Zenbook U500 Announced: 15.6" HD IPS, GT650M, Quad-Core i7...

Asus mentioned it in their most recent press release regarding this laptop:
ASUS Expands ZENBOOK

 

Frozer: Did you get yours delivered already? I remember it got postponed to 1 Nov for you. You should have it now.

 

As I mentioned in a previous post the place I pre-ordered have postponed it to November 14th. However I have placed a new pre-order with a retailer that says they have it in remote stock and that they expect I can pick it up tuesday. I hope it is true but we will have to see.

 

Alright, seems like we will have the first impressions on Tuesday then!

 

For some reason I still doubt I will actually get the product on Tuesday, but one can hope

 

Where are you at? In Germany they are marked as 'In Stock'.

 

I am in Denmark, and retailers have delivery dates ranging from November 6th to November 14th.

 

That's just not how it works. You really should read into these things a bit more before trying to debate it.

NVIDIA GeForce GT 640M - Notebookcheck.net Tech

The MAXIMUM (as in at full speed/full boost) stock clocks are as follows;

640M: 625MHz
640M LE (As featured in the Sony that I linked to): 500MHz
650M: 735 to 850MHz (dependant on the laptop it was put into)

The BIOS mod for the Sony simply raises the maximum clock speed of the core from 500MHz to 900MHz (or whatever speed mod you choose to apply).

Nope, it's not 800 stock, it's 500 stock. They've simply upped the 500MHz to 900MHz+.

All this really is irrelevant though, your original point was that the GDDR5 memory doesn't have a performance benefit over GDDR3; it does, and I've shown that already.

 

Gentlemen,

I have one of these in my possession since yesterday. It's got the following spec number: U500VZ-CN046H

It's equipped with the i7 3612QM, 8Gb, 256Gb SSD (RAIDed) etc. I'll be happy to answer some questions about the laptop, if I can (and the near-unusable Windows 8 allowing...).

I already observed that it came with two Sandisk SSDs (pity), plus stickers advertising this sad fact. The screen looks to struggle with red, despite what the guy over at Ultrabookreviews said. I'll see if I can make a comparison photo. In any case these were not unexpected flaws.

Otherwise it looks and feels really premium, and I am pretty happy with it. I will revert to Windows 7 as soon as I get a new copy though.

 

First of all: congratulations on your computer
What I'd be interested most is the noise as well as the temperature emissions, this laptop causes.
additionally, would you mind telling us, where you bought it (country) and for which price?
And what do you mean with "nearly-unusable" Windows 8?

That'd be it for the beginning
Many thanks in advance!

Cheers
Sepp

 

I thought you said "about 800".

Sure, sure, whatever.

 

Care to run GPU-Z ( Download TechPowerUp GPU-Z v0.6.6 | techPowerUp ) and see if it have GDDR5 or not? Could be good to stop that speculation at least

 

Terpen, it would be great if you could run CrystalDiskMark and upload a screenshot of the results. Thanks!

Definitely interested in a red-orange comparison test.

 

Great! Can I ask ou to run a stress test with Furmark and Prime95 together and post the HWInfo log please?
What about battery life in light usage (50% brightness, surfing web and typing)?
Thank you in advance!

 

UK stock is full, available in every PCWorld, Currys store.

 

Heh, well testing noise and temperature requires specialized hardware... which is something I don't have! What I could do is to run an intensive program and see if the CPU throttles.

I bought the laptop in the Netherlands, and did not get any sort of special deal.

Here is the GPU-Z that Megol asked for, showing GDDR5:

 

Shame they've downgraded the processor....



Full info - http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/asus-u...t.html?intcmpid=display~RR~Computing~17563650

 

I just bought a N56VZ, this thing looks sweet though.
i7 3517U?
Is this a true quad core processor I am unfamiliar with it.
Any estimate how much it'll cost here in the US?ill really like my N56.
Interesting read on the DDR3 / DDR5 comparison in the 650m.

 

Thank you!

 

Terpin Tjin, did your unit come bundled with the subwoofer and external DVD?

I'd like the see the orange/red comparison myself-- can you click on the Newgrounds image and put it side by side with a monitor?

http://art.ngfiles.com/images/97/valerofond_united-colors-of-newgrounds_1.jpg

Thanks, and good to hear that someone's got a full retail version.

 

What model of Sandisk SSDs are we talking about?

 

Congratulations as well from my side :thumbsup:
Is it possible to connect an external 3d monitor/beamer for watching 3d blu-ray or playing games (using nvidia 3dtv or 3d vision - see as well: http://3dvision-blog.com/5532-nvidia-optimus-technology-and-3d-vision-dont-go-well-together/)?

