Asus U6Sg-A1 Personal Review

I was looking for a mobile solution because I will be a lot on the move next year. I do not like Dell, never have so they were not an option, not a big fan of Sony laptops either. I currently own an AMILO SI1520 and I can say after 3 years of heavy usage it has done its job. I do not like big clunky laptops. For me, mobility means a 12 inch screen and as a consequence, I had a constraint. I looked everywhere in the Benelux area for a laptop that would suit my needs. I found a couple LGs and Fujitsu Siemens but they did not come with a qwerty keyboard. In my area, solutions like this come in qwertz or azerty. I have been using all my life qwerty so I am used to this. In order to have it with a qwerty, I would have to order it and because it is a special order I would have to pay over 120 euros. After 3 weeks of searching in Belgium, Germany, France, and Holland, I live in between, I decided that internet was the way. I was browsing the web for mobile solutions, when by accident I found the U6 series. I saw the specs, saw the price, and I was mesmerized. I read a couple reviews with different specs and I decided to have a look online for a shop. I found through google, an ebay offer from excaliberPC. Price seemed, right and I ordered it. After 3 weeks and a lot of stress my U6Sg-A1 arrived.

Introduction

My U6 has the following specs:

Intel T8100 2.1Ghz 800FSB 3M Cache Peryn CPU
3GB DDR2 667 Mhz RAM
250GB 5400RPM SATA 8M Cache Hard Disk
nVidia GeForce 9300M G with 256MB Dedicated Memory
12.1” WXGA 1280x800 Backlit LED Display
8x Super-Multi DVDRW Optical
Windows Vista Business (32-bit)


Input and output ports

4x USB 2.0
1x RJ45 LAN
1x RJ11 Modem
1x Full-size Expresscard 5
1x Headphone
1x Microphone
1x VGA D-Sub
1x HDMI
1x Kensington lock
1x Card reader

Left side:
A/C Power, 3x USB 2.0, HDMI, Expresscard, and Wi-Fi switch.
Right Side:
Card reader, DVDRW, Headphones, Microphone, 1x USB, Kensington lock
Front Side:
Speakers

Rear Side:
RJ45 LAN, RJ11 Modem, and VGA.

When I first picked up the box I was pleasantly surprised how light it was. I opened it and I had the following:

Asus U6Sg-A1 Notebook
AC Adapter
Two batteries (3-cell and 6-cell)
Bluetooth Wireless Logitech Mouse
Micro-suede laptop sleeve
Targus notebook bag (it has a funny inscription in it )
Software/Driver/Recovery Discs
Screen cleaning cloth

I took the laptop out of the box and I wanted to set it up. I knew it advance that the outlet plug will be different so I bought an adapter. The adaptor wasn’t good and because I had the charger with me I could replace the cable. I need a 2 pong rather than a 3 pong.


First Impressions:

The laptop has a lovely design and it attracts a lot of attention. The lid has a different color, depending on the angle and the light. It is very light even with the 6 cell battery. When you plug in the 6 cell battery, it stands out but it does not spoil the nice shape the U6 has. The 3 cell battery, when plugged, does not stand out and it is covered with leather. The laptop is lighter than with the 6 cell but not as snappy. I will develop this part later on.


Screen
The 12 inch screen shows amazing colors. They are crisp and vivid. Unfortunately, the vertical viewing angle is worse than the horizontal one. As soon as you move you will need to adjust the screen. Apart from that, it is one of the nicest notebook screens I have seen.


Keyboard

Very comfortable and responsive. Feels soft to the touch and the lightest push will be shown on the screen.

Touchpad:

I had to get used to this because it is very different from my Amilo. The fingers do not slide as easy and the buttons give a small discomfort in the beginning. After you get used to it, you cannot complain.


Speakers

Being a laptop of course it fails to yield quality. To be frank, I do not take speakers in consideration when I buy a laptop. I use the headset or hook up proper speakers. I will not count this as a negative to the U6.

