ASUS UL30 Owner's Lounge

Got a Ul30A (SU7300) model yesterday and am pretty happy with it.
Can't wait to run Win7 (might consider an SSD upgrade too..)

Come on Ul30 owners, let's share tips and tricks and help one another out

Useful links (compiled by E.B.E.):

UL30 Backlit Keyboard Mod

 

I tried to install Windows 7 RC. Everything seems to go ok, until I rebooted the system and upon loading, it defaults to the recovery process and then goes into an ERROR screen (it seems to be trying to search for the C:/recovery.bat file which obviously isn't there anymore, since the drive was formatted to install Win7). It looks like I already have the latest 206 BIOS, so not quite sure what the issue is.

Will probably have to wait for Asus/MSFT to send me the Win 7 upgrade DVD then...sigh, another month to put up with Vista

 

Hopefully soon...I'll get mines!

 

post a review!!

 

i am torn between the ul30 and acer's timeline 3810

any benefits of this one over the other? also, where is the best place to purchase at this time?

 

Hi Solarweasel, i posted this in another thread:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=415392&page=9

 

Can you please tell me whether the SU7300 can handle HD flash video (Hulu and Youtube etc) flawlessly or not? Also, if you coult comment on the general feel of the processor speed compared to other processors (SU9400 or Su3500 or Atom or Athlon neo if possible. Thanks

 

When fully buffered, HD video on Youtube still stutters (but note, it's ever so slight).

I can't do a comparison against systems with those processors, since I don't have them nor did I try them out at the shop.

 

Review up on this site!
http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=5263

Discussion:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=418836

 

Just received my UL30a today in the mail. Loving it so far, expect that they sent me the silver version instead of the black version I originally specified. The silver is growing on me though. Here is a couple of things I've noticed through my usage:

-1080p works great. I tried "Big Buck Bunny", the new Tron Trailer, and Pixar's "Presto" short and all played without a hitch
-The body of the UL30a is built very well, no real flex anywhere, expect for the battery, which wiggles when gripped
-Seems pretty resilient to fingerprints, except for the black edge around the screen
-I've been using the 'Maximum Battery Life' settings for most work, and it has been just fine. No Vista lag or anything. Had only to switch to 'Maximum Performance' to play 1080p smoothly (any other videos played fine in max battery setting).
-The laptop is extremely silent. I owned a Lenovo Thinkpad X200 (which is know for its quietness) and this laptop is just as silent in operation. I can't hear the fan, only the hard drive. 1080p didn't force the fan to spin any faster either. It's been on for the 7 hours, so prolonged use does not affect the fan.
-The keyboard is nice and feel more like the Sony Vaio keyboard instead of the Macbook keyboards
-I did not receive any extras (no mouse, etc) nor did my version come with BT
-I received the 5600mAh battery, and I must say, its heavy! At first I though the laptop would weigh near nothing, until I inserted the battery!
-I absolutely love the animations Asus has added into the UI. Not sure if its new, but when changing the volume, brightness of screen, etc there is a wonderful set of animations
-External optical drives (at least mine) works with only one USB port
-Laptop produces little heat
-Trackpad button is very nice, and the multitouch gestures are totally great too. I have it set to two finger scrolling, touch finger tap = back in browser, three finger tap = minimize all windows to desktop
-The webcam quality is fine, should be great for Skype. And yes, there is a mic.
-The outside of the lid is great, love the aluminum. The inside of the laptop is plastic, and its slick smooth feeling, a bit like the plastic they use in HP laptops.
-The keyboard has a bit of flex near the left side. Not a real problem for me.
-The wireless card is an Atheros one. Never used one but it seems to be fine.

If anyone has any questions, feel free to ask away!

 

Convoluted, where did you order from again?

Sorry they mixed up your order, I would have been a bit upset without the all black

 

I bought it from ExcaliberPC on eBay. I'm going to look into getting a black version seeing as they screwed up twice (my laptop was specified to go to Australia instead of Canada). They sent out a second laptop because of the wrong country thing, and that one should be arriving in the next few days, so if its the black version this would be great and all I would have to do is repackage the silver one and first it back to them (I'd be out a bit of postage, but whatever).

Update: Black version a no-go. Apparently Asus made a mistake and sent ExcaliberPC only silver models instead of all black. ExcaliberPC has offered a partial refund on my purchase, so I'm thinking about taking the amount we negotiate.

 

Ahh, I don't care much for the extras that normally come with Asus notebooks(bag, mouse,etc.) but I was sort of upset that bluetooth was left out. Not quite a deal breaker, but very very useful for me at times..

 

Convoluted, pleas test this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yNMMRABez8&fmt=22
and check for CPU usage peak and stuttering

P.S. What would You say to test if setFSB does work? We don't know which PLL model (responsible for FSB) is in UL30, but at mine gear I checked it by choosing every single and watching if he displays mine, correct, current FSB. It should be 200 as SU7300 multiplier is x6.5 so 1300/6.5 is 200 If You see setFSB displays 200, just try to rise it a little bit and check if CPU does overclock. I've opened CPU-Z in second window to be 100% sure.

