Asus U80 Hands-on!

is it sometime this summer yet

 

The specifications for U/UX series come out at ASUS's global website. The U80V is at http://www.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=7pC8THhTAvFuqV9q. I think they should be out on the market pretty soon. I cannot wait any longer for another month.

 

im seriously banking on this laptop to be goood. need to get one this summer.
kinda disappointing it doesn't have esata but eh.

but under the overview description.. it says it comes with nvidia 105m...But,
under the specs page, it says it comes with a ATI Radeon HD 457.
kinda confused. do you have an option to configure with either?
and under the Warranty & e-support section of the specs page, theres nothing about the 1 year accidental damage warranty i thought Asus was giving out to new laptops. can this not apply to the u80 or something?

 

I hope it is good too. About the sata port i guess a sata to usb will fix that but it'd be nice to have one integrated. The gpu is going to be the ati card. I am lik 99% sure unless there is a last min change. This was advertised on the asus website as well as many other stuff I have read. Hope it comes out asap cuz i am ready to buy

 

I've been waiting this lappy in indonesia for 3 weeks. but the dealer just say that it will be on market 2 weeks from now.
aaaarrrghh. another 2 weeks !!!!!!!!!!!

 

Hmm I'm really looking forward to how this model performs ^_^

Wonder if it'll finally get good battery life, something quite a few Asus machines have trouble with >.>

 

saxo, is that for release time in asia? if so will it be the same for north america? i was under the impression it would be june or july and knowing asus i thought maybe late july lol.

 

well from recent trends i'm guessing mid june, since asus generally releases 2-3 months after the announcement debut

 

there will be a Computer expo in Jakarta about mid june. I guess Asus will launch the U 80 at the expo. I dont know about North America though.

 

Well, the U80V will be released to market on 6/5 at $37800 (New Taiwan Dollar) in Taiwan. I think it will be pretty soon to see u80v in states. Link: http://www.eprice.com.tw/nb/talk/?prod_id=10&tid=655.

 

i am pretty sure it is suppose to be 899 when out in the us or around there. as mentioned before in this thread it is deff suppose to be less then 1000 although money is not really an issue for me.

 

lets go u80v. make your way to canada =)

 

Oh it'll make it. Canada's notebook resellers are pretty hot on Asus notebooks so if it's released in America, it'll come to Canada

 

i must say the back lit keyboard attracted me to it

 

yeah i'm sure it'll make it.. just how long it will take to be available in canada is in question. generally speaking we don't do very well with being stocked with the latest and greatest products. you guys in the states usually get stuff earlier than we do =(

 

In terms of Asus laptops, we're usually pretty good. When most of the K series(K40, K50) came out 2 weeks back, they were already in many Canadian stores at the same time as the US stores.

 

alright i'll take your word for it =P i'm hoping i can actually have a small hands-on session with the u80 when it comes to canada. iunno if i'll be able to since it's hard to find retailers in gta who actually have demos of asus up..

 

Not many stores carry actual demos though. Probably small scale ones have them, but the only store I can recall is Microbytes and not all their outlets have Asus laptop demos.

 

Give me a shout when it comes to Canada and I'll see if NCIX has display models. Their Vancouver location always has a few.

 

Why does the description say it has the GeForce 105M, but the technical specifications say it has the ATi 4570?

 

If you look at the pics at the beginning of this thread, it is for the u80 the 14 inch. the 105m is apparently in the u50 the 15 inch.

 

@Delta: okies will do ^_^ I'd be nice if you could take photos or give feedback for the rest of us

@parastie: Yeah Asus more or less copy/pasted the same description for all the U series so they must've omitted changing the Nvidia 105M for the HD4570 when putting the description of the U80V.

 

must be typo.

 

Hmmm....I need a new laptop this summer and I want something smaller then my ancient macbook pro. This certainly looks like the best bang for the buck. Have to wait and see what the final price is though and hopefully have time to read a review.

 

I'd better put a sticky note on my desk to check periodically...feel free to PM me if you find that it has come north of the 49th.

 

agreed. the 4570 is NEEDED!

its so much better than the 105m..

 

It's really just a copy/paste mistake. If you look at the U and K series for example, Asus uses the exact exact same description for all of them. Therefore, we can be sure they more or less simply copy/paste the description and swap the model name. The other U series have the G105M so I suppose they just forgot to change it to the HD4570.

