Gigabyte P34G

I asked excaliburPC when will my laptop arrive(i ordered on the 2. october) and this is what they answered:

"Dear Aleksandar: ETA is two weeks from today."

So, there you go.

 

mickee13,

Thank you so much for you effort in getting us more information about the P34G. If possible would you have time to do a video with a look around the laptop? I would like to get an idea of the build quality. Also I would love to know what kind of battery life you're seeing so far. Day to day mix usage? Video playback drain down? Thanks!

 

I've managed to get 4 hours and about 30 minutes out of the battery, but this is the most you could get I'd say.
I had the brightness down to 20%, CPU under volted, power plan on power saver and keyboard backlight on for half of the time.

It'll easily survive during my 4 hour lectures which is the only time I'd be away from a power source, so I'm okay with it.

 

Initial impressions:

Box was 18" x 16" x 4" and 9# for the individual that was asking about that. Gigabyte box inside very nearly fit cleanly in the larger, nondescript box it was shipped in with some peanuts. The Gigabyte box itself is very nice packaging. The sleeve and the shammy cloth are a nice touch. Lid does pick up fingerprints easy and the shammy doesn't completely remove them. Will be putting a skin on this fairly soon.

Fit and finish are good, clean, tight seams. Fifteen screws to remove the bottom and swap out the 1TB HDD for my Crucial M4. The way it's seated in there is interesting though. No brackets. Instead a thin black plastic wrap-around mold with rubber bumpers all the way around the edges, including on top and bottom, to "form fit" it into the space. Other than that, no adhesives over the drive in terms of pulling it out, just the adhesive of the mold itself wrapping around the drive. Bottom of the unit is plastic and lifts straight off very clean. Putting it back on is no snapping, just a form fit and put the screws back in. Total drive swap time was less than 10 minutes. Going to benchmark clean boot on this against my T430s as both have the Crucial M4 in their main bay. Just a little bit of heat coming off the lower right of the keyboard over the drive. 8GB DIMM stick is Transcend.

128GB LiteOn shows 57.7GB free of 98.5 GB. EaseUS Partition Manager is showing a 20GB recovery partition with 13.43 GB used. Interesting that in the box there are two platters for utilities and drivers, but of course no DVD on the unit. Will make .ISOs of them before I sell my T430s.

Boot was standard Windows 8 setup and was on-line and set up within 5 minutes of start. Bloatware is minimal, certainly far less than I've seen on Lenovo and Dell models. Keybooard's fairly tactile, keys have good depth, maybe make a little too much noise for my taste, but the backlit keyboard is nice. Fn key combination for Home, PgUp, PgDn and End on lower right. Touchpad is smooth and I've had nowhere near the problems I had on my Sony Vaio S15 with accidentally brushing the trackpad with my palm while typing and moving the cursor. Elan driver and most gestures already set up, won't have to do too much tweaking. Honestly, comparatively speaking, not too far off the keyboard and touchpad on my T430s, but will miss the dedicated buttons. Fortunately, courtesy of 6 weeks usage on my Vaio S15, pretty accustomed to the toouchpad..

Screen is NICE. Backlight bleeding on all four corners at boot, more pronounced on top left and top right, but not too bad. Good viewing angles, have taken brightness down to 70% for starters. LED lights below the trackpad for bluetooth, wireless, disk, charging and light are simple and clear. Fans do perk up on load, but not too bad, wouldn't attract undue attention in a library, classroom or conference room. Machine does cool back down fairly rapidly. A lot of decals on the lower left, lower right of keyboard and top left, top left of bezel. All told, six decals.

Still loading up software to be operational first thing in the morning, but all indications are a very good machine so far.

 

Good write up B'midbar! Could you tell me what model/part number the Transcend memory is?

 

I look forward to seeing your skin, I find the back a bit dull and brown isn't my favourite so that doesn't help either.

Do you plan on buying a vinyl and cutting it out to size yourself?

 

Sounds good to me...

 

Hi mo_danish, thanks for your effort! Hmm, i think 3 GHz is already turbo-boosting, i don't really know how and when it will boost completely... Seems to be OK to me. If you find the time, maybe you can still try Intels LinPack benchmark, as this will definately bring the cpu to its limits.

Thanks again! johannes140

 

I repeat my request in case any kind owner feels motivated.

 

So the default stock wireless card that comes with the p34g are intel 7260 or Atheros?

 

New full review from Hexus....
Review: Gigabyte P34G - Laptop - HEXUS.net

 

BioShock @ 1080p and Max specs gets 26 fps, not bad at all

 

8GB 512Mx8 TS1GSK64W6H 1.35v 8GB DDR3L 1600 SO-DIMM CL11 2Rx8

 

They're not the cheapest ($29.95), but GelaSkins has a custom builder where you can specify dimensions in inches or millimeters (I used 340mm x 239mm per the vendor), pick one of their designs from any of several collections and it will be cut custom. In addition, when picking a design, you get to size it on the lid in case you want to make allowance for hinges, but not necessary on this unit.

