N81V: Review & Owners' Lounge

In the last few years Asus has become well known for those cute little notebooks known as the Eee PC. In addition to those budget computers, Asus has a full lineup of laptops to target each of the buyers market at an affordable price. The Asus n8x series notebooks are 14-inch laptops offered with wide variety of Intel Core 2 Duo processors, dedicated graphics, and other extras to keep most prospective buyers happy. Read our review to see if you should consider a N81 for your next notebook.

In this review I will take a look to the N81VP-C1. This unit was purchased from GenTech ($1,259.00 + S/H) and is basically a refresh of their N80 series but with a 16:9 screen and a ATI Mobility RADEON HD 4650 (1GB GDDR3) card.

Our review unit of the N81VP-C1 has the following specifications:

• Intel Core 2 Duo T9550 (2.66GHz, 1066MHz, 6MB Cache)
• 4GB DDR2 memory
• Windows Vista Home Premium (32-bit, SP1)
• ATI Mobility RADEON HD 4650 (1GB GDDR3)
• 14.1 WXGA LED Glossy Display (16:9, 1366X768)
• DVDRW-SuperMulti
• 320GB hard drive (7200rpm)
• AzureWave AR5891 (Atheros AR928x) 802.11 b/g/n Wireless LAN with Bluetooth
• 90W (19V) Power Supply
• Battery: 6-cell
• Weight: 5.2lbs with 6 cell battery
• Size: 13.5"(L) x 10.24 "(D) x 1.40" (varies) (H)
• Warranty: 2-year parts/labor + 1-year Accidental Damage + 30 days Zero Bright Dots
• MSRP: $1,299

Build and Design
"Insert Pics"

Before buying this unit I headed to Bestbuy to check the Asus x83 series since they seem to be the Bestbuy version of the n80. The display model had an awful keyboard flex on the left side and felt pretty cheap overall. Since I know that display models usually get molested and go through war (display unit had a missing ctrl key), I did not let this sway my opinion and focused on finding if the low resolution would bother me and on other details. I used to have a Gateway FX-7811, OCZ Arima 840, and other high resolution beasts so I worried if going from 17" WUXGA to 14" WXGA would bother me but it did not. In addition, now I will not have to once again experience busting my shoulder while running with my laptop to catch a flight and have to survive a 8 hour plane ride on a small seat surrounded by crying babies and drunk people.

The unit I received has a way better build quality than the BestBuy unit and to my surprise it does not have flex issues. I was mentally prepared to put electrical tape or something underneath it but it was a non issue after all. The color is some sort of brown/dark brown with dots which honestly does not look bad. The touchpad is brown with chrome buttons and are rather stiff.

In all the laptop looks sturdy and good the only thing that I could to complain about get is that the DVD-Drive is hard to open and that there seems to be a plastic thing coming from underneath that is stuck in the left speaker. The last point should be easily fixed by a quick disassemble or some tweezers.

Performance and Benchmarks

The Asus N81VP packs a lot of power for a 14-inch laptop and should perform well at moderate settings in modern games. Asus managed to include one of the latest Intel Core 2 Duo T9550 processor (released December 28, 2008) and the first ATI Mobility RADEON HD 4650 (1GB GDDR3) released on US soil into a 14 inch laptop. Some people may argue that a P9600 which has the same clock as a T9550 but with a lower thermal design would have been a better choice to stretch battery life and improve temperatures in such a small machine.

