Considring Asus after 15 Dell years!

I have had great success buying Outlet notebooks off Dell's site. I have three of them currently but one of the 10 year old models won't run Win 7 so I am in tne market for a new one. I currently use a 1705 but will make the that Family PC that will reside in the Kitchen on a cabinet desk. Plus I want a smaller screen. Since I use mine primarily on the couch end table.

After some research I have learned Asus has some really great price points (and I have built all my desktops with Asus MBs except for one Gigabyte which I needed becasue it uses a TI Firewire port for Mucis recording gear)

I have decided on the X3. I do some Video editing, not much gaming but I know gamiing machines are the best for media editing, The only real PC "game" I play is Flight Sim X and NO PC desktop or laptop GPU or Processor can run that game full on. (I am surprised they don;t use that title as a bench mark.


Anyway I have Windows Ultimate ans as I do with all Notebooks I wipe them load my own OS and reload pertinent drivers, Will this be an issue with the Asus?

The other question I have is I may want to run in 32 bit because I have some expensive music recording related software (WAVES and Toon tracks)outboard gear that is not ready for 64 bit Windows and I don;t want to spend thousands to replace those plugins.

Are 32 bit drivers available for the native hardware in the Asus?

Maybe I should install a dual boot system?

Thanks.


BTW I have read of many issues with BSODs and wonder how much of that is real. I would have to believe Asus is better than Dell which has been flawless and I only bought refurbished outlet notebooks....which are products that get a full going over twice...Once in China and then again in Texas.

 

I haven't used a Dell in a long time, not since 2002-2003 when I had two of them break. At the time Dell used incredibly cheap plastic and their modular design made them oddly flexible and wobbly.

I moved on to a Compaq later where the casing was far more stable. From there I went to Acer and now on my second Asus notebook.

I know Dell has improved greatly, seen and used their current notebooks and they are nice.

But here is the reason why I only buy Asus, Acer, possibly in the future MSI/Clevo.

There are only a few notebook manufacturers. Clevo, Asus, Acer, Compal, Quantumn and MSI.

Dell does not make laptops, nor does HP, nor does Sony, Toshiba etc. These are all brand names. So when they need parts or repairs, these all depend on the above companies.
- For example, if you buy a Gateway. You send it for repairs? Yeah it's being sent to Taiwan where Acer will repair it, Acer is the parent company that manufacturers Gateway now.

With companies like Asus, MSI, Clevo I can be confident knowing the computer I bought is made by them and if I send it in for repairs, it's by the company directly, no middle man. Also the price is VERY NICE.

Benefits of buying from a Notebook Brand Manufacturer
- Initial price for the hardware is fantastic, unmatched. You can get your notebook customized by a trusted reseller
- In general they have the best warranty available on the market for free. Both MSI and Asus provide free labor and parts for 2 years (Asus), 3 years (MSI) and both provide 1 year accidental.

Also I go with Asus/MSI since I am a big fan of their motherboards. I think Asus is the best and what is at the heart of a computer? Motherboard. Asus is my #1 choice for notebook and desktop motherboards.

Asus Manufacturers the laptop casing, the GPU, the motherboard and they are also the design team. For example with an Apple Notebook. You think Apple designs their notebooks? Nope, that's outsourced to a Taiwanese company. And then another company manufacturers it. Asus is a one stop for your Notebook.

This doesn't mean Asus is the best, but I just trust Asus more than other notebook brands right now. MSI is great also and Clevo is the standard for high end notebooks.

 

My personal favorites are Lenovo Thinkpads. My old T60 is built like a tank, but light and thin. My 5 year old uses it and I don't even have to worry, a quick wipe down and it looks brand new. Their machines are top notch, but unfortunately, the thinkpad line isn't gamer oriented

Concerning your 32 bit program, a 64 bit OS runs those just as well as a 32 bit OS. I can't think of any real reason not to load W7 64 on the machine. If you're going to do that, might as well take out half the RAM and sell it on ebay.

