N56vz review and owners lounge - Techno Art

1. Yup, that's where the hard drive is located - no worries! It's normal for that area to get a little warm.

2. Yes, normal.

3. I don't have the sound popping issue but then again I'm just using generic Windows sound drivers and not the Realtek ones. The subwoofer doesn't work with the generic Windows 7 drivers, but it doesn't bother me because I have external speakers hooked up anyway.

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Has anyone figured out a better way to clean the internals of the laptop (fan/heatsink) besides just blowing compressed air into the side fan exhaust vent or into the front intake? I'd like to clean the heatsink and fan with q-tips and rubbing alcohol every now and then. I spray it with compressed air about 2-3 times a month to prevent any buildup, but still.
Thanks!

 

two quick questions:

1. swapping the hard drive with the seagate momentus xt will reduce the heat coming from the right palm rest? or do i need to buy a ssd?
2. while gaming the right side of the comp gets pretty hot (that includes some of the keyboard keys)...im assuming this is normal? i read some reviews and they say that the right side goes up to 40-50 degrees while gaming but nipsen here says that his machine stays cool. now im guessing he means its cool compared to other laptops or cool as in 25 degrees?

also right now i have the 4gb 1600mhz configuration...adding extra memory will improve performance?

 

I was a bit stupid and didn't test with a hdd first, before putting in the ssd. So it might be the hdd that causes it, if the hdd has fairly high operating temps.. There's almost full contact into the right side aluminium panel and the hdd after all.. And then it's pretty misleading to say it's completely cool..

But it can be around 30 degrees at the most on the surfaces. Gentech had a more scientific test while running 3dmark vantage (that test won't access the hdd very often). It was about the same. I'd guess that you won't notice much of a problem with it if the drive doesn't usually run 40-50 degrees, though. And most drives don't do that.. Hitachi drive that came with my laptop at least seems to do the job where it is now, without much problems. Spinpoint drives as well don't tend to reach the "hot to the touch" temps either.

RAM is a problem because of the locked bios settings. No matter how highly rated the ram is, you're going to be stuck at the same timing as the original chips.. I'm not really sure if Asus is ever going to actually change this. It seems they don't see it as a problem. But hopefully they do - so we can test out higher timing, as well as lower volt with quality chips.. which makes much more sense on a laptop anyway.

About size.. generally speaking, very few Windows-computers ever hit a 100% "commit charge" when they're equipped with more than 4Gb ram. When I have all the programs I ever use in a linux environment, I tend to use about 2Gb ram. And that's a lot, when deliberately using several desktops, having double environments open, that sort of thing. Usually it's 650-700mb. Was pretty funny, when it turned out that my EeePC still had enough ram to run all my programs.. So if you don't do video-editing of massive files, have 30 slr camera pics open at the same time, that sort of thing, it's probably not a problem. Games might need more, of course. And if you multitask, it's much better to avoid a context-switch going to disk before ram. That slows things down.

But the reason you should pick an 8Gb or higher config right now is that you can get highly rated ram for extremely cheap. And so you can have a dual channel setup with no problems right away, rather than having a possible problem getting matched chips later on.

99% certain you'd end up throwing the first 4gb ram chip (or the two 2Gb chips) in the trash, and exchanging it for two new matched chips if you eventually upgrade it, for example. And since you're not exactly paying.. 40 euro for one megabyte of sdram any more.. it's absolutely worth it to pay 40-50 euro for 4Gb

..look at this thing, for example. I think this is a 16 or 8Mb 72-pin chip

 

thanks for the reply. makes me feel a bit more at ease. perhaps i should try installing an ssd. obviously for the performance boost, but the cooler temps will be a nice bonus.

as for cleaning the internals, i haven't even thought about that yet. i won't be tearing this thing apart to get to the heatsink anytime soon. use a needle nosed vacuum cleaner? lol

 

thanks for the quick reply!

what do you mean by locked bios settings and the timing? does it mean that i cannot use memory that will go over 1600 mhz?

