ASUS M6N (or M6Ne) vs. M6BN (or M6BNe)

I personally would go with the M6BNe...I like the WXGA so much better than the SXGA+. But yes, I would go to a store, and thoughouly inspect both the 15.4" WXGA and the 15.1" SXGA+. I thought I wanted the SXGA+, until i went and looked at both, and I can't believe I even considered the SXGA+. The WXGA has such better viewing angles (for your presentations), no gradient issue (which was really annoying, just for the 5 minutes i was looking at it, IMO), and i personally don't like the higher resolutions, because everything is so much smaller. And yes, on an SXGA+ screen you can make the resolution less, but even if it is in the 4:3 ratio, it just doesn't look right to me. As far as the speakers are concerned, I heard the 4 give you mroe midrange...obviously not gunna be great, but, the more the better. And yes, those buttons underneith the touchpad are vertical scrolling buttons. Don't know if they become horizontal.

And i've told you once, Quagmire says giggidY not giggidA

hm... interesting dilemma u got here... considering the difference in the 15.1" and 15.4" screens are only <$50 generally ($30 at rjtech, $25 at topmicro)

i'm also looking at this machine but have never even thought about getting the 15.1" version... my main reason was movies plus wide is cool

others may mention the vertical view angle being crappy on the SXGA+... i've never seen wut it looks like... but if it isn't anywhere near the 170 degrees both vertical and horizontal on my desktop lcd... i personally would not want it

just my toughts...

I just picked up my M6BN about 2 weeks ago. So far, I'm pleased.

The specs are:

Dothan 735
1 gig ram, 2x512, Crucial
ATI Radeon 9600, 64 vram
15.4" wxga (1280x800)
60 gig, 7200 rpm
DVD/CDRW
WiFi B/G

$1789 from Spartan Micro (ebay store). Ask for Brandon; he kicks ass.

I do lotsa CAD (2D and 3D), and fairly intensive image editing (I'm a free lance architecture/urban/graphic designer and photographer). This machine just got me through a tight spot this past week, landing a master planning job for a Vietnamese developer (notoriously impatient).

I thought I should wait for the M6Ne (radeon 9700), but this machine handled all the civil survey stuff and hi-res graphics without much of a fuss. I don't think there's too much performance difference (outside of game use) between the 9600 and 9700, if they're both at 64 meg vram. I'll do 2 gig ram when the DDR333 1 gig chip get a little cheaper.

The screen's beautiful: very good contrast/saturation, as well as quite sharp for XGA, the unit's reasonably light (~6 lbs w/ battery), and looks sleek on the table at meetings (now the Powerbook people aren't the only stylish ones out there!).

Drawbacks are the speakers and the keyboard:

Sitting on a hard surface, the four way speaker system is kind of tinny and shrill (if you're anywhere close to audiophile, you'll find they suck: my wife calls the sound quality barfy, but she used to be a DJ), but with OK volume; but on the lap, you can hardly hear a DVD at all. Perhaps it's a software issue (anyone?). Headphones sound great, though, which is my most common audio interface (Sennheiser PX-200's; ugly but sound AWESOME!)

The keyboard is kind of mushy and thin throughout, and in the two lower corners (closest to you), there's quite a bit of flex. I'm getting used to it, but as a former mechanic and general lover of precision things, it's kind of annoying. My wife's 4 year old Toshiba Satellite's keyboard is far superior, as is my friend's IBM X series. Oh, well. For the money, who cares.

I live in San Francisco, so if anyone's around, email me and we could meet for you to check it out. When I was shopping for this one (my first laptop), going to Best Buy just didn't cut it.

regards,

Ted

tsrzad@gmail.com

http://notebookforums.com/showthread.php?t=27486
guy there has no problems with the keyboard... i hope it's good... i'm getting a M6BNe in the next month or so too...

I may have been too critical, as I am certainly getting used to the keyboard. I bitched about it for about 2 days; subsequently, it didn't bother me much. A lighter touch on my part has really helped. Basically, my complaints about the keyboard and the speakers didn't keep me from getting the M6Bn, nor has it kept me from enjoying it.

Soreness of hands and wrists has not been a problem, even with a couple 4-5 hour marathons under the belt. Heat isn't troublesome for me either, though this is summertime in San Francisco: a hot day's 78 degrees.

For me, it's an awesome choice in the balance of specs, form factor, performance and price. $1789, 6lbs, 3.5hrs battery at full power, and will run all my 2D/3D CAD and graphics stuff? No brainer for me.

I'm also considering the M6BN and have a few questions for you guys. (please keep in mind I'm a newbie to laptops... but doing my research)

What does the screen look like..? I've read a lot on this thread about WXGA vs. SXGA+, etc. But when I went to Good Guys to check out the screens... the Sony Vaio WXGA's looked *much* prettier than other WXGA's. More saturated colors, brighter, etc. Not the usual "dull" laptop look.