Performance:

I read a few reviews where people said this laptop is noisy. I beg to differ. I am typing this and my penryn has 46 degrees centigrade and the fan spins at around 412 rpm. The GPU diode fluctuates between 57 and 60 degrees in office use. I guess some aspects of Vista are more demanding on the GPU. All the numbers come from EVEREST ULTIMATE FULL. I haven't tried any games yet but will do. I ran prime95 today to see a temperature ceiling and I recorded 60-62 degrees centigrade. For the moment I am impressed. I was expecting over 70.


3D Mark 06 Results and 3DMark 03 Results:

Processor temp: 59 degrees.
GPU DIODE: 66 degrees.


Everything on stock.

I can confirm that in Office Mode, the 3 cell lasts on my laptop 1h25 minutes before Vista shuts down due to critical battery. I am running now the Windows Experience Index and after 15 minutes of waiting, nothing happens. The windows says a few minutes and not over 15 . I guess it needs to run longer . I just rebooted and Vista is running the INDEX now. It got stuck the first time.

Experience Index Score: 3.4

Gaming:

I just installed Crysis. I cannot play it because of the annoying sound stutter bug !!!! It seems that Realtek drivers on Vista are not compatible with Crysis. I will take Sound Off and see if it is playable.


L.E: You cannot play it. 1024 low settings...it runs, hiccups...it runs...hiccups...I changed to 800 with Low...same thing. You cannot play Crysis on Vista. Maybe on XP you can avoid the occasional hiccup. It seems that it comes because of the OS.

I played Half Life 2 Deathmatch for about 1 hour on 1280*1024 on my LCD with settings on high and I had no stutter, no lag (I have 10-20 ms on some servers with my 24Mbit connection), no surprises. GPU Diode went up to 70 degrees and processor to 60.

DOD:The old one, I don't like Source

1. When hooked to the external screen the game had weird whitish lines on the horizontal. I tried both OpenGL and Direct 3D and no change. How should I describe them, ....imagine those old TVs with manual search for channels. Whenever you would try to tune it from the button and the reception would be bad, some wavey horizontal lines appear across the screen. The more you tune, the more the would move, up and down. I thought the card broke . I could not understand why, I made sure my room was cold, and the laptop well ventilated when I ran Crysis. I did not run it more than 5 mins because of the framing and stutter. GPU never went higher than 70 so...I was puzzled.


HL2 Deathmatch:

1. Still hooked to the LCD and the game ran fine. I had no issues like the ones mentioned earlier when I played DOD. It must be a driver problem and not a GC one.


3 Cell Battery Bug

During my 3 cell battery usage I noticed huge performance drops. I checked with Cpuz to see how low it downclocks and sometimes it went down to 1.1 GHz in high performance mode and Vista barely ran.

6 Cell Battery:

I managed to squeeze 2h40 minutes with casual office activity. I used it in office mode and I could see how it was downclocking to save battery. I ran the same office test I ran with the 3 cell and on this battery performance is higher.


Wireless Performance:

The Intel N adapter connects at 130Mpbs. My netgear router broadcasts up to 300Mpbs. I thought the laptop will connect at 300 like my other PCI Netgear cards. Performance is acceptable even at this speed and signal reception is very good. Bluetooth works fine and I managed to hook up my phone, the Logitech mouse, and my PDA with no hassle. This is one of its strongest points .


Conclusion :

I am very happy I spent my money on this. You get what you are paying for. It is a very fast system and offers great mobility. The cons of this laptop do not make me want to regret my choice. I will contact Asus for a replacement battery later on.

If you would like me to run more tests, let me know and I will do it. For the moment I am trying to get my hands on Rainbow Six. As soon as I have, I will update the review.

 

We find the U6Sg-A1 to be very attractive as well in every aspects during our review. Some users might say it's on the expensive side, but you do get what you pay for. How do you like the LED backlit screen?

 

Hey Wishmaker, looking forward to your gaming results! Also post a quick screenshot of your Windows Experience Index.

 

I also bought my U6Sg just today, picked it up in HK - bargained them down to below US$1,900 which I thought was ok. Really nice notebook for all my travelling needs with a bit of gaming-on-the-go.

It came with an 8300 CPU (2.4GHZ), 9300 GPU, 250GIG HDD AND 4 GIG ram.

Petrov.

