*Official UL30VT-X1 Owners Lounge*

Thanks so much for the help guys. I guess I'll just have to get the ul30vt w/o the dvd drive.

I have one more question before I pull the trigger. I just noticed that the ul30vt-x1 only comes with a 1 year warranty while the ul30vt-a1 comes with a 2 year warranty. Is that correct? I thought the only difference between the two models was their color. Also, if there not identical, then what else is different between them?

 

the a1 also comes with a bigger battery yndre, 5300 mAH I think? the X1 is 4800mAH

 

Here's ALL the differences:

UL30Vt-A1 in Silver has

1) 2-year Global Warranty + Accidental Handling 1-year warranty

2) 5600Mah Battery (12- hours....)

3) Atheros WiFi with just 1 antenna (not so super hot)

UL30Vt-X1 in Black has

1) 1-year Global warranty + Accidental Handling 1-year warranty

2) 4400Mah Battery (10-hours....)

3) Intel 1000 WiFi with 2 antennas (better WiFi than A1, better range especially)

I hope that clears it up for you, now go ahead and get the Black X1 so I can have some company here! You gotta love the Black one, I sure do! Hah!

 

Yes, I've completly deteled the partition, but I still have the original unallocated space from it. I've tryed to make a bootable USB and copy the recovery DVD contents onto it, but when it boots up it stop at just a mouse cursor and a grey Vista-ish background.
Is there a chance that someone could share theirs recovery partition as a torrent? I know, I know, but I'm desperate, because I wanted to take back the laptop to the store, but I was too fast with deleting the recovery partition (because I have my own Windows), and now Im stuck :/

 

Do you have an external optical drive?

It's easy to fix things if you have that...Insert the System Restore DVD into the optical drive, and before installing Windows, simply format the HD to completely erase all your personal data etc., then boot up with the System Restore DVD in the drive, install Windows, then use the Recovery Driver DVD to restore all the drivers, and BAM! Your'e all done...!

Let me guess, you don't have an external optical drive...that's really a shame if that is the case...they really do come in handy, you know?

 

Yes, I don't have one, and now I wish I had . I've tryed to make a new FAT32 partition, made it bootable and copied the contents of the DVD to it. But after booting it I got something like "This isn't a bootable disk ... Please insert...".

And I tried numerous times, with different methods of making a bootable USB drive, and copying the contents of the recovery DVD, but every time I just get to the grayed out Vista-ish screen and a mouse cursor. After that nothing happens. But when I stick this into my desktop (which isn't a ASUS) it sorta works, because I get to the screen and I get a message "This isn't a ASUS computer".

 

The disk is looking for the OEM SLIC in the BIOS of your desktop, which it won't find... so it haults the process.

@ Rexrzer: everest does read the chipset with a 8gb max (gotta wait for 2x4gb sticks to drop a little... I'd be willing to part with 220ish... but not 340)

 

I'm still getting confused a bit by warranty. When it says 1 year accidental + 1 year standard... is that 2 years with the first year being accidental? or is it just one year of accidental and that's it?

 

See next post, this one can be deleted

 

Installing Windows 7 via USB
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/m.../dd535816.aspx


1. Diskpart
2. List Disk
3. Select Disk X (X being the number of the usb disk)
4. clean
5. create partition primary
6. active
7. format fs=fat32 quick
8. assign
9. exit

 

One year total, both accidental and standard. With the A1 you get a second year of standard warranty. It would not surprise me, however, if ASUS would extend the warranty for you for a few extra bucks; might be worth asking. They sell a 3rd year for those with the standard 2 year warranty, so...

 

Thanks for the clarification tallan.
Now to decide between X1/A1 wait for JT, or go alienware m11x LOL.

 

The estimates on battery life for the new JT model are not as great as the X1/A1, so if maximum battery is an issue that may influence your decision. The M11 of course only gets a fraction of the battery life, but it's a tempting machine for gamers especially - I was attracted by the backlit keyboard, but figured an 11 inch screen was just a little too cramped for me.

One other ASUS model you might want to consider is the U80A-B2, which is a 14 inch machine with a DVD built in, and it has a backlit keyboard. I'm typing on one now. A little heavier, a little bigger, a tiny bit more powerful than the UL30 it has the 2 year warranty and is in stock at Amazon for $899. Battery life is about on a par with the M11; about 4.5 to 6 hours, the graphics are not switchable. Take a peek if you're interested...

