New F6 Series on Newegg

Newegg has a new Asus F6 series 13.3" notebook, the F6V-X1. At $1199 it looks like a great deal.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220336

 

Pretty good specs for the price, a cheaper alternative to the U6 series. It's listed on the Asus sites as having the option of bluray aswell.

 

Hmmm, I would be interested to know how this laptop is from the prospects of heat/build quality and battery life...

 

I don't know about heat, but it is an F series so the build quality is probably "OK" and ASUS definitely isn't known for having good battery life.

 

Yeh it is the F series which is Asus' more accessible range. I've seen one of the older F6's, build quality was still pretty good.

Don't know much about how much heat it would pump out but in regards to battery life, you'd be roughly looking at 2.5 3.5 and 4.5 hours for the 3 / 6 / 9 cell batteries respectively on light use.

 

I think 2.5 for a 3-cell is severely overestimated. More like 1.5 hours.

3.5 hours for 6 cell could happen, I guess, with Montevina. But I wouldn't bet on it.

 

I'm basing my estimates on the review and users experiences of the U6sg thats on these forums.

They use the same batteries and have similar specs, except the F6 is on Montivina, which is more energy efficient. Probably the 3 cell estimate is a bit high but the other two i think are about right.

 

ehh... where's the F9sg update

>.<

 

F9 series is EOL and discontinued, as are the W7 and U3 model lines.

I don't remember seeing any U6 users that talked about 3.5 hours for battery time on the 6 cell (but I could be wrong, I didn't spend a lot of consistent time in the U6 owner's thread), unless you undervolt the cpu and drop the lcd brightness to 25% or less..... Montevina isn't that much more efficient battery-wise, it seems that identical specd models are showing 20 minutes maybe.

The now discontinued U3 13" with 6 cell and ccfl lcd tube maxed out 2.5 hours, with Igpu (2 hours with the 8400 engaged). The only substantial difference between that and the F6v is the 3470, the F6a the x4500 and Montevina chipset in both -- neither one of those is going to provide 60 extra minutes of battery life. We will, of course, need to wait for actual unit and user reviews, but I think all the estimates you've offered might be a bit too generous given the product comparisons.

Rule of thumb, replicated across platforms, for battery time is 15-30 minutes per cell depending on configuration and manufacturer. Asus tends to be in the middle to lower end of that spectrum, and I also (unfortunately) doubt that any major improvements are on the way.