I just bought an ASUS A42JV

I live in Thailand and was looking for a laptop for days. There are a lot of really bad laptops out there. Thank god I ran into this laptop or I would have ended up with a MAC.

Meet the ASUS A42JV-VX040D



Quick specs


Intel Core i5-450M (2.4GHz,L3 3MB )

INTEL HM 55 EXPRESS CHIPSET
2 GB DDR3 (upgraded to 4GB)
nVidia GeForce GT 335M (1GB DDR3)
14 inch WXGA (1366×768)
320 GB 5400 RPM
DVD Writer (Dual-Layer, DVD-RAM Support)
IEEE 802.11 B/G/N
Card Reader 4-in-1
HDMI
3 USB
VGA port
DOS OS

Price
$835

Throw another $130 for Windows 7 64bit and you have a Macbook Pro for almost half the price.

This laptop rocks. All cd's come with it. ASUS software and drivers (all latest versions).

It has face recognition to log you into the computer

As good multi gestures as any Macbook, This is the best touchpad I've tried since the Macbook Pro.

Palm Proof Technology - and it really works.

Great looking bright screen

I can't recommend this laptop enough.

 

I forgot to say, it has dual video cards. The integrated Intel Graphics and the GeForce CUDA 1gb.

It has PowerHybrid 4. It allows you to control if the processor has turbo boost or not and other performance settings to increase battery life.

The Nvidia software allows you to assign certain programs only to run with the Geforce dedicated card and have the Integrated card run as default. This saves battery life as well.

It doesn't have any cheesy switches to turn on wifi/bluetooth. You do that through a function key.

Also, Altec Lansing surround sound speakers.

I love that it looks like nothing outside, so simple, but it has tons of features.

 

Hey I've been looking into this laptop (the american version, the k42jv which is supposedly identical) Whats the build quality like? Does the keyboard flex? Also, I've heard the speakers aren't very good?

Thanks!

 

^ Good questions.

Firstly, it's weird because the box also says K42JV, but under the laptop it says Model:A42JV. Same ole' I guess. Doesn't matter.

Keyboard: The keyboard is very bouncy and nice to type on. There is a small amount of flex on the left side, but because it is one of those chicklet style keyboards, unless you are looking down at it looking for flex it makes no difference whatsoever, that I can notice, as far as typing.

Build Quality: This goes to the keyboard flex thing. Yes, you can flex it a little on the left if you want to, but it is not because it feels flimsy or badly built. If it did, I wouldn't have bought it.

Remember I spent 3 days of solid shopping. I must have seen every laptop available.

It was basically, between the VAIO S116 seires, the HP Dv3 and the Thinkpad Edge 14 Core i5 model.

VAIO S116 - Has a wobbly dvd drive and it seemed too expensive for what it was. Also, I am not so sure about sony. Many people with broken hinges and stuff like that. FAIL. Although, it is a nice looking laptop.

Thinkpad Edge 14- The best keyboard of any laptop, however, they didn't have it anywhere and I didn't want to wait to order it. Customer service in the Lenovo store is, well, none. It also gets pretty hot. All they had installed was crapUbuntu on it, so I couldn't see if they had any Lenovo software in Windows 7 and how it ran it. 512 video card. I kept on walking then because it was nowhere to be bought, they only had the Core i3 with integrated graphics.

HP Dv3 - Seems like a great buy. Core i7 Quad and the works. The touchpad in that laptop is absolutely unusable. They tried to copy the Macbook with the one big clickable pad. It is horrible. When you click it, the mouse arrow goes flying off the screen. 30 seconds and I ran out of there. Major FAIL.

Sorry to go on this rant, but I just wanted to show that there is no perfect laptop, so I wanted to put my comments in perspective.

So, if I chose this one, when I was ready to pay for a Macbook Pro, it means something. Also, I am a computer tech. For realiability I have to give it to ASUS. I've been building computers with ASUS motherboards and DVD drives for years and they never fail. Rock solid.

So, this laptop is very plain looking. The only weakness, as you say, is if you are picky and notice that small keyboard flex on the left side, but to be honest, the Thinkpad T and X also have a keyboard flex and it is worse than my ASUS. You can check out on youtube how someone opened his brand new Thinkpad T510 and put tape under the keyboard to stop the flex. That's nonsense.

