asus laptop

ringo747 · 9 Oct 2006 at 17:00

hi guys,

looking for some advice on asus laptops.. spotted one with a nice wee spec for around £980

I have read about overheating problems in the past but an optional extra is the addition of extra cooling fans so that shouldnt be a problem.

The model I was looking at is the Asus F3Jc

Spec
ASUS F3Jc-QO57H
Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional Edition.
15.4"WXGA Wide colour Shine (X-Glass) Reflective TFT screen with resolution 1280 x 800
Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T5500 Dual Core 64Bit Processor(2 X 1.66GHz,4MB Cache,667MHz FSB)
256MB nViDia Geforce Go 7300 Turbo Cache
1GB DDRII 667Mhz Memory (2x512MB)
100GB (5400rpm) SATA Hard Drive
DVD Super Format Dual Layer (-/+) DVD-RW Drive with Decoder Software

(extra components not listed here)

Any info would be appreciated

Cheers

Gatsby · 9 Oct 2006 at 18:28

I had an asus laptop (the W1) and I would recommend them. Even though on mine the screen failed soon after I bought it the RMA procedure was completely painless, UPS came to pick it up and returned it after they fixed it, and the process took just over a week. After that I had it for over a year and then sold it on to a friend and neither of us have had any technical issues with it since.

However, while their hardware is pretty good their software is awful. Most of the time it doesn't work properly and its generally full of translation errors and spelling mistakes. The Asus media centre that came with my laptop crashed a lot and was essentially useless, the wifi software didn't work at all and the fan speed program was quite buggy. But the laptop runs perfectly fine without these extras so it's not really an issue; the bios controlled the fan speed just fine without the asus program installed and the wifi worked perfectly using the windows interface.

ringo747 · 9 Oct 2006 at 18:46

cheers for that..

i think if i was going for one id ask them just to put xp pro on it with none of the asus software.. dont want any junk on it!

think i might go for this badboy but would appreciate anymore comments in the meantime.

I know asus do good mobos so their laptops should be good.

cheers

ringo747 · 10 Oct 2006 at 13:56

any other comments?

ringo747 · 14 Oct 2006 at 00:31

Boogle · 14 Oct 2006 at 00:45

The 7300 won't be much good for games. Think desktop 7300LE and then make it slower. For £980 you can get a lot better imho. Sure this one has Core 2 Duo, but thats much better than standard Core Duo.

There are HPs, Acers and Zentos with 7600/X1600s with the same or more RAM for less. The Asus does have heat issues, they're well documented. The Zento's don't have quite as good battery life and their build quality isn't as high. The HP (nx8430/nc8430) doesn't have any heat issues (its cool even when gaming), although the fan runs a little more than usual (its not annoying though, and I crave silence).

Of course, as always - the choice is yours!

This might help: http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-Graphics-Cards-Benchmark-List.844.0.html

If you don't want games - there are cheaper laptops with better build quality with worse graphics / integrated graphics. The 7300 on that Asus still uses turbocache to get above its 64MB dedicated, so don't go for that if the 128MB Vista thing is bothering you

ringo747 · 18 Oct 2006 at 18:54

cheers for info.. wont be doing that much gaming really.. have a desktop here to do that on..

i think the model number was a mesh asus f3jc pro ... if you do a google search you might find it.. cant remember what site i found it on

Cheers