 

x3 version of which Asus model? (I assume you mean a G73jh)
Installing fresh windows is no problem on any Asus machine. Asus usually supplies software/drivers on cd and the website will have drivers as well. If the machine you're buying doesn't come with a 32bit OS, Asus will not host 32 bit copies of the drivers. The drivers are still available from the hardware manufacturers however, or you can use DriverPacks and those will pretty much sort you out in 1 step.

If you *are* getting the G73jh, go ahead and dual-boot OSes. There's no reason to go 32 bit with a system like the G73, since it needs 9+ gigs of addressing, where it only has 4 in a 32 bit OS. There's 1gig for the video card, leaving just under 3 gigs available to the system for programs. 5 gigs of your ram will go to waste. Many video applications can eat up what's left in short order, causing your pagefile to take a pretty hefty load. If you have specific drivers that require 32 bit, best to use that specific hardware in a 32bit install, then reboot into a 64 bit install for the heavy lifting, editing, and encoding.

As for Asus build quality; I'm on my second Asus notebook now. I got a G73jh-a2 to replace a m50sV and have been really impressed with both machines, I'm very hard on my gear that neither one has given me any hiccups so far (G73 only 2 weeks old). Lenovo also makes nice stuff, and I'd give MSI a shot sometime too if the need arises to buy one. I've got an HP mini 210 netbook and it's nice but I'd never consider HP for a work laptop again.

 

Just as a note, Asus is no longer solely ODM. For their K series laptops, they are already being made my Foxconn and the N series are next in line to be outsourced if it hasn't already.

 

The only thing Dell has over Asus and the others is onsite repair. I had a dell with dead pixels a tech came over to my house and replaced the lcd screen.

I had two ASUS's with PSODs. The first was a full replacement and the second was just a replacement of the screen. Asus pays for shipping both ways if still in warranty but you need to be prepared for a wait and have a backup pc or laptop just in case.

 

I bought the g73h and was pumped, but gstboy's SIG is exactly why I will not touch another Asus for a while. My first experience was not impressive at all and experienced GSOD immediately. Most people on here will say "Oh well you just have to RMA it". Nope sorry I paid $1700 for a new laptop and I want a spanking new laptop. GSTboy is on his 3rd RMA, 3 freaking RMA's in a matter of 3 months.

That being said I finally got to see a Clevo in person and I would highly recommend them. Solid build quality, best in class cooling, and you get what you pay for.

Alienware seems pretty damn impressive also with build quality, but not as good at cooling as the Clevo.

My advice is to take your time really do your research and maybe hold out for a couple months. There is supposed to be a lot of action in the next few months with notebooks and the G73h is getting a refresh with a Fermi card from Nvidia that they hopefully will know how to handle a little better than the 5870m that they plopped into the G73h. My guess is you'll see either a 470m or 460m variant, but probably not the 480m for power/cooling reasons.

 

I'll add my 2 cents here since we're on the topic of Dell.
As far as after-sales service goes, Dell wins hands down only if you have purchased one of their business-class laptops which usually comes standard with a 3 year Next Business Day support and/or on-site support. Being able to contact Dell via chat is also a huge plus. There is less paperwork to do if you need something replaced compared to Asus - in fact, there's no paperwork at all. I have asked for replacement batteries and recovery disks, all of which were sent via express mail at their dime. Their business support is stellar and second to none, however, their home laptop support is lacking quite a bit behind compared to Asus unless you have purchased their upgraded warranty service. Luckily, there are very supportive Asus resellers whom can help expedite your RMA process and often times Asus customers can bypass a RMA entirely due to the dedicated personnel some of the resellers have. It helps add another level of technical support and without these resellers, I doubt I would have continued to purchase Asus laptops altogether.

 

Dell home warranty actually has online chat and NBD. Not sure where you get your info. from. Ziddy's post also has a lot of fallacies but it would take a long time to address and I won't bother.