 

If you put in a new pair of sticks, and it works, the ram will still be locked at the same timing and speed as before.

I bought a pair of sticks with tighter timing and lower speed, running at 1.35v. They won't even boot. And if they did, they'd be running at 1.5v and 1600Mhz. It's also possible to dynamically change timing on this motherboard depending on load. Asus just disabled it.

All ram-sticks made in the last 10 years have something called spd, just a table with the timing the ram-sticks are supposed to run at, provided by the manufacturer to easily set timing to safe settings. Asus disabled that as well.

Lots of people had trouble getting 16Gb sets to work. So Asus just changed their specifications on the web-page. And now have the only laptop in existence with that motherboard that says: "supports up to 8 Gb ram". They really don't seem to get that this is because of the fairly random timing they've set. You can easily mess up your bios-timing by lowering some of the delays while increasing something else, for example. Until you actually get errors, even if the settings are so lenient that the memory errors are recoverable.

And they're completely happy about that, apparently. I've written them a couple of times. They don't really respond. But are happy to spend a lot of energy on changing the web-page specification to reflect how incompetent their bios-tweakers are. Worst thing is that they've been doing this for a ridiculously long time - setting forced timing at higher voltage than they should, at tighter timing on some of the settings.

So yeah, this is one part where Asus could be able to improve. A blind guy randomly tapping in settings in the bios would be able to improve this. No settings at all - just the default spd-timing - would be better. But Asus people don't think so. They actually had an asus representative on the forum explaining that they set 8Gb as "max supported", because that was what they have tested. And you would receive no support from them if you changed the ram-sticks on your own.

Just think about how absurd this is. Asus doesn't offer after-market service to change laptop ram - and if they did, I would have nothing to do with them. But they do pay their support guys to cripple the systems after they've been rolled out, by patching the bios. And then they pay a guy to go around telling their customers they won't receive any support if they try to go beyond specifications. I.e., they're paying several guys to make sure the product I bought from them works less well than it could if they had done nothing.

Makes sense to you?

 

I can officially confirm that this is an awesome machine. My first impressions:

CPU: dizzyingly fast
screen: so beautiful, I cried
keyboard: superduper
speakers: I cried some more
touchpad: ridiculously good
battery life: ...testing now...
gameplay: ...testing now...
heat: AWFUL!!!

OK, maybe I exaggerate a little on the last one. I'll probably be returning this unit regardless, but I had decided for sure this wasn't the machine for me after the first 5 minutes -- and confirmed it in the next few hours: right side of the trackpad and palmrest area are way too warm.

But...

...so yeah, of course I've replaced HDDs with SDDs before, hoping for a cooler system (last was the Sony SVS15) and that left me feeling punked. BUT GUESS WHAT??? Swapping out the HDD for an SSD (in my case, a 128GB OCX Agility 3) has made a HUGE difference. Touchpad temp is very good -- not quite perfect, but definitely in the usable range now*. A huge improvement.

More impressions soon, esp.: I have an unexpected observation regarding Asus' power schemes and gameplay.

-Matt

* I'm still totally befuddled by notebookcheck's temp estimates on this machine. Their idle+palmrest values are insanely low.

 

Oh, I'm not getting the speaker *sound* that others mentioned (I ABSOLUTELY refuse to use the word "fart"). I also don't hear my power brick, but I don't put my machine to sleep.

-Matt

 

If the laptop gets very warm on the palmrest, it's possible you're having some heat leak from the assembly further in.

 

Having taken a peek while swapping drives, I can tell you the area in question (centered directly over the right edge of the trackpad -- about 1" to either side) looks like it's right over the wireless card. The drive is actually mounted all the way toward the far edge, so it may only be contributing in part. But the outer 25% of each side of the palmrest is totally cool, so I'm not sure about heat leak.



FWIW the HDD (mine came with a 750GB 7200RPM Seagate Momentus) runs around 45C at idle, while the SSD is stuck at 30C.

