awaiting the new P1 MX

It seemed like we were about due for a new thread under Portable One, and hopefully traffic will be picking up as P1 begins to ship the new MX and people get a chance to put it through the paces.

I placed my order on 7/27 and am still waiting for it to ship (as are we all), but my feeling is that I'd rather they hold them back and get the design right rather than ship something that is going to make people unhappy. So far, I have been just feeding my enthusiasm by reading the ASUS threads and wondering at those W3V users with heat problems!

I would normally have done exhaustive research on a purchase such as this (my first new laptop in 6 years) but I relied this time on the research done by others. I have complete comfort with the specs. and schematics of the MX. My biggest concern in making a purchase is the relationship with and support provided by the vendor, and I believe that Portable One provides this. I haven't spoken with them beyond asking them one quick question, but they seem to be dependable and personable.

I look forward to hearing from others and comparing notes as we begin to take delivery of the MX (soon!) Doug

 

Seems like it should be a very solid machine...good luck with it when it shows!

 

I'm waiting for one too. I hope they get them out next week.

 

Same boat here...only a few more days to go

 

According to ProPortable over in the Asus section, Asus apparently just dropped the pricing on their W3V by 200 dollars to 1699. New pricing supposed to take effect 8/22. I'm curious if PortableOne will do anything in response to that? Now that I've ordered my notebook for a couple of weeks and have nothing to show for it, I'm feeling kinda jipped, even though I totally understand the process of prototyping and evaluating the graphite thermal foils you guys have designed.

Also, do you plan on carrying the Seagate 7200rpm 100gb drives when they come out? Do you know how their power consumption compares to the current 7200rpm 60gb drives that you guys have? Maybe I could even stand waiting another couple of months just to have that hard drive installed instead of the 60 if you have an ETA on that...

 

I feel your pain, Jerry. I practically choked when I read the message that the W3V prices were coming down. It sounds as though the vendors were as caught by surprise by this as consumers. I have gotten used to the experience of prices changing right after I have made a purchase, especially in this industry, so I'll live with it. In my mind, the P1 MX was worth $1899 yesterday, and it still is today. It does have me curious though about what is going to be changed/upgraded in a newer model (should I have ordered a faster chipset?).

I think thoughts of receiving something of lesser value ("jipped") are understandable, and I felt a twinge of that myself. However, the next thought in my mind was how this is going to affect Portable One. After all, they bought hundreds of W3Vs and obviously worked out their margins based on the modifications they were making, the numbers they could sell, and the price of the competing W3V. This announcement could change everything. I don't want P1 to take a bath on this - I want them to be around a long time (and continue to provide the level of customer service they are known for). Even if ASUS changes their level of support, I'll still bet on P1 to be there, and "fight the battles" on my behalf with ASUS if it comes to that.

Having said that, I'd be very surprised if P1 offers anything to compensate for the delay - they must be more impacted by this price change than we are, and delays come with the territory when having a "made to order computer" built for you. I say, let's be thankful for graphite foils, the Arctic Silver, other modifications, and the great personal customer service, and wish P1 well. Doug

 

I'm not so sure about this. In the vendor-retailer relationship, retailers usually have a price protection agreement. When there's a price drop, the retailer will get a rebate from the vendor to cover the price change for the retailer's unsold inventory. I used to sell computers for a rather unscrupulous guy who would continue to charge customers the pre-drop price as long as he could get away with it, pocketing the difference provided by the price protection.

I'm not sure if the same sort of price protection exists in the manufacturer-vendor relationship, but I don't see why it wouldn't. I would think that vendors are even more exposed than the retailers.

This being said, I would be interested to hear from Portable One on the subject.

 

Having now read ProPortable's most recent post, it appears that Asus has, in fact, lowered the price without offering any sort of price matching. That's really lousy. As far as I can tell, this really could be trouble for Portable One.

 

It really is, no fair warning whatsoever our CFO has been fuming all day, and since we order special custom unit sku's no protection, but luckilly we include enough upgrades already to warrant the additional price, but sure caught us all off guard and will have to negotiate with them on the furture revs and protection..