 

I never said they didn't. The problem with Dell Home laptops is that their NBD or other premium services usually require you to pay extra for that service.

I got my info from Dell.com

 

Yep, I paid extra for my E-1705 at home service. My first one was DOA

What ever you buy it looks like your plug-in's take priority? Got a bit of homework there. What about forums for your software for recommendations for new hardware compatibility?

 

And? The 1 year basic is NBD. It's standard for the pic you posted. The ones that require extra are for 1 yr basic (NBD @ 50 dollars usually) are the low end inspirons, which aren't really relevant to this thread.

 

My point is Dell Home support is inferior to Dell Business support. And having gone through both processes, it is from my experience that Asus support is better than Dell Home support, but not Dell Business.

Since this thread is about a member whom is a long-time Dell user and considering an Asus laptop as the title suggests, this would be relevant.

 

Every virtue you pointed out about Dell business support is present with Home support. Thus why I brought it up, it's not inferior in the service rendered. Asus warranty support in no way competes with Dell home support. Asus is purely mail in depot.

 

There is also the fact that dealing with calls to Dell Home support gets you directed to their India call centers, majority of Dell Home laptops only comes standard with 1 year warranty, not all Dell Home laptops have on-site service as their standard warranty, and the in-home service is not a guaranteed next business day service as per their servicing terms. That said there are also low-end Vostros that only come with a 1 year mail-in standard warranty too but customer support is still connected to a US-based call center.

As for Asus, yes they are purely a mail-in (or drop-off) depot, but as mentioned previously, going through a reseller often allows you to skip the entire RMA process. For example, when I reported a hard drive failure to my reseller, he immediately shipped a new HDD no questions asked. If this happened on a Dell inspiron, I'd have to go through a tedious battery of remote diagnostics before Dell could schedule a technician to come by and make the repair/replacement.

As mentioned, all this is from personal experience and I welcome your experiences if you have any to share with the community. However, if you're only here to accuse others of fallacies, I for one do not appreciate it. I could pull up more examples to prove my point, but I think we're already getting involved too much in this so I'll leave this as it is.

Best regards,
David

 

I am speaking from personal experience. Every Dell system I've owned lately from the XPS 16 to the M17x has had NBD Home service. Getting a HDD replaced takes a simple 15-20 min call and they ship it to you the next business day. It's user replaceable and not a big deal at all. My girlfriend's XPS 16 shipped with a broken keyboard, I hopped on Dell chat and asked for a new one and had it the next day in my hands to replace myself. My M17x had a scratched palm rest and a day later I had a new one. I could go on and on but I'm sure you get my point. Oh by the way, my recent M17x had a scratched chasis from the factory, I called up Dell and got a $50 concession for my "troubles" and they built me a replacement from the factory that is already in the boxing stage. Try getting that kind of service from Asus or any other vendor.

 

Replied via PM as most here are probably not interested with our back-and-forth rebuttals.

 

As someone who deals with A LOT of dell laptops, their quality went off a cliff 3-4 years ago. HP as well.

I tend to recommend ASUS/Acer/MSI nowadays.

 

Having experienced both warranty services in the past 6 month I have to say Dell wins but at a price, if you pick up the extra 2 years with Dell to match ASUS's.

The ASUS resellers will take care of you since I didn't really have to contact ASUS RMA service myself Ken @ Gentech handled everything so hats off to Gentech for the support. But as mentioned before, it's the waiting game and not knowing what they are doing to your laptop when it is at their service center that sucks. At least with Dell you can watch what the tech does to your laptop so you can complain right on the spot or be happy about it.

