Asus G50vm-X1 at Best Buy

U run with lucky then. Theirs mistake is our winnings Gratz

 

Well ill definatly let you know what i get back after i mail them my proof of purchase, im not totally out int he clear yet with this warranty thing lol so it might come back and be not what i expect.

im guessing i should get something back or find something out by the end of next week?

 

Probably u should hear something from them sooner, hopefully good news

I'm considering really buy this one, just i want to hear good things so i will buy it sooner . But then i hear bad things and make me more confused :?

Also i'm considering M50Vm-X1 for 100 bucks more i get a better cpu, mouse, bag, a little more battery life, maybe a extra year from parts labor warranty (suppose to be) but the bad i will get inferior video card. And the BB model is superior video card, HD7200rpm, less expensive.

But then i met another one M51TA-X2 $200 dlls less and higher GPU than M50 (but the G50 still winning) but less comments found in this one.

Probably i can upgrade the G50 CPU's later on but also i can upgrade the GPU of m50vm in order to make it better. But i think that the CPU is more expensive than the GPU or is otherwise?

So here is where my pain begins xD. Nevertheless Asus is a great laptop manufacturer so any choice will be fine.

 

I didnt say it got hot... I said the air coming out of it can get hot.

Running games, there is no way around it. Its just putting out hotter air than my previous Alienware and Gateway FX notebook.

 

I was in the same boat, until BB put them on sale for 1099... then the gap for got large enough for me to get the X1 instead.

 

im trying to update my GPU driver for my G50. any1 know a good set of laptopvideo drivers to use?

 

That's good. The other ones were just not shedding enough heat I would say.

 

Did u get any wireless problem with ur laptop, less signal? I read a comment at BB that isn't too good. I have a material house that can cause less signal.

 

Chris,

No, I haven't had any issues with my wireless at all. It picks up all the surrounding access points that my other laptops did/do as well.

That reviewer might have had a defective wireless card, or possibly an antenna came unplugged from the card. I'm not sure.

 

All right then, ty

 

Just found on newegg

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220378


also more expensive? =o

 

That's not the same laptop, the newegg one is the A1 version which has a much better CPU.

 

Well I calibrated the battery.

I used the Asus default power saver profile.. and managed 2:50-3:10 on two charges.

The last time I tried this I was probably watching too much pr0n.

 

Indeed more expensive +$600 dlls, and the main difference is better CPU, more HD, 1 extra year of warranty, bluetooth, better display, wireless card (as comment from another user).

But the Best Buy model can be upgradable for the same CPU (T9400) with 350dlls so i expect to upgrade later on when warranty expires. The other add-ons aren't necesary for my neededs. Nevertheless is more cheaper buy the CPU later on and save $250 dlls.

Who know, probably the CPU will be cheaper than today....

 

It sound better battery life than i expected. Probably i can view an entire dvd movie and surf a little.

U know if has the face recognition software to log-on? I think is a plus to have this new techonlogy.

Did u connect it to a HD TV by the HDMI port? How it looks?

Also did u notice any slow movement by the lower CPU? I see hard to tell because it has 4GB and 7200rpm HD. And the CPU isn't as bad as everybody tells i think.

 

I don't think that the lower speed of the CPU will be felt in desktop work, media playing, or anything of this kind.

 

Sorry all im a bit new with all this techy stuff, so the battery will last around 3 hours then? Because im trying to find a good laptop to take to college for gaming but taking it to class to take notes and stuff. Im guessing it will last ok if its just word processing right? And it doesnt make any crazy obnoxious noises does it?

Oh and what do you think of the portability of moving it around campus? its about average weight isnt it?

 

The power saving profile locks the cpu at 1/2 speed. If you set lcd brightness to <40% and keep wifi off, you might be able to get near 3 hours, but the dedicated gpu is going to make that goal a challenge.

The G50's weight is 6.5 pounds, without (probably) the battery and (definitely) the power brick. With the 15" chassis, it's going to take up a fair bit of space on a lecture hall minidesk and when you add in backpack, books for class weight, etc it might be pretty heavy. 15" isn't really considered a portable system in the general sense; that's what 14" and under are for. Good compromise as DTReplacement, however.

Depends somewhat on personal taste/preference, but you can get an idea by putting 10lbs in a backpack/messenger bag and walking around for a while. Remember, most college campuses will have you doing a fair bit of walking to get to classes, and if you can't get back to the dorm/apartment between them then you're going to have to pack up and take everything for the day with you....