Have received a few messages asking why they are worth $200 additional...just the 7200RPM drives alone are worth more than $200 currently, if you can even find them, they are extremely allocated and have been for months, another reason why vendors have been going with Seagate drives lately. We include 1 x 512MB instead of 2 x 256MB modules, most integration centers charge anywhere from $50 to $100 to apply Artic Silver 5, the hard drive graphite mods (have no clue how to price those out) and now Asus is going to warrant the 2 year global warranty on top of our P1 warranty automatically on all the units we have, so I think our customers still have a terrific value.

 

Yeah, I know it's not your guys' fault Ivan, and I agree that it's still worth 1899 today, especially because of the engineering you guys put into cooling the hdd. Frankly before the price change I thought the MX was a steal because of the added thermal dissipation for the same price as the W3V, plus reasonable costs for upgrading the various components. So what about the hdd options? Any 7200 rpm 100gb drives for us in the near future?

 

I have no problem paying more for the superior machine. Ivan, please tell me you are getting these out soon, it's getting down to the wire for me...

 

I still think they are a good deal. Try pricing a fujitsu or sony with similar upgrades.. if they are even offered. Most are not! Then if you buy those machines you have to jump through a milion 1800 number hoops to talk to someone in India who doesn't care that you have a problem. Portable One picks up on the 1st or 2nd ring everytime.. and you talk to the same person. That alone is worth big $$$ in my book!

I hope you guys can get mine out before friday - I'm going on a trip on wed. and really need it by then.

 

Yes working on getting all the backorders out this week, thank you for your support, greatly appreciate it!!

 

Much love, thanks P1

 

I checked my order status at the P1 website this afternoon and found a FEDEX tracking number for my new P1-MX. Also, my credit card was charged, so it seems like units are shipping. Good luck for the others who are waiting also! Doug

 

awesome.... please share your thoughts once you receive the unit.

 

Finally got mine. The screen is so bright... and the overall feel is very sturdy. The heat can be felt while on your lap and on your right palm while using the touchpad or typing. A slight fan hum can be heard. I'd say the heat is sligthly above normal and the fan noise is on the quiet side. The heat hasn't been an issue with me... I've had both macs and hp notebooks and have had heat much the same as this in both those.

I'm very happy with MX it's the nicest notebook I've seen. It makes the plastic Dells, HP's and Gateway's out there look very cheap. It feels sturdier than a powerbook to me.

Big Props to Portable One.. and Asus..

 

I dropped by the Portable One offices today and was able to take a look at one of the MX units. Let me say that it is an awesome looking laptop. You don't really realize how sleek it is until you see it for yourself. Also, the laptop is very well built and constructed; it does not really even belong near the same playing field of the inferior HPs/Compaqs/Dells and Toshibas of the world. Asus definitely knows how to put together a laptop. As far as the screen goess, I was very impressed. The brightview type screen does increase glare, but it also makes everything appear very crisp. The only problem I had was when watching a darker scene of a DVD with some background light coming in onto the screen. The people at PortableOne were very accomodating with regards to letting me tinker with the unit. I ran winstress to try to create heat. After running it for about 7 minutes, the heat was still negligible. Of course, over time the unit might've heated up more, but winstress was throwing everything it could at the unit and it still performed admirably. I would say it seems like a great unit and only makes my decision between it and the z70va tougher.

 

Thanks for the update on the screen quality. Unfortunately, I'm still waiting for my notebook to come in: they called yesterday and told me that right before they were about to pack it up and ship it out, it got a stuck pixel. They offered to change the screen before they sent it out, which is pretty incredible service (especially since it was just one pixel). I am bummed by the constantly shifting shipping date, though. This is the fourth time the expected ship date has changed, and it's getting a little frustrating.

 

Received your unit Mister Crash? If so, any comments to enlighten the rest of us?

 

If all indications are correct, I will get it today. I'll let you know my thoughts after I get my grubby little hands on it.

 

Hey Crash, no tengo?

 

My Spanish is a little rusty, but shouldn't that be, "no tiene?"

Yeah, it arrived yesterday. I haven't done much other than set up a few programs, and try to install support for East Asian languages on it (unsuccessfully, as it turned out). I'll try and cook up a review this weekend when I have more time to play with it, but here are my initial impressions. Bear in mind that I haven't had a laptop in quite a while (my old one still ran Windows 98 and could barely play the original Civilization), so some of my gripes are probably relevant to all notebooks:

Dimensions: Just about perfect. Not too big, not too small. The battery pack does add a bit of heft, but the total weight is still less than six pounds, according to the specs. The weight is noticeable, but definitely manageable. After holding this, I am very glad I didn't end up getting a 15.4" laptop (anything more than 6.5 lbs/3 kg would probably have been a burden).

