http://ynot2k.com/phpbb/nfphpbb/viewtopic.php?t=91
By the people at Geared-2-Play.
Asus Z70V a.k.a. M6V a.k.a. z7000 a.k.a. z7000v Review
Tested model Specs:
Intel Pentium M 1.86ghz 533fsb
40gb 5400rpm WD 8mb
1gb (512mbx2) Dual Channel ddr2-533
802.11abg intel-2915
General Appearance:
WHat can I say? What did you expect from m6n revision. Looks damn fine. Beatiful carbon composite design. This one however does not share the same assembly as the last. Something you would like to take to a client meeting. Sturdy design as always was on the original m6n. No crackling, squaking or bending. Very sleek looking laptop with tons of extras packed into it. Go to any other brand with this much extras packed into it and it will weight atleast a pound or two more. I like the sqaure type design. This was my main dislike of the z71v, it didn't look as good as the z70v. The people that designed this one thought ahead and did the right thing by using the x600. With the 6600 go the z70v would now dominate the sales and z71v would just drop into the shadows. That is not the case.
Ports, buttons and expansion:
The usb ports have been redisigned. Instead of putting them all on the rear left they now have two of them on the left rear. All the trademark lights and hot buttons are still here. A really nice feature they added is the optical type spdif port just like the z71v. Very useful feature for the digital quality connoisseur. Still retained the port-bar expansion port which they left out of the z71v for some reason. The mic is better now. Looks like they redisigned that becuase the old one was just crappy. The cpu is alot easier to access now. If you need to upgrade it will take a 10 year old less then 2 minutes. Under the keys you have only the second ram slot and wifi slot. Not going to describe all the ports it has. If you want to see the rundown just go here----> http://www.ynot2k.com/products/laptops/z70v/z70v.htm
On a more somber note this one has no support for SATA. A big minus in my opinion. Someone has asked if this has the fsb dip switch. It does not. They have a bluetooth button and a bluetooth light but no actual bluetooth card. If you can get over this the notebook looks damn profesional. Great touchpad. I love the integraded touch scrolling side bar instead of the conventional scroll wheel.
Video card and assembly:
Assembly is a snap. A kid can figure it out. The video card even though it is modular it will not come out as easy as the one on the z71v so i ll have to say the chances for upgrades are slim to none. Sorry i know people were hopefull The X600 in this one is 64mb, however the adapter tab under settings states its 128mb dedicated ram so it looks like asus screwed up the spec sheet. 3dMark states it has 64mb total local video memory and 64mb local texture memory. The base clock is set at 250/400 respectively GPU/VRAM. Thats a little less then the z71v's graphics adapter. We shall see how it performs with overclocking.
Screen:
Ohh my gosh. This screen is awesome. Shocking isnt it? Super wide view angles and even great verticals. I can see perfectly at 10 degrees. Thats kind of unexpected. I have only a toshiba and a dell to compare this to. This screen is of A grade Quality. Actual size is 13" wide and 8.25" high with WSXGA+ resolution. Ok i will make this as brief as possible. I may get bombarded by hate mail for saying the following. Here is what i will not be testing for:
1. Light Leekage. I am no expert in this. I have never had a single complaint of light leekage. This may be attributed to the fact that most of our customers do not come from other online forums unfortunately. No offense to anyone who complained on this. I think you are blowing the situation out of the proportion. All lcd type screens on every laptop that i have seen have this "quality". If you buy this laptop your screen will have light leekage. Consider your self lucky because your laptop is normal. Ok fine the tested model had no light leekage. This was a surprise. Cant say its a pleasant one becuase if i didn't check for it i would have never noticed. In defense of those who did complain of light leekage for other laptops i do have to say some may have been unproportionally more "leeeky".
2. Heat. I realize this is the screen part of this short review but this seems to fit here. I will not check to see how hot the palm rest feels compared to my desktop keyboard. If someone reads this and hates me after please lift your palm of your laptop regularly and take a short break before your palm sweats to death. Your HDD in your laptop most likely is right beneath the palm rest. Whether you laptop is made out of aluminum, platic, carbon alloy, cream cheese or cast iron it's going to heat up under the plam rest if the drive is under it.