Unlike Nvidia which has a relatively big modding community for laptop drivers, ATI makes you jump through hoops to get working drivers especially for their newer series of graphic cards. For the included benchmarks I used Windows XP SP3 with ATI Catalyst 8.12 drivers and Windows Ultimate 64 SP1 with ATI Catalyst 8.10 drivers since these were the latest drivers that I could manage to find or modify and that actually worked on the system. As graphic drivers for these newer cards mature the numbers on these benchmarks should improve.

wPrime processor comparison results (lower scores mean better performance):

Notebook	Time
Asus N81VP-C1 (Core 2 Duo T9550 @ 2.66GHz, XP SP3)	30.687s
Asus N81VP-C1 (Core 2 Duo T9550 @ 2.66GHz, Vista SP1)	28.236s
Dell Studio XPS 16 (Core 2 Duo P8600 @ 2.4GHz)	31.827s
HP HDX 18t (Core 2 Duo T9600 @ 2.8GHz)	27.416s
Sony VAIO FW (Core 2 Duo T9400 @ 2.53GHz)	30.373s
Dell Studio 17 (2.5GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T9300, Windows Vista SP1)	31.574s
Asus M70S (2.50GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T9300, Windows Vista)	31.132s
Toshiba Satellite L355D (2.0GHz AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-60, Windows Vista)	39.732s
Gateway P-171XL FX (2.8GHz Intel Core 2 Duo X7900, Windows Vista)	30.359s
Toshiba Qosmio G45 (2.50GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T9300, Windows Vista)	31.108s
Toshiba Qosmio G45 (2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7300, Windows Vista)	42.085s

PCMark05 measures overall system performance (higher scores mean better performance):

Notebook	PCMark05 Score
Asus N81VP-C1 (2.66Ghz Intel T9550, ATI Mobility RADEON HD 4650 1GB, XP SP3)	6274 PCMarks
Asus N81VP-C1 (2.66Ghz Intel T9550, ATI Mobility RADEON HD 4650 1GB, Vista SP1)	7542 PCMarks
Dell Studio XPS 16 (2.4GHz Intel P8600, ATI Mobility RADEON HD 3670 512MB)	6,303 PCMarks
HP HDX 18t (2.8GHz Intel T9600, Nvidia 9600M GT 512MB)	6,587 PCMarks
Sony VAIO FW (2.53GHz Intel T9400, ATI Radeon HD 3470)	6,002 PCMarks
Dell Studio 17 (2.50GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T9300, ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3650)	5,982 PCMarks
Asus M70S (2.50GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T9300, ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3650)	6,135 PCMarks
Toshiba Satellite L355D (2.0GHz AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-60, ATI Radeon X1250)	3,305 PCMarks
Gateway P-171XL FX (2.8GHz Intel Core 2 Duo X7900, NVIDIA Go 8800M GTS)	7,749 PCMarks
Toshiba Qosmio G45 (2.50GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T9300, NVIDIA Go 8600M GT)	5,865 PCMarks

3DMark06 measures video and gaming performance (higher scores mean better performance):

Notebook	3DMark06 Score
Asus N81VP-C1 (2.66Ghz Intel T9550, ATI Mobility RADEON HD 4650 1GB, XP SP3)	6499 3DMarks
Asus N81VP-C1 (2.66Ghz Intel T9550, ATI Mobility RADEON HD 4650 1GB, Vista SP1)	6441 3DMarks
Dell Studio XPS 16 (2.4GHz Intel P8600, ATI Mobility RADEON HD 3670 512MB)	4,855 3DMarks
HP HDX 18t (2.8GHz Intel T9600, Nvidia 9600M GT 512MB)	4,127 3DMarks
Sony VAIO FW (2.53GHz Intel T9400, ATI Radeon HD 3470)	2,598 3DMarks
Dell Studio 17 (2.50GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T9300, ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3650)	2,974 3DMarks
Asus M70S (2.50GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T9300, ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3650)	3,799 3DMarks
Toshiba Satellite L355D (2.0GHz AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-60, ATI Radeon X1250)	301 3DMarks
Gateway P-171XL FX (2.8GHz Intel Core 2 Duo X7900, NVIDIA Go 8800M GTS)	8,801 3DMarks
Toshiba Qosmio G45 (2.50GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T9300, NVIDIA Go 8600M GT)	3,775 3DMarks

All of the 3DMark06 scores for all of the systems listed above were run at 1280 x 800 or 1280 x 768 resolution.

