ASUS UL30 Owner's Lounge

Okay, so I really need to stop thinking about all this because I keep changing my mind too often. Now that you mention "studying" your usage over the past few months, I realize that I haven't done anything more taxing than watch a 1080p video anyway. I'm starting to feel the +$150 for the ul80vt is not worth it. I think I'm leaning more towards the black UL30A-X5 now... choices, choices

I think spending less now will justify an upgrade in 2 years in my mind

 

Sorry about that....

 

Does anyone know if the 4500MHD can handle 1080p video out through the HDMI on a CULV processor?

 

Assuming the player supports it, yes.

 

Assuming also the video is encoded with not out of standard profile (some of them are)

 

I don't see any point in implementing an hdmi port and 1080p movie playback capabilities in these laptops if they weren't going to perform smoothly. It's like building something when you know it's not going to work to start off with. Seems ridiculous but it happens sometimes. I just hope the UL30 comes through!

 

If the Intel 4500MHD works as advertised, which several reviews have said it does, then 1080p should be done easily. All you need is to have player that supports DXVA, aka hardware acceleration, which means the integrated graphics helps in decoding the video. Supported players include Media Player Classic Home Cinema and The KM Player (configured correctly). I play 1080p video in power saver on my amd 2ghz hd3200 laptop with ~50% CPU usage.

 

Still not happy with the various stories received from Asus, but in all fairness to Asus tech support, my local fed-ex office was responsible for the delay. Apparently, there's a special machine needed to process RMAs, and my local fed-ex office's machine is broken...and has been for the last 11 days. God forbid they actually call and tell me this. Fed-ex still had the package, and I was able to get it and send it via priority mail back to Amazon today, which should result in a refund. (I'm near the end of my 30 day return window, that's why I'm going for a refund through Amazon rather than attempting to get a repair/replacement through Asus.)

 

Hey, i'm really interested in this laptop, but the CULV processor scares me in terms of how much it can handle. One of my biggest worries is how well can it handle multi tasking? For example, if i have Firefox/Chrome on with around 10 or so tabs, microsoft word, and a itunes playing, how slow will the computer be? also, i was just wondering how this computer can handle old school games i.e. Sim Theme Park and Capitalism II. I know the intel gma 4500 can handle those two games, but i'm just worried about the processor. overall, it looks like a great machine though!

 

That pretty much describes my daily use. I do not experience noticeable lag

 

hey guys. how does one go about getting the memory stick to load?

i have the silver ul30a1 model and there doesnt seem to be a way of doing this altho the reader is lablled as sd/mspro....

 

you should be able to insert your memory card into the slot and it show up with an autoplay dialog. if not, it should certainly show up in My Computer.

Is that what your were asking?

 

I have a dual-core Atom 330 computer and it can handle those tasks easily. Heck, I actually have a virtual machine running a local XAMPP server on the Atom. The CULV processors are much better so it shouldn't break a sweat. Hmm, I'd estimate performance of the SU7300 to be better than or equivalent to a dual-core Pentium D805 2.66GHz.

@fakey
Do you have a Memory Stick Pro Duo? If so, I think you'd probably need a Memory Stick adapter. You know, the ones that look like bubble-gum sticks?

 

Huzzah!

By tomorrow I will be able to be an official member of the forum!

My UL30a-a2 was shipped from amazon.com today and will arrive tomorrow!

Fast work....

 

Let's hope you don't get a lemon j/k

 

Congrats! Let us know how you like it!

 

I'm waiting on the UL20A to get posted up and see what that's all about...

 

When a 12" weighs more than a 13.3", then in theory the ul30 > ul20...

 

Maybe for me, I'm not even stuck on Asus yet....watching what pops up...

 

thanks for the prompt replies guys. looks like i'd be needing one of them adapters

for some reason my wifi range isnt very far... i guess it probably also have to do with my school having only g routers too but yea... how would one go about testing the wifi range?

 

Congrats! :]

I have a question for you, which I hope you can help me answer when you get your laptop. It concerns this "issue" with the AC adapter from the review:

Does the A2 have the same (40W) adapter and how long does a full recharge take?

Has any of you owners of the A1/X#-model had problems with the AC adapter and how long does a full recharge take?

Does the A2 with 5600 mAh (8 cell) weigh more than the models with 4400 mAh (also 8 cell)?

 

And a UL30A-X5 just appeared on my doorstep.

 

Well how is it? lol Any pics?!!? Supposed to get my ul30a-a2 tomorrow...

 

Buy.com is selling the UL30A-A2 for $758.99 + Bing CB of 8% which will bring the total down to X5 price! Here's the link

You can get the A2 for less than $700

Note: I cancelled my order with Amazon. With more than $70 to spare, I can buy an extra battery if need be...

 

Received my UL30A-X5, too and I started playing with it for a bit. It doesn't seem capable of fullscreen Hulu as the reviews suggested. I tried playing Bones season 4 episode 4 and it was kinda choppy. I'll have to put it through its paces. The keyboard would take some getting used to (I was so used to the one on my Satellite), but I've found it to be pretty comfy.

 

Tell me about it!

I certainly will! Not here yet though.... [Impatiently waiting.]

Okay ... when I get it I will try and post in here ... will likely be posting Friday, though. We will see.

Nice find!

I'm still curious to see if and when Asus will see extra batteries and/or extended batteries for this series....

 

Hmm...tried an episode of Lie to Me, which seemed fine once it was buffered to 3 bars or so. There may have been a few dropped frames, but it was definitely something I had to look for rather than a distraction. Not sure if it made any difference, but I noticed there was a graphics update available in Windows update.

