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

Thanks for this. Turns out, Windows 8 does have some adaptive brightness based on ambient lighting. My LG televisions have a similar feature. The hardware detects how bright it is in the room and automatically brightens/dims the screen. Here's a write-up on that.

How To Disable Auto Brightness in Windows 8 - TheUnlockrTheUnlockr

Much better!

 

Thank you indeed, I stand corrected....

 

I will try to check the monitor with Spyder as soon as I get my UX51....hope that will be possible and that it won't take too long to get the hardware. I also have NO idea so far if the software runs in Win8. As soon as I know anything I will let you know.

 

Thank you very much!

 

Odered yesterday @ 1:15 pm and I just received it :-D
Edit:
Model - Asus UX51VZ-CN035H

1. It is beautiful and extremely cold from shipment.
2. Little bit of keyflex on the left side...I can live with that.
3. Its the 256gb model -> Sandisk
4. No carrying bag included which makes me a bit sad
5. External DVD and Subwoofer included (as always I think)
6. Tried to power it on - nothing. Either battery is compelety emty (which is not good for storing a battery) or worse....
7. Puh...it was empty or some way of software protection to charge it for first boot
8. I definitely can hear the fan noise from 2m distance with 2 other (quite silent) PCs in the room. Its not pure air-flow noise....not that good :-/
9. Keyboard feels nothing less than great!
10. Trackpad feels and works really good. I am really happy with it.
11. Fan noise turned up while setting up Windows. It sings a bit and bugs me already :-( I am not only concerned about fan speed but also about fan quality. Will try to record it with my phone (within the next 1-2 days)
12. The overall feel and the sound when the display is closed is just amazing. I hoped for that but did not expect it that great.
13. The cores run at 27-38°C (both GPUs - 37°C) @ idle right now (while connected to power)
14. Did not check the battery status after first boot :-( Now (after about half an hour) the battery is full so I think there is some protection which made it necessary to connect the power supply for 1st boot.
15. Running the 50% brightness test @ battery right (1080P WMV) now. Btw. 50% looks more than real 50% and it's clearly enough in a bright room to watch a movie or whatever. Will post results.
16. First good news about fans! In the video test on battery they are not that "loud". Might be the case that they get more silent after running some time (know these from our own company producs) or fan speed is faster while connected to the power supply. We'll see.
17. While doing the battery-video test since 2,5 hours the temperatures are CPU: 38-45 and GPU 44/44. Useless information ... isn't it
18. 1080P video battery test nearly finished - 7% warning after 3h35min
19. 1080P video battery test finished after 3h43min...I think it turned off with 5% battery left. That would be 4h in total as somebody else tested already. Might be that the battery would even improve after some use or that completely de-activating the nVidia GPU might help which I did not do.
20...to be continued in some hours....

Questions answered:

Check point 8 and 11

THX! Information updated on top of my "diary".

 

What about idle noise? Do you hear the fans turning or do you hear more like the air flow going out?

EDIT: Thank you! Answered on your post, when only the first 6 points were there
Looking forward to that vid! Makes me quite uncomfortable...

 

Other owners got the bag but not the external DVD. I'd prefer the bag, (or nothing, with 50€ discount ), because I want to buy an external blu-ray burner...
What do you think about red?

 

Congratulation DvP, what country and spec nr. is it?

 

Hi everyone!
Any idea when it will be available in Hong Kong ? I'm moving to Hong Kong in a week, I hesitate to order it on amazon.de but it may be too short to receive it
Thanks!

 

Thank you for reminding us of this. CES is indeed coming and there will be quite a few new laptops announced there. I was going to buy the U500, but the fan noise and few options to upgrade have put me off. So i'm going to wait.

The rMBP was one to consider, but i find that the 150% or 200% scaling just won't work for me. Perhaps if apple releases an updated macbook pro (without retina) i'll just buy that instead. Their trackpad is really awesome though. Nothing comes close.

For now, I'll just wait and see .

Good luck everyone with your u500. I do hope they release a bios upgrade for the fan and throttling issue.

 

Running video/battery test right now so no chance to check the reds. I will test it later on but only spyder will be able to tell us if the reds are really messed up. There is a spyder result for the S15 somewhere. Will try to find it for a comparison. Still no idea when I can get a spyder but I will do everything to make this test within the next 14 days to decide if I will have to return it. I would also have preferred the bag since I have literally NO use for the optical driver. At least I have received more than this 50€ discount

 

the new envy 15 has much better reds just saying so u might wanna compare to that

 

Apple has released even a MBP pro (no retina) at the same time it has released the rMBP.
It has same specs but it's a little less thin.

Inviato dal mio GT-I9100 con Tapatalk 2

 

How? Do you find any spyder results for the envy 15? For me it makes little sense to compare with the HP as it is not available in Germany anyway but if you find the result table for the Envy you can compare it by yourself. I found the S15 results already as I said before.
1080P (WMV), 50% brightness test is running since one our. 76% battery left.....plain 4 hours expected.

 

Is the Envy screen really better in the red department? Reviews suggest it's just as bad as the S15 one.
Which model of Envy exactly is that?

