ASUS UL30 Owner's Lounge

Check my past posts - I sorted out the flavours of UL30s. Off the top of my head:

A1 - 500gb hdd, 4gb ram, vista
A2 - 500gb hdd, 4gb ram, win7
X5 - lesser specs, or lesser battery. The battery is worth the money.
vt - switchable graphics card, but does not play well with ubuntu. (a requirement for me)

Without knowing anything about the Acer, I've been told enough by hardware repair friends to stay away. A friend who works at a laptop repair place says he sees more Acers and HPs than anything else, and almost never sees Asus.

(Also note that Asus has a 2 year intl warranty, and a 1 year accidental damage warranty.)

 

Give them a call. With so many retail outlets around, they should be able to help.

 

Thanks chicgeek, you would think so wouldn't you? Called 2 stores, sales team 3 times, customer service line and one guy tried to talk to the warehouse for me. I'm told there is no way for them to find out and no-one in the company who can possibly know that information, and the advice they usually give to people is to buy and then return if they aren't happy. The warehouse may know but apparently they aren't allowed to look in the boxes.

The nice chap on the sales advice line told me that even if he did know which model they sell he couldn't tell me, as this would then mean that if they sent something different I might be annoyed

Seems an odd way to go about things but there you are. Everyone was very nice on the phone, but it seems I am the first CPW customer who has wanted to actually know what they are buying in advance of the transaction.

Hey ho, back to the drawing board...

 

Heh, I'm actually in the same boat. The 1810T doesn't seem to be available anywhere in America right now though. I've also considered the Lenovo U150, but its bulky battery is a bit of a turnoff.

I looked at the UL20A, but it lacks HDMI out, which immediately disqualifies it. The UL30A-A2 is more expensive than the other options I've looked at, and bigger/heavier too, but it seems most people are happy with it. Apparently it also plays nice with Ubuntu, which is a definite plus.

If the 1810T isn't in stock anywhere by the end of the month, I'm going with the UL30A-A2.

 

damnit man! i missed out on getting a new a2 for $658.

well, naturally he'd see more HP and acer laptops.. those are the top to manufactures in the world. there are more hps and acers out in the open market. hp and acer account for 33.3% of the whole computer market. i bet asus probably doesn't even command a 5% share.

 

Should I invest in a ZeroShock III or just go with a Neoprene sleeve? Or should I meet in the middle and get a sleeve with memory foam? Does anyone know how big the zeroshock is? I still need this thing to fit inside the laptop pocket of my backpack...

 

How is the screen on the UL30A models? I'm going to be going on an extended road trip in the near future and I'm planning on getting a new notebook for the trip. I'll be using it to watch movies and doing some light photo editing, and I'd like something with a decent screen (good colors, deep blacks, good contrast and brightness, etc). The UL30A-A2 already fulfills my other requirements of being thin, light and excellent battery life, so I hope its screen is good.

Also, are greasy fingerprints a problem with the palm rest/touchpad? I know they won't show up on silver as badly as they would on black.

 

I was looking on Amazon today and I do not see a difference between the A2 and X5 specs. They both say 12 hour battery and seem to have the exact same specs. The black one is cheaper and has a $50 rebate right now. Am I missing something?

Also does the hdmi work as an hdmi in as well? My tv broke and I would like to be able to hook up my cable box to the screen from time to time. Thanks!

 

The difference is the battery. They are misleading saying both get 12. In actuality, the X5 listed has a 4400mAh, where the A2 listed is 5600mAh.

The X5 I just received from Amazon had a sticker on it saying to expect 10 hours of battery life.

 

The X5 I just received from Amazon had a sticker on it saying to expect 10 hours of battery life.[/QUOTE]

Cool.. I think for the price and now there is an extra $50 rebate I am going to order the X5 tomorrow.Too bad there is no Saturday shipping. How are you liking it so far? Do you happen to know if the hdmi jack can be used to accept video and display on the screen?

 

I really enjoy it. It definitely seems like the perfect notebook for my needs and price range. It doesn't get very warm and it's very comfortable to use. A few things I've observed that aren't quite perfect:

-When people say the black is a finger print magnet, they aren't kidding! Even with clean fingers they show up strong. It's a shame since it's otherwise very stylish.

-They keyboard feels a bit spongy. It depresses when I hit keys. However, this doesn't worry me too much since the keys are responsive without needing a firm press.

-The left-click right-click buttons aren't ideal. It's positioned so close to the touchpad that it's awkward to press. However, not a big problem since the touchpad has multitouch controls that can perform all the left-click, right-click, center-click and scrolling. It took some getting adjusted, but now I don't think I have a need for the left-click right-click button anyway.

