My Asus S96J Notebook, comments please

I recently have been in the market to get a lap top for when i leave for college. I was hoping to find a gaming notebook that i would be able to play WoW and CoH, along with other high demanding games such as FEAR. I think I stumbled across something that might do what i want, and I would appreciate if some knowledgable people would be willing to respond and tell me what they think.

The tech spec:

Case: Asus S96J Notebook, 15.4" WXGA 1280x800 LCD TFT Notebook w/Li-Ion Battery, Universal AC Power Adapter, Deluxe Carrying bag Intel LEAP Panel
Processor: Intel® Core Duo Processor T2500 (2.0GHz/2M Cache/677FSB)
Memory: 2048MB(1024MB X2) DDR2-667 PC5300 [Notebook Memory] Corsair
Video Card: Mobility 256MB ATI Radeon X1600 PCI-Express 3D Video
Hard Drive: 80 GB 5400rpm Serial-ATA-150 Super Slim Notebook Hard Drive

It has the other things like a DVD drive, but I figured I'd leave those out as they don't seem very relivent to my question. Let me know if there is anything that I left off that would effect this computers gaming abilites.

Thanks,
Caleb

 

the x1600 will let you play most games fine. mid-high settings.

 

For games, the video card is most important - the S96J has an X1600 256MB, the best card you'll find in a 15.4". The Core Duo T2500 is top-of-the-line, and 2GB of RAM is the way to go for the latest games. Everything looks to be very well configured.

You could take the CPU down to a T2400 if you wanted to save a bit of money and not notice much if any of a difference in performance. A 7200RPM hard drive will help performance, I'd opt for that if you can. It won't affect your in-game performance at all, only help the loading times as well as boot-up, loading programs, transferring files, etc.

Also consider the Compal HEL80 as a secondary option, the Asus has somewhat better quality.
http://powernotebooks.com/specs/Crown/p15-2.php

 

I used ibuypower.com for this computer. It doens't alow for a 7200 rpm hard drive under the configuration for this computer. I'll look at the web site you posted to see what I can find. I was hoping to get a 7200 rpm hard drive, but just about the only places i could find them were in the very top of the line notebooks by dell and the notebooks by alienware. Those were all over $2500, but this notebook runs for right under $1600.

 

Also the T2400 would drop the CPU down to 1.83 GHz. How big of a difference would that make in running the previously mentioned games?

 

powernotebooks.com sells this as one of their PowerPro models. Very good service, three year warranty. Good price. I got mine from them and am quite happy.

Havent gotten a chance to play too many games with it yet but what I have has been nice. And it rocks my socks in terms of multitasking.

 

if it isn't too late, i would not buy from ibuypower.com. i have only heard bad things about them. look at their ratings on resellerratings.com. note that the only good rating they have is for price. also, the drop down to 1.83 is pretty negligible.

 

I haven't bought this computer yet. I was hoping to hear some more details before I did buy. If anyone else has complaints about ibuypower.com, please post and let me know. Also, if you know of another website that I would be able to build the same computer around the same price, let me know.

Thanks,
Caleb

 

I also haven't heard the best things about them, see their rating on ResellerRatings:
http://www.resellerratings.com/seller2001.html

I recommend www.PowerNotebooks.com for the Asus S96J, or www.Geared2Play.com. Both are excellent dealers, you can see their ratings on RR as well. Here are links to the S96J:
http://powernotebooks.com/specs/PowerPro/a2-24.php
And Geared2Play:
http://geared2play.com/store/products/laptops/asus/s96j/s96j.htm

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=2774

another good place is gentechpc.com.

 

Alright, thanks for the help guys. I'll look into these other sites. Let me know if you have anymore advise or help.

 

I was curious... How will this computer deal with heat? I was looking at the picture gallery on powernotebooks.com and it doesn't seem like it has much of a fan system.

Any opinion or knowledge about this?

 

See our recently posted Asus S96J review:
http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=2975

It seems that the cooling system is quite good.

 

I was just looking on the powernotebooks site and I was wondering if there is any real difference between the 'FORCE', 'SUPRA', and 'ULTRA' models as it seems that you can customize each to the same exact spec?

 

And i actually found that review after I had posted that question. But thanks for the refrence.

 

It seems very good specs to games and to stay on the top for some months
remember that Asus its one of the most sell laptops brand in the world
and they give few problems unfortunatly in the opposite you have Acer.
So go for it.

 

Now I just need to decide where to buy it from. It seems that GenTechPC and powernotebooks are two of the best to buy from.

Any recomindations on either of the two?

I was looking at the GenTechPC site and it says that they would install the OS, but "Operationg System Purchase Required" I didn't see anywhere on the comstomizing page that I could select to buy an OS...

 

Just go to powernotebooks.com website and give them a call, they will answer almost any question you may have. I dealt with Ron, he was most helpful and patient.

Good luck.

 

I bought my notebook through PowerNotebooks.com, they have the best service around. I highly recommend them. Be sure to give them a call.

 

It looks like I'm going to go with a powernotebook, but I'll have to wait to give them a call because they leave for the weekend in 30 min.

Thanks for all the help, I'll let you know more as i progress through the process.

 

Hey, i was just looking back at the powernotebook.com and it seems that they have changed the link that you posted to the s96j... it now shows the z96j...

Is there a difference? If so, which is better? And if i wanted to go with the s96j , how would i go about getting it from powenotebook?

 

the z96j comes with a higher resolution (wsxga+) and i think has bluetooth. it also has a different looking chassis. you should still be able to get the s96j though...it is the one with the wxga screen.

 

Isn't bluetooth just for phones? and Other that the screen resolution and chassis... is there any difference?

 

If you have to ask then you obviously don't need it. There are many portable electronic devices that have bluetooth, including cellular phones.

The only other major difference is increased screen resolution.

 

hey caleb

not sure if you bought your s96j already, but i had the same questions you had when i got mine about 2 weeks ago.

for me, i figured it was basically like this: geared2play if you're on the east coast, gentechpc if you're on the west. I spoke to both companies over email and they were quick with helpful responses. Or, you can pay a slightly higher premium for powernotebooks, which I hear has amazing 3 year service. I bought mine from geared2play.

The s96j has good cooling, but the palmrests do get warm, which is expected from a powerful video card. I wouldn't recommend leaving the s96j turned on with the lid closed for a long period of time because then the palmrest gets hot (it cools down quickly though).


enjoy!

 

I am kind of confused on the battery options. I see on powernotebooks it comes with a 6-cell battery and on geared2play it doesn't specify but gives you the option of getting a spare 9-cell battery. On powernotebooks it only gives you the option of a spare 6-cell. Should I go with geared2play and get the spare 9-cell to replace the original one? I'm not sure what the main battery is at geared2play. I want to get decent time out of the battery, around 3 hours maybe.

 

the main battery is a 6-cell. THe 9-cell is optional but will stick out the back about 3/4" if i remebe correctl from someone else' post/picture.

 

Yeah, I've seen that picture too but I'm thinking it would be smart to get the spare 9-cell (which would give me more battery life, right?) and then use that when I know I will need it for long periods and use the 6-cell otherwise.