 

Thank you! I just tried this out, it worked fine to upgrade. I can confirm that native resolution on a DELL 2209WA(1680x1050) seems broken. Not a problem for me. I'm happy.

 

From what I see, everything points to it using the same or less power. I'm not sure the difference the rebadged 310 will make compared to the 210... but the i7 ulv will use less power than the current c2d ulv. And it was suggested it has a higher battery capacity. And yes, I'm quite tempted by the m11x because of it's lighting capabilities as well as the powerful gpu. It's actually able to get about 7 hours regular use with BT off lower brightness and wifi on. But it costs about $450 more given I add the same warranty to it.

As for the u80, thanks for the recommendation but I would like something smaller than 13.3"

 

I read somewhere that the JT battery life wasn't expected to be quite as good, but that was pure speculation. GenTechPC has them available for pre-order, due "mid-February" which I would say is awfully close to just about now! Good luck, and I hope you enjoy your new ASUS!

 

Ugh.. So.. VT-A1 after crazy month of research finally ordered. Wish me luck to get a good piece of the Atheros wi-fi card.

I will give it some time and then I might upgrade HDD to some silent 7200 one and buy more RAM.

 

The battery capacity on the JT has been bumped up to 5800mAh, perhaps to offset any increase that the i7 and more GPU ram would bring to the table. All in all, I would expect battery life to be about the same.

Price is another issue which is relatively unknown at the time. However, I would be surprised if the JT came in anywhere close to $800.

 

I know a lot of people on the forums have complained about the Atheros card, but I should mention that I have not had any issues at all. Granted, its no Intel 6300, but the range is at par or better with anything else I have and it rarely ever drops a connection.

Getting more RAM is currently an expensive proposition since decent 2x4 combo will set you back $300+. If you're thinking about upgrading the HD anyway, I would strongly recommend spending you money on an SSD instead. The performance increase is remarkable to the point that it will become frustrating to use any other non-SSD computer.

 

Thanks. Posts like this make me really happy about my future puppy..

I think I'll go for SSD but not soon than in 2011.. I need also some upgrade for my desktop and that'll be a priority.

 

Indeed they have complained a LOT about the Atheros WiFi card, but I have *never* had issues with that brand of card...and it would surprise me if I owned the A1 if *it* were to have issues with it...I have an Atheros B-G WiFi card in my Acer One, which I've had forever it seems (1.5 years+), and that little guy always connects and stays connected, even when I am out of town with foreign WiFi spots...it seems to have no issues. So all the complaining Yo no comprendo!?

As for an SSD, I have a real problem with those at this time, as there are so many performance issues to address *down the road apiece* with any SSD, even those with TRIM enabled and functioning 100%...who knows how they will work in a year, or two, whatever...that is my problem perhaps. I also have a friend Down Under in Melbourne, a dear friend at that, and he and his new MacBook Pro are *still trying to find* an SSD that works in the Mac environment--his needs are greater than mine and need to be qualified a little...he needs a 256GB SSD, and they are the most trouble-prone out of all of them for some strange, unknown reason according to all my research anyway.

For a pricey thing like an SSD of that size to be a problem seems absurd to me, it just does, but he has gone through no less than 4 so far, and they've all failed for one reason or another--and in short order, to boot. He is trying out a new OWC Mercury 200GB Enterprise SSD as I write this, and hopefully that will be his last stop on that road and it will work for him, but going through two G. Skill and one Crucial, then another Corsair 256GB SSD biting the dust is a bit much! These things cost upwards of $800 or so, so that is just crazy to me, ie that they would have terrible problems like the seem to have, so I am unsold on SSD's at this point, and I could *afford* to have one...that is hardly the issue.

That is why I got the Hitachi 7200RPM 500GB HD instead of an SSD and invested in the 8GB SDRAM, and it cost $428 *NOT* "$300+" * like you indicate, so it's a big investment to go for good, proven, and engineered for our CPU's 8GB RAM, that would be 2 x 4GB SODIMMs... I don't find the Elpida (read Kingston) chips to be a good risk there either, rather I bought some Crucial 7-7-7-20-68-1T Clocks Timing SODIMMs because they seem to work without issues in Asus products, and HP products for that matter also... I believe the actual DIMMs are Samsung or Hynix-based. I stay away from Elpida chips like the plague, no matter who tells me otherwise...they can just fail out of nowhere, and I don't like to mess about RMA'ing RAM! :rolleyes2:

Regarding SSD's, bottom line for me anyway, I will buy one when I see the 256GB size become 100% reliable like a platter HD seems to be these days, at least the better brands of 7200RPM HD's will last a long, long time in a 2.5" form factor, ie Enterprise WD Scorpio Black and Hitachi 7K-series 2.5" HD's being my candidates for ownership, while some will choose Seagate (I for one will not)...--it won't happen before that. I would very much love to have one, frankly, as the performance increase is nothing short of astonishing, *when they are working* that is, so that is where I am with SSD's. :wink:

I wish all of you who have SSD's the best of luck, of course, and I am not slamming those of you who *have* had good luck with them...but most likely people having good luck are not using 256GB sized SSD's, or so I am thinking. I would love to be proven wrong about all of this, it goes without saying, but that's the state of affairs in my mind, and pocketbook at this point.

 

"I will buy one when I see the 256GB size become 100% reliable like a platter HD seems to be these days"

The reliability doesn't vary with disk size (i.e. using same FLASH memory in a 16GB vs. 256GB array will yield the same MTBF.) In addition, with wear-levelling algorithms in the SSD, they are able to extend the number of write-cycles well beyond that of any individual memory cell.

In addition, try dropping a 2.5" drive from 12 inches and then try a SSD from the same height.

 

This may be a picky detail but I dropped running Seagate platter HDD in enclosure from more then 5 feet and it didn't even stop copying the files

 

OK, then drop it onto a concrete floor and buy the same capacity SSD and try it

I can't argue the pricing though, it will need to get to <$1.50/GB for me to buy a SSD at 256GB.

 

The problem with the Atheros card is genuine. I just got my replacement A1 from Amazon and saw night and day difference. See my other thread about this here http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=5926371#post5926371

 

Off topic but regarding SSD, Crucial just updated the firmware of the 256GB, and it is supposed to kill the bug that caused data corruption and failures with that model. I've had one since introduction (and the original $499 price point) and it's never given me a problem, but until the update I did have it in a machine I didn't use all that often. Anyway the reliability problem is fixed, according to Crucial; now they just need to work on lowering the price.

 

I beg to differ, frankly, about this whole line of reasoning because in what I've read the smaller-sized SSD's are proving to be pretty danged reliable...while their expensive 128GB, 200GB, 256GB counterparts are having more issues. That is according to my reading and only that thus far, and I've done a bunch of it!

I've read here, in notebookreview.com, Tom's hardware.com, laptop magazine.com, PC Magazine.com, MacWorld.com, MacLife.com, and various performance-oriented web sites also and it seems that the people doing the *most complaining* are those who purchase the larger SSD's and end up RMA'ing them, or getting refunds if they fail quickly...like within a week or two, or a matter of days in some cases (like my friend Down Under).

I honestly wish I weren't noticing such things or I already would have bought a large SSD for myself, by now, but that has been the gist of my reading thus far. There is new, somewhat compelling evidence about the newest versions of TRIM for PC in the "Performance Series" of Corsair SSD's, and that is specifically in the 64, 128, and 256GB (larger) sizes.

Samsung recently released new TRIM firmware for their entire entourage of SSD's, and that bridges many manufacturers since they sell only to OEM suppliers, including Corsair's Performance Series of SSD's, so I am sort of waiting out the results of the new firmware package, which was released on December 9, 2009, and made it through Corsair Beta testing (within the company) as of late December, and they in turn released the firmware flash utility/directions on their web site.

I found out about that by pure chance, as I was reading at Amazon.com in the reviews section for Corsair Performance SSD's, specifically about one guy's experiences with the 128GB unit, and out of the blue a guy popped up in the discussion and posted the URL at Corsair.com, where the "RAM GUY" released the firmware, with a bunch of disclaimers for Corsair Corporation itself, ie "we will not be responsible for data loss or any consequential damages to equipment or data" et al, at length (!) the RAM GUY went on about the firmware and how it can *only be applied* in a USB-boot-DOS environment on a desktop PC that can "see an SSD in IDE mode" (cannot flash on a laptop).