Design: Yes, it is a sleek laptop. The carbon fiber exterior is rock-solid. The case doesn't seem to attract fingerprints the way that some laptops do. The weight is a little unbalanced because a good deal of it is localized in the battery pack at the rear, but I imagine that's the case with most laptops. Port placement is nice, especially the one USB port on the right side for a mouse.

Keyboard: Honestly, I'm a little impressed with the keyboard. When I started looking at laptops, I would journey to Best Buy and start typing away at the keyboards on all the display models. I loved the feel of the Sony Vaio notebooks (particularly the FS series), but all of the other makes and models felt weak. The keyboard on the MX is pretty solid, and while I wouldn't rank it up there with the Sony or IBM keyboards, it was much better than the Compaq, HP, and Toshiba models I tried in the stores. The keys have decent response and a good tactile feel. I am still concerned about the location of that [Ctrl] key (2nd from the left on the bottom row), but I haven't used any applications that require extensive use of that key yet.

Touchpad: A little disappointing. Granted, I'm used to a mouse, and a touchpad isn't going to give you the same level of control that a mouse will, but the touchpad experience wasn't all that great. One annoyance was that I wasn't able to suppress the touchpad tapping function. On the program bar, there is an icon for the Touchpad control, and clicking on it brings up a menu that includes "Suppress Tapping", but when I clicked on it, the touchpad behavior did not change. There wasn't an option in the Mouse menu of the Control Panel to disable the tapping either. The buttons below the touchpad were also troublesome. They don't indent or register if you push them at the top (which is how I'm accustomed to pushing them). I've plugged in a mouse, so these are non-issues now.

Screen: Nice. The size is great (14.1" widescreen), and the resolution is perfect for the screen size (1280 x 768). There were no dead or stuck pixels. As I said before, PortableOne had found a stuck pixel right before they shipped out my unit, and offered to get that fixed before they sent it out. They ended up configuring a whole new notebook and sending it out a couple days later. The images are sharp and crisp. The screen is reflective as all get out, though. I was playing Guild Wars last night and had the TV turned on behind me so I could listen to the World Series of Poker while I played. Not only could I hear the hands as they were played, but I could see them from the reflection in the screen. It really is a mirrorlike finish. I did not try adjusting the brightness at all, and this would likely solve that problem.

The vertical viewing angle was an issue. It didn't seem like there was an angle where the entire screen, top to bottom, was in focus. As geared2play has stated about the W3V (in another thread), there seems to be a sour spot at a 90 degree viewing angle. It seems like you have to tilt the screen more than 90 degrees for optimum viewing, and even then, the colors get a little out of whack on the periphery. I'll keep experimenting to see if I can find an appropriate angle for viewing the screen.

Heat: This thing gets hot. Oh yes it does. When I first installed CHC, the first measurement of the CPU temp was 60 degrees Celsius. In fact, I caught it at 71 degrees when the only active application was Firefox. This had a lot to do with the fact that it was running in Maximum Performance mode and was sitting on my lap at the time, which blocked some of the airflow from the vents. When I switched it to the Max Battery setting, the temperature steadily dropped. I switched it back to Maximum Performance, put it on a flat surface and played Guild Wars for a couple hours, and when I went back to the desktop, it was showing a toasty 60 degrees. I can't imagine how hot the W3V must get. I'll play around with the settings to see if I can get it to run cooler.

Battery: I was running on AC power all yesterday, but I'll investigate the battery performance later.

Performance: Boot-up time was very quick: less than 30 seconds from the time I restarted the computer to the time the Windows login screen came up. Applications seemed to load pretty smoothly, though it was a little more sluggish than my desktop (which has a faster hard drive and more RAM). Playing Guild Wars was not a problem, although I did have to tone down some of the settings to eliminate lag. I haven't tried any other programs, so I'll have to do a more thorough test before commenting.

Like I said, I'll need to spend some more time with it before I can give a more through opinion on it, but so far, it's quite nice. This weekend, I will be able to test it out, and I'll also be able to compare it to a Fujitsu S7020 that should be arriving later this week. Until then...