 

When watching the video, CPU is around 70-75%. No stuttering at all. At this point I don't really want to mess around with overclock/changing speeds as I am uncertain if I will be swapping the laptop for the black version I originally ordered, and I don't want to screw anything up (I don't have any experience with overclocking and whatnot). Once I do finalize my laptop, I would be happen to try to test this for you.

 

Thanks Convoluted for the review! I'm surprised that the wireless card is an Atheros. I thought these come with the Intel WiFi Link 5100.

 

I ordered one from them two days ago as well. As they told me, they don't have the black one and asked me if a silver one would be ok. I first said i prefer the black one. But as i have been told that they only put out the silver one in the US. Let me know if your second one is a black or not. Because there shouldn't be any black one at all. Thanks

 

No black here as well. ExcaliberPC called up Asus and they only shipped silver units - bummer, but not a huge problem in the long run. The laptop is great, I'm sure you'll like it very much.

As for the wifi card, as far as I can tell, no units ship with the 5100 (yet). That's probably reserved for the SU9400 version, which I don't think the US will see for quite a while. The Atheros card works well enough, except that I find I've lost a bit of range vs the 5300 I had in my X200.

 

Is the Atheros card an 'n'?

 

yeah, i talked to them, and they said Asus made a mistake in the US market. So far, there isn't a black one. Hopefully i will like the silver one. Are you able to argue for partial refund for this reason?

 

For sure, the item was falsely advertised on eBay (albeit unknowingly), so I have every right to get a partial refund. ExcaliberPC has already offered an amount, but I'm sure I can negotiate a bit more. After all, it will cost a lot for them to accept back the laptop as they'll have to ship it back to Asus, pay shipping costs, etc.

Definitely.

 

Hi,

A couple of OS questions:

1.) Has anyone tried to install Ubuntu on this yet?

2.) Is anyone running a 64 bit version of windows 7 or Vista? Amazon says it ships with 32 bit Vista.

Thanks in advance...

 

In case anyone's interested, here are a few pictures that I took of the silver model:

 

Very pretty Convoluted, can you throw up a picture of the case? Hoping it's similar to the one from my 1000HA.

My X3 just shipped from Amazon via two-day, hoping for tomorrow, but probably Monday. Will throw Win 7 64 bit RTM on it as soon as I can open the box, and swap out the drive.

 

so there will never be a UL30 in black for the US?

 

Not at the moment at least.

 

Wow Convoluted... you make it look so pretty that I want to buy one right now!!

 

Indeed those are great pictures. But silver, bleh.

 

Convoluted - can you comment on the mouse button and its click feedback? I actually went into a Bestbuy and looked at an UX50V, which seems like it has very similar specifications to UL50A and the same identical mouse button.

To me, it felt slightly mushy, which was a disappointment. I am hoping it has similar click feedback as the Lenovo S10 or the Asus 1000H (what I currently have now).

Definitely looking into either a UL20 or a UL30 (hoping for a UL20vt or UL30vt, or at the very least UL20at/UL30at??). From Anandtech's review, it seems like the turbo33 is definitely helpful when you want a little extra speed.

 

The mouse button is great. Its easy to press and has a clicky feeling rather than a mushy feeling. The click is pretty quiet too. I find the laptop very quick. I have the maximum processor state capped at 50% and I have no slow down in any of the programs I use. Vista runs blazing fast, and seemingly faster than the P8400 I had before.

I keep mentioning this, but a true highlight of this machine is simply how quiet and cool running it is. I tried running a 1080p video at maximum processor speed for the entire duration and the fan did not speed up at all, stayed at a constant inaudible level.

As for battery life, I've tried the laptop in classes and I am getting from 9.5-11 hours with half brightness, wifi on, surfing the web and word processing.

 

That is great battery life. I just purchased a U-81a, Best Buy version, and get about 6-7 hours of general usage doing the web and word proccessing etc. It isn't to snuff with these systems but more time than I've needed so far.
if I am just word proccessing and turn the wifi off I get to 8-9 hours. Battery life with these though is just amazing. I am wondering though about charging. From a dead, or near dead, battery how long to a full charge?

 

Really like the black one. Live in the US..sniff!
Any way to order black UL30 from Taiwan or Canada?
Also any major reason why not?-i.e keyboard in chinese etc...-

We should have a thread listing all the best places/prices to buy from.

 

Similar usage for me in the past week and getting similar results at 10-11 hours for me. Loving this laptop

 

Oh btw, anyone done a total format of the included drive (including removing the hidden restore partition) and installed Windows 7?

 

I will as soon as I take custody of mine. It's arrived in my town, but in UPS's evil clutches atm, should be in my greedy little hands on Monday. BTW, gj to asus on having all the drivers/utilities as a downloads tab right off the specs page: http://www.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=8CwAK6XZ0pekc7aI

My project this weekend will be to wade through all of the stuff, decide what I want to install and not.

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=380681 = Asus Utility and Bloatware Guide. That was easy

 

Does anyone know how you can turn on the Turbo33 technology? Thanks.

 

Just ordered one after returning my HP DV2. Can anyone confirm that the windows 7 runs on this machine ?

