First Impressions -- ASUS V6V

My first post here …

First, a plug for Justin at ProPortable.com for a smooth online transaction, prompt delivery of my ASUS V6V (one day early) and e-mail correspondence throughout the process to make it easier on my wallet. I like the way you do business.

Before I start, I promise to take some pictures and post later. Also, I’m not very technical, so my impressions are geared towards the everyday notebook user.

After an exhaustive online search for a premium notebook, I found the V6V through this forum. My first choice was the new Acer TM8104, but too many issues described online and three online resellers failing to deliver the notebook changed my mind. The whole ordeal was very frustrating, but in hindsight, I think it was a blessing.

I’ve had the V6V for three days now, and I can say that it is one hell of a machine, in every sense. Aesthetically, it is undoubtedly the slickest designed notebook on the market today. I dare you to find a comparable design – maybe the ASUS W3N? (Justin, I’ll give you a call when the W3N are available)

The good-looking ASUS notebook bag, sleeve and Logitech mouse included with the V6V also are a nice touch.

The V6V is built solid. I’ve felt a lot of notebooks in my hands before, but the V6V feels like one solid piece of metal. No plastic creaking or flex when you handle the V6V. The finish also is excellent. Magnesium cover, brushed aluminum palm rest, carbon fiber on the bottom – need I say more?

For it’s size and slim design, I thought the V6V would be lighter but it felt heavy to me, I can only assume that it’s packed with technology – it is. As far as performance, the new Sonoma Centrino platform and ATI X600 graphics work flawlessly, as they should. The only professional feedback I received was from the IT guy at work, he was amazed how fast the V6V ran on battery power.

The screen on the V6V is not the brightest that I’ve seen but it’s definitely high-resolution. I’ve noticed that my Toshiba notebook with TruBrite screen (Toshiba’s only saving grace) with glossy finish was brighter, but not necessarily clearer. I noticed that after working on the V6V, other screens, both LCD and CRT, looked blurry and it took couple of seconds for my eyes to adjust. Not a very technical description, but the V6V screen looks great and it doesn’t seem to tire out my eyes.

Personally, one of the best things about the V6V is that it runs very quiet. No loud fans or noisy HDD to bother with during work.

Overall, the quality of the V6V (so far) is unmatched. I read that ASUS has a great reputation and builds great notebooks, now I’m convinced.

I will continue to post more about my V6V later, but let me know if any of you have any questions – I’ll do my best to answer on this thread.

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by schoi040

 

Thanks for the review. What are your thoughts on the keyboard? And, how is the system as far as heat is concerned?

If there are any other things you find as you have more time with the system we would love to hear it.

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by mclassic

 

Yeah, thats right about above the hard drive.... the W1's do that too... a lot to do with the aluminum.... 7200rpm's can get hotter.

Thanks for the first impressions and the plug schoi040... People like to get news and specs and stuff from me, but whatever I say about a system is going to be taken as biased anyway..... so thanks taking the time, it should help answer the questions of some of those hesitant to pick one up.

If you want a W3, I'll make sure to keep you in mind... that list is unbelievablly long... but if you want one, I'll make sure you get one.

Justin

Thanks,
Justin
PROPortable
www.proportable.com
[email protected]

 

Hey Justin, it's good to get your impression of various Asus products too. I certainly don't think of it as bias. But, I can understand that there's a line of distinction there!

 

Well, by having owned all of the laptops, and by working them and so forth.. I have a feel of how everything works and a great feel for the design and quality..

But at the same time, we're selling them... so I totally understand...

Thanks,
Justin
PROPortable
www.proportable.com
[email protected]

 

How noticable is the fan in a quiet room when idle and under heavy load?


I'm on the V6V now in a quite room, and I'd say it's hardly noticeable ... sounds like a low running air vent.

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by schoi040

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by PROPortable

 

it's rated the same as the W1 and M6..... which is technically rated at a max of 4:30 / 5 hours... that'd be with a 1.5ghz cpu and a 4200 rpm hard drive..... but sonoma uses a little more life. I have been getting 3 hours on my W1 under high performance mode.. so I'd say getting 3 on the V6 is pretty good.

