V1S-B1, the review

Greetings, humans. I have now had the Asus V1S-B1 in my possession for a week, so I figured it was time for a review. This is now my 3rd Asus notebook, and the progression has been interesting to say the least.

My first notebook was a W3V, which aside from paint wear on the palm rest and a couple of other little issues, was probably the most awesome notebook ever made. I wound up giving it away when I replaced it with the dual-core W7J... which was a bit smaller and of somewhat lesser build quality, but it did fix the small annoyances I had with the W3V.

Pictures:




Build quality/design:

Positives:
Very refined, professional looking notebook. It doesn't quite jump out of the crowd like some of Asus previous books, but it’s still very easy on the eyes. When standing alone (IE, not on the optional port replicator), there's very little flex on the palm rest, keyboard, or the areas surrounding the various shortcut buttons. All ports and connections work as advertised.

Negatives:
When it’s on the port replicator, there's flex near the middle of the notebook. Maybe something to do with the angle it sits on? The lid is VERY creaky and flexy, and while I can't say for sure that it's fragile, it sure feels like it. A fit of retard strength at the wrong moment could be its undoing. The shortcut and power buttons are a bit difficult to press. Really not feeling the clear window over the obnoxiously bright (and not very creatively colored) LED indicators...


Performance:

Positives:
Fastest notebook I've used, hands down. The Intel stuff pretty much performs the same way across the board depending on processor speed, so if you're happy with a similarly spec'd notebook, you'll be happy with this one. I did opt for a Seagate 7200rpm drive, which is a bit quicker than the 5400rpm drives I've had in all my previous notebooks.

I'm not a big 3D gamer; in fact, the only PC game I own is UT2004. The GPU runs it smoothly at the highest quality settings, sans AF and AA, at the displays native resolution. That's what I wanted, and that's what I got.

Negatives:
Is "Turbo Memory" actually DOING anything? Your guess is as good as mine, and Intel’s drivers for it can actually send your entire system into the seventh circle of hell if you try and find out.

Heat/Fans:

Positives:
After removing the stickers that are plastered all over the right palm rest, the heat is easy to tolerate, though not as comfortable as my W7J. Left palm rest and keyboard areas emit almost zero heat. The fan should be considered quiet by any standards, even when the system is really cranking.

Negatives:
REALLY wish they would've put the vent on the other side of the notebook, like with the V2S. My desk isn't particularly deep, and with it mounted on the docking station the vent is right in line with my mouse hand.

That rotten sticker sticker on the right palm rest seems to do a great job of retaining heat. It might be just me, but it was much more comfortable once I removed it.


Display:

Positives:
Man oh man... I simply can't believe that I thought the W3V and W7J were "crisp and bright". This badboy is on a whole other level. Razor sharp, and almost eye searingly bright with very little light leakage. Contrast is excellent with a little tweaking. Just a wonderful screen for most tasks.

Negatives:
I am seeing banding in a lot of places I didn't see on previous screens... maybe it’s the huge difference in brightness, or maybe it’s the screen supporting a lower bit-depth? I probably need to make some test gradients in Photoshop to see which it is.

Battery Life:

I got about 1 1/2 hours on battery, just running normal tasks as if I had it plugged in. I'm guessing with display brightness and other tweaks, its probably not unreasonable to get 2 1/2 hours out of it... but I'm not doing much mobile computing nowadays so I don't particularly care.

Keyboard:

Positives:
Quality, with good travel on the keys. Asus has always had a knack for excellent keyboards.

Negatives:
Weird "sparkly" keys... PFFFFFFFT! FN and CTRL key position swap has me making weird claw like motions with my hands at times as my brain has yet to adjust to the switch.

Features/Peripherals:

Bluetooth - after a clean install, Vista just installed a driver for the Bluetooth, so I didn't even bother testing Asus' drivers. Works perfectly with my cell phone and my Microsoft 8000 Bluetooth mouse.

WLAN - Works! My Linksys wireless-N router was a complete turd, so I picked up a new Trendnet N router, and it's been smooth sailing ever since. Not a single connection drop, excellent range and speed. Intel's wireless cards always seem to be the victim of dodgy driver support, but the current ones are working pretty well for me.

Memory Card reader - Working fine.

ExpressCard slot - No clue if it’s working, as I don't have any express cards to try it out with.

Video Out Ports - Finally... HDMI. Hooked up to both my Sony HDTV and receiver without any handshaking issues, which was quite a relief. I will probably never use the feature again, but it's nice to know that its there.

VGA and S-Video port - PFFFFFFT... I piss on your analog.

Optical drive - LG/Hitachi LightScribe drive. Considering the huge ball of noisy suck that was the optical drive in my W7J (some Toshiba garbage, failed TWICE in the course of a year), I'm pretty pleased with this drive thus far. Burned CD's and DVD's quickly, and rips DVD's at a decent speed. It's also much quieter than the drives in either of my previous notebooks.

SPDIF out - Works.

Camera - Trash, but working trash.

Speakers - Worse than any of the notebooks I've used thus far, however it’s the first notebook I've owned that doesn't seem to have any speaker/headphone jack interference issues. My disgustingly expensive SHURE ear buds sound fabulous with this thing... and even the cruddy standalone speakers I brought out of mothballs to test with put out respectable sound.

The Final Verdict:

I've come to accept that all notebooks have problems... and that there is no such thing as a "perfect notebook". This one has several strengths that separate it from my previous books, and I'm pretty happy with it.

It did have several competitors though... most notably a Sager model which I could've gotten for a few hundred bucks cheaper with the same specs, but I decided to stick with Asus. That may not happen the next time around if Asus abandons it in a month like they seemed to do with the W7...

They're also very lucky that I bought this notebook before calling them to get a replacement for the craptastic W7 optical drive I mentioned. Had I called before hand, their knuckle dragging tech support bozos might've blown themselves a sale. I won't go into all the particulars, but it wasn't a very reassuring experience.

Just for the record, I bought from Eddie over at BTO Tech, as I did with my W7 a year ago. Quick response, fast delivery... didn't annoy the hell out of me by trying to strike up some kind of weird e-mail geek kinship. Would buy from him again in a second.

Peace out, humans.

Kai

 

Any benchmarks? NR.com always has high standards when it comes to reviews, try and remember that . Pics, benchmarks needed.

 

Lol
I wish i had time and courage for all of that. I would be the favorite of all fanboys around these parts. But i dont thus the fan ship falls on other vendors. I ve been trying to do the video demo for this model for over a month now. I never did get around to it. It would be a nice compliment to your review. I will get to it next week. i am a procrastinator by hobby not by trade

 

Review isn't aimed to be front page material... just an alternate view for the forum goers.

I was going to provide pictures, but have now decided against it.

 

Why? It would be really nice. I know you just wanted to make a mini-review, thing which I appreciate, but I would also like to see some benchmarks (considering it hasn't been reviewed yet) and pictures . Pretty please .

 

To answer your question. Turbo memory may be doing something but not enough to notice with everyday use. if you read the huge thread i mad eon it where i got attacked by alex it does work but the applications in the real world are limited. I think you will see a vast improvement when newer drive technologies come out.

 

...And with the release of Vista SP1/Server 2008.

 

pics of the v1s are widely available
look for a video review next week in the sticky above where i post all my videos

 

I figured it would be something along those lines... "it'll be useful later", which seems to be the Vista mantra.

I have noticed that the hard drive churns a bit less than on the W7, but I don't know whether to attribute that to the Turbo Memory, or the additional system ram.

 

Great review, very entertaining. Rep+

Enjoy your notebook.

Human, signing off.

 

I will do the right thing and post pictures and benchmarks tomorrow... it's just raining like hell outside right now, there's no sun, and my home is lit like a tomb.

 

I am glad to find a very informative review from an OWNER of this laptop.

I have Had the Acer 8104 for 2 years now, I took the plunge and bought this same one(V1S-B1) from Excaliber PC today. Cant wait to see it.

Thank you for a great review!

 

Good decision, Devil_Kai. Hope to see some good pics!

 

I would really put the sparkley keys under the positives. And the font they used for the letters/numbers on the keyboard!!

 

Pictures up... porn transfer benchmarks forthcoming.

 

Nice images. Thank you!

 

It sure is a nice notebook...

 

a-s-s wiping asus ... if something goes wrong with you notebook youll have a headache with asus

 

as an end user and reseller of their product i mostly disagree

 

Quick question about 8600m GT video card in this laptop: DDR2 or DDR3?