M50Sv: Review & Owners' Lounge

Introducing:
The M50Sv is Asus's new multimedia laptop aiming to please anybody who wants an option for gaming and a lot of multimedia functionality.

A note by the moderators: As of today 29 April 2008, this thread is also the Owners' Lounge for the M50Sv. Enjoy!

Similar on the performance aspect of the M51Sn, some noteworthy changes have been made to make this a good upgrade. One of the bigger upgrades is that it comes with the new Penryn processor. The M50Sv comes in 2 flavors. The A1 model is more for the power users with a Penryn stock clocked at 2.5ghz and the B1 is more for the HD media fans with a built in Blue-Ray disk drive but with the cpu toned down to 2.1ghz to keep the cost about the same for both units. No matter which unit you choose they are both very competitively priced and the B1 is probably the best option to get Blue-Ray on the whole market.

Many of the upgrades you would normally want for a laptop are already included, with stock 3gb of RAM and a 250gb HDD included, right out of the box its ready to go, so no hassles spending money for or installing an upgrade due to the all too common concept that laptops have to come with small HDD's and RAM unless you buy the highest available model.


Build Quality and Physical Specs
The build quality is very solid, The back cover and palmrest features Asus’s new Infusion Technology for high scratch resistance, from a quality standpoint it's very similar to the F8SV, reflective outside cover but not painted on the inside where your hands rest so that there won’t be issues with paint wear.

F8Sn-C1 and M50Sv side by side video:




G1Sn and M50Sv Video




Screen
15.4” WXGA+ 1440 x 900 resolution is right in the middle giving you a good mix of workspace and not making things appear too small.

Keyboard and Touchpad
If your a fan of hotkeys or direct access to controls, as you can see from the pictures there is definitely no lack of them here, when using the notebook for multimedia you wont even have to touch your mouse to control everything that is going on. A really cool thing about the touchpad is that it has a blue backlight and if switched to multimedia mode it becomes a series of hotkeys that you can just tap to access. When you are in normal mode it just goes back to a plain black touchpad. Another really rare thing to see is that a full numeric keypad is included as well so those who hated using a laptop because those keys were missing wont have any problems here.








Ambient Light Sensor



press FN+A to enable or disable it.
The light sensor will detect the amount of light in your environment and automatically adjust the brightness of the display panel to provide better viewing.


Price and Specification:

M50SV-A1 MSRP $1,399
- Screen: 15.4” WXGA+ 1440x900 glossy
- Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo Penryn T9300 2.5 GHz 6MB 800 FSB
- Graphics: GeForce 9500M GS 512MB DDR2
- Hard Drive: 250GB SATA 5400 rpm
- RAM: 3GB RAM DDR2 667 MHz SODIMM 2G+1G
- Optical Drive: DVD Super Multi
- 4X USB 2.0, 1X eSATA (share with 1 USB Combo Port)
- 1X IEEE 1394
- 1X ExpressCard
- VGA out
- HDMI
- Card Reader : SD/SDHC/MMC/MS)
- 1X RJ45 10/100/1000 Ethernet, modem, microphone in, headphone out (S/PDIF)
- Wireless: Wi-Fi (802.11a/b/g/n)
- Bluetooth 2.0+EDR
- Operating System: Windows Vista Homes Premium 32
- Dimensions: 14.2 x 10.5 x 1.1 inches (WxDxH)
- Weight: 6.5 pounds




























Package includes:
- Carrying case
- 90W AC adapter
- 6 cell battery
- S-Video Cable
- Phone cord for fax modem
- USB Optical Mouse
- User manual
- Asus Windows Vista Recovery DVD
- M50Sv Drivers DVD
- Nero 7
- Dust cloth






Audio
The M50Sv knows that gaming and multimedia go hand in hand. Both require more hard drive space, a strong CPU and a good amount of ram, and to fully enjoy ether you need a good source of sound. That’s why Asus opted to upgrade the standard speakers you would normally find in a normal laptop to Altec Lansing brand speakers and where they are normally placed inside most laptops and suffer that "little speaker" effect instead they are placed on the outside of the laptop near the screen so you can have direct sound.


