Info about the A6Ne (a.k.a. A6000Ne?)

Been doing some intensive laptop research for the past few days, and I've narrowed the specs down to a select few. These are the specs I wanted in my machine.

PM - 1.5GHz+
Centrino technology preferred
40 GB+ hard drive
512 MB Ram (333)
Dedicated graphics
8X DVD +/- RW Burner (Dual layer preferred)
More than 1 Year of warranty.
Card Reader

I'm looking at a budget of around $1500-$1700 CAD which is around $1200-$1400 USD.

My top choices so far:

1.) Asus A6Ne
2.) Acer Aspire 1600 series (AS1681WLMI or AS1690WLMI)
3.) Dell Inspiron 600m
4.) HP DV1170

So far this is what I've gathered

1.) This seems to be the all around winner especially for bang for the buck (2 year warranty!). One of two with dual layer capability.
2.) Not bad at all and very light on the wallet, but slightly less powerful than the rest.
3.) It's a Dell.
4.) Eye candy. Complete and absolute frivolous eye candy. But I do like the idea of being able to play DVD's and CD's w/o booting up the windows OS. Most expensive of the bunch, but the deal I'm looking at is offering a free printer.

I know this seems to be a long post so I'll try to wrap up.

1.) Does anybody have experience with the A6Ne? It's what I'm leaning towards in general. How solid are Asus laptops? I've had good experiences w/ their mobo's. How good are the warranties and service?
2.) Anybody know of problems with HP? I'm getting mixed reviews. How solid are their laptops and warranties? (Do they really use old refurbished parts to keep prices down?)
3.) The Dell almost matches the Asus deal dollar for dollar and feature for feature. I just remember that trying to upgrade a Dell PC before was a nightmare because of proprietary parts.

If you've read everything up to this far, then seriously, god bless your soul.

I'd appreciate any input on any or all of the above. Thanks! [ ]

edit: I posted in the asus forum because I'm pretty sure I like the Asus, but need more 1st hand reviews on it.

 

I've had the opportunity to play with an A6Ne before... and I have to say it was very solid. There was little to NO flex anywhere... and since it is an ASUS ensemble notebook, we can be assured that it is of high quality.
The A6Ne isn't the lightest of notebooks, of course... around 6-ish pounds but it's very well built. The screen was... well, just like any other matte screen out on the market. I found the built in webcam to be quite useful and cool.

All in all...if the price is right (and the specs too), I don't see why you shouldn't get it. It's certainly a fine notebook.

ASUS M6800Ne, P-M 715 (Dothan 1.5), 512MB Ram, Toshiba Combo drive, Samsung Spinpoint M 40G HDD with 8M cache, Mobility Radeon 9700

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by AuroraS

 

Still debating a little but now it's between two Asus's!! (still working on correcting the pronounciation [:I]...)

I'm stuck debating between the A6Ne and the Z71V. The Z71V is just flat out niiice... but very very out of my budget, yet I'm willing to make an exception. Just one more question about the A6Ne though.


Just how bad is the Intel 855GME integrated video?


I plan on doing photoshop and autoCAD work along with a few other 3D modelling programs... Am I going to see a lot of lag with these graphics?

 

You can certainly handle most photoshop and autocad work with integrated graphics. There is a certain point where at least autocad will tell you you've run out of memory.... the memory warning is based on video ram, not system ram. It's my experience that unless you get into using autocad for 3d modeling.... or better yet, get into 3d viz or studio max, you're probably not going to want the integrated graphics......... but you'd be surprised at how many people get heavy into 3ds max and used integrated graphics.. I wouldn't suggest it, but if that's your budget, it'll certainly work.

Thanks,
Justin
PROPortable
www.proportable.com
[email protected]

 

On a slightly similiar yet different topic, how does the a6000ne's video card fair out on video games (e.g. warcraft iii, aao, day of defeat, battlefield 1942, etc...)?

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by csc538