(Copied Djembe.Rob's format)
Asus Z70Va
1.86 Ghz Pentium M
1 GIG DDR2 RAM
ATI X700 128MB PCI-Express
Internal Bluetooth
A/B/G 802.11 Wireles
15.4 Inch SXGA+ Display
80 Gig 5400 RPM HD
Looks
VERY SLEEK. A lot of my friends came over and saw it and said it looked very "professional." One of my friends who got a dell was in awe, he thought it was something the president would have. Overall just beautiful. I love the trim on the side and it dips toward the bottom (the cut out section).
Build
VERY SOLID. The keyboard feels great. I hate using laptop keyboards in general but this one I don't mind so much. It feels big enough so that my fingers dont feel chunky, and the keys go in pretty far which is something I like, so that I feel like I am actually pushing stuff.
Weight & Mobility
It is bigger than I pictured it, but that's not a bad thing, its still light. I'm used to carrying around my brother's old inspiron 8200 which was like 10 lbs and smaller than this. I put this in my new timberland dogwood backpack and it felt great. I could definitely carry it with books and whatever else I need in school.
Screen
This is just glorious. Its way sharper than my desktop CRT monitor upstairs. At first I was worried that the SXGA+ resolution would be too small for my liking (in terms of font size at native settings). When we got my bros inspiron a few years back, I go UXGA not knowing about resolution and whatnot, just thinking it was the best screen. When we got it was really a hassle to use because the text was hard to read. Not the case on this baby. Its a little smaller than I'm used to, but its not straining at all The colors are lovely, and the viewing angles are great.
Sound
The sound quality is clear, but its not as deep as I'd like, however the speakers do get very loud. I also noticed there are like 4 speakers on this thing, 2 on the screen and 2 on the base under the touchpad. Its like having surround sound
. I think I'm still going to get external speakers for my dorm, because he bass isnt as deep as I'd like. Overall the sound is clear, but not great for music.
Touchpad
I'll be honest I barely used the touchpad so far, only when I was installing windows. From what I could tell it was easy enough to use, but I will always use a mouse just because I dont like touchpads. I really like the click buttons though, they are implemented to be perfectly flat unlike my dell where they pop out and are ugly.
Performance and Benchmarks
CS:S source runs great at native res with most settings on high. I typically get 50 fps. I would like to run it at lower res because I prefer faster FPS, but it doesn't look quite as sharp at a lower res and 50 fps is playable enough for me.
3dmark 05 I got 2371 with default drivers, and 2374 with Omega's 5.7 ATI control panel didn't work with Omega so I went back to default.
Battery Life
The battery said ~3 hours remaining when it was fully charged on "Always on" mode. I have been running on AC, but I figure if I put it on "portable" mode it will increase the battery life a lot. I also undervolted significantly to 14x at 1.1 volts so I figure that would improve battery life as well.
Heat
The heat is not too bad, but there is some definite noticeable heat on the palm rest and keyboard on the left side, which I attribute to the Hitachi HD. The HD has gotten all the way up to 52 C according to Centrino Hardware Control. As I said above, I undervolted to 1.1 volts for 14x, and my average CPU temp (Again, according to CHC) is about 58 C just doing websurfing and such. It goes to mid 60's under full load. Before undervolting it was like mid 60's-70's. The bottom of the notebook gets very hot on AC, I wouldn't put it on my lap. The palmrest is fine, however. You could barely consider it "warm", there is just a slight amount of heat.
Another note on the HD... at first I was getting those famous "Clicks" that people associate with hitachi 7200 rpm drives (mine is 5400). I changed the HD settings in CHC to "Max performance" and that took care of it. However, there is a high pitched "whirring" noise the HD makes that kinda gets on my nerves, its not loud but its noticeable. I'm considering switching it for a seagate drive (which might also run cooler) however I dont wanna go through the hassle of reformatting.
DVD+/-RW drive:
Havnt used it yet.
Quirks:
None except for HD noise and heat.
Pricing and reseller experience:
I think it came out to ~1750 from ISTNC. I would highly recommend them. Rick is just the man plain and simple.
Overall
I'm glad I waited for this baby... it was worth it!!!
9.5/10 - 10/10 if I switch the HD and it takes care of heat and noise.