It's a sad truth, but I need one of those palmrests that literally feels cool to the touch. It pisses me off because as I browsed laptops at Microcenter, there were many that achieved the feat (including a few 15.6" Asus models), and many others that didn't. With an SSD, the N56VZ falls right at the threshold (in it's favor, though, it stays right at that temp during gameplay). I'll probably need to check out the Gigabyte before deciding -- but the temp estimates on that machine were decidedly worse. *Sigh*

-Matt

 

How strange isn't that.. The wifi card chip. Think it really could be that, and not that there's an opening further in, etc..?

 

Oh, I'm sorry to imply. I was using the wifi card as a point of reference, not a causal agent. It's pretty illogical (right?) that it would run, say 40C (ambient temps are 27C btw). I'm sure the real cause is nearby, but I don't plan to dig any further (literally and figuratively). Well, I could disable the card and see what happens.

-Matt

 

Hey guys I am about to get this laptop, and I am buying a Extreme Sandisk SSD for 240GB, and I'm planning to replace the hard drive, and install a clean version of Windows without the bloatware. However, I'm not experienced with this kind of stuff, and I really don't want anything to go wrong.

Can anyone please give me the exact steps I have to take to replace the HDD and reinstall windows? I really don't want to miss anything important, and I'm kind of clueless on this. Or maybe a link to a detailed tutorial would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks so much!

 

Just bought an Asus N56VM model. (Similar to N56VZ model but GT 630M and no backlit keyboard)

First impressions (After a day of using the laptop)

Lots of bloatware. So many pop-ups!
Screen is amazing!
Laptop is hugeeee for a 15 inch :/
Trackpad is really good! Almost macbook-air ish but macbook trackpad is much more smoother.
Arrow key and keypad keys are quite small
Keyboard is alright, thought it would be like the Macbook ones but not as good as that.
Gt 630m...is pretty nice. Played a MMO called C9 with Max settings and its great!
No backlight
Sound is awesome! But wish it could get little bit louder. But hey, its still great.
This keyboard might need some getting used to...
Quite heavy..but not too heavy Carry-able but with 2 hands.
After a bit of gaming, not much heat which is great! But if you put your hands near the heat vents , you can feel it coming out. Still good.

Overall Impression: Good laptop but not great. There can be improvements but for this price and specs, it's totally worth it!

 

OK, so tar me, feather me, and call me "totally stupid" but guess what...

...I put the stock HDD back in, and it seems the hot palmrest area is a lot better. HUH??? Can't explain it...placebo? Shifted expectations? I have no clue.

My other observation: played a bit of BF3 yesterday on Asus' "High Performance" mode, and ended up with

Resolution: 1600x900
Video Settings: medium
FPS: 50
CPU: 80C
GPU: 75C

The GPU seemed hotter than I'd hoped, so out of curiosity I switched to "Quiet Office", thinking it would be a moot exercise. In particular, it limits max CPU to something like 70%, which I thought would really affect gameplay. The results? Unexpectedly good:

Resolution/Video Settings: same as before
FPS: 45-50
CPU: 70C
GPU: 65C

For the big drop in temps, the minor drop-off in framerate was not really noticeable. Definitely a nice option -- I wonder how that interacts with running off of battery.

-Matt

 

The thing with the palm rest is definitely because of the hard drive. When you perform hard drive related actions it heats up a bit... Stays totaly cool while browsing etc... The right side of the machine probably hits around 50 degrees while playing... Not that bad tbh considering I'm running batman arkham city almost on very high and it still runs perfect...

Sent from my HTC Desire using Tapatalk 2

 

Well, maybe another clue (sorry if I'm just chasing my tail here): I wiped the machine and reinstalled Win 7 this morning and now the HDD is hovering around 55C idle. So it's back to my original impression, which is a warm drive and a warm palmrest. This is what I have overall:

(1) Clean install on HDD, -> warm drive/palmrest
(2) Clean install on SSD -> cool drive/palmrest
(3) Swap back in HDD -> cool drive/palmrest
(4) Clean reinstall on HDD -> warm drive/palmrest

So I'm back to square 1 -- I'm loathe to suggest that pulling the HDD and then putting it back in had something to do with it running cooler (in step 3). Maybe I installed a utility just before pulling the HDD in step 1 that contributes to lower temps?