3. I will not be testing for sparkles, sheens, holographics screens, or any other inherent ""anomaly"" that according to someone causes headaches as described by the many pleased and a select few unpleased customers of the z71v. This is what the z71v screen looked like. This was its natural quality. I hope and pray this z70v has it too becuase the screen looked great on the z71v. I love the screen on both of them.
Audio and Speakers:
I may have said this before but this has an optical type spdif port. This also has 4 speakers. Two on the screen and two on the front left and right corners. Awesome sound quality and even better bi-directional output. Same scenario as the buzzing bee on my last review for the z71v, but this one does have even better sound.
Noise and heat:
Its a fairly low noise unit. At normal load the fan seems to stay off for the most part. Under hi-load it will turn on and stay on. It looks like there is one speed for it. When the fan is on it is still low noise but the z71v is even lower. This one stay very cool up top. Normal opperating temp is @ 58C. Under hi-load it levels out @ 69C.
Dimmensions and battery life:
This one is 14"x10.5"x1.5" wxdxh
The battery lasts very easily upward of 4 hours. On really low setting and low load you will get close to 5 hours. The optical bay battery will give you easily 3 more hours.
Benchmarks:
3dmark-03 @3245
3dmark-05 @1171
Overclocking:
Conclusion:
Pros:
1. Has Optical Spdif
2. Refined placement of usb ports for easier accessibility
3. Very nice Wsxga+ screen
4. Carbon Alloy Chasis
5. Retained port bar expansion dock
6. Very Very impressive battery life
7. Vga actually has 128mb not 64mb
Cons:
1. A dummy bluetooth button which may or may not be usable at one time or another
2. Could have been redisigned with only 2 speakers in a low profile screen and chasis
3. A very minor bios issue which does not report proper cpu speed in windows. This is only superficial and will be corrected shortly.
4. No support for serial Ata drives.
5. A fairly weak vga card if compared to the Asus z71v.
Thats all she wrote. Overall i give this one the seal of aproval. Get it while she is cold and dont flash the bios unless you have to.
More comming........................
......................................
,...................................
(end of their review)
So, its a 128mb x600 then. YAY! (I think... this is rather confusing and contradictory)
By the people at Geared-2-Play.
Asus Z70V a.k.a. M6V a.k.a. z7000 a.k.a. z7000v Review
Tested model Specs:
Intel Pentium M 1.86ghz 533fsb
40gb 5400rpm WD 8mb
1gb (512mbx2) Dual Channel ddr2-533
802.11abg intel-2915
General Appearance:
WHat can I say? What did you expect from m6n revision. Looks damn fine. Beatiful carbon composite design. This one however does not share the same assembly as the last. Something you would like to take to a client meeting. Sturdy design as always was on the original m6n. No crackling, squaking or bending. Very sleek looking laptop with tons of extras packed into it. Go to any other brand with this much extras packed into it and it will weight atleast a pound or two more. I like the sqaure type design. This was my main dislike of the z71v, it didn't look as good as the z70v. The people that designed this one thought ahead and did the right thing by using the x600. With the 6600 go the z70v would now dominate the sales and z71v would just drop into the shadows. That is not the case.
Ports, buttons and expansion:
The usb ports have been redisigned. Instead of putting them all on the rear left they now have two of them on the left rear. All the trademark lights and hot buttons are still here. A really nice feature they added is the optical type spdif port just like the z71v. Very useful feature for the digital quality connoisseur. Still retained the port-bar expansion port which they left out of the z71v for some reason. The mic is better now. Looks like they redisigned that becuase the old one was just crappy. The cpu is alot easier to access now. If you need to upgrade it will take a 10 year old less then 2 minutes. Under the keys you have only the second ram slot and wifi slot. Not going to describe all the ports it has. If you want to see the rundown just go here----> http://www.ynot2k.com/products/laptops/z70v/z70v.htm
On a more somber note this one has no support for SATA. A big minus in my opinion. Someone has asked if this has the fsb dip switch. It does not. They have a bluetooth button and a bluetooth light but no actual bluetooth card. If you can get over this the notebook looks damn profesional. Great touchpad. I love the integraded touch scrolling side bar instead of the conventional scroll wheel.
