G1 or A8J

Which should i get

G1

or

A8J with 2gb of ram home upgraded and a 20" widescreen monitor and a 7700

I did a little test with my tape measure and perspective and found out a laptop screen size at 1 foot away is about the same as a screen 1.5 times larger at 2 feet away so the

G1 is 15.4 inches is like a 22" screen
A8J is 14 inches like a 20"

Please post why you said this

 

I prefer the A8Js because it's smaller and looks better than the G1

 

Its not really matter of why we would pick one over the other. It is really dependant on how you plan on using the notebook?

Are you going to be moving it around a lot? Need it to be very portable and with high performance? Or want a notebook that is bigger, and carry it around every now and then with high performance?

Both G1 and A8js are basically some of the best laptops in their target market. You will be happy with either choice, however pick on the basis of portability and personal use.

 

Ill add my situation

I will normally be using it on the desk at my house. Every now and then ill have a mini lan at a friends house and probably bring it over to use. I travel in the car and on a plane about 4-6 times a year usually for 5+ hours so i will use it to watch movies or play RTS games

I also have a lot of music and pictures to store since i like photography

I won't move it too much except for around my house.

Which would run cooler???

Also im slightly concerned about light leakage on the 14"

Also how large is the backpack for the G1. Would it have enough space to store about 2-3 textbooks?

So G1 has more features but adds weight and size

And A8J is smaller with less features for a lower cost.

Now that i think about it i probably don't have room on my desk for a monitor.

Ill probably go for G1 since my friend has an heavy hp 15.4 inch laptop and it seems just the right size

Also how is heat on both of them

Im afraid 14" is going to be too small also but then ill have the 20" screen.

Im also wondering if the G1 is worth the 300 dollar premium for its upgrades

Screensize
Harddrive
Ram
Flashy stuff

Well it is identical in price for both of them if i upgrade the ram and add the monitor.

So its basically identical performance

So now its between

Smaller lappy with external monitor
Or larger lappy with no external monitor

But also apparently when its close to you a 15.4 inch seems like a 22-24" screen and i probably won't use it far away

Another concern is harddrive space since im currently filling up a 80gb or so im not sure if ill need 80gb more or not since this laptop will open new horizons over my 9250pci graphics card.

 

why not v1jp? if you consider g1 then v1j should be a definite. its kinf of like comparing a top of the line honda to an acura. the acura may be equally powered but a bit more expensive however the acura beats the honda in every other aspect. the acura would have the modular bay and optional docking station.

 

Well the graphics card has less pipelines and memory so it has to "steal" some of it from system ram.

Any thoughts on the smaller lappy with smaller hdd and large external screen vs bigger laptop with larger hdd and no external screen

Also the G1 is kinda expensive because i can almost get a dell e1705 with a better card for the same price with same other specs

Im not sure if ill regret the smaller screen of a little lappy but id probably rather have portability than a slightly larger laptop but im not sure

Please could i have some more reccomendations

If i get an external monitor for the little notebook ill have a big monitor with a large screen around the house and a slightly smaller screen than the g1 elsewhere.

Ill probably go A8J

Since i can clean up about 20gb of stuff on my harddrive leaving me with about 60gb on the newone which is plenty then ill probably upgrade to a 200/300gb when they come out or get cheaper.

 

I went a little bit through this thought process. I was thinking about the W3J and A8Js and then buy a external LCD for home use. While I can just take the small 14" notebook to school.

However, my needs were quite high, so I ended up waiting for the V1JP and I figured that purchasing an external LCD with a 14" notebook wouldn't be all that great for me since I also have limited desk space for the LCD.

I love my V1JP, the screen is excellent and the G1 also has the same CMO screen. I have taken my V1JP and put it side by side to the G1P, they are both nice. The features in the V1JP won me over, plus I had my eye on the V1 series for a while, prior to its release.

From the looks of your demands and uses, the G1 seems to be the right notebook for you. But why would you want to carry textbooks? This puzzles me? Also I have seen the G1 bag, its nice, but for me and my V1JP I needed something a lot bigger. My V1JP came with a handbag, in which I use for days I travel to friends house. Otherwise I use my backpack for school.

I hope this helps.

