Biometric on G71V? or just get the M70VM

I have a requirement for the next notebook to have a biometric login system, I also want to play games. The M70VM seems to fit all the requirements, except the video card is a little on the weak side.

As I travel a lot with work, I require the machine to be secure and I dont want to be typing in passwords in front of people. I note it has smart logon (video), but how secure is it? What other security features does it have.

Failing that, what are the chances of a better video card coming on the M70?

 

The G71V (like all of the Asus G series notebooks) does not have a fingerprint reader.

The SmartLogon security usefulness has been debated.
Some users have said that it can be difficult to get past (a few saying what lighting you have, what clothes you are wearing, and what pictures you have associated as being face recognition for your profile can make a significant difference). While others have said that you can fool the camera by taking a picture of your face and holding it in front of the camera.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=225991

Like you I was looking for a system with the graphics power of the G70/G50 series and the security of the M70/M50 series. Unfortunately Asus seems clueless that there is a market for that combination of features. I spoke with a few of the Asus resellers a few weeks back, and all of them were of the belief that Asus will not be putting fingerprint readers in the G series, and they will not be putting a better video card in the M series any time soon.

Given that you will have to weigh the features of each and try to determine which features are more important to you, and which you will realistically use the most often.

I went with a M series because:
I didn't want to give up the fingerprint option
Even though I plan to play games I think in the long run I may be using it more for its multimedia features and less for gaming. (I have a desktop I can use for gaming as well).

The following M series features (not available on the G series) seemed like they might be useful, fun, and/or interesting:
media touchpad
swivel webcam
ambient light sensor
fingerprint reader (as mentioned above)

Since you travel a lot I'd recommend considering the M50 over the M70 since its two pounds lighter, and takes up less space. You'll loose out on the subwoofer and the 1920x1200 panel that comes with the M70, but those can be remedied pretty easily by connecting to external speakers and a HD TV or computer screen. (Note: the M50 has been reported as having a good speaker system and screen, so neither should be considered a weakness).

 

I also recommend a smaller notebook than 17" if you travel a lot.

The good ol' password is still the most secure way to protect data... this 'SmartLogon' feature is apparently not secure at all and can be easily fooled (see link in post above) and I doubt that the fingerprint reader is much stronger than that...

On the other hand, a strong password is hard to beat. Once you learn it by using it 10-20 times at most, you can type it really fast and unless someone records you with a camcorder and then replays frame by frame, there is no way that they will guess the password just by watching your hands. So it's no problem to type passwords in front of people.

If you travel a lot, I also recommend that you set a HDD password from the BIOS (be aware it's extremely difficult to reset so be sure to type it right! only use letters and numbers), and use TrueCrypt (free) to encrypt the most important, sensitive data. Why do you need these? Because Windows logon does not protect a stolen HDD from being accessed from another computer.

If you plan to use Vista there is also the BitLocker fulldisk encryption, which I think you can use in conjunction with TPM, but I am not sure how reliable that is, because I haven't researched it.