I was also fairly impressed with the speakers, which sounded as good if not better than my G51.

I will try to put some pics up in a bit.

 

Okay - it is here!

First question to answer.

The power adapter says its output is 19v. It is very small, and is already rather warm. Hmm.... The model number of this adapter is pa-1400-11.

More later.

 

Ok, I put a few quick pics of the UL30A-X5 compared to my G51 here. The black back really likes fingerprints. I also noticed that the machine only comes with a 12 month warranty.

 

I'm talking about the UL20A, not the U20A...I haven't seen the UL20A up on anysites yet....are we talking about the same laptop?

 

Very nice!

I must say that I am quite satisfied with the way the silver look on this thing looks - although the black looks nice as well....

 

NBR Kevin mentioned that the 40W AC adapter reached 130 deg F in his A1 review.

 

I'm glad I have the silver one too, I've had glossy black notebooks before and they are finger print magnets.

The silver really does great job of hiding prints, I'm surprised the brushed lid of the black model shows prints.

 

Okay, just finished the Windows updates and installed Firefox 3.5.3. The same video (Bones s4e04) I was watching earlier plays much more smoothly now. There were occasional drop frames but nothing too bad. Not sure if it's because of the graphics update or because I'm using Firefox and not IE8. My guess is it's the latter. Sound is pretty good even at fairly high volume. I had the speakers at 60% and for me, that was already fairly loud. I didn't notice any sound distortion, either.

Still got several more stuff I need to install (MPC HomeCinema, XAMPP, Python, etc) before I get this working exactly the way I want it to but so far, the prognosis is good.

Since I'm doing various things, the battery life is jumping all over the place. Been using it on battery for around 1.5~2 hours now with approximately 30~45 minutes spent watching Hulu video (processor heavy). Battery is currently at 75% with 5 hours remaining. This is the 4400mAh 8-cell battery. By the way, the sticker on the screen mentioned up to 10 hours battery life.

 

I remember that.... And I have periodically been reaching down and grabbing the adapter during my setting it up. So far nothing near what he reported, but I am doing very unintensive activities thus far

Finger prints are not necessarily a worry for me - I am just kinda pre-disposed to preferring the color black. In any event when the laptop is open and you are looking at it the area surrounding the screen is black and the keys are black - I kinda like the look of the contrast.

 

Additional info:
I just spent more time doing some regular internet browsing and it looks like Windows 7 did its job and throttled CPU usage. I'm now showing 5 hours left at 60% charge.

 

OK:

UL30A 3.72 lbs
UL20A 3.44 lbs

hmmmmm

 

no one got pics of the silver one?

 

Nothing scientific, but I have been running on battery for about 2 hours now on entertainment mode at 90% brightness, and it is currently showing 71%/5:09 remaining. This is with browsing, a bit of hulu, and lots of wireless file transfers as I move my stuff onto this machine, so pretty representative of "moderate" use. I have a transatlantic flight with multiple layovers next week, so I will see how long I can push the battery then.

 

<----- Chalk up another X5 purchase

It shipped today (thursday 10/22) via two-day from amazon. I'll gladly provide some feedback asap. I'd like to contribute as I've certainly taken advantage of such feedback from other consumers regarding similar purchases

 

Check page 3.

 

can you confirm how many hours of battery life the sticker on the laptop says?

 

The a2 looks exactly the same as the a1??

 

Pretty much the only differences between the units are the OS, or at least thats what we've seen on paper so far.



A1 = Vista Home Premium, Silver
X3 = Vista Home Premium, Silver

A2 = Windows 7 Home Premium, Silver
A3B = Windows 7 Pro + XP Downgrade disc, Black
X5 = Windows 7 Home Premium, Silver

 

Definitely. I'd be glad to

 

The X5 comes in black (you might have goofed)

 

Right, got confused with the X3 version.

 

hi there,

for those who were able to install win7 can u please enlighten me on the procedure involved? I have the retail dvd iso but when i loaded onto my flash drive it it load into the menu but its output msg saying that it requires a cd driver to go on when this laptop doesnt come with it.

to note: I've alrdy prepare the flash drive to boot and have tested on another pc so i am not too sure why windows cant read the cd driver information from the iso mounted.

sorry if this was posted in an odd place i figured other ul30 user might be interested to know the solution as well.

 

Okay! I put it through its paces last night.

When I make a power saving profile maximized for battery length (which means screen dimmed to lowest possible and wireless turned off) AND reduce the color from 32 bit to 16 bit this is what I got - these are rough numbers only, mind you:

Playing .avi files and installing a fair size program: about 8 hours of battery life.

Playing .avi files only: about 10 - 10 1/2 hours of battery life.

Only word processing: about 13 - 13 1/2 hours battery life.

So, at least based on the first run of draining the battery life, while it does not live up to the 16 hours listed on amazon.com, it DOES do better than the advertised "up to 12 hours" for the other machines - but this is in extreme power saving mode.

I wonder what other people have experienced with their models?

 

Finished draining my battery. I got 8.5 hours total usage which is pretty good, imho. I only actually needed 5~6 hours battery life and it has exceeded that. That was with 30~45 minutes fullscreen Hulu playback (very processor heavy) and the rest of the time was spent browsing the internet. Screen brightness was set to 25% but that was the only concession I made with regards to saving battery. It wasn't even actually a concession to battery life. I just hate uber bright screens. If I were just doing pure internet browsing (no Hulu), I figure I'd get around 30mins ~ 1hr extra.

Again, this is with the X5 which has the 4400mAh 8-cell battery.

@Mycanid
Can you check your battery and tell us what the part number is? Should make searching for a replacement a bit easier.