What's up with that?

Are there any M6BN's out there in Fry's / Good Guys, etc. land (with another companies name stuck on it) where I can see it before I buy??

Also, a guy at PowerNotebooks told me the M6BNe (with the 9700 Radeon) will not ship for at least 30 days. Is this correct?

Thanks!

OK, I will try to explain...
You are comparing two different LCD technologies. The ASUS, and most standard notebooks have standard LCD panels (forget what they are called, most people just call them LCD's). The SONY's (with XBrite), Sharp's, and quite a few others have an LCD panel called IPS Technology. (In-plane-switching, I think is what it stands for). Some IBM's have this, the HP 17" zd7000 is available with one. Each manufacturer that uses IPS screens has their own name for it, XBrite, Crystal View, etc. etc. The IPS is a totally different LCD screen technology, the transistors are setup differently per pixel. Anyhow, IPS is unmistakeable, since it usually has a plate-glass appearance. The downsides of it are: it is a slow screen (usually shows ghosting) and it uses more power, and it is very reflective (although IBM puts an anti-reflective coating on theirs.) When it was invented, it was never intended for laptop use because it used way too much power, but it has been improved. I like it a lot, except, I don't like to see my own reflection in a screen, or the reflection of room lights, etc. Other than that, IPS is great, has great contrast ratios, and depth of color. If you can ignore the glare, it is fantastic. I can't ignore it.
The standard LCD's (like the ASUS) have a flat, non-glare appearance, less color depth and less smaller contrast ratios.
I hope I have explained this ok. Just do a google search for "LCD IPS technology" and you will find plenty to read.

Andrew
Austin, TX

Thanks Andrew! That helps a lot!

Sean.

also, i find the sound with the 4 speakers to be much better than many two speaker systems, i believe it was aliensub one of the first members with the m6bn who is a sound engineer saying that the 4 speaker do much better than 2 on this lappy, and much better compared to most laptop speakers.

Personally, I find the keyboard to be very good for a laptop. The only area where there i a little give is the upper right corner ( Ins/Delete/Backspace area) but it doesn't bother me much. In all it is 500% better then a couple of Dells and toshibas that I've tried recently. Note - I use this baby all day long for ~10 hours of typing as a comparison my colleague with the Dell uses an external keyboard.

Edit - /Begin Rant:
My biggest problem with the keyboard is the misplacement of the Fn and Ctrl keys relative to each other., and the shift key. The idiot that came up with it obviously does not use a computer for any real work! That was/is a really big bummer that still pi**es me off. If anyone knows of a way to change them, please post it or pm me.

/End Rant

For the toggle switch in the middle, the up down can be mapped to be left/right arrows. In fact you can map any of the buttons to be a few predefined actions, or even keystrokes of your choice. Currently I have the up button mapped to "Alt + F4" which will close most windows, and the down to be "Minimize current window". This is all made possible by the fantastic Synaptics mouse pad who's drivers implement the side scrolling extremely well.

i too love the keyboard on my lappy, even though im still waiting for the new battery, the keyboard is great i also type on it all day long, and game, the synaptics pad is much better than others i have used and definatly better than alps ones

Sorry, I haven't heard of any shift key problems on the M6N yet. What is it? Is it too small or placed wrong?

Also, that scroll button thing sounds really nice and handy. Thanks for adding another plus to my list of reasons for the M6N!

meh... i think the general forum is just dominated by CL56 owners such that much of the pluses for many other machines don't get pointed out as often

all the pluses i've found so far:
- better battery life (plus ability for 2nd battery)
- better sound
- smooth keyboard
- no heat probs
- cool buttons/lights all around the machine
- plays cd's with laptop turned off
- gigabit lan

some minuses:
- 9700 64mb (the only real minus)
- more $$ than cl56 (whatever cheapos )

come on m6/n/ne/bn/bne owners... need to step up and tell us how good these lappies are...

btw... getting a m6bne in 3-4 weeks... still praying for the WSXGA version to come out by then

While it may be true.. those minuses are huge for most people. No way I'd buy a GPU (that I planned to game on) with less than 128mb vram, I like resolution and details.

Plus, personally, I like the looks of the CL56 better. It's simplier.

see wut i'm saying... cl56 luvers won't quit... heh

I don't even own one, and I'm not even particularly looking to buy a laptop anytime soon (no money, I'm just here for the discussion and experiences while waiting for technology to catch up to where I want it to be).

Well, I thought about waiting for the WSXGA to be released here, but I couldn't stand using my slow VAIO any more, so I ordered an M6Ne. Looking forward to being able to do reasonable work wirelessly. My VAIO's battery is down to 40 minutes runtime, and it's not worth it to buy a new battery for it.

HOly war, who did you get your lappy from? Proportable?