Build Quality is solid. It is all plastic as a lot of PC notebooks are. Many others are trying to copy Apple and going for the metal thing, but to be honest, it looks cheap to me.

This A42JV has a nice dark blue/gray color that has what looks to be flakes. If you've ever seen a custom car with flakes mixed in the paint, that's it. It looks really nice. It has minimal ports which I like.

Left = 1 VGA, 1 HDMI, 2 USB, audio/mic

Right - Power plug, 1 Rj45, 1 USB

That's it. There is a card reader in the front. I like the minimalistic look. They didn't put any cheesy dedicated keys. All features are with the FN+key combination. Works great.

Speakers: Speakers are NOT loud, however, I'll be damned, it really sounds like surround. They are Altec Lansing Surround sound. I think that Asus could have made them really loud, but that would maybe ruin them.

To give you an idea, the first day I bought it I put the transformers DVD in there. I played the movie with Media Player. It looked and sounded really awesome. All those special effect sounds of the robots jumped from the left to the right speaker and back. It really sounded like surround. I thought it was all marketing crap, but it is what it said on the box. The volume is just perfect, it sits right there. Not too loud, but not too quiet. It's just right. You wouldn't be able to use it in a mall with all kinds of people talking and noise. But for yuor own personal use, it is more than adequate.

It not not a super high definition like the VAIO Z series, which I also saw. Incredibly over priced, but the resolution is 1600x900 and the screen is 13.1". They were playing a video and it was, to be honest, the best looking screen of all the ones I saw, including mine.

This one here is standard. Meaning it is not awesome and it is not bad. The only time when you notice is not a super hi-def screen is when movies go dark (a dark scene). If you are anal, you will see some noise there, but nothing bothersome. It would bother a Mactard, for example, just anal people. I put Transformers and it looked great.

To put it into perspective, a movie on this screen looks as good as a mid to low range LCD TV. SO, not bad. It is not an LED super duper, but it is not a crappy TV quality either. it is a comfortable in-between that is acceptable for this price range. That's movies though, while in windows and browsing the net, this screen is a crystal clear as any other, and the colors are very vivid. The only better one is the Sony Z with the high resolution. I don't know if I can look at a screen for a long time with a high resolution though. 1366x768 is the native WXVGA resolution, and it is just right for everyday computing.

See this video here,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZlVpMPs

Besides the screen being bigger, is basically the same computer (although mine has better specs) you can see the build quality outside, never mind the specs are different, it's the same body. (ignore the host though). This one has the card reader on the side, because it is bigger, and a different finish/color. But, it is very close almost identical.

My opinion, and this is after 1 week of use: The best $1,000 bucks I ever spent.

 

hi, thanks for all the impressions. I am recently in the market for a more compact gaming laptop (mainly for Starcraft 2, enough for low settings), and the K42jv has caught my eye.

If you could, any thoughts on:

1) battery life when doing light web browsing? Also, what are the noise levels like?
2) gaming performance? I mean plugged in of course and what kind of temps or heat are put out?

Thanks for any answers. In the US, it looks like newegg is the only site that is selling the k42jv model, and there's no mention of intel integrated graphics, just the 335M.

 

^ Hey, nice to see you back. Keep asking me. I'll be on here once in a while checking my thread.

Firstly, not sure why they don't mention the integrated. Maybe because saying it is a Core i5 they assume that everyone knows the Core i's do video. Let me take a screen shot for you right now and post it in my photobucket so you can see.

hang on......

While it's uploading, I was checking for you the flex issue. I can tell you that now that i look at it while I am typing I can see 0 visible flex. it is only if i put my fingernail up near the escape and i push down that i can see it flex a little bit. but of course, it's a plastic cover piece. typing feels solid and not mushy at all. no flex.

also, i was listening to music today, and i had to turn it down half way. so again, i say while not for parties, for your personal use is more than enough.

i am going to take a screen cast and open some programs for you so you have a feel for the speed i was talking about. i'll put it up on youtube.

Anyway, done uploading.

