NP8660 review *first draft*

Pictures will be up in a while (when I can borrow my sister’s camera).

First Look/Initial Thoughts
During and after the unpacking of this machine, all I could think of was “Wow!” What a beautiful creature. The entire case (black with a silver outline) looks absolutely fantastic. Just a little word of warning for those of you (like me) who sometimes get sweaty palms: It will show up on the case. I already have several on the outside of the screen (when opening it), around the touchpad, and on the Hotkeys (will get to those later).

Starting Up
No problems here. I bought it with Windows XP Professional, so I had to go through the setup/registration process. After connecting to my family’s internet connection, it was easy and simple to activate my Windows.

Keyboard
Has a nice feel to it. No flex anywhere. The keys themselves say nice and cool, it is just that area to the right of the touchpad tat gets warm (as mentioned by other members who have received their laptops).
The keys are nice and silent but the Spacebar makes a loud “Click” compared to the others. Still, it shouldn’t disturb the class too much when I am taking notes.

Touchpad
Really nice feel to it. Feels similar to the actual material that the laptop is made out of. The keys are a little difficult to get used to. I have to use a lot more pressure than I am used to to right and left click the buttons, but that isn’t really a problem since I am usually using my Logitech wireless mouse.

HotKeys
Oh Man! These are fantastic. As soon as I had installed Office and Firefox, I made sure these worked exactly as they should. And did they ever! The first one is for mail, and it opens up Outlook in about half a second. The second one is for internet, and also opens up FireFox in about half a second. The third one I will get to later.
The feel of the Hotkeys s also fantastic. Built right into the material, and easy to press. Absolutely fantastic.

Screen
Looks beautiful. Obviously, I have the WSXGA+ or else I wouldn’t be writing this. It has great viewing angles. Everything looks perfect from both sides, and from above. The screen does not go back more than about 135°.
Also, it does not lock in place when you close it. It just closes, and opens. No locks to side to the side before opening it. I prefer it this way, but that is just me.

Speakers
Built right below the screen, these sound great. Not tinny at all, and at full blast, there is absolutely no distortion to the sound. Great quality speakers.
When I receive my PCMCIA sound blaster, I will hook up eternal speakers and update how that signal sounds.

Fans
Can hardly hear them, even when you’re gaming. Sure, you can actually hear them, but the sound of the game is going to drown them out. So nothing big to worry about there. Also, this is a laptop! You can actually use it on your lap. My lap got warm, but not hot, which was nice considering what I have crammed inside mine.

AC Adapter
There's a fan inside the AC adapter, which is a rumor that has been going around for a while. It has vents on the front and back. The fan kicks in when you start playing more recent games, but it is not very noticeable. It won't interrupt gaming at all. And there is a slight buzzing that comes out of it, but I had to have it right near my ear before I could ear it. Trust me, you won’t notice that it is there.

Battery Life
I know that this is a huge part that you guys want to hear about, but I can’t do it right now. That takes time, and I wanted to get the rest of the review out as quick as possible. I will say this though: Silent mode is fantastic. The third Hotkey activates silent ode, and the fan completely shuts off. That is perfect for taking notes in class, and the bottom grows only slightly warmer when the fan shuts off. If you have the notebook on a desk, this won’t be a problem at all.


As I said earlier, I will post pictures as soon as I can steal borrow my sister’s camera, and probably tomorrow, if someone else hasn’t already, will post how the battery life is. This is it for now. Hope it was helpful.

 

nice mini review.

congrats on the new rig... no you just need to make sure to take care of it.

make sure you take care of it, if you want it to take care of you:
- monitor the temps (especially the GPU)
- regular cleaning of the vents and fans (for both the notebook and power brick*)
- use only on clean, hard, flat surfaces.... preferably a good notebook cooler

* I still cannot confirm if there is a fan in the power brick... need a pic/video for confirmation

 

Wow Congratulations! And thank you for the first mini review ever of the NP8660 after so many people have received it.

Thanks a lot!

 

There is a fan in the brick. This statement is 100% correct.

 

I have never seen A SITE CALL IT A LAPTOP. they call it a notebook. as Gophn might say, dont keep it on your lap.

 

Ok let me tell you a little bit of history.

First it comes the PC, then the desktop.

Then, people figured they should continue the tradition and called portable computers the laptop.

Then some company introduced us a new term the notebook, it was actually a higher end and more portable laptop, because notebooks are smaller and thiner than most laptops in the good old days. As things evolves, we now use both laptop and notebook interchanagablly for many portable computers.

 

ookay....... where was the punchline?

 

Brendhan, good to hear that your machine is a good purchase. Mine is en route, and I'm very excited. Thank you for posting the mini-review. It's good to know that the NP8660 is all that I was hoping it would be--a beautiful, RAVENOUS BEAST!

 

yes, thank you for the correction.
after playing some more recent games while on the AC Adapter, the fan kicked in. Took about 15 for it to start spinning.

Still, it is not noticeable. Don't worry about the sound.

 

Actually i believe the reason they call it a notebook is because someone once used a laptop on their lap! :O And they got burnt, somehow....and so sued the company that provided it because it was called a laptop. And so to stop this happening in the future they started calling it a notebook so it was advertised as being able to be used on the lap.

 

yes people did get burnt and sued the company, but I never heard that was the reason for calling a laptop a notebook. If I remembered correctly, they first started calling high end laptops notebooks. I remembered people used to think that notebooks are more expensive than laptops.

 

Notebook connotes something less cumbersome than a laptop imo.

We are so off-topic.

 

congratulations on receiving your new beast Brendhan and great mini review.

 

Thank you for posting a mini review! Can't wait for more

 

Doesn't bother me at all either. I can't hear it over the laptop fan anyway

 

honestly if the notebook doesn't shutdown due to overheating while your using it on your lap for tasks... then its safe to do...

hardware will shut down long before it gets damaged my friends.. unless its a rapid heat up from say a HSF failure. or un monitor fan failure.


Then again the guys on this forum are total enthousasts and would rather trust their "own opinions" than the very bioses and heat shut down leaves dictated by manufacturers but i would take every thing they say with a grain of salt esp seeing as they are using a completely different notebook than you

track temps.. and use it on your lap.. if it doesn't seem to effect its performance.. if it does teh notebook will let you know about it. Long before it dies.

 

I do not like that advice one bit... especially if we are talking about gaming notebooks.

If you use it on your lap, get a cheap lapdesk ($10-15) at Barnes and Noble, or use a cooler like the Cooler Master Infinite... that was made for lap usage.

Blocking the vents on the bottom or back is bad news... always monitor the temps to be sure.

Not shutting off does not mean jack... overheating has two stages:
1.) danger temp (90-95C) will downclock your GPU to try to cool itself
2.) threshold temp (100C+) will shut down the system to prevent further heat or damage.

 

Speaking of heat, how hot did this run, Brendham? I've seen threads/posts on here reviewing this notebook saying that it was a reasonable heat level, based on hands on experience, and also second hand sentences thrown around by others implying that this laptop ran hot (compared to what?).