Review: Review of Asus M6826N-UP (A lot of Pictures)

Hey everyone, I've decided to write my own review of of the Asus M68Ne.
Here's some technical stuff on it:

Model: M6826N-UP
LCD: SXGA+ 1400x1050
CPU: P-M Centrino 1,5G
Memory: 512MBDDR (2*256)
HDD: 60GB
GFX: ATI Radeon 9600
CD/DVD-ROM: DVD+/-RW

It arrived today in a post package like this:


Just opened:

More bits and pieces

Unvieling of the flagship!

Powering up.

After turning on the lappy and configuring the basic stuff I tested the SD memory card reader. It seems to work fine !


A positive thing is about the cd holder is that it has a protrusion at the end. This makes it easier for you to switch cds. My girlfriends Compac lappy does not have this and you have to blance it back to not bend it while inserting the cd.
With this you just pop it in and it won't bend, coolness.

The negative thing I found on the M6 is this hinge, when you touch it, it seems jiggly. I don't know if anyone else has this problem, but it seems a bit loose and not in it's place. If you close the laptop the hinge will snap back into its place making a small echoing sound inside it. This proves that there is no shock absorbers inside the lock mechanism. Too bad I was expecting more from Asus heh.

But still, Asus affords to put a plastic cover on its logotype that I found on the Asus laptop carrying bag. I actually have this as my wallpaper at the moment in a better resolution Send me a message if you want it hehe.

Here are some camerashots on the LCD display. I am really amazed by the quality if the LCD. I have no dead pixels (Phew). The images really doesn't do it justice. The LCD is truly crystal clear. I can actually afford to set it on middle brightness and it still supplies sufficient lightning.
The gradient effect is something that is dependent on how you are sitting and the angle that the screen is set on. My girlfriends laptop is a lot worse in this matter.
As you can see in the Diablo 2 (I'm on hc europe ladder if anyone wants to play ) screenshot that the gradient is a bit darker on the top part of the screen. But if I would move the camera lower I'd get a darker area in the bottom part.
If you set the angle correct you won't notice the gradient problem. My guess is that this is somewhat a problem for all 15' LCD screens. The widescreens have a less vertical viewing range and isn't as notable.


Some Gun Metal shots.




An extreme closeup on the LCD screen, if you imagine the color quality more vibrant you should get some idea about how it looks like in person.


And now for the highlight of this review! The good 'ol benchmarks!
Here's the score in 3dmark2001

and 3dmark2003

I'd say I'm pretty impressed of the scores! I didn't think I'd get that high with a PM 1.5 Ghz + 9600 mobility radeon

Conclusion:
I am very happy with my purchase, it came with more accessories then I'd hope for. A carrying case, USB mouse, 2 full games and a demo disc, + nero burning rom + dvd viewer software. Even with the somewhat low cost lock mechanism the build is very sturdy.

The lappy can also be used as a cd player when turned off. There's a switch on the leftside to turn it into audio cd player mode. Using the Audio Dj buttons you can navigate through the tracks. This is a plus for college students who don't afford a cd player

The carrying case is of high quality, it has extra storage for documents and notes which is good to have on your seminars.

Preformance: B+
Build quality: A-
Design: A
Accessories:A
LCD quality:A
Value: B+


So to top it off I put this final cool camerashot of the powerlight, see how it reflects on the Asus logo? Isn't that totally cool?

RSmash: It's very quiet actually while websurfing, I can't hear the fan at all. When you are gaming it turns on sometimes but it's not that annoying. They keys are quite quiet. Of course you can really hammer them and make sounds but if you type gently it can be pretty quiet. Good thing to know if you're going to take notes in class. The highest noiselevel wise is undoubtly the cd-drive. But if you have your disc spinning at 50x something there's nothing much to do about that windy noise.

It does weigh a bit. I wouldn't say heavy, more like sturdy. It looks heavier then it is
The m68n has protrusions at the sides so it is easy to lift it to adjust it to new positions.

Nullius: Thanks! I'm using a minolta dimage x20!

The reason why I bought it is because it's really small and portable good to have at parties and travelling.

That's a good point you've got there.

Though the light emitting from the circle I find is pretty suttle. The picture was taken pitch black surrondings so it lighted up more due to the cameras compensation to loss of light.
So when having in regular light surrondings it doesn't draw much attention to it.

Of course some are more sensitive to this then others.

Wireless LAN! Just bought an access point who could send some radio signals which recieved by my lappy I was suprised when scanning for open networks that there were several unsecure connections going on here. Ahhhg these students who don't keep track of security. I'd never use wlan without wep.

I have the 128-bit encryption instead of 64-bit enabled. Whenever I'm not using the wireless I turn it off on the router, should be a bit more safe I should change my wep keys every now and then. Anyway, wireless is nice to have if you want to bring your laptop to the john. heh.

Even more scarier is the ability to intercept a connection and infuse traffic into the network and manipulating data. The things people come up with

Today I did my first physical modification of my Asus M6Ne.
I first used a flat screwdriver to remove the asus logo on top. Removed all the stickystuff undernieth. Got some superglue and turned the asus logo on the other side and glued it back My laptop is going to spend most of the time with the lcd up so I don't want to have the logo say "SNSV" Instead of Asus

I'm in sweden sorry! What do you mean by asus badges?