 

Yup, both the 3 and 6 cell battery (and the two carry cases). For me, this will be the laptop I travel with. Most of my gaming will be on the new clevo (I currently have a G1S for gaming and an older 17" with a 7900gtx which my wife uses more often).

Petrov.

 

Those scores are not bad! Especially the gaming score of 4.5 is pretty reasonable.

As for games to try, if you can get a hold of Rainbow Six Vegas, that would be great! If it is playable on low to medium settings, I think I'll be purchasing the U6sg.

Do you think it would worth the extra ~$300USD to upgrade the CPU to a T9300?

 

The problem with upgrading the CPU to T9300 for me is really the final price of the U6Sg. It will be just under 2K USD final price (after tax and shipping) which is a bit out of my price range.

The thing is that I can get a Dell XPS M1330 for around the same price of a base U6Sg (roughly $1600 USD) but the Dell would have more hard drive space and a T9300. However, I'm not too fond of Dells (in the sense that a lot of people have one in my area ) and I've read the horror stories with Dell's customer service on the forums here. Maybe if I was a little less superficial, I'd purchase the M1330 right away. Furthermore, I would have to buy my own bag and bluetooth mouse although I guess that's not much relative to the overall price of the laptop. The Asus package just seems more complete to me.

I still have to think about it.

If you can't get a hold of R6 Vegas, it's okay. You can try Crysis . If it is somehow playable, then I'm sure Vegas is playable. Apparently, an M1330 (Intel T7300, 2GB ram, 128MB 8400m GS) can play Crysis somewhat: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fd4tBjoT08E

 

Darn! Perhaps that video in my previous post is a fake? The stats of the M1330 in the video is clearly inferior to the U6Sg and it managed to get Crysis going under Vista Home Premium. Maybe it will work better when better drivers are available. It's okay though because I don't plan on playing Crysis on an ultraportable

At least HL2 works nicely.

 

Interesting battery numbers, 1.5 out of the 3-cell is actually not so bad for an ASUS nowadays... that means 3hours from the 6-cell.

Note this review says around 1 hour from the 3-cell, maybe different usage scenario? http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=260638

 

True while the FPS is nothing to scream about, your notebook should be able to handle Crysis just as well without all the hiccups. I say give it one more shot now that you did a fresh Vista install.

 

Gaming: - continued:

I just received Rainbow Six Vegas 2. I installed it and to my surprise the game works. I haven't done any video change but from what I saw the game was running in 1024 resolution medium details and Anti Aliasing level 8. I haven't touched any setting because it wasn't lagging at all the first 5 minutes of play. I will play more when I have time tonight.


Tune in .

 

That is amazing!

 

I got home and hooked up my laptop to the LCD so I can play Rainbow Six. No matter what I do, my LCD flickers. I set the refresh rate as high as the monitor would let me...WTF? Yesterday with all that bloatware, it did not flicker, now, clean, and with the the same Asus driver the external screen flickers .

I stayed away from NVIDIA all my life because of the numerous issues with TV OUT and external screen problems.

 

Did you try different drivers?

 

I am trying a few now. I noticed that if I boot straight with the LCD there is no flicker. As soon as I swap between screens and end up on the external, the flicker is back.

 

I installed 4 different drivers. I managed to solve the flicker issue but now HD films don't play properly. Voice and image are out of sync...


I take it back. As soon as you swap between laptop screen and external, the external one flickers very bad.


NVIDIA, the way its meant to be played...

 

This is why I believe I'm going to get the U6 through XoticPC. I can get it with Windows XP and try to ride it out for three more years, or at least until Vista is fixed.

I'd love to see the PCMark05 and 06 scores with the T8100 I'm contemplating upgrading to the T9300.

 

I will run PC MARK for you in a moment! I just need to fix this stupid flicker issue! I have two monitors a Samsung Syncmaster 931C and an Acer AL 1716. It flickers on both .

 

We had a flicker problem earlier today and solved it by changing the resolution from the NVIDIA control panel, rather than the Windows controls.

Maybe this helps, who knows.

 

I toyed with everything. It goes away for a while ... . You can see the top left corner of your open window flickering, you click on it, it disappears. You click the orb, the orb flickers, click on it, dissappears .

