My Asus F3JP review

Here it is, my Asus F3JP review

Ordering:

Well, to make a long story short, I am getting ready to deploy, so I went
ahead and shopped around for a good laptop that would not take forever to
get to me (I leave really soon for Iraq so I needed the laptop ASAP) and
that would be cheap enough not to dent my wallet, but sufficient enough for
gaming, web browsing and watching movies.

I looked around on Newegg and found the F3JP here http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16834220105 as my budget was $1350, the F3JP was $1298 ($1348 with shipping). I proceeded to order it immediately, the laptop was shipped out the next day and I received it on
the third day.



Arrival:

The Laptop came in two boxes, one within the other. One contained packing
paper and the laptop box, within that box contained the laptop box itself.
Within were the carrying case, the laptop and a smaller box with the laptop
accessories.

Here are snapshots of all the contents:











The software and hardware that came with the laptop are:

Nero OEM Suite software
Asus Support CD
Asus Multimedia 3-in-1 Package (ASUS DVD, Power Director Pro, Medi@ Show)
Microsoft Windows XP Professional recovery disk
Quick Installation Guide
Vista Upgrade Program guide
Laptop Manual

1x Battery
1x Laptop power adaptor
1x Mini USB Asus Optical Mouse
1x LCD Cleaning cloth
1x Velcro cable strap

First Impressions:

Straight out of the box the laptop booted up (The battery was already 40%
charged) with a boot time of going from straight cold to the windows
hourglass ceasing spinning and all the programs and tasks loaded in about 1
min and 15-20 sec.

I immediately noticed all of the programs that Asus bundled with the laptop
running (I love you Asus but please stop with all the bloatware…). I had
approximately 40 processes running because of this. I proceeded to uninstall
some of the programs which I did not need such as a Asus logon, the Intel
wireless program (I prefer to use windows for my wireless network
configuration as it is less of a system hog then the Intel one) and the
Norton antivirus 90 day version (I receive free Symantec antivirus through
my job).

I was also very displeased when the “grainy background” issue came up (See
Asus Grainy Bios sticky thread) I proceeded to download the 203 bios and
reflash. It fixed my problem without a hitch, but its not an Excuse for Asus
to ship out laptops with an old bios when a newer one has been available for
quite sometime. I can see this being a big problem for novice users who
would rather send their laptop back to the point of purchase to fix the issue.

Once the bios were updated I was blown away by the quality of the screen.
There is minimal light leakage all around the screen and of course if there
is a bright light source nearby it will cause a glare, because the screen is
glossy, and watching DVD movies is a blast as they are crystal clear and
sharp with great contrast.

Digging Deeper:

I found this very strange, when I checked the HD it had been partitioned into
60GB C drive and 50GB D drive, the C drive was FAT32 and the D drive was
NTFS. There was a NTFS converter on the desktop so I proceeded to convert the D drive to NTFS upon reboot without a hitch.

The Catalyst Drivers that came with the system are 6.8 back from Aug of
2006. I had attempted to update to catalyst 7.1 but it appears that Asus has yet to release a VGA driver for the X1700 as ATI claims they do not
officially support it yet. There is a workaround, which involves modifying
the .inf files in the installation but that’s a whole other topic.

The wireless on the laptop is great, I live in Army housing on the base
where I am stationed and the walls are either made out of lead (I cannot get
any cell phone reception indoors) or my house is inside a black hole near
the event horizon and all electromagnetic radiation is sucked in. But this
does not stop the laptop from getting awesome signals; in the basement, 1st, 2nd and 3rd floors of the house. (My wireless router is on the 2nd floor)

Soon after I went ahead and downloaded Microsoft Updates, I was pleased as the version of XP with the laptop came with most of the updates installed
(I’ve had several computers with Service pack 2 installed and still had to
update them for over an hour) this took all but 15-20 minutes.

The F3JP comes with a built in Webcam and it can stream at 640x480 and take pictures at 1024x768 I tried it out for a little bit and it seems to work
just fine.

By far the coolest feature was the built in Bluetooth. Set up was a snap and
I was even able to share files with a buddy of mine who brought in his Dell
XPS into work.

Another cool feature were the DVI, VGA, and S-Video outputs so one can
hookup an external monitor or even their TV.


All right the good stuff… Gaming impressions!

Battlefield 2

First things first I installed Battlefield 2 and the latest patch which is
1.41.

EA does not support widescreen function in the game so I had to run it at
1024x768 “stretched”. The game ran flawlessly and very smoothly with
everything turned to maximum in game and with AA at 2x and AF 16x. The only issues I had was with sound with occasional echoes and looping in game (I had EAX enabled) and I believe it’s a driver issue with Realtek. Otherwise
it was awesome.

