Asus notebooks

[johnpalmer]

Does anyone have any experience, good or bad, with ASUS notebooks?

I need to replace my aging Dell Inspiron 1501, and I've narrowed it down to these two:

the ASUS N80Vn-X5

and

the ASUS N81Vp-C1

There's the third option, of not buying a new laptop for another month or two, of course. And there's the fourth option of "one of my friends will tell me of a relatively cheap notebook with solid performance and an awesome dedicated video card, and I'll get that instead." But it's looking a lot like I'll be getting one of these.

Comments

[nolly.livejournal.com]

No experience with the full fledged notebooks, but I *heart* me Eee(eeeeeeeeeee!)

[merlin-t-wizard.livejournal.com]

John, no experience with Asus, sorry. But, have you looked at any of the companies that sell hardware instead of systems? One example is RJTech (www.rjtech.com). They sell the hardware, in pieces if you so desire, and you either build it yourself, or you can have them put it together for you. Their warranty isn't the greatest, but they do seem to have some nice deals. And, as they don't sell "systems" they aren't worried about the software build. The computer will come with whatever OS you buy from them installed (if you buy a copy of an OS from them), but nothing extra. No bloatware, no fancy backgrounds, no "branded" software. Just a thought.

[johnpalmer.livejournal.com]

I gotta say, they sell some sweet stuff there... but I do want a pre-built system, even if (well, "though") I'm likely to wipe and reinstall it once I get it home.

(Plus, I really want a 14" laptop, and they only sell the stuff I want as a 15.4.)

But thanks for the tip... they're a lot better than hoping that Dell (for example) will let me select the system I want.

[kightp.livejournal.com]

Um ... you know I can buy Dell computers for personal use through my employer's "Premier" account, right? They've got a 14" Latitude E6400 for $1,353, and it's reasonably customizable. ETA They have other models, but that seems to be the only one with the 14" screen.

Not saying this is your best option just that it's *an* option. It would be pretty easy to work up a quote...

[(Anonymous)]

Well, the reason I selected the two above is that they have the best video cards I've seen on 14" laptops. Dell's video cards aren't very good, at least according to the benchmark site I've found.

(I bet Dell has gaming laptops that are better... but I bet that they start at 15.4" screens, and maybe don't start until you get to 17".)

[kightp.livejournal.com]

Yeah, you're probably right. (And I do have a vested interest in seeing that you get a properly equipped gaming machine, don't I?)

[johnpalmer.livejournal.com]

Nod. By the way, that last response? It wasn't me.

(Okay, it was. But everyone *always* says "BTW, that was me" when they've accidentally replied anonymously. So I figured you'd like a change of pace.)