Asus M50Sv-A1 User Review

by David Li

Asus recently introduced the M50Sv-A1 personal entertainment laptop, featuring the newest Intel Penryn processor, nVidia's 9 series mobile graphics card, and many other bells and whistles fused together to provide anyone the option for serious gaming while granting them a multi-media experience. The M50Sv-A1 is a brand new concept from Asus, integrating many features that no other competitors have. Their Multimedia touch pad, Altec Lansing speakers, and a full sized keyboard with a number pad are truly eye-catching qualities.

Specifications

• Processor: Intel Core 2 Penryn processor T9300 2.5GHz 6MB 800FSB
• Graphics: nVidia GeForce 9500m GS 512MB DX10
• Operating system: Windows Vista Home Premium 32bit
• Memory: 3GB DDR2 667MHz (1GB + 2GB); supports up to 4GB
• Display: 15.4" WXGA+ (1440 x 900) glossy
• Hard drive: 250GB 5400rpm
• Optical drive: 8X DVD/RW Double layer Super Multi Drive
• Ports & slots: 4x USB 2.0, HDMI, eSATA, IEEE 1394, Express card, 8 in 1 media card reader, VGA, microphone-in, headphone-out, Ethernet
• Wireless: Intel 802.11a/g/n
• Battery: 6 Cell
• Other features: Built in Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR, 1.3MP swivel webcam, fingerprint reader
• Dimensions: 14.2" x 10.5" x 1.6"
• Weight: 6.5lbs
• Warranty: Asus 2-year limited global hardware warranty + 1-year accidental damage warranty, + 30 days zero bright dot LCD warranty.
• MSRP: $1,359
• System configured with Windows XP Pro: $1,504

Reason for Buying

I was in the market for a sound 15" laptop packed full with features that include the latest hardware currently available. The rugged Lenovo T61p lingered in my mind for a long time, but due to its 1980s glamour and lack of eSATA, HDMI and other features, I couldn't convince myself to click the order button at the end of the check out page. There were several other laptops that came to mind, such as Dell's XPS m1530 and HP's 8510p, but after further debating, the Asus M50Sv-A1 came out to be the better bang for the buck.

Where and How Purchased

Like all my other Asus laptops, mine was purchased online at www.gentechpc.com (aka www.1toppc.com). GenTechPC offers several upgrades for the M50Sv-A1, including RAM, hard drive, operating system, 9-cell battery, and additional power adapters. I chose to downgrade (upgrade?) to XP Pro due many software programs I use that are not Vista compatible. My order was processed and shipped within 24 hours. Now that's what I call service!

What's in the Box?

• 1x M50Sv-A1 laptop
• 1x 6 cell battery (+11.1V, 4800mAh)
• 1x 90 watts power adapter
• 1x Carrying case
• 1x External optical mouse
• 1x Micro-fiber cleaning cloth
• 1x Set of drivers, recovery DVD and Nero software
• 1x Telephone cable
• 1x Cable tie
• 1x User manual and Quick installation guide
• 1x Warranty card

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Build and Design

The M50Sv-A1 is solidly built. Rigidity in the chassis allows very little flex and feels durable. Hinges on the screen are also firm, and shouldn't cause any wobbling during a cross-country flight. As mentioned in another review, the back cover and palm rest is made with Asus's Infusion Technology to resist scratches from everyday use. The ample supply of ports all around the laptop also makes the laptop more user friendly than other similarly priced systems. Another new feature found on the M50Sv-A1 is the AI Light sensor, similar to Apple's ambient light sensor on the iPhone and iPod Touch. The light sensor automatically adjusts the screen's brightness according to your ambient light conditions.

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Screen

Put on your shades, folks! The M50Sv-A1 is equipped with a 330cd/m² AUO LCD screen! (Most laptop screens are often limited to 200 cd/m²). The M50Sv-A1 screen does not suffer from any graininess and is extremely bright - so bright, that it puts my 22" Samsung 226BW external monitor to shame. Note the yellowish tint on the external monitor when compared with the M50Sv-A1.

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The screen also has a slightly higher glossiness than regular glossy screens, but images are exceedingly vivid. The intense brightness of the screen also helps overcome the reflectivness in a high lighting environment.

Left and right viewing angles are excellent, but vertical viewing falls short. Light leakage is also quite noticeable at the bottom of the screen too.

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Although the screen has some flex, it holds together very well and doesn't make any ripples when applying pressure from the back.

Speakers

Almost every laptop I've come in contact with has mediocre sound quality until today. The M50Sv-A1 comprises Altec Lansing speakers which provide a much better sound clarity than your average laptop, and minimal to no distortions on max volume depending on what genre of music you are playing. The 2 channel speaker system also gives the user a much more satisfying audio experience. Of course, laptop speakers will always lack a good bass, and this laptop is no exception.