 

Intel Wireless-N 7260.

 

The touch surface is the pad's strong point, as the accompanying rocker button isn't quite as good. There's a small dead spot between the left and right clicks, and the build material isn't up to the standards set by the rest of the chassis - the rocker feels thin and doesn't press evenly throughout. < Spot on. The rocker on mine is just a hair lower on the left side underneath the trackpad than on the right side. With the dead spot in the middle (the rocker itself) I can see this thing maybe going down more on one side than the other over time.

Other observations:

My SDXC card sticks out from the slot about 10mm. Fortunately not too far out (like half-way out on the Asus Zenbook Prime UX51VZ-XH71, #epicfail). If you use the VGA port, can't screw in the screws, but no biggie.

The fans run... all... the... time. Sometimes more, sometimes less, but pretty much all the time. Then again I have a couple of VMs running right now and haven't done any tweaking yet.

Adding bluetooth devices is excruciating. Updated the drivers via "Smart Update" right away, including the bluetooth to 3.1.1306.340, but after putting my MS Bluetooth Notebook Mouse 5000 and MS Bluetooth Mobile Keyboard 5000 into pairing mode it took forever for the dialogue to even come up, even longer to recognize them and pair. As it was, had to reboot to get them to connect and periodically they still disconnect. I use the SmartManager to power off and back on the bluetooth and then they come right back. Hopefully this is just drivers.

Did an unboxing video yesterday, including swapping in the Crucial M4 SSD for the Toshiba 1TB HDD, so if anybody wants any specific pictures inside the chassis I can rummage them up. Only comment I'll make about that is there are a couple of cables on the bottom left and right that you need to be mindful of when you put the bottom back on as they're right up against the edge of the inside of the shell and you might pinch them a little with the bottom as you're re-seating it if you don't pay attention. The one on the left is the SATA connector for the drive itself, wasn't paying enough attention to what the one on the right was.

Cheers, B

 

Link to vid???

 

Cheers Mate!

 

When I almost bought the Clevo W740SU I remember waiting around for weeks for any information at all, so I don't mind posting up info now that I went with this P34.
I'll post up one more video of fan noise, some stuff I noticed with the build and some gaming. Battery is 3 to 4 hours casual usage. I could see maybe squeezing 4.5hrs
with the screen down to 30%, keyboard light off etc, but I haven't really properly tested.

Used a phone app to measure sound at startup and then all 4 cores running around 30-40% for awhile. Looked at some seams, build quality stuff,
noticed that the lid in the front corners doesn't close all the way and that the button strip on trackpad is not exactly precisely engineered etc. But otherwise
the body is really well put together. The cheapest part seems like the the plastic holding the lcd inside the lid. Looks like pretty cheap plastic, but if feels solid.
I actually scuffed that area a little bit just wiping off some sticker residue.

Played a few minutes of Battlefield 3 on 1080p settings. Ultra appears to run right about 30 (might be higher dropping Ansio to 2x from 4x which I didn't test), High
is easy 40's/50's and a mix of High & Ultra can easily stay in the 40's even high 50's with 4x Ansio.
BF3 is a bit older but it still looked amazing and I was surprised at the 1080p frame rates being that high on those settings.Turning Ansiostropic down to 2x made
it run very high 50's on ultra/high mix. With a ton of stuff happening on screen it will dip into mid 30's occasionally etc.
The Gigabyte SmartManager is actually a useful app, and I forgot to switch it to high performance mode and ultra boost on the gpu,
not sure if it ramps up automatically? I had it on 'balanced' not 'power' and gpu on 'performance' not ultra.

My lens is ultra sharp so it pulls out patterns on the screen but you can't see that with your eyes. Combination of sharp focus and sharp lens does that to pixels sometimes.

<iframe width='640' height="480" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/06XN3e4ySO4" frameborder='0' allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

Second this!

 

In stock on Newegg: Newegg.com - GIGABYTE P34G-CF1 Intel Core i7 4700HQ(2.40GHz) 8GB Memory 1TB HDD 128GB SSD 14" Notebook Windows 8

 

Heh can you try BF4 for shots and giggles?

 

So in the U.S. they were at Excaliber Monday, NewEgg today and the Xotic folks are still waiting?

 

Gentech has them in stock.

 

THANK YOU! I just ordered one. I've been waiting for them to get to the US. Hopefully this will satisfy the need to get a simple, sleek, desktop replacement that I can play games on.

