Asus C90S Review & Live Video

Below you will find ratings for c90s. poor, good, and excellent are the 3 ratings i will be asigning. A video can be found here as well.

Asus C90S Review:
E6600 2.4ghz
3gb ddr2 667 (2+1)
160gb 7200rpm fuji
Intel Wifi 4965 agn
Windows Vista Ultimate 32bit

General Appearance:
A video hgas been made for your viewing pleasure. Please do not click on the following link. Rightclick and click to save it to your desktop. Asus C90S = www.sretup.com/btotech/c90s/c90s.wmv
The video is still uploading. please give it another 12-24 hours before it is live.

Ports, buttons and expansion:
1x VGA Port for External Display
1x HDMI
1x Headphone-out jack (optical SPDIF)
1x Microphone-in jack
1x RJ11 Modem jack for phone line
1x RJ45 LAN jack for LAN insert
3x USB 2.0 ports
1x TV-out (S-Video/Composite)
1x IEEE 1394 (mini)
1x E-SATA (External Sata)
1x MCX Connector for TV-Tuner (Optional)
1x Express Card Slot
1x 8-in-1 Card Reader
1x Built-in Camera (2.0MP)
1x Built-in Bluetooth EDR 2.0
2x Built-in Microphones
2x Built-In Speakers (1.5w)
1x Built-in Touch Pad pointing device(2 buttons)
1x Biometric Built-in Finger Printer Reader
2x internal express slots for wifi and tv-tuner

Video card and assembly:
Fairly simple. no manuals are provided. This should not be attempted by first timers. the gpu is mxmII. asus states more options will be out. i will update this review when something better then 8600GT is possible

Screen:
Excellent. I have no gripes with this screen. It is of equal good quality as the rest of the screens asus has been using. please refer to the video for viewangles and such. Awesome magnetic latches. I realy love it. Try not to slam the screen though. Be easy

Audio and Speakers:
good. As expected the speakers are average. I have not tested dvd playback. It is possible that this has the same issues as all previous realtek chipsets with dvd playback. if it seems low there are more then a few ways to boost the volume.

Dimmensions
14.4 x 10.5 x 1.3~1.7 (inch)
6.8 lbs on digital scale (complete system + 6 cell battery)

Battery life:
I got 1.8 hours as an absolute max. 1.4 hours just typing stuff and reading our site. brightness set very low and on battery saving mode. On dvd i guess you will get 1 hours. Gaming....not worth mentioning. The battery life is poor but better then expected. Not too much less then alot of mobile with santa rosa.

Heat and Noise:
Despite having 4 small fans the unit is actually relatively quite while installing windows. The fans do spin up while gaming but still acceptable. Brusheless ballbearing dc fans are the key here and asus has been using them for a long time. This unit does get toasty. I would be worried if it did not. I refuse to review heat in terms of temperature becuase it is silly. It gets hot just like every other but does not overheat. With overclocking and running 3dmark it gets pretty loud and whiny.

Benchmarks:
3dmark06: Stock 1280x1024
total:2985
sm2:1186
hdr/sm3:1039
cpu:2038
Pcmark05 overclocked cpu 20%:
total:6139
cpu:6700
ram:5272
graphics:4574
hdd:4894

Keyboard:
good to excellent. I have no complaints. Some people may say "hey it has flex". Cry me a river. Most keyboards flex. its a good very usable keyboard.

Touchpad:
I had to revise my earlier review of "deplorable" to just ok. I dont know if it was the heat yesterday but the touchpad seems better now.

Pro's:
Excellent stock cooling
Excellent performance
Excellent value to perfromance ratio
Upgradeable and modular GPU
Easy to assemble
Option for Tv-Tuner
Power of a desktop CPU (Conroe)
Good throttling & overclocking options
Nice swivel camera and integrated fingerprint reader
HDMI .....Finally on a barebone
Excellent 2.0MP swivel camera
Integrated fingerprint reader for security

Con's:
No support for robson (for now)
Not a very good touchpad
Bulky cooling mechanism in the back which sticks out
Faulty wifi driver from driver cd, use intels
Missing screws in initial shipment, contact your dealer
4gb ram not compatible and no post. use 3gb ONLY! will retest
No extended battery options
No extended hard drive options
Less then expected gpu performance

 

First reply woot! Nice job Eddie.