Keep in mind, the lcd brightness plays a big part in the life.. more so than the cpu and hard drive. So, if you can lower the brightness a bit, but keep your cpu high.. you'll get more life. The V6 also has a much brighter screen than the W1 and M6, and most people don't need it very high for indoor use.

Try that and see what you come up with.

Under battery saving mode you should be gaining more then 15 minutes though.. Actually try it out and try to time it. Those battery meters don't always give the correct numbers.

Thanks,
Justin
PROPortable
www.proportable.com
[email protected]

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by schoi040

 

Finally, pictures of my new ASUS V6V posted here:

http://notebookforums.com/showthread.php?p=753069#post753069

Sorry, too lazy to repost all the pictures again here. Enjoy, let me know if you have any questions or comments.

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by decumcp

 

The bottom line is.. the fans are set to increase in rpm's as heat builds... they also go on and off depending whats needed.

This is a far cry from the systems that the fan is either on or off (nothing or full blast).. You can push a pentium-m pretty far and get it pretty hot with the type of prgrams I use...... I haven't seen anyone use anything that can actually stress the cpu, gpu, and hard drive more... only a couple people who do what I often do....

They don't get "loud", but if you're stressing that system to the max and it's not getting the proper air flow... you're going to wish your fan could handle it. On all the notebooks, if you go from doing nothing, to doing 3d renderings right away, that cpu can start cooking... and the fan will probably want to do a little spurt on and off (from 0rpm's to full blast)....

Just keep in mind, the fan follows what you're doing (basically). Email isn't going to get this thing going...... but doing a rendering in Maya or 3ds Max (like the movie finding nemo).... that cpu is going to be hot and need to be cooled...... in those cases that fan will reach way up there and yet at that point you're going to want it to.

I know know the minimum and maximum rpm settings on the fans, but I can probably find out.

Thanks,
Justin
PROPortable
www.proportable.com
[email protected]

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by PROPortable

 

We're not talking about the M5 now are we? I'm not in the "sell" mode either. We're talking about the V6 which is a different machine. With the exception of the M5, in four years of selling Asus' machines, I've never thought and nor as has anyone else ever said the systems were anything but quiet. That is, other than the last month or so where we've all read about a some people complaining about the M5. But again, compared to the numbers of M5 owners, this is a small group and none of our customers have complained about it. So, I'm not saying their isn't a problem, but everyone is entitled to their opinion and as a matter of good business I'm not going to sit here and say everyone on the face of the planet will consider all of these notebooks perfectly silent 100% of the time, regardless of configuration or use.

In this case, everyone buy one person may understand how the fans are thermally controlled..... but it's that one person who doesn't who is going to appreciate finding out. a 1.4ghz system with a 4200rpm hard drive which is running purely for the purpose of email and internet is going to act differently than the same system maxed out with a high end cpu and hard drive and is sitting rendering a 3d file for a few hours.

You and I might understand that.... but trust me, just like you and I may understand a 12" system has limitations........ there are people who want an M5 with a 128mb ati 9700 chipset and want the 3 cell battery to last for 7 hours..... Both of us will say, well no kidding.. there are limitations to the technology. However there are others who don't understand.

This also goes a long way into explaining battery life. All battery life tests are done on a system with a minimum configuration and called often referred to as "the best possible life". I like to give people high and low end numbers based on configuration. Again, you and I and everyone else may understand that by putting a 2.0ghz cpu and a 60gb/7200 rpm hard drive in an M5, you're going to more than cut your battery life in half. But it's that one person who doesn't understand, who is going to be very surprised when that notebook doesn't get it's 2 hours and 15 minutes of life on that standard battery.