The video review of u500 had very acceptable reds.
i think if you can't find a problem by your own eyes, there's hardly point running Spyder just to be annoyed )

i know i'm asking much but it would be really helpful if you could post the noise video today. i will need to order this notebook today if at all, so it would REALLY help me to decide

right now the fan noise is the only issue that i have with this laptop. 256gb and 12gb ram is OK (hope sandisk doesn't suck too much)
Btw, if in the US, where are you guys ordering from? Adorama has this out of stock (its been so for days), Newegg has it but for 1950$..

Not including tax which is i dont know how much in California...

p.s. I really hope for the external dvd

 

Yes, it's thicker but more imporantly: heavier too. I think 2kg's is about the maximum for me. I have to drag the laptop every day and the lighter, the more pleasant .

 

Mine came with a subwoofer, which I have no plans on ever using. If I need better sound I'll plug in my external desktop speakers.

Mine didn't come with a CR-ROM, though. Anyone with a US machine get one?

 

i dont got spyder results but its a noticible difference. As for battery life im sure u can tweak it what were u doing on it at that time? My hp came with around 3-4 hrs out of the box but with some power settings tweaking its getting 4-6 now

the s15 ivy bridge refresh didnt get the new updated screen but the envy 15 3200 (the one in my sig) has the red fixed. Its still not the best ips display but its better than most of the TN displays and u dont notice any orange gate now. I know this because others who got it say the same and i compared it with my friend who has the 3000 version with the orangegate problem. Asus probably put in the panel that is in the envy right now but with a semimatte finish

 

I also thought it would show up as one large drive instead of two. I prefer two drives, personally. But it makes my C: drive look so small!

 

LOL, I did not even check the partitions so far but strangly that looks absolutely perfect for me. I would have created 100% the same partitions but I would have removed the recovery partition. I can still do that later on.

 

I don't really understand how people can think that LG is making two different version of the same panel one faulty and one fixed.
These images are from a user of new Sony S15 with Windows 8:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/son...y-s-series-owners-thread-502.html#post8939868



This is the same panel of U500, so if S15 panel is faulty then U500 panel is even faulty.

 

I've made comparison shots with the (pre win8 version of the) S15 and my Eizo + Galaxy Nexus before and eventually I can do the same with the UX51. But I am not sure if I stored the sample pictures :-/
These were the results:
https://picasaweb.google.com/DickVa...authkey=Gv1sRgCL-g3d6Az-jMlwE&feat=directlink

 

Well, here red is DEFINITELY orange, even a blind man would see it. I mean, we don't need a colorimeter to see that defect, is the UX51's display so wrong?

 

Is this definitly a problem with the IPS screen, or rather a driver issue (which can ultimatly be resolved)?

 

The images are from S15, not the U500, far as I can get

DvP, really sorry for bothering you but if it got lost on the last page, are there chances of recording the noise today?
Also, I think that your own judgement should be enough to tell if the reds are reds or orange

 

The pictures of DVP are from a pre Windows 8 version of Sony S15.
It would be very interesting to see the U500 with some photos of this album, for example Italian flag (on Windows 7 S15 it seems an Irish flag) and Violet Box (Blu box on Windows 7 S15).

 

The image is this one. If I open it with my external LG M2280D monitor I can see it has a more intense red than the one in the photo, but the photo (wich is actually a little too bright) definitely shows red, not orange. Maybe not 100% accurate, but it's red.

I know, I'm saying that if it would have the same defect it would be very clear

Besides, these Windows 8 images look much more red than the pre-windows 8 images.

 

Today? Not sure...but within the next days -> for sure
...battery video test still running...

 

You can't compare in this way, because you are seeing the original source on your LG M2280D, while on the image of S15 is a picture of screen, so it's blur and changed by camera setting.
The only way to make these comparisons is to put laptop and the external display near each other and take pictures.

 

Are the fans going non-stop or on and off then?
Also, is it possible to try how it behaves with the Nvidia card disabled? I'm probably not going to use it except for movies.

My former laptop (before getting stolen) was an XPS l502x and that was pretty noisy, too, so i'm kind of sensitive to the issue
I basically need to order latest tomorrow so I'm trying to get as much info as possible right now, if the red is not oragen, the fan noise is the only thing holding me back from ordering

that, and Adorama still showing it as not in stock (>.<)

 

Yeah yeah, I know that the camera influences color accuracy, but you see if it's red or orange. You may not be able to distinguish the exact tone of red, but you definitely can see an improvement. Before it was red=orange, now it's red= maybe different tone of red

 

I have not noticed any orange in the reds on my u500. Maybe I can take a picture later.

 

Thank DVP, for your tests.
I think that that 2 pictures evidenced in my previous post could be sufficient to understand something of more about U500 panel, even it's not a direct comparison with Windows 7 S15 display we could have an idea of difference between them.

 

That's what I meant: if you can't notice it with your eyes, it's not orangegate. Maybe it can be not 100% accurate, but very few displays have 100% gamut. If eyes see reds as reds, then it will be fine for most users (don't know for photographers)

 

Fans are not turning off at all....never so far but I did not disable the nVidia GPU so far. I am pretty sure that you will not even need it for watching movies. The intel IGP should handle that well also.