 

Alright, here come the CrystalDiskMark (100mb) results. I ran this without tweaking anything; the Asus bloatware and everything is still on the machine, and even the McAfee trial crap is running etc. If there is something I need to disable for you to get a better picture, though, just let me know.



If there is software that can show the disk type etc, give me a pointer and I'll see what I can do.

My CPU is the i7-3612QM, not that 3517i ULV model. So the chip has more power, but also consumes more... My system came with the subwoofer (very cute), but not the DVD drive. That is more than fine with me, as I wanted to get an external BluRay device anyway, and I didn't care much for the dual USB power of the bundled DVD drive. I also received a carrying bag. But what you will get will depend on your country/type number I'm sure.

I'll have a look at the orange/red thing next. Bear with me as I struggle with the hideousness of Windows 8. I don't understand this OS and I can't seem to do the simplest things in it, sigh...

 

Can you do some quick battery test, like unplug it and see how much time there is left.

 

I don't understand this statement. Windows 8 vastly improved the desktop. If you know your way around Windows 7 desktop then you should be fine. Also, just because you haven't figured it out, no need to scare others away.

Win+X or right click the lower left where the Start button was is your best friend. It is the Power User Menu.

 

Windows-D is your friend. That'll get you right back to the desktop. From the "Modern UI" interface right click anything you want to use from the desktop and pin it to the task bar. After a while the Modern UI becomes nothing more than a giant "Start" menu. Just use the Windows key to invoke it (equivalent to pressing Start) and Windows or Windows-D to get back again. I have no patience for the Metro apps, but I'd rather have the up to date OS and conquer its minor irritations rather than live in the gloomy world of previous Windows incarnations. I've already bought three upgrades for my two laptops and PC.

Ooh, yes. Windows-X. Sweet!

And Windows-R. I could create icons, but I just have "shutdown /r /t 0" and "shutdown /s /t 0" in my history for quickly restarting or shutting down.

 

They did not! It was confirmed that they put wrong specs on the web site. Shame you didn't read whole thread but the last page.

 

Well, some of the problems I was having with Win8 may have been related to my use of the touchpad; it took me some time to realize it needs a firm press to register right-clicks. Now my context menus are back, hehe.

So here is a picture I took of two screens side by side. The left screen is a Dell 2407 (yes, from 2006) and the right screen is the one in the Asus U500VZ. I have to say it looks quite ok in the photograph. Nevertheless I did have the impression that red is not the screen's strongest color.

Anyway, see for yourself. I have pics of the screens by themselves in the same setting too, if someone would like to see those, let me know.

 

4K read and writes seem weak or is it just me?
Seq and 512k seems okay. Anyone else have any opinions on this SSD benchmark?

 

Dear Terpen Tijn, can I ask you how much did you pay for this configuration?

 

I think that you aren't considering to check the internal of laptop...
It would be very interesting to know SSD format, 2.5", msata or proprietary.

It seems that the SSDs performance are significant lower than prototype (I remember around 1000MB/s) even if it had SSDs Sandisk.

Inviato dal mio GT-I9100 con Tapatalk 2

 

This testing way is a useless way to check battery life.
Only a specific test could be useful and it would be better if was a standard (used in some review) and reproducible test.

Inviato dal mio GT-I9100 con Tapatalk 2

 

So it looks like they've updated this site with their retailers list. None for Canada yet but fingers crossed!

 

Yes, but it would give an idea of the maximum battery life possible wish is something.

 

May I just ask one thing....what should this test tell us? Makes no sense to me. 3D is a software feature on the PC!!! For movies you only need a maximum of 1920x1080 @ 48hz anf for 3d vision, no idea...just use tridef instead. At least 3D support for passive TVs is crap using the nVidia drivers for no obvious reason.

What about idle noise? ;-) Are the fans turning off completely? Would be great to know...thx!

In terms of battery life i would be very interresting in checking a 1080p movie (x264 or h264) @ 50% brightness....even if this is not the best possible test either ;-) Would be great to know how the results do look like.

 

Would it be possible to open the laptop and see if the harddrives can be replaced? We could put new samsung ssd's in there instead

 

Actually for me it would be also sufficient to measure the noise with just a free iphone app, measured at the laptop and in some distance. Or your personal thinking if it's too loud, especially considering for using it in idle/office in a library or something like that

 

Yep, Mike was able to do the test with the prototype - though you can try to keep it a standard one 20 cm or so on the diagonal from the bottom of the screen - that's what various places do - Mike was putting the iPhone right against the chassis which makes for vibration artifacts.

