*Official UL30VT-X1 Owners Lounge*

Another thing, did it cost you anything to send it in? Did they provide an empty box so you can send it in?

 

UUUUUHGGG!!!!! The webcam is upside down! The driver posted on the website does not work... I had to use the UL80VT webcam driver (top one) and that driver TOOK, but still the webcam is upside down. :-( I have read it could be a software setting, but to hell with it, I have tried to figure it out....

 

anyone else have an upside down webcam?

 

I think his notebook is just upside down.

 

On my old Asus F3sv I had the same problem as you are describing. No matter what drivers I installed nothing worked to fix it, but moving the screen at different angles sometimes flipped it rightside up. Hopefully Asus will address this issue, but I haven't used the webcam enough to see if this problem comes up for me.

 

So, aside from the power settings button not working right for standard users (not a big deal, I figure I'll mostly leave it on Power4Gear Entertainment mode anyway), and some times the regular hotkeys get laggy (volume, brightness, etc...but I reinstalled all the drivers and apps and kb_filter, which I don't think was installed before, so we'll see if that helps)

I'm really liking this laptop.
- Turbo33 is great. Really helps performance. Might as well leave it overclocked 'cause battery is still wonderful.
- Battery life is stellar...obviously. I'll get over 5 hours on this charge, constantly installing programs and surfing the web on wifi, bluetooth on but unused, Entertainment power mode w/ integrated graphics, Screen at 40%, intermittenly playing music over the network or Zune software.
- No problems other people have reported. No hot/stuck/dead pixels, no spacebar issues, webcam is right-side up.
- Thin and Light, moreso than I expected.
- Solid build, no flex that I can tell (I'm a light-ish typer anyway)
- runs cool and quiet
- Acceptable screen...certainly as good or better than my old Dell Inspiron 4100 and. Glossy, but not a total mirror like some other laptops are.

Summary: Solid hardware, build and battery life. Asus needs to work a bit on their software.

 

I would also very much like to know if there is a SIM-card slot and a free antenna to add a 3G-modem to the otherwise quite perfect machine! And any photos with the thing opened would be great too! And a proper review too

Also it seems that this nice laptop is indeed coming to Europe and maybe even sooner than we thought. At least it's listed in two Swedish stores and the other lists it as coming at the 15th of December:
http://www.prisjakt.nu/produkt.php?p=520990

Also the price of about 750 euros seems quite reasonable for a European price since the UL30A sells for 699 euros here in Finland at the moment.

 

There's a seventh review of the system on amazon.com:
http://www.amazon.com/UL30Vt-X1-13-...iewpoints=1&sortBy=bySubmissionDateDescending

I'm really surprised that there hasn't been a full blown review and only a few small first impressions despite the unit being out for almost a week.

}:^)~

 

I received mine yesterday via UPS (from Amazon pre-order a few weeks ago) and will add my data point for others:

Got to play with it for a few hours and am very impressed for the price.

I came from an Asus W3J which sadly kicked the bucket this summer. Even being four years old, the W3J was quite simply a fantastic notebook, so I had high demands for a replacement. I waited for the 80VT to come out, was about to pull the trigger when I saw the 30VT come out, and I knew I wanted this one b/c I didn't want to carry around an optical drive I would never use.

Great unit and I think the build quality is quite good.

The hard drive is a bit noisy and makes clicking noises during read/writes. I also find it a bit slow and it appears to be the bottleneck on the system, at least when in turbo mode.

My only other disappointment is the lesser version of the battery. I understand Asus from a biz point of view since they will refresh this I'm sure in February with a "new and improved" battery, but its still good but irks me it could be better.

I was overall impressed with the screen. The W3J had a great (TN) screen, and this one is about equal. I'd say perhaps viewing angles are a bit worse, but contrast/brightness is fine.

I plan to put an Intel G2 SSD in and buy the better battery on ebay, and then the unit will be perfect. I hope to see 14hr-ish battery life with those upgrades, and will have a second battery to lug around if I know I have no power available.

I played WoW and it seemed to run fine on low-ish standards with great FPS. The video / cpu did not have any problems even in Dalaran at peak time (if you know what this means, its the acid test). I could tell the HDD was holding things back due to slower texture loads. The SSD will fix that. It is certainly not a gaming PC, but I feel that I can get my fix when away from the desktop or even on my sofa.

Aside from my 2 minor nits, I'm overall very satisfied with this purchase, and I'm amazed its half the price I paid for my W3J back int he day.