I'd trust the "technical specifications" page over the general presentation page any day >.>

 

If there were a repacement U series 13" notebook for the Asus F6Ve with an ATI 4570 or better, I'd be sold!

 

I found a site here that has them listed. I'm guessing this is more of a presell than anything else. Is it just me or does it seem a little ridiculous that it's listed for $1900 when retail is supposed to be about 900?

 

Nice find 10shot. Given that Australia usually inflates the price for Asus notebooks, I'd put the U80 at around $1200USD for the same/similar specs.

 

idk 2 gigs of ram? i thought it was gonna be four. The person who started the thread said the rep at the stand said it should not be more then $1000. Engadet says it will be 899 as well as other sites.

http://www.engadget.com/2009/05/14/asus-bringing-1008ha-ux50-and-u80v-laptops-stateside-we-go-han/

 

Well we'll see once it arrives in North America. I'd love it if it was under 1000$, but I'd accept if it was slightly over. Anything over 1500$ though would IMO be too much.

 

my guess would be that it'd be priced slightly under the n81vg

 

Well it's significantly less powerful than the N81, but at the same time it's also far smaller in form factor so we'd be paying for that. I guess somewhere around that mark(a bit lower) would be reasonable yes

 

It'd be cool if it really does get that 6 hours battery life as asus claims. Idk how they will achieve that when the current model listed in Australia has the t9400 which uses more power then the p series.

 

btw the n81-vg is 899 after mail in rebate.

 

damn that's a deal. lmao

yeah 6 hours of battery life would be pretty wicked awesome

 

The N81 has horrible battery life though(like ~2 hours). Despite it being very powerful, I want a decent balance >.>

6 hours seems like a lot, but even if it managed 5 hours I'd be happy

 

man those are some high expectations... 3 should be the sweet spot for most people, especially considering the high performance that they want.

 

Well the U80V has an HD4570 so it's not that power draining. Combine that with a midrange CPU and you could probably achieve more than 3 easily. The Dell Studio 15 achieves 3.5-4h and it also has the HD4570.

Honestly, battery life and performance don't go hand in hand so you always have to pick one or the other. I personally would like a good blend of both, but battery life would be more important for me I think.

 

if it weren't for the acclaimed 6 hours of battery life, i would've bolted for the n81vg already. sacrificing gaming prowess for 3 hours of batteries seems to be a fair trade to me, especiially since i'm only an occasional gamer.

 

saxo, any news yet almost been 2 weeks

 

I wonder if the HD4570 in this is the GDDR3 or DDR2 version and if it's the 64vbit or 128bit version. Apparently the 128bit GDDR3 version actually performs really really well despite only having 80 shaders.

 

I'm wondering if we're going to hear anything on these anytime soon also. I'm holding out hope for the Asus PC Show. If there still isn't any news, I'm probably going to have to go with the 13" Macbook Pro.

 

I've been holding out for the U series, hoping to decide against the MacBookPro.

I'd really love it if they came out with a U-series model with those "apple" features like a full aluminum chassis, high color gamut screen etc... but with better specs and for less. The U-series is already some of the closest things I've seen, aside from overpriced Sony models that seem to have a generation old hardware.

 

An aluminum chassis wouldn't do it for me since I live in a place where it gets -40C half the year >.> Metal conducts cold as well as heat you know I don't want to have to leave my laptop to "warm up to room temperature" for 15min before I use it after being outside too lol XD

but yeah, the U80 seems to have some really nice features and if its price is what people say, then it'll be a really good deal

 

holy crap that is cold.

 

You do have to be careful of things like that. My cousin left his computer in the car overnight and when he turned it on it fried his PSU and blew all the breakers in the apartment because of the condensed moisture inside. By some stroke of luck all the other components survived. This may be more of an issue here on the wet coast, where reaching -5C is newsworthy and everyone complains of the "deep freeze".

If I move east, I should try starting up my laptop indoors, then going outside and seeing if I can get even higher overclocks.

 

man and i thought -40 would be perfect for overclocking xD

 

Like Delta_CT suggests, when coming from -40 degrees I strongly advise letting components get to room temperature and allow some time for condensation to evaporate, regardless of the material they are made of.