ASUS A53SV-XE1 & K53SV Owners Lounge

Anyone have experience with this new laptop released on May 10, 2011?

Intel Core i7-2630QM (2.0 GHz with Turboboost up to 2.93GHz); NVIDIA GeForce GT 540M 1GB DDR3 VRAM

6GB of DDR3 1333MHz DRAM, 2 slots, 8GB Max;640GB Hard Drive (5400 RPM);Super Multi DVD Drive

Windows 7 Home Premium (64 bit) Operating System;5-in-1 Card Reader (SD/MMC/MS/MS PRO/SDHC)

15.6-Inch HD Display (1366x768);0.3MP Webcam;HDMI and VGA Port;Wireless 802.11bgn;3 USB 2.0 Ports

 

It sounds like a great machine that is available for $799.00 at Amazon.com

Amazon.com: ASUS A53SV-XE1 15.6-Inch Versatile Entertainment Laptop - Black: Computer & Accessories

 

I have the K53sv (Im almost positive the K and A are the exact same, just different markets.)

I have the exact same system specs as you. Except my laptop is mocha color. I got mine for $689+tax = $750

Anyways, for the first ~month it was a great laptop. It performed well, its fast. Its great for music making, which is what I use it for.

It scores very high in benchmark apps, however, it gets somewhat low FPS in the source, counter strike games (portal, HL2, CSS). I dont know why. I havent really tested it in many other games.
It doesnt run too hot, and gets great battery life. Its built strong, except for the screen which is plastic, the body is aluminum. It looks great too! Perfect size and weight.

Theres only a couple weird issues Ive had with it that are really turning me off:
1. One day I updated my iphone while it was plugged into the USB port. It broke my iphone (I had to spend hours on my other comp fixing it), and now it wont recognize my iphone at all. All other USB devices work fine, just not my iphone. Im pretty good with computers, and I tried every trick known to man, it still wont work. It makes no sense.
2. Sometimes the USB ports act up, take a second or two to recognize a device.
3. I cant use itunes. This is because while iTunes is open, every 5-6 minutes, my Disc drive makes a "clicking" noise like its checking for a disc. However there is no disc, it is empty. This happens every 5 minutes, as long as itunes is open. not only is it annoying, but its damaging my disc drive. whenever i launch a media app like WMP or Winamp, the disc drive does its clicking, however it doesnt do it every 5 minutes like itunes. ive tried all the tech forums, and every trick up my sleeve and cant get it to work.
im going to try a reinstall of windows soon and see if that fixes it. if not, i might trade this for a lenovo ideapad z570, which has an aluminum screen too. unlike the plastic screen on this asus.
4. low FPS in source games. I dont know why, but its not cool. With these specs I should see 100+ constant. Im seeing 30-70.
5. only 3 usb ports.

its a good buy if you can get a good price, but dont get the K series, stick with the A series. also look into the lenovo ideapad z570, its in the same market range.