2014 Asus N550JK -DS71T quick mini review and opinion so far

I saw the black Q550 at Best Buy and with the silver keys, it's really ugly. I would much prefer if it were the other way around (silver chassis, black keys).

 

I really didn't mind the look of the Q550LF and rather liked it, but agree the N550JK would look much better with black keys instead of the silver on silver for sure. I had actually asked Xotic PC if they would swap in a black keyboard on the N550JK, but they said no can do. I figured there was at least a chance since a lot of these 15.6" Asus notebooks floating around use the same keyboard layout, just in varying colors. Oh well.

 

So you guys are saying that you like N56JR better than N550JK when it comes to the color scheme, right?

@Zarley Z
Maybe they don't have a spare black-keys Asus 15.6" keyboard

 

Did anyone got leap motion with your asus n550jk?

 

Yeah my expectations were low, figured I'd take a shot in the dark anyway..

I would prefer the N56JR scheme over the N550JK's, yeah.

 

Hi everyone,
I'm really confused which laptop should i buy, either n550jk or envy 17t.
apparently Envy 17t seams best bang for the bucks because it has big 17" 1080p touch screen, nvidia 740m, 16gb ram and 1tb sshd and AC wifi all for only 1099$ which is same as N550JK.
The only reason which stops me from buying envy is concern with its display quality despite of graphic performance which i least can sacrifice; I wanted to know how good the display quality of envy 17t is as compared to N550JK?
Thanks in advance.

 

I'm not sure why you're saying that's a better deal than the N550JK. You're taking a huge hit in GPU performance (a full generation back and two "levels" down). That more than makes up for the extra RAM and the difference in HDD when it comes to value.

Regardless, the screens in the Envy 15t and 17t are terrible. They're poor quality even for TN displays.

 

Yeah I agree with you in terms of GPU.But I must have to say the design of Envy 15 and 17 is far more superior than N550JK, because it has less bezels around screen, Lovely keyboard and body contrast and fingerprint reader too.
Basically its a fight between looks and performance.

 

The bezel is only slightly different. The overall size of the Asus is only an additional tenth of an inch in each direction.

Have you seen the HP Envy in person? I owned the Envy 15 briefly and returned it because of the screen and build quality. The Envy is all plastic with significant flex behind the screen as well as on the keyboard and wrist rest. Also the bezel itself has a lot of "give" and does not sit flush to the screen, so dust accumulates quickly around the edges.The final straw was the screen though. I'm coming from a 1366x768 11.6" display and I can honestly say that the 1080p display on the Envy 15 was worse. Colors were awful, blacks were a light gray, and viewing angles were abysmal. The screen also has this ugly "screen door" effect where you can see small bright lines separating each pixel.

 

I see, your experience seams genuine, Thanks a lot. You made my mind more strong towards owing asus n550jk, I'm waiting atm for a little discount by asus, dunno if my wait is worth it.

 

No one else had the screen issue I asked about? Or know what it might mean?

About 3 times so far when I resumed from sleep/standby (the fast resume thing it has) the screen (after logging in and being on the desktop) has a super short change in tint of the screen. Only for less than a second.

Thanks,

Please someone reply so I don't get paranoid, lol.

 

Haven't seen that issue, but I still haven't been able to fix the graphics driver crashing occasionally.

Sent from my SPH-L720 using Tapatalk

 

If you are using Win8 AND have it set to load a custom color profile, it's normal. I had that happen before I went back to Win7. Win8 is just slower loading stuff at startup, color profiles included.

If you didn't touch the color settings, I don't know what could be causing the issue.

 

Hello Everyone! Im thinking of buying this laptop. Can somebody tell me if its bulky and heavy? Is it the same size and weight as the BEstbuy exclusive ASUS Q550LF?

 

It is the same size and shape but with different internals of course. The outside hardware should be pretty much identitical (keyboard, screen size, etc.) but with a different color scheme. Get a feel of the one at BestBuy before pulling the trigger on the N550JK as it is pretty much the best thing you will have to get an in person feel for the N550JK!

 

Thanks for the help.

 

I did the color calibration thing, I may have messed with something else I forget but I was tweaking stuff after I got it. This happens on resume not sure if does on startup havnt seen it yet do it at that point.

Thanks

 

I've never had this issue either. And there were no graphic driver crashes yet. Also for the record about missing keystrokes, it never missed a single keystroke, could be that I didnt install that type filter like someone mentioned earlier.

 

When I had the Q550LF, I had something similar happen. Not long after logging in from sleep/standy, the tint would dim ever-so-slightly and remain at that level rather than last for a second (as in your case). I just assumed it was related to power-saving.

 

I see that the N550JK is no longer available at newegg and gentechpc, and limited availability on xoticpc. Did they discontinue this model or are they just very low on supply temporarily?