All I'm saying is... if you don't want information out of me, get it from someone who already owns the notebook and can test it themselves. I'm not sitting here saying.. get a V6, it's complete silent, am I? The only thing I can see that's wrong with the M5 is the fan is kicking on at a much lower temperature.... and I seem to think the M5's fan is a little much in the way of the CFM it's moving. That's one reason why I stuck an S5 fan on my M5. It's still moving enough air to keep it cool. I believe the reason behind this was that the M5 may have been intended for higher cpu temps due to DVD playing, which is one of the best reason to have an M5 over an S5...... That and an M5 can handle a 2.0 and 2.1ghz cpu better than an S5 can.... Even if Asus didn't intend for the usage of the CPU to be that high, remember the S5 was designed originally with a ULV cpu in mind. Even though we had the configurable black S5's for the longest time.. their fan was the same that was on the ULV model...... which you would have thought it'd be bumped up to what the M5 had......

I don't know what the moral of this story is.... but we're not talking about the M5, and I'm not saying buy this or buy that. My problem is I wish more people who are picking are taking delivery of say the V6.... could get on here and do their own reviews and so forth. Word of mouth is what sells, not me. So, just don't think thats what I'm trying to do. I'm just trying to explain.... instead of making a comment like that to me, what don't you guys try to help other people understand. No one helped me to a decibal rating on their systems..... I think that'd be the only scientific way to comment about this stuff. Comparing data is the only truly unbiased way to talk about being "loud"... agreed?

Thanks,
Justin
PROPortable
www.proportable.com
[email protected]

 

Sounds like a great machine... What bothers me most is the fact that the arrow keys now appear to be completely inline with the bottom row of the other keys. I already find the Fn and context menu keys around the arrow keys on the M6Ne annoying when I'm trying to quickly navigate around code (always hit the wrong button, have to look at keyboard) - but at least on the M6 the arrow keys are dropped down a bit from the rest of the bottom row. Doesn't look that way on the V6. Stylish maybe, but not very functional IMHO.

Asus M6Ne (SXGA+, Radeon 9700), Pentium M 1.7 Dothan, Hitachi 60GB 7200RPM, CDRW/DVD, 768MB PC2700, Intel 2200BG

 

something to get used to... a little bit..... but it not one of those things that can't be overcome in a week of use. Just my opinion from using it....

I know why they did it...... it was so they could get the aluminum palmrest to go right to the edge of the keyboard. On the w1, the little bump out for the arrow keys made for a weird transition point that apparently made it too hard to form the aluminum around. So, the W1 has a little plastic edge around the area the keyboard sits in.....

Thanks,
Justin
PROPortable
www.proportable.com
[email protected]

 

This V6V sounds like a great machine.... I wonder if the W3 will outsell it though.

ASUS M6800Ne, P-M 1.5 Dothan, 512MB Ram, Toshiba Combo drive, Samsung Spinpoint M 40G HDD with 8M cache, Mobility Radeon 9700

 

oh, no doubt...... as long as people are up for the smaller widescreen........ the only thing i think it might "lack" would be it's not as thin as the V6, proportion wise....... not like it really could be... But if somehow it used the superslim drive... they could make it smaller.. but they wanted to make a swappable bay.. which is nice.. just like the M series. So you have an 8x dvd dual layer drive (great)... and you can swap it for a battery, or a empty travelers drawer for weight savings.

Thanks,
Justin
PROPortable
www.proportable.com
[email protected]

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by PROPortable

 

Hi ppl, great thread! Let me also jump in on the noise/temperature issue. I have also gone for a v6v, Pentium M 750, 80Gb 5400rpm HD. Quite pleased with it except for the noise it makes. Let me describe it. I would appreciate the comments of other owners (Justin for example) to see if my machine is faulty or if this is normal.

If I plug the laptop to mains power the CPU revs up to 1.86GHz, no SpeedStep modulation (how can I control this?), and therefore it gets hotter more quickly. If I just power on on AC and leave it idle for a while the fans (as reported by pcprobe 2.11) will jump to maximum speed (1700 rpm, this kicks in at 50ºC CPU temp) and the CPU will sit at about 56 degrees celsius. This is confirmed by mobilemeter, which additionally reports a charge rate of 27 watt. The noise the fans make at this speed is quite annoying to my ears, much louder than my other Toshiba M200, and about as noisy as my desktop computer, which is rather worrying me. And it is just sitting idle! I am beginning to suspect some flaw in my unit...