Processor and Performance

The 2.5Ghz Penryn CPU can handle almost anything you could possible throw at it and would be the ideal choice for people looking for a powerful and future-proof system. Gaming wise, the 9500m GS (DDR2) GPU performs similarly to the 8600m GT (DDR3). You will be able to play all current games (including Crysis) at medium to medium high detail and resolutions.

Benchmarks

A series of benchmarks were performed (wPrime, Super Pi, HD Tune, 3dmark05 and 3dmark06), all on the XP operating system with stock drivers, no over-clock (GPU set at default 475/400mhz) and on super performance mode; all yielding impressive scores.

wPrime (32M): 34.141 seconds

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Super Pi (1M, 19 iterations): 17 seconds

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HD Tune: Avg-50.6MB/sec ; access time-15.9ms

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3Dmark05 (1024x768): 7851

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3Dmark06 (1280x854): 4086

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Heat and Noise

The temperatures on the keyboard are lukewarm to the touch. It is definitely one of the coolest (temperature-wise) Asus laptops I've owned. Placing the laptop on your lap doesn't cause any discomfort either. In terms of noise, the M50Sv-A1 is not noticeable unless you tune your ears closely to the revving fan. Even when using CPU/GPU intensive programs, the fan doesn't produce a loud enough sound to distract you from your tasks. The DVD super-multi drive is not particularly loud when reading or writing a DVD and on par with other laptop's optical drives.

Keyboard and Touchpad

Like any new keyboard, there is a slight learning curve you'll have to conquer before getting used to it. The number pad is a great addition to the keyboard, especially for people using Excel or other spreadsheet programs that require you to enter numbers often. The number pad can also be frustrating at first, since most laptop keyboards are designed to have their bottom right most key as the right arrow key, while the M50Sv-A1 has the ‘enter' key in that location. Flex on the keyboard is also kept at a minimum and feels similar to the Asus C90s. The touchpad is also quite unique, having implemented several media buttons onto the pad, this feature lets all the hot key fanatics go wild!

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One feature I found quite distracting was the brightness of the indicator lights next to the fingerprint reader. The lights are much brighter compared to other Asus laptops, and may affect your overall movie watching experience.

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Input and Output Ports

As mentioned briefly in the Build and Design section, the input and output ports are much more comprehensive than the norm. Being a multi-media laptop, it's no surprise that Asus would want to pack as many ports as they can on this machine. One pet peeve I have is the lack of a DVI output. Since monitors and televisions are steering towards high definition, a DVI port would have been beneficial. Another minor complaint I have regarding the ports are how most of them are positioned near the front of the laptop. This may or may not cause a huge concern for some, but for those who have various USB devices needed to be plugged in, it may cause some cluttering (and that's why Asus included a free cable tie!). Lastly, the problem with the infrared receiver still persists on the XP operating system as Ken described in his review (Vista works perfectly). Although most people may never use the IR feature, it'll still be nice for Asus to post the proper drivers out for the device.

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Wireless

The M50Sv-A1 is equipped with Intel's Pro/Wireless 4965 802.11 a/b/g/n wireless card. This is the best wireless card currently available and is standard in most of Asus Ensemble laptops.

Battery

No shocking news here. Asus's battery life is not on par with other similarly configured laptops. Eddie from BtoTech suggested that the less than perfect ACPI (Advanced Configuration and Power Interface) coding could be the reason behind the sub-average to average battery life.

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Battery saving mode: 2 hours 15 minutes (Bluetooth & wireless on)

Customer Support

From prior experience with Asus, their customer support is great via telephone. E-mail CS is another story. It is recommended that you call their tech support or your reseller directly if you have problems/issues with your Asus laptop. Asus resellers like GenTechPC and BtoTech take the extra step in helping their customers in a very professional and timely manner. This is also a deciding factor for me choosing Asus over larger companies such as Dell and Lenovo. You don't need to fork over an arm or a leg to get premium customer service.

Conclusion

Overall, the unique features, powerful hardware and competitive pricing on the M50Sv-A1, gives it a strong position in the gaming and home consumer market. The performance indicated from the benchmarks above will surely draw attention from the novice gamer and professional photo/video editors looking for an alternative option to the Macbook Pro.

Pros

• Gorgeous screen
• Number pad on keyboard
• Ample selection of ports (esp. HDMI and eSATA)
• Minimal fan noise
• Altec Lansing speakers
• Well priced

Cons

• Below average battery life
• Ports concentrated at front of laptop
• Status lights next to fingerprint reader are very bright (may not affect everyone)

 

Ok finished reading it, really good review David, it was well worth the wait. From reading this review, I now want the M50Sv with an even stronger desire! OH GOD!

OH and I have learnt that you just might have the same Monitor as me? SyncMaster 223BW?

