Asus M6800n *56k warning*

Bought this fine piece a week ago. First of all sorry for my crappy english, but you have to bare with it
I have earlier had 2 notebooks: a chicony crapbook, and a Dell latitude D500. Besides that i have also had my hands on a Dell Inspiron 8600.

Asus delivers it as a barebone system, so theres different configurations depending on the salesplace. Here´s mine:
Specs:

1.6GHz Centrino
512MB ram PC2700(2x256)
60GB 4200 rpm HD
DVD rom/CD-rw combo 24x write
Ati 9600 64MB Graphics
Gigabit ethernet (broadcom)
Standard centrino wlan
v.92 modem
15,4" WXGA (1280x800)
4 usb 2 ports
1 firewire (mini) port
1 PCMCIA Type II slot
S-video and VGA output
1 paralell port
1 serial port
1 port replicator port
4 in 1 mediacard reader (sd/MMC/Memorystick/?)
1 IR port

Included software:
**NO OS SUPPLIED**
Drivers
Asus DVD
Asus Powerdirector 2.5
Asus MediaShow SE 2.0
Battle Engine
Gun Metal

There´s also a bag and travel mouse supplied.

Review
The keyboard is not outstanding but nice. Good feeling and nice layout. The palms rest good on the notebook, I have big hands and not bothered with it (like i am on e.g. Dell Latitude D500). The Synaptics touchpad is good and responsive, far better than the Alps Dell is using. The only thing is that the mousebuttons gives a loud "click", but they do feel pretty robust. There´s also 2 scrollbuttons between the left and right buttons. Probably good for some peoble, don´t use it myself
There buttons for: power (nice illuminated ring), email, browser, wlan (on/off), touchpad (on/off), and Asus powergear (power managment).
There´s indicators for hd activity, num lock and caps lock in the upper right corner next to the buttons. On front of the notebook are there indicators for audio dj (see below in review), power, battery, email and wlan.
You can see it here in this picture (it´s a danish keyboard):


The mouse supplied is crappy, so i use my logitech mouseman instead. The bag supplied seems ok, but i also bought the Targus sprint backpack, which is pretty nice.

On the left side there´s the audio dj buttons. The audio dj can start up the notebook (with a button just under the surface) and listen cd´s. There also controls for play/pause, stop, ff and rev. These can aslo control Win media player. Can´t make them control winamp which is pretty annoying. Also if i move the notebook when it´s on i often hit the buttons and media player starts up
The firewire, IR, PCMCIA, cardreader, Ethernet, modem and audioports (mic/headphone) is also on this side.


On the back you have the power, usb, s-video, vga, serial, parallel and docking ports. Haven´t tried the video out ports yet. Nothing to say about those.


On the right you have the combodrive and airvent. The airvent is not espcially noisy (compared to the Dell Inspiron 8600), and only runs on heavy tasks. The combo drive is nice and burns fast. The only thing to say about is you have disc that´s a little out of sharp, it sounds like a train in action. With not "damaged" disc it´s ok. It´s a Toshiba SD-R2512. It can be removed and you can put a 2nd HD or battery in there.


There´s 4 speakers in the widwscreen edition. The 2 below the screen and also 2 in front. I think they sound better than many notebook speakers, but of course no bass at all.
They weight is ok (2.7kg) the size compared. It´s also thin compared to the dell 8600.


the overall build quality seems nice. It´s not quirky, and its pretty robust.
The screen is nice and bright, and you have a great viewangle. The only negative is that´s it´s only 1280x800. I have also heard that some peoble has had problems with the 4:3 models, that the screen is unevenly ilumninated. But all have had it replaced without problems. The ati card is SO FAST!. It runs Need For Speed Underground in 1024x768 with all options on/full perfect.


Conclusion:
I´m very happy with it. There´s only small things that irritates me. F.ex. when i have run NFSU for a couple of hours it get pretty hot underneath (can still sit with on my lab), but this is the only place. Also for some reason they have placed an airvent above the keyboard, which get´s covered when you close the lid, but don´t know if something happens, no warnings in the manual.
The placement of the ports and slots is perfect, no cables in the way on the right site, nice when using a mouse.
The Audio DJ stuff i don´t get, i would be happier without.
It´s responsive and the drivers supplied is good and stable.
I haven´t tested the batterytime, but others have reported it to be around 4,5 - 5 hours for office use.

The price in Denmark is: 2.476$ for comparation, the price for the Acer Ferrari is: 2.311 and a comparaple dell inspiron 8600 is the same as the acer.
It´s a little expensive, but it hink it´s worth the money.
That´s all for now, ask if you want to know anything.

1. As told they it to the distributors as barebones. That means they comes without hd & ram, that´s why the difference. I could also have it with a 5400rpm hd, but that was to expensive.

