Benq X31 13" LED with 8600GT?

Anyone is using this?
The spec looks real good


http://www.benq.co.th/products/joybook/?product=1302&page=specifications
http://asia.cnet.com/reviews/notebooks/0,39050490,43574761p,00.htm

 

Usually lots of power and little space = heat issues.

 

cnet taiwan did a review today on the X31 (it's in mandarin (obviously))

http://taiwan.cnet.com/review/notebook/0,2000089091,20046493,00.htm

from what I gathered with my very limited mandarin, apparently the reviewer had some difficulty understanding the intentions of this product. his initial suspicions of what appeared to be a business notebook was put in question when it found to sported a 8600M GT. anyways here are some of the main highlights of that review:

- recommended price is ~$1700 Canadian (slightly cheaper than the lg p300)
(however if you've been to the markets in Taiwan, you can get away with some notable discounts if you know how to haggle convincingly (the reviewer mentions something about the flexibility in pricing as well)
- LED backlit screen (helps with the battery life)
- large screen opening angle... is it flimsy?... break-prone?
- the reviewer complains a bit about the old processor...
- 2.5" hdd as opposed to the 1.8 found in the air and upcoming voodoo
- 5.9 on graphics in WEI. too bad only 4.7 for the cpu. (the reviewer found this kind of disappointing for some reason)
- 4307 on 3DMark06 (compared to 3,027 for the P300 with a T8100)
Awesome
- the 8600 takes quite a chunk out of the battery life. on a 6-cell you get about 2.2hrs of DVD playback (only ~1hr on a 3-cell). Again the reviewer goes into how this would not meet the demands of business people. Than again I don't think this laptop was intended for business use...
- the reviewer apparently found a manufacturing defect in the X31 he received. the screen panel had a greater inclination into the screen on the right side than the left making the panel slightly angled. he digresses a bit on quality control in stuff made in China and how this doesn't happen if it was made in Japan or Taiwan. I'm not sure if this defect persists in all the X31s... I hope not...

The review didn't mention anything about the fan noise and temperatures levels...
You can probably get the general idea about some other stuff from the pics so...

Basically the X31 offers quite high-ended performance (especially gaming) for a 13.3" at the cost of its battery life.

 

I'm quite interested in this Benq X31. 4307 3DMark06 score? It should be quite powerful for gaming, right?

How is an L7500 compared to a T7500 processor?

 

The reviewer is an idiot. There is no other Intel LV C2D available at the moment, so of course Benq has to use the good-old L7500. The machine competes squarely with Sony SZ and Dell XPS1330, and to a lesser degree to Asus F8 (which has 8600M GT, but at 14.1"), yet he listed three other 13.3" that clearly sacrifice graphical power for size, weight and battery life -- the only saving grace for this review is that he put the Sony SZ58's performance in the comparison tables, but then again that's most likely just because he didn't have the numbers for the Voodoo.

I would really love to see some temperature reading on the X31. Benq's previous iterations of 13.3" and 14.1" did have some reputation in Taiwan as being hot, but then again people laugh at Asus' temperature (and battery life) in Taiwan even more while generally Asus is considered "not good, but acceptable for the graphical power" here by the gamers here in US.

 

Where can you buy one or order one in the US?

 

I don't believe the Joybook X31 is available in the US... could be wrong though

 

well X31 is out in Singapore with not much of a fanfare

here is the price and spec

SGD2,299 (USD 1,683)
BenQ X31
Intel Core 2 Duo LV(Low Voltage) L7500, 1.6ghz, 800MHz, 4MB L2 Cache
4GB DDRII-667 Ram
250GB 5400RPM - SATA
nVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT DDR3
13.3" UltraVivid widescreen LED Panel display
HDMI output
Weight roughly 1.9kg


and i guess they managed to maintain an average battery life due to them using the LV processors!

@Skyshade
There is the L7700 used by Lenovo too (1.8Ghz)
and i wonder y din they put a T8100/8300 in..

 

http://translate.google.com/transla...,20046493,00.htm&hl=en&ie=UTF8&sl=zh-CN&tl=en Hate to bump but I can't believe nobody just posted a link of a fully translated review.

 

What is better: Benq X31 or LG P300?

 

What about Benq X31 built quality?

 

what about benq availability?

