V1J/P Owner's Lounge

Can someone tell me how the battery fair on the usuage in detailed, like gaming or surfing or movie. I am aware there is a secondary battery bay to combine with the primary battery and how does it fair when both are combine for usuage. Thanks!

 

Your in luck I'm 80% complete writing the review, and the battery life on the main battery while doing light tasks, wifi on, bluetooth off, 50% brightness, you will get 2 hours and 50 minutes.

I will be doing Movie and gaming battery life tests, those are next on the list of things to do. So I will keep up updated within 2-4 hours since the battery is charging right now.

Thanks,

MysticGolem

 

Out of curiosity, has anyone tried installing linux on the v1j?

I'm looking to get this but I would prefer if I could get Fedora Core 6 running on this w/o too much fuss.

Thanks.

 

Oh...I can't wait for this, MysticGolem! Take lots of pictures!

 

I'll tell you right now, the V1 is as perfect as Asus could make the system, with the exception of a few minor details...... I've of course love some brushed aluminum on the palmrest and/or lid, but I much prefer the hinge design on the V6/W1/W2 to that of the the "traditional" hinge on the V1, although it is heavy duty none the less. The only other thing is the latch system... I love the magnetic latch on all of the W series models and the V6... for whatever reason they didn't use it on the V1.....

Those are minor, minor details, but overall I think it's the closest to perfect for it's purpose of any other model....... I think the W2 comes in a close second.

 

The review is 95% complete, over 70+ pictures, I have already embedded 50+ pics, stilll got to do 2-3 edits, and a few final pictures to take and submit it to Abaxter, I should have it complete by 12pm haha.

However, i don't think this laptop is perfect my two major complaints is heat and noise, and just slightly lower battery life than anticipated and the lid exhibits a lot of flex.

The review is VERY LONG with lots of pics (14 pages of text)

Thanks,

MysticGolem

 

Yeah! Go MysticGolem! Heheh I don't know if Abaxter is going to let you have such a big review, but its fantastic to me!

 

I have a feeling a majority of v1j owners are going to buy that docking bay.
I know I would definitely.

 

Well, one of the advantages of the systems is the docking station, of course... It'll probably be more popular than extra batteries or anything else... but not everyone buys those things either.

The thing is, Asus has always been about the mobile professional..... and they have that market down pat. Now, the gaming and true business machine market is something they almost wanted to stay away from until they had the perfect machines. I will not say the G1/G2 or V1/V2 are "perfect" by any means, even compared to other Asus models, but they're feature-packed with as much stuff consumers in those markets could want compared to other options they have. All that along with Asus motherboards and gpus inside, stunning Asus designs and builds.... they're great entries into "a whole new world" for their notebook division. I don't think anyone should worry in the least because Asus has experience in all of these things as an ODM, and they'll rather release something late, but closer to perfect than release something early and have problems...... That's always been the case and I used to get on them because they were missing great markets... but I've come to understand and appreciate a better system comes to those that wait. Just as an example, the W2 was more than 2 years behind the release of 17" media center systems by other companies. Asus refused to build a 17" media center system until technology would allow them to make it a certain weight and thickness as well as have a certain high level of battery life. Now the W2v wasn't absolutely perfect, but it was darn close and a lot closer than any other 17" on the market...... and now, a little more than a year later we have the W2p which fixed the couple things any one even complained about and improved things that didn't need improving. Now all we have are people complaining that the US market didn't bring in an HD-DVD drive or the super high res WUXGA lcd (at the cost of raising the price another $600 or so)..... When THAT is the only complaint, you're looking at a great system.

With all of that in mind, the future for the gaming and business models are bright and so far, out of the gate I think the V1 is a great upgrade for anyone with a W1, M6/Z70, M7/Z71 and only the W1/W2 have a better overall build quality. Asus could have made this machine more like the W1 to improve on the few things I'd like to see different, but by doing that, the system would be more towards the 7lbs+ range of the W1 and that would hurt it's overall purpose. With that in mind, I think even though it it's not perfect in the design or build areas (at least in my mind), it's a very good blend in order to meet it's ultimate goal, which I think it does rather well.