Battery test nearly finished. Post updated.

 

I just realized I did not mention anything regarding the speakers in the laptop earlier.

I think they are awesome! The volume goes pretty high up and when the subwoofer is connected the sound is actually great for watching a movie. But i'm not audiophile so I guess not everyone will be satisfied with the sound, but for a laptop i must say WOW

 

Notebookcheck now has the top model asus ux51vz (no touch):
Video-Preview: ASUS Zenbook UX51VZ (GT 650M) im Test - Notebookcheck.com News
In a few days we will see the tests and a full and objective review of this great device.
...
(Sorry for my bad english )

 

Does anyone know anything about an online stor called Pro-Star?
I'm trying to find stores apart from Adorama and Newegg that are carrying this notebook and are reliable

 

I totally agree with you about the fact that these things will become outdated, so for that price, I opted not to get the U500. I ordered the DV6-7214nr from hp.ca a few days ago and just received it today. It is very good so far and I love it. WIndows 8 is AWESOME!!! The screen is gorgeous. If only it was touch! The only negative thing about this HP is its thickness and weight. I initially wanted something that was thinner and lighter than my old HP pavillion dv6000, but I guess since I'm used to the weight of that, I don't see how this one will be a problem.

 

I got the ENVY DV6-7214NR as well just recently! Did you notice it just went on sale? It's $1049.99 and when I called to order the rep gave me another $75 off! $975 plus Tax and free shipping is a steal for this machine. I wish there was a touch option but I can live without it for now. Im getting a new Windows 8 Phone and 8 Tablet soon and that will be enough to hold me over.

 

Haha really? I thought the sound was fairly crappy and the subwoofer nothing but a gimmick.

I guess it's better than anything else this size, or slightly bigger sized devices though.

 

I would agree! But we are special in Canada - HP has no interest in matching prices between hp.com and hp.ca nor does their phone sales reps. No pain - no gain

 

Hehe, you think? I was surprised, but as I said i am very far from an audiophile My HTPC broke down so I connected the u500 to my projector and used the subwoofer and internal sound, and it was decent enough 2.5 meters from the sofa

I guess it depends on what you compare to!

 

I'm from Canada. Here it's still $1199.99

 

It seems that notebook manufactures don't want that I buy any notebook

This a list of notebook that I have considered for the purchase:

DELL XPS15 L521x, this laptop it's a complete fiasco, throttling, WiFi issue, poor screen quality for a premium laptop, ODD noise, poor touchpad assembly quality.
Absolute inability of DELL to solve any of these problems.

HP ENVY 17, this notebook was very interesting, but it seems that HP has sent only 7 units of this notebook in my market and with Windows 8 release HP has retired ENVY 17 from commerce.

Asus U500VZ, I don't like the Asus choices about storage and the totally impossibility of future upgrades, I think when warranty is ended there will be problem to repair this notebook, on others notebooks if a HDD or SSD is gone I can replace it to myself, on a U500 I think will be almost impossible.

Sony Vaio S15, I have just discovered the SATA2 mode limitation for who replace his HDD with a SSD to himself.
I know that I will able to enable SATA3 mode if I disable the ODD, but on next restart I have to repeat the procedure, this is unacceptable.
Moreover until now the GT640LE mod is not working on new S15 with Windows 8.

HP ENVY DV6 72XX, unfortunately HP has made stupid choices for this notebook on my market like GT630 and 1366X768 screen. I'm starting to understand why the HP PCs department is going so bad.

At this moment, it seems the only possibility to go is for Gigabyte P2542G, but it's no imported on my market so I have to buy on Amazon.de, so I could have some problem for warranty support (I don't live in Germany).
I'll wait a while to see if with the new BIOS for S15 with Windows 8 the sata 2 limitation has been eliminated and if it comes a new mod GT640LE otherwise I haven't any alternative to Gigabyte P2542G.

 

Does this also happen when you replace your ODD with an SSD and install W8 on the SSD?

 

Sorry, but I don't know the answer, but maybe someone on S15 thread could help us.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/son...ial-2012-sony-s-series-owners-thread-503.html

 

Eizo + U500 comparison shots added:
https://picasaweb.google.com/DickVa...authkey=Gv1sRgCL-g3d6Az-jMlwE&feat=directlink

I wrote the notebook name (UX51VZ) into the subtitle to make sure which is the Zenbook and which is the Sony S15. Yes, you do see a difference in terms of red....but defintely not as obvious as on the S15. Check it out!

 

What don't you like about the storage on this? Also, it has a one year warranty with Asus, and I bought this with my American Express card so it doubles the warranty. I won't keep a laptop over two years... heck, I normally average 1 year. The rMBP lasted me only four months, haha! Do you have a card that extends warranty coverage?

 

Is it possible to have even the violet box image comparison for U500?
https://picasaweb.google.com/DickVa...6Az-jMlwE&feat=directlink#5779971772093465938