-Matt

 

The guide in my link is about the general steps you need to do, so things don't seem more complicated than they are. Optional steps for a linux spin, if you'd like that. Then I've added a couple of windows-things I never remember to do at the end.

Just ask if you wonder about something specific.

Only difference is that the processor won't run to boost states as easily. Download hwinfo64 for example, and let the sensor app run in the background. Then take a look at the max state of the cores afterwards. Most likely at least two of the cores will stop at 2.2Ghz, and one will end up at max 3.2Ghz. Probably the heat increases on the gpu sensor because the heatsink leads the heat past the graphics card from the cpu.

It's nothing to worry about though. Those temps are perfectly fine as long as the heat doesn't build up - as in that it keeps rising slowly at the same load.

And you're right, it does run really well on battery.. The Kepler cards are extremely good, with stable and low power-drain. If you limit the fps at 30, for example, at the vsync, it dynamically runs at less speed as well. Turns out that the 650m tends to actually draw less power than the internal graphics that way, even on higher detail, etc..

edit: by the way - this drive:

Isn't really a laptop drive At load, it's going to become very hot. Same type of problem as with the Wester Digital "Black" drives. They can operate on high temps, but the way the thing is built means that the assembly on the underside (which will be basically pressed into your palmrest on the n56) is going to be like a heater eventually.

 

I was monitoring CPU temps, but didn't look closely at speeds. However, I did take a peek as I switched amongst power profiles, and noticed that "Quiet Office" immediately lowered the cores to around 1 or 1.5 GHz -- pretty severe, but all the more impressive that gaming seemed fine. Not sure if/how far they boosted during play though.

-Matt

 

What difference besides the price and hdd is here?

1- Amazon.com: ASUS N56VZ-DS71 15.6-Inch Laptop (Black): Computers & Accessories

2- Micro Center - ASUS N56VZ-RB71 15.6" Laptop Computer - Black Aluminum N56VZ-RB71

I could save 100USD buying it at Microcenter

 

seagate momentus here as well...tbh its not THAT bad its just annoying...i guess i will swap this with an ssd eventually. thanks for all the support here guys...especially nipsen.

just one last question:
can anyone confirm the temps i get while gaming on the left side of the comp? when i play the left side of the computer and some of the keyboard keys around the fan get pretty hot. id say around 50c. is this normal?

 

I've been running Photoshop CS6 for the past week on this laptop and found it very responsive in comparison with my desktop (a 6-core AMD). Not as fast (both have new SSDs) but I wouldn't even dare run that on the DuoCore laptop this one replaced. Also, no issues whatsoever re the warm palm rest. Cool to the touch. Both sides feel the same.

 

Just got my N56VZ, put in a Samsung 830 256GB SSD and installed Windows.

Question now is what I need to install to have the computer working properly. I put in the driver CD, but I didn't do a clean install just to throw in all the bloatware crap again. I want to install the compontents that are necessary for using the machine properly, but nothing beyond that.

Does there exist a guide to this, or do someone have any suggestions?

 

..since you don't get too much of the bloatware from the driver disc (and you can uninstall, or just unhook, the things you don't want from the menu.. you only get mediaespresso from the bundled programs on the driver disc. No endless popups, etc).. I'd really recommend that you just use that.

It's simple, and you get the drivers you need, along with the fn-keys package, power-management, frequency scaling works properly, and so on.

I'm not typically a fan of automagical solutions. But they've put together a silent install for pretty much all you need - and it works, so why not.

Specially since you have no control whatsoever over what actually gets installed in Windows anyway Had one botched install of windows last week, for example, on a different computer. Done the install five times before on different computers with the same hardware. But the windows updates started automatically this time, before I installed a driver package for the chipset. And the driver database somehow got corrupted and reverted back after the install. After that, the new driver didn't install. And good luck finding out how to extract and rebuild parts of the drive database, without causing a different problem in the process..