 

good review there. The only real problem he had with it was the bad viewing angles. It sounds like a great laptop to me. and I'm surprised as well that the only reviews we have are from amazon users.

 

thanks for sharing sippelmc. Just one question, when you say it's definitely not for gaming, what about if I just want to play team fortress 2, left 4 dead 2, and cod4. I heard all those games work great on medium/high settings, playing at 40-50 fps. Even modern warfare 2 played well (although I don't know how steady the fps will be in multiplayer). That sounds good for gaming to me.

 

Sorry, I don't know those games really. My statement is based on the fact that I could max out the settings and the FPS would drop some (and this is WoW). I believe that at native res this can certainly handle most any modern game that is out right now on med settings, though. Note, I said that it is not a gaming notebook. That is different from being able to handle games =)

Like I said, the biggest bottleneck seems to be the HDD.

I'm used to pretty high level enthusiast desktop PC hardware, so I'd say my perception is a bit skewed, too.

 

another noob here who got lucky and nabbed the UL30vt over the weekend. I read a couple of posts where people are upgrading their hard drives to SSD but was wondering if anyone was going to increase their RAM?

If so what are the specs for the memory this laptop can take? I checked on the asus website and wasn't able to find much except that it takes DDR3.

Also, will adding more RAM cause it to heat up/warm up more frequently?

 

do you really need more than 4gb of ram?
max it can take is 8gb though. All you have to do is pop off the back cover to do this

 

Mine still is on the way, but i doubt increasing the memory will have temp increase, on my g51vx barely gets warm. But increasing ram on it gonna be expensive, expect around half of what you paid for your laptop.

Btw just wondering, did you order after it sold out?

 

he ordered before it ran out of stock

 

So I contacted Asus support and they're gonna send me a new keyboard soon, then I'll send back the defective one.. Let's see how this goes.

 

Hi, I purchased the ul30vt-x1 from amazon on Friday and I am returning it. Upon handling the laptop I was pretty disappointed. Too plasticky.(if thats even a word)The keyboard did not have a good feel to it, the keys felt very cheap, I did not like the texture. Oh, but the click bar was so horrible. You had to put so much pressure just to register a click. Not cool.

BUT here comes the ultimate reason why I am returning it. The build quality is horrible. I have this nasty creaky/snapping sound from my left palm rest. My 400dollar toshiba netbook has a higher build quality than this acer notebook. Truly disappointed after hearing so many good reviews about it's performance.

ps. the screen would randomly flicker black during use.(not unplugging or plugging or hitting the gfx change button just normal use plugged in or battery)

 

Thanks for this tip. If I popped the back cover off will the RAM that's installed have easily identifiable marking of what model/type it is?

As to why I would need 8gb of RAM? Same reason why people get SSDs - just want to get the best possible computing experience.

Actually I know this may get bumped to another thread but being a noob and not having read enough, would putting a SSD on this laptop make it more efficient (faster) than adding more RAM?

 

Yes. 4gb of ram is enough for any modern day user, unless they're pumping out CAD apps or something hugely intensive. The much better performance/price ratio upgrade is upgrading to a SSD, since the HDD is going to bottleneck your performance now.

Also. 4gb ram sticks cost a ton of money. Upgrading to 8gb could cost anywhere from ~$400+ depending on what kind of deals you find. An SSD would be cheaper than upgrading the ram, and it would have a better impact on your system.

 

Thanks again!

 

has anyone noticed the blue sparklys in the plastic? haha i love it

 

You said "this acer notebook". Did you mean ASUS? Or is this post really intended for another thread?

 

I'm sorry I was so frustrated when I was typing this I mistakingly put acer instead of ASUS. Yes this was meant for the UL30VT-X1. Actually I love ASUS. Their motherboards at least .

 

Don't return it D: I want it :O Want to sell it to me?

edit: actually, nvm. I'm too poor right now

 

There's no SIM card slot.

Interesting update on expected availability in Sweden. I happen to be heading in that direction for the Holidays. I was originally thinking about getting the X1 whenever Amazon restocks, but this could actually be a better option since the QX030V is metallic (less fingerprints) and comes w/ a two year warranty. No idea about the battery though. I emailed both retailers asking about it and here's hoping for a 5600mAh.

Anyway, w/o VAT the QX030V should be about $850 which is what I would have paid for the X1 with tax in NY.

 

hmm, I don't have that palm rest problem... only a space bar issue .

 

It sounds like you got a dud...

