Help: Asus m6bne vs. Asus m3np

I have owned several laptops made by Dell, IBM, one HP (bad mistake). I also own an Asus M6BNE, and I gotta say, that laptop is killer. You won't be disappointed by it.

In terms of your requirements... here is where it gets a little tricky...
- Any gaming laptop will weigh at least 5.5lbs or more, usually 6lbs. This is just the starting weight, they can go up to 10lbs+.
- Gaming laptops usually do not last over 2 years. To give you perspective, a Dell Inspiron 8200 that I purchased THREE years ago has a Geforce Go 440 in it.... that's a Geforce 4 MX. And that laptop weighs 8lbs+.

If you are not looking to play games on it, then the life of your laptop increases dramatically. A laptop used for Office applications, web browsing, email, CD/DVD burning, and DVD watching does not demand the latest and greatest hardware. A non-gaming laptop will easily last you 3-4 years.

So, here is what I would recommend:
1. You use a laptop for portability, you use a desktop computer for gaming (after all, how many times will you be gaming away from your home or dorm room?). In this case, I recommend the Asus S5N or a Dell Inspiron 700m. Both are around the 3lbs mark. The Asus is REALLY slick looking, hast 8hrs+ battery life with an extended 9-cell battery, and looks very nice. The only drawback is an external optical drive. The Dell Inspiron 700m is similar in weight and battery life, has a 12" widescreen display, and has a built-in optical drive. The only drawback is that it looks a little more plain than the Asus.

Here is a link for Inspiron 700m review:
http://www.anandtech.com/mobile/showdoc.aspx?i=2296

Here is a link for Asus S5N review (the unit pictured is black, the unit you can buy is actually all white):
http://www6.tomshardware.com/mobile/20040225/index.html
http://www.freundt.org/s5200n/

2. Now, if you are intent on having a portable laptop that also does gaming, I highly recommend the Asus M6BNE. It is relatively lightweight for its power (6.5lbs with optical drive, the 5.5lbs number is without optical drive), has an incredible screen, looks very classy, and has an overall "very high build quality" feel to it. Battery life is 3hrs-4hrs on single battery, 6hrs-8hrs with secondary battery (remove optical drive and put a battery in there).

I travel a lot for business, so I wanted a laptop that I could play games on while travelling, watch DVDs on planes, have enough power to run server-class applications, have good battery life, and still be lightweight enough to carry around all of the time. M6BNE is it.


To answer your questions:
1. No, the $500 difference between 1.6Ghz and 2.0Ghz is not worth it. However, you might want to consider 1.6Ghz to 1.7Ghz. There is a bigger performance boost on the low-end of the Ghz scale, and 1.6Ghz to 1.7Ghz is relatively cheap.

You're better off spending your money on buying lots of RAM (at least 512MB if you're on a budget, but I highly recommend 1GB).

2. There is very little difference in battery life between 5400rpm and 7200rpm, but there is a noticable performance boost. See this:

Article on performance:
http://www6.tomshardware.com/mobile/20041213/index.html
RPM speed vs. battery life:
http://www17.tomshardware.com/mobile...031/index.html

3. No, the modular bay on the Asus M6BNE requires a special bracket to mount properly. Once this bracket is installed, any optical drive will work. I do not think you can buy a bracket.

I find that http://www.stipc.com is an excellent place to shop for Asus. Great prices, too.

I hate waiting for hard drive loads, so I bought a Hitachi 7k40 7200rpm drive. Best upgrade I ever made for my laptop.

Acer 3204 is coming out in a week or 2. Has 1.7ghz, 100gb, dvd burner, 64mb 9700 (or 9600 forgot what), and weighs about 5.5 with everything it for $1800. Only problem is that the i heard the battery life will be about 3 hours and the 100gb might be only 4200rpm.

But if not, I was also considering buying those models, but really liked the msbne. Only problem is I am not sure if I want to carry 6.5lb when I go to the library. Otherwise, it's the lightest 15" that you'll find with a nice specs.

the m6bne is not 5.5 lbs. its more like 6.5, maybe a few ounces more. Using the battery saving features and turning down LCD brightness to about 25% will get you 5 hours