My company picked this laptop up for a doctor that we do work for. I was able to set it up myself at the office and work with it for a while. I don't have any hard numbers for you but if you're looking to purchase one of these machines I may beable to give you some opinions.
Specs:
3.0ghz P4 with hyperthreading
512mb ddr400
80gb 5400rpm hitachi drive
cd-rw/dvd-rom
17inch widescreen WXGA+ (1440x900)
ATI X300 w/64mb ddr
Cost: $1200ish (not really sure)
This thing is huge. Even next to my D470K/4750 it's big. It's also very heavy. It feels like the chassis is built out of kevlar and could withstand a 5 foot drop. There are very large openings in the back and side for air to escape but the air intakes are all on the bottom of the chassis. The back does kick up in the back but I fear that with the P4 onboard this thing will be getting very hot.
The machineis very snappy even though it's not running with dual channel just yet. (ram is backordered and will be here in a week) Programs open up very fast and even with medical images from a PACS server streaming and opening up @ random it seems to beable to handle 2 other tasks at the same time very well.
Fast forward an hour and the newness has worn off.
I popped a dvd in to the tray and let the matrix play in the background. The first thing that i saw was some pretty noticeable "ghosting". I'm not sure if that's actually what it was but it looked like the image was still on the screen after an action sequence had taken place. This does not happen on my laptop. Also when looking at a screen that is 1 solid color or very bright the screen tends to shimmer when in low light. I think this may be the "sparkle" effect that everyone is talking about on the Z71V by asus. The widescreen resolution is pretty good and will be more than sufficient for what this pc will be used for. I would recommend that others get the WSXGA+ or WUXGA+ screens which are available. I've seen them at trade shows and they look much better.
The machine is still very snappy. I've been beating on it for an entire hour with sisoft sandra in the background while watching a dvd in windowed mode and surfing the web. The next aggrivating thing is that the whole frickin chassis vibrates while the optical drive is spinning a cd/dvd. It's not noticeable because it's making noise or making the chassis shake on the table but it is a pain in the ass when you try to type something.
Sound reproduction is sub-par as well. Again this is only going to be a workstation for viewing images but damn it'd be nice to see even real-tek audio onboard. Instead it's some off brand audio and it blows the big one. The onboard speakers sound ok for basic audio reproduction but when I put my Sony head phones in to the head phone jack I was amazed to find that at no matter what listening level the sound was breaking and crackling. I figured it was the matrix dvd causing this problem so I threw in my recently acquired copy of Armin van Buuren's A state of Trance 2005. The bass was terrible even through the head phones. Sound on this thing sucks for anything past basic noise, end of story.
On a positive note the keyboard rocks your socks. It's very responsive and as I said before there is zero flex. What is aggrivating is the ammount of heat this damn thing produces right under the palm rests infront of the keyboard. The battery and hard drive are the under chassis residents in that area and they make themselves known.
Another positive note is that the touch pad (the only pointing device i've had to use on this machine yet) is just as wide as the screen. It's in a 16:9 format and offers good feel.
The final thing I want to hit on in this review is the port placement. The CD-RW/DVD-ROM drive is on the left with one of the big exhaust ports behind it. There is also a lone USB 2.0 port there for one reason or another. The rear houses the parallel, vga, svideo, firewire and more usb 2.0 ports. The right has an odd connector near the rear, a pcmcia slot, and another odd usb connection next to a Mini-1394 connector. This side is, however, devoid of exhaust ports so it's optimal for right handed mouse users, sorry lefties.
Pros:
Nice big screen
Very powerful
Large hard drive
Cheap
Cons:
Sparkles/Ghosting on screen
Low resolution (my fault really)
Heat
Extremely heavy
Speakers and Sound card
Optical drive shakes chassis
Over all i'd give it a solid 6.8/10. It's not the best at anything that I've encountered at all. But then again it's not the worst. Honestly it performs like it should and makes no qualms about it. If there wasn't so much damn heat under the palm rests I would have given it a 7.5.