 

Thanks
I just wanted to note. Please do not ask me for any more details dealing with aesthetics and feel. I refuse to write a review detailing aesthetics. Such a review should not be written by a dealer of the product. I made a pretty decent video and i hope it is enough for most people who just want to view the laptop in 360 degrees. This review is done except the parts that are still pending. The rest will be filled in sometime tonight the video is about 10% uploading. for other video reviews and a permanent link to this one please visit the stick above created by coriolis

 

Awesome can't wait to watch the video =)

I'm a bit disappointed that the touchpad is that bad. Although I will be using a mouse most of the time anyways, so it's not that big of a deal for me.

 

Can you be so nice as to give us a status on the GPU? Clocks & temps. A simple screenshot would be nice.

 

I use mainly desktops but only question is what makes a horrible touchpad horrible? No idea bad response time or something?

 

the touchpad has a thick layer of paint on it. the sensitivity is as low as it can be. just a very poor design. for any power user a bluetooth mouse is a requirement. too bad they didnt include it. between the horrible touchpad and the missing screws the quality control here seems to be poor. I dont know about the rest of the unit in terms of reliability but in a few months time we shall know.

 

game benchies please.

 

If you read, it says "pending" on the 3DMarks. Just give him some time otherwise it will be quite annoying because I can imagine he will be very bothered for the next couple days or so.

 

i just hope for real game ones, not pcmark stuff. :/

 

Had to retest as robson was not working. Not sure if it impeded performance while it was in so we have to retest.

 

I am sure that will be the next "to-do" on his list, probably goes something like this...#1. 3DMarks #2. Game tests #3. Eat/Drink .... #178. Sleep

 

Lol yeah people need to calm down. He doing this stuff to help us its not like he has to do it so just be patient.

 

Robson not yet???? I toguht it didnt support robson period...

 

It is not posed to support robson however the hardware was detected. the itm console however did not allow to enable it. dont know but it is safe to assume it is not compatible for now and possibly forever.

 

can you turn the sensitivity up on the touchpad to make it better with the correct driver? or is still that bad

i dont know if you ever tried the hp dv series but if you have, how does it compare ( i hated them, thats why i ask )

 

Nice job Eddie! Good to read a review of the C90. Thanks!

 

already corrected the driver setting as muich as i could. its just a horrible touchpad. I mean it can take some getting used to. I am not a picky person however it takes alot for me to say i hate something and i hate it. i am comparing it to pretty much every other asus notebook. I can recall one notebook where i hated the touchpad. that was a 3-4 year old model that i cant even recall the name. aus a8jm also has a crappy touchpad due to the paint job on it but that is even better then this one.

 

I guess when the screen costs 500 bucks by its lonesome, and the GPU probably half that, they had to cut back somewhere to keep the barebone price under a grand. I guess the touchpad took the hit. I have a couple wireless mouses (mice?) so I guess that will do. While I agree with the probing temps being a bad benchmark, is it possible to get a temp on the ace door and/or the air coming out of the back, or simply a qualitative assessment of how it feels on your lap? portability-wise?

 

I plan on having babies one day so i will not be putting any laptop on my lap. It feels hot. It doesnt feel cool. That is as detailed as any review should be. Stating the temperature of the exaust or palm rest is as usefull as converting the miles per hour into light years. Its hot, it feels hot and it gets hot like all of them. You have been around these forums long enough to know that the most frequent complaint on laptops is heat. I have yet to see a single asus that did not get that complaint. Expect your laptop to heat up but not overheat. That is all any rational person should care about.

 

...
I have to admit Ive never use the laptop on my lap but Ive heard many people that like to carry a thin squere of plywood to help keep the heat awya from their lap...

plus it helps the laptop keep straighter in your lap

 

I am currently using my laptop in my lap and waring shorts because the heat index is over 100 degrees today. My laptop does not seem to create problems. My cars seat belt buckle on the other hand burned my hand when it brushed against it.

 

3dmark06 score @ 2971
seems very low
retesting again

 

wait so teh video is LIVE? cuz i dont see anything nor is it buffering

 

Is it really that hard? I mean i make it real simple dont i? READ!!!!!!

 

what resolution you using for 3dmark test?

 

final 3dmark is 2985
i believe future bios will help increase the score, for now this laptop scores considerable lower then expected. base setting base resolution. same as g1s-a1 which scores 700 points more with the same card

 

Ouch -- I would say so. That's disappointing.