On batteries however the machine's CPU does step down to 798 MHz, and simply typing this reply takes the CPU to 44ºC and the fan to 1400rpm, which is better, but by no means almost silent as reported by some other users.

Did anybody encounter anyhing like this? What is your experience with CPU temperature/fan noise with AC and batteries? Do you think I should RMA my machine? I have to do this this week since I am leaving on a long trip, so I would appreciate some quick impressions

 

hi people,

i'm really considering to get this lappy, i was allowed to touch it and was ofcourse thrown off by its coolness. but i have three questions any of u owners might be able to answer. First, im a lefty and there are no left side USB ports, is the cord of the supplied mouse long enough to be used on the left side? and what about the sound of the speakers when you are typing, cause it looks like ur palm / wrists are blocking the speakers when ur using the keyboard? and last but not least, i've heard some people complaining about the the colors on the display, i cannot imagine that these connot be solved by color alibrating the software you are using??

with regards
Hidde

 

The mouse that came with my unit had an extension cable in case the original length was insufficient, but I must say that even if you are left handed you will find the original length sufficient *by far* (it is around 70-80 cms)
The screen is superb in my opinion, and I cannot detect any color anomaly, but I guess these could corrected with calibration tools if they arise.
Sound is superb, with or without resting your wrists. Unfortunately however there is no hardware volume control. The microphone is very poorly placed, just on top of the fan, so it picks up a lot of noise in my unit.
Hope that helps.

 

Just wanted to add some precise temp numbers (as obtained with mobilemeter and pcprobe 2.11) of my noisy (and possibly faulty) unit.
Full CPU load was done with SuperPiMod.

On Batteries:
Freq: 800 - 1600
Temp: 42 idle - 45 @ 50% (800) - 52 @ 100% (1600) - 46 @ 50% (800) - 45 idle
D/R : 23.57 w - 30 w
HD : 28 idle - 30 ceiling

Fan 1 (1400 rpm): 44 rpm (never fires 1700 rpm with batt)

On AC power (battery out):
Freq: 1860
Temp: 52 idle (fan 2) - 64 @ 100% - 53 idle

Fan 2 (1700 rpm): 53 rpm (never goes back down to 1400 with AC)

SuperPiMod: 1:52.297 (2M), 4:04.125 (4M)

Back to batteries: 1400 rpm <= 51ºC

Powe4Gear does not work:
with AC CPU clock is fixed no matter what you do.

Can anybody confirm this info please?

 

My V6V does exactly the same thing as lekanda. The cpu fan never turns off, it is on right from bootup. Because of this I am sending mine back monday to get i refund if I don't find a solution.

I am calling Asus and the retailer friday. I am going to post there answers here of course.

I would also like to hear if anyone else has the same problem and if it can be fixed.

 

Justin, do you know how big (mm) the fan in the V6V is? The W3V? With size and RPM, I should be able to get a rough decibel level to judge for myself if it's "too loud".

Thanks!

 

The fan is always on, that's not a surprise. The fan in the V6 though is shorter than say the one in the W3..... so to push the same amount of air, it's going to either spin faster or have more blades... either/or will increase sound as well.

Thanks,
Justin
PROPortable
www.proportable.com
[email protected]

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by PROPortable

 

I'm pretty positive none of the fans on any of our systems ever completely turn off.... except maybe the old ULV S5ne.... but it also doesn't mean they are on full blast either. They all are set out of the box to do different rpm's depending on the load, but I don't have those exact numbers. Like many have said, you can use another fan controller and set it to perform how you like.

I don't have a number on the fans, but I can surely open mine up and measure it for you.... I can try to do that tomorrow.

Thanks,
Justin
PROPortable
www.proportable.com
[email protected]

 

There's a mic in, and I think it may be software switchable... just like the headphone out is also a digital out-- like a line out used to be.

Thanks,
Justin
PROPortable
www.proportable.com
[email protected]

 

Hi all

I just got an Asus V6 and am exceptionally impressed with it (apart from the hard drive issue (http://www.notebookreview.com/forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=16338#76146 ... which I see PROPortable has already posted a response to.. how fast is he?? ).

