New and updated ASUS Notebooks + Spec/Prices = F8SV, V2S, F3SC, F3SV, G1S, V1S, VX2S(

Agree with matt . . . . .

 

great i had finally decided on the MBP and now this comes. wtf to do??

 

Sheldon: Go with the Asus! it works out cheaper ^^ just import like me :3. You get a higher res screen, a modular bay, twice the warranty, better GPU, and it looks better IMO. oh... And a right click button :3 and a free mouse and carry bag .

 

they're both pretty stylish notebooks so thats no real worry to me, although im not a big fan of the 1680x1050 res in a 15.4" and its a bit bigger and quite a bit heavier if you include the optical drive. the gpu does hurt though, bloody 128mb bs.

I'd be right onto this one if it had 1440x900res and was a little lighter.

It'll also be a while till it's available.

 

well in regards to the screen res, Im used to 1280x800, Then I used the Dell 1440x900 and found it a good size, 1680x1050 is only a little bit smaller and Asus apparently uses very high quality screens at that resolution. Personally I almost never use my DVD drive so its no hassle for me, I ended up getting the Modular battery to go in the slot to give me even better battery life. Also keep in mind that 2 year warranty, With apple you get 1 year, 6 months on the battery (Which are apparently dodgy) and its almost $600 to upgrade your warranty which to me says they dont have faith their product will last that long. Youve waited this long, Whats 3 more weeks?.

 

the difference between 1680x1050 and 1440x900 is greater than the difference between 1440x900 and 1280x800 though.

 

Is the quality loss of using a resolution lower than a display's native resolution really that great?

 

BTW - The V1s is 6.5lbs not 5.6lbs.

 

Yes, it's very noticeable.

 

Some notice it, other's don't. There are plenty of people who don't notice any ill effects when using a lower resolution and/or a higher DPI, and there are plenty of those (many gamers among them) who would tear their eyes out before lowering an LCD's resolution. I suggest going to Best Buy or somewhere, finding a screen with the resoltution you're looking at, and then lowering it and looking at some websites or pictures, to see how you like it.

 

I may be wrong, but don't most games have resolutions that are not equal to a laptop's native resolution (laptops in particular have 'awckward' native resolutions)? So rescaling is still necessary for most games, thus a loss of quality?
For non-gaming, I can see why some may have a problem if there's a significant quality difference...

 

Not in the majority of cases. Most recent games (past few years) support both widescreen and the "off" resolutions that notebooks have.

 

With the optical drive, the V1s comes out to 6.5lbs (without it, its 6.0) so its heavier than the F8 either way.

As for the MBP vs. V1s discussion, I say V1s. Its a bit heavier, but performs better, is lower priced, and was actually designed as a Windows laptop, so it has the 2 mouse buttons and a better kb layout. Of course, if you actually did want the Mac OS, then its definitely gotta be the MBP you buy, but then I assume you wouldn't really be considering other notebooks.

 

So do we have anything close to confirmed retailers/dates for the V2S? I want one.

 

How can you possibly say the V1S performs better than the MBP before th V1S is even out? In fact all the info we have points to the MBP being the clear winner (the one with the 8600M GT w/ 256MB GDDR3 VRAM). The MBP has the superior graphics card, and performs close to the G1S in benchmarks...with the inferior DDR2 graphics card the V1S will fall short, making it less desirable in my mind.

 

A lot of info on the V2S is in this thread (later pages have most details). I believe the only USA retailer to list the V2S (as pre-order only) so far is ExcaliberPC.

 

So, I was pretty much all set to buy a m1330 and plunk down almost 2 g's when I went to my local best buy and actually got play around with the asus g1s. So basically, man, build quality was amazing, probably best in store, it really felt solid. Are the V series notebooks even better? I mean honestly, I can't imagine better quality. The g1s almost felt as solid as my t40, is there anybody that has handled the v1/v2 series and g1 series, is the v series better than the g in build?

 

The V, G, and W series are, to my knowledge, ASUS' "high-end" notebooks. As such, they are of a much higher quality than you'll see in the A or F series. The V series is geared towards mobile professionals, while the G series is for gamers. I think it's safe to assume that the V series is extremely well put-together, perhaps even better than the G.

 

In desktop work, yes. You simply cannot realistically use a lower than native resolution. But you can increase font sizes etc. manually, so there are workarounds.

In games, not so much.

Edit: wow forgot to hit refresh I answered a post half a day old. But anyway it's still relevant.

Actually, I wouldn't rate the G near the V or the W series. G is more midrange. The V-s and most of the W-s are (possibly much) better built.

 

Damn. I was hoping one of the updated G models would have the 8700MGT.

 

Not in a 15.4" chassis. The G2s could theoretically have it, but given Asus' track record of putting mediocre (at best) GPU's in their 17" offerings, I wasn't suprised to see them stay with the 8600M-GT.



On another note, I don't see how the F8 is a disappointment over the V2S? The V2S graphic's card simply doesn't cut it for hard-core gaming, even the DDR2 8600M-GT is barely acceptable at 1440x900 resolution. The V2S may be a better buy for mainstream or business users, but the GPU in the F8Sv (in my mind) trumps everything else. And it's only main competitor, the 6224W, is not that much smaller at 1.05"x13.3"x9.6" and 5.2lbs. C'mon guys, a half-a-pound is not that big of a deal, in the long run.

 

Keep in mind that the F8 and the V2s are targeted for different users. The V-series are business class notebooks. Top notch build quality, mediocre gaming specs.

