Another Asus M50Sv-A1 Video Review

Yes, I'm having a blast with it. My wife is out of town with the birth of our 2nd grandson and so I have my new laptop to keep me occupied.

In my estimation the M50Sv-A1 lives up to all the hype--fast, good graphics, attractive. To this point I only have 3 small gripes: 1) While the speakers put out wonderful quality sound for a laptop, they just aren't as loud as I would like; 2) The right side of the numeric keypad has some keyboard flex--not a problem, but noticeable; 3) The touchpad has the cool ability to be turned into a multi-media touchpad by simply tapping the upper right hand corner of the touchpad. However, I find that I all too frequently tap the upper right hand corner for cursor movement, and accidentally activate the multi-media function.

No notebook is perfect, but this one comes awfully darn close.

 

Yeah, there's always a few little things about a notebook that aren't perfect, but that one sounds real close.

 

Yes, I'll be curious as to how the mainstream reviewers like PCWorld rate it. PCWorld gave the Sager 2092 (in its MicroExpress incarnation) an 85. This should have the same power and benchmarks as the 2092 with several significant bells and whistles. So, I'll be curious how it rates.

 

Thanks for the AWESOME video review haha. You did it really good. rep+

 

all my videos on all their products can be found here http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=69841

 

Agreed to deadman, i always accidentally activate the multi-media function, its annoying.
About the numpad, if Num Lock is ON you cant use home/end/pgup/pgdn keys, and if you want to us those keys, u cant use numpad. Am just getting used to it.

Also i cant register to the fingerprint. On first start fingerprint registration wizard popup'd but i didnt registered, but now its not showing up, how do i register for fingerprint? i dont see any option, user manual says enable TPM in BIOS for startup wizard. but there is no TPM option in security tab of BIOS

 

in start-allprograms -asus folder you should see the jumpstart option for your protect manager

 

nope, its not there, but there is something called 'Smart logon' which if enabled captures your image for face recognition, on login screen. i havnt tried it.

 

asus protect manager. should be on the cd atleast. i saw it in my review i am pretty sure.

 

I'm wondering if there is any way to program some of the hotkeys for home/end/pgup/pgdn. I understand the limitations of trying to put the numeric keypad in, still I don't want to lose those keys, especially home/end.

Speaking of hot keys, is there any combination that will allow us to keep the multi-media function from activating until we want it to? I'm not wanting to disable the whole touch pad, just keep the multi-media from activating.

 

Done. i installed Protect manager from CD. Fingerprint is now working.
Also Face recognition works cool, just have to face the cam to login. Especially for people like me, who are too lazy.

 

OMG, could you PLEASE tell me where you got your laptop?
I have been search in vain for weeks!

 

I got my laptop from excaliberpc.com, and it shows they are in stock now.

 

XoticPc for me. But all 4 of the resellers here on the Asus forums are great.

 

yes asus included soft to program the touchpad functions. I did not try but pretty sure you can specify to turn it off. i mean the touchpad it self is still made by synaptics. they also have moded drivers. the light up function pad is a cool feature but by no means an invention of asus

 

Thanks Eddie, I'll poke around and see if I can figure out how to turn of the multi-media touch function. I like having it when I want it, but don't want it available to me all the time.

 

I dont think you can have it like that lol. This reminds me of the time a lady sent her notebook for repair. she had masking tape covering the far right of the touchpad. I asked her why and she replied "i dont like how it scrolls"

 

So are you saying I can turn off the multi-media touch funtion or I can't. I want to leave the touchpad active to control the cursor.

 

you can definitely deactivate it
i didnt try but i am sure i can figure it out in a few min which means you can too if you try

 

Thanks Eddie, I'm not with the laptop now, but I'll try later this evening.

 

Let us know, this would be a pretty important feature to have IMO.

 

No doubt this is great laptop. Anyone using it with existing router any issue with wireless router? or any suggestion on which good wireless router (Draft N) will it be compatible and good combination?

 

With my recent purchase of the M50Sv-A1, I also purchased a D-Link DIR-655 802.11B/G/N wireless router. I'm really glad I did as I'm sure that my old router would have slowed things down. The DIR-655 has been highly reviewed for its speed and rated pretty good for its distance capabilities.

It has worked flawlessly with the M50Sv-A1.

 

I don't have an M50Sv, but I do have a really good router. It's the TRENDnet TEW-633GR, and it's been fast and stable over the months that I've had it. It has great security and is really easy to set up. I think it's very similar to the D-Link DIR-655.

