Asus X59SR-A1

Hi guys,

I'm looking for a new notebook for my sister and the X59SR-A1 is a new model on Newegg. Her budget is about $700-800 and she will use it for *light* gaming. I know she pays the Sims 2 and stuff like that. But it's more for work and home use. I think a dedicated GFX card will be worthwhile in the long run.

I can't find any good reviews for the X59SR-A1 anywhere. What is the verdict on it?

I'm also looking at this Acer, however I am concerned with Acer's build quality.

Thanks guys.

 

Dema,

I couldn't find anything on it, either. It must be a very new model. It's a business model according to asus.com. However, the pics of it on newegg.com looks a lot like last year's GS1.

After some comparison, I decided on the X59 because it was cheap and ordered it off newegg last night. I hope I won't get burned as they will not accept returns. You know the old saying - you get what you pay for!

I hope I'll do a review on the X59SR-A1 on here so others will benefit from it.

 

Take a look at this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220389

It's the same price as both, after rebate, and it has better specs. Not to mention that it looks awesome

 

The only difference I saw was: It has a smaller 14.1 screen as opposed as the X59's 15.4. While the GPU may be better on the N80Vn-X1, it will consume power at an alarming rate compared to the X59. If you're not going to play graphic insensitive games, I don't see the need for the 9650. IMO, naturally.

 

did you get it yet? I haven't been able to find any reviews on this thing eihter
tia

 

Yes, I did. Today.

In short, it is what you'd expect if you are loyal to ASUS.

I haven't fully tested it out, but so far, I like it a lot. In-depth review will be up soon.

 

I believe the X59 has a Sis chipset, which explains lower price, more heat and less battery life.

Personally I would prefer a laptop with Intel chipset.

I know this is what most people agree on. I've looked at numbers of repairs and there is no data to support it.

 

well I pulled the trigger and bought one thursday, after someone posted a review on newegg. for the price they have got it at I don't think you can really go wrong for an Asus product. as far as the quality of the acers, no I did not look at any real data, but I looked thru a bunch of reviews and it seemed like acers had reviews like "it works great but this plastic piece already fell off", or " I had to glue this piece back on" etc. I will try to post a review once I get a clean install of vista on it.

 

Congrats on your new purchase!
Yes, please do post a review if you can as we currently don't have any reviews for this particular notebook on the forum.

 

I just bought an x59sr myself, it was cheap and had the specs i was looking for.

x59sr-a1 @ newegg

800 $

 

How much battery life can you squeeze out of it, on maximum energy saving?

 

Hey, what's up Phil

I just bought it, but as soon as i get it next week i'll let you know.
It should be reasonable no? Are you contemplating on buying one

 

this site



6 Cell Li-Ion 4800 mAh battery, 3Hour life

 

Not contemplating at the moment but soem friends ask me for advice. I am curious as to how the Sis chipset performs.

Thanks for the link but I'm looking for real life experiences.

 

As soon as I get it i'll let you know.

 

Don't except 3 hours...while I actually haven't timed it, it shows only 2 hours on maximum battery settings. I was disappointed about that. I was hoping for 3 hours or so.

Phil's blip about the SiS chipset may explain the shortened battery life. I haven't tested for the heat issues yet.

Performance is very good for its specs - I played WoW on it and it was very nice.

 

Hello all,

I was looking at buying the M51TA off of newegg.com, but after I placed my order, the product got discontinued, so I am considering buying the X59SR-X5because it has similar specs and the firewire port I desperately need for home recording. Anything else anyone wants to say about this?

I have a weird request to those that use this laptop currently - do you think you could download a DPC checker and tell me if the computer spikes? I bought a Dell Studio for home recording, thinking that "STUDIO" meant it was optimized for media, but the DPC spikes made it impossible to record or even playback efficiently. Let me know what the highest DPC spike you get with your wireless turned off (that tends to cause spikes).

Thanks folks

 

Also, if there's anyway anyone can tell me what chipset the FW runs off (RICOH, TI, etc) that would be awesome.

 

I have run this tool on my x59sr-a1, I not sure what the data means, let me know which info you are looking for specifically

 

re read your post and the max spike I got with my wireless switch turned of was 1058, I let it run for like 30mins. I also have the LAN disabled in device manager, because I never use it . It says "This machine should be able to handle real-time streaming of audio and/or video data without drop-outs."

hope this helps

I got a few spikes with the wireless on the first time I ran it with the WLAN still turned on

 

Idiot Terror

That helps a lot. 1058 us isn't fantastic, but it's not nearly as bad as the Dell Studio I just got rid of, which consistantly spiked at 5000 and sometimes as high as 250,000.

