* Asus N61JQ Owners Lounge *

Turbogear, Did you insall the 6200 yourself ? If so would you please let others know how easy it was to install.

 

We still only have had 3 people report the rubber coating peeling off on the front edge. If anyone else has this problem please let us know so I can post it on the first page as a heads up. Also we have had some new owners pop in here breifly the last couple of weeks. If you want to post a detailed review good or bad I will post it on the first page.
It seems like the edge peeling could be caused by rubbing in the laptop bags.
If you need to use a bag it might help to use a sleeve.

 

I haven't had any peeling, but I do have a round shiny circle where my left wrist touches the palmrest (when gaming I use the AWSD keys for direction). So now that part is 'polished' by my wrist if you can call it that.

I haven't tried cleaning it to see if it will go away but I doubt it will, as I also have a mouse that has the same kind of rubber coating and it's all shiny from the wear.

 

I suppose I'll be in the same boat as you soon. I've been playing with it on my lap and my wrist ends up rubbing the edge of the laptop so I've started wondering how long until it starts peeling.

 

I am not so sure the resolution is the issue, at least for me. The picture has great depth, is sharp and everything is extremely readable. There is also enough screen real-estate for coding applications.

I think the issue is with the viewing angles and I think the protective cover is the biggest cause. Due to the limited angles, the pictures is washed out when the angle isn't right. This is where the display looks sub-par.

After having the laptop for a little while, you start understanding how to adjust the display to best fit your postitioning. You find your "sweet spot" and no longer see the washed-out picture. This is where everyone is getting "used to" the display. Once you find that "sweet spot", the display problems seem to go away.

This is at least the way it is for me and is my story, and I'm sticking to it! ;-)

 

I think it is because the people having it happen just can't leave the laptop alone. I know that I don't go anywhere without it. Even if I don't pull it out of the bag and fire it up, I still carry as if it were my cell phone. It is just not attached to my hip. ;-)

All kidding aside, it sucks when it happens to you but, at least now that we know, we can do whatever we can to prevent it from happening.

 

Just a reminder to everyone about the ADW:

1) You only have 60 days to get your ADW paperwork in.

2) If you mailed your ADW paperwork to the address on the ADW card, it WILL be returned to you in about 2 weeks. If you purchased from newegg.com, you can log into the Order Status page to print your invoice (per Customer Service, this is your receipt).

3) Go to http://vip.asus.com and register your laptop. Go to http://adw.asus.com/content/adp/default.aspx and fill out the ADW information for your laptop. ASUS will send you a confirmation email that you will need to print and send in with the receipt/invoice copy.

4) Your warranty starts from the date of purchase. Not the date you received the laptop.

 

Is the 2yr extension thing still goin on with Asus 1 yr warranties?

 

What are you talking about?

 

Newegg- N61JQ-X1 SOLD OUT! May the Newegg X1 warranty Bait and Switch rest in peace!

 

Still waiting for the next shipment of A1s to Amazon.

Reading this forum is not helping me with the wait .

 

Not gonna lie, I think I bought the last one
Ordered on Monday night

 

I need to get this off my chest.... I'm REALLY HAPPY WITH MY N61JQ-2AJX! whatever that means. its core i7-720qm, 640gb, 4gig ram, DVD (no blueray so sad), win7 hp 64bit.
After reformatting it and loading the Necessary drivers (the bloatware is horrendous!), I fired up Dragon Age Origins with my backup save, crossed my fingers and pushed the graphics to max, lo and behold! It ran V-E-R-Y smoothly!
I mean, sure the resolution is low compared to my 1920x1200 XPS M1730 8800M GTX SLi (the words are so small i can't lean back on my study chair without squinting, had to zoom in 150% on websites, now i dont have to with the N61!), but on the M1730 the game actually STUTTERS. Had to rename the .exe to MassEffect.exe so the SLi can work (yea really lame...). Its dying a little everyday, one of the fans is not working and the thing's SO HOT! Moral of the story, do not put a gaming desktop replacement to sleep, and then chuck it into a laptop sleeve, i forgot =p and i think it kinda fried the ethernet port and the battery. I DIG THE SOFT TOUCH PLASTIC COATING of the N61 THATS NICELY LUKEWARM TO THE TOUCH, not the burning sensation (im not into sm... =D) of the M1730. I'll miss the free heater though, seeing winter's around the corner...
anywho, back to the N61JQ, i mean come on, med-high settings for crysis warhead, mass effect 2 with everything HIGH (AAx4 max though to get comfortable framerates)!!!!
whoever said its not really for gaming, bull! ok no i take that back i didnt mean it, but its a really high performance laptop! but maybe because its running on a low resolution, im happy! and its true that the backlight is somewhat stronger at the bottom, but only just a little. watching my dvds on this screen, gorgeous!
Man... awesome stuff. OH and i got it from D-Smith electronics at AUD1475 (it was 1589 or something, I SAVED 100! woohoo!), thanks to one of the guys (i forgot who and i honstly cant go back the hundred of pages, but really, THANK YOU!) in the thread that submitted his receipt from retravision.

i'm just SO happy!

ok sorry for the outburst =P

-edit-
whoever's looking to reformat, when you put in the drivers cd, and you're installing the ati-amd vga drivers, a windows 7 popup would say to restart system. DO NOT CLICK on it! the driver's not fully installed yet, so just leave it, after about 3minutes it'll be ready and it'll auto restart. just a warning =)

 

Wow good to hear! That sounds all very impressive. I am looking at the i5 model for just over AUD $1150.

 

Let's just say the EDGE made back its cost and gave me the profit to purchase this laptop. It went on for almost a one and a half year stretch before the graphical problems and as of 11th March 2010, the card is officially dead.

It was out of the Sager warranty by that time and the company I purchased it from went under during the recession, but primarily because it was a shady company, however, they gave me such good service and compensation for lateness of the product, I didn't take heed to the warnings.

I'm glad to be rid the laptop though, even though it was a 15 inch that got 10,000 on 3dmark06, no amount of 3dmark could compensate for burning right palm rests (without a cooler, aka, 70% of the time I used the laptop) and annoying high pitched whines from the CPU.

Now I was looking for a laptop that ran cool and had a good warranty, boom, this is it, the plus is that it runs almost the same pace as my older laptop and I doubt I would miss anything especially with the comfort that should be assoicated with this thing.

The resolution doesn't bother me one bit, in fact, I had the tendency to increase the DPI on 1680x1050 so much it almost felt like it was the resolution of this laptop. So I will fit right in.

Update: UPS ground shipping has changed the estimated shipping date from Friday to Thursday which means it should reach the Miami office and I might have a slight chance to get it before weekend. Has an estimated date with ground shipping ever been brought up before in your experience guys? I do find that a bit....odd.

 

ok this is weird, why is there Nividia Physx in my Programs and Features?
must be that dumb windows update again..

-edit-
ah, its dragon age origins. wonder why the game needs it when im running an ati

 

Well. I woke up to a UPS Tracking order in my inbox. Im a little more happy now

 

Thanks for the tip! I'll probably be ordering it in the next few days. If you get it sooner, please post pics of what it looks like installed in your machine!

 

Lol. I think you would be. That's essentially the confirmation its coming to your house. The only hold back now is the method used for delivery

 

i'm about to buy this one but i now i'm hesitant after i learned about the peeling.

 

Kicked the tires on my newly-delivered N61JQ yesterday evening... The nearly 2 hours (!!!) it took to burn the recovery DVD's was a bit of an annoyance, but after that was done I took an hour or so to run the system through a relatively quick once-over. I haven't put it through it's paces yet, but here's my thoughts.

* The design is very nice and sleek. I'm moving over from a 3-4 year old HP DV6000, which had decent aesthetics, and the N61JQ was not a step down at all in that regards.
* The thing is cool (literally). It runs fairly cool minus the fan on the back-left panel that is pumping out the heat. But the palmrest and undercarriage of the laptop were both cool to the touch after an hour of basic usage. My old HP could melt an igloo in under 30 minutes (with a cooling fan pad!).
* It's stone silent. My HP sounded like a turbo plane going off in my living room, I can't even hear this thing when it's right in front of me. Huge improvement.
* Full-sized keyboard. A huge plus, but I need to get used to it as my old HP didn't have the number pad.
* Quick boot and shutdowns. My Windows Vista HP took like 2-3 minutes to boot (and it was tuned!), and another 2 minutes to shut down. Annoying as sin. This thing churns, even at it's basic configuration.

I have yet to remove the "bloatware" from this system and load in all my apps (Adobe dev suite, photoshop, movie editors, games, etc), so I'm looking forward to do that later today and giving the machine a bit more work to go through.

Note to folks who are concerns with the resolution. I'm used to higher resolutions (1280x1024 and 1600x1200), and the N61JQ is probably at the lowest acceptable resolution for me. I won't lie and say I wasn't concerned - I was - but after using it yesterday for web browsing and such, I'm not as concerned anymore. Again, this may change with more usage, but for now I'm happy with the display.

I'll chime in a bit more as I get more in depth with this thing, but all in all after a little over an hour of usage, I'm very happy with my purchase.

 

The only real difference I see in the N71 vs the N61 is the screen, resolution, and HDD. Is the N71 worth getting? I pretty much have my sights set on the N61 but I wanted to be sure.

 

UPS. UPS in my town loves me. Lets just hope that the rest of the company does

 

I really don't think that you should let the peeling discourage you from getting this laptop. I'll upload some pictures but they're poor quality, as I only have my camera phone on me. But, I can tell you that I've owned this computer for a month now, and the peeling hasn't even spread onto the top of the palm rest yet. It's isolated only on the edge. I also have my computer with me constantly, as I'm a full time student and I take it to class. Now, I do have a backpack with a laptop "holder thing," but I don't keep it in a sleeve. Honestly, I think you would have to kick your laptop in order to treat it worse than I do.

 

How do I get 1080P output to my TV? Only seem to be able to choose 720p?

 

I would not let that stop you. We have had less than a half dozen reports of this. The rubber coating is a nice touch but it is not needed. If you are on the keyboard all the time it will eventually wear out as it is rubber and watches, rings and bracelets rubbing against it are going to wear on it. If you take it with you everywhere and its moving around in a bag it might chip off the rubber on the edge.
But we have alot of owners here and very few reports as of yet. And if you strip away some rubber you are just left with a metal deck. It is not desireable but it is just appearance. This thing runs so cool that heat is not an issue even if you strip away the coating. I think using a sleeve might help protect the edge if you use a bag.
In conclusion I think it would be a mistake to pass on this laptop because of this issue. The coating is cool and I would still want it even knowing it might start wearing off someday.

 

I think the difference maker for most is the size. If you go to a store and handle a 16" and 17" screen and the extra size and cost fits your needs than I would choose the N71. For me I just returned an 18.4" screen because it was to bulky and 17" seemed a little to big for me also. And I wanted to get a new high powered laptop for as little cost as possible so if it craps out or becomes obsolete in a couple of years it won't hurt so much to replace it.

 

Guys, I just bought a 23" 1080p lcd (LG 2353V). I hooked it up to the standard VGA port (that's the only cable it came with) and it works fine.

Should I buy an HDMI cable? Would I see a better image quality?

 

One way is if you don't need to use the computer monitor press the windows logo and the letter P, then select projector only. After that you should be able to select 1080p if it is not already in it.

 

Are you kidding me? You have a 1080p screen, get down to the store and get an HDMI cale! And get some extra ones for anything else you are going to hook up to this TV.

 

Hey everyone, I'm new to the forum and really like what I have been reading. You're all very knowledgeable. I just ordered the N61JQ-A1, and est. delivery is between 3/18 and 3/23...so I'm crossing my fingers for the 18th!

I just wanted to say "hey" and that I'm looking forward to joining the ranks of N61JQ owners. Keep up the lively discussions...it ultimately helps us all!

Thanks again.

 

Hey , can anyone recommend a good "sleeve" for the N61JQ? I want to have one ready when it comes home. Also, are there any viable "dock" options for this particular laptop?