 

Anyone know if theres a 9 cell battery for the Best Buy version?
the G50Vm-X1?

or one thats compatible?

 

The battery will in all likelihood be compatible between G50V-A and the G50V-X. That being said, I don't know whether there is a 9-cell option for the G50.

 

Well I will only have 2 classes a day so there wont be too much books to carry around. In HS i was use to carrying around 2-3 books + quite a bit of weight from papers and folders. so the only problem im looking at is on the desks might be abit hard to put it on it?

 

The M50 battery is the same I think Ken has said that. He also said they just can not sell the M50 battery as a G50 battery until Asus gives official word that its the same model or compatible so its just a liability thing. If you get the M50 battery your good.

 

Can anybody tell me if the NVIDIA Quadro FX 570M (256MB Open GL) is a decent Graphics card if I dont plan on doing much gamming??

 

That's the exact same card as the 8600M GT w/ GDDR3 memory but aimed for workstations more than gaming. It's still a very good GPU and should do well in any games if you're not too picky with resolutions and details.

 

Yeah I tried the face recognition thing. It works. You just have to let it snap lots of pictures of your face so that it works smoothly.

I have an HDTV, but its from the days before HDMI.

The CPU isnt slow... I mean yeah, if you need to do some really heavy photo and video editing you might need something a little faster, but overall this notebook works like a champ.

Back to playing COD 4!

 

Nahh for photo edit, i just use paint lol and sometimes photoshop but i dont know very well to use. And video editin just converting some movies to any other formats and use Nero to edit my fraps games xD.

Then definetly i will buy this, i feel that is harder and expensive get a better GPU and install it (buying another laptop with best CPU), than just upgrade the CPU later on. The main issue worry me is the warranty period but as Asus make good laptops then just i will be careful using my laptop and hope that Asus warranty accept include this laptop at theirs 1 year warranty from accidental issues and i cant afford the expensive Best Buy warranty .

Nevertheless i will buy it, thanks a lot

 

Hmmm im heavily looking at this laptop for now.

Altho I really liked my M50, I was disapointed a little bit with my graphics performance. I guess I expected a tad bit more. Seeing this laptop scroe around 50% more performance at the very least makes me interested, considering it is available for 1099dlrs for now.

Does it have the overclocking mode (Turbo) as the A1 and A2?

if so, this would almost be an complete upgrade from my M50sv, sans bluray playback (I got a ps3 so I know I won't miss it anymore).

so it would be like:
Asus G50V-X1
Core 2 Duo 2ghz (2.2 turbo modre if applicable)
4GB DDR2 667mhz
200GB 7200rpm
9700M GT 512MB GDDR3

vs

Asus M50sv
Core 2 duo 2.1ghz
3GB DDR2 667mhz
250GB 5400rpm
9500M GS 512MB DDR2

I was surprised to see, for example with Vicious review to find Crysis massive improvement. why massive? I get around 18fps average at the same settings! jumping from that to 30 its a very big increase.

Reasons why to jump to Bestbuy version:
I have not much money to get the higher version A1 or A2, and selling my M50 to get the G50 would actually get me a little extra cash. I would loose bluray playback but I don't need it anymore thanks to ps3. Performance wise it would be near the same for regular aplications, and better gaming wise. Also battery life is much better on G50 as I only get around 1 hour 40 mins on mine!

I could go get the Gateway but as I mentioned above, $$$ is an issue. I don't trust Gateway's build quality as much as Asus, and I know that Gateway's customer service sucks. Which is why I opted for G50.

Should I aquire the G50V-X1 while its still at 1099dlrs?

 

What is a better video card and are the differences negligable in a non-gamming scenario ?? 256MB ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3450 Vs. NVIDIA Quadro FX 570M (256MB Open GL), and we thank you for your support.

 

Does it have the overclocking mode (Turbo) as the A1 and A2?

I heard that it has it, but the battery time will reduce. http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=275002&page=24

I was surprised to see, for example with Vicious review to find Crysis massive improvement. why massive? I get around 18fps average at the same settings! jumping from that to 30 its a very big increase.

At medium - high should be playable Crysis (http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-9700M-GT.9454.0.html)

Should I aquire the G50V-X1 while its still at 1099dlrs?