Heat and Noise
Utilizing the new 9000 series Geforce GPU and the Penryn CPU its very cool & quiet both of these components run cooler than there older counterparts due to better heat/energy efficiency. In addition to that Asus has upgraded the fans and heatsink on this model to better handle the heavy heat often associated with high performance notebooks. Its night and day compared to an older notebook like the G1S making the word laptop mean something again.

Battery Life
Power4Gear battery saving mode: 6 cell +11.1V 4800mAh around 2 Hr 10 min
Your looking at around 2 Hhr 10 Min for now with more possible in the future with some tweaking.

Power4Gear battery saving mode: 9 cell +11.1V 7200mAh 2 Hr 58 min








Performance and Benchmarks

WEI



------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

8GB ExpressCard SSD with ReadyBoost enable:

System boot time from press the power button to Windows desktop sidebar loaded:
M50SV-A1
T9300
3GB DDR2 667
GeForce 9500M GS 512MB DDR2
250GB 5400rpm SATA
Vista Home Premium 32


Without SSD readyboost: 1 minute and 01 seconds

With SSD readyboost: 50.13 seconds


PCMark05 results:










------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

3DMark06

1280x720 3580


1440x900 3089



M50SV-A1 game video:

T9300 2.5Ghz 6MB 800FSB
9500M GS 512MB DDR2 stock driver @475/950/400 no overclick
3GB DDR2 667
Windows Vista Home Premium 32

Crysis


Call of Duty 4


Assassin's Creed game video 1440X900 at high settings:



------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

M50SV-B1
CPU: T8100 2.1GHz 3MB 800FSB
GPU: GeForce 9500M GS 512MB DDR2 stock driver no overclock
RAM: 3GB DDR2 667 (1G+2G)
250GB 5400rpm SATA
Blue-Ray Disk Drive/DVDRW
Windows Vista Home Premium 32

WEI





3DMark06
1024X768: 3724



1280X720: 3515



1440X900: 3042



M50SV-B1 Blue-Ray movie:









------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Windows XP
Everything works under Windows XP except the ITECIR Infrared Receiver, most of the stock drivers works for both Windows Vista and XP except the some hardwares and utility, the links below are the drivers you'll need to download if you are going to install Windows XP:

VGA:
http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=17739


Realtek Audio Driver:
Link 1
Link 2
Link 3



Wireless Lan:
http://downloadmirror.intel.com/17228/eng/12.2.0.0_X_Drivers.zip

Lan:
http://dlcdnet.asus.com/pub/ASUS/nb/C90S/LAN_xp_vista_070808.rar

Bluetooth (thanks to Konohasaint) :
Asus Server: http://dlsvr01.asus.com/pub/ASUS/nb/W7S/Bluetooth_XP32_Vista32_070912.zip
Intel Server: http://downloadmirror.intel.com/12052/eng/V4.00.30a_XP.zip

Power4Gear:
http://downloadmirror.intel.com/10891/eng/P4G_V1.16_Generic.zip



3DMark06
T9300 2.5GHz 6MB 800FSB
GeForce 9500M GS 512MB DDR2 with stock driver no overclock
3GB DDR2 667
250GB 5400rpm SATA
Windows XP Professional

1024x768: 4715 @475/950/400


1280x800: 4206 @475/950/400


1440x900: 3740 @475/950/400




------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Overclocked on Windows XP

3DMark06
T9300 2.5GHz 6MB 800FSB
GeForce 9500M GS 512MB DDR2 with stock driver
3GB DDR2 667
250GB 5400rpm SATA
Windows XP Professional

1024x768: 5715 @ 546/1258/486


1280x800: 5172 @ 544/1304/488


1440x900: 4585 @ 546/1258/486


1280x1024: 4600 @ 536/1296/488


The result is pretty much similar to 8600M GT GDDR3 card overlocked

M50SV-A1 Crysis game video:
T9300 2.5Ghz 6MB 800FSB
9500M GS 512MB DDR2 stock driver
3GB DDR2 667
Windows XP Professional


All settings on Medium except:
Physics quality : low
Shaders Quality low
Volumetric effects quality :low
Game effects quality :low

Video 1, no overclock:


It does play better on XP, the FPS was around avg. 17~22 on Vista and now getting avg. 22~28 on XP.