The machines looks simply beautiful. The screen is super - clear, not black/white dots, bright (can easily be set at 50% for indoor use), keyboard is well laid out although I would have preffered the CTRL key and ALT key to be all the way on the left as you use them more than the Fn key (which is the leftmost key). It comes with a really nice carry bag and a funky little logitech mouse (although I am still using my MS mouse as the logitech is atoo small for normal use in my huge hands! ). The DVD burner is nice and fast.. although Nero would only burn an audio CD for me at 8x yesterday.. might have been the media. What else... the heat and noise. The fan I find barely noticeable but a far amount of heat does come out of the vents on the right when under load (eg running a 3D application).

My only gripes are with the hard drive speed and the lack of a Line In (I record a lot from line in - any suggestions on good USB line in devices?).

There are my initial thoughts for you all.. is a bit jumbled so hope it makes sense.

Andrew

 

Yup, definitely is a mic in but can't see any software to switch it over to Line In.. just had a look through the BIOS, device manager in Windows and the "Sound Manager" systray application.

Andrew

 

Hummmm... I haven't tried it to this point, so I wasn't positive.

Thanks,
Justin
PROPortable
www.proportable.com
[email protected]

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by thin-n-light

 

Thanks for the replies John and Justin. The only reason I ask is because my trusty old M2 hardly ever uses the fan at all. I swear, even when in a completely silent environment, it is impossible to hear the fan. Even with your ear all the way down at the notebook. It only comes on for a few secs during startup. I suspect that is to blow any dust off the fins since fan is rarely used at all under normal use.

Only when doing something really demanding or graphics intensive like playing a DVD does the fan come on. And that isn't even very loud. I am not sure what fan rpm is. I have only noticed one noise level so I think it may be off most of the time and then come on at heavy load at, maybe, 1200 rpm or something.

Overall it is just a _very_ quiet system and I really hope the V6 and W3 are close to that. I will get one of the two (probably the W3v) soon and am glad people don't seem irritated with the fan speeds and noise levels coming from them.

 

Right.. but your M2 had integrated graphics.... probably what... a 900mhz -1.0ghz P3? It had a 4200rpm hard drive for sure........ thats a huge part of it. They aren't making that much heat.

Thanks,
Justin
PROPortable
www.proportable.com
[email protected]

 

Hi everybody. I know this is an old thread, but I would like an update on the fan issue. I ordered the asus V6V today. Before doing so, I read a bunch of reviews and so on.
My question now is: Have Asus made an update, to minimize the fan noise?
It can't be right that the fan runs at maximum rpm (1700) all the time when connected to AC...
There's many oppinions ranging from V6V being extremely silent, to the V6V being very loud!
Anyway I ordered the beauty so I could get my own impression.
How is it compared with say:
Mac G4Powerbook
or
Dell Inspiron 8100 (old machine, I know)
which I've worked on.
Hope somebody can give me some input.
thanks

 

I don't know about the V6V in particular, but a lot of the complaints about Asus notebooks beeing loud on AC power comes from the fact that they (for some silly reason) are limiting the configuration options in Power4Gear. Only three profiles are available on AC, and only one of them will allow dynamic clock adjustment. I don't even think it's on by default. This is just silly as there are, for all intents and purposes, abolutely nothing to be gained by keeping the processor at full speed at all times.

Running full tilt any notebook will be noisy and get hot after a while.

 

When pluged in, out of the box you basically run these machines at full bore..... you can tweak the software, but then you'd have to tweak it back when you wanted the power....... play with powergear a bit and see if you can figure anything out. When running full speed, that cpu/gpu fan NEEDS to be running full blast.

 

Why? There's no measurable performace impact (except in some purely synthetic memory tests, for example) from allowing a P-M do dynamically adjust clock speed to running it at max speed. None. All it gets you is more heat and more noise.

The only reason I can think of to have it running full speed as a default (from Asus' point of view) is to not recieve all the support questions asking: "Why does my new 1.8GHz notebook run at only 600MHz?" after looking in the 'My Computer' properties.

 

When it's plugged in, there is something in the system that is basically turning off speed step.