HDTune results:

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Screen and Webcam

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Keyboard, Touchpad and Other Input Buttons

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Input and Output Ports

Not sure if I left out something:

1 x Express card
1 x Microphone-in jack
1 x Headphone-out jack (S/PDIF)
1 x VGA port/Mini D-sub 15-pin for external monitor
5 x USB 2.0 ports
1 x IEEE 1394 port
1 x Modem
1 x RJ45 LAN Jack for LAN insert
1 x HDMI
1x E-sata
1 x CIR for remote controller
1 x 8 in 1 card reader, SD,MMC,MS,MS-Pro,mini SD w/ adapter,MS-Duo,MS-Pro Duo via adapter

Audio

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Heat and Noise

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Battery

The N81V uses a 6-cell, 4800 mAh (11.1V) battery pack. The system stayed on for 2 hours and 46 minutes under light usage with the screen brightness set to 70%, system on the "balanced" power profile, and wireless active. For a 14-inch laptop, some may consider this inadequate since other laptops of similar size can easily last over 4 hours with a similar battery pack.

Conclusion

...

 

Appendix:

Drivers Section:

I decided to make this section since the driver and recovery CD/DVD that Asus provided for this computer are not that good IMO. I used the recovery disk once just to test it and it failed to install most of the drivers the 1st time. Since I format my computer every 2-3 months with a clean Vista/Xp/Linux disk, I'm used to hunting for drivers every 2-3 months.

• 01 Chipset => Intel
• 02 ATK => Asus install all of them (install ATK0100 1st)
• 03 Matrix Storage Manager => Intel
• 04 Audio => Realtek. Also download the "ATI HDMI Audio Device" for HDMI.
• 05 VGA => Try Asus or Here for modded drivers.
• 06 ITE (IR) => Asus
• 07 Card Reader => Asus
• 08 WLAN => Atheros: Go here. I like their modded drivers but you can use the regular ones.
• 09 Touchpad => Synaptics
• 10 LAN => Realtek. There are newer drivers if you access their ftp.
• 11 Bluetooth => Asus
• 12 Webcam => Asus
• 13 Fingerprint => Asus
• 14 KB => Asus
• 15 Modem => Asus

Windows 7

Well I migrated to Window 7 and everything works fine. Only the Chipset drivers did not want to install but I found Windows 7 drivers.

Chipset => LaptopVideo2go or Intel (link does not work on LV2go as of this writing, also it says desktop board but they work in laptops.)
Matrix Storage Manager => Intel
Video => Official ATI 64bit or Official ATI 32bit
ITE => Windows Update has newest
Card Reader => Windows Update has newest
WLAN => Use the default or look at LaptopVideo2go (I use the 8.0.0.X, series)
LAN => Realtek FTP (password sometimes changes, browse the directory for newer LAN drivers. Also you can get the sound drivers from the same FTP by going to the sound directory since the download page of Realtek lags to the FTP driver versions)

Well these are the only ones that I found for Win7 the rest I used the Vista 64/32 as needed. But out of the box + Windows Update almost everything should work (can't remember which one was not working).

Print Screen Section:
Here are some print screens that I did when I did all the test.

Disclaimer: I have never overclocked a notebook since it seems too risky due to the small factor and heat dissipation. Also the computer is so new and powerful that I don't feel the need to overclock it. Perhaps in the future (when it's 4 years old , slow and out of warranty) I might do it. I know people have different opinions and all but this is my opinion (aka don't bash it ).

GPU-Z


Idle GPU temp:


Idle CPU (with WD 500GB 5.4k HDD since I changed it and connected the 320GB with e-sata):


Loaded CPU with normal OCCT test:



Loaded CPU with Ultra extreme Linpack test (Ultra worst case scenario, highly unlikely that temps will reach this under normal conditions aka sky is not falling):



HDtune with XP (similar results with Vista):


3dmarks06 with XP:


Pcmarks05 with XP:


wPrime with XP:



Notice: It would be awesome if I got more updated drivers since 8.10 Vista vs 8.12 XP is "unfair" :GEEK:


3dmarks06 with Vista64:


Pcmarks05 with Vista64:


wPrime with Vista64:


GPU temps:
Well they are basically text logs from GPU-Z since HWmonitor did not detect the card so no fancy pics for "you people". I hope you trust my "internet word" when I say this (I don't want to upload text logs):

Idle: 45-50C (shows about 45 in the GPU-Z pic above)
Load 3dmarks06: Max temp reached was 87C
Load with OCCT GPU benchmark: Max temp reached was 96C but the test is designed to make the GPU heat.