 

If the V2s has a 8600m GS DDR3 and the F8sv has a 8600m GT GDDR2 in all likelyhood their gaming performance will be very similar.

 

If that's the case, I [and I think most people] would go for the F8S owing to the ~$150 price difference.

 

same dilemma as you Bona Fide, i just don't know how the build quality of the F8 will be. better graphics card vs better build quality.

 

Im not a ultra hard core gamer, I just want to run my PS2 emulator and a few strategy games, So the 8600GT is good for me.

 

I wonder if the G1S-A1 wll go down in price when the A2 and A3 come out?

 

Thats the question thats beginning to nag me now too. Do you folks expect the F8 series to be on par, below, or above the competition(HP, Acer, Toshiba, Dell, etc) on average in terms of build quality?

 

I'd say above Toshiba, Dell, and Acer's consumer lines, probably similar or a little above HP Pavilions. I would say it will be similar to the F3 line, in between the A8 line and the G line.

 

i think probably better than dell...i'd certainly hope so anyways

 

From what I understand, it's not that the A and F series are bad. It's just that the V and W series are so phenomenal that anything looks bad in comparison.

I think it's safe to assume that the F8 is well-built and decent quality, but the V2 is going to be in a class by itself when it comes to quality.

 

According to Wikipedia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeForce_8_Series)
The 8600M GS will only come with GDDR3.

 

How come Asus got rid of their nicest computers; W1, W3 and V6? They had some really nice stuff and what I thought were the only competitors engineering-wise to Apple's MacBook Pros. I'm just not as interested in this plastiky stuff, I'd rather have a business class HP or something.

 

The W1 is still around, but only in UK and Asia.

The W3 had its share of problems, highest turnover rate for an ASUS notebook apparently. The V6, not sure, I guess they retired it to re-use the V prefix for their business notebooks.

And I'm with ya pal, I'm not feeling the move towards retail, but its a business, what can we do...

 

What are you planning on getting to replace your V6?

 

On a similar vein - what exactly are the V1s and V2s going to be made out of?

I've only seen the pictures on Excaliber, which are a bit on the small side, it looks like plastic, but is there any possibility it's actually carbon fibre or something?

It's probably not going to impact that much any decision I make to get one, but I'd still like to know.

 

No idea, I'm replacing it within a few months, probably August to November. The V6 is a fine machine, light, slim and thin, not to mention is plenty fast for me. However, my last 2 years of school with it have been pretty bad since with textbooks and binders, it gets heavy and then I was living nearby so I can go to classes pretty easily. But now I'm living further with a longer commute(almost 4 times as long), so I definately want something smaller like a 12" or 13".

I'm unsure what to do at the moment, plus financial troubles from all the moving around with no steady job(and I'm just a student, loans are owning me right now ). May have to sell the V6 to get something smaller, and pay on top of that. Funny thing is I never buy anything 'premium', except for, you got it, notebooks. Well, only time will tell...

 

Carbon Fibre composite for the chassis(so a CF and ABS plastic mix) and a Magnesium composite lid. It's pretty high quality, but its no brushed aluminum

 

On that note, what is the F8Sv made out of?

 

ABS Plastic.

 

Thanks for that Coriolis.

Pushed a little further towards one of those.

Who needs brushed aluminum anyways - there's a reason no DeLoreans are shiny any more.

 

Most likely not or at least not right away, however Asus will be releasing the G1S-A4 model with a lower resolution LCD panel which should be about $100 cheaper than the A1.

 

However, keep in mind that the Delorean is now over 25 years old, whereas you will not be using a notebook for more than 4 years, at the max (unless you are a really basic user and can run on millenium old hardware like a P3 or something - then you probably really wouldn't care what the condition of the brushed aluminum is in anyways...)

 

When do you think the A4 will come out? I would like a lower resolution LCD. 1680x1050 makes the font a little small for my 60 year old eyes.

 

The Delorean in Back to the Future was pretty bung up and it was less than 4 years old, I'm pretty sure when they were new 1-2 year old Deloreans wouldn't have looked too flash (1989 methinks and the movie had to be made earlier).

 

Just writing to say that I also dislike the move of ASUS from high-quality lines to cheap, consumer, mass-produced laptops.

But it makes perfect sense from an economic perspective. Most people go for the cheap stuff. Which is not wrong in itself.

I will have to buy a notebook in about a year, I will also go for something smaller (14", as long as it is smaller and lighter than the V6 which is actually very difficult to achieve). It will be a difficult job -- but hopefully something that's worth it will come around by then. Maybe some 13" W or an R...

 

mmm...Just received a call from anitec(where I bought 2 day ago my G1s-a1), they said that it is backorder and should be at there warehouse within a week.....now that bring me to a point where I dont know If I should cancel the g1s-a1 and wait for the g1s-a2 or the v1s-a1. What are you guy thinking about it?

 

well the difference between the a1 and a2 isn't much...
and if you're a gamer....the v1s won't offer as great of a gaming performance as the g1s because it's most likely going to use GDDR2 ram.

 

There was some talk earlier in the thread about GPUs and native/non-native resolutions...how would the F8s and its 8600GT handle exporting video to an external monitor? I'm intrigued by the idea of a very portable unit that has the GPU power to run games on a bigger screen, but want to make sure there aren't any issues relating to hooking up an external monitor that would make the video on that monitor less appealing. Thanks!

 

well, the 8600GT is hindered by the 128 bit bus....so larger resolutions are out of the question. furthermore, the f8 uses GDDR2. I wouldn't recommend anything over 1400 x 900 for the F8s 8600