Asus P31F 13.3" business model?

Yea but the right speaker didn't have a lower volume per se (if I remember right, it could even produce a higher volume) it just missed all the low tones, therefore it sounded kind of weird...

 

I dont believe the realtek audio thingy lets me put the speaker config from stereo to mono in windows I did manage to up the volume of the right speaker a bit though so it sounds a tad better when they play together

 

Thank you simP for the reply RE: the screen matte design. I was surfing the East Coast of Australia's computer sales websites and it seems that they have just released these notebooks. Where I am however the stores I have contacted told it may take up until mid March?. and yet here is the link to the mother load. I think they just want to sell their old stock before this one is introduced.

ASUS P31F-3G-RX096X 3G NOTEBOOK

$1500 AU shipped. Stoked, I'm actually going to call them right now and double check to see if the notebook does in fact have a matte screen. If it does I am getting it. It also has 3G but I probably won't use it.

not too fussed about the speaker issues either, why would you be?.

They have no display model on the shelf as they only received stock Thursday just passed. They don't even have it advertised in store lol.

The questions I now must ask myself is that, as a student, is it worth buying this laptop for $500 more than the lesser models which are still really good, just for the matte screen?. My heart says yes but my wallet says no.
I would also be taking a little bit of a gamble on it too considering that they don't have a display model on the shelf and this is the first I have heard anyone mentioning this notebook within Australia, let alone having a hands on look at it.

Do I want to be a guinea pig now? or miss out due to hesitation.

he who hesitates....

I am torn.

 

By the way guys,

the shop here in germany how claimed to sell the p31f wit the 310m was wrong. after i wrote a message to them, they changed their information:

Asus P31F-RO108X silber mit mattem Display und UMTS

so until now, there is no p31f available here in germany including a better graphic! A guy from different shop told me there might come one with the 310m later but they where not sure.

thats really sad, cause this one would be my only computer...so i would not be able to play better games i guess :-(

 

if you are looking for something similar to the p31f, have you looked into the u36jc? As far as i know it is already being sold in germany and it was actually my first choice over the p31f. Here in holland it was taking to long for them to start selling it though.
The u36jc also has great battery life, a i5-480M instead of a i3-380M, a faster harddisk, a nvidia 310M and an even slimmer design than the P31F. The only downside is that it produces a tad more heat and has a glossy screen

@Busy_lad
as a student with money issues myself i'd say no the 500$ is not worth it just for the matte screen. I mean its nice but glossy screens are usually fine with the led backlights. Only when there is another pretty bright lightsource i find that glossy screens bother me.
I do see that its coming with better hardware in australia, i cant see why they keep making worse laptops over here it comes at a bigger price though and i guess that with more performance you get a worse battery life and more heat production.

 

Heat on the U36JC is only an issue if you run CPU intensive tasks on High Performance or Entertainment mode which allows the CPU to run at 100%. Using Battery Saving and Quiet Office modes which limits the CPU usage to 60-70% doesn't create as much heat and in fact quite pretty cool with load temps in the low 50s Celsius.

 

what score do you guys get in 3d mark 2006 or 3d mark vantage? Just curious about the gt415

 

hey guys,
I'm currently looking for a new laptop and struggeling between 2(3) options.
I want to use the notebook for office, internet surfing and HD video watching. I also place value on mobile working (battery, display)
The last clue is I'm intending to use Linux on my laptop what makes the descision even harder.

Option 1: P31F
++ non glossy display
+ low price
+ umts module

Option 2: U36JC
++ very thin and light weight
+ USB 3.0
+ 500gb hdd
- glossy display

compared to each other I would go for the U36JC but there are two things that causing my struggeling: the glossy display of the U36JC and the additional nvidia gpu - yes that's a disadvantage for me because Nvidia not intending to support Optimus on Linux and I would enable the IGP GMA as a standard because of battery life matters. And why should I pay for something I can't use?

So I now have to chose between 3 options. Take the U36JC and deal with the glossy display and the GPU I can't use or take the P31F with the lower specc which is a little bit thicker and heavyer than the U36JC but have a non glare display and is cheaper. Also it lacks on USB 3.0 which is maybe interesting in the future. Also the UMTS module is a nice to have for me but not necessary as my provider has no 2 sim card option and I would use the tethering method from iphone via usb.
Last option is to wait some months for the sandy bridge models and hope there's a 13" laptop compares to this productline with a non-glossy display.

Any help from you for making a descision? I realy would appreciat it

 

I would definitely go for the P31F. First of all, it has a matte screen, secondly it's cheaper but still not too heavy and thin enough (for me). Moreover, the U36JC might be thinner & lighter, but must therefore also produce more heat and/or noise I think. And what kind of advantage do you have from the lower weight, when you can't take it with you to use it outside because of the glossy screen ^^ Not to forget the battery life, which will be a bit shorter...

It's indeed a pity there aren't many laptops with USB3.0, but I've already stopped looking at that. After all, there are always others ways to transfer files faster.