Since people tend to cherry pick and only look at the numbers without understanding what it means let me explain this again. The OCCT GPU benchmark and Linpack are extreme stress tests that will test your GPU and CPU to the limit and are by design made to HEAT them up. You can look it as the upper ceiling of what the temperatures can reach but in no way they should occur under normal conditions.

 

Congrats on your new notebook!
Nice preliminary review It'll be great if you could post pictures and if you could elaborate more on each of the categories you've listed (when you have time, of course )

 

Hey sephiroth135 nice initial review and good luck with the new laptop seems like a very nice little system, just one question for now, does it have the Turbo option to overclock the CPU? and if it does how high can you overclock it to?(factory settings)

 

no turbo button in sight ... I think there are buttons for Power4gear, bluetooth, wifi, splendid and express gate.

 

Thread added to the ASUS Info Booth and to the Reviews&Owners' Lounges Index. Thanks!

 

Strange Question: on the cover of the laptop are the scratch mark lines (the design) actually grooves or bumps, or is the cover still completely smooth and flat?

I'm asking because I was planning to get a laptop skin but that might not work if it is bumpy or something.

 

Thanks for the review....I've been waiting for this.

For someone that surfs the web, runs internet marketing (data collecting) software, and stores digital pictures and files, do you think this machine would stay cool and run quietly? I hate noisy fans running and I don't like my wrist getting burned, like with my HP. My computer is on all the time, except for about 7 hours a day. I don't do any gaming.

 

If you don't do any gaming, then the N81V may not be the best choice for you. The N81V is designed to be a budget mobile gaming notebook and the GPU will be producing unnecessary heat for your needs.

I would suggest filling out the faq and posting it on the "what notebook to buy" section of the forum so we can better understand your needs/preferences.

 

Hmm, don't want any unnecessary heat, but do want a fast, reliable computer for processing. Thanks for your thoughts David. I'll post later when I have a bit more time.

 

Hey sephiroth, what are the specs of the HD 4650? Can you post a screen shot of GPU-Z? Thanks!

 

this is great that means most definitely as i have guessed for a long time(and said ) the 4670 really must get over 7000 3dmark maybe even higher.

This notebook is such a good deal for the money and definitely the best 14" money can buy

 

Okay, I filled out the faq and posted in the "what notebook to buy" section of the forum.

I don't do gaming but I do view a lot of online videos, streaming and larger downloaded ones. Does that make a difference?

 

Not really, pretty much all lower end GPU's can handle 1080p/HD videos just fine like 9300m/X4500/3470 etc....

 

I just ordered one of these. I did the free ground shipping and the E-Check discount, so it probably won't be here until next week.

I was torn between the N81Vp and the F6Ve. On Friday I almost bought the F6Ve. I like the fact that it's thinner and lighter, and I think it looks cool. But I decided that having a faster video card could make this laptop last a little longer. I try to get 5 years out of each laptop, unlike my desktop which gets upgraded every 18 months or so.

Sepiroth, I'd be happy to contribute pictures if you don't get to them by then. I'd also be happy to contribute an alternate review.

Waiting ever so patiently,

Harley.

 

I ordered one too. Payed by check and I live on the opposite side of the country as the company I bought it from, but I'll put my thoughts up when I finally get the little bugger.

 

Hey, thanks for the review! I'm very strongly considering buying this laptop (the other I'm comparing it to is the Sager np8660)

Do you mind going into more detail about the noise level of this computer? When you're doing normal non-gaming stuff, does it make any noise?