2. Mine is a M6800n and it´s the 15.4" version (widescreen). For some reason in germany this one is sold as the 6700n while the normal 15.1" & 14" (4:3) are sold as M6800n. Don´t if this is the case in portugal.

3. The screen is bright and pure. I´ve heard it´s the same that compaq uses for some of their notebooks, and it has been given great reviews. The 256k thing is because every laptop doesn´t have (except some really expensive ibm´s and sony´s) The reason they say it has 16.7m colors is because they dither it. So does this but asus just tells the real thing. There an article about this on Tom´s hardware. You can probably find link for it here in the forum. No problems at all although my SGI CRT is alot better, but theres a reason for that $$$$$

4. If you look at this page http://www.asus.com/products/noteboo...s/m6_index.htm . Mine is the far right, the 2 others doesn´t have the speakers. A better image of the 15.1" model can be seen here: http://www.hobo.dk/danny/asus/pages/dscf0222.html (among some others i found when researching for the notebook )

5. Nope it´s plastic, but it has metallic look to it, and it feels like good quality, not like the Dell inspiron series, which you get the feeling that it will break apart when you lift it.

6. No bluetooth Would have been nice to sync my Palm TT and cell phone with.

7. Memorystick all the way. Here´s a complet list from the manual: "SD, MMC, Memory Stick, Memory Stick Select, Memory Stick Duo (with MS adapter), Memory Stick Pro and Memory Stick Pro Duo (With MS Adapter). Memory sticks may be standard or with MagicGate Technology"

8. Haven´t had the chance to test the wireless. Although my roommate has a linksys PCMCIA Wireless adapter, it can see no networks, while mine can see one in this building.

If you have more questions feel free to ask (i have alot of air )

The free host i had didn´t like the pictures (or traffic they created). Have moved them to another host, so should be accesible now

1. It´s because of the locking mechanism. It´s pretty tight. The screen doesn´t feel "bendy" in any way (if you can say that ).

2. It´s not a serial port, it´s the vga output (serial is a male conductor). And no, it doesn´t have any.

3. Don´t know the x1000, but i think that the screen is awesome. Wanted to take some pics of the screen, but my camera didn´t do it justice.
Some people have reported problems of the screens (the 15.1" model), they where unevenly lit, and they have been replaced, no questions asked. That´s the only defect I have heard about.

If you have the possibilty to try it in a store, i would suggest you to do it. My experience is that the keyboards are very different on notebooks, and it´s a personal taste for what you like. Just take a look on reviews on the Acer Aspire 2003, some hate the keyboard while other love it (actually wanted to buy it, but it was too expensive.

To this point my asus haven´t disappointed me at all. The quality is as good as the motherboards. There is no cheap feeling about it.

No it´s a combo drive. It can only read dvd´s and burn cd-rw. Don´t know about the dvd ram drives. This was what i found on the asus page:

- Interchangeable 5.25" 24X CD-ROM, 8X DVD-ROM
- Interchangeable 24X/24X/8X/24X DVD+CD-RW Combo module
- Interchangeable 1X2X/16X10X/8X24X DVD-RW module
- Interchangeable 2X(2.4X)4X/24X24X/ 8X24X DVD-RW/DVD+RW Dual/Multi module
- Support Module Hot Swap Function and 2nd HDD/2nd Battery

I think the acer looks really cool and have some nice stuff. I don´t do such much gaming (except for NFSU ) so 9200 would be fine for me, and my asus is with 60GB anyway.
But as told i don´t regret the asus. it´s the nicest notebook i have had and worked with.

It´s the Acer Aspire 2003. You can check it out here: http://global.acer.com/products/notebook/as2000.htm
It´s the upgraded version that´s called 2003

1. I bet an ibm t40 is not so heavy, but it´s not overhelming. Still pretty ok for a notebook in this size.

2. Asus report it to be: 354 x 273 x 22-34 mm(WxDxH,). Just measured it with closed lit, and got these 354x273x40 mm, so thicker than asus reports. It actually looks thinner because the bottom part is smaller than the keyboard.

3. Nope haven´t had that problem. Tried to make it shake, and i have to punch the keyboard heavily to make it shake.

4. 15.4" is always larger than 15.1" . It´s a measurement, not a technical term No to be serious, I haven´t figured out yet, the use of space between the models.

Edit:
Tried to measure the screen. The visible area is 15.35"

Well I think the sound quality is a little bit over notebook standard, but as a working sound engineer i would prefer anything else than notebook speakers. Usually i use headphones.
They actually used the 4 speaker configuration a little smart. While the ones under the notebook supplies the treble range, the ones under the screen supplies mainly the midtone range, You can see it as a wannabe 2-way system, but it actually works