Check it out here.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833156226

 

surprising as it may seem i have never used an N router. Mainly because i dont have any laptops with the 4965 wifi (although that is mainly what I sell). never needed them really. I am just fine and dandy with 54mpbs. I do not expect to upgrade for a few years. My main pc is attached. My laptop is only used for communication and sometimes linked to my xbox. My main laptop is actually 11mbps. I cant say that i would gain any benefit from a faster network.

 

I think N is good for wireless gamers and large file downloaders mainly, and G is still good for more mundane tasks.

 

i still use A. what does that make me? A mundane communicator?

 

lmao!

 

So can the multimedia button/light function of the touch pad be turned off while the touch pad is still used or not?

No one ever answered this question definitively, and I think it's important to know for sure before purchasing.

 

I haven't been able to figure it out. Keep in mind that I remember when calculators were invented and made slide rules obsolete (I actually once owned one). So, if anyone with younger, fresher brain cells can figure it out, that would be much appeciated.

Tho' I will comment that I have modified my touchpad behavior so that I am triggering the multi-media function less (see old dogs can earn new ticks).

 

Eddie, can you help us out with this?

 

yes i can and i remember i did in the review. waiting on a fresh shipment from our disti due on monday. i will open a customized order and figure it out if this thread is still going next week. otherwise i will forget so refresh my ram if i dont reply next week.

 

OK, sounds good!

 

I think this is what you're looking for?

Control Panel->Mouse Properties->Device Settings tab
Have Synaptics LuxPad V6.2 highlighed and click on settings
In the list, expand Tapping and select Dual Mode

It should show you a picture of the touch pad and uncheck where it says "Switch to Button Mode by tapping in the upper-right corner"

Pressing "Mode" will no longer activate the media controls. Hope this helps =)

 

Brilliant sir! Brilliant!

Worked like a charm.

Thanks so very much.

Scoober, are you reading this?

 

Yeah, that's fantastic!

 

well i was beat to it. thanks for saving me 5 minutes of work

 

After installing SP1, the audio functionality got disabled, so had to re-install audio drivers now its working fine.
Checked the Asus site for update and found latest Bios has anyone updated the bios to this version?

Version 208 2008/04/21 update
OS Vista 32bit
Description BIOS 208
Reduce the shutdown hanging issue after installing hot fix Q943899 included at QFE0802.
File Size 532.94 (KBytes)

http://support.asus.com/download/download.aspx?model=Tools&SLanguage=en-us

Thanks

 

Are you experiencing that issue? If not, you don't need to update the BIOS.

 

xp service pack also causes issues with xp and atk driver. so far work around is to go to selective install and make sure not to install atk update driver.

 

Is the Asus M50SV-B1 basically the same as the A1 but with the addition of the Blu-Ray drive? on paper it looks like it but there might be minor differences, and if there is what would they be? Thanks.

 

Same battery. The 2 unit are identical except for CPU and Optical drive.

 

Thanks for the info.

 

Hi eddie you said the gpu module was exchangeable , is there any chance it could be upgraded with a better gpu ? . And aside from this , are ther any other asus models with upgradeable GPU modules. I will be going to NY on vacations in about a month, can I go over and visit you i will be buying a lappie for sure.

 

the only asus model with an upgradeable gpu is the c90, even that one is limited to mxm type 2 (think 600 class cards)

 

I said it was "modular" not "upgradeable". Unfortunately not.

 

anyone having issue with the screen?

when i enable Ambient light sensor, in few minutes i see a vertical
fading black shade color patch on right hand side from top to bottom of the screen. If i disable Ambient light sensor, screen looks normal with very little black shade. Am facing this from last 2 weeks.
Its looks more like CRT screen which got magnetize.

 

some pics or video of what you see would help

 

here is the video and pic, i hope you can see it, its difficult to see on cam.
Sorry about poor vid/pic quality.

<object width='425' height='350'> <param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/m6VQAXf9Tn8"> </param> <embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/m6VQAXf9Tn8" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width='425' height='350'> </embed> </object>

IMG 1
IMG 2

 

The way the lcd backlight works may be affected by lowering the brightness. How does it look under full brightness? also how does it look on other backgrounds besides a mostly white nbr background? if you can please revise your reply to include links instead of full pictures. Its killing the formatting of this thread.