If I were to take this to a very quiet library, would it be an issue to view powerpoint slides, stream lecture audio, etc?

The heat/noise issue is probably most important, the next being portability (which the N81 easily trumps the 8660 on), and lastly battery life.

Please keep the updates coming, and again, thanks for the early info!

 

i bought one too. UPS says it's coming on Friday, can't wait. I'll also post my opinion on it ASAP.

hopefully it works out better than this F3Jm which has given me it's share of problems over the years.

 

This thread already looks like its gonna be exciting...interested in seeing what users thing

 

I just ordered one, but I wont be able to post any reactions until April as its technically a birthday gift so I cant get it until the 31st

 

OK people whoever gets there's first has to start benchmarking some games

 

The previous N80's have a issue with a noisy and stiff mouse button. Is this issue still around in this model?

 

Is this GPU also the 40nm version that was announced at Cebit?

 

I really wished it came in a different colour other than brown. It's not bad, it's just that brown's not my thing. Loving the specs though. That 4650 seems to perform even better than the 9600gt ddr3.

 

This is not specific to the N80. I have 3 Asus and they all have stiff / noisy track buttons. I can almost gaurentee the N81 will have it too. especially considering its the N80 body.

 

im pretty sure its the same body as the n80 so its not bumpy its smooth. its actually a thin film that covers the laptop cover. it can peel off if handled roughly.

 

No is bumps and groves. Just imagine using a white sharpie and putting dots on it then put a clear glossy cover over it. That is the best way I can think to describe it.

Hello well as David said you may want a different computer but from what I can say from my unit (dunno if you get one at it might be different) but mine is right now at 30C and It has been running over the bed and on my lap for several hours. The only times where it was really noisy/hot was under intense load when I benchmarked it.

Want more (other tabs?)?

Read a lil up in this post. Basically no real heat/noise while browsing and regular stuff. I have 31 firefox tabs open right now (a small amount for me ) and the cores at 30C / GPU at 45C and no noise. Well portability is good I come from 10+ pounds monster and one of them really damaged my shoulder while running with it on a briefcase type case so is really light . Also the battery according to Vista is 2:40 on performance and 3:05 or so on balanced. But I have not waited till a complete drain since I have no patience to look at my lappy for 3 hours and confirms the numbers.

mmmm yeah I wrote it on my incomplete review ... yeah basically they are stiff and sort of noisy but not a deal breaker. I mainly show them who is the boss and click on it or just double tap on the pad.

according to gpuz posted in this post is 55nm

 

Oh sorry for not updating this sooner. I had done a lot during the weekend but lost my 3 hours work on it since the computer that I was working on just "turned off" and I had not saved my work . I "raged" for an hour then went to sleep.

Then I had to work so I basically woke up on sunday and went to sleep on tuesday . I had a exam today Wed and for some reason someone decided to hack a page at work so I had to do a lot of stuff too there. Anyway spring break starts for me after thursday so I should polish this up later.

Edit: Also since I just woke up at 2am and can't go back to sleep I just decided to add some pics on the 2nd post. Since ppl are asking about pics that I already had but never linked to.

 

Mines coming on Wednesday Can't wait. Downloaded 64bit Vista for this system already. Plan to clean install it immediately. I'll post some pictures when I get it

I remember someone mentioning a flex in the front cover of the case, I hope its not a issue... the N80's were pretty solidly built except for the keyboard.

 

oh so thats what you did THE WHOLE week ? Sounds fun

 

just got my N81VP today. haven't had time to do much with it yet (finals coming up). booted just to test the screen brightness and fiddle with it a bit. first impressions: touchpad has a nice feel, but the mouse buttons are definitely stiff and make a pretty audible click when pressed. screen is very bright and vibrant, i was using it next to my 19" Samsung LCD and it was comparable in terms of brightness. Build quality seemed very nice, sturdy and the weight is manageable next to the F3JM.