Definitely the check whether it is 2.5" SSDs would be good to do and a lot of people are waiting on it.

Windows 8 is quite good, Win+X as they said .

Peter

P.S. You tried touching the screen to check right? Just incase

 

Not sure, but maybe through the ID hardware we could find the exact type.

For the battery test I agree that just to see the range would be fine. Terpen thanks so much for your time.

 

Yes, I am not sure about the display connectivity; I have no way of testing it really. My desktop needs an upgrade-- my current display does not have HDMI, which I guess would be the most important test.

Noise- no, the fans do NOT turn off. They are audible at idle too. I do not find it very troublesome, and I am sensitive to noise, but the laptop is not what I'd call quiet. Again, I think this should not surprise anyone-- we're talking about a 35W CPU in a 20mm chassis here. Having said that, perhaps there is a way to change the fan behavior either in software or in BIOS. I have not yet explored that possibility.

Disks- opening it up is not part of the plan in the short term I'm afraid. I don't have the tiny specific screwdriver bits for it, for starters. I can run a disk info tool though, perhaps that info will help to identify the disks. Here it is:



Price- I'm not very keen on discussing the price I paid here. However, it was not overly expensive, nor overly cheap. Keep in mind also that it will vary from country to country, as do the available models. I'll add that the Netherlands is not known for its low prices, in general.

Thermal throttling- I'll get back to this issue tomorrow, hopefully, when I'll have some more time to run the stress tests.

Battery- So as a crude measure it says 5 hours and 44 minutes at 93% of the battery level remaining in the taskbar. YMMV.

 

Noise- Well, I don't own an iPhone. But perhaps someone here knows a good Android app for measuring noise? I'll look into it.

Disks- I hope the screencap above may be of some help. It does seem to give a type number, but I didn't get much farther with it on the Sandisk website.

Yes, I did try touching the screen, haha. The shop that sold it to me did not even have the specs up; I went by the product number mostly... so I figured there might be a chance that I'd gotten a touch panel. But no. I'm not unhappy about that, really.

 

There is this app for measuring noise on Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=kr.sira.sound

 

There's various different mods available, depending on how adventurous the user feels... Some around 800, some higher. If you actually bothered to read properly, you'd have known that though. /sigh

As you've yet to provide any evidence, at all, to back up your points, and you're now acting like a child, I'll take that as an admission that you were in fact wrong. Thank you.

 

Not sure why Asus keeps sticking with SanDisk. Guess they're limited by the form factor they want. The 4K right is less than half of what a Samsung 830 gets. Although it's about the same as the Intel 320 I've been using and that one already seems speedy so if it performs the same as that it's fine with me in reality.

 

I am asking, since the modded bios in that thread has a "boost" state. Presumably, your bios then also has a boost state.

..makes sense?

 

Please, stop discussing about DDR3 vs GDDR5. It's been confirmed that this laptop has GDDR5. Use PMs

Sent from HTC HD2 with Tapatalk

 

Yep you beat me to it Frozer, that's the exact app I recommended to Mike before I found out all he had was an iPhone - I've never owned one and never will - I have a sound meter app for my 5 year old WM 6.5.3 Xperia X1 and that app for my Nexus 7 and they match all professional sound meter devices I've tested them against within their range - depending on your device, it may have been professionally calibrated - but either way, it's worth a shot .

What's your boot time to a loaded Star Screen? As a reference here's my N56VZ with Windows 8 preloaded and the stock ASUS image recovered to a Vertex 4. I'd expect similar, though I know the CPU is slower and the SSD also might be - but they should have the same UEFI set up on yours as mine.



Thanks,
Peter

P.S. It just occurred to me - do you have the same issue of there being a low "brrr" or growling noise from the subwoofer when you scroll webpages or play full screen videos? That's an issue with all the N56's I've seen with the woofer and it would be very useful to try to get it resolved if we know if it carries over to this line as well - thanks

 

with the hybrid drive im getting like 10 sec boot time so win8 has definately improved on bootup times

 

You're still not getting it! The HIGHEST (boost) state of the GPU at stock was 500MHz (for the model I talked about originally), the HIGHEST (boost) state of the GPU after the mod was 900MHz (or whatever speed you chose when you downloaded the mod). That's it, there's nothing more to it. I also don't get what point you're trying to make here... I've given you the facts, I honestly can't tell if you're just trolling, or refusing to read what I've provided you with.

 

So U.S. online retailer ETAs we have:

Newegg: 11/5/2012
XoticPC: 11/8/2012

With those two coming this week, I imagine most places will get them in stock this week.