F8SV NOW? or get something else around May

So let me begin by saying I'm a student. I've had my p.o.s. laptop now for more than 2 years and I think its time to get a new one.

Other than the school work I will be doing on it, of course I will be playing a few games. I play CS:Source mostly, and I want to try out Crysis and some of newer games as well.

Reasons FOR: current laptop is very slow, F8SV a lot better for games, money isnt a huge issue right now, F8SV looks like the only 14 inch that packs a 8600GT

Reasons AGAINST: 22 Engineering credits (7 courses) this semester I dont want to get too distracted, something better might come out in May, its not absolutely necessary.


So what do you guys think? should I get a F8SV now? or wait until I finish my semester in May and then get one? and when I say "now" i mean like this weekend, before the workload at school piles up.

 

Asus will have some Penryn refreshed models available later in the 2nd quarter, and there are indications that the performance and battery use might improve based on early comparisons of Penryn vs Merom chips. Best advice on buying technology is buy when you need it - waiting for waiting's sake only means there's something else coming on the horizon to hang around for.

Given your upcoming course load having a functional gaming platform sitting there staring up at you might not be the best choice .

 

I am also somewhat in the same position as you skiiper. I am having a hard time deciding whether I should get the F8Sv now with only 1.5 hours of mobile time, or get the refreshed model in summer, hopefully with better mobility time.

 

I am also in this boat. Its really tough because right now I can get the A1 for 1249 (CAD).

New models in similar line with the F8SV seem to include a Penryn with 9500m GS.
Just speculating here, but I'm not sure if these new models will be worth the price premium.

 

Just a thought, don't expect miracles in terms of battery life. The problem of ASUS is not the actual power requirements that the devices have, it's badly managing that power (according to some), or badly designed cooling systems (acc. to others). So even if new CPUs/GPUs improve on power reqs, ASUS will still be behind the competition on batt life, unless they address the REAL problem behind their poor batt life.

 

I hear people say the past ASUS models had decent battery life and that the newer refreshed models might retain/or improve on the life span of those past batteries.

Does anyone know the battery life on past laptop models similiar to a gaming laptop such as the F8Sv? I only have 1-2 days to decide on my purchase so if the refreshed model will only have an increase of 30min battery life, I'll buy the F8Sv now.

 

I would look for arguments to those statements...

Noone can give certain numbers for models that haven't been released yet...

 

Well if it any use, I got mine last week. LOL

So fars been alrite, other than some minor things:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=212120

 

I ordered mine the day they became available. The battery life is not super but it has been very sufficient for my needs. The B1's screen is amazing. The only downside is that I can't stand to look at my older regular 19in monitors anymore. The processor is a workhorse. I upgraded to 3 gigs of ram and all I can say is wow. The F8 runs the games that I have very well. (Mostly steam games). I'm a long time thinkpad user but I really love this ASUS! I did reformat the drive because of the way the drive was formated from the factory, but other that I have only positives to say about this laptop.

 

Can you give numbers for batt life?

 

Batt saving mode is around 2hrs 15min
High Performance mode around 1hr30min

 

Thanks. _______

 

... what's with the __________ replacing my words =_=

 

uh... that thin continuous line is the signature separator. It didn't replace your words. I used ________ to make the post have more than 10 characters otherwise I can't post it.

 

oh lol ic now, anyway F8SV gave me a random boot failure this morning, I was pretty *wtf* ...it just said boot failure (I have no virus, and this laptop is so new I haven't even connected it to the internet yet =_=) and Microsoft asked me if I wanna let it fix the problem , as we all know MS will hardly solve any problems but nevertheless I let it try....... and after 15minutes of me starring at my random screen and my Manager starring at me.....

"Microsoft could not solve this problem. Do you want to report it online?"

now that's something that'll NEVER work (report online).

So I just restarted my lappy and everything went fine again lol.

 

It happens...although I think only once on my G1s... So that's pretty good for 9 months +. They're rarely, if ever occur honestly. At least in my experience.