-There was a ridiculous amount of stickers leaving gooey residue behind. Easy to clean off, but irritating when brand new.

-I, at times, here a high-pitched whine and click presumably from the hard drive. It's not loud enough to be a problem, but noteworthy nonetheless.

-The USB & ethernet ports are very tight. (Maybe all are, but those are the only ones I've used.) It requires more force than I'm accustomed to for anything to plug into them. However, I'll get used to it.


As far as the HDMI is concerned, I believe it's only an HDMI out. However you could always pick up a coaxial TV tuner to plug into the USB port. Then you cold take advantage of Windows Media Center's DVR functionalities.

Another thing to note, you can get a one-month trial of Amazon prime if you haven't already. Next-day shipping for only $3.99.

 

Cool.. I think for the price and now there is an extra $50 rebate I am going to order the X5 tomorrow.Too bad there is no Saturday shipping. How are you liking it so far? Do you happen to know if the hdmi jack can be used to accept video and display on the screen?[/QUOTE]

not that great of a price since it was $650 before the rebate came out, and it's now $699.xx - $50 MIR

 

here are the pros and cons of the DM3:

pros

- aluminum/magnesium chassis
- keyboard is as good as it gets (it hands down beats the ul30a in this department)

cons

- left/right click buttons are hard to press down... using the laptop feels so stiff to me.
- mirror touchpad is horrible. the surface isn't smooth for your fingers
- chassis really sucks.. i don't know why HP keeps designing ultraportables that are bigger and heavier than their competitors (dv2 and dm3 share a similar design, and the dv2 is at least .4 lbs heavier than most other laptops... the dm3 is 4.2 lbs, compared to the ul30a's 3.7 lbs... and yes, half a pound makes a big difference).
- more on the chassis: the bezel/hinge is terrible, it's designed to NOT save space and make the laptop bigger than it should be. don't know how to explain it, but there's a gap on the hinge where the monitor and the rest of the computer meets. it literally feels like a 14" with the viewing area of a 13.3" (btw, i actually found a review of the dv2 here... which is the same design but with a 12" viewable screen).

 

Thanks mrrunon, still can't make my mind up, the head says UL30A for the battery life, the heart has gone a bit gooey over the look of the DM3...

 

The UL30A's screen isn't spectacular, but it's fine for normal use. Playing games/watching movies can be a bit of a pain in a higher ambient light environment, but other than that it looks fine.

Also, as to the keyboard flex, have any of you checked out other laptops in stores? When I went to Best Buy to look at laptops, almost every sub-$1000 laptop had some significant keyboard flex to it, unless it was a netbook which isn't big enough for the keyboard to flex.

Does anyone have any answers to my earlier questions? Specifically the temperature issue. What's a normal operating temp for the UL30A, both with light use and heavy use?

 

I found no flex at all; very quiet and unflexy keyboard. CPU and the HD idle at around 32C/30C. Load temp is 45C.

 

Does anyone know if this works? Or where it goes...? It's a bluetooth module supposedly.
http://cgi.ebay.ca/Bluetooth-2-0-Mo...emQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item439cbb752d

 

Wow. Why is mine running so much hotter? I'm around 32-34 when I first boot up, but if I'm running even Firefox it gets up to around 40C. And a game like Torchlight gets it all the way up to 48C. To be fair, that's when I'm on battery set to passive cooling. I'll have to see what I get if I'm plugged in with active cooling.

 

Oh, also, what does your "THRM" reading measure? Mine's around 46 when just running Firefox, but up 55-58C when playing 3D games.

Also, the keyboard flex really only happens if you intentionally try to get it to flex. The UL50/80 keyboards flex if you just rest your hands on them.

 

I was doing the temp checks at school in a fairly cool hallway so that might explain why my temps are a bit less. I stressed the CPU with wprime and that's what I got. How did you set it to passive cooling?

My "THRM" temp is around the same as yours.

 

Passive cooling is a power option in Windows 7. It basically prefers to slow down the processor instead of turn on the fan if it really needs to cool the CPU down. And now that I tried it again, I only hit 46C max playing Torchlight with the fan never turning on. I also noticed that the temperature hovers around 32 until I do something, but once I get the temp up to 38-40C, no amount of idling will get it down again.

 

Here are my idle/load temps (with 5% bios overclock, ambient temp of 22C, cpu stressed with wprime for about 15 min)

 

overall im pleased with this ul30-a2, I have one problem, does anyone have this aswell?

over the past 2 weeks , this has happend 5 times.