Video 2, Overclocked: @ 528/1288/428


Huge jump on FPS around 28~46 depends on the scene.


Video 3, no overclock:
Every settings on high except:
Physics quality : low
Shaders Quality :low
Volumetric effects quality : low
Game effects quality :low



The 9500M GS has about the same performance as 8600M GT except some new DX10 features. You can expect scores to be better if something is very cpu intensive because of the cpu upgrade, this should work really well with games like Master & Commander, or FSX.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

How To Install Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron On The Asus M50Sv

Thanks to Paul Weiss AKA hotweiss:

http://seethisnowreadthis.com/2008/05/19/how-to-install-ubuntu-804-hardy-heron-on-the-asus-m50sv-a1/



Reason to buy
You would probably want this notebook if you want to be able to play games comfortably on the go, or using less space than a desktop. It really could do any job you would like it too but its just giving you the option for a whole lot more, infact its quite capable of being a full desktop replacement just with emphasis on being very multimedia based especially the B1 model with Blue-Ray built in. The neat gadgets and features like the dual function touch pad are great but what really matters in the end is the quality, the price, and the performance. It really has all of that, and its nice to see a larger HDD and more ram coming stock now with the unit rather than having to be an upgrade or only present in the very expensive top end models.

Conclusion
Overall its a really pretty laptop, and should be able to make anybody happy since it has all of the newest and best features and components. Its a nice step upward from similar previous models from ASUS and it has a nice neutral look so it should fit in anywhere from a business meeting, to the local coffee shop (yep no flashing leds here. Sorry G1S fans)

 

ESATA USB port in one? Wow, I've never seen nor heard of that before, that's pretty neat!

 

G2S has one also, it's the combo port.

 

same f3 battery? looks like it! thank god. I would want to choke someone if they made another new battery.

 

No the battery is different from F3, it won't fit.

 

WHYYYYYYYYY? that is horrible Ken. Is it the same as any other existing model? It looks like the standard vbi battery. Not the same? Maybee the same as v2? They cant be so ignorant to make a whole new battery design. I cant believe it. Great laptop great price, great specs but why the new battery? Thanks Asus

 

Uh oh, someone call the cops


BTW - I don't think a price point was mentioned...!

 

i mentioned it. price is super cheap. why do they want to kill off the g1sn-a1? Brilliant move. this is why their overhead is higher then all of their comptitors. Its simple logic
Make same batteries for similar models and dont make different chassis for identical models = low overhead. I like the m50sv alot more then the g1sn but why have the g1sn-a1 and the m50sv-a1? Seems like one of them will go end of life (g1sn-a1) because the other (m50sv-a1) is lower priced, and similarly equipped. Granted it has less resolution but the ram and hdd can be customized. that paired with a much more sleeker chassis, and a much more refined use the g1sn-a1 is set for failure.

 

It doesn't look alike as any other existing models.
I wish I can tell you why they design the new battery, call RL and I think you know his number.

updated, thanks.

 

Wow.. great review Ken!
Just 1 questions though... is the 2:30hr battery life with the 6 cell or 9 cell battery as seen in your pictures?

 

it's the 6 cell battery, I haven't test the 9 cell yet.

 

I'm looking very forward to hearing the 9-cell results myself, including whether or not the battery fits snugly or loosely into the unit. Ken, will there be an option on GenTech's M50Sv configurator page to purchase a 9-cell with the system instead of the 6-cell? I don't see one there currently.

 

GenTechPC, the drivers of this model work for Windows XP or is needed to search for them in the Internet?

 

I haven't test 9 cell battery yet but I will, I estimated around 3 hours with 9 cell battery.

You'll need find some drivers for XP such as VGA, Bluetooth, ESATA..ect,.
I'll test the unit with XP tonight or tomorrow.

 

Thanks for the answer. That will be good for all user of XP that are not in the Vista mood.

 

looks like the internal tv tuner is a dead dud like the m51. that is a shame.