Eve Online

Wow….just wow. I have been playing eve for a while but playing it in
Widescreen mode with 8x AA (with adaptive AA) and 16x AF at 1280x800, I was floored. Game looks great and runs great, no complaints from me.

Lord of the rings Battle for middle earth 2

Ahh once again EA did not provide widescreen support for this game but it
did not stop me from trying it out. I was able to run the game at 1024x768 at maximum settings with 2x AA and 16x AF without any issues.

F.E.A.R. Combat

I was surprised at how smooth the game ran at 1024x768 with everything set
to max (No soft shadows) and AA at 2x and AF at 16x. Even in games with 15people online I had no hitching or hiccups during firefights.

Benchmarks:

Well below are the screenshots with all the scores. Benchmarks used were
3dmark, 03, 05, 06 and PCMark05. All were run at default
settings (1280x800 resolution) and were the basic free versions.

3dmark03



3dMark05



3dMark06



PCMark05





Grudges and complaints:

1. Why oh why does Asus not have the latest X1700 drivers as ATI refuses to have Catalyst 7.1 be installed as the X1700 is not recognized. Why should I need to hack the .inf file to get the latest and greatest gaming out of my
X1700?
2. Bloatware, I kid you not, my tray had about 10+ icons in it at first
bootup, some of the products were useful but for most end-users they are
just taking up system resources.


Conclusion:

Overall I would give this laptop a 8.5/10

Very light, good battery life, amazing screen (after you get the whole
grainy bios issue resolved) Good sound and awesome gaming experience, as
well as a 2 year global warranty (Kudos Asus). I would recommend this laptop
to anyone who is on a tight budget and is looking for a decent gaming laptop
to last them a year or two. I hope this review was somewhat helpful to
whoever may read this. Please feel free to ask me if you have any other
questions about the laptop and I'll try and answer them.

 

Thanks for the review, I'm deciding between this or the A8JP.

 

I say go with the F3JP, A. Bigger screen size for the same amount of money, and B. The F3JP has 1x Stick of 1GB of DDR2 Ram the A8JP comes with 2x sticks of 512MB DDR2 Ram, so if you need to upgrade to 2MB youll need to buy 2 sticks of RAM....

 

Hey nice review, Do you think you could download FRAPS and see how many FPS you average in F.E.A.R and BF2?

 

Sure thing, but it will have to wait until tommorow...the wifey is using it ATM and ive got work in 8 Hours..gotta go to bed...lol

 

I'm in love. Mine should come in within 2 days, bless rushed processing.

Could you possible add battery life, heat, and fan noise later on? Also, how sturdy is the build quality (scratch sensitivity, if any)?

Anyways, thanks for the quick post and review; I'm sure that there will be no regrets after I open the box.

 

No problem, ill try and do that later on today at work.

 

No problem, understand completely. Happy to see your enjoying your computer.

 

Thanks for the review.

What's your impression of the keyboard?


Oh, and keep as safe as possible in Iraq.

 

Bigger screen with lower resolution (1280x800 vs 1440x900).

15.4" and 1280x800 is rather poor IMHO. That should be reserved for 12"-14" notebooks.

 

I think 1280x800 is the perfect resolution. Native 720P will just about fill the screen perfectly. Viewing is easy on the eyes especially when you're a user like me who has a mixing console and keyboard and likes to glance down at the keyboard when typing, etc. I have better than perfect vision and rather than push it, I'd rather go as easy as possible on it.

 

Battery: Pretty good, i do not like to use the bundled Asus Power management software and i would rather use windows power setup. Gaming i can squeeze out about 1 hour and 10-20 min, this is withouth the power management underclocking the cpu and video card (although you may do this to increase battery life at the expense of game performance, also battery life may be higher if its not accessing the dvd drive). Just playing music after a full charge just a little under 2 hours (or you can set the screent to shut off after a certain amount of time and it can play for over 2 hours.) As for the keyboard, one of my function keys makes a slight clicking noise but im not to concerned. The layout is easy on the hands and the keys have just the right amount of resistance to them and they dont click when pushed, so im pretty happy. The speakers are decent for their size, loud enough to watch a movie from a few feet away or if its on your lap. Otherwise i plug them into my desktop speakers. Sound quality is crisp and clear during movie play back as well. Also there are plenty of USB ports, so i was able to plug in my mouse, USB HD, Gamepad and flash drive..