Of course I bookmarked that page in Chrome and Firefox, my two browsers of choice, and also downloaded the PDF file from Samsung about the flash routine, and how to go about doing the flash routine, and how to avoid problems doing it, and troubleshooting tips (it was quite extensive), and I have all but *memorized* that PDF by now (!!)...just in case this turns out to be a Gold Mine Landmark per se with SSD's, because Samsung would be one of my favored choices of material for any SSD that I might potentially buy at this point...ie I favor the reliability and quality of materials in the controller and cell departments both, so of course Corsair is a potential source for an SSD in their Performance Series, be it a 128GB or 256GB SSD that I end up with--if I try the SSD out.

I have done a TON of reading about these subjects, especially the nature of what the TRIM actually *does* in the SSD environment, and Samsung was the last manufacturer of OEM parts and pieces to adopt a TRIM format for their SSD resources in various manufacturers, being so conservative and all...thus it interested me greatly when they finally did develop *their own brand of firmware* for their OEM partners in SSD's. I am following this subject with great interest, but I am not any farther along in the decision-making process in terms of buying an SSD. I really want to see more comments from owners about the new TRIM from Samsung, and that would be Corsair and other manufacturers both, before I would commit to investing $800+ in a 256GB SSD.

Would I LIKE to have one, along with my 8GB RAM contingent in the UL30Vt-X1? HELL YEAH I would! Trust me, that is the understatement of the century, if you all could/would know how much of a hardware junkie that I actually am! (my dear wife, God Bless her understanding of my "habits" in this regard!)...so I am hoping for the best and also of course am awaiting my Down Under friend's experience with the OWC Enterprise SSD also, as it has a 5-year OWC warranty, and boasts, get this, 275MB/sec read and 285MB/sec write speed in the best 3GB/sec SATA II environment, and that would be in both desktop and notebook!

The OWC Enterprise Mercury SSD is based on the SandForce Company (LLC)'s cell, controller, and hardware cavity design, which is an American company headquartered somewhere in the NorthEast part of the USA, and they have been working with OWC/NewerTechnology Inc to market this new Enterprise SSD in both the Mac and PC markets--first specifically in the Mac market, where there's a big demand for high-end SSD's of large capacity for MacBook Pro notebooks (to be direct about the marketing potential there), as that notebook is often used in the Enterprise for various types of use that demands a quick writing/reading HD system, be it video, audio, film and movie-making, recording, ie all of those things that the MacBook Pro computers are known to be used for...so that is another possibility for me, personally. (I don't know if any of you are familiar with the SandForce designs, but if you Google the name you'll come up with lots of references for SSD's and SSD development presently)

That is the story so far, and I am watching all parameters of the developing situation with SSD's with rapt attention, doing some reading thereabouts every day, one way or another, and I also have a source inside of OWC that is keeping me "posted" about all of the things going on with OWC and SandForce SSD development, so that is an area of great interest! :GEEK:

I may spring for one of the SandForce OWC Mercury Enterprise SSD's before any other brand, if things pan out accordingly in that regard, but still, I am waiting for the right moment to do anything with SSD's. It's just my nature, as I'm not an "early adopter" of new technology in the usual sense. In fact I tend to be a laggard consumer, pretty much sticking to the tried and true stuff that works 100% rather than being on the "bleeding edge" of tech and getting burned left and right, both financially and otherwise.

So SSD's and I are not friendly yet...if that happens, I'll be sure and tell all you nice people here about it, and why I did it, because there will have to be some pretty interesting and compelling evidence about reliability and other aspects of the whole SSD scenario for me to be a player in that field. :smile:

 

One source you don't mention is Anandtech. Anand was on the latest Tekzilla talking specifically about SSD drives, and discussed both the Sandforce technology and Crucial's new 300 SATA 6 drive; it's well worth a glance.

 

Wow, we're getting soooo far off topic I feel like the Rebel Without A Cause about now...but yessir, I have spent time at anandtech.com and yet that is not where I learned about the SSD's from SandForce/Sandforce, (seen it both ways)...I am privy to the *owner* of OWC who is actually selling Sandforce SSD's right now, ok, like right this second you can purchase a 200GB Sandforce SSD for $779 with free overnight shipping, as I recall one promotion from the site.

Well, that is neither here nor there--I haven't seen how well these things perform with tons and tons of data on them, but as you saw in the Tekzilla piece, probably (haven't seen it, I am guessing), Anand probably talked about the technology of "less is more" with the Sandforce SSD's... whereby an SSD 'represents' a large body of data with a small body of data to write from/to, and that makes it super, super-fast!