Thanks,

MysticGolem

 

The light leakage on mine is minimal, but viewing angles are so and so. The go7700 is not powerful enough for gaming on wsxga+ in newer games. When gaming my GPU temp is about 75 C, but it's overclocked. Regular is around 70 C while gaming. I was also worried that 14" would be too small, but i rather like it. 1 Gb Extra ram $65
160 GB harddrive $105
Getting rid of the flashy stuff: Priceless.
Sorry, couldn't resist. But yeah, The V1 is more atractive and has better build than both the A8js and the G1

 

Well i was wondering if i could use it for a school backpack also

Hence the textbooks.

Also i don't like paying so much for a 15" laptop aka V1 with less power than G1 for same price less gfx memory and such

Ill probably just go for the G1 and if its too much then drop to a A8Js (im paying for half folks are paying for other half)

Does it get a bit annoying though having the ctrl and fn keys swapped on the A8Js since im a pretty big gamer.

Actually being mister bi-polar ill probably get the 14"

I only use about 60gb of hdd space right now for all my games and whatnot so 120gb should be adequate and ill upgrade the hdd later if needed

I don't want to spend so much extra for the V1 so ill just got for the A8Js with monitor and if my parents think it is too much ill try cutting down monitor then getting rid of it

It'll cut price by 200 bucks

The g1 isnt 100% worth it for the extra gb of ram the flashing lights the bigger hdd and the oled thing.

My most probable order
G1
A8Js with 20" WS
A8Js with 19" WS
A8Js without external screen

I don't really need an external screen since ill have it close to me on the desk anyway and im guessing the g1 has better cooling because of its size along with more desktop real estate bigger harddrive since i might get into photography

The differences specs wise
G1 vs A8Js
160gb vs 120gb
Pcmcia vs expresscard
15.4" vs 14.1"
6.5lbs vs 5ish lbs
2hours vs 2.5hours
2gb ram vs 1gb ram
Lightscribe vs no lightscribe
Flashy lights vs no flashy lights
Little conveinent OLED screen vs no oled screen
4 USB vs 5 USB
Optical audio vs no optical audio
WSXGA+ vs WXGA+
1.3mp webcam vs .3mp webcam

Otherwise everything is pretty much identical battery is close only changed because of screen size otherwise performance is the same. I do lots of homework on my desk so i really don't have much monitor space anyway so ill probably go for the G1

 

Ctrl-fn is a non-issue for, but that's because all laptops i've used even semi-regularily have fn furthest out. Hence to me it's not swapped or wrong. Neither is the other way though, since some manu's do it that way. The difference in power between a V1Jp and a G1 is negligeble. The Vram is merely a marketing gimmick, since the 7700 can't use 512mb, and while it does have a slight edge in performance, the build quality of the V1Jp shifts the balance to the V1Jp.

If (i said if because you seem to be mister bipolar, your words not mine) you get the A8Js and you want to bring a lot of textbooks, or even a few thick ones either get a bigger laptopbag, or a larger regular bag and laptop sleeve (that's a good idea no matter which way you go). While the bag that comes with it is quite nice, it doesn't have room for a lot of books+notepads+ac-adapter+other crap you want to bring to school. It works . And since the padding isn't the best, you almost need a sleeve. and then you have a tad bit less space. On the plus side, you can use it as normal day bag if you want. I don't have many text books (only 2) so it works for me.

 

I'm fairly sure the A8js has optical audio, since it has S/Pdif

 

Well the x1700 has less pipelines so it performs less also.

Also im probably gonna play with linux which does better with nvidia than ATI

The V1 also has less hdd space and ram and other things so it costs more for less

Plus the G1 apparently is very sturdy and whatnot plus it has more for the 1900ish pricetag

So i can upgrade the hdd on the A8Js and bascially have identical to the G1 minus flashy lights and stuff for about 200 dollars less

So now its weather or not i would miss the harddrive space and screen size.

Id rather not give up the extra inch but will if it sells my parents on the deal

G1
A8J with screen
A8J with hdd upgrade
A8j

 

aaaand i prefer the G1 because it's bigger and looks better than the A8Js

i guess this shows how u can't really decide based on other people's opinions as we all have different standards

either way, i'm sure you'll be happy with the decision. i have yet to come across as disgruntled asus owner

 

Yeah im not sure my parents are too keen on a 1900 lappy though but with extras its only 2150 including a few games and what not

Also when you use the G1 on your desk does it seem perfect, small or large?

Thats my concern because if it seems kinda small ill go for the a8j with external screen

Also does the G1 run at a higher clock or anything since its bigger and whatnot?