Personally, I'll tell you right now after a week with a retail V1, my next long term system will most deffinately be a V2. The features of the V1 make it more useful for a professional type of person and for me, since I'm on the go more than I'd sometimes like, I've really gotten to love the 14" form factor and with a docking station like these have, I'd actually like to have something more in the 11-13" form factor - and just hook up to my large monitors at home and at work.... For those looking for a 15.4" business machine though, no longer have to pass up Asus for the vaio's and thinkpad's...

 

The review is 100% complete on my side as of 2:30 am, now it will undergo some editing and then be posted here soon, I hope.

Here are some teaser pictures I have taken.



Thanks,

MysticGolem

 

[edited by moderator] stop teasing us

With the docking station, I dont think battery life is important right? Most of the time will be plug-in together with DC in office or at home.

 

your v1j lcd appears to have better contrast than your crt monitor or is this just the photo?

can you run everest and tell us the model number for your v1j lcd?

I have been wondering if it is the same as the g1 or another kind.

 

The screen is CMO1523 (N154Z1-L02). This may the same one as the ASUS G1.

As for contrast you could be right, I will take one more picture, but i'll use DVI out and compare it like that.

I don't have a docking station, I may get on later, but the docking station needs to be plugged in, so battery life is not of concern.

Model Name N154Z1
Screen 15.4"(Wide)
Resolution(H x V) 1680x1050
Support Color 262K
Schedule now
Brightness(nits) 200
Contrast Ratio 500:1
Viewing Angle(U/D/R/L) 40/60/60/60
Power Consumption(w/o Inv) 5.5
Outlines(W x H x D mm) 344x 222x6.2
Weight(g) 560
Response Time (ms) 16
Electrical Interface LVDS

http://www.cmo.com.tw/cmo/english/product/showproductn.jsp?size=15.4#7

Thanks,

MysticGolem

 

The docking station does need to be plugged in, and it comes with it's own 120w power supply (the V1 only needs 90w itself).

 

Guys the review is out on the site! Front PAGE! Big Thanks to Andrew

http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=3412&review=Asus+V1JP

Enjoy it guys!

Thanks,

MysticGolem

 

Thanks MysticGolem

 

Every machine I've used works this way. Hibernate saves RAM data to hard drive and fully turns the machine off (deepest sleep state if power is available). Are you sure you don't have this mixed up with suspend?

Thanks again for the review.

 

During gaming will the ATI GPU be affected while running from the Asus's docking station? Can someone give an insight.

 

No it shouldn't behave any different from being on AC power.

 

only thing im' wondering is how this compared to LG s1, a similiarly priced notebook.

 

Well first I don't think they're similarly priced; the S1 series is more expensive (at least in the US). The design is absolutely beautiful but there were a few deal breakers for me.
1. No DVI out (However, the docking bay does have it)
2. The standard 6 cell battery is a little weaker compared to the V1J/p. But there is an optional 9 cell battery.
3. No modular bay

Take this and subtract $129 for the extra year of warranty (3 vs 2 standard on Asus) but then add back money for the WSXGA screen, extra 20GB of HD space, larger battery... A similarly equipped S1 is not really similarly priced IMO.

NBR has a review on the S1

The S1 is targetted at a slightly different audience than the V1. The design and finish is absolutely gorgeous but you do pay more for it.

 

The bodywork on LG S1 is weaker too.
The reviewer reported a lot of flex.

 

That's not what I read in the review I linked to.

 

My V1Jp arrived at the Fedex location in my town yesterday, but would not deliver it until today... So, I went and picked it up! As Mystic wrote an awesome review, I won't even bother. Here are some things I would like to mention:

1: LCD screen has great picture quality and I have not noticed any light leakage in dark room during boot. There is LCD flex though, which is a negative. Viewing angles are very good.

2. Lots of bloatware in my opinion. I formated the system, removing all partitions, converted to NTFS BEFORE windows installation (with retail XP pro copy, not the recovery cd) and installed Windows. I then installed all the drivers, though I will be getting rid of one of the security features. The fingerprint reader is really neat and easy to use. You can have more that one fingerprint that will load the computer (e.g. yours and your wife/sister/brother).

3. I removed the original ram and put in two 1 gig OCZ pc5400 667mhz ram. First of, let me tell you that it was a great pain. You need to remove the large CPU/GPU/Heatsink cover first which has about 6 screws. Once that is off, you can pop of the ram cover. Installing the ram itself was extremely easy though.