For my second RMA I was told by ASUS and they also told Ken this, that they would wipe my HDD clean so that they could test the screen. I know they didn't wipe my HDD clean because when I got it back I still had everything I left on it when I sent it in. I'm not even sure they turned it on to test because I still see the PSOD when I'm loading windows and plugging in an HDMI only this time it goes back to normal but it is still showing funky colors for a second when it is switching or loading resolutions. Plus they had to wait for 2 weeks for the part to come in before they replaced it so that meant I had to wait an extra 2 weeks. I'm pretty sure they are so backlogged that they don't have time to mess around with each one that comes in so they just fix it and send it out as fast as they can.

I can't really complain now since I have it back and it works awesomely for the most part. I do dread having to send it back though if any other issue pops up that requires an RMA.

So if you like the ASUS just hope you get a good one. Even if your RMA gets processed the same day they get it you are looking at a week turnaround minimum due to the shipping times. Plus boxing it back up for shipment and driving down to fedex to drop it off takes time as well.

 

I've dealt with Dell and Asus for warranty work this year and Dell has been 1000x better. Not even close. Asus even lost parts of my laptop while my Dell (AW) has never left my house. I'm sure if I went through a reseller it would have been a better experience.

 

I bought an ASUS G73. The X1 version from Newegg - it's like the X3 except there is only one 500 gig hard drive, not two 320 gigs. Useful if you want to put a solid state drive in the free bay.
I would highly recommend this machine:

The Good -
GREAT price for what you get (around $1400-1700 USD).. seriously, I challenge you to find another laptop with an i7 and a 5870m that's under $2k.
1080 screen is beautiful, colors are great.
8 gigs ram? You'll barely ever need to use half of it (Plus Newegg's model ships with 1333 DDR3). Gone are the days when I had to close the web browser to play a game.
The machine is designed with nice materials and what is easily the best cooling system I've ever seen on a laptop.

The Bad -
Reflective screen (aren't they all).
Lack of firewire/expansion card/other ports.
The trackpad 'button bar' is retarded. If you use a mouse, this is no problem. Also the chiclet keyboard took a little getting-used to.
There's a little metal grate that runs above the keyboard below the screen. The speakers are housed inside. This motherer collects dust like there's no tomorrow.

On the whole. moving up from my 5-year-old Inspiron 9300, this is VERY nice. My Inspiron had screen problems (turned into a 2" hole, air in the LCD) which Dell refused to repair because even though there was an extended warranty for particular screen issues, I was a couple months past the 3-year mark to cash in for repair.

Dell won't even TALK to you until they know you have a valid warranty on file, otherwise they will direct you to a PAY-FOR help line. I thought this was retarded as hell, despite the fact that the 9300 stood up to be the best laptop I've ever owned.. but I'm afraid now that crown belongs to the ASUS G73.

Why did I buy? It was a combo of high-graphics desirability, the portability of laptops, and the fact that I wanted a machine that will last 3 or so years before the 'new' technology is finally shoved out of corporate lockjaw, re: OLED screens and nanoprocessor architecture. I am content that I won't need anything until the true next-generation computing devices are released.

 

Thanks for all the responses..I have to say My experience with Dells were all good. But I find the bang for the buck is not there.(BTW I worked for Xerox Corp where We had the Dell in home service contracts) Dell is very good over the phone diagnostics. I NEVER bought an extended warranty on anything and don;t really believe in them. (I am waaaay ahead financially in that regard, enough to pay for a new Notebook at least, and maybe a car LOL with the savings verses the cost of repairs on all kinds of stuff. Anyway thats another subject)

I am leaning toward the Asus but there seems to be a lot of issue with them, Now maybe its because there are a lot of owners but I don;t have a lot of confidence after doing some basic research. The Sagar is something I have been looking at as well as the new MSIs. I LOVE the Asus though but without the "Dell support" system I would be afraid I would be without a notebook for weeks if I had an issue.

There doesn't seem to be a centralized Asus center like Sagar and Dell you can talk to people immediately. Most of their product is reseller and that can make for he said /she said passing of the buck.......That makes me nervous regarding Asus. But I do like their offerings..