Rep man, and I'm luckyy to get first post!

 

is the 9500mgs more powerful than the 8600m gt? and is it ddr2 or ddr3? i guess the 8600m gt outperforms it

 

4081 in 3dmark 06 is better than I thought , and I can't decide either this one or F8SN to replace my hp.

also, I am very interested in bench mark of HD3650 , which is used in M51 SA.

in some German reviews , I saw some comparisons between the NVIDIA you tested and HD3650 but I did not understand what they concluded about it.

Thanks for the excellent review , I am set on an ASUS now but I dont know which ASUS to replace my HP and Toshiba yet.

have a good night.

 

Nice review David! This laptop sure seems like an excellent alternative to the Dell XPS M1530 and other such machines.

 

Look here. StormEffect helped me, now he will help you.

 

hey, all benches I saw showed the same result, that the 9500GS even with GDDR2 beats the 8600GT GDDR3 , so I am getting it or HD3650 to replace my 8400gs lappy with a crappy screen.

a forum member here kindly linked me to Crysis video with the NV9500GS, it was incredibly smooth and I think it is a quite bit more powerful than the 8600gt.

but then, I never seen Crysis video with the 8600GT, so I dont know but this card is great.

 

Very nice review!

Another explanation for the poor battery life could be the capacity of the battery, which, at 4800 mWh, isn't exactly the highest-capacity battery out there.

I really like the addition of a dedicated numeric keypad on the keyboard. I'm surprised they were able to cram one into a 15.4" chassis.

 

him, I just say this thing at a computer store in my area for like 1400$ this is great! I want one!!!!!!!!!!!


hey I just looked at the keyboard pic, that's awesome! it doesn't have an "L-shaped" enter key unlike a fair number of acer, toshiba, hp systems up here. now I want it more.

 

thanks...The 8600m gt ddr3 has the same architecture as the geforce 9 series...Its just that the 9 series use less energy...performance wise, they are the same..Cheers mate!!

 

1400USD or CD?

I think it is ok but it can be cheaper on line.

 

Thanks for everyone's support! This was my first review and every comment is appreciated!

As for benchmarks, please note that 3dmark06 scores higher on XP than Vista. Also, I'm sure if I updated the graphics driver and/or overclocked the GPU, it should yield 200-300 more points.

@ Bunsie: I have the SyncMaster 226BW and the only difference to the 223BW is the response time. Other than that, everything is identical!

 

Edit: Scrap below. There's a 4GB upgrade so I guess not. Looks like a good offering. Does show how Asus takes notes of what users say though... it's in the details! They put 2x headphone jacks, towards the front, for 2x ppl watching a movie say on a plane, yet they left them on the side (but to the front) at the sacrifice of only a couple of cm wiring.


-----
By any chance, is one of the RAM sticks soldered to the motherboard?

 

Nice laptop and review.

Congratulations on your purchase

also...i think my macbook was made by Asus

 

my girlfriend bought this a couple weeks ago and loves it. Something I notice though is sometimes I have to press the keyboard pretty hard to get a response. Do you have the same problem? I may just be a wimpy typer.

 

Well, the keys on the keyboard are a little more stiff than others I've used, but it's barely noticeable once you start typing fast. I haven't actually noticed until you mentioned it

 

Thanks!
Yes, the Apple macbooks are made by Asus and also Quanta. Check link here
Asus also makes Dell inspirons 14" laptops, Sony PS3, Lenovo industrial PCs, and just recently landed an order for the XBOX 306.

 

Pre-mid-2007 Macbooks are made by ASUS, they've since moved to Quanta only. Apple doesn't want to support its rival

Nice review, though I was hoping to see tables with comparisons to other notebooks of a similar class.

 

Well no.. The 9500M GS can outperform the 8600M GT DDR3 since it can withstand higher stress. So If you are into your OC you will see that the 9500M GS can be set at higher clock speeds and such.

 

Good review. It is a shame to see that Asus hasn't really worked on improving battery life. That was the main reason why I decided not to keep my Asus V1s. Still good review.
Tim

 

CD... to get the same thing form dell its WAY WAY more!

 

This laptop seems to fit my bill almost perfectly, just a bit short on the battery life, but I guess that one can always get an extra battery for long trips...Is there any chance that the vid card could be upgraded in the future or is this pretty much a no go as with most laptops?

 

Being new to these forums, I didn't realize that there was the option for discussion attached to reviews. So, I posted praise for you over in Ken's review....

Very nice review David, thanks for your assessment on the screen.

In Eddie's review he says that the GPU is removable but he didn't think it was upgradable.

When I look at the cons of this computer I see minimal issues. When I see the pros, I see really strong points. I think I made a good choice with this lappy.

Hope you don't mind that I borrowed your pic for my current Avatar.

 

Thanks for the review. I'm sure it will help many people with their decisions.