 

Here, in Ukraine Benq X31 available in many shops.
The price is ~ 1750$

 

This product available in indonesia, australia and singapore.

the price in indonesia is US$ 1.399 and here is the specifications

BENQ JOYBOOK X31-L.E03
Intel Core 2 Duo LV7500 1.6GHz (4MB L2 Cache, 800MHz FSB) / 160GB / 1024MB DDR2 / DVD SuperMulti (+/-;RAM) / 13.3" Wide Glare WXGA 250nits / nVidia GeForce 8600GT (Max 1GB TurboChace) / Intel 4965 (802.11 a/g/n) / 56K Modem / USB 2.0 / 1xVGA / 1xPCI-ex / 1xMic-in / 1xSpeaker-out / 1xRJ11 / 1xRJ45 / 1xDC-in / 1.3MP Q-Eye / 5in1 Card Reader / 1xBluetooth / Lithium-Ion / Weight: 2.0kg / Linux OS / Software

in indonesia this porduct sell without windows so the price is more cheaper.

 

compare with ... ??

i'm using benq since 2006 until now hehe... i think benq is best product for me and best price

 

When they refresh it with Montevina and 9600 GT (fine, maybe GS) and a P-series processor (since all the die shrinks gives it more thermal budget for processor), I'm in.


Edit:

The L7500 isn't all that bad... I don't think it'll bottle cap the GPU much if at all:

Check out X61's L7500 calculating pi to 2mil in 1m11s
Compared to tx2500z's 2.4GHz AMD Turion X2 Ultra doing the same thing in 1m32s
Compared to dv2550se 's T7100 in 1m9s and T5250 in 1m17s

 

Runs from $1600 - $1800 CAD (converted currency, not sold in Canada)

 

that's the retail price. you can get it for ~$1300 in tw with a bit of haggling

 

This lappy uses LV processor, so the critics like above is ill grounded. Imo, LV processors are the perfect compromise between power and heat.

Generally, I trust to the quality of Benq notebooks based on my girlfriend's 4 years happy "marriage" with one of them.

Looking briefly through the specs, I find it to be a good choice. One of the advantages of Benq notebooks is that they have brighter screens than many of their competitors. You should ask if the brightness is 250 nits or higher.
Also check if the case of the notebook is made of magnesium alloy. It should.

If I had no notebook, this one would be high on my shoping list, for sure.

 

I fear a case like what we had with the Alienware m15x. It certainly looks interesting, though. Darn these notebook manufacturers! I think I've already found a replacement for my Latitude D420 after only a year........

 

Can you ship international?

 

I know shipping is a big issue at the moment but can someone confirm whether the 8600M GT in this is GDDR3 or DDR2. I keep reading conflicting reports.

Besides GDDR3's have already caused heat issues in 15" laptops (see the C90S) let alone a 13". This would be a pretty mean feat if they pulled it off, kinda equivalent to what Clevo are doing with the M860TU, non?

 

It's giving 3DM6 marks around ~4000, so yea, it's a gddr3.

 

Benq in general is certaily of better quality that Alienwares.

 

I do hope so, but what they've done is basically the same thing: Whack a hot gpu in a relatively small chassis, I hope they haven't made the same mistake with cooling.

 

To be honest, the C90S heat issue has more to do with the DESKTOP processor inside, than the GPU.

 

Oh yeah, sorry getting my story's mixed up. I was thinking about the M15X again.

 

I also want to know which is better... Would love to get LG P300 but don't think they sell here in Australia.

 

If comparing specs only, BenQ wins, hands down.

 

is it possible to get it to ship to canada from somewhere....or buy it from somewhere within canada?

 

I should be picking up my new benq x31 later this afternoon.

Heres hoping all goes well!

 

where are u getting it from?

 

I live in Australia and Benq stuff is widely available here.

Got it for the equivalent of around USD$1100. Which is a bargain next to the LG P300. Some quick pros & cons

Pros -
Beasty for the size and weight
runs fairly cool, gaming does not seem to increase the temp of the palm rest CPU and GFX max out around 70C
Good viewing angles on the screen

Cons -
Fan is fairly noisy when gaming
Battery life is average at around 3-3.5hrs with wifi on and screen at low brightness

To be honest, I knew the cons when buying the computer so its not really a big deal. The fans are pretty much silent when I'm using the lappy in power saver mode so thats not really a big deal.

 

Do any sellers in australia ship worldwide?