Video card and assembly:
Assembly is a snap. A kid can figure it out. The video card even though it is modular it will not come out as easy as the one on the z71v so i ll have to say the chances for upgrades are slim to none. Sorry i know people were hopefull The X600 in this one is 64mb, however the adapter tab under settings states its 128mb dedicated ram so it looks like asus screwed up the spec sheet. 3dMark states it has 64mb total local video memory and 64mb local texture memory. The base clock is set at 250/400 respectively GPU/VRAM. Thats a little less then the z71v's graphics adapter. We shall see how it performs with overclocking.
Screen:
Ohh my gosh. This screen is awesome. Shocking isnt it? Super wide view angles and even great verticals. I can see perfectly at 10 degrees. Thats kind of unexpected. I have only a toshiba and a dell to compare this to. This screen is of A grade Quality. Actual size is 13" wide and 8.25" high with WSXGA+ resolution. Ok i will make this as brief as possible. I may get bombarded by hate mail for saying the following. Here is what i will not be testing for:
1. Light Leekage. I am no expert in this. I have never had a single complaint of light leekage. This may be attributed to the fact that most of our customers do not come from other online forums unfortunately. No offense to anyone who complained on this. I think you are blowing the situation out of the proportion. All lcd type screens on every laptop that i have seen have this "quality". If you buy this laptop your screen will have light leekage. Consider your self lucky because your laptop is normal. Ok fine the tested model had no light leekage. This was a surprise. Cant say its a pleasant one becuase if i didn't check for it i would have never noticed. In defense of those who did complain of light leekage for other laptops i do have to say some may have been unproportionally more "leeeky".
2. Heat. I realize this is the screen part of this short review but this seems to fit here. I will not check to see how hot the palm rest feels compared to my desktop keyboard. If someone reads this and hates me after please lift your palm of your laptop regularly and take a short break before your palm sweats to death. Your HDD in your laptop most likely is right beneath the palm rest. Whether you laptop is made out of aluminum, platic, carbon alloy, cream cheese or cast iron it's going to heat up under the plam rest if the drive is under it.
3. I will not be testing for sparkles, sheens, holographics screens, or any other inherent ""anomaly"" that according to someone causes headaches as described by the many pleased and a select few unpleased customers of the z71v. This is what the z71v screen looked like. This was its natural quality. I hope and pray this z70v has it too becuase the screen looked great on the z71v. I love the screen on both of them.
Audio and Speakers:
I may have said this before but this has an optical type spdif port. This also has 4 speakers. Two on the screen and two on the front left and right corners. Awesome sound quality and even better bi-directional output. Same scenario as the buzzing bee on my last review for the z71v, but this one does have even better sound.
Noise and heat:
Its a fairly low noise unit. At normal load the fan seems to stay off for the most part. Under hi-load it will turn on and stay on. It looks like there is one speed for it. When the fan is on it is still low noise but the z71v is even lower. This one stay very cool up top. Normal opperating temp is @ 58C. Under hi-load it levels out @ 69C.
Dimmensions and battery life:
This one is 14"x10.5"x1.5" wxdxh
The battery lasts very easily upward of 4 hours. On really low setting and low load you will get close to 5 hours. The optical bay battery will give you easily 3 more hours.
Benchmarks:
3dmark-03 @3245
3dmark-05 @1171
Overclocking:
Conclusion:
Pros:
1. Has Optical Spdif
2. Refined placement of usb ports for easier accessibility
3. Very nice Wsxga+ screen
4. Carbon Alloy Chasis
5. Retained port bar expansion dock
6. Very Very impressive battery life
7. Vga actually has 128mb not 64mb
Cons:
1. A dummy bluetooth button which may or may not be usable at one time or another
2. Could have been redisigned with only 2 speakers in a low profile screen and chasis
3. A very minor bios issue which does not report proper cpu speed in windows. This is only superficial and will be corrected shortly.
4. No support for serial Ata drives.
5. A fairly weak vga card if compared to the Asus z71v.
Thats all she wrote. Overall i give this one the seal of aproval. Get it while she is cold and dont flash the bios unless you have to.
More comming........................
......................................
,...................................
(end of their review)
So, its a 128mb x600 then. YAY! (I think... this is rather confusing and contradictory)