 

It hasn't been discontinued, just very limited supply available form Asus. This happened with the N550JV models as well, they were unavailable for a couple months, hopefully we don't run into that long of a delay.

 

Having trouble deciding between this or the Lenovo Y50, any thoughts?

 

Also saw something like this on one of the first days. Changed something in the screen/energy settings maybee dimming that was 80 / 100 something depending or it was the autodimming. Worked fine since then.

 

Pros for the N550JK: Better screen, better wireless card, optical drive (may not be a pro for all), touch screen standard (may not be a pro for all), optical drive bay can be used for additional storage.

Pros for the Y50: Better GPU, thinner form factor, multiple configurations available, available without touch screen (may be pro for some), 4K screen (when it becomes available).

 

Definitely not discontinued. I called Adorama and a rep told me they're getting a shipment the first week of June. Same with B&H. Newegg doesn't disclose when things come back in stock, but I'm pretty sure it will be back.

 

I'm in a similar boat, waiting on some reviews of the Y50 to come in.

To add to that Pros/Cons list, the Y50 also comes with a built-in sub-woofer rather than the external sub-woofer the N550JK has. In my personal opinion, the Y50 also has a better overall look to it. And lastly, Lenovo also now has a Y50 model listed for sale with a Blu-Ray optical drive, though I don't know how they'd fit it into the current body, leading me to guess it's an external.

If the Y50 had the IPS panel the N550JK has, my mind would be made up already. That said, I'm still leaning Y50 unless it gets destroyed in reviews.

 

I'm in the same boat the both of you guys are. I too am leaning toward the Y50 as I wait for reviews. The two other knocks on the Y50 in my mind is that the N550JK has the IPS panel (I'm okay with the TN panel, so it's not that big of a deal but not ideal) but more importantly, the lack of additional storage on the Y50. It'd be nice to have an SSD and HDD, or at least an SSD option from Lenovo. I do plan on swapping out the HDD for an SSD, but I really don't want to void the warranty.

 

My N550jk from Amazon arrived on Thursday, and I've been trying to set it up over the last couple days (I've also had a lot of work and so it's been slow going).

Unfortunately, last night I tried out the DVD drive to make see if it worked properly, and while it popped out ok, it wouldn't go back in! I tried fiddling with the button and holding it in, but it just pops back out again. I set up a return through Amazon, and will get a new one on Monday or Tuesday. It sucks having to ship it back though

On another note, there was some soft clicking that the computer would make seemingly independent of what the computer was doing, ie it would having this soft, semi-irregular clicking noise when it was or wasn't accessing the HDD, and it was happening before (and after) I tried out the DVD drive. The sound was coming from what sounded like directly under or on top of the DVD drive. Did anyone else notice this? I'm just making sure that was also abnormal.

 

My DVD drive doesn't close super well either. I have to use a little force. It's gotten better with use.

No clicking here though.

 

I have bought a EVO 250 gb ssd. But how do I go about installing it. I have seen on youtube how to psychically install it. I wonder more about how to get the operating system on it from the asus(making a flash drive ). Should I use the migration software? Also do i need the same partitions as on the asus HDD?

 

Ok so I've been reading the whole topic twice (I guess) and, as many of you out there, had been going back and fourth between the N550JK and the y510p.
I did get the chance to see the N550JV (same build) right next to the y510p and wow, what a difference!
I would certainly go with the Asus for the build quality, the battery life the screen, although it gives less GPU performance.

One thing I'm still worried about is drivers availability for Windows 7.
The thing is here in Romania they have only one JK model is stock for the time being, the one without touchscreen, 1TB 7200 rpm, 4GB GTX 850M DDR3 and no OS.

Does anybody have Win7 on their N550JK? Do you manage to find all the drivers needed? Are there things that don't work at all on Win7?

Trimis de pe Nexus 4 cu Tapatalk

 

I have just read through this whole thread, and found it very useful in answering a lot of the questions I had about this laptop. I have a few more questions that I don't think have been answered anywhere in this thread. Any information any of you could give me would be greatly appreciated.

I am interested in this laptop as a desktop replacement but not as a gamer. I need to replace a really old 17" Dell (which has a very nice 1920x1200 screen). Besides regular content consumption (net, movies, etc.), I need a machine that will let me do photo and HD video editing. I had pretty much decided on the G750 line (JS, or JM that I would upgrade with an SSD), but then saw this and thought it would be a good option with the SSD upgrade and possible RAM upgrade if necessary. The specs look great, as I want something that won't be a relic in just a couple of years.

Main requirements that are not already covered in the specs.
1. Has to have an international warranty that would work in Australia and India, as I am in the US just for a visit and will take the laptop back with me in a month. If anyone has registered theirs on Asus' support site, could you confirm whether the warranty is truly international and whether the ADP is international too?
2. Would the 850m handle hi-res photo and HD video editing easily?
3. Can the laptop output to a full HD monitor or TV without stuttering?