 

Yes. This 'something' is Power4Gear.

In all three profiles available on AC the notebook is basically using Windows' 'Always On' profile. By checking the 'Ato performace' option you basically allow the 'Game' profile to work like Windows' own 'Portable/Laptop' profile that does dynamic switching. The only thing Power4Gear really does is updating a custom Windows power profile and reapplying it when you change setting (in addition to calling on custom functions to adjust LCD brightness).

 

Exactly. One option is to just let it run of the battery when I use it, and recharge when i'm not uding it, but that seems like a waste of bettery life. The people at asus should really develop the powergear4 software further.
I've read post, were people say that the fan runs at max rpm when the laptop is in idle mode. It just seems silly, that the cpu, gpu, or whatever it is that requires cooling, is runnig at the higest performancelevel, just because it's hooked up to a power suply.

 

Well although powergear has gone through several revisions over the years, it certainly could use more work........ Asus does expect any laptop to be used away from a plug for the most part....... and when you're plugged into you get the full performance all the time....... it's not a hard concept to grasp, but adding some of the other options certainly isn't that hard to do.

 

No you wouldn't think it could be that hard, I hope that they do a further update of it. I understand the concept fully, but still; if i'm using the notebook for web-browsing, there's no need for the machine to offer maximum clockfrequencie. As you mention, it would be nice for the user to choose homself what setting he/she prefers.

 

Oh come on! There you go again...

This is NOT Asus bashing, honestly. It's Asus defending. People complaining about Asus notebooks beeing hot when it's really this little program beeing silly can be easily remidied by a little bit of information. Disabeling SpeedStep when on AC power does NOT equal 'getting the full performance all the time'. It will gain you NOTHING except more heat and higher power consumption, that is. 'It's not a hard concept to grasp.'

If you want to help alleviate this impression amongst users; use whatever clout you may have to make them change this obviously silly behaviour. Defending it and then talking down on people just makes you an arrogant zealot.

Edit: See, The_R asked if it was true that the V6V is hot and noisy when running on AC power. And the truth is that it probably is in it's OOTB configuration. But it doesn't have to be. Power4Gear would actually be very useful (much more so than it is) if they had not limited the configuration options for most of the profiles. Also it's butt ugly when it comes to icons and interface, but that can be remidied by using a modified version. I see this as potential wasted as that quick access button is quite neat.

 

What I really want to know is if theres any way to manually configure the fan speed. Is there some powersaving program i can download, which manages the fan/power instead of power4gear. Or isn't it that simple???

 

Wow, I'm getting truly sick of you fast. Why don't you spend some time and go through all of my posts and see what else you can say. I don't give a darn what you think and I have the right to my own opinion... get one and stop *****ing at every little thing I say.

The concept that Asus put forth isn't a hard one to grasp, it's not like they're retarded and did something wrong. They have a free software that they give out with their systems and their system and it's something that, like I've seen... has gone through many revisions..... I said, it certainly can't hurt to go through some more, as I don't think it's reached it's true potential yet. However powergear is designed extend battery life up to something like 28%. It makes ZERO claims to lower noise and heat. The fact is, slowing things down and changing the powersaving profiles is what creates the battery life........ by doing that, you create less heat and therefore the fans run differently........... The software ISN'T controlling the fans, it's controlling the battery life. In that senario, why should Asus's "battery saving software" do a darn thing when the unit is plugged in?

I'm not in my wildest dreams going to attend this forum if my intention is to bash Asus. Powergear was part of the original laptops we imported and it was one of the coolest (no pun intended), and I've seen it come through about a revision every year and seen it grow........ I love it....... but like I said, it certainly isn't in it's final and perfect stage yet......... I think the next powergear verision will probably take into account this very issue......... but for me to call it a problem when I know why the software was designed and how it works.... that would be wrong. It would be like complaining that when in your car and stopped at a light, you hear an electric fan come on... you don't like it, but it comes on because the car isn't moving and it's designed to push air through the radiator..... you can not like it, but it wasn't designed for that......... so put it in it's place and understand things before you open your mouth.