I probably won't have time to do benchmarks for a while, but so far I like the computer, even though I will have to do a fresh install of Vista and maybe dual-boot XP as well, to get rid of the bloatware that Asus has shipped the computer with. Again, initial impressions of this computer are quite good, but I will reserve judgment until I've had a chance to use it for awhile.

edit:

also I personally think the laptop looks great. maybe a little too shiny for my tastes, but that brown color scheme (that everybody seems to dislike) isn't really a deal-breaker. overall though, the laptop looks pretty sleek and well-built.

 

Well most laptops these days have a glossy finish to them but to me that's no big deal, what I thought was a big deal was the brown color scheme so it's good to hear it does not look as bad as it does in some pictures.
Just one questions is the lid black? because I have seen it in different shades of colors I think but then again it might be the picture quality.It's black right!

 

Mine is arriving tomorrow, I should be able to post my opinions of it in a few days. And yes the brown color was one of my concerns, but I went for it anyways.

 

I got mine today.

First impressions:

- The screen is great. Very bright and excellent color definition. The white is really white and it's easy to see differences between colors. I've already noticed details in websites that I never noticed before. LED screens FTW.

- The lid is black on the edges and it fades to a really dark brown in the middle. It has little white speckles like you've probably seen in pictures. I'd call the palm rest color a greyish tan, also with speckles. I like it better than the pictures, though if I had a choice of colors I would have picked something else. Not bad though.

- The keyboard is very good. Soft touch on the keys and fast. The touchpad is accurate and feels nice. The mouse buttons, IMO, take way too much pressure to click. It would wear out my fingers to use it for long periods. I'll probably use tap-to-click or an external mouse most of the time.

- The speakers are quite decent. I got the Netflix instant viewer loaded and watched some Doctor Who. I could watch TV on these speakers without too much complaint. The bass is of course weak, because of lacking a subwoofer.

- It came with quite a bit of bloatware, more than my older Asus. Everything uninstalled easily from control panel though. The Vista and Asus configuration and unloading the crapware took about an hour. It's running great now. I'm going to leave Vista 32 on for the time being. It comes pre-activated and I hate to do activation if I don't need to.

Overall, I'm very impressed. In the desktop stuff I've done so far, it's way fast. I haven't loaded any games yet, but I'll get to that later. I don't play shooters, but I'll get Guild Wars, Oblivion, Tomb Raider, and a few others loaded and run some Fraps on it.

DNA has a new Catalyst 9.2 driver with support for the 4650. I did load that. Loaded with no problems and seems stable so far:

http://www.donotargue.com/page.php?id=1104

I took some unboxing pictures and will also take some pictures of the laptop. I'll get them posted tomorrow.

Quite stoked,

Harley.

 

Looking forward to the pictures

I also notice a review has been posted on NBR--
http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=4896&review=asus+n81+n81vp

 

Here are some pictures of my N81...

I enjoy unboxing pictures, as it expresses the feeling of getting something new:







Here's one of the lid, that I think shows the variance in color (and also how it picks up smudges and fingerprints). The fade from black to brown looks more gradual in person, but this shows that it's not all black:



Here's the palm rest and keyboard area:





And here is the included mouse and carrying case (it's the same mouse as most Asus netbooks come with):

 

Nice work barleyguy, now all we need to see is some game benchmarks, this laptop is looking better and better.....
Not sure if it's been answered before so I'll ask it again to someone that actually has this laptop.
Does it have any form of boost/turbo mode to OC the CPU?

 

Thanks.

Nope, as far as I've seen there is no turbo mode. The T9550 is quite fast at stock speeds though.

I'll try to do some Fraps benchmarks soon. Though, like I mentioned, I'm not into shooters, so it'll be limited to things like Oblivion, Tomb Raider, Guild Wars etc.

I got 6345 on 3DMark06 with stock speeds and version 9.2 of Catalyst. Slower than Sepiroth's 6441 with 8.10 drivers, but faster than the 6000ish in the main review. I think it varies a lot by driver version.

There are some gaming videos on the gentechpc site, if you haven't looked at them yet.