I don't want to go into any more detail than that at this juncture, but these are the FASTEST by far SSD's, both read and write, because of their "virtualization write ability" or shall I say "encapsulating a lot of data stored on the SSD with a very small write-to read-from base of data", which just makes these things scream almost to 300MB/sec, which is crazy fast! :wink:

And because they move around so little data, and write so little so fast and far, Sandforce and its OWC allies are guaranteeing these SSD's for 5 full years! Incredible, stuff yah? Almost 300GB/sec write speed and read speed the same, and 5 years of warranty on it to perform just like that! I like!

Next subject soon, as I may get one of them to test from OWC, and then I'll let you know alllll about them tallan, and nice people here at notebookreview.com - in fact you can count on it!

 

Just throwing my $.02 into the ring:

After spending inordinate amount of time studying the subject... I finally decided to take the plunge on an SSD. I opted for the Intel X25-M 80GB. For me, at the moment... storage capacity is more of a luxury than a necessity (I have more than 10TBs across several desktops & FREEnas servers). Given recent improvements in both "wear-leveling" algorithms & on-board controller solutions... I felt the steep $/GB ratio was worth investigating in the very least.

I installed the drive yesterday, installed OS and all complimentary drivers and booted up. The increase in speed from cold boot to desktop is rather impressive. Transfers from -to (reads) are also incredibly quick. Transfers to-from (writes) seem nominally better, if at all. Program responsiveness... at least launch is snappier. However, increased RAM will have a greater effect there. Using two A1's side-by-side, transfering large files over gigabit connection @ %70 brightness exhibited about a %15 better power consumption rate for the SSD.

Those are my initial observations... I will report back periodically with additional thoughts.

 

They must have had a bad batch of cards in one of the first builds. I wonder if it is isolated to Amazon shipments, or did people with problems order from other retailers as well?

 

I just have the bad-range problem (and dropped connections in one particular area of the house...bars fluctuate between 0 and 1-2 there). Ordered mine from Gentech PC.
Looks like i'm going for an Intel card. Any video or pics on replacing the wireless card?

 

It's easy. Disconnect the antenna, take out the two screws. There's a shielding tape over the card. You may have to tug on the card to loosen it from the tape. Once loose, it comes right off. It's a simple slot with no latch.

 

"there will have to be some pretty interesting and compelling evidence about reliability and other aspects"

You realize TRIM doesn't increase reliability of the drive? It is in place to ensure the drive doesn't get bound on random writes, though buggy firmware my impact reliability.

The one big advantage of magentic media is that you can erase one byte at a time, while with FLASH you need to erase a much larger block even if you only want to change one byte which is where the big slow down comes.

What exact reason did your friend give for an RMA? I am not saying they can't have firmware issues since the controllers in SSD are the secret sauce, but the underlying FLASH components are more reliable than magnetic media.

 

I just got my ul30vt-a1 yesterday, and I have a problem with my build quality. If I put any amount of pressure with my wrist or finger just to the right of the mouse pad it makes a click sound, like the silver palm rest has not been properly secured to the base and oh so annoying.

Is there any action I can take? I bought mine thru excaliburpc, and of course they dont have any instock and located on the west coast. Should I contact ASUS or the seller?

Lastly, my wife has the best asus ul50vt with the intel wireless card and she always has full (5) bars in our home, and I almost always have 4 bars. The ul50 has a lose battery and the ul30 doesn't...

 

Hello friends, im a happy user of Asus UL30VT-X1 since Dec, but i have this little problem:
Everytime i plug the ac power with the battery on it keeps changing between Ac Power Mode and Batter Mode, indefinately, so i have to unplug it.
It charges just fine and with Ac power only with the battery removed, works just fine too.
It worked a few times god knows how.
I tested with another ac adapter and same problem.
So it might not be the power cord.
The laptop works just fine, just this minor problem keeps bugging me now.
Does any owner had this problem?
I really dont wanna use the warranty since i had to import it from US, im from Brazil, and would take ages and $$$$ to ship it to US again and bring it back.
Thanks.

 

No clues specifically, but in general have you:

Updated the BIOS to latest current?
Updated the ASUS power management programs (Power4Gear Hybrid mainly)
and/or tried a clean install of Windows?

 

Yeah did it again right now just to make sure.
Still the same problem.
i also experienced the same problem on linux.

 

With 8.15.11.8688, I can run Badaboom to convert video, keeping CPU at a low usage. Does it mean that this driver support CUDA?