Finally, Asus' next generation laptops (with the 2nd iX-serie) which won't be available before April here won't contain any models with a matte screen, at least, in Holland that is. I take it you live in Germany, because of the UMTS-module you're talking about? (I've also asked whether that model will be sold in The Netherlands soon, haven't received an answer yet . My options are buying the P31F now or wait for the new Toshiba R830, which will hopefully have a better keyboard. But if there are P31Fs with an UMTS-module available I'll definitely buy it now, since the R830 will be a lot more expensive. Do all German laptops have that qwertz keyboard with useless keys for foreigners?)

Oh and the fact that you have to pay more for a useless dedicated GPU even makes the choice easier

Edit: Damnit, I actually already did receive an answer, Asus isn't planning on releasing any notebook with a build-in 3G/UMTS-module

 

Thanks for your quick reply simP.
i think it shoudln't produce more heat and noise in normal use but as soon as the nvidia gpu gets activated by optimus or/and the cpu needs to calculate more it will maybe become a little bit noisier than the p31f (but I think it should be minimal).
The same with the battery life, as long as you use it for office / wl surfing it will have the same battery useage from my point of view (as they both have nearly the same hardware inside)
To be honest the missing USB 3.0 slot is a pro for me personally because I have a lot of USB 2.0 devices and no USB 3.0 and don't plan to buy much new stuff in the near future which maybe only runs with USB 3.0.
Yes I'm from a german speaking country (-> Austria)

But what I didn't get so far was: is the p31f keyboard and the case manufacturing technic the same as the U36JC ?

I'm really thinking of buying the p31f but I'm not 100% sure yet.
Would be nice to have some more feedback from owners of the p31f!

 

The U36JC will probably produce more heat and noise, because it is thinner, so it's harder to cool it efficiently. In this review, they complain about the heat, my P31F stays really cool.

If you compare the cases between, there are quite some differences.
The U36JC is made from a magnesium alloy, while the P31F has an aluminum lid, and plastic around the keyboard and palm rests.
The U36JC's keyboard is part of the body, where the P31F keyboard is replaceable.

U36JC:


P31F:


I'm also a linux user and I'm really happy with the combination of linux and the P31F. Almost everything worked out of the box using ubuntu 10.10. The only things I needed some small workarounds for were a suspend/hibernate fix, a fix for the unbalanced stereo sound and of course laptop-mode tools. I got the power usage down to 8,5 watts with wifi turned on, which translates itself into about 9 hours of ideal usage. When browsing actively, and playing music so the drive doesn't spin down, I can get about 6,5 hours out of it. I'm also really happy with the matte screen, it's such an improvement on my previous glossy laptop!

If you want the U36JC, you'll have to dig into optimus on linux. When you use the igp, the nvidia gpu won't power down by default, you'll need some fixes there, otherwise your battery life will decrease dramatically! This, the U36JC's heat issue and the P31F's matte screen were reason enough for me to go for the P31F. I really love the machine <3

 

Hi Stevie-P86,
I am in the process of making a dual boot windows 7 / ubuntu 10.10.
Can you provide me with the workarounds you used to make ubuntu 100% compatible with the P31F?

 

As for the battery life, it will be shorter because the U36JC doesn't have the same large battery as the P31F (same as for the more heat and/or noise; I wasn't pointing to the dedicated GPU).

@rrozijn, did you already manage to remove the 10hr+ sticker without leaving any glue residue?

 

Very nice laptop I'm seriously considering it for a friend.

How does it compare to the HP 5320m in terms of build quality ?


Here are the specs you get in France:

ASUS P31JG RO157X
Core i3 380M / 2.53 GHz RAM 3 Go HDD 320 Go GF GT 415M / HD Graphics Gigabit Ethernet LAN wireless Bluetooth 802.11b/g/n Windows 7 Pro 64 bits 13.3 LED TFT 1366 x 768 ( WXGA ) webcam

 

How's the fan noise during idle and/or light office work of the P31?

 

Of course

-Hibernate suspend fix:
Create a file: /etc/pm/sleep.d/20_custom-ehci_hcd
With this content:

Code:

#!/bin/sh
# File: "/etc/pm/sleep.d/20_custom-ehci_hcd".
TMPLIST=/tmp/ehci-dev-list

case "${1}" in
        hibernate|suspend)
    echo -n '' > $TMPLIST
          for i in `ls /sys/bus/pci/drivers/ehci_hcd/ | egrep '[0-9a-z]+\:[0-9a-z]+\:.*$'`; do
              # Unbind ehci_hcd for first device XXXX:XX:XX.X:
               echo -n "$i" | tee /sys/bus/pci/drivers/ehci_hcd/unbind
           echo "$i" >> $TMPLIST
          done
        ;;
        resume|thaw)
    for i in `cat $TMPLIST`; do
              # Bind ehci_hcd for first device XXXX:XX:XX.X:
              echo -n "$i" | tee /sys/bus/pci/drivers/ehci_hcd/bind
    done
    rm $TMPLIST
        ;;
esac

To fix the unbalanced stereo:
Create a file ~/.asoundrc: (so in your home dir)

Code:

pcm.card0 {
    type hw
    card 0
}
pcm.mono {
    type route
    slave.pcm "cards.pcm.default"
    slave.channels 2
    ttable.0.0 0.5
    ttable.0.1 1.0
    ttable.1.0 0.5
    ttable.1.1 1.0
}
pcm.!default pcm.mono

It'll make the sound mono, but this will fix the issue that you won't hear the bass from the right stereo channel. It also adjusts the volumes to make the left and right speaker the same loudness.