4. Driver cd included the Hotfix for dual core CPU's. I'm not to happy with the cd drive. There is some movement when you press on it. I installed software from many cd's (10+) and only one caused rattle which stopped if I held my hand on the cd bay.

I will be doing more tests and stuff on my lappy and post my thoughts. Still to early to give my opinion on how much I like the lappy.

Finally, here are some 3dMark 06 scores.

(No partitions, clean XP Pro installation, drivers from driver CD, some software that I use, and NTFS file system before Windows installation).

1 gig of ram:
1907

2 gig of OCZ ram:
1908 But, I did notice a faster boot time, plus higher frames in games.

 

The LG S1 is somewhat of a competitor to the ASUS V1JP, they share many features alike.

The LG S1 is built from magnesium alloy, internally, but the exterior is a hard plastic with a glossy feel. It does not feel cheap at all.

If your trying to make the choice between both LG S1 and V1JP, consider the features of both laptops, since performance is relatively the same, despite the LG S1 having 2 GB of ram which helps with load times, multi-tasking and more.

The V1JP is slightly cheaper than the S1 and you can easily get a 1x 1GB to get 2GB of ram. Unfortunately as pevelg mentioned you have to work hard to get to the ram slots.

3DMarks do not really benefit from 2GB of ram, I think we saw many stating this, however yes you will feel and see the benefits of 2GB on a gaming/high performance laptop.

I did see a performance difference between the LG S1 and V1JP because of the 2GB of ram. So I do suggest people invest in 1x 1GB or ram or 2x 1GB of ram like pevelg did.

Pevelg you should try PCMark05 with 1GB and 2GB, you might see the difference there.

In terms of looks the LG S1 and V1JP are equal in my opinion, the V1JP get a slight win for me since it doesn't fingerprint easily or at all.

Also If possible see them in person and try to make choice.
Click Here for LG S1 Review and also use MysticGolem's review on the ASUS V1JP and compare.

 

The flex in the LCD is because of the magnesium alloy. It is very light weight and strong, but it is thin and will flex.

The point is there is no harm in the flex because it is actually stronger than plastic (like the LG S1 has) and it will take a lot to break or crack it.

Give me magnesium alloy with a little flex anytime

 

Anybody able to take a picture of the v1jp next to a visual reference like a stack of cd jewel cases or something like that? It says that the thickness varies from .98" to 1.4" and I'd like to see where that stacks up Any pics would be greatly appreciated !!

Thanks!

 

This might be my next laptop and I'm very happy that I won't have to pay extra for a docking station that i'll never use. I use my laptop on my coffee table, I never plug an external monitor up to it, never have a printer or a ton of other components plugged in permanently. to me the docking station is just clutter and something i dont need. they were smart to make this optional...

 

Haha, in my opinion the V1J's competitor is the G1. A lot of the members here aren't business people, most are gamers/media enthusiasts, but both the G1 and the V1 are sleek, have the cameras, pretty powerful graphics cards (X1600 and 7700), and same processor powers. The V1J is slightly more expensive though, but nonetheless I think a lot of people (me included) will debate over the V1J vs. G1.

 

Does anyone know what's on the recovery partition? It's probably included in the CDs but I was just curious before I wipe it.

 

I would have to agree with your opinion here aswell, just a slight correct the V1jP has a X1700 not a X1600.

No doubt the G1 is the better way to go for more performance and cheaper price. But the looks my throw off some people who are purchasing for the business world, and use it in meetings and presentations.

That's why I would compare it more or less like this Features vs Best Bang for the Buck, the V1JP having all the feature and flexibilty with very good performance. Whereas the G1 has everything that one may need in a notebook, plus excellent performance and an awesome price.

 

Recovery partition?

I have two partitions - C: and D: but there is nothing on D:

I asked ASUS why they formatted with FAT32 instead of NTSF and their "unofficial" answer was that since it is easy to go from FAT32 to NTSF (particularly with their little utility), but impossible to go from NTSF to FAT32, they set it up that way. They did admit that virtually no one uses FAT32 anymore so it may not be the best decision, but it is their decision for now.

They could not explain why they made two partitions, particularly why they made the OS resident on the 66GB partition. The engineer I talked to agreed that if they were going to make two partitions the OS should probably be resident on about 20GB and the 2nd partition should have the rest.