 

I finished running PCMARK05 with the latest Vista patch.

This is the score:

 

I tried everything, except reinstalling Windows...again in only 2 days...oh well...let's see. I have a feeling I have a faulty card...

This is not normal. I want to hook up my laptop to my LCD. It should not flicker like this . I thought NVIDIA changed their approach and build quality since I had the problem with the MX440 or something like that. I will never buy a laptop with an NVIDIA card again. I spent the last 6 hours trying to fix this problem. I tried 20 NVIDIA drivers and the same problem .

 

Just finished my brand new Vista Install. Factory settings, everything the way it came, flicker problems are still there. It seems I have a faulty 9300...

 

Try installing SP1 to see if that works

 

I'm happy to test this on my U6Sg - what do I do to replicate what you're doing, and what precise symptoms are you having?

Petrov.

 

I would really appreciate it. Plug in an external monitor, do not clone them, simply make it as your main monitor, I use mine on 1280*1024@75Hz. See if there is flickering .

 

I turned on my U6, rebooted and it has a weird sound everytime it reboots. Its like a forced DVD Drive or HDD stop....6 Days laptop...

 

Wishmaker... I know this is not much help, you have 1 monitor, but did you try it with another monitor? Maybe this monitor is not detected properly and that's why the problem happens.

If the monitor is an LCD, also try it at other refresh rates, even lower. In our case that I mentioned yesterday, where we got it to work from the nVidia control panel, higher refresh rates than 60 were flickering, but on 60 Hz it did not.

I'm not sure about that sound, it may be the HDD drive parking but if it wasn't there before I'm not sure it's normal. You can do a SMART test of the HDD, see my Tips and Tricks for some software to do that.

 

Thanks a lot for the input. I really appreciate it. I tried on two monitors. I have an Acer AL1716 and a Samsung Syncmaster931c. It does the same on both. Just to be sure that the monitors are not faulty, I tried with my AMILO and the AMILO with a stupid INTEL card works without any flicker at any refresh rate. My U6 fails to work and I tried all the available refresh rates on both monitors.

Regarding the weird sound, it does not happen when I shut down. Only on restart. I will do test the drive to see what happens.

Will keep you posted .

 

I recorded the reboot process with my phone. Wait for it(around second 21) and you will hear it before the Asus Bios music.

Click me

This is the disk in my laptop, according to the serial number. If it has the park option, why didn't it do this before?

Running chkdsk now on the whole thing.

 

I've used my U6Sg with external Samsung 226BW LCD monitor, and haven't had any problems. I've connected it before and after booting to windows, no flickering - it just worked every time. Very weird...

I feel so sorry for you Wishmaker, you had to wait so long for your U6, and now it doesn't even work properly

 

W.r.t. gaming performance on the U6Sg (T8100, 2 gb), I've only really tried the Guitar Hero III, which was playable - just. It had some input lag, and framerate wasn't all that great (perhaps in the high 20s), but it was just about playable. The few video settings the game has didn't affect the performance much, I was running 1280x800 low/med settings.

 

My problem arises when I switch between screens. I will do some powerpoint presentations next fall so this issue is bothering me. If I boot up, swap to my external screen, make it primary, reboot, then I have no flicker issues. Imagine in front of 100 people, boot up make the projector primary, reboot because it flickers, yadda, yadda. Why does it work with my other laptop? I did so many presentations with it, i simply swapped screens and it worked, no hassle, no flicker, no need for primary and secondary and no reboot.

 

I ran all Vista utilities to check for bad sectors. I noticed something odd. After I rebooted and checked drive C with the Vista tool, at startup, before the finger print scan, I slipped in the Seagate bootable cd, and rebooted. No noise! I ran both short and long tests with Seatools and the HDD is in perfect shape. So, if there is a cd in the drive, there is no noise anymore. This makes me believe that the problem is the drive. I did say in my first post that it sounds like the DVD or the HDD.
Its the DVD drive. I open it and close it and the sound is there.

 

Called Asus Holland. 7-10 working days...

 

The magic flicker. Sorry for my shaky hands. Have a look at the top left corner of the window. You can see how the flicker stops, reappears, stops again, etc.