Here are the 2 video cards:



Here is how you can assign games and other apps to work with the GeForce and leave the Intel as default for everything else. it works great anyway. This is the "Optimus" Technology.



Here is how you can manage battery life.



BTW, if you notice it says "Plugged in, Not charging". Don't believe this is a problem. It is designed this way. I've been sitting at 99% for 3 hours. It is made like that so that the battery doesn't charge unless it is under 95%. Thus extending the life of the battery by shortening the charging cycles. If it charged every time you plugged it in, it would kill the battery each time. Other notebooks have this feature also. It may be a Windows 7 power management thing. People started seeing this behavior after upgrading to Windows 7.

To be honest, let's say you put it in Office mode, you should get a solid 2:30 hours maybe 3 if you really turn everything down (Battery mode. even turns off the Aero and everything). You can adjust it. So, same as a VAIO E series basically. Very typical. When you see notebooks advertising incredible battery numbers is either A) the laptop is seriously under powered, or B) it is a number provided you turn everything down to the point of the screen being barely visible. Anyway, batteries have always been the laptop problem, including Macbooks that advertise their battery life. If you have ever been to a Mac forum you can see that people also have problems with their batteries draining in a couple of hours, and it sucks for them because they can't change the battery. So, let's say some notebook says "6 hours battery!!", it means if you unplug it and run it max, you get maybe 3 hours. These numbers may not be exact, if someone else knows more about this they can post, but you get the idea. It is the highest number possible provided you turn everything way down. Best battery life is the Macbook. Also, the VAIO has one that runs 10 hours. It has a base plate that is a typing stand that doubles as an extended battery. So, PC's with long battery life are out there. I knew this wasn't one of those when I bought it. I will be plugged in most of the time anyway and, again, recharging the battery too much will kill it sooner anyway.

Heat: I've been working on it for 3 hours now, and it is as hot as any other notebook. It is comfortable enough I can put it on my lap (and I am wearing shorts). The only place it is hot, is under the heat sink. You can see the pictures on the left side of the computer. That means that the touchpad and palm rest remains cold with no change in temp. Unlike the Dell, for example, when I was shopping around I put my hands on the palm rests and touchpad and it was very hot. You wouldn't know this laptop was hot unless you touched it under the heatsink where the air comes out. As hot as a Lenovo Thinkpad. So, nothing bothersome.

Noise. Can I say, none? If the monitor wasn't on you wouldn't know this computer was turned on. I can't even hear the fan. I can feel it blowing, but I can't hear it. So, on a scale from 1-10 on noise level, this is a -0. It is just not there at all. This was the first thing that impressed me about this laptop, followed by the touchpad is that I couldn't hear it.

 

I am going to update this a little because I have people interested and asking me about this model. There is also some wrong information in the NewEgg website (or there may be).

Anyway, yes, it has Optimus technology, as you can see in the screenshots above.

I think I have pretty much described everything. Also, I have thought about benchmarking this laptop, but I don't have highspeed where I live and the benchmark software is very big. Give me a few weeks to download here at work and then I will run. I am curious too.

I can say still that the more you use this computer, the better it runs. If this computer had a high resolution display like the Mac option, it would be the best value laptop in the market. That is pretty much all it lacks. I don't think that hardcore gamers will be pleased with the standard resolution of this display, although it looks very good for normal everyday use and not heavy duty games.

Anyway, this is a fast working machine, not a gaming machine.

I have to update on a non-issue issue that I discovered. I already opened a thread about it, but I will put it here.

I can confirm that there is a non-issue issue with the headset jack being so close to the speaker.

My warning is to not set the speakers to blow. Not like anyone will do this, but, if you set all the sound settings to the max, and I mean everything, including the Media Player equalizer little knobs all the way up, and the SRS settings all the way to the right, and you give it a "powerful" sound effect and you turn the volume all the way up, the shreeking high frequency of, for example, somebody laughing or if there is a crowd cheering and clapping you will get the "Which device did you plug in?" dialog box as if you plugged in a headset and then it goes away.

I have been running my computer with default settings. Powerful effect and volume all the way up only, all other things normal and the computer is acting normal as usual.

So, don't try to blow the speakers or you might get an occasional pop up as the jack thinks you are plugging something in.