 

yeah.. damn, the tv tuner capture card looked like a great selling featyre, what the heck is the difference then with the m51 if the m50 is like.. the same?

 

Another great review Ken, I like the direction Asus is headed with these new models. Im still a C90 fan and looking forward to the C90P but if I had one of these I think I would be a happy camper.

 

Added to Info Booth sticky (actually updated link that was pointing just to some pictures of the laptop). Thanks.

 

So I take it from these 3dmark and wei scores that this is not an advanced gaming machine. With the numeric keypad this strikes me as a good mainstream notebook.

 

this is definitely gaming notebook and far from mainstream. mainstream would have a video card half the power or less

 

I ordered one of these yesterday from XoticPC. I plan to use it for general computing--spreadsheets, wordprocessing, internet.

I'm not really a gamer, so forgive my lack of insight into the subject. It just looks to me like there are lots of machines out there that with their higher graphics capabilities would be much better for gaming.

I went for this one because I didn't want the graphics interface to slow down everything that I would be doing with it.

 

Correct in the sense that it is not intended for high-end gaming. Asus generally does not produce notebooks with high-end graphics cards due to heat and performance issues and a conflict with their chassis design.

It is definitely a good mainstream notebook with added features. It's also a good midrange/performance gaming machine. The advantage of something like the M50Sv over other notebooks is in its versatility. It can be used for a wide range of applications and games and in a variety of different settings.

 

Z71V users should be familier with the Ambient Light Sensor:



press FN+A to enable or disable it.
The light sensor will detect the amount of light in your environment and automatically adjust the brightness of the display panel to provide better viewing.

 

Man why does Asus always make an awesome laptop and then cheap out on the GPU memory. Hopefully the HD3650 version will be GDDR3 but somehow I doubt it.

 

They've packed quite a bit in that chassis, now we hope it'll handle extensive use...

Nice to see the ALS present again, not sure why they had it on the Z71v and then have it disappear...

 

Thanks Ken for that information about the ambient light sensor. I hadn't picked up on that one. That's a great feature that makes all the sense in the world with a notebook pc.

 

next model has blueray drive but lower cpu for 100 more

 

I came across this information at another website:
To satisfy the most demanding viewing standards, ASUS Splendid Video Intelligence Technology integrates and synchronizes different multimedia data sources to reduce noise and conversion rate for a sharp display. Enjoy vivid image displays with improved image contrast, brightness, skin tone and color saturation with true brilliance!
Has anyone had any experience with this ASVIT? Is it really helpful or just a nuisance?

 

i like it but its not really useful

It is the only utility that i know that ties battery usage profile to a contrast setting.

 

And Asus didn't even mention ALS on M50SV anywhere, I found how to disable it by reading the manual.

Slim Blue-Ray drive is expensive so Asus put T8100 CPU to keep the price down.

It's just pre-configured color profile nothing special, if you ever use Power DVD you'll find the similar feature.

 

Everything works under Windows XP except the ITECIR Infrared Receiver:



3DMark06
T9300 2.5GHz 6MB 800FSB
GeForce 9500M GS 512MB DDR2 with stock driver no overclock
3GB DDR2 667
250GB 5400rpm SATA

1024x768: 4715 @475/950/400


1280x800: 4206 @475/950/400


1440x900: 3740 @475/950/400


1280x1024: tested on external monitor 3708 @475/950/400



I guess the processor speed does matters, here is the comparison of M51Sn with slower processor vs M50Sv:

OS: Windows XP Pro
Stock driver @475/950/400 no overclock
GeForce 9500M GS 512MB DDR2
3GB DDR2 667

3DMark06 @1024x768:
M50Sv-A1 with T9300 2.5GHz 6MB 800 FSB: 4715
M51Sn-A1 with T5450 1.66GHz 2MB 667 FSB: 4375


M51Sn performance review here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=222056&highlight=m51sn

 

Thanks, Ken.

And thanks for all the good work with this great review.

 

nive review! ive been waiting 4 this!!!

why dont they put htis on the NBR mainpage?

 

nive review! ive been waiting 4 this!!!

why dont they put htis on the NBR mainpage?

 

Ken, here is the ITECIR driver: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=W2EUJS4L

 

Thanks.

