Asus M50 Series: which and why?

I'm looking to buy a new Asus for College and I've fallen in lust with the sexy M50 series.

However, I am a little confused....
Which should I get:
M50sv-a1
M50sv-b1

M50 sa-Ak023c (newegg)

I like the idea of a blueray (wow I'm tired) drive... but I really don't know how much I'd use it whereas a faster processor would be good all the time.

But I'm also really curious as to whether the better screen on the SA model would be worth it and I must admit I know nothing about the difference between the Nvidia 9500 GM 512mb in the SV models and the ATI 3650 1gb?

Which one is better?

And I have another question: what operating system should I get if I'm going for 4gb of RAM?

And any recommendations as to which reseller would be great.

Thank you all so much!

 

i got that one from newegg, the hd3650 in 3dmark06 actually outperforms the 9500m according to the m70 review here, but only buy like 200-300 points. And it runs cod4 on medoum-high and ut3 maxed out at 1280x800 nicely, get the faster processor, this thing runs great. vista 32bit will only see 3gb, vista 64bit will see all 4gb

 

Would windows XP Pro be a better choice at this point for this laptop?

What about Ubuntu?

 

hey, just got a question hope you dont mind it.

how do you tote that big laptop with you ?

I hope you saw it already in person and plaining to buy it.

I was interested in that model too but after checking it personally , I thought it would be way too big for my taste.

so I am getting an F6 or F8 instead as I have to return my HP to my boss.

oh well , everybody thinks differently about being truly portable but it is a Huge laptop, it's even got dedicated 10-key.

 

Too be honest any laptop over 12 in is the same in my opinion. I most likely will just get a backpack variant laptop case.... which won't bother me at all. To each their own though

 

its not that big, plus ig he plans to game on it ever it would suck on anything smaller than a 15", plus carrying it around in the bag that comes with it is nothing, i dont get why its such a big deal, people think 17" gaming laptops are portable for carrying arounf campus...if you plan on watching movies or playing games, dont get anything smaller, im using the same model right now and i would know how it feels

 

I chose the Sv-A1 because I wanted the faster processor and at present am not interested in Blu-Ray.

At the time the Sa models weren't available. But, I wouldn't have gone that direction because WXGA+ is the highest resolution I would want for my tired old eyes.

I've also read some threads that say the Sv line runs cooler than the Sa line because of the GPU.

Anyway, I really like this lappy alot.

 

OP: If you only do desktop work (office emailing browsing) then probably the difference in CPU won't matter for you. If you do a lot of CPU intensive stuff like video encoding and (to some extent) even gaming, then it would probably show.

As to 4GB, rather than live with the quirks of 64-bit consumer Windows systems in 2008, I'd rather suggest to:
- get the 4GB of RAM
- use a Win32 (XP or Vista it's up to you). It'll only use 3GB but you are unlikely to need more anyway.
- when the 64-bit OS-es are mature enough, go ahead and upgrade to them.

 

Now that seems like some very good advice.... but I would like to know (yes I know this is mostly opinion) should I go with Winxp Pro or make the jump to a 32bit vista?

 

I suggest WinXP pro. Vista is just too much hassle without any real benefit.

 

And E.B.E. I have one final question for you.... do you like the SA or the SV better?

Thank you very much!

 

Windows XP pro all the way man. I regretted not gettin mine with XP instead, now i'm stuck with Vista and i'm hatin it.

 

Personally, I'd take the fast CPU over the blueray. But I would be likely to never use blueray, so... my opinion is not so relevant for you.

 

E.B.E. I meant whether you'd buy the sa version or the sv. The sa version is the version from newegg which has a 500 gb hard drive and an ati card with 1gb of memory. The screen is a little bit higher resolution as well.
I would link you but i'm on my phone.

The sv is the one with nvidia and same specs but the harddrive is 250 and the screen is only 1440 x 900. The sa version is about 1550 and i would have to buy windows. The sv is about 1660 with everything including an extra battery.
Which would you buy?

 

Nix, I have M50 Sv-B1 version with the bluray. Overall i am vern content with it because it is so much faster than the laptop that i was used to. For me, having a HDMI output for M50SV was a waste of port if it wasn't coupled to a bluray drive. Also I knew how expensive bluray upgrades were for laptops (about .5G), and I didn't think there would be that big of a difference between 2.4Ghz of A1 vs 2.1 Ghz of B1 so I went with the bluray version B1.

Do I regret it? not really. It's plenty fast, and I have played FEAR on my laptop and it's good enough. It doen'st play max settings with 1024 resolution at over 50fps, but it's still playable if you can tolerate a bit of glitches.

SO.... if you want something really fast, and bluray isn't a big deal for you (wathing it on your laptop or hooking it up with HD TV), then just got with M50SV-A1 or M50-SA Ak blah blah.

My understanding is that although the 250GB hdd of a1 and 500gb of SA is rated at 5400 RPM, the actual speed of 500GB is faster because there's more bytes per spin if the disk holds more spaces. Also I do not really know the differnce between ATI graphics and NVIDIA graphics, but i've heard that the AUO screen of M50Sv wxga+ screen isn't as good as the CMO wsxga of SA( from first hand experience with m50sv's AUO screens, i might believe this because it does look a bit grainy.) I heard CMO screen is amazing and is the lcd that is used in the G1 series.

GOod luck shopping.

 

It all depends on your needs...

What would I choose? I would choose the 2nd for the following reasons:
a) lower-res screen. Yep, I would actually want the lower res, I have use for my eyes for a few decades to come, hopefully. Also because of the comment above (better screen for the lower-res version)
b) XP included.
c) Extra batt included.

Also NVIDIA seem to be a bit better than ATI lately.

 

I went with the A1 since I already have a Blu-ray drive. I figure I'll get the faster CPU now and just drop a BD drive in there later this year if I really wants to.

 

Well Would I be able to set it to the lower res for regular use?
And also of note; I think the comment above was saying that the SA (higher res) had the better quality cmo screen. (this is the main reason I want it, I want a sharper screen, not necessarily higher res, but better quality)

The SA, all told, with XP and an extra batt would be about $1900 (if I have to buy windows xp pro full price, which I don't think I do given that I am a student? Anyone want to help me out here?)

Also the 500gb HD seemed appealing cause it should work faster.

 

Sorry I mixed up WSXGA and WXGA+. It's not good to put an LCD into a lower-than native resolution (type will be fuzzy), but there are tricks to increase font sizes etc. if the resolution of the screen is too high for your eyes.

 

it sounds like the 3650 will honestly turn out to be the better card, the hardware seems to be much better, its currently slightly faster and is being held back by crappy drivers.

on the other hand the amount of vram it has is simply wasteful and..... for me the most important part is the dealers.

you will get much better service and support buying the a1 from gentech or btotech then you would buying the newegg model from newegg. i love newegg they are great for what they are, but they cant match ken and eddie when it comes to service and really standing behind their products. as an s96j i am incredibly grateful to both of these excellent resellers.

also the fact that so much is different in that model scares me, gentech and bto have done great work in getting problems fixed at the asus level in the past, im worried if there are problems with the newegg models card or screen they wont get fixed without anyone hassling asus about them

 

spec links for the 9500M GS and HD 3650...

http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-9500M-GS.8167.0.html



http://www.notebookcheck.net/ATI-Mobility-Radeon-HD-3650.8839.0.html

the ati hd3650 card looks better!!!

 

why? almost all the benchmark scores and fps scores are better for the 9500m GS.

 

notebookcheck is notorious for inaccurate benchmarks. They are not a reliable source at all. The 9500m GS will perform better than the hd 3650.

 

People seem to have different opinions on the M50's, but I being in the market, right at this moment, my impressions are the Sa is better for multimedia and the Sv, a better gamers platform, my preference at the moment is towards the Sa, as the use is more towards multimedia and drafting, as in autocad, eg. complex rendering etc.

I have a friend with the Sa and he was using it on a lower non-native resolution and I couldn't fault what I was seeing at all and I've been in many shops looking at various screens, if there are differences, then it's not a problem for me.

There seems to be only the one model available in Aussie anyway.

 

There are a few variations on the M50 down here. I picked up the M50Sv-A1 for ~$1500 last week. Couldn't be happier with it, so much of a step up in all departments from my Apple (except battery life).

I hope you're looking on www.staticice.com.au for prices.

 

I'd go with the M50Vn-AKO14G

500gig Sata HD (5400rpm), Nvidia 9650m GT/1gig, 2.53 ghz intel centrino core 2 duo (T9400), WSXGA+, Blu-Ray combo drive.

Getting it from a shop for about 2300 possibly cheaper. Looks like a relatively good laptop

 

Thanks, but it seems the original posts were very old so I'm not sure this is still helpful...