problem. The first one I received was DoA, they are still building me a 2nd one. If that ones becomes another dud, then Asus all the way for me, I'm done with Alienware all together until they get their stuff together

 

I did some gaming yesterday for a few hours. Battlefield 3 and civilization 5 on highest possible settings. No hiccups and it stayed cool

 

Do some overclocking and report back

 

Maybe I'll try but honestly, I haven't needed it.

 

I forgot to ask, did your G46's come with a mouse or a backpack?? Because I remember seeing the G55 come in with both of them!

 

Hello there all,

So with the release of the G46VW there was a bit of confusion and questions. One of which was upgradeability of the system. Specifically ASUS has noted that the mSATA and hdd are 'not user upgradeable', but they did in fact announce that the system will be released with SSD's in the future, and they did list msata on specs. Truth is, they are right when it comes to the average user, as it is not a task everyone can take on, but not to say it's impossible.

I'm going to assume I'm one of the first to open this beast up, so I believe with this post, some questions will be answered about the laptop and maybe it will help sway people in the right direction. I will specifically be talking about the following laptop currently sold at Best Buy: Asus 14" Laptop 8GB Memory 750GB Hard Drive G46VW-BHI5N43 - Best Buy

1. Screen is matte (Resolution is 1366 x 768)
2. There has been some reports of an optical drive, but no, there is none.
3. Wireless card is a Intel Centrino Wireless-N 2230
4. & Physically confirmed by me:
a) 1 Hard Drive Slot (so, upgradeable)
b) 1 mSATA port (so, upgradeable)
c) 2 memory slots (upgradeable)

If there are any doubts I will post some crappy pictures below.
I would love to be able to actually test this out with an mSATA SSD, in addition to taking some better & high-res pictures
+ possibly even a DIY with the pictures on how exactly to take everything apart, it is a tedious task, but I do not have an mSATA SSD, and with $ tied up now, I can't. But if anybody wants to help me get one my paypal is [email protected] ^_^ [/shameless_plug]

Click for bigger pics


If you have questions, ask, I'll try to answer.

 

Look at the display connector type is the cable LVDS or whatever that meaker was talking about

 

@Coder, have you safely removed the hdd and installed an SSD or can an SSD be installed now based on your disassembly?

 

I think that pad would have been for a thunderbolt port looking at it now.

Looks like they decided against it for now.

 

LVDS anyone?

 

That does require taking the screen apart so be patient lol.

 

Display connector looks something similar to this.
http://www.insidemylaptop.com/images/Dell-Inspiron-6000-LCD/replace-damaged-laptop-screen-08.jpg

I just had to pull up to disconnect and remove. Then push down to reconnect rather than slide in or out.

Hard drive can be removed as you see in the pics that's what I did. Just had to unplug the connector and that's it so i don't see why would there be an issue with putting in an SSD.

I do have an SSD i can put in there so you can see it fits.

I might have new high res pics in a few days when I look at it again.

 

What do you think meaker LVDS? ?

 

I'm not familiar with the terminology for the connector type so my apologies if that's what it is -_-

 

Dats why i asked Meaker ^_^

 

You need to look at the cable going into the monitor, if it has a significant number of wires missing (around 10) then it's only single channel.

 

Btw, raptor or code, how is the touchpad on this? is it responsive and smooth? or is it jittery and it skips?

 

Had to turn up the sensitivity on it in windows but other than that its pretty responsive

 

Is it just me or I don't see a sensitivity setting for tapping the buttons or to adjust the scroll speed of the touchpad, i can't even find the damn settings for the touchpad but it says elantech and all i see is the asus smart gesture setting where it does not give any options to adjust the touchpad with things like sensitivity, scroll speed, single scroll, dual scroll, palm check setting etc...

I need a setting where you can set the tap to soft or hard because the default tapping of touchpad requires me to press or tap on it hard to move the cursor and i want it to be soft.


BTW, the ROG logo on the lid actually lights up to white led like on apple logo or alienware alienhead and it is kool ^_^

 

I wonder if it's like the MSI logo that just borrows the back light leakage from the LCD.

Have you tried going to the windows mouse settings?

 

Yep meaker, the windows mouse settings and cursor speed and enchanced settings, but there should be another setting only dedicated just for the touchpad alone like synaptics or elantech where you could configure the Palm Check sensitivity, Drag Zones, one finger/two finger scrolling enable/disable and tapping soft/hard setting, you know what i mean?

But I don't see that, all i see is that elantech latest driver is installed for mousepad and Asus Smart Gesture and the smart gesture does not let you configure the things that I mentioned.

 

Picture collection:
General Pictures of first opening: asus Photos by Coderedpl | Photobucket
Comparison to Dell XPS 15z size: comparison Photos by Coderedpl | Photobucket
Full Teardown cell phone pictures: teardown Photos by Coderedpl | Photobucket
Full Teardown higher quality with circled things you need to remove: teardownhighres Photos by Coderedpl | Photobucket


I tried to put in a full size Mushkin mSATA SSD: Newegg.com - Mushkin Enhanced Atlas Series MKNSSDAT120GB-DX mSATA 120GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
It does not and will not work, it is too big. You need a half size (mini?) ssd. Also, when plugged in, it was not detected. I bought two of those listed above and neither worked when powered on. SO must be a different bios or something.

You can try on your own if you wish.
more to come later....

 

quick Meaker! LVDS???

 

Update!

Returned back the laptop to bestbuy for a full refund after playing with it for several days. I'll give my pros and cons below

GOOD
- Excellent Cooling and Fans are whisper quiet when gaming or benchmarking and almost no noise with web browsing
- No throttling issues and you get full performance ( tested msi afterburner graph and gpu-z)
- GTX 660m at a laptop of this size at 768p gives so much frames per sec
- Excellent build quality and feel.
- Great stealth design and lid ROG logo lights up
- Good battery life of between 4-6hours
- Lid is super tight and non wobbly and does not creak when opening or closing
- Good wireless card Intel Centrino 2230 and Bluetooth 4.0, very good signal and continous connection w/o disconnects. Compared to crappy atheros wireless cards that Asus puts on most of their high end laptops.



BAD
- Screen is not grainy but my god the color gamut reminds me of m14x R2 where it is lacking the pop or vividness. The G55/G75 default screen has 60% gamut and from experience, the G46 screen would be around 40% gamut like the m14x r2. The color really looks dead
- The built in speakers although is decent, has a popping noise a half a sec b4 you play a music or video and when closing it when VIA driver is installed. Tried reinstalling diff VIA drivers specifically for g46 and poppin sound problem still persist. SOLUTION is to uninstall VIA driver and the problem goes away but the sound quality suffers so bad.
- The outer rubberize lid does not pick up many smudges but the metal/aluminum palm rest area is a fingerprint/smudge/oil magnet.
- Touchpad sucks , the 2 touchpad buttons are perfect though and really responsive and quiet but the touchpad requires some pressure in tapping it and is really slow because the elantech drivers does not have its own touchpad settings where you can adjust different settings like one/two scrolling, palm check sensitivity, tap settings like tapzones/ soft/hard etc... It has the Asus Smart Gesture where it does not help at all.
- Although the G46 can be disassembled using a torx screw, it is still not as easy and can void the warranty if you try and replace the hdd and the hdd is a slow 5400rpm 750GB Samsung Drive



Might be a Pro or a Con
- 768p resolution, 900p would have been perfect at this size since the gtx 660m has so much horsepower
- The spacebar requires some pressure and right placement of finger when pressing it for it to work

 

sigh... Whatever.. at leased im happy..

 

Mine is going back in a few days. Already ordered the replacement for it.

 

Sadly no it does not come with either the backpack or mouse. I wish it did I want at lease a sleeve to put it in.

 

Im looking into this notebook but am not sure if its worth it from my current g53.
Id like something a little more portable with some actual battery life which this has over my current.
Im hoping that maybe in the next few months there will be some changes in gpus so that there could possibly be a 660mx or something slightly better
put inside the g46.

 

I really do not think they will put a stronger video card in the laptop. They don't want it beating out the 653. The card is an amazing card as is. I am pretty sure you can overclock it more. I don't mind the screen resolution, I can not tell the difference really. It is a quiet laptop, the 5400 rpm hdd makes more noise then the fan. Keep in mind I have not played a game yet. It has taken over 12 hours to download assassins creed 3.

 

Finally someone with the same opinion lol this laptop is amazing!

Id rather have a whisper quiet powerful low res laptop then somthing else..

Its a shame Colp had to go an "replace" his..

Glad to have you aboard quick

 

G46 is now available from Hidevolution with upgrades to quad core i7 and 900p screen, SSD, and can also be configured with Windows 7.

Asus G46VW-BHI5N43 2GB NVIDIA GTX 660M 14" for $1,099.00

 

Thunderbolt seems conspicuously absent... What gives? Is it coming even later?

EDIT: also there seems to be no mSATA options unless I missed that.

 

Has anyone replaced the HDD with a SSD yet? I have a M4 sitting on my desk ready to go in. Also is there a place were we can get a legit ISO of Windows 8 without having to purchase it again?