I get this "peep" sound from the computer, and it freezes, and I have to hold down the showdown button since Cntrl - alt - del doesnt work.

Any ideas that can cure this problem?

 

I'm not sure but perhaps it might be worth finding some utilities to test your ram.

 

Well, when I ran WPrime for a similar length of time in a similar environment, I peaked at 47/45C for the cores and 55C for THRM. I guess it's nothing to worry about, really. It's strange that my cores tend to have different levels while everyone else seems to get the same temperatures. My core0 is always hotter than core1.

EDIT: Is there a way to even the usage of the cores?

 

I also find it very strange that I get higher temperatures with Torchlight than I do with wPrime. wPrime gives me 100% CPU usage while Torchlight hovers around 40%...

EDIT: Another weird discovery. Torchlight heats up my computer to the same point whether I'm running it at 640x480 with all effects turned off or 1366x768 with everything on max.

 

Hey guys, i've been using my UL30A-X3 for a little while now, and i'm starting to notice some serious stutter in performance and i was wondering if anyone was having this issue, even standard def videos are showing stutter. I'm not sure if its just something i have installed or what, but if anyone has any ideas please let me know. also I'm seriously thinking about 64bit 7 and was wondering if i should just back up my files and do a clean wipe or try the upgrade. Thanks for any advice in advance.

 

Windows 7 will certainly get you better performance than Vista. I highly recommend a clean wipe. An upgrade install takes much longer as it tries to migrate all your files and programs, and you might end up with some junk left-over from your old install.

 

Hi, I just got my UL30 and it feels and looks great but its full of unnecessary pre-installed software that I dont want/need. Does somebody know is there some very handy and good software that I should keep or should I just get rid of almost all of them? I tried to search from the forum but I didnt find any answer..

 

I think the best way is to keep/install all drivers, then try all programs, and get rid of them one by one.

A few have survived on my machine:
-Power4Gear. Easy way to tune power plans, and to cycle among them fast.
-Wireless Console 3. If u have both BT and WLAN, it's a decent tool to turn on/off them to save some battery.
-Fastboot. U can delay applications and services to start at startup, so your computer won't be so stressed while it's logging in.
-Express gate. It's the built-in fast bootable linux.

 

do you guys think the a2 is worth getting brand new for $671? i mean, i know the ul30jt is coming out soon (which means the a2 should drop in price. i mean come on, $200ish more for the i7 ulv and switchable graphics?), so im not sure if $671 is a good price all things considered.. but man, i want the asus really bad. just gave the dm3 to my uncle, so now it's up for me to choose the ul30a or the acer 3810. for some reason, i have an attraction to the ul30a.

 

It just depends on what you need. If I remember correctly, the launch date is 4-8 weeks from now? I don't remember. Nor do I know what the introductory price will be.

I love my A2, and it has plenty of muscle for anything I need it for, but an i7 with turbo boost would be sick. I'm assuming the battery life on the A2 will be a bit better...but when you're in the 8-12 hour range, they're all impressive!

If the JT would be stretching your budget, and you don't want to wait and run the small risk of there being bugs with that machine, that's a great deal on the a2.

 

actually battery life with the i7 would be equal or better.

the JT is going to be sub $1,000.. which imo means the ul30a is inevitably going to be lowered, hopefully by at least $100. if the a2 sells for $700, i'm sure i could sooner or later snag it for under $600 shipped.

so yeah, i decided on waiting.

 

can anyone share their wisdom on how to enable s/pdif (over the headphone jack) on the ul30a-x5 notebook? i've searched and searched and can't seem to get an answer.

I assume it's possible based on the hundreds of review specs out there. is it coax or toslink? in addition to getting the requisite adapter, do i have to do anything on the software end as well?

thanks.

 

It plays very nice with Ubuntu, as I'm running Karmic on my A2. If you need any help setting up, there's a decent thread for the UL30As at the Ubuntu forums and there's a launchpad group around, too.

I'm a designer - the screen is crisp, clear, and the colours are excellent. The black models are magnets for the littlest grease, but the silver models hide them perfectly.

No issues here in Win 7 nor Ubuntu Karmic. A simple solution would be to do a quick factory restore (what is it... F9?). It's a lazy way to find out if it's a hardware issue or not. (ie. if it happens again, call Asus.)

Even with the new model on the way, yes. Yes yes yes yes yes.

 

Depends. If you need a laptop now then get it. I got my A2 for $645 CAD but I really needed a replacement so I got it. If you can wait then do so.