 

Just a suggestion (sort of rhetorical). While doing presentations, there are other alternatives than making the beamer primary:

a) Clone. Same thing on LCD as on beamer.
b) Extended desktop. Drag PDF or PPT to the secondary screen, do the presentation. PPT may create problems when you want to go full-screen. PDF works just fine.

About the DVD sound... make sure you mention it on the RMA form so that they also change the DVD.

 

I tried all those settings with both my screens and in any mode, the external ones flicker. I understand it is not a 5000$ AW laptop but 1600$ is still not cheap .

 

My U6 is gone with the wind...hope it comes back fixed .

 

I hope the reason for your flicker is that you got a bad card and not because we overstressed it when I had you try Crysis and Rainbow Six

Best of luck with the repair/replacement!

 

Placing an order today for the U6Sg-A1.....

with Windows XP Pro SP2 (Thank YOU XoticPC!).

I'm going to fight Vista until the bitter end.

The good news is, I don't play any FPS games, so hopefully this sucker can last me awhile. Like the next three years. Until law school is complete.

I'm just going to bite the bullet, realize there is no 'perfect' notebook, and just pray I don't have any hardware difficulties.

 

The notebook is gorgeous. It is fast, photoshop is quick . I was working with RAW files very comfortably. On the Asus screen my 9300 was doing fine. I could play Rainbow 6 even. What pissed me off was the VGA output. Oh, and the stupid Unit screech when it would close. I was shocked how accurate the fingerprint reader was. The one on my old laptop takes ages to recognize you . If they solve these issues, I will be very happy with the laptop.

 

Hey all!

My first post ever

I am considering buying a u6s or an LG p300. Very hard decision...
Any recommendations?
Do any of you have the WWAN module? (can you put in a sim card behind the battery?)

@ wishmaker - did you try to run your laptop from the battery? Some times grounding problems cause flickering.

How well would the u6s handle vista at 1080p via HDMI on an LCD monitor?
Does any one know what kinda of FPS one gets with C&C3 on highish details?

Good luck wishmaker

-COW

 

I don't have the WWAN, as far as I know . Don't try to stick your simcard in the U6 . You will never get it out...without tweezers . I tried everything, with battery and without. My laptop is in Holland someplace on its way to Asus.

 

Hi, I was making this choice too. I went with the U6Sg. The reason was that this is my travel laptop - I have a separate 15.4" gaming laptop for when I need to play the more intense games (I generally leave the 15.4" at home) - although the reality is that for most of the games I play (Civ 4, RTS games, etc), the U6Sg is powerful enough.

The P300 didn't have the build quality of the U6 when I tried them both out, also the external DVD annoyed me a bit. The U6 also has the 3G wireless built-in, which I use and it works perfectly for me.

I haven't tried using HDMI out, but I will when I get a moment at home. I imagine the U6 would handle C&C 3 just fine - it can play Mass Effect on lowest detail (albeit 15 fps)!

Petrov.

 

Thanks for your replies!

Thats funny, so how can one tell if it has integrated 3G wireless or not when one buys it? Pot luck? Hmm...fishy...The WWAN is one majot buying point over the P300.

I sadly dont have a chance to look at either of the notebooks, I called about 20 shops here and none had any Boo hoo!

Let me know how the HDMI works!! And im guessing playing C&C3 @ 1080p is overkill?

So far I am tending towards the ASUS.

I started a new thread on the P300 vs U6Sg topic: ( http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=3508746#post3508746

Wonderful forum!! Happy I found it

All the best to y'all!

-COW

 

I believe the expensive model with T9300 CPU has integrated 3G wireless. I got my future employer to order one for me, so I'll know within a few weeks.

 

Mine doesn't have it because it is the cheaper one. It does have the simcard slot though . Who knows, maybe in the near future I will order a modem and stick it in .

 

Wishmaker,

I just tried putting my U6Sg onto my Pioneer plasma screen through HDMI and it worked fine (mirrored), no flickering. Is that what you wanted me to test?

Petrov.

 

That was one test. Thanks, could you also hook it up to an external monitor through the VGA port?