My guess is that the vibration is disturbing the metal contacts inside the jack momentarily and the software reads it as you are plugging something in.

 

I say:

MAKE THIS THREAD A STICKY!


Kidding. This is getting swallowed up by the fancy U and G series. But, I love this laptop!!

Anyway.

Crapware - I didn't talk about this yet. Nothing really. It just comes with whatever is in the CD. There is an ASUS Utility folder under programs. Not a problem. Actually, most of it is good. Maybe one or 2 that you'll never use, but they are just a couple of megabytes. Who cares.

I've bought, for example, HP and others where I spend the first 20 minutes after I buy them uninstalling crap I don't want and Trial software and so on. I haven't done anything to this one.

 

Hey AJ. Someone just posted a review on newegg saying that when you plug external speakers into the headphone jack it amplifies static noise and typing sounds. Do you find this?

Also I'm pretty sure no computer's sound system is designed to have all of the equalizer settings at max. It kind of defeats the purpose of an equalizer. Thanks for the heads up though.

 

I've used mine with headsets and everything is fine. I haven't tried with external speakers (only once for a movie but my speakers are busted). I don't see myself using speakers with a laptop, but if I get a pair I will try.

Nothing comes through the headset. Sound is perfect.

When I did plug in my external speakers, they sounded bad because the speakers are busted. They sound bad anyway and I haven't used them in 2 years. I didn't notice static from the computer. I wasn't typing, just watching FRINGE.

I was thinking about getting external speakers. I will look into bluetooth and for headsets too actually. I don't like the wires.

 

hi Ajarn, u got this for US$1000 in bangkok? wow nice price...its selling like S$1600(lowest I saw) here in Singapore..which is like US1188 but our model comes with a blu-ray drive so that might explain the right difference.

I was introduced this model by a salesman who said Acer's international warranty isn't true international warranty (thats in the acer 3820TG thread but I'm verifying that salesman warranty) and I been looking at the Asus UL30 series, but might be a little too underpowered for my needs hence this A42JV comes into play, especially with its 2 year international parts and labour warranty. Thanks for the review! Really useful.

 

Hey Cire,

Yes. This model sells for 27,000 baht with DOS. Add 4,300 for Windows and that's 31,300 baht, which is roughly $980 US Dollars. They installed everything for me.

I saw many models with Blueray, but frankly that is a feature I am not interested in.

 

Yeah honestly neither am I but here in Singapore, there isn't a similar model with a normal DVD combo drive. I'm sure it's price will be lower without it.

Another few questions,
1. what is the weight of your laptop?
2. Do u think it's possible to remove the DVD combo drive? Reason I ask is if this is possible, I could remove it and reduce the weight while traveling. Or sell off the blu-ray & get a regular DVD combo. Not sure what's the price difference between the two though..

 

Crazy idea, maybe you could buy your model for me & ship it over! But hopefully ur windows isn't in Thai

 

^

No no. It's an original Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit OEM.

I say original because here, when you buy a computer with DOS they always installed the cracked version of Windows 7 Ultimate. It's common practice in Thailand.

But, for 130 bucks, or whatever it was, why bother? Just pay it. Then you don't have to worry about them downloading patches to catch you. I actually felt good about it, and still it was cheaper than the model with Windows 7 pre-installed. Weird.

Looks exactly like this one:



and the CD inside looks like this:



of course mine says 64bit. I was just excited to see a real Windows CD here in Thailand.

Soon we will be getting 3G, I hope, and my internet can catch up with the computer.

Anyway, I am home now and can plug in a proper headset.

I am reporting the sound is beautiful. The SRS really works. If you listen to music and set it to .... well........ Music... sounds very clear. Loud, and I am typing this as I listen to Shakira do the Waka Waka and I can't hear any typing.

Not sure what that guy in NewEgg was talking about. Mic being on maybe is the only thing I can think of.

Let me turn it over and look at the DVD.

Yes, there is one screw right under the DVD drive with a little picture of a disc. I guess that's so you can unscrew it and take the DVD drive out.

The laptop is not too heavy. This is not an ultra portable, so it is not light either. It is much lighter without the battery of course.

Same for the hard drive and memory. Just a couple of screws. Things are easy to get to.