The fans on it are really really quiet, i was quite impressed (especially if you are just web browsing or just listening to music you can barely hear the fan). It does get somewhat warm during heavy use but not "Hot" so it won't fry your crotch if you have it on your lap and the side exhaust blows out all the hot air.

On a side note i have ATI Tray tools and the X1700 does not have a temp probe or fan function (because its on board and shares the cooling fan with the cpu) But it Overclocks easily to 480 core and 810 mem (DDR, btw that speed increase added approximately 200 points in 3dmark06) Ive seen people push it to 500/900 but im happy with the performance and i keep it at stock. Hope that anwsers the additional q's.

 

Thanks for the review! Sounds like a nice laptop! I had an A8JM, but I wasn't too thrilled with the touchpad. How do you like the F3JP's touchpad, especially the buttons. Is the surface smooth or textured; are the buttons easy to push?

The A8JM has a single button where you push down on the plastic on each side, which really didn't work too well.

Thanks,
CJ

 

Kelldore:

I just got mine the other day also from newegg and I was about to send it back because of the grain problem until I found the sticky. Did you use the bios updated listed in that sticky to fix it? Also, could you tell me which asus software you disabled, I can't tell which ones are useful and which ones are not. Thanks!

John

 

John t 03 if the instructions for flashing the bios do not work for you (they did not for me) on the bios sticky thread try this instead (worked for me), Download the 203 bios from Asus's website (Or you can ge tthe one from the sticky for the F3JP model they are both the same),

Save the bios to your default drive (i saved mine to "C:\F3JP.ROM" for example) make sure you remember the name and directory.

Reboot, hit F2 to enter the BIOS Setup, proceed to the Advanced tab, select "start flash bios" and then go ahead and highlight the BIOS, not the .rom file but F3JP.BIN(lol i tried it wont work there should be two of them F3JP203.ROM and another F3JP.bin" Hit enter and flash that bad boy.

Reboot, hopefully the grainyness is gone.

Part 2..the programs.

Well for the most part i did two things. 1, disable startup processes in msconfig, 2 uninstall asus bloatware.

1. hit start then run and type in msconfig, then after the box pops up go to the startup tab, i disabled the following processes:

ALU: its a asus live update tool...dont need it
DMEDIA: Asus media runtime stuff, dont need it as well
ifrmewrk: The intel wireless crap stuff, basically its intels version of windows wireless network setup, i let windows do the setup for me because this one is a system hog with resources, so you need to go into the tab under the intel wireless tools and select "Let windows manage my wireless connections" P.S. !! DO NOT UNINSTALL THE INTEL WIRELESS PROGRAM! (you can still disable the process) It will remove the wireless adapter from system manager.
ZcfgSvc: related to the process above
NeroCheck: Disable if you want, i dont use it to burn my dvd's
PowerforPhone: more asus stuff i dont use
Batterylife: this is the Pwoer4gear module, if you use power4gear on your laptop to underclock the gpu and cpu so the battery lasts longer keep this. If not uninstall power4gear and disable this startup process
PDVDServ.exe: lets you plug in a remote control (if you got the fance media center edition of XP) to the laptop, since i didnt get one..i uncheked this process as well
skype: i dont use it...up to you


Hope that helped

Oh almost forgot your q's ABX,

My touchpad is sort of weird, and im still getting used to it, since the touchpad button is a one single button (not seperate buttons for left click and right click) i sometimes catch myself tapping its middle while attempting to right click not realizing it iss one button. So right clicking sometimes for me can be a pain, as for sensetivity its pretty good, the scroll feature is kind of weird as well but im getting used to it. The surface of the touchpad is smooth (at least for me). The keyboard buttons are big enough for my fingers, and are firm enough in resistance when pressed down upon but not to hard, just the right amount, and they are pretty quiet unlike the Acer laptop that my wife has, as it's key's "clack" when pushed down.

 

Thanks Kelldore, this is extremely helpful. The machine is really fast; my 3d modeling programs run silky smooth with realtime shadows. Besides, I'm pretty sure it's impossible to find a notebook with these specs for $1300, not even a barebones one.

 

No problem, so im assuming you were able to reflash to 203?

 

F3JP is defintely an upgrade to my notebook
i will get it next. thanks for the review

 

T-minus 10 seconds until I destroy the box that just came in a minute ago...

...ahh yes, and thanks a lot for posting your methods to fixing issues. I'll follow them step-by-step so that my results are as-well

 

Yes, I flashed to 203 and the weird grain pattern is gone. Very happy about that. Solid colors finally..

202 is not even listed on the Asus website. They should have fixed this problem before shipping these out.

 

I need Vista; will the F3JP work with Vista?