So, imo, use the driver disc, and then uninstall the few extra things you don't need afterwards.

 

Hello. I was wondering if you had anything specific to say about the wireless performance? I've been thinking of buying the Samsung Series 7 17'' and it seems that the biggest complaint with that laptop is the wifi range.

 

nobody???

 

They are two different SKUs, with identical specs. Difficult to say if they have different builds, or come from different revisions, and so on.

But most likely they're identical outside the database of two different importers.

 

Sorry, I thought I responded to this!

I have the Microcenter model, which as you noted is more or less identical, except for the 7200RPM HDD. Also keep in mind that you may pay sales tax on the Microcenter unit, which was almost $100 in my case. So that could eat the difference. Also, Microcenter's no-questions return period is two weeks vs. 30 days for Amazon.

I'm noting modest amounts of heat on the palmrest and trackpad, above the HDD, which may be due to a variety of issues. If you live near a Microcenter, the first thing I would do is check one out in person!

-Matt

 

I'd say it is - but download a temperature monitoring program to get actual temperature readings from your hardware instead of just saying "it's hot". Download Speccy or HWmonitor and report back with your temperatures.

 

I think this is a really interesting issue -- for me, it's much more of an art than a science. I haven't owned many machines (maybe 5-6 or laptops longterm) but it seems that some can objectively read as "hot" (e.g., internal temps 60C-70C) and yet be comfortable to use, and others, exactly the opposite. They read in the low to mid 30s and yet the keyboard or the palmrest or the underside are subjectively not usable.

The "art" part (how it feels) seems distinct and separable from the "science" part (is it safe to run at those temps). I still haven't found a
sensor app or for that matter, an in-depth review, that is able to provide a convergent answer. Seems like the app provides one half of the data, and my hands/lap provide the other.

-Matt

 

I have 2 questions sorry,

1. I bought a 2.5 inch SSD, will this fit in the HDD bay or do i need a 3.5 inch to 2.5 inch adapter?

2. Do I need to update the BIOS, or does it come with a good bios already?

 

1. The other way around only Laptop slots are 2.5inch, 9mm high.
2. Yeah, update the bios. 204 on the asus site. Put it on an usb stick and use the bios update tool you can open from the bios screen. F2 at bootup, I think.

 

Hello, I have just bought this laptop through Amazon, and I was wondering which BIOS it will come with. If it comes with the 202 (release) bios, do I really have to update it? I have read many reports of people bricking their computer and making it unusable.

I have been saving for this laptop and I cannot afford even the slightest chance of breaking the motherboard. Can anyone tell me exactly the benefits of the new BIOS? If it is small bug fixes, I don't think it's worth it.

Also, if I update it through the BIOS, using a flash drive, what is the worst that can happen? For example if something goes wrong with the update, or the flashdrive accidentally disconnects, and this causes the computer to brick. I am extremely scared of an operation like this, as I don't know whether I will be able to return the computer or fix it.

Please give me some advice!

The_Paranoid_Parrot

 

Paranoid_Parrot, it seems that the name fits! And trust me, no one is more paranoid, cynical, or distrustful than me, so I know (another) neurotic computer owner when I see one.

My advice is to take three deep, cleansing breaths and not worry about it. Update to the 204 BIOS. Use Asus' built-in Windows tool. I haven't come across a single incident of it bricking the N56 -- and if something like that happens, just send it back in and get a new one. Insist...it's only a few days old, not a repair, a replacement.

The chances of that happening are just a little higher than you and your machine being hit by lightning (god forbid) while you're updating the BIOS, so I really wouldn't sweat it.

-Matt

 

i watched this video on you tube and bought this laptop. the screen is a dream. I will now be exchanging it for another N56VZ. The plastic sheets underneath the left ctrl button are warped upwards so when i push down on left ctrl, it doesn't get good response, at all. if i press the key from its edges or corners, it practically does not register. i have to press it dead in the center. it's as dysfunctional and annoying as it sounds. the left ctrl key is the most important button with virtually every program i use.