 

Here are a few pictures of mine. Taken with my cell phone, so not very good quality.

 

Hey guys. I just received my A42JV from NewEgg a few days ago.

My specs:
Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
Intel Core i5 450M (2.4GHz)
4GB DDR3 RAM
Hard Disk 500GB (7200rpm)
NVIDIA GeForce GT 335M 1G DDR3 VRAM


My first impressions are pretty good. The build quality is good, but there is some flex in the middle of the keyboard.


Someone earlier asked about heat. I can provide some solid numbers. The CPU temps range from 49-54c and the 335m stays around 59-63c during basic use (surfing the net, etc.). During gameplay (GTA IV), temps for both the CPU and GPU hover around 75-80c. You might want to invest in a cooling pad if you plan on doing a lot of gaming.

While I'm on the subject of gaming, I managed to muster 28.31 FPS on GTA IV with medium settings and full VOD/traffic. That's pretty impressive on a machine that costs less than $1,000.

 

How about some 3dmark06 scores at native resolution and a couple other resolutions for the heck of it? This may be the one I end up with since the y460 deal fell through in BKK.

I think it speaks very well of this series that this guy apparently didn't buy it for gaming even though it has a medium tier GPU which is what really is it's high point.

 

^

Hi. I didn't buy for gaming. Mostly I do Photoshop, Cinema 4D and Maya.

Unpassable confirms what I am saying. This computer for the price, is awesome. You'll get the same performance out of a Macbook Pro 15" for half the price.

It doesn't feel cheap or plasticky.

I can confirm to be careful with blasting the sound too much because you may get the "what did you plug in screen" if it makes the headphone port vibrate. I hardly use the speakers anyway, and if you're a gamer a good pair of headphones is best. Not a big deal.

I bought it for the guts.

Windows 7 is running perfectly BTW. I now bring it to my work everyday. When I go back to use the XP machines they seem slow as molasses.

 

Will you be doing a lot of gaming or typing work?

If you will use it a lot for typing and working, I would recommend that you check out the Thinkpad EDGE 14. Best keyboard of any laptop. Feels very high quality. Although, it will be a bit more expensive than this ASUS. It has basically the same specs.

They may not have the Corei5 model available there, but you can check out the Corei3. Usually this is the one they have. You'll have to order the Corei5. Pantip has an Official lenovo store. GO there only to order. The guy there is an idiot.

You can also order it from "Hardware House". In Pantip, order from the Lenovo store. They will take the order seriously. The other guys just want to sell something.

 

AJ, are the battery life tests of 2.5-3 hours with the GT335m on or is that with the Intel GMA? TBH, although this is a pretty powerful compact laptop, 2.5-3 hours is pretty bad. Comparably equipped laptops can normally hit 4 hours or so (using the Intel graphics of course, when doing only word processing and web surfing). 2.5 hours is acceptable for a laptop of this standard 4 years ago, but I would expect better now.

 

Hi guys,

I just bought Asus A42Jv/K42Jv. I always want to have a notebook with switchable graphic cards. This notebook can be a good companion to my Dell Studio 1557. I learned that the NVIDIA GT 335M is similar to ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650 in term of performances. Because of the switchable graphic cards feature, this obviously enable the computer to run longer with only the battery plugged in. Which is useful on my daily job.

 

How long can you get on the battery, with the GT335m turned off? Doing things like office work (web surfing, word processing).

 

Didn't test it yet. I just finished burning the recovery CD. I assume I have to charge the battery a little bit longer since I just unpacked it earlier. I'll test it tomorrow & let you know the result.

 

This is 3DMark06 score with stock driver (Power4Gear High Performance):-

Now, I'm going to see how long it can run with only battery is plugged in. This of course with Power4Gear Battery Saving selected & GPU is set to the Intel HD Graphic.

 

I just finish testing the battery. I got about 2 hour with only the battery plugged in. This is because I forgot to lower the display brightness. I believe the battery will need to go through series of discharge & charge before optimum condition can be achieved. Next, going to test it with a couple of games, e.g. Shift, Mafia 2, Race Driver Grid, etc.

 

Seems pretty weak. Well, a battery of 4400mah (am I right on that figure?) is pretty inadequate for a machine of this caliber. I think after some conditioning and with a lowered brightness, we would be looking at around 3.5 hours?