 

Yup it should, although i think you will need catalyst 7.1 to run the x1700 in vista. But i am holding off for the time being myself.

 

Sounds like Army housing is moving up! 3 storys! Wow all of the housign ive seen looks like trailors with siding or the projects!

Anyway great review this is the laptop im gonna get!

Airpower!

 

On Vista: not recommended until the bugs are fixed. I see no advantage to "fixing something that ain't broke", and the memory requirements as of now are ridiculous. I'm going to wait to install my copy until the updates make it stable.

On screen issues: I flashed to 203 as you did, and even messed around some to see if I could totally nullify the grain issue. While I cannot see it (at all) from normal view, if I tilt the screen back 20 degrees I faintly see that the pattern is still there. This is not serious and by all means I do not use a computer with such a laid-back angle, but it's a detail that's somewhat vexing. From the sides, things are super.

Another thing that I wonder about is heat; I've read that 70 degrees Celsius is the borderline until a cpu can be damaged. That's where mine maxes out when I let it go all-out in gaming. If I limit the speed with RM Clock to 1.83 ghz, the cpu goes down to 65 or so (which makes me feel much more comfortable). Any thoughts on this?

 

I get the same thing also if i tilt the screen way back, but i think thats a normal effect of lcd's.

By the way, are you getting the cpu temps off the bios or a program?

 

I read my temps real-time during gaming from the RM Clock utility; I'm assuming it's accurate since most normal PCs tend to go at 70C when maxed out anyways, but I was hoping on hearing that it was normal for even notebooks (let alone the F3jp) to be at. I used both FPS games and the PS2 emulator that notably stresses the cpu to see if was just the applications, but both do the same thing.

I enjoy keeping my hardware for 2+ years without a lot of wear and tear, so if it's safer to keep it at 70%~80%, I don't mind sacrificing a little power to prolong life. Even then, it still destroys my desktop.

 

Well i downloaded the RM Clock utility, mine idols at about 49-52 Celcius, and maxes out at around 65+ (But i do have it on my lap so it doesnt get that great of airflow either) I think you will be fine with the temps. Remember that the case is smaller and less room to disperse heat with the notebook.

 

[i HV bought f3jp with core to duo 2.0 1gd ddr 667mhz and 160gb hdd. how can I use the x1700..also the inf and the best driver for it.

 

I wish the F3JP was still at the price you were able to grab it. Newegg.com bumped up the price a bit.

 

They didn't raise the price. They just have a different F3JP now and don't even show the one the OP (and I) have. The only F3JP they have now is the F3JP-AK048P which has a higher resolution screen.

 

I've ordered myself an F3JP-AK055c can't wait

1680x1050 15.4" monitor
core 2 duo T7200 (2GHz)
2G of 667MHz DDR2
X1700 with 256M onboard memory
160G 5400rpm HDD
webcam
wifi
bluetooth 2
Vista Home Premium

Postman better be carefull with it

 

Where did you buy that from? Can't find it... (I am based in the UK)..

I was going to go for the F3Jp-AP025P with the lower res screen... higher res screen is tempting.

 

Thread of the dead, REVIVE!

The F3JP-AP035C is for $1300 usd is back in Newegg.com, folks. Rejoice!

I wonder if they've fixed the screen bug, which was the only notable issue that others and I have had. Other than this, for those of you who want a 15", single dimm 1gig ram, and don't mind the 1280x800 res, it's gold.

 

I ordered it in france (it's only available there), from www.texinfo.com
There's no asus reseller here in ireland and I wanted a french keyboard.
Took 3 weeks to get to me as irish post kinda lost the parcel for 2 weeks
The french post incident ticket I logged was probably the kick in the butt anpost needed to find it. It only got here today and it's at my company's reception waiting for me to pick it up.
Once again, I can't wait

 

Got it on friday, flashed to 207, played around trying to install x1700 drivers I ended up having to do a system restore as It would mess up badly under aero after 5 mins. rolling back to ASUS's website's or CD driver didnt solve the issue...

World of warcraft runs sweet at 1680x1050 max details
STALKER is pathetic @ something like 2fps in 1280x768 min details in the first closed room, maybe it doesn't like vista for some reason.
I know they dont compare graphically but we're talking 40fps vs 2fps ...
Haven't had a chance to run other games.

3D mark 05 hits 4350
3D Mark 06 asks for DX9.0c install ... which messes up the system actually it might have been that that led to my restore and not the drv. Anyways ....

Still gotta try the Omega drivers
Anyone has an idea on where to get an ATI vista driver that-ll take the 1700? I searched the forum but all I find is XP links

Appart from that the machine feels like it'll take any app, the monitor is superb, vista makes a nice change but with the video issues i'm getting I'll have to multiboot with XP till things get sorted. Bloatware not that bad, the OSD is pretty cool, multiframe could be handy.