I will

 

256MB ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3450 has 19% level, class 3 video card and NVIDIA Quadro FX 570M (256MB Open GL) 41% level, class 2 video card.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Comparison-of-Graphic-Cards.130.0.html

So the NVIDIA is better

 

I just added the power draw tests to my review, for the A1 the cpu mode will have very very little effect on battery life infact probably none unless you kept it under a 100% load.

Given say crysis only puts the cpu at like 60% load on normal tossing it into turbo extreme mode will only offer the extra power and if its not used no power will be used. I urge you to check out the new section.

I also and playing with my buetooth right now my Plantroinics 590's are sounding and working great. So while I do not like the BT stack/software atleasts its very functional with my headset.

 

To all you Asus Fans out there (of which I am one), when is Asus gonna offer a quad-core laptop??

 

i just saw this thing at best buy, it makes the gateway look modest...this orange beast is def screaming gamer, a little too much screaming for me though =p

 

In a last ditch effort to keep from having to buy a better laptop, I upgraded my compaq presario AMD dual core laptop to 2 gigs of memory from one. Do I need to change any of the virtual memory settings,ect, ect, or anything else after having doubled my RAM?? P. S. My computer is not doing video conversios any faster since the upgrade,and we thank you for your support.

 

Sorry, I meant more expensive than the A1 at 1toppic

 

Bad news for you guys. Best Buy just raised the price back up to $1249.99.

 

OMG! right after i posted that last message i went back to that window, hit refresh and its back at $1099!

 

!!!!!!!!!! BUT WHEN YOU CLICK ON IT IT SAYS $1249!!!! WEBSITE UPDATE MADNESS! Good thing I wasnt planning on buyin one...

 

I went today to buy this laptop and the price return 1249 dlls i had bad luck today.

So i will rearrange my laptop options to see what is more feasible to buy or wait to another drop price...

 

i just bought this laptop a few days ago and i was wondering if there was any way to control the outer lid's LED lights completely. There is option to turn them partially off but i couldnt find an option to turn them all off completely. Also, is there any way to make the express gate media button not constantly be shining when the computer is powered down fully and unplugged? It drained my battery down 10% just from sitting in my room powered down for 12 hours. I cant keep it doing that or itll kill my batteries ability to hold a charge in no time.

 

With the direct console you can turn off all the outer lights except the logo while in operation as for the express gate light it never goes off. It says it right in the manual, but I can see I am the only one that has read it...

There however is no way that you lost 10% battery from that one little led in 12 hours, its simply not possible. A single AAA can run a low voltage led for days. I do think it odd that it was designed like that tho and it does kind of bother me some too.

 

Yea ive went into direct console but the closest i could get was the logo and the one horizontal line under it being on, i dont mind the logo but the line below is a bit annoying, and in regards to the Express Gate button i did read the sticker, although i had to go in real close with a light as its pretty hard to read, but i saw it which upset me, but i was hoping there would be some other way to still turn it off, and it may have been more than 12 hours i was just estimating, but when i turned off the laptop it was fully charged to 100% and when i finally got it on and running from the battery it was at about 89-90% i assume it probably took some power turning it on and starting the operating system but it still drained the battery somewhat which may not be an issue now but over time it could take its toll on the battery as it gets older, and even now its annoying seeing as i use the laptop unplugged 3 days a week for all day classes so i need as much power as possible. I did call the tech support but the guy didnt seem to have any idea what i was talking about and just said check the BIOS and hung up, and im not even gonna bother asking anyone at Best Buy seeing as they didnt even know what i meant when i asked about the slower processor bottlenecking the video cards capabilities at all, but if you do happen to figure out a way to turn the light off it would be appreciated. Not a major issue but still a minor annoyance.

 

im sure u know a lot more about this stuff than i do so i mean no disrespect. Do you think a full reformatting of the harddrive would stop it, or is the feature built into the hardware?

 

I run raid-0 right now and express gate does not work with raid 0 and the light stays on its simply hardwired to be on.

But I have gone over 24 hours and turned my unit on to find 98/99% battery power and thats normal for any laptop.

If it bugs you a lot I am sure you can just snip a wire to the led

Dont go to almost any of the BB guys for adice on this stuff, me and many other people on this forum probably know 10x more.

I walk into those places and will ask questions like to the TV section guy "hey this is a nice looking TV do you know if it uses a progressive or interlaced scan for the D-Sub input" and they are like "Wut?"

These days since HD has caught on so much atleast hey probably know what the difference between 720p and 1080p is but they still dont know what I mean when I say does it have 1:1 scaling or what a 16:9 aspect ratio.