 

Chicgeek: What kind of battery life do you get out of Ubuntu on the UL30A? I love Linux, but even my Eee 1000 would only get 3.5 hours in Linux compared to 5 in Windows, and battery life is a primary reason I bought this PC.

Also, does anyone know how to get H264 videos playing with the Intel Hardware Decoding? I have some MKVs I want to play, but I can't get them to play smoothly with software codecs.

 

well i'm definitely going to wait, but my fingers are getting itchy. the ul80 already dropped to sub $550...... so i'm hoping the ul30a will too, sooner or later.

 

where are you finding the ul3-A-A2 for 671? The cheapest i've found it is just over $700 on amazon

 

Hi Huys!

I have a question for all UL30A users! I bought it a couple weeks ago and I ve been really happy with it. But I have a few concerns.

I do not really know if this is Windows 7's problem but my desktop setting keeps resetting by itself. I do not like to see icons on desktop so I right click and choose not to show icons but every time I reboot my laptop, icons would show up again.

Same for the explorer. Even though I saved my ID for certain websites, a couple days later, they are gone. I had already installed Windows Media Player add-on programs last week but explorer asks me to install it again.

Seems to me that my system by itself keeps resetting and it is really annoying. Anybody experiencing this issue and knows how to solve it?

Thank you!

 

well that deal is dead now.. tigerdirect had 15% bing cashback, and it was going for $789.99 .. so 789.99 x .85 = $671.49 shipped with no tax for me (im in CA).

i think asus is going to come out with a $100 MIR for the ul30a, since they did so with the ul80. they're possibly unloading the older su7300 for the newer i7 ulvs.

 

I have the same issue with the desktop icons. They keep reappearing, and every time I click on "show desktop icons", I have to go into the the menu and untick it twice before it works. Really annoying, hope someone knows how to deal with this.

As far as the explorer issue, I wouldn't know, I only use Chrome, no problems there.

 

Has anyone noticed a lot of vibration with the PC? Only noticeable if you're using it on a desk, but I find that the UL30A vibrates constantly. It seems to be the hard drive, since it does it even if the fan is off. It's not enough to hear, but enough to feel if you're resting your hands on it. It's really irritating.

 

I don't know if this will help, but try:
right click | personalize | Change desktop icons | uncheck 'Allow themes to change desktop icons'

I've been able to play MKVs smoothly in WMP with Haali Media Splitter installed. No additional codecs needed.

 

Alright, I have removed the original windows 7 that comes with ASUS utilities and clean installed windows 7 professional on my own. There was no problem with appearing icons on desktop before I installed ATK utilities from Asus website in order to enable hot function keys. So I figured some ATK utilities programs do conflict with windows 7 but should let ask know about this issue.

 

I haven't noticed any vibration at all... the hard drive isn't as bad as others i've had. It is however really noisy at times... I hope SSD prices drop to something reasonable soon.

 

when i had the x5, it had that hissing sound when i lifted it.. kinda worried about that.

 

This did not help for me unfortunately, it seems it happens whenever I connect the Asus to my TV-screen with the HDMI cable, as that changes the resolution it also makes the icons reappear.

 

Hi folks,

First post, I wish I had something helpful to offer but it's really just a precautionary rant about Asus' RMA procedure.

My unit started clicking and freezing shortly after receiving it a month ago... I foolishly hoped it was a one-time thing, I love the computer, kept installing and setting up, it kept crashing. They sent me a new hard drive, told me it would have windows pre-loaded, it didn't. I tried to mount the "windows recovery disc" to a ISO and load from USB, I failed to do so, then got frustrated with how much time I'd spent, (and didn't want to then also spring for an optical drive) sent it back and asked for a new unit, since they could not even verify that the hard drive was in fact the source of the problem (although it seems likely to me)

Now I've been waiting for two weeks, I have an approval for a new unit, but they don't seem to communicate much, just the same "pending shipment" status. I've called more times than I care to admit.

I wish they would have issued a DOA immediately. I am quite certain that this would have been resolved far more swiftly by Dell, for all that company's flaws.

Anyway, as I said, not much in the way of advice, but thought it is important to share this experience. I don't know if Asus is better to deal with directly in the States, here in Canada we have to go through the US call centre, (even though I live 20k from the Canadian repair centre.) I've been told many different things which have turned out to be incorrect.

And having paid for a computer on Dec. 27, received on Jan. 3, I don't have anything today and it's Feb. 6. No idea when it will ship. Sux.

 

You would've been better off just borrowing a friends external dvd drive or something...
From what I have tried, you cannot mount their custom win7 disk onto usb for unknown reasons.