I will exchange at microcenter. i want to swap out the current hard drive and put it into the new lap top they give me. this will save everyone hours of time, especially me. they wont have to reformat any hard drive, and i will not have to re install or re image the disk, which i dont know how to do.

I also had an incredibly bizarre and irritating problem after i cleaned their hard drive and installed my programs for the first time. 5 gigs of ram became hardware reserved. i had a whopping 3 gigs to use for myself. i did hours of research into the night of similar problems, and read nothing but suggestions for others that the operating system might be 32bit. anyway, i re installed my 64bit windows 7 again, and the ram usage was fine. i installed every driver 1 by one, and everything is fine again, except this ctrl key.

 

Has anyone used a SSD as the primary and swapped the HDD in place of the optical drive?

Any issues? How's the battery life?

I'd like to use a 120GB SSD if possible and keep the HDD for mass storage.

 

^since the sata-ports are set to autodetect, and there's no extra controller dealing with the optical drive, that sort of thing -- no issues, no. Make sure you pick an ssd with 500mb/s read&write, though. Since the laptop actually supports it. And get a caddy that doesn't add it's own extra controller for compatibility. Since they typically will run at sata1 speeds, or force the bios to run the device at udma/pio4. That might cause problems with the windows driver stack... So get a caddy with a pass-through connector.

Battery use on an ssd is generally lower on load than a hdd is on idle, even if there are exceptions. We're still talking about.. 2-3w. About the same the memory controller will draw while on load.

@cgdobrev: Was probably that. 32-bit versions can't address memory past 4Gb. Weird and unnecessary limitation (it's perfectly possible to write a wrapper that translates the memory areas), but that's probably the reason..

@parrot: Personally don't trust the windows flash tool, because the program doesn't actually lock system calls or suspend monitor program routines that could interfere.. and because I'm paranoid. Even if it probably works 99,99% of the time.

But if you use the flash-tool in the bios, and patch from an usb key or from the hdd (open the bios, choose flash-tool, find the file, hit enter), extremely few things can go wrong. And the moment the lighting has to strike, as well as the battery mysteriously exploding, etc, so the laptop gets bricked -- has to be timed really really well within a period of 3 seconds. Otherwise the flash just stops, and nothing happens.

..I have seen people manage to blow a bios-flash like that as well, though. But it involved removing the battery, and then pulling the plug. Honestly not really sure what people are doing when they post something like "I just started the flash, and somehow it didn't complete, so I turned the computer off. And when I turned it back on the computer didn't boot", etc.

 

Can this laptop handle decent gaming at 1080?
Such as Battlefield 3 at medium settings.
I ask because I've seen some complaints about this laptop freezing up during gaming, any input would be much appreciated.

 

I game on an external 1080p monitor and it's no problem. I don't play BF3, but this should do just fine with that at 1080p. The most recent game I got is CS:GO and I can run that maxed steady 60FPS or so. I wouldn't worry. If it runs a little worse than you expected, which I doubt it will, just turn AA down.

 

Some Sleeping Dogs gameplay. It's really running in 1920x1200.. You can watch it in 1920x1080 on youtube.

 

Has anyone installed more than 8 gigabytes of ddr in their N56?

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus/677457-asus-n56vz-16gb-ram-thread.html

The mainboard supports 16Gb and all kinds of timing and base clocks (most likely it's possible to run 1866Mhz ram - also supports 1.35v ram, etc). But Asus has locked the ram to 800x2Mhz clocks, with a few strange base timing settings. So you need high rated ram that essentially will be underclocked to survive the forced timing.. I'm pretty sure that some of the issues people have with the n56vz and other asus systems can be traced to memory corruption/error recovery problems.. The Hynix/hyundai chips Asus tends to use differ enough in yield to fall below the margins..

It's really annoying, because it's the kind of errors that the system will normally recover from, but they will just give you reduced performance, and possibly hangs. Asus on their end don't seem to think it's a problem. Their process literally seems to have been to take one pc, set something that works with 1333Mhz ram, and then lock these settings. One of their support guys seemed to think that this was done to prevent overclocking. They're incompetent, and don't care if they're demonstrably wrong.. We're probably lucky it's not worse.