Any help is appreciated!

 

Don't buy into the marketing hype BS electronics companies leverage. The HDMI cable will undoubtedly produce a superior image. On the other hand, the chance that you will actually be able to perceive the difference is highly unlikely. If you absolutely must, borrow a cable from a friend and test for yourself before wasting your money.

 

Your post reminded me of buying a 10 ft HDMI cable from Fry's. In the home theater section, they had all these expensive cables by Monster and company costing anywhere from $30 to $100. In the computer section, they had cardboard boxes full of no-name cables for $8 each. The cheapy cables work fine with my TV

 

I'm not recommending buying a over hyped over priced brand name HDMI cable, But are you honestly saying that a VGA hookup onto a 1080p TV will look the same as with an HDMI cable?

 

VGA cables carry an analog signal, so if they are not high quality cables you will notice a difference from HDMI which is a digital signal. However if you have a quality VGA cable you are not going to notice the difference. Also don't by expensive HDMI cables they are not worth the money.

 

Adamal, I didn't know that a good analog cable would transmit an HD quality picture. I just assumed if you bought a 1080p TV that you would need a digital cable. But given that fact isn't it also a benifit of the HDMI cable that it will also carry your digital sound so you have less cables.
I will quit commenting on VGA since I seemed to missunderstand it.

 

VGA is actually like component cable and can definitely carry an HD signal.

 

I would guess that most LCD computer monitors support high resolutions over VGA. The picture quality will depend on how good the video card DAC and monitor ADC translate the digital information over the analog cable (as well as the cable quality and length).

 

Catalyst 10.3 are out, these are updated version from the previous preview!

http://sites.amd.com/us/underground/tips/Pages/catalyst-10-3-preview.aspx

 

I was trying to download them but it keeps telling me that the download is cancelled. I just got a new mouse to play Crysis and was hopinh to try them out. ;-)

 

I get mine on special from Amazon. The least I have paid is roughly $2 per cable if you include shipping. That was for 3 cables at 10 cents each and $5.95 shipping.

I just picked up five 6' cables not on special at roughly $3 each. They were about 90 cents each with $10.95 shipping.

I purchased one $50 Monster HDMI cable for my PS3 a long time ago. There is no difference in picture or sound between the Monster and the cables I got from Amazon. Take Adamal's advice to heart. Expensive HDMI cable are not worth the price.

Edit: Here is one place that has he cables for 86 cents. Shipping to Florida on 3 cables was just over $8. 3 cables for $11 isn't too shabby. http://www.amazon.com/Eforcity-Digital-Video-Cable-GOLD-PLATED/dp/B000UHQVOW/ref=pd_cp_e_2

 

Thanks for all your responses. I decided to buy an HDMI cable from monoprice for $5.21 + $2 shipping since the local best buy wants $29.99 for it. I'll let you guys know how it works out.

 

Hey guys, I'm supposed to get my A1 in tomorrow afternoon. I'll post my impressions and everything after I get to play around with it for a while.

 

Make sure you have some sunglasses on first boot to negate the garish blue tint and intense gamma. It has what is without doubt the worst out of the box colour settings I have seen on a lcd. Follow my guide a few pages back to resolve it.

Dont forget the newest 10.3 drivers.

 

Hey guys was wondering how much this notebook benefits from having a notebook cooler. Could some people post their temps with and without a cooler and any other knowledge/experiences on what might be the best cooler for the notebook.

 

Would be great if that guide was posted on the first page with all the other information *hint to OP* *hint*

 

I have a 23" LG High Def monitor that i hook up to my X1 with an HDMI cable and let me tell you it looks fantastic.

 

I use a Zalman NC2000 notebook cooler. Sorry I don't have any screen pics of my HWInfo utility temps but I can tell you basically:

Running Crysis with High graphic settings:

(Without the cooler)
CPU Cores run between 70-78C
GPU around 80C

(With the cooler )
CPU Cores run between 60-70C
GPU around 72C

So that cooler does make a difference for sure... and it's built pretty sturdy.

 

Appreciate it Mike, any other experiences guys?