Very happy overall; just can't wait for ATI support.

 

actually my bad, STALKER runs just fine
After a 10 min reboot (applying vista updates takes ages) all was fine, had checked power saving settings and was in high perf at the time though .... dunno what happened earlier

 

Here can you find ATI 7.1 drivers for vista: http://www.asustreiber.de/download.php?list.75

 

thanks for the link

found vista catalyst 7.3 here http://ati.amd.com/support/drivers/vista32/common-vista32.html
X1700 listed in the infs
Still wont install

anyone got a rope ?

edit: express install "success", no CCC though, I end up with 7.14.10.8333 it might actually have reverted me back to previous ones

 

I just bought an f3jp. Its the core duo 2 1.6gig with 2gb ram running vista.

I to loaded a game (Fear) and got a pathetic 2fps on 800x600x32 with FSAA and AF on high settings. Cany anyone help explain why?

I would have expected far more from it. It barely runs battlefield 1942. It clips a lot.

Sounds simlar to what someone has said above. Is it Vista? or have I done something wrong?

 

eWiz has the F3JP with the WSXGA+ (1680x1050) for $1,391.53 right now. Its the cheapest I found on the web. I didn't have any tax and shipping was $20.

http://www.ewiz.com/detail.php?name=NB-AS-F3JP

 

couldnt explain the low fps I 1st got in stalker, after a reboot all was better.
Oh Asus released a driver on the 20th of march that has a working CCC fot the x1700. It's their 8.333

 

I install some vista 'optional' updates from microsoft. I now get 4fps, a little improved. Still pathetic though. Definitely something amiss. I sadly think I will be installing XP and shelving vista for a while. Problems like this are just not worth it.

So what is CCC? catalyst? Mine came with a Catalyst installed. It seems to be working just fine. Changing settings did nothing to improve performance.

think I'm using FSAA 4x and AA 16x. lowering did not help anyway.

 

I was wondering, how does sharing files over bluetooth work? Does this require third party software?

 

Dont know about transfer speed, I guess devices can simply be explored if they're setup correctly.

I can remote control my pc, media player and stuff with my sony ericsson mobile phone via BT
I know someone who has an HP laptop and they hid a credit card sized remote control in the pcmcia slot. Not sure if it's BT but it's even beter than my "solution"

BlueTooth is cool but wait till we all get Wireless USB ... now that's gonna rock !

 

That's the Catalyst Control Center
Mine crashed @ every bootup with initial drivers provided.
It's now fixed with Asus's latest driver and settings are available.

 

Hey guys,,
I'm a big time Asus fan, I went from the M6Ne to the Z93E and now thinking about getting the F3JP-AK048C-A but I got a question. It comes preloaded with Vista, but does it ship with a Vista installation CD or does it have the installation files on a hidden partition? Also, regardless of where the Vista installation is, does the bloatware come preloaded in the installation or is it clean?

Thanks for the help!

 

comes with a hidden partition AND a recovery cd
Bloatware is preloaded, it is easily removed though.

 

Recovery? As in not-a-installation-cd? So I can't remove the hidden partition to gain some space?

I already own a copy of Vista for my other computer so theoretically I could just install from my retail installation CD with the key provided by Asus right?

Thanks for the answers.

 

i bought this notebook back when the xp ones just sold out and alls that was left is crappy vista.
I tried vista for about an hour till i puked all over the disk and banished it to hell.
I downloaded the drivers for it while i had vista on it, and burned them. installed my xp pro installed the drivers.
gaming wise i think vista is crap.
But anyway the notebook owns. I love it i'll never buy another desktop again or crappy low lvl notebook. Least to me this machine is high end LOL but i just came from a athlon 64 2800+ oc'ed with a 9800 xt.
I love wow can see much father away now and the graphics are so much better.
I love that machine period.
I might get another stick of ram for it but right now i'm waiting cause i dont really see no need for it. I just play wow and run it on xp if i was still on crapsta or i mean vista, i would of got a second gig. But ill just save myself the money for the moment.

 

wow is 2 years old, try something a bit more hardware challenging F3JP can cope with more than that. I play wow myself and don't see how the x1700 will display "further" than the 9800, theres game settings for depth of fog maybe you missed it

bklynkid you won't be able to use your retail vista on another machine AND activate it. It will allow a few hardware upgrades but wont allow a new machine. It's got protection against that.
It's possible to do a clean install out of a recovery CD though, search the forum, it's been discussed