PICS: http://www.notebookforums.com/showthread.php?t=103029
Asus Z70Va
1.86 Ghz Pentium M
1 GIG DDR2 RAM
ATI X700 128MB PCI-Express
Internal Bluetooth
A/B/G 802.11 Wireles
15.4 Inch SXGA+ Display
80 Gig 5400 RPM HD
Looks
VERY SLEEK. A lot of my friends came over and saw it and said it looked very "professional." One of my friends who got a dell was in awe, he thought it was something the president would have. Overall just beautiful. I love the trim on the side and it dips toward the bottom (the cut out section).
Build
VERY SOLID. The keyboard feels great. I hate using laptop keyboards in general but this one I don't mind so much. It feels big enough so that my fingers dont feel chunky, and the keys go in pretty far which is something I like, so that I feel like I am actually pushing stuff.
Weight & Mobility
It is bigger than I pictured it, but that's not a bad thing, its still light. I'm used to carrying around my brother's old inspiron 8200 which was like 10 lbs and smaller than this. I put this in my new timberland dogwood backpack and it felt great. I could definitely carry it with books and whatever else I need in school.
Screen
This is just glorious. Its way sharper than my desktop CRT monitor upstairs. At first I was worried that the SXGA+ resolution would be too small for my liking (in terms of font size at native settings). When we got my bros inspiron a few years back, I go UXGA not knowing about resolution and whatnot, just thinking it was the best screen. When we got it was really a hassle to use because the text was hard to read. Not the case on this baby. Its a little smaller than I'm used to, but its not straining at all The colors are lovely, and the viewing angles are great.
Sound
The sound quality is clear, but its not as deep as I'd like, however the speakers do get very loud. I also noticed there are like 4 speakers on this thing, 2 on the screen and 2 on the base under the touchpad. Its like having surround sound
. I think I'm still going to get external speakers for my dorm, because he bass isnt as deep as I'd like. Overall the sound is clear, but not great for music.Touchpad
I'll be honest I barely used the touchpad so far, only when I was installing windows. From what I could tell it was easy enough to use, but I will always use a mouse just because I dont like touchpads. I really like the click buttons though, they are implemented to be perfectly flat unlike my dell where they pop out and are ugly.
Performance and Benchmarks
CS:S source runs great at native res with most settings on high. I typically get 50 fps. I would like to run it at lower res because I prefer faster FPS, but it doesn't look quite as sharp at a lower res and 50 fps is playable enough for me.
3dmark 05 I got 2371 with default drivers, and 2374 with Omega's 5.7 ATI control panel didn't work with Omega so I went back to default.
Battery Life
The battery said ~3 hours remaining when it was fully charged on "Always on" mode. I have been running on AC, but I figure if I put it on "portable" mode it will increase the battery life a lot. I also undervolted significantly to 14x at 1.1 volts so I figure that would improve battery life as well.
Heat
The heat is not too bad, but there is some definite noticeable heat on the palm rest and keyboard on the left side, which I attribute to the Hitachi HD. The HD has gotten all the way up to 52 C according to Centrino Hardware Control. As I said above, I undervolted to 1.1 volts for 14x, and my average CPU temp (Again, according to CHC) is about 58 C just doing websurfing and such. It goes to mid 60's under full load. Before undervolting it was like mid 60's-70's. The bottom of the notebook gets very hot on AC, I wouldn't put it on my lap. The palmrest is fine, however. You could barely consider it "warm", there is just a slight amount of heat.
Another note on the HD... at first I was getting those famous "Clicks" that people associate with hitachi 7200 rpm drives (mine is 5400). I changed the HD settings in CHC to "Max performance" and that took care of it. However, there is a high pitched "whirring" noise the HD makes that kinda gets on my nerves, its not loud but its noticeable. I'm considering switching it for a seagate drive (which might also run cooler) however I dont wanna go through the hassle of reformatting.
DVD+/-RW drive:
Havnt used it yet.
Quirks:
None except for HD noise and heat.
Pricing and reseller experience:
I think it came out to ~1750 from ISTNC. I would highly recommend them. Rick is just the man plain and simple.
Overall
I'm glad I waited for this baby... it was worth it!!!
9.5/10 - 10/10 if I switch the HD and it takes care of heat and noise.
PICS: http://www.notebookforums.com/showthread.php?t=103029
) Awesome job dude, thoroughly enjoyed both the review and the pictures. I'll make sure to write a review when mine gets here too, though by then there will be like 89 reviews here ;oP. Anyways thanks again dude and congrats!
)
Once i get the call...ZOOOOOOOOOM to the office 