 

Thats weird, the processor is definitely more powerful so 3dmark apparently should be going up.

 

Maybe it's underclocked like the IFL90 or the Dell 1520 rather than the "stocks" of the G1S.

 

retesting with the included overclock util. so far it boosted frame rate by 30% or so. maybee that is the trick....

 

What does Rivatuner give as the clock speed?

 

Admittedly I'm out of the loop when it comes to 3dmark scores for comparable desktop CPU / GPU combinations -- so what is a fair expectation of 3dmark score for this machine (considering that it _is_ a desktop replacement with desktop components)?

 

Sounds like you maybe did the first run in one of the power save modes that cuts back on performance for the sake of saving battery power, lets see what you get with the gaming mode on.



I have only one major concern with what your initial review says, and thats that 4gb of ram wont work and wont post. So you mean with 2x2gb of ram you cant even start the computer or you just wont see all 4gb wich is what I expected.

There are alot of people using 4gb of ram with chipsets and computers that cant see/use the whole 4gb but atleast it post and runs with no issues.

 

That is right in line with the stock Dell 1520 (2906). The stock IFL90 got 3491 with a wxga screen.

Perhaps its GDDR2?

 

if i remember correctly, the asus g1s had a similar problem initially. asus will probably release a bios update eventually that should take care of this problem.

 

Wait wait is it gddr2 or gddr3? Ive heard for the last couple of months it was gddr3 like the g1.

 

it could just be a ploy by asus to make the overclock feature seem useful....i.e. put the computer on low stock settings, but when you use the magical overclock utility provided by the asus fairy, everything is faster... (must sleep more....)

 

Honestly I don't see why people are taking this review so seriously and thinking its the end of the world(at least that's what it "sounds" like). I would say wait until you get your own machine. It won't be long. Then you can see if its good for you or not. Going nuts because one person didn't have the exact performance as predicted in previews just doesn't make sense.

 

I suspect immature drivers and an awkward BIOS. As I was saying to someone earlier, Asus has already sold a ton of these notebooks due to pre-orders, they are probably making a new BIOS as we speak.

 

seems that the gpu is lower clocked like the dell 1520 and compal ifl90... looks like i'll be sticking with the ifl90 for the matte screen for now..

 

scores with 20% overclocking came out to 3148 in 3dmark. a marginal improvement. I will be the sceptic this time and say that i seriously doubt that you will see corrected actions due to a bios or driver update. i thinl the chipset or mxm architecture is the problem here. I have good reason to belive that this score is final however it is possible asus may release newer bios which updates the clock speeds. they have done so in the past for one model.....z81sp where the 3dmarks were adversely affected. i have not seen them come out with updated bios where it greatly increased 3dmarks. I will be trying further with 2gb ram and rivatuner or the like for more overclcoking.

 

have you seen transflective yet osso? it is pretty nice, higher contrast without all of the glare. (Still some, but not nearly as much as glossy, not as little as matte though.

Also, this and the IFL90 are the only notebooks to use this variation of the 8600M GT, neither have been out long enough for the customised drivers guys to really dig into them yet, I am holding out hope for those at least, if a new BIOS is unrealistic.

 

and how much would that cost, may I ask? It sounds deliciously unaffordable...

 

Thanks eddie.

 

Thanks Eddie - great review and I know its fun to be first.

Can you post the GPU clocking? This sounds exactly like whats in the IFL90 and the 1520 but I'm assuming they were under clocked to assist battery life and heat. That wouldn't make sense with the C90, but I'm clueless why the G1S is getting the benchmarks its getting.

 

i'l have to ask again... what resolution are you using for the tests?

 

1280 x 1024 is standard which is what he's getting if he has the WSXGA (1680 x 1050)... I believe

 

ITS GDDR2 LIKE DELL 1520 SO ITS RLLY BAD !!!

-Jabriiiz

 

It isn't GDDR2, it is regular DDR2, but yea it apparently is not fast like the GDDR3. I would look at the gaming benches before slamming it though, having a boost in the memory size may make up for the speed loss in some games (3DMarks favor speed over size, which is why overclocking gives so much higher increases in those scores than in actual FPS)

EDIT: also, the C90 screen is transflective by default (CMO WSXGA+ TFT display, same as the G1S)