Asus Z70Va
2.00 Ghz Pentium M
1 GIG DDR2 RAM
ATI X700 128MB PCI-Express
Internal Bluetooth
A/B/G 802.11 Wireles
15.4 Inch WSXGA+ Display
100 Gig 5400 RPM HD
Looks
This thing is beautiful. The shots on ISTNC's order page barely do it justice. It is incredibly sharp looking and stylish.
Build
I havent found a single loose part yet, everything is solid. No creaks when you open the LCD like many laptops I've used. The carbon fiber frame was a great choice and I feel that it will hold up to the abuses I tend to put things through.
Weight & Mobility
It's much lighter than my old highschool's toshibas (but that's not saying much, those things were bricks). It doesnt bother me at all to carry around. The size is only slightly larger than I expected it to be, but that just means more screen space than I expected and keeps me happy anyway. It is by no means to big or too heavy.
Screen
This screen is very very sharp. Much cleaner than my desktop's sony. No bright or stuck pixels anywhere, no dead ones either. And I'm yet to notice any lag or blurring.
Sound
The sound quality is bearable. But for somone who's used to surround sound on their desktop and alot of bass it's a big hit for me. I'll be buying external speakers once I get the money around. (haha text books are expensive).
Touchpad
I used the touch pad for a day before i stole the trackball off my desktop. I may hate touch pads, but this one is workable.
Performance and Benchmarks
The only game I play currently is world of warcraft. I'll be trying to get my hands on battlefield 2 or halflife 2 soon. I'll also install doom 3 later if I have time to take a break from packing up before I move into the dorms.
As for a 3D mark 05 benchmark I got 2411 with the stock drivers. I wont be getting different drivers for a day or two at least.
Battery Life
Projected life on higher performance - 3:02 hours.
Projected life on battery save mode - 3:45 hours.
This is with itunes, 3 windows of aim. Firefox with 3 tabs open. Thunderbird checking for email. I'm sure watching a dvd or something where the optical drive was constantly spinning would cut it down significantly.
Heat
I notice some heat from the right rear fan and a little on the left side of the touch pad. No heat is apparent anywhere else, and this may just be me because I tend to have cold hands. However it warms my hands up, so it's an advantage if you look at it that way lol
.
Noise
What noise? I barely hear the fans when they're running, especially since I almost always have music playing.
DVD+/-RW drive:
I've only burnt a few music CD's with this to test it out, using both the provided Nero disk and iTunes. No coasters yet, and all of the cd's read flawlessly in other players around my house.
I haven't burnt any dvd's as of yet.
Quirks:
I guess this is where I say I like the blue LED's.
Pricing and reseller experience:
This was about 1744 from ISTNC with a free processor upgrade from 1.86 to 2.00G because I ordered before the Intel price drop. I had a great experience with Rick and he was always willing to give me information on the status of the laptops and their journy from taiwan.
Overall
9.7/10, quite possibly 10/10 when I get my hands on a bluetooth mouse and dont have to deal with cords anymore. I'm so glad I didnt cancel my order when people started mind****ing themselves about this laptop and the arrival date.
I recommend the laptop and ISTNC to anyone looking for a higher end mobile rig that wont tear your arm off when you carry it like an XPS2 (Not that I dont like the XPS2 I just didn't want a complete DTR, needs to come to class with me on occasion.)
P.S. Sorry for any spelling or grammatical errors, luckily I'm not an english major.
2.00 Ghz Pentium M
1 GIG DDR2 RAM
ATI X700 128MB PCI-Express
Internal Bluetooth
A/B/G 802.11 Wireles
15.4 Inch WSXGA+ Display
100 Gig 5400 RPM HD
Looks
This thing is beautiful. The shots on ISTNC's order page barely do it justice. It is incredibly sharp looking and stylish.
Build
I havent found a single loose part yet, everything is solid. No creaks when you open the LCD like many laptops I've used. The carbon fiber frame was a great choice and I feel that it will hold up to the abuses I tend to put things through.
Weight & Mobility
It's much lighter than my old highschool's toshibas (but that's not saying much, those things were bricks). It doesnt bother me at all to carry around. The size is only slightly larger than I expected it to be, but that just means more screen space than I expected and keeps me happy anyway. It is by no means to big or too heavy.
Screen
This screen is very very sharp. Much cleaner than my desktop's sony. No bright or stuck pixels anywhere, no dead ones either. And I'm yet to notice any lag or blurring.
Sound
The sound quality is bearable. But for somone who's used to surround sound on their desktop and alot of bass it's a big hit for me. I'll be buying external speakers once I get the money around. (haha text books are expensive).
Touchpad
I used the touch pad for a day before i stole the trackball off my desktop. I may hate touch pads, but this one is workable.
Performance and Benchmarks
The only game I play currently is world of warcraft. I'll be trying to get my hands on battlefield 2 or halflife 2 soon. I'll also install doom 3 later if I have time to take a break from packing up before I move into the dorms.
As for a 3D mark 05 benchmark I got 2411 with the stock drivers. I wont be getting different drivers for a day or two at least.
Battery Life
Projected life on higher performance - 3:02 hours.
Projected life on battery save mode - 3:45 hours.
This is with itunes, 3 windows of aim. Firefox with 3 tabs open. Thunderbird checking for email. I'm sure watching a dvd or something where the optical drive was constantly spinning would cut it down significantly.
Heat
I notice some heat from the right rear fan and a little on the left side of the touch pad. No heat is apparent anywhere else, and this may just be me because I tend to have cold hands. However it warms my hands up, so it's an advantage if you look at it that way lol
.Noise
What noise? I barely hear the fans when they're running, especially since I almost always have music playing.
DVD+/-RW drive:
I've only burnt a few music CD's with this to test it out, using both the provided Nero disk and iTunes. No coasters yet, and all of the cd's read flawlessly in other players around my house.
I haven't burnt any dvd's as of yet.
Quirks:
I guess this is where I say I like the blue LED's.
Pricing and reseller experience:
This was about 1744 from ISTNC with a free processor upgrade from 1.86 to 2.00G because I ordered before the Intel price drop. I had a great experience with Rick and he was always willing to give me information on the status of the laptops and their journy from taiwan.
Overall
9.7/10, quite possibly 10/10 when I get my hands on a bluetooth mouse and dont have to deal with cords anymore. I'm so glad I didnt cancel my order when people started mind****ing themselves about this laptop and the arrival date.
I recommend the laptop and ISTNC to anyone looking for a higher end mobile rig that wont tear your arm off when you carry it like an XPS2 (Not that I dont like the XPS2 I just didn't want a complete DTR, needs to come to class with me on occasion.)
P.S. Sorry for any spelling or grammatical errors, luckily I'm not an english major.
. Love the guy, I didn't even have to ask before he put it in the mail.