 

HWMonitor & Everest detect the battery capacity is 47300mWh. I don't know whether this reading is accurate or not but I know it is a 6 cell battery. My mistake are, forgot to lower down the display brightness & there are still a lot of stock software running in the background. If I do some cleanup & recalibrate the battery, I think I can get around 2.5 to 3 hours, no more. I believe the NVIDIA Optimus technology is to be blame here. Not like Hybrid GPU in Dell Studio XPS 16, there is no indication that the NVIDIA actually turned OFF when in power saving mode. On XPS 16, when you enabled high performance mode, you can see the transition between the integrated & discrete GPU. BTW, I just realize that there is no ExpressCard slot. Fortunately I didn't need it.

 

I yesterday just bought too, RM2619(USD834) + 2gb DDR3 Cosair 1333mhz. original price is RM2599(USD828) the upgrade of cosair 1333mhz ddr3 ram oni offer me RM20(USD8) worth? feel not bad, but just 1 thing very unsatisfy is the adapter, ASUS original adapter very big size! bigger than ordinary laptop adapter. only the adapter around 300gram -.-'''

any advice on this things?

 

Welcome to the club! Mine still have 2GB memory. I'm planning to upgrade it to 8GB later. I don't think the adapter is too big or heavy though. Anyway, what games are playing on this notebook currently?

 

I think I can get around 3 hours on Office Mode. It is similar to the Sony VAIO E series of the same specs. Gets around that much.

http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs...10151&langId=-1&productId=8198552921666107682

I am usually sitting somewhere where there is a plug, so I just plug it in. It's not a big deal.

It has been maybe over a month now with this laptop. No problems. Going back to my HP seems very slow now.

I also have a core2 QUAD at work. It's XP. This laptop SMOKES that desktop. 64bit Windows 7 + Corei5. Awesome.

 

I believe it can achieve 3 hours too if we turned OFF any unimportant devices or services. This notebook outperformed my Dell Studio on games performance. Of course my Dell Studio outperformed this notebook on CPU performance. I think Asus did a good job on delivering top middle-stream notebook to consumer with interesting price. The price does make sense since this notebook doesn't come with firewire, e-sata & express card slot. Alienware M11x also come with the same NVIDIA GPU (but with GDDR3) & Intel Core i5 processor but it is more expensive than our K42JV/A42JV.

 

I have opened Asus K42JV/A42JV Owners Lounge thread. I want to invite owner of K42JV/A42JV to share their problem/experiences over there.

 

pls refer to below reply...tis reply are wrong, but i can't delete it.

 

Hi,

I played Resident Evil 5 currently it's cool! it around 25~50 fps at the benchmark with all high settings! impressive for laptop, played Sniper.Ghost.Warrior with high settings but bilinear on the antiscoptic, COD4 modern warfare also with a very satisfy performance, dragon age origins with medium settings smooth, NBA2k10 with medium high settings also quite smooth. the temperature is around 80++Celcius for CPU and GPU, for the hardisk is 40~50celcius...tat's so far wat i've tested on this notebook. 1 more things i notice that is the LCD screen Panel bottom part feel some loosen the plastic while touched feel crabs -.-'''. isn't it this is all A42 series built quality? or my laptop only? quite worried about this.. how bout u?

 

I already replied to your post at Asus K42JV & A42JV Owners Lounge.

 

I'd love to hear if any of you owners of this machine have done better battery tests. 3 hours really does seem insufficient for a machine of this class...

 

It only have 6 cells battery. 3 hours will be the maximum this laptop can go.

EDIT: I continue our discussion about battery here.

 

SO, it's not like I want to bring this back from the dead, but now that I had more time with my laptop, I had some things to report.

The laptop has been working perfectly. The only weird thing was using Office 2010. For some reason it would always lock up for a second and then unfreeze. Same when you were typing in Word. You would type, then the words would stop and then the sentence came all at once.

I narrowed it down to the performance of the integrated Intel Graphics. It's not very powerful at all. It's OK for light browsing and when you listen to music.

Now I have my laptop set to always use the Nvidia card and all little hiccups are gone.