I took the plunge and bought ABS zForce F2 - Page 2

i frequently travel also yet i'm not too concerned with the weight. i was hoping the mayhem would allow me to burn video to dvd's and then ship the video to my friends and family in the united states. in your opinion would the g1 suffice? and also abspc states that the g1's battery life is 3.5 hours!? are the fudging with the numbers? thanks

Your requirements are pretty vague here. Just about any laptop made with a DVD burner fits this. IMHO, if you're just starting to shop I would make a list. Put down at least 10 requirements you would like in your next laptop and rank them in order of importance to you. Your list should cover things like cost, weight, size, battery, software, display size, display resolution, purpose(what do u use the notebook for?), ect. Mark the ones that are must haves. Come back and start a new thread. Include your list and ask for opinions. You might be surprised by what you end up with, but I'll bet you'll be alot happier with your purchase.

Maybe they were listing the battery life w/ a dual battery setup? That sounds about right...

Anyway, I think XSternMinator has hit the nail right on the head in discussing the difference between the zForce F2 and the Mayhem G1. The G1 is meant to be a Sager-esque desktop replacement - something that will sit on your desk most of the time and usually connected to an outlet. It's powerful, but for routine tasks, a 1.7 Ghz Centrino wouldn't be that much slower than a P4 3.2 Ghz w/ HT.

You can also consider getting an external DVD-RW drive or (maybe) a swappable internal DVD-RW drive. This way, you save some wear and tear on your laptop's optical drive, and can copy discs on the fly. Personally, I think ibuypower charges a bit too much over ABS w/ the only clear advantage being custom painting.

The system I ordered from abs is $240 cheaper than the exact same system with a dvd-burner from ibuypower. Their 2x dvd writer is definately not worth the $240 when I could get an external firewire 8x dvd writer from newegg for less than $200. Maybe its not as portable, but it would be much faster and a dvd writer isn't something I imagine really needs to be carried around.

as far as why the 1557 over the mayhem..... ditto on xtern's reply...

-WXGA is too low of a resolution for the programs I use, 3dmax, flash, dreamweaver, photoshop. My roommate recently got a 505x and I felt more like her screen was way too short instead of feeling that it was wide. Maybe if it was a wsxga+, I would have felt the "wideness" .Widescreens in general, seem to suck for games since most don't support it. Widescreen movies is about all its good for, but if I wanted to watch a movie, I'd hook my laptop to my TV anyway, also movies for me are on the absolute bottom on my "what I need a laptop for" priority list.

-Portability, 1557 is much lighter, not quite as light as I'd like it, but lighter than most comparable laptops. I'll be travelling with it very often, so combined with weight of the power supply, notebook light, firewire drive, wacom tablet, mouse, pen, cell phone/cell charger, iriver mp3 player, books, and sometimes extra clothes, every pound counts since NYC is a mass transit horror.

-Battery life- I've never had a laptop with a decent amount of battery life.... so its something I'd like to try.... but if you see me at starbucks with my laptop, PLEASE SHOOT ME.

Hey guys...

Have any of you ordered this zForce F2 and live in Canada? If so, could you enlighten me on how shipping went and if you had to pay brokerage fee's or any taxes on it?

Yep, $2.00 for subway and buses. But you can buy a Metro Card with a amount in multiples of $10 and for every $10 you get a free $2 ride.

Did you get the DDR333 custom? They don't offer that in the config choices. Also, I'd love to get a 7200 RPM drive in one of these babies!

Oh, the 333 RAM's just out of stock... arg!

will the 333 really make that big of a performance difference? I mean can someone help out with what we're really talking about here so I know if I should worry about it when I order mine...thanks!

Did any of you get the extended warranty? Three years onsite for $175 doesn't seem too bad.

hmmm.... well.... figuring at ABS, a gig of 333 DDR is a whole $10 more than a gig of 266DDR... when you're spending >$1500 bux whats the big deal of spending 10 more bux so you won't have any doubts/regrets.... Even if it didn't help at all, it might be worth it just to make the resale value a bit better. Its just 10 bux!?!? you could probably find that amount of change in all the couches/chairs in your house. 10 bux is less than what you'd spend on 2 supersized meals...

Just wondering where can I read reviews or such on ABS notebooks, ABS service etc. I got burned with my Compaq so I want to make sure, otherwise I'm going to have to go for a massively expensive IBM next.

Yeah well I was dying for the DDR333 RAM so I bothered the hell out of the ABS forum for it, lol, especially after I noticed that the Transcend DDR333 was available for the G1. Then when it finally became available, I ordered the same night. So basically I ordered on Wednesday, still in Stage 4 of 8. But mine may be slower cause I'm sure, and I hope, a LOT of people ordered that night. As long as they don't cut on quality for assemby and testing, I'd like to have as many people buying it as possible. This will increase chance of better drivers updates from Aopen. Cause right now, for the latest Aopen drivers its:

ATI VGA
6.14.10.6404

Intel INF
5.1.0.1007

Intel you can always just use Intel's reference drivers, but for your ATI your suppose to use manufacturer's. So far no posted manuals online nor BIOS updates, hope thats a good thing.

My current desktop is an ABS, solid construction. Very nice wiring, I even believe I noticed artic silver (well it was white, as oppose to how the cheaper ones usually are the black pastes). Nothing that came with the PC broke yet or had any problems, but then again they've had a lot more experiences with pcs. But from what I've read, heating is not an issue, which was a lil bit bothering for me.

I had a bit of a regret however, since two days after I ordered mine, Dell suddenly got their new $200 dollar coupon out, so if I cut my RAM by half and think of a DVD-RW replacing it, it would only cost like 60 dollars more. But I dunno I just don't really like the name dell, more because of their eccentricity in pricing and how they charge for parts than anything else. I gotta say the F2 looks better than the 8600, is a lb lighter, and according to some reviews, its also got a slightly better life.

http://club.aopen.com.tw/pss/nblarge...ucts/1556G.jpg
http://12.106.78.103/pictures/AO57-FRONT-L.jpg
http://12.106.78.103/pictures/AO57-BACK-L.jpg
http://12.106.78.103/pictures/AO57-LEFT-L.jpg
http://12.106.78.103/pictures/LTHBP4DD15MC-FRONT-L.jpg
http://12.106.78.103/pictures/LTHBP4DD15MC-LEFT-L.JPG
http://65.119.30.141/Productimage/34-221-012-03.JPG
http://65.119.30.141/Productimage/34-221-012-02.JPG
http://65.119.30.141/Productimage/34-221-012-09.JPG
http://65.119.30.141/Productimage/34-221-012-05.JPG
http://65.119.30.141/Productimage/34-221-012-07.JPG

So I'm still pretty happy with my choice. I was wondering whether to go for extended warranty but I figured nah. The 2Net warranty is really confusing, and I don't like confusing stuff. Besides I figured if it don't break over the summer during heavy usage in the heat, it should last me for a few years in college. I mean I probably would lose it or spill mocha over if before it overheats, and I've even bought an Antec notebook cooler just for that.

haven't seen reviews on any of their notebooks, but they get good reviews on their desktops...

http://www.abspc.com/reviews/index.asp