}:^(~

 

4gb ram is really plenty for most users. lovin' my ssd though

 

Actually, I have 20gb free on my 30gb ssd after installing everything I've needed so far. Question though, anyone think of pros or cons to keeping a decent SD in the slot all of the time? Power consumption, re-enable page file, hibernate to SD card...? SSD is super fast btw, I would imagine that readyboost would be useless in this situation. It would be an easy way to add another 16 or 32 gb of storage and possibly keep wear and tear off of my ssd. Curious about other implications though.

 

I'm looking forward to jumping on the SSD train when the price-to-gig ratio is around 1:1 and capacities of 256-512GB are more common. I suspect that's about a year away or so at the rate things are going so I can make do with an HDD for now.

}:^)~

 

Followed https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/FromUSBStick and made 9.1 x64 on 1 sd card and 1 usb drive. The usb drive booted ok as HDD in bios boot order. But can't boot from SD card from HDD or removable device. Xorg is using intel driver, nvidia one doesn't start properly, but it probably is not in power saving mode either. Wifi, bt, and lan are working.

Few things that I don't like:
power plans also changes the themes and few other settings
still haven't found a cable lock for it
express gate is not using native resolution
it has a label saying the lamp in this display contains mercury

 

Don't know what you guys are talking about.

My spacebar is fine.

When i come out of hibernation, hot keys work fine.

But I did do a clean install on the system.

 

Did you just use a copy of Win7 HP and use your key on the underside?

 

no i have an external dvd drive.

I used windows 7 professional

 

That's too bad. Hope you find a good replacement.

 

Gotcha.

Well I'm thinking of doing a clean install. According to here I should be able to modify a retail disc for use with the OEM key. So that's what I'll do.

 

Nice to know that you're up and running with Ubuntu! What is the battery life like?

}:^)~

 

It's a shame that ASUS put's so much unnecessary software on their machines. I guess that's one thing I really disliked so far. However, doing a clean install is easy and fast if you know what you're doing. It makes a big difference on user experience.

To o8x8: I'm pretty sure that most if not all LCD panels have Hg in them.

 

What's KBFiltr.exe? I see it under Windows Task Manager... I'm assuming it's some keyboard filter?? How do I remove this?

Also, anyone know how to remove the Wireless Console 3 or the Realtek HD Audio from the taskbar? I know you can hide it but I don't wanna hide it, I wanna completely remove the icon from the taskbar.

 

My Intel X-25M 80gb G2 arrived today and I installed a fresh install of Windows 7. The boot times for me take about 28 seconds to get to a usable desktop. From hibernation back to desktop it takes around 20 seconds.

I installed ATKOSD2, ATK Hotkey, and ATK Media plus the ELAN smartpad software. Someone mentioned before that they got it to boot in around 17 seconds, but I'm not sure what kind of settings could have shaved off ~10 seconds. Any tips here?

 

One thing that bothers me though is when i get to windows log on page it has to flash a black screen then back to windows log on. whats with that?

 

When coming out of hibernation, all of my hotkeys work EXCEPT screen brightness. I have a clean install as well.

 

that's very good speed already.

 

who was saying they boot in 17 seconds?

 

I have the same problems so I removed all of the ATK programs and restarted. After the restart the hot keys for screen brightness still worked, nothing else did. This makes me believe that something else controls the screen brightness and it is what stops working after the computer comes out of standby or hibernation. Not sure whether its a BIOS thing or some other utility. I wish I remembered if I had the same problem on my UL80VT or not as I would try to install some the utilities for that computer if they are different. So far this is my only major complaint with the system.

 

really sounds like asus needs to get their act together on the software

 

Did a clean install of win 7 professional, installed all the tools talked about here in the forums.

Been using
ColorMunki (calibrated the screen)
Photoshop
Microsoft Office
Watching Youtube
Lightroom

Without a hitch. Are you guys really installing everything you need? My space bar worked fine too. I specifically checked that after reading it here. Not sure how the chassis would creak as it feels pretty sturdy to me.

Could some of these laptops been damaged in the trip over here?

 

It's not that they don't have their act together. It's that the ACT is too large. They just need to trim it down. Make the software engineers go on diet or something.

Oh and one more thing. Did anyone actually order the 5600mah battery from Buy/Ebay? I want to know that it's the right battery before I go ahead and get one. Thanks for any help.

 

I get that sometimes at the log on screen but also randomly while using the machine. I haven't really kept track of when it does it randomly but the screen did black out just now about a minute AFTER I already switched from discrete to integrated (I just played Dragon Age for a bit).

I can sort of see it happening when resuming the computer from sleep or hibernation. Maybe you were using the 210m before sleeping and when you resumed, it saw you were on battery and switched it to integrated?