 

So I finally got Windows 7 dual boot setup. It took me a long time, but that was user error. You just need to turn off secure boot, format your usb drive in FAT32 (this is where I screwed up), make it bootable, copy iso/dvd, and then make another partition.

If I wouldn't have missed the FAT32, would have taken only 1-2 hours to get it installed and drivers all setup. I haven't really done much else with it yet. The fan noise is loud when running at full speed, but I can live with it. I'll have to play around with the settings, I think turbo is on, so maybe that is why the fans are so loud. Hopefully I can get Windows 7 setup for work and then work on Windows 8 setup for gaming and personal use.

 

Smart Fan on "Stealth" and Ultra Boost turned off it runs pretty quiet..

 

I guess I'm in the same search. Now I'm turning my eye to this one. Thanks a lot man, really useful vid.

That seems about right, the review got the same. I don't think keyboard light consumes too much to make it noticeable anyway. Do you feel 30% brightness is enough? (have you tested it outside or near a window?)

From the video I see the highest noise measure was something like 45 dB? (even you actually made the noise?) If that's the loudest then it's a f***cking ninja! Mine says 60dB! (and it does bother without headphones). Also considering it's on the back, so it's kind of far from the user.
Question: is there an option to leave the "Fn" button on by default? It seems troublesome to have the end/home buttons on the arrow keys.

Just out of curiosity, what lens is it?

 

I ended up going with simple and (hopefully) durable and got this one from Wraptor Skinz.

 

I think 30% would be barely useable, not sure about next to a window though. That might be pretty bad.

The fan will kick up one more notch (maybe 2), like when running at 90% cpu useage, and that is not subtle. I realized during my noise test that I didn't have anything lined up to stress it that much. I kept bumping my chair which caused some noise spikes. But what is kind of weird is that I was on battery during that test and Hexus review claims on battery the cpu is locked to 1.3Ghz, but you can clearly see my processor hitting 3.0Ghz range on battery via task manager? Maybe a Euro vs US difference? Might have to look into that. During the game test, the cpu was running in the mid 70's and the fans did ramp a notch higher than the 45db setting but I had the volume up enough and was distracted by the game so I actually didn't even really notice the fans!
Not sure about the FN button lock, never use those keys anyway, lol.

Now looking into a re-partition to get rid of the 20GB recovery partition. I made a system image and repair disc in windows, so hopefully I'm covered. Haven't done much in way of restoring an image before, I've seen a bunch of success with that so assuming that'll work ok if needed.

 

Camera/microphone. Are they good enough for Skype?

 

I pre ordered with Xotic on Sep 23. The status till today reads "pending parts/item arrival". Plus, I ordered some upgrades which would cause further delays. Decided I could live without the upgrades and cancelled my order with xotic.
Placed a new order from newegg this afternoon (Thanks to edge929). The status has just been marked as shipped (although it might reach the carrier only on Monday). Hopefully, I'll get it early next week.

 

I got a reply from XOTIC saying that they should get them next week,

Also nice reviews guys!

 

Guys, we can't customise on Newegg right?

Also, has anyone ordered a customised one from Gentech yet? Any approximate dates? Also if anyone have received theirs from Gentech, dimensions and weight of the package? I'd be really grateful!

To the people who'd weighed and measured their XoticPC/Excaliber earlier, I'm very grateful, thank you! Again though, the dimensions seem right, but 9 pounds is crazy, considering the laptop is only 3.7! I hope it varies from seller to seller

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 4

 

I called Gentech, they're shipping out on Tuesday or so. Newegg ships at 6lbs. Just ordered today, shipped out already with free 2day shopping from shoprunner :-D. I really hope that sleeve is included. Does anyone know if it's included with every laptop?

Sent from my SGH-M919 using Tapatalk 2

 

Hey cybernick01, I happen to have an S3 and already had the Sound meter app installed. I tried to position the phone somewhere between the two exhausts although I'm not sure if the phone uses both microphones in this app but you get the idea.

If you aren't doing any demanding tasks the fans stay off and run slowly for about 10-15 seconds and then turn off again. With the fans off it is completely silent as you can see here.
When they turn on and run slowly the noise will jump to around 50 decibels.
While the fastest blast will be a bit loud at around 64 decibels as can be seen here.

P.S. I've never had the fans run at their highest speed (64db) unless I force them to from the settings as above or am carrying out a torture test.

Edit: My laptop's screen brightness is at 20% in the pictures above. I might be used to looking at screens at lower brightness so judge for yourself, but anything above 50% on this laptop feels too bright to me.

 

Someone over at whirlpool posted this review: Review: Gigabyte P34G - Laptop - HEXUS.net

 

Hey buddy, any update on 'tape boundaries' for your manual upgrades of wireless card and/or HDD? Also, Gentech only seems to charge $35 for an update to the Dual Band Intel 7260. Doