Asus recommendation

I'm sure this has been asked once or twice before, but I was having too much fun browsing through this forum I just had to ask in my own post

I'm looking for a portable laptop that has good linux/bsd support, and can run the games I play without choking. I'm not much of a hardcore gamer (I don't play D3,HL2, etc) -- I play ut2k4 on some of lowest settings on my desktop (for playability reasons; competition). I would like to know if it COULD run D3 in a lowest graphic setting smoothly.
Asus m3v, Asus z70v, or an Asus z80k was among my three choices. My biggest thing is size; I love the size of the m3v, and it looks pretty. Is the performance of the three systems close to the same?
I found z80k being the cheapest, and m3v being most expensive. Thoughts?

Honestly I'm leaning towards the z70v, mid-price, seems like it has decent performance, and it's not HUGE.
To sum it up, I'm looking for a portable gaming laptop that's not huge -- for mid to low-gfx gaming.

I also wanted to mention the configuration I had set for the laptops -- 1gb memory, 60-80gb hdd, and the 1.8 pentium m / 3400 a64


[sorry for the really jumpy thoughts.. going on a few hours of sleep and mt. dew!]

 

You're talking about the W3v, right? The Z80k is overkill and you're going to hate the size, design, battery life... etc...... I use my W3v for doom3 and flight sims, etc...... they run on more than just the lowest levels........ with the new omega drivers that are coming out in a week or so... it's going to run even better.

Go with the W3 and add a 512mb stick of ram..... you're going to be much happier with the form factor and you're going to get the same performance out of it as you will the Z70v.....

 

Yes, I was talking about the W3v. Thanks for the info, that's all I wanted to know.

 

No problem... it's an awesome system, and so is the z70v..... but unless you NEED that larger screen, or the cost is going to be very different... most people would be happier with the smaller unit.

 

I was able to find the Z70v for about $300-400 cheaper.
Also do you know anything about the compatibility with *nix? I'll probably run FreeBSD on it.

edit: FreeBSD or Slackware

 

I'll second Justins thoughts here.

Owning both an A2 series and a W3 I'll say that the Z80k can probably be good value as a pure DTR if the most traveling you're going to do with it is something along the lines of; from your front door to your car. I'll be, in comparison, poor in battery life, size and weight. It's movable, not mobility.

The W3 on the other hand I find to be about the perfect combination of professional features, portability, and toy.

 

I third that.

Z70v will be a great choice. It was build upon a popular form factor chassis M6N series. It is not regular plastic, so it is a bit longer than most of it size.

Words have it that the Z70V will come up with a refresh version that comes with X700 ATI Video card. Which will make it an excellent choice.

 

If you have a month or more to wait for a more expensive unit... that's one thing... but at the same time, he doesn't require that sort of power.

The M6's are "longer" not because of the materials.... it is all carbon fiber... It's because it was designed for a dual option screen........ fits both regular ratio and widescreen in the same chassis... which means for the widescreen, the system is going to be taller than you might expect (hence the addition of those extra speakers under the screen) .. and for regular ratio, which isn't offered in the US anymore... the bezels on the left and right were far wider than normal....... great idea, but it wasn't "perfect" for either in my view..... sort of jack of all trades, master of none sort of thing... The system was and is great, but a widescreen version could have been shorter and saved a bit of weight....

 

I'm getting my Z70V this weekend and I will install ubuntu and see how it goes. though i won't install freebsd.

 

The z80k almost has full compatibility to most distros but its a crappy notebook. Would not recommend it. Other then that one there has been little talk about linux and the new centrino units. I recal a z71v user having good results but couldnt get the wifi to work. Sellers should really start offering linux. Any takers??

 

We've got a customer from last year who started one of the biggest Linux on Asus notebook sites and forum.... A lot of people are having great success with Linus on the sonoma platform, but the biggest thing is there are a lot of people who "want" linux, but don't know the first thing about it and don't realize you can't just use the windows drivers that come with the systems..... From what I've heard from these guys is that there seems to be more people now who do want to start out on linux and use the newest systems out there right now.... but there isn't a lot of great support and the guys who know what they're doing either have slightly older systems or something... but it takes a while to get all of this new stuff working and working stable under Linux.

 

Some of my bookmarks:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/acpi4asus (This functionality should be in the core now.)
http://www.linux-on-laptops.com/asus.html
http://tuxmobil.org/asus.html
http://forge.novell.com/modules/xfmod/project/?asus-hotkeys
http://m6n.ath.cx/forum/viewforum.php?f=1

Edit: Most things on an Asus laptop should work OOTB now. Many wireless cards have good native drivers, and those that don't will most likely work via ndiswrapper.

 

Thanks for the links, I'll definately look over them and see how much fun I'll have with it.


I have no problem spending hours on end getting a single piece of hardware working in my linux install. After 11 or 12 kernal compiles, a few patches, and 8 hours of non-stop work my desktop/linux finally runs the video card smoothly. If there's not a way.. I will make a way