-Laptop-mode-tools
You'll need this to improve your battery life. However there is a conflict with the new pm-utils. So you'll need to remove that, install this version:
and after that install laptop-mode-tools, and configure it to your needs.
I guess that were all the fixes I did. Good luck!

I don't know what the HP 5320m is like, but I must say the built quality is very decent. There is a little bit of flex in the plastic right above the keyboard, but the rest of the laptop feels really sturdy and doesn't get hot at all. All the hot air just get's blown out of the left side, meaning you can have it on your lap without bbq'ing your scrotum.

Not loud at all, it's comparable to the sound of the hard drive spinning.

 

I think it didn't even exceed the level of sound the harddisk produced, when idle or office use.

The differences between the P31F and the HP I know are:
HP is s bit lighter and thinner, does have a fingerprint scanner, but has something like half of the battery life of the P31F and just 1-year warranty.

 

Didn't try it yet. I am now in the process of finishing the clean installs of Windows 7 and Ubuntu 10.10.

@Stevie-P86. thanks for the info. I will implement your solutions.

 

To owners: can you post pics of the viewing angles? Personally, I don't see matte as a positive if the screen quality sucks. I have a matte screen thing on my UL30 and the reduced glare is great, but it doesn't hide the fact that it's one of the lowest quality screens I've ever seen.

Preferably pics like this would be helpful. On the left is a Dell Latitude XT, on the right is a UL30A.

 

On the left is an Fujitsu Siemens Amilo Pi 2530 on the right the Asus P31F.





Sorry for the crappy quality, had to take the pictures with my phone.
On all tests the brightness was turned up to 100%.

 

Awesome, thanks for the pics Stevie. Those viewing angles look wayy better than I expected for horizontally, but vertical is still a bit lacking. +rep

 

I agree, the viewing angles on the P31 are far superior than the UL30's. So very tempting to buy it, so little coin . and it's not over the top price wise either.

double sad .

 

do you guys heard of p31jg? i just found it in norway.
Intel Core i5 480M / 2.66 GHz 2.93 GHz (turbo)
4 GB 2 x 2 GB DDR3 SDRAM - 1333 MHz
320 GB - Serial ATA-150 - 5400
NVIDIA GeForce GT 415M
8 cell 5600 mAh
1.8 kg

 

Ah, I already expected they would introduce a version with a video card.
I think the 5600mAh battery should be 5800mAh, because that's the one they ship with the p31f.

 

P31SD Sandy Bridge version coming? Just found this: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. -Support- Drivers and Download P31SD

Edit: Found specs & price:

P31SD-RO061X/i3-2310M 320GB 3GB W7P 13.3

http://www.pc21.fr/pro/p31sd-ro061x_i3-2310m_320gb_3gb_w7p_13.3_ref_p31sd-ro061x__195831.html

http://local.tomsguide.fr/p31sd-ro061x-i3-2310m-320gb-3gb-w7p-13-3~~1ca56-pid.revendeur.html

 

Yea that looks like it. I wonder whether it has a discrete graphics card or not.. Battery life should be even better because of sandy bridge.

 

Hello,
Very interesting post.
Can someone tell me what's the difference between P31JG and P31F ???
I even can't find the information on Asus website. I'm getting confused with all these serials !

 

I think the JG has an nvidia card, GT 415M, where the F has integrated intel graphics.

BTW I found another upcoming P31SD model, P31SD-RO075X with an i5 2410M.

 

Any advice between the 2 ?

 

That would depend entirely on if you are going to run 3D apps or games (nvidia), and if you want better battery life (intel integrated).

 

Thanks for your answer.
In fact I'm planning to buy a laptop dedicated to HD recording, next to my TV and digital cable receiver, with this product : Hauppauge HD PVR
I want it also to be light and with good autonomy to work outside, not to play.
It will be my first laptop, so I'm interested in any advice Do you think P31JG or P31F will do the job ?

 

Either will work fine for that, it's really a question of whether you need 3D graphics or not. If yes, get the nvidia card. If you're just playing video the P31F will be fine with integrated intel graphics. Keep in mind that the newer P31SD should be out within a month or so and it has sandy bridge. But I don't know of a variant that has an nvidia card for the P31SD, maybe it's a different model number.