 

I gotta say, I just recently got the X1. A1 woulda been the more economical choice, but I couldn't help but feel from a lot of reviews that the built quality on the A1 dropped a bit from the X1, so I ended up with the X1 (which I find better looking anyhow, if you manage to keep fingerprints off).
Wireless issues aside (though I gotta say I've had strong reception and no connection drops yet), A1 seems to be plagued with creaks and HDD clicks and chassis gaps.
Maybe the initial batch was bad; we'll just have to wait and see what the latest batch brings.

 

Sounds like hardware then; probably need to send it back.

 

A fellow devotee, welcome to the thread! I am so glad that another X1 owner has piped up about our seemingly forgotten Piano Black notebooks, slick, cool, and svelte though they may be.

I also have zero build quality issues, and this thing is looking good, no gaps, no creaks, no groans, it's a solid "10" in my view all the way. As for the FP's...I have this neat ritual every night before I retire the X1: I hibernate the machine, then give it a quick spray of optical glass cleaner, the non-toxic, expensive stuff from the eye doctor, wipe it down from stem to stern, and BAM! She looks like a brand new Steinway instantly, shiny black surfaces reflect back light like a black pearl in the sunlight...gotta love it in black, all the way! This thing looks like $1,000,000! :yes:

Removed all those dang decals first thing too, all the cheesy stuff from Intel, Asus, and nVidia...Hey, if I wanna get sold something I'll turn on the TV, hear me?

Anybody else have an X1, the real deal?

 

Speaking of the Devil himself, did anybody check out what Beach Camera is doing with the Asus UL30Vt-A1? Like WOW! Check it out for yourselves, via Amazon.com...

They want $993.42 for the silver one!

But the Good News, for all you wanna be's who have been pining over no supply of the A1, Amazon.com has stock as of 2 hours ago...so buy them while you can! $849 @ Amazon.com! YeeHaaww!

 

I also have the 'real deal' X1 in black. Picked mine up from Amazon for $799 last week. The build quality is excellent on my unit as well. No creaks, gaps, or any other build quality issues.

I don't spray mine down each night like Rex, but I've found wiping off the palm rests with the polishing cloth that came with my Asus 1000HE works great.

My only complaint are the stickers everywhere. For me, the worst one was that stupid one plastered across the touchpad. I was very careful, but the sticker still left a line of goo on the left side of the touchpad that I had to work off with the polishing cloth.

I'm leaving mine stock for now. Ram is just too danged expensive to upgrade from 4gb to 8gb, and I'm quite happy with the performance of the 500gb 5400rpm Seagate drive. I did go back and change the partition sizes, as I thought the C: drive was too large. I reduced the size of that partition and moved the space over to the D: drive.

 

I think the bigger issue will not be removing the card, but running a second antenna. That is the primary advantage of the intel cards... they run two antennae... assuming one dedicated to tx and on for rx.

I hate to rain on everyones parade... but the latest batch of A1's (had mine for a week) have either been refined or re-engineered... because neither one of the machines I have gotten display any of the creaks, gaps, loose battery or litany of other gripes others have mentioned. Being a system building enthusiast, I can be downright critical of pre-assembled machines... and I was
astonished by the overall quality of the build. My only gripe would be I wished that asus had used the same brushed aluminum from the lid on the keyboard and palm-rests. Otherwise I just love these machines.

 

I have an A1 from the first batch and the build quality is stellar. Given the amount of people that have been somewhat critical thereof I'm guessing QC wasn't the best but has improved over time.

 

A1 @ Amazon just went from "Ships in 2 to 4 weeks" to "In Stock."

 

No, I have a completely phony fake mock imitation faux bogus false counterfeit forged fraudulent sham A1 in silver which DOESN'T show fingerprint grease from every angle... poor me.

 

I got my RMA codes and sending my silver a-1 back from the clicking sound the palm rest makes. Typing this I can push my wrist ever so slightly on the right edge of the palm rest and pop pop pop... Also the edges where the silver meets black feel sharp, like they need sanded down or something.
I feel that the build quaility on my ul30vt-a1 is far worse than my wifes best buy ul50vt, and her matt finish palm rest is sweet. I will post back when I get a replacement. I am glad that others are not having this problem. Two quick wrist flex's on my palm rest for an annoying POP POP peace out.

 

UL30VT-A1 is now $722.49 with free shipping at TigerDirect with Bing Cashback (15%). No tax for most.