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Haven't gotten full on into it yet, still playing around with getting the drivers integrated into an unattended install... but here's my impressions so far.

Who ever said that the Z71V has "no flex" has obviously never been on a notebook that actually has no flex. It's not bad, by any means, but there's definitely some play... especially on the top cover, and around the arrow buttons on the keyboard. That being said, the keyboard is of excellent quality... good travel, good sound. The touchpad works well, although I will admit I won't be using it very much. Overall, it has a sturdy feel to it.

The screen is very crisp, and very sharp. It is, as another user said, a bit darker on the right side of the screen... and there is definitely some "sparkle" or "grain" visible in the whites and greens. All in all though, it's nice and bright, has good color, and is fairly easy on the eyes. The "sparkle" doesn't bother me when comparing it to my Inspiron 9200's screen, and to be honest, it's barely noticible.

The laptop isn't spectacular to look at as a whole, but has a classy look to it, and feels very solid in one's hand. The different color LED's give it some flash, but nothing that's going to make a Vaio or Samsung user think about jumping ship. One thing the color scheme has going for it is that it matches almost perfectly with the gunmetal colored Microsoft Notebook Wireless Optical Mouse. Both have chrome accents, which makes for a pleasingly color-coordinated desktop.

In the full review, I'll get into performance, features (or lack thereof), heat generation, and all it's miscellaneous little nuances.

Kai

Ok, here comes the meat and potatoes... from Denny's.

The speed of the machine is excellent, of course. Good gaming performance (I'm not much into synthetic benchmarks, they're fairly useless in my opinion). UT2004 runs without a hitch on the highest quality settings, which is what I was looking for it to do.

The fans are loud in my opinion... much louder than my old Inspiron 9200 under load. To be honest, it's fairly annoying... as is the flex of the keyboard. Tapping the enter button lightly with my pinky produces noise, and the entire right side of the keyboard visibly moves.

There is some heat, and it's all coming from the keyboard. Its not uncomfortable, but I wouldn't recommend blocking those noisy fans.

The audio is somewhat of a mixed bag... most of the stock windows sound effects sound as if they're playing in a concert hall or something. I think it's some kind of audio filter/setting, but as of yet I haven't been able to figure out how to change it. The speakers do have a very nice sound though, which is nice.

All in all, I'm pleased with my purchase...but there are some issues I mentioned that I will be discussing with ISTNC to see if these things are considered normal for this machine.

Just out of curiousity, are any of you getting that annoying keyboard rattle on the right hand side? How about a slight darkening of the screen, also on the right?

Kai

keyboard rattle... I think i know what you mean (although this is happening on my M6Ne, not Z71v)
I think it has to do with there being an empty cavity for an optical drive/traveler's drawer/HDD/battery.. the empty space causes some type of echoing effect.

Well, it's on the same side as the optical drive, so perhaps that would explain it. So your Z71 keyboard doesn't have alot of play on that side?

Kai

Hmm, my keyboard on the Z71v is of excellent quality. All the keys seem to work fine, enter key gives no flex nor any movement to other keys.

Same here, not flex with Enter key. Only a bit with the top right.

Interesting... I also notice that some of the keys on the side where the movement occurs, most noticibly the larger ones like shift and enter, are kind of loose compared to the other side of the keyboard.

I also think that I'm having some kind of issue with either the video card or the USB, can't tell which at this point. Using the stock Asus 6600 drivers, UT2004 is randomly freezing up... like my wireless mouse has stopped working and won't let me move, then it resumes. This isn't something I've ever experienced with the i9200.

This thing is starting to be really turdariffic...

Kai

BBQ: Can you minimize UT2004 when that happens and check the CPU usage? When I'm playing games that happens all the time and makes the game unplayable, and the CPU usage jumps to 100%. Does yours? I am currently trying to resolve this with IST/nVidia/Asus, and will return my system if it doesn not work.

Couple of questions, is UT2004 patched completely? Did you update the mouse drivers if needed? Also, what wifi software does the Z71V use, I assume it's intel/microsoft, but people had some problems with the Asus wifi software on the Z80K (it would hog CPU usage in rhythm, meaning 100% for a second, then none, then 100% again, then none, etc)?

Belay my last on that one... I think it may have been that my notebook mouse was out of batteries. I popped in a new one and it seems to be working now. It was just so sudden, and it occured right at the time where I was playing the game it completely threw me.

Kai

Do you remember how people fixed it?

I just use the intel driver for the wlan card. I haven't seen any obvious performance issues with them. I don't install the Proset software though, as I have had problems with it in the past. Windows seems to manage it just fine by itself.

Kai

The basic fix was to install the Asus wifi drivers and program, and then uninstall it. This left the drivers for the card on the machine, but removed the exe file that was causing the problems, so right now I'm using the built-in Windows wifi support. I had it setup somehow that I was using the Asus program still, and the CPU throttling was no longer present (I think I disabled it from the startup applications/processes, but it still would connect fine and work), but I've since reformatted and just did the install/uninstall trick. Check this post and the previous pages of that thread for more info: http://notebookforums.com/showpost.p...&postcount=123

Sorry to hijack this away from the awesomeness of the Z71V

My cpu usage is always showing 100% when gaming. At 1680x1050, I'm getting a solid 60fps (with Vsync enabled), and no frame drops. Been playing non-stop for the better part of the past hour.

Kai

Well, I'm starting to get acclimated to the heat and fan noise... Rick from ISTNC told me to keep an eye on it though, as apparently I'm the only one they've had whose mentioned the fans being somewhat noisy.

Hopefully, the fans will really start to go to hell before they blow out completely... saving my poor video card.

Kai

Interesting development. The notebook was especially hot today, so I shut it down, flipped it over, and decided to have a look at what was going on.

Apparently, a few of the screws weren't in all that tight, especially the ones holding down the CPU cooler... there was enough play to easily move it up and down with my finger. I went ahead and tightened all the visible screws, and as a result, the fans sound a bit quieter and the odd noise the one was making is for the most part gone. The biggest improvment was in the heat under the keyboard and palmrest, which has decreased dramatically. It's still a bit warm, but far more comfortable.

Rick at ISTNC was appalled, and vowed bloody vengeance on all responsible. J/K He says he will be looking into it, and that it was a QC issue.

Kai