 

So guys, just got my N56VM (unfortunately the VZ hasn't yet been released in the UK and not sure if it even will). Now one of the points which made me decide to go for this was the backlit keyboard but it doesn't seem to work?!!!

I press FN+f3 and f4 and it comes up with a pic of the keyboard and brightness levels increase/decrease but there's no lighting whatsoever behind the keyboard. Is this just a malfunction or is there another key I have to press for it to work?

I'd be pretty annoyed if it doesn't have one because it was advertised as having it on the site. Also the f3 and f4 keys don't have anything drawn on them, thanks guys.

 

Nice one. Another sku that retailers sell as a different model? Trade it in and buy something else.

So so far we've had three different variants of assembly failure.. just lack of qa after completion. We've had locked bioses with unstable settings. We've had bios that locks processor at half the speed. Backlit logo and keyboard disappearing on certain models. And now also disappearing backlight buttons, without the atk-program being turned off for those keys on that model. And people getting blasted by support for not inserting the charger cable in the right order (so the current goes through the same cable in a different way, obviously), and for using official drivers from nvidia rather than the hacked pre-release version for a different model of cards on the asus site.

What's next? A laptop with a buggy self-destruct button, that randomly shorts out when you insert the charger-cable?

 

That's disgraceful tbh, do you think they'd change it to the correct model if I got in touch with them?

Well that's very annoying... been waiting for so long to get a new lappy, such an anti-climax.

 

Sucks, doesn't it..

Considered trying to import it? Here, for example. Should end up around 1200gbp with vat/import duty tax. A better option might be to specifically look for a retail store in asia that send you the item from Hong Kong. If you don't pick someone completely obscure, you shouldn't have any more problems than with a local retailer.

 

I was actually initially going to be getting a custom built laptop from pcspecialist but lately they've been taking quite long to process orders due to a shortage in i7-3610qm processors so that coupled with the fact this laptop was meant to have a backlit keyboard meant I went for this even though I was comprimising on the GPU as this is only a gt630m.

So none of the N56vm's have backlit keyboards? or are there certain models which do?

My budget is around £800 so importing a VZ is not feasible I'm afriad

 

The N56VM is identical except for the GT630M ... Your keyboard is faulty so you should get it replaced.

in Australia they also have only the VM which is frustrating ... There is one place I've found the VZ so they must be importing it. The difference is only worthwhile if you are gaming.

 

That's what I thought too mate but been reading around and apparently there different variations within the VM and VZ models?

I'm gonna call the retailer tomorrow in any case and find out what the story is because like I say the backlit keyboard was one of the major issues which made me decide on this particular laptop.

 

And if you get scammed as well, then it's definitely too expensive.. I'm not sure about the backlight. I thought the vm versions were supposed to have it, but apparently some of them don't. Honestly, it's a bit strange, because those vm-models aren't really that much cheaper than the others. And it's not sold in most countries.. Haven't really seen something like that before. Kind of wonder what Asus is doing here..

You could try something like this one instead:
HP Pavilion g6-2103sa Laptop with FREE bag & mouse - HP Store UK
Basically - better performance in games than the 630/i7 combo, less power-use, less warm - and costs £500. Quad-core, so it has respectable multitask performance on office-tasks, even if single-core performance is below what you get out of a dual-core i5 at the same speed. But if you don't constantly have compilations running in the background, you won't care. Honestly, even if you do, you might be better off with that combo, since the power-draw at full processor burn is lower than a dual-core i5.. I would have written HP and asked if they could switch the display to a 1920x1080 model, though. Or what you might have to do to get that setup with a higher resolution screen, etc. Since you can customize that model when buying it via web in a few other countries..

If some retailer has a i5/640m combo on sale, that might be an idea too. The 640m card has the same chip as the 650m, just clocked lower. Should be easy to overclock, and get reasonably good performance out of it without overheats.