 

yea ive learned quickly BB people dont know much, and neither do I so its pretty sad when i can can confuse a sales rep of the computer department. Like i said it was showing it in the low 90's i actually tried a few times to make sure it wasnt a fluke, but i may also have a bad battery or something who knows. Does yours have a 9 cell battery cause this came with a standard 6. I honestly wouldnt mind the light if i could leave it off and unplugged for 24 hours and still turn it on and have 98-99%. The A1 has a better core 2 Duo correct? Does it still exhaust quite a bit of hot air from the vents with the cooler running processor?

 

Yeah the A1 has the newest revision of the C2D called the Centrino 2.

No hot air unless I play a game, infact my cpu may run cooler than yours. I found only 1w of power drain difference from 2.5ghz and 2.8ghz so the cpu is super efficient.

I have the temps of the cpu in my review, just click the screen shot of my cpu overclocking section.

I do not have a 9 cell, just the standard 6 cell and I have not done any battery calibration or anything. I suppose it is possible you got a bad battery, but since you bought it at BB you should be able to get help with that and swap it out for a good one if that ends up being the case, but they will probably make you exchange the whole unit and that would be a pain in the behind.

In my case if I had a bad battery I could just send it off to Ken @ Gentech and he would send me the new battery no hassles. Knowing Ken I would probably have the new battery before I even send out the old one.

 

yea im sure your processor does run cooler than mine even with mine only running at 2.0 ghz. The Penryn processors are supposed to run very cool and efficient, a previous sony laptop i had for about 3 days had a P8400 and it was always cool, id like to put a Penryn in this sometime in the future once i have the money, ive heard this laptop is fairly easy at swapping out the processor with a new one since its for the chipset for centrino 2 but correct me if i am wrong. Yea im afraid to even complain to BB about it ive already gone through such a hastle with them just to get this laptop after having to pay an extra 150 dollars to return that sony after the salesperson said there was no restocking fee on opened laptops anymore within 14 days which of course was a lie when i did return it, but either way yea i hope itll be a simple process im sick of large computer retail stores at the moment. Thanks for all the info, i actually read ur posts earlier in this thread about the A1 and it is definitely a better deal give the price of all the better components unfortunately for me as i saw for someone else as well i had limitations forcing me to purchase from a retail store :-/

 

Yeah well I did back down on my opinion when the price dropped to $1003 or what ever it was, that makes the X1 cost about what its worth in my opinion but at the full $1300 I don't agree with those who said it was worth the money compared to the $300 more for the A1.

Now I guess it has gone back up to $1200 something.

Im starting to like my unit more, at first I was comparing it to my C90S too much and its flaws, but now I can see that it has many more things better about it in the long run than it does flaws.

It uses much less power so it has much better battery life and runs much cooler than the c90s so thats a great benefit and I have 2x more HDD space now and a better GPU so lifes good.

My cons are still that its bigger, the bluetooth, and my minor screen bleeding.

I actually just added the bluetooth part of my review in about an hour ago so everybody can see why I didnt like it.

 

yea the sale was the reason i took back the sony i had previously purchased, and i mainly bought this for the video card since the next best video card i was able to get was a mere ATI Radeon mobility HD 3470. It probably wouldve been fine for casual gaming but ive been looking into getting into a little more serious gaming on my computer, and yea even with slower processor and all everything about this laptop is still better than what i had on my old compaq presario V6000. Ive noticed this is a little bulky too, moreso than the sony Vaio FW i had or the Dell Studio i was originally gonna get, but aside from the small quirks i mentioned before its a great laptop, i dont think this one even has the bluetooth but i dont have many bluetooth devices to begin with so that wasnt a selling factor for me. Im sure ud take full advantage of the bigger HDD and specs of your model more than i would, im still wondering why they partitioned half this HDD just to hold one small 1MB size file. I ended up paying the regular price for this laptop after having to pay $157 restocking fee on the sony, but i am currently in disputes with BB's corporate over that since the employee lied to me, but still i think this is a pretty good deal for me at least, someone new to the somewhat higher end laptop genre. I figure down the line when i have the money ill throw down another 200-300 for a Penryn processor but thats about it for now, as long as swapping processors is as easy as people have made it sound since like ive said im a newbie to this stuff.

 

The whole being slightly larger than a standard 15.4'' is a little annoying as well since my laptop cooling pad and bag are sized for a standard 15.4" but o well.