John

 

Cool review! Thats a insanely good price for those specs!

 

Nice review. Thanks

 

The specs on this thing are virtually flawless. I just wish it came with a better vid card. I'd pay up to $250 more to get an 8800 in there. Any chance they'll make a variant like that?

 

Maybe if they want one that melts...

 

Putting an 8800 gpu in a 15" laptop is just asking for trouble (ask alienware). Although their bios fix help solved some issues, the vast amount of heat produced can't be properly dissipated with software alone. As far as I know, even with the 8700 gpu, we see them exclusively on 17" laptops.

 

nice review. Asus is still killing us on battery life and cheaping out on video card memory. Oh well at least they realized the need to put better screens in their laptops and the fans on the left-hand side.

 

It's good to see ASUS decided to put higher-quality LCD again, after seeing many their recent laptops with low-quality LCDs (except for G2). And of course, left-side fan. It still is bulky for its screen size, and has low battery life - but that is becoming a standard of ASUS laptops now.

 

I did a little research and compared battery specs with other laptops batteries. It seems like the a 4800mAh 11.1v found in the M50Sv translates to 53.28Whr. This seems like the standard that other laptops use for their batteries. Sounds like Asus could put out some higher capacity cells to compensate the less than average battery life (or at least offer it as an option), or redo their ACPI coding.

 

That battery life is the thing that is hurting it a lot

Ah well.

 

Yes, but there's always the 9-cell battery option to bump up battery life to 3 hours if needed.

 

How much would a 9-cell go for for this model?

 

erm..whats the different b/ween Sn and Sv?

 

M50 Sv/M50 Sa:
GPU:- Nvidia Geforce 9500M GS /ATI HD3650
Res.:- WXGA+(1440x900) /WSGA+(1680x1050)

Other specifications can vary, but those two are the main differences.

 

The 9 cell battery is about $159

 

Excaliberpc has a special, where you can get the extra 9 cell battery for only $109 when you buy the m50. That is what I did when I bought one.

 

Newegg has a version of this laptop with the Radeon HD3650, 4gb ram, 500gb HD, and T9300. Looks like a pretty good deal to me...

Is the HD3650 a better video card than the M9500GS??

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220306

 

Well, according to notebookcheck.com, the 9500m GS scores 400+ more points on 3dmark06. But then again, i remember hearing that notebookcheck.com isn't the most reliable website.

 

With the SA from Newegg, you also get a WSXGA+ (1680x1050) screen instead of WXGA+ (1400x900). It's less bright though. The graphics card has similar performance. You also get 1GB more RAM and double the HDD space.

 

BTOTech say that the SA version is a Newegg exclusive model. Although there are a few dealers stocking it, the prices they quote are way too high. Anybody know a recommendble retailer who ships to Europe? Thanks.

 

newegg exclusive??? aww that sucks I really want that. Not that I am on the market to buy but sucks for the good retailers like gentech and btotech

 

Just as a Note if apple does not want to support its rival. Quanta is not a great pick. they build laptops for a lot of companies! Gateway/Acer for one! Gateway/Mpc for two and and a number of others that I'm not able to list!

 

great review, looks like a fine peice of equipment there that i am thiking of getting one.
I just have a question: i saw it has a configuration with 200gb 7200 rpm HDD and i was wondering how much of an improvement is it? are there any side effects like overheating, noise or shorter bat life?

the newegg deal looks good with the nice ATI card and 500 gb HDD, but as this will be mainly for work not storage i dont care much about size, i rather have better preformance

 

But Quanta doesn't sell notebooks directly like ASUS


The faster HD will result in a small boost in performance but also a battery life hit, but by not much. Either way, it'll be negligible to a certain degree.

 

I bought this notebook a week ago. I am overall very happy with it -- processor, RAM, graphics etc etc.. all that is top notch AND this thing makes no noise ... quite impressive. Before buying this notebook there were two things I was worried about: screen and keyboard. The keyboard turned out to be very good. The screen did not. The problem with the screen is not that it is not so bright (you can turn off the Altec Sensor Fn+A and increase brightness) nor that it is glossy (I hate glossy screens but this one is just right, don't let pictures of this machine's glossy screen with power turned off scare you)... the problem in my opinion is that the brightness is non-uniform. It seems like the center of the screen is a bulb and the corners are dark rooms. I was kind of disappointed while watching movies. The rest of the annoying features like the wireless not turning on or the media keypad thing can all be solved through the ASUS software.

 

I am using this notebook right now and I have to agree that the screen on this notebook kinda sucks

I have had 5 notebooks now and this is by far the worst screen. I love everything else about this notebook and for that reason I am still using it. But the screen is not bright or sharp.

The keyboard and NUMPAD is fantastic for excel!
but the screen makes me use my desktop alot more.

~RaNDoMMAI