I am pretty sure I read elsewhere that because of the GDDR3, the card was not optimal for 1080p screens, which may affect questions 2 and 3 above.

Thanks in advance for any answers.

 

@Nplus1 I went back from the preinstalled Win8 to Win7, hated 8. No problems so far, there are drivers for everything. Just make sure to install a copy with Windows 7 SP1 integrated since a couple drivers require it to install. But they're all there. On separate websites (realtek for audio, intel + nvidia for graphics, etc) or asus (some win8 drivers work for 7, like the ATK one). Make sure you don't get the drivers from Windows Update: some are out of date, and in the case of the intel integrated graphics card they didn't output audio through hdmi. Get the ones from official sources always.

@Sansri HD video and hi-res photo won't put much load on the GPU if you're worried about Adobe products. The 850M is more than enough, the bigger part will be carried out by the CPU. Still, it performs great. I'm right now working on a project in After Effects (outputting to a 1920x1200 screen) and it works just great. I even found out that I can actually output to 2 different screens using both the hdmi + displayport ports (and I guess I could also enable the laptop screen, making that 3), so there's that. Also, I'm very happy I got the 4Gb vram version, since it works a treat with blender's Cycles render, which is a vram killer. And when I'm working on layer and size heavy comps in photoshop, the extra vram is a nice extra as well so I never run out of texture memory for previews. If you work on graphics, the 4gb vram is a very nice addition, don't pay attention to the naysayers. This is a great machine for graphics.

 

By the way, there was someone some pages back that was asking about installing a hdd caddy in the place of the optical drive. I just did that yesterday, it works great. Got my caddy from hddcaddy.com. A bit expensive but ultrafast and great packaging.

However, I had to reformat the hdd (that I was using as an external usb until yesterday). It's the weirdest thing: it's just one 1Tb ntfs MBR partition. If I format it inside the computer (sata connector) and then move it outside and connect it through USB, Windows will tell me it needs to be formatted before using it. And the partition turns 2: a 118Gb one and a RAW one. However, if I put it back inside, it's as if nothing happened and my partition is back there. And viceversa: if I format it outside through the USB enclosure and then install it in the internal sata connector, Windows will say it needs to be formatted.

Does anyone have a clue about what's happening here? I wasn't able to find anything in google. So weird. I have the Intel anti-theft thing disabled in BIOS, and the legacy usb thing enabled.

 

Thanks for your reply, MisterMerrick. Your response about the graphics capabilities of this machine is reassuring and I am feeling pretty confident about buying this machine.

I also wanted to mention that I chatted with an Asus pre-sales rep today and received confirmation that the warranty is international (as mentioned on Amazon) but the ADP is not. The rep also confirmed, after being prompted with a quote from an answered question on Amazon, that adding an SSD and RAM would not void the warranty (the rep initially said the N550JK-DS71T was a sealed machine and opening it would void the warranty). I mention all this just in case anyone else perusing this thread shared my concerns about warranty.

Thanks again.

 

Does anyone here own the Asus N550JK-CM131H? I'm close to order it but want to get the specs confirmed. The webshop says GTX 850 4 GB DDR5. Is that true? Everything else I've read about N550JK indicates DDR3.

 

For those choosing between G550JK and N550JK, here is the unboxing video -> Asus G550JK-CN156H GAMING NOTEBOOK for $1538 - YouTube

- it does include an external sub-woofer (even though the official webpage doesn't mention it, nor in its promotional video)
- video/site doesn't mention what DDR the GTX850M has..probably DDR3 too.

 

damn seems so nice, might sell my g750jx for it. Don't necesarily need the extra performance and its too large for class. Does anyone know if its available in Canada, or will I have to buy it from the US only?

 

I've been researching this one for a week or so now, and the only one I can find available in Canada is the N550JK-DB71-CA, which as far as I have been able to confirm does NOT have the touchscreen. This model does apparently have the 4GB 850M and 12GB RAM, however.

The model on US online retailers confirmed to have the touchscreen is the N550JK-DS71 T, but I haven't seen one that comes with the 4GB GPU.

I'm kinda stuck on the 4GB version, because I want to run the laptop display with a 2560x1440 monitor as well as a 1080p secondary external display in portrait. I think that with a lot of open, including Photoshop and Fireworks, that the 4GB will be very benificial.

 

I got mine a while ago, it was solid but you really need to update it's drives especially the network card but this made me kind of puzzled:

View attachment 112624

usually i use dxdiag to see the basic specs of any computer, does it mean that dxdiag is not reliable or this really has 8gb of ram?

 

I've been doing a lot of searching today (even chatted with Asus support, who couldn't even find the JK in their listing), and I'm leaning towards the probability that the Touch (DS71T) version and the 4GB 850M version are mutually exclusive.* (*EDIT: mistermerrick's N550JK-CM174H seems to be my 4GB Touch white whale, but I can only see this on Spanish or Euro sites. It seems to be N/A in NA. Found the BLACK version that confused everyone on YouYube, too. Filipino model referenced earlier, N550JK-CN017H.

Are there any resellers reading this thread who can confirm this? I see that the resellers carrying the JK don't have a 4GB option or even a separate 4GB model.

mistermerrick: You seem to have requirements that are similar (though more intensive) to mine. Do you think 2GB would be enough to push 3 screens (laptop display + 2 externals @ 1440p & 1080p)? Think: heavy multitasking including moderate PS & FW work, 50-tab browsers, Office .

---
Edit: Since I'm full of questions today...

I noticed that the more expensive HDCaddy.com caddy indicates an upgrade to the SATA board (?):

I thought these caddies were just frames with a pass-thru port. Is this "update" what separates it from cheaper $10 caddies I see on eBay etc.?

 

Hi,

I'm trying to get the Asus n550JK or the Y50. I'm highly frustrated that the Y50 SSD doesn't come with a touch screen (4 weeks shipping), and the Asus doesn't come with an SSD option.

Why is the laptop not on the Shop.asus website? Not even returned in a search as "out of stock"? nothing? It's a new laptop...? It was on the site before but it's off? What's going on?

Every reseller I'm trying doesn't seem to have it. I want to use a custom laptop company so they will put in an SSD for me. The only availability seems to be Amazon for this laptop. Is there any other source?

 

If you're willing to pay extra, XoticPc or GentechPc will install a SSD on the N550JK for you. Just go to those websites and customize as you see fit.

As for availability, I asked the same question in the N550JK thread last week on this thread and these were the responses:

 

@arkham
CN017H (Black N550JK)
- GTX850M DDR3 4GB VRAM
- not touch screen

I'm not a reseller but I have talked with a lot of them. I don't know where they get their supplies but they all seem to have one supplier (maybe from another Asian country). Stocks are limited right now and I'm not sure if they ship overseas. Visit villman.com

 

Thanks! I found Villman in my searching yesterday. That's where I got the idea the CN017H was a Fillipino region model. I haven't seen it in NA, nor the N550JK-CM174H.

 

@arkham:

- Regarding the 3 screens thing: I'm afraid I can't help you. I really don't know how much of an impact outputting to multiple screens does on a card's memory. I can tell you it's very nice to have that extra vram for graphic applications, but OS stuff... I don't know.

- About the HDD caddy: I got it through hddcaddy because the eBay one that I had ordered didn't have the necessary holes to fit the optical drive bezel, leaving a huge gap for dust to get in (doh!). Plus, there's the added possibility of needing to open it and cut one of the pins as seen here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/hp-business-class-notebooks/655065-hp-elitebook-8560p-won-t-shutdown.html

That's what the hddcaddy website refers to with the updated SATA board thingie.

After waiting for more than a month for the eBay one to arrive, I couldn't bother to order and wait for another one plus gambling with the possibility of having to hardware mod it (even doing that sometimes doesn't fix the problem as some people reported). So I just invested in the hddcaddy.com one. I'm glad I did, actually: even if it's more expensive than the eBay ones, it arrived super quick (2-3 days), it's very, very well packaged (including a cloth bag with a golden stamped logo on it that I'm using now to store my optical drive!) and it was a simple plug and play affair. Plus their client support is super quick.

Hope that answers your questions!

Btw, hasn't anyone had the problem I described a few posts ago with the HDD going RAW back and forth, ever?

 

---------
I already tried Xotic and they don't have any. They offered to put me on a waiting list for their 2nd shipment, after their "next shipment" arrives. Everyone else has 3-5 week dates which I suspect is because they don't know when they'll get it. Even someone on Amazon is putting in the SSD drive but the computer doesn't exist (3-5 weeks shipping). I emailed them about it and they quoted back the time. I'm not to fond of people selling stuff to which they don't have it in stock...

I can't beleive that both the Y50 and the Asus are in the 4-5 week range. Is there some shortage? The only battery factory burned down?

Is there any other gaming laptop out there with an IPS touch screen?

 

Thanks! That's terrific help. Much appreciated. I was leaning towards the HDCaddy version too, I don't want to skimp or experiment with generic hardware at this step.

 

hey guys - is this the caddy you bought from: Asus N550JK HDD Caddy - add an extra HDD or SSD into your laptop! ???

also, i noticed it's not in USD, how long did it take to ship and get to america?

 

@arkham you're welcome!

@unknown00 yes, that's the one.

Check this for shipping to the USA - HDD Caddy – Add a 2nd HDD to your laptop with HDD Caddy! » Customer service

It only took 3 days to get from the Netherlands to Spain where I live. The estimate for Spain was 3-7 days, so yeah... pretty fast service.