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I thought I owed it to people to give a short review of the Z70V after having it for about a week. It was a hard decision for me and the lack of reviews only made it harder.
To start I want to say this is an amazing laptop and although there is NO perfect laptop this is probably close. There are only a few MINOR gripes and the performance and build of this laptop greatly out weighs any of the problems.
The configuration:
Wireless Network Card: Intel 2915 802.11 a/b/g wireless card
Optical Drive : 24X/24X/8X/24X DVD+CD-RW Combo module
Memory : 1GB DDR2-4200 (64x8,2x512mb)
Graphics Card : PCI Express ATI x600 64MB
Hard Drive : Hitachi 60GB/8MB Cache 7200RPM
Processor : Intel Pentium M processor 750 2MB Cache 1.86GHz 533FSB
Price: 1898
Screen: It is truly amazing and blows away any other screen I have used. The native resolution is 1680x1050 and it looks great to me although some have mentioned that the small fonts are hard on their eyes. There are no sparkles or dead pixles to speak of... All in all an amazing screen.
Performance: I havent run any benchmarks but if there are any requests I'll do some. But so far everything I have run flash, bf2, cs, and just general use has been superb. Graphics has been good though the nvidia 6600 on the z71 would be better. For my needs the x600 is perfect. There is also talk of a potential change to an x700 though I am not sure if this is going to happen or if it is just rumor.
Input:
The keyboard is nice and large. The layout is ok. I do not like the placement of the fn key where the usual ctrl key is. Though this is minor, it could piss off some who are very finicky. I like the placement of delete though (top right hand corner).
The touch pad is very responsive and its size reflects that of the screen and so scrolling is easy. There is also a nice side scroller to the right side of the pad.
The internal Bluetooth option is not yet incorporated into the Z70s but will be soon, and consequently the shortcut button for that does not work. There is also no fn contrast key that I found. You have to adjust this through the ATi driver menu.
The even distribution of the USB is great (2 on the left side, 2 on the back). I much prefer this layout to the one on the V6V which has all four on the right side. It is also an improvement on the M6 which had all 4 on the back.
Heat: Some feel this is very minimal. For me however, it was not quite as cool running as I would have liked. I have been told that my heat problem might be software related and I havent had the time to do a fresh install yet and see if that would reduce the heat.
On battery the heat is very low. If started on battery the cpu temp is at 41c and gradually rises. If the laptop is turned on while plugged in, then switched to battery power, the cpu temp stays around 52-59c. Plugged in, the CPU runs at about 60-79c. The hot air blows out the right side and so when the lappie is under a lot of stress (i.e. playing a game), I strongly do not recommend using a mouse near this port as it is very uncomfortable. There are also fans that blow air out the bottom but there seems to be less heat from these vents. The fan is also pretty much always on though very silent unless you get up to very high temps where it picks up in speed and sound. The heat is not something that would make me return this rig as you can always work around it, though I had hoped for something slightly cooler. Perhaps I expected too much from something with this configuration.
Audio: The Z70V has very good sound quality for a laptop with its 4 speakers and high quality sound card. Though I havent had a chance to hook it up to any external speakers I would assume the quality would not disappoint. There is also a built in mic which is nice though I havent used it either so cannot comment on its performance.
Size/ Weight/Build: This was a big factor for me. I had used a dell inspiron 8200 which was a hot running brick of a machine. This however, is a very light and thin for its size. The z71 is probably similar in size though it is more rounded. The z70 weighs about 6lbs with optical drive and battery. The z71 probably 7lbs. The build on this is also carbon fiber based which is much more durable than the hardened plastic of many other laptops. The build and weight of the Z70 are the main factors that made me choose this over the z71.
Battery: Battery life has been good so far. It lasted about 2 ½ hrs watching a dvd with pretty much full brightness. So you could probably expect more for any work based applications on lower brightness.
Re-seller: I ordered from ISTNC who have given me great service and are always available on MSN or their own web based chat. Gwen and Rick were both very approachable and helpful. Proportable is also a very good reseller and Justin the CEO is also the moderator of this forum and is very easily accessible that way. There is also Geared2Play, the owner of which also frequents the forums. Either of these I would be confident in recommending. There are also several others which you can find on the US ASUS divisions re-seller list.
www.istnc.com
www.proportable.com
www.geared2play.com
Conclusion: This is a SUPERB laptop and I have only seen a few minor draw backs so far. The heat is the only issue that is slightly annoying me and I will see what happens after a fresh install. Though if you use this on a desk regularly and keep your mouse away from the right port its not so bad. There is very little heat on the palm rests which for me would have been far worse. Though as I said there is no perfect comp and I challenge anyone to find a comp with a wide screen, decent graphics, a good chassis, good sound, with the same power for anywhere near this price. And obviously if you build the comp yourself you can get it for even cheaper. All in all the Z70V is a great comp and although the heat might be slightly annoying the pros for me out weigh the cons. I would rate it an 8.7/10 :asus: .
Pics:
http://gallery.greatestjournal.com/thumbnails.php?album=298800
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Looks great scott. I submitted my review to Andrew but it's a doozy! Let's see how much artistic liberty he wants to take when reducing it! Hopefully, it'll be useful info. I'm loving my Z70V so far, and by the sounds of it, so are you.
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Wow... this is making me kinda pissed that mine is running kinda hot... I think a fresh install is in line... yeah ricky could you zip it to me? my addy is [email protected]
Whered u get the centrino hardware control? Off intels site? U have the url?
Oddly enough when I started the thing on battery the cpu was only at 41c at one point... that was great so WTF cant it do that all the time? Well anyway ill figure it out when I get some down time... the only reason i havent really updated or done a fresh install is cuz i've been moving around and havent really had such a fast / reliable net... (aside from jacking the neighbors wireless, some fun night outside sessions near the neigbors house were great...) Anyway so hopefully the heat thing will stop after that...
Just out of curiosity did you (ricky) get ur comp ordered or did u build it???
Anyway yeah, like i said heat is not a big issue and u can always find ways to deal with it... (like move the mouse away from the vent...)
The harddrive heat is fine and noise from that thing is minimal... though in retrospect i would problably have gone for something with a bit more space... i think i have like 4 gb free! But its ok.. i got an external 80gb hard drive that makes a s@*! load of noise but it does the trick... -
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Z70V Review
Discussion in 'Asus' started by scottschaffter, Jul 2, 2005.