 

I have seen those from GenTech, just wanted to see how other games performed.
And any game benchmarks are good

 

sorry this may be somewhat of a noob question but what sort of drivers would i need to get if i wanted to have a copy of Windows 7 running on my N81VP? I know that DNA's Vista drivers for the 4650 are compatible with Windows 7, but what about some of the other components (bluetooth, card reader, etc). Are all Vista drivers compatible with Windows 7? Thanks

 

All the vista drivers work with Windows 7, there should be no problem.

Just got my N81VP up and running, working fantastic. I did a fresh install of 64bit Vista to rid myself of that annoying bloatware.

Im not sure why everyone is complaining so much about the looks. It looks nice, not over the top, reminds me of those current HP notebooks. The lid appears to be more of a black than a brown and the inside is a silver-rish grey. The photos give a bad representation of the looks. Quite a bit quieter than my old desktop, also the heat and fan is barely audible under normal usage.

I have yet to try any games yet, but I am installing GTA IV as we speak I don't regret this purchase at all.

 

thanks for the tip. how did u decide on Vista x64 instead of 32-bit? I don't have any experience with the matter, but I've heard that 64-bit OS can have a bit of conflict with some programs and isn't that much faster than 32-bit. Is any of true? And would it be better to I install a 64-bit version of Windows instead? (I am currently installing XP 32bit, btw)

and regarding the looks, I definitely think they're a plus, if anything.

 

Vicious made some very good point about 32bit vs 64bit:

 

We'll yes, it's a very solid notebook. I chose to run a 64-bit OS because I've been running it comfortably on my desktop for over a year now with no issues. Most up to date programs will run just fine. I also do occasional photoshop and 3DS Max design, which takes advantage of 64 bit architecture. Otherwise though I haven't noticed much of a difference in my move to 64 bit. Its more for the sake of having it and fresh-installing my O/S

 

I ran some fraps benchmarks of some midrange games on the N81. These were roughly 5 minute play sessions in places I thought were fairly stressful. The bad news is, I don't have any games that really stress this video card. The good news is, I don't have any games that really stress this video card. But seriously, every midrange game I've tried on it runs silky smooth.

 

What? The inside is silver-ish grey? It definitely looks bronze-ish in almost every picture I've ever seen. Is there some sort of layer thats causing it to be bronze in pics?

Edit: Now that I take a closer look I can see where you might be coming from. But I still detect a hint of bronze.. kind of like a very light bronze.

 

I'd call it a silverish tan. It's definitely got a hint of light brown to it, but the shininess of it makes it seem silver.

 

Hey folks, I just ordered mine from newegg, should be arriving tomorrow, thanks for their fast shipping. I will be soon a proud owner of this little beast.
Anyways, I have search everwhere or maybe not enough, but this N81vp comes with windows vista 32bit. Will someone help me out to teach me how to change it to 64 bit? like step by step? do i have to buy a new OS from bestbuy or somewhere just to upgrade from 32 to 64bit?

Lets just say I got my 64 bit ready to install, 1st turn on computer, press escape then boot on the windows vista 64bit CD? will someone help me please? i really dont want to get stuck with the 32bit. I will appreciate all the help. Thanks in advance guys.

 

That's a big ball of wax. You basically need to start from scratch and install Vista and then all of the drivers. You can start with the "Vista Clean Install Guide" on this website:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=144783

Edit: I would definitely recommend following that guide step-by-step. I read through it, and it seems to be complete, and also explains how to maintain your activation and product code so you don't need to call Microsoft.

Another edit: That thread is for Lenovo/Thinkpad computers. So you'll want to ignore their suggestions about drivers and the Thinkvantage utilities. The first page of this thread has driver suggestions, so substitute those instead. Other than that, the steps are good.

 

OK, this laptop is at the top of my shopping list -- now the big question: has anybody tried installing OS-X on this thing? The latest XxX X86 ISO claims a lot more compatibility -- anybody try it? I hope this is not a forbidden subject -- if so I'm sorry! Thanks!!