 

Yeah when I run "Disk Management" There is a 1.86 GB FAT32 partition at the beginning of the disc labelled "RECOVERY". I guess I could always mount it with Linux and poke around.

 

He is right if he mean V1J, not V1Jp. I see two models in V1 series, V1J come with ATI X1600 whereas V1Jp come with ATI X1700.

 

FYI for anyone that cares.

There is an approximately 2GB FAT32 partition at the beginning of my V1Jp drive including the minimal files for booting and then PowerQuest (became Norton Ghost later) files. The PowerQuest files include a 1.6GB image file.

 

the recovery partition is a way you can restore your computer to as new state without using a cd.

you hit i think f8 in start up and you can just reformat from your hd, no need for a cd.

I still have mine although Im not sure why. Even though I like it in theory Im going to go all vista so recovering to xp pro is not going to happen for me too much.

Asus computers start at fat 32 so users upgrading can put the ghost of their old machines hard drive on it ( windows 98 or 95) and then convert it.
I mean its not insane it has a reason. 99% of the people who buy this machine in 2006 are not upgrading from windows 98 its true.

 

Is anyone getting better than 2:30 to 2:45 battery life?

Do you notice it doesn't seem to matter much what you are doing...light or heavy load...the battery life is about the same?

 

I've noticed that, when doing light tasks, I get 2 hours and 50 minutes, but when watching movies/DVDs i get 2 hours and 30 minutes...not a big difference.

The consumption rate is already 24+ Watts per hour and doing medium and light tasks just barely moves the consumption rate. In my opinion the CPU and GPU are very efficient, thus allowing battery life to stay high while doing more demanding tasks.

However, since the consumption rate is so high, you don't see much gains in battery life while doing light tasks.

Thanks,

MysticGolem

 

Whoops, that was a typo

Man, I love the specs of the G1, but I like the non-reflective lid of the V1J. If only Asus made one that had the best of everything...

 

Does anyone have the Power Station hooked up?

I hooked mine up and tried to use my PCConcepts Wave109 keyboard with the built in Synaptics touchpad. To my disappointment neither the keyboard connected to the serial port nor the touchpad connected to the P/S2 port worked correctly. The keyboard didn't work at all, and the touchpad only worked as a simple P/S2 pointing device instead of delivering all of the Synaptics programability. Then I connected the serial keyboard cable to the Synaptics provided serial to P/S2 adapter, and connected both the keyboard and touchpad P/S2 cables to a splitter and plugged that into the Power Station P/S2 port only to find that neither worked at all.

Has anyone else had any difficulties with the Power Station?

 

Well, I'm quite happy with my new V1 I must say the touch pad clicker, whatever u wanna call it, is rather hard to push when I'm too lazy to hook up the nice mouse. And I'm rather befuddled after trying to figure out the fingerprint device. I'll work more on that later. Regarding the partitions. I figured since there was already an empty partition, I'd dive into trying linux.....Anyone try to install Linux on one? I just tried to install Ubuntu with the live CD, and all I got was a video mess, unable to see anything. I am a total noob with linux, in fact this was my first attempt to take a peek at it. I heard linux doesn't play well with ATI? IF anyone knows what I need to do, would love a quick lesson...for dummies.

 

How nice ASUS to finally ship to the US. Greetings to everyone with shiny new V1's!

Has anyone noticed backlight flickering on any brightness level yet?

Previously I said that the battery wear was increasing in a fast pace. Well, I've drained the battery a few times lately (varying drain % before switching to AC) and NHC 2.0 tells me that the wear level is a steady 35% for about two weeks now. Go figure!

 

I have had my notebook for 1.5 weeks, and I have tried all brightness levels there is not screen flickering at all, even when loading ATI drivers, so everything seems good there.

I have used my battery quite a bit already, and when writing the review i was using the battery a lot too, my wear percentage according to NHC is only 2.0% which OK, but my battery life is still 3 hours max, so no complains there.

Just and FYI, today my laptop will go the ASUS service center here in Ontario, because i have a Bright dot pixel that is dead, and my bezel in the bottom left corner seems to be coming out.

Thanks,

MysticGolem

 

2% doesn't sound bad.

I'm getting about 110-120 minutes now, which correlates to the wear level indicator. I'm puzzled as to why the wear level increased so much in a short period of time. Nothing extraordinary took place at the time, except that I switched to NHC from Power4Gear. Which, in all likelihood, has nothing to do with the problem.

 

My screen has no flicker either. Also, the palm rest is somewhat easy to scratch in my opinion. I had the lappy in a car and used my wireless mouse on top of the palm rest. This caused some scratches (looks like a slight discoloration). Here are some more things I would like to comment on:

1. Though the speaker output is low, the quality of the sound is a lot better than the HP I previously used. The HP would rattle when playing songs like the theme from Broken Arrow. This lappy plays it nice, though with a lack of base. My desktop Klipsch speakers/subwoofer make the walls quiver and the desk shake when playing the theme from broken arrow.

2. I am extremely glad I bought this laptop instead of the G1. The main reason is weight and footprint. I have been spending the last couple of days on the road and at a hospital, so I got to test its mobility. Though it serves its function, it is still slightly to big and heavy for heavy mobile use. If the W3 would have had the same specs as the V1Jp, other than the resolution and size, I would gladly buy that instead. Never-the-less, I mostly use this laptop as a desktop at my university (rarely cary it to class), so mobility is not too important.

3. I have never liked touchpads, and this one does not raise the bar much. The "clicker" as one individual mentioned is a little too hard to click. The drivers won't allow me to change my logitech mouse settings, but without the touchpad drivers, you can not turn the touchpad off.

4. The webcam is weak in my opinion and I would have preferred not to have it there, but whatever. I use a logitech notebook pro webcam, so prehaps my expectations are a little too high.

I can't comment on battery life as I mostly have the laptop plugged in, even in a car as I own an inverter for my car. Well, thats all for now. Feel free to ask questions.

 

I know that on the Asus website, it says that it supports up to 2 GB of memory. But is that a hard limit (as in limited by what the mobo/chipset supports)? If you put in a 2 GB stick of RAM, will it simply not boot? Will it boot and not recognize the rest of the RAM?

Could someone with access to a V1J and 4 GB of RAM give this a shot

V1 looks sexy, but I need a notebook that supports 4 GB.

 

ruoste is it uncommon to see battery wear percentage exponentially and radicaly grow like yours. I know another member in NRB.com, mselley is also having the same problems with the V1J (Yonah). The wear percentage just keeps on growing.

The V6 series also had this problem. Asus will have to come up with a solution while you will have to keep getting battery replacements.

Its not really a matter of whether the V1JP can take 4GB of ram, it is more of can the Merom and the NAPA chipset can accomodate 4GB of ram, the problem is no one has tried it, and would cost so much for one to even try it. One thing you can do is call Asus.

 

The Asus product website states that the V1J is running off of the "Mobile Intel 945GM Express Chipset" but that the machine only supports up to 2 GB of RAM ( http://www.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=5&l2=24&l3=330&model=1300&modelmenu=2).

The Intel website for the Mobile Intel 945GM Express Chipset ( http://www.intel.com/products/chipsets/945pm/index.htm) states that the chipset supports up to 4 GB of addressable memory (see the item "Dual-channel DDR2 667MHz Memory Support").

So could it be a documentation error on behalf of Asus? For sure, I know that there are other notebooks that support 4 GB (my boss just got one, but with only 2 GB in two 1 GB sticks - I'll have to get his make/model and check it out).

Any vendors/owners with 2 GB DIMMS willing to test this out?

 

Hello People;
I am new to this forum and am searching for a laptop. Ive waited a year, even after the sales. And my journey has led me to the V1jp. The laptops i conisered ranged from the fujitsu xi1546 with core2duo and ati X1800, dell, Toshiba etc...

I have decided to change my search and opt for a 15" because i plan on buying an external 23" monitor.

So back to the V1jp; i have some questions if someone could please answer if they know:

1) I plan to format the HDD with more partions... Does this mean i will have to install all the drivers?
2) By me formatting my HDD, do i loose my Vista Upgrade
3) Is there a major difference between Core2Duo 2.0GHz and 2.33GHz?
4) Is the F3jp any good?

I saw the F3jp withneat enough the same spec apart from the processor which is 2.33GHz

so my last question would be:

5) v1jp Vs F3jp....???

 

Ivan of portable one is selling the a8js with 4 gb of ram, so aparently the mistake is on asus website.

At least for that model.