Thanks swoley2k but it still doesn't work, won't even allow me to run setup, the hardware ID is ACPI\ITE8708, maybe it just doesn't have XP driver.

 

now overclocked on Windows XP

3DMark06
T9300 2.5GHz 6MB 800FSB
GeForce 9500M GS 512MB DDR2 with stock driver
3GB DDR2 667
250GB 5400rpm SATA
Windows XP Professional

1024x768: 5715 @ 546/1258/486


1280x800: 5172 @ 544/1304/488


1440x900: 4585 @ 546/1258/486


1280x1024: 4600 @ 536/1296/488


The result is pretty much similar to 8600M GT GDDR3 card overlocked, some get higher score than this on GDDR3 but don't forget 9500M GS is DDR2. swoley2k did get 4700 on his 8600M GT 512MB DDR2 at 1280x1024 with BIOS level overclock which is also very impressed.

 

GenTechPC, where do you get the drivers for Windows XP? Any BSOD or crash using XP on this laptop?

 

Does this laptop come with Norton installed from the factory???

 

I believe they always have, however, its usually simple to uninstall it or to not include it when doing a factory restore.

 

Ken, thanks for all the work with the benchmarks.

 

wooowwwww..... it's cooollll man... i think i'm gonna buy m50sv-a1 with vista instead than m51sn with xp... the score difference is not that much... hehehe.. should i buy it with xp??? hehehe..

 

ken.. should i buy it with xp? or vista? need advice on that.. hehehe.. should buy from you very soon.. hehehe..

 

Most the drivers from the drivers DVD worked with XP except few things, the video card driver I download from laptopvideo2go.com, also need to find the Bluetooth driver, I use newer revision of Windows XP disk so it automatically install webcam driver for me.

No BSOD no lock up on XP, everything runs very smooth.

Like coriolis said yes it does, every Asus ensemble notebooks has Norton pre-installed, I had to uninstall it right away because it always pops up a windows while I was doing the testing, quite annoying.

No problem.

Most people buying with XP is business users that their softwares is not compatible with Vista, but you do get better performance with XP.

 

Another reviewer on this forum felt that the screen was a bit dim and that the keyboard was just ok. Do you have any concerns in these two areas?

 

I think reviews should be left to people who do them for a living or end users (who often dont provide acurate info). Like my self and Ken. There are many reasons for this. the main reason is people who dont know how to compare and what to compare to often give bad advice and bad comparisons. In the past I have seen C grade screens get an and and B grade screens get an F. Leave reviews to the pros. Then again alot of pros dont have any idea either. Cnet is one of them. all the asus reviews they made are ridiculous as i have no other word to describe them

 

Hi--

I agree with you that the reviews should be left to those who know what they are doing. For that reason I was wanting to get Ken's input on those two areas of possible concern.

With that said, the other review I was referencing was by ExcaliberPC, who is a reseller of Asus products.

Now you've raised an issue that I am unfamiliar by identifying different grades of screens. Do you have a link that you could direct me to so that I could learn more about that subject?

Thanks much.

 

I dont have a link and i stopped making reviews. Now a days i only make video reviews. I steer away from writing them as it requires your personal / pro opinion in writing which some people may not agree with. My m50sv video will be up in the video section of this forum. I did not feel the screen was any dimmer or brighter then average. granted it is a 15.4" wxga+ which is kind of rare and not very popular. If you compare this screen to a hi res 17" or an led screen yes it may appear dimmer however if you compare it to any other 15.4" Wxga+ display it is exactly where it should be. Any review that negates a quality has to point to what was used as a comparison. Any review that ads to the quality has to do the same. Any reviewer that knows this will either do it or steer away from making coments that are arguable. If you read kens review you will find he did not mention the screens brightness level and i would not either. If a quality is noticveably negative and is worth mentioning I am Sure Ken would have mentioned it. Keep in mind we are dealers but we are also users.

 

Thanks for your reply. Being new to these forums I'm not locating the video section of this forum. I want to see your video review, but I'm not finding it. I found where you posted "m51sn-a1 video review added," but I'm not finding it. Please send me a link. Thank you.