Specs:
3.0ghz P4 with hyperthreading
512mb ddr400
80gb 5400rpm hitachi drive
cd-rw/dvd-rom
17inch widescreen WXGA+ (1440x900)
ATI X300 w/64mb ddr
Cost: $1200ish (not really sure)
This thing is huge. Even next to my D470K/4750 it's big. It's also very heavy. It feels like the chassis is built out of kevlar and could withstand a 5 foot drop. There are very large openings in the back and side for air to escape but the air intakes are all on the bottom of the chassis. The back does kick up in the back but I fear that with the P4 onboard this thing will be getting very hot.
The machineis very snappy even though it's not running with dual channel just yet. (ram is backordered and will be here in a week) Programs open up very fast and even with medical images from a PACS server streaming and opening up @ random it seems to beable to handle 2 other tasks at the same time very well.
Fast forward an hour and the newness has worn off.
I popped a dvd in to the tray and let the matrix play in the background. The first thing that i saw was some pretty noticeable "ghosting". I'm not sure if that's actually what it was but it looked like the image was still on the screen after an action sequence had taken place. This does not happen on my laptop. Also when looking at a screen that is 1 solid color or very bright the screen tends to shimmer when in low light. I think this may be the "sparkle" effect that everyone is talking about on the Z71V by asus. The widescreen resolution is pretty good and will be more than sufficient for what this pc will be used for. I would recommend that others get the WSXGA+ or WUXGA+ screens which are available. I've seen them at trade shows and they look much better.
The machine is still very snappy. I've been beating on it for an entire hour with sisoft sandra in the background while watching a dvd in windowed mode and surfing the web. The next aggrivating thing is that the whole frickin chassis vibrates while the optical drive is spinning a cd/dvd. It's not noticeable because it's making noise or making the chassis shake on the table but it is a pain in the ass when you try to type something.
Sound reproduction is sub-par as well. Again this is only going to be a workstation for viewing images but damn it'd be nice to see even real-tek audio onboard. Instead it's some off brand audio and it blows the big one. The onboard speakers sound ok for basic audio reproduction but when I put my Sony head phones in to the head phone jack I was amazed to find that at no matter what listening level the sound was breaking and crackling. I figured it was the matrix dvd causing this problem so I threw in my recently acquired copy of Armin van Buuren's A state of Trance 2005. The bass was terrible even through the head phones. Sound on this thing sucks for anything past basic noise, end of story.
On a positive note the keyboard rocks your socks. It's very responsive and as I said before there is zero flex. What is aggrivating is the ammount of heat this damn thing produces right under the palm rests infront of the keyboard. The battery and hard drive are the under chassis residents in that area and they make themselves known.
Another positive note is that the touch pad (the only pointing device i've had to use on this machine yet) is just as wide as the screen. It's in a 16:9 format and offers good feel.
The final thing I want to hit on in this review is the port placement. The CD-RW/DVD-ROM drive is on the left with one of the big exhaust ports behind it. There is also a lone USB 2.0 port there for one reason or another. The rear houses the parallel, vga, svideo, firewire and more usb 2.0 ports. The right has an odd connector near the rear, a pcmcia slot, and another odd usb connection next to a Mini-1394 connector. This side is, however, devoid of exhaust ports so it's optimal for right handed mouse users, sorry lefties.
Pros:
Nice big screen
Very powerful
Large hard drive
Cheap
Cons:
Sparkles/Ghosting on screen
Low resolution (my fault really)
Heat
Extremely heavy
Speakers and Sound card
Optical drive shakes chassis
Over all i'd give it a solid 6.8/10. It's not the best at anything that I've encountered at all. But then again it's not the worst. Honestly it performs like it should and makes no qualms about it. If there wasn't so much damn heat under the palm rests I would have given it a 7.5.