The 7700 also does about 25-50% better in 3d mark than the x1700

 

I've had it for 3½ months and haven't regret it yet, not even when i see better speced computers (cause they're outside my pricerange). Comparing GPU-specs straight up is not the proper way to compare them. Ati and nVidia have 2 different ways to designe cores. In game performance shows that the 7700 is only about 5-15% better (if oblivion on x1700 is 20 fps, on go7700 it's 21-23 fps), here's real game benchmarls http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=94846.
The good thing about later upgrading the harddrive is that you can keep the old one, but it in an enclosure and use it as an external harddrive

 

well again, i can't say if the g1 is 'perfect' for u or not, though do note that my g1 is connected to a 19" wide screen LCD too i use it to monitor download progesses, gmail inbox, msn and heat/temperature WHILE i'm gaming on the g1's screen

 

Yeah i know its just a tad better so now its a debate between
G1 bigger screen and stock hdd for 350 more newegg is 1900 vs 1550
A8Js Smaller screen and smaller hdd

Im not sure if i would rather have a larger or smaller screen by a slight bit but ill just go smaller since its 1" and i save a ton

Then ill go the 160gb hdd upgrade with enclosure and esata card 19" WS

 

I say A8Js. You can get a CORSAIR ValueSelect 1GB ($65) and a Western Digital Scorpio WD1600BEVS 160GB 5400 RPM ($105) and an external case harddrive case ($25) for $195 from newegg. That leaves you at $1740. A no-brainer IMHO.

 

Are you sure that harddrive is compatible

What interface does the A8Js have

Because im also going to get a case that has esata and an esata expresscard so i have speeds equal to an internal harddrive

So this is what im looking at

A8Js
Mx518 and cheapo usb keyboard
Targus backpack (big backpack to hold everything especially for trips)
120watt slim transformer
BF2 deluxe BF2142 Oblivion and COD2
1gb ram on newegg
19" external viewsonic display on sale (so i can game at the same resolution but bigger screen mostlikely using lappy screen for stats and stuff and big screen for game)
160gb harddrive in vantec esata/usb case with a esata expresscard

Total 2280 and it should last me a few years without any upgrades.

I can pay for about 750 of it which leaves my parents paying about 1.5k and then me paying of 500 of it

 

if $ is an issue then definietly go for the a8j, makes much more sense. the g1's premium over the a8j is more intangible and is entirely dependent on the customers' personal choices.

 

If you dont mind waiting, I think you should just wait until the Santa Rosa platform comes out.

 

Well im on a pretty crappy rig right now that is being shared with a b*tchy sister so the faster the better

Ill probably get a job in 1 or 2 years and be able to buy my own fast desktop and a new laptop.

 

That's right the G1 with XP is not longer available, you can try really hard to find one, but they should all be gone.

The only one available is the G1 with Vista, and that increases price of the notebook, so that may push your budget. Either way the G1 is still a great notebook, but is money is an issue, you can either wait a little longer to afford it.

 

Yeah im not sure if its worth the 350 dollar premium over the A8Js though

Im also wondering if there are any other alternatives for any brand that are good

How much of a difference is there between the x1700 512mb hypermem and the 7700 512mb because the x1700 notebook is a lot cheaper

Also the 17" g2 is the same price as the 15" g1 just with a different card 7700 vs x1700 which are almost identically specced

Though the screen res is only 1440x900 but then again the x1700/7700 arent super powerful so they can't do a whole lot higher res than that but i can't really fit a 17" on a plane tray table so i would have to use it on my lap

Im probably gonna go for the a8js since it seems to be good size weight etc,

My mom has a 14" standard lappy and the screen seems plenty big. I can set it on my lap or on the table right in front of me and can't really focus on the whole screen because its the size at close range thing

Ill probably get A8Js with 7700 (nvidia seems to be better than x1700
!60gb hdd with other in external esata solution
2gb ram
19" lcd

Also there is the F3 15" WSXGA+ screen
X1700 256->512mb Hypermemory
It is the same price and gets 4 hours of battery

What is the performance difference between the 7700 and x1700. Isn't the 7700 just like 10% faster

Apparently they are almost identical so its about the same performance from each

So which is better compatibility wise ATI or Nvidia

Also will the 256mb hypermemory make a large difference since its taking system ram because i heard the 7700 can't even use 512mb of ram.

According to this article the 7700 is a lot better than the x1700 512mb ram version in g2

http://www.anandtech.com/printarticle.aspx?i=2899

Il just go my original a8js route