 

I can confirm that it runs beautifully. Snappy and very very quick. I only have one problem with the Atheros WLAN. It keeps tries to install drivers after every boot even though the drivers are already installed. It might be a problem with the bios but I'm not sure. Does anyone else have this problem?

 

Thanks for starting this lounge! It's been added to the Info Booth and to the Reviews & Owners' Lounges Index.

E.B.E.

 

UL30A-QX059C is this the same model as ASUS UL30A-X3 ?


The following are the specs for UL30A-QX059C
CPU

Intel Core 2 Duo SU7300

Chipset

Intel GS45

SODIMM fack

2 x 200-pin, max. 4GB

RAM

4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3 1066MHz

Grafik

Intel GMA X4500M HD

Monitor

13.3” (WXGA, Glare, 16:9, HD)

HDD

320GB SATA 2.5” HDD (5400RPM)

ODD

No

LAN

1 x RJ45 (10/100Mbps)

WLAN

IEEE 802.11b/g/n

Sound

Altec Lansing Speakers

SRS Premium Sound

Microfone

Yes (Webcam)

Webcamera

0.3MP

Keyboard

30.2mm

Nordisk

Operativsystem

Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium (32-bit)

Batteri

8 cells

Dimensioner

322 x 233 x 14.8~24.6mm

Weight

1.5kg (incl. 4 cells battery)

Anningar

1 x 3.5mm audio-ut (head/speaker)

1 x 3.5mm audio-in (mikrofone)

3 x USB 2.0

1 x RJ45

1 x HDMI

Card Reader

SD, MMC, MS, MS Pro, xD

Cant find it when i google it

Any help would be great :Þ

 

Received my UL30A-A1 (silver) this weekend, earlier than expected.

Haven't had too much time to play with it yet, but initial impressions are:

+ Quiet
+ Body is built very well
+ Keyboard is nice, mine doesn't exhibit any noticable flex
+ Tried Youtube HD and it was all good
+ Battery life (did 3 hours of installing, uninstalling various apps and bloatware, still 7+ hrs left on the battery!)

- Battery wiggles a little
- Screen's viewing angles aren't the best
- Touchpad feels a bit sluggish but I'll play around with the settings to see if it'd help

I was set on black initially, but I needed a laptop badly and couldn't wait another month to see if Asus would release the black model. The good thing? The silver does grow on you.

I've a question for fellow UL30 owners too. Does anyone know how to enable the 'Hide modes that this monitor cannot display' checkbox in display properties?

The web app at work displays better at a higher resolution, so I sometimes like to select a display resolution that's higher than the monitor's max resolution, thereby enabling a scrolling desktop. I can do this on my other laptops and desktops, including one with the Intel GMA950 chipset.

 

Hi, Any news about the Linux support? Would be great to know if all Hardware and especially suspend are working?

Does anybody has the time to try the latest Ubuntu 9.04?
You can find howto do this here:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/FromUSBStick

Thanks in advance

Johannes

 

embrion posted this link in the Review thread about BIOS overclocking and Turbo33.

I did a brief translated summary of the post:

I don't personally remember seeing any Turbo options in the Power4Gear utility on the UL30A-A1, but I haven't checked the BIOS. I'll check once I'm home.

If anyone with a UL30A has the BIOS Over Clocking option or the Turbo33 option, do share your model info and BIOS version!

 

Confirmed that the Easy Over Clock option exists on my UL30A-A1, with the default set to 3% (max is 5%). BIOS version is 206.

No Turbo33 option in Power4Gear as expected though.

 

Just received my ul30a-X3 from Amazon.

1) It didn't come with a carrying case (bummer) or a mouse (meh), when I called Amazon, they said to talk to Asus.
2) Amazon just dropped the price of the X3 by $40, it's also now showing a 1-2 month back order.

I swapped out the 320 GB from the X3 for the 500 GB I had lying around (was an upgrade in my 1000HA). Quick formatted on my main box, a fresh install of Windows 7 64 bit already installed and running fine on the shiny new UL30A. Adding the Asus specific software and drivers now.

 

posting from the new box. It's very speedy running win 7 x64, the build quality is solid, though it doesn't seem quite as rugged as my old workhorse 1000HA. Compared to a similar size form factor Dell Latitude E4300 that I just did a build for at work, the Asus is much more solid, the lcd doesn't feel like it will break with just minimal pressure on the lid like the Dell does.

I hand picked the asus apps/drivers that I wanted to install, but of the ones I did install, everything installed and is working flawlessly.

Unfortunately the power adapter from my 1000HA has a plug that's a tad smaller, is not interchangeable.

Any keyboard flex is not noticeable. The battery wiggle that other people have mentioned is, though it's hardly a deal breaker.

I'm doing just fine with trackpad after taking off the multitouch sticker. I cranked up the pointer speed to max, it's definitely as usable as the trackpad on my 1000HA, which I am used to and find reasonable enough for daily use.

On the whole I'm very pleased, though I do wish it had come with the zipper case like Amazon advertised.

 

Can you click by tapping the touchpad as on fullsized laptops ?

Or do you have to use the golf ball like area to find the file you want to click on and then use the click button beneath the touchpad?