Does anyone else have this machine that can run a DPC spike checker on it for me? This is starting to look like the machine I am going to buy.

 

I just pulled the trigger on the ASUS X59SR-X5 and it should be in my hands if not by the end of the week, next Monday latest hopefully. I was one of the unlucky ones that had a Sony Vaio FZ series with a faulty Nvidia 8400GT GPUs and since Sony still doesn't acknowledge a problem, I would have had to pay $900 for a new mobo and GPU, which for that price, I used to buy a new notebook. I love how Asus computers come with a standard 2-year warranty.

This laptop met my needs as I needed something at a reasonable price (since I shelled out 1400 for the Sony only around 1.5 years ago) and it needed a dedicated GPU. + since I now dislike nvidia, I preferred the Ati card even though I know it's not for hardcore gaming. I'm primarily going to use it to stream HD video and for photo editing.

I can try to the run the DPC spike check for you when I get this baby soon~

 

when i still had the wireless on it spiked to like ~4000, but only maybe 5-8 times over the course of about a 1/2 hour

 

I just got my X59R - X5 series today and am so far quite pleased with it. I'll post up some pictures and further impressions soon.

One thing of note.

The laptop specs always say that the screen is WXGA...but it reads 1440 x 900 on my computer, which would thus make it WXGA+? Has anyone else noticed this on theirs?


I left it on for about 10 minutes with wireless off, the Absolute maximum spike was 996us.

I also got the quote "This machine should be able to handle real-time streaming of audio and/or video data without drop-outs."

Hope this helps.

 

the max res on my X59sr-a1 is 1200x800, maybe they changed the panels on the X5, I am a little jealous of you

 

Mine should be coming this week. I'll let you folks know about the screen res and the DPC spikes, though I don't know why you would care about the spikes!

Are you both running Vista?

 

I'm running vista 32bit

 

I am also running Vista 32-bit, but I intend on upgrading to Windows 7 if it's as good as everyone is saying...hehe

A few pictures

Box




Comparison with Sony Vaio FZ (with Dead Nvidia GPU)


Closed with Charging LED


Screen



If anyone wants any more in-depth pics, I'll take a few more shots

 

Just saw that the chipset is actually an Intel 965M http://www.procomparison.info/notebook-laptop+asus+x59-x59sl200dv.html

 

thats a x59SL not x59SR, I think that makes a difference, not sure



http://usa.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=5&l2=62&l3=840&l4=0&model=2632&modelmenu=2

 

This computer ended up being a nightmare. First of all, the battery life and touchpad clicker are terrible, but I could have lived with that. When I went to plug in my external sound card to the firewire port and discovered that there actually WASN'T a firewire port despite it clearly being listed in the specifications of several websites selling this model, I was downright pissed. I called both ASUS and Newegg, and the general response was "tough luck, you might not always get what you order based on the distribution line". Basically they told me that as a buyer I have to gamble on whether or not the computer I buy has all the stuff it says it does.

A day or so after that, a line appeared across my screen. It's a hardware thing - there's a line of dead pixels across the top part of my screen. The computer is less than two weeks old!

Newegg is allowing me an exception in policy and letting me return it, but what a nightmare. I've already gone through one laptop in this search (the titanic failure of the Dell Studio) and now I have to start all over again.

Any suggestions? And thanks for all the posts here helping me out.

 

Newegg has a terrible return policy for notebooks. If they made an exception for you, take full advantage of it. I would probably take the money and invest it in possibly another Asus model with a better build quality such as the N80/81.

 

you got the X59sr-x5 right? I got the X59sr-a1 and only compliant I have is that the DVDrw drive is a little noisy and slow. When you mentioned earlier that you were going to use the FW port for music, I checked my A1 for a blank spot like the one for the modem, but couldn't find a spot. At least newegg let you return it they listed it wrong anyway I saw the ad listing the FW port. One thing I noticed about mine is the ram runs at 667mhz even though it's 800mhz ram, anyone else notice this ?

 

I did a recover on a new X59SR, which did drop the number of processes a lot.
But the fan is annoying, it never stops or runs slow. No C-states seems to be enabled, not really surprising since it uses SIS chips.
I can't see any decent fan intake either..?

Does anyone else think it's noisy?

 

I have a question on these laptops. Can you upgrade the cpu yourself (ie it is in a socket)? The X59SR model I am looking at comes with a T4200 but I would like to upgrade it to a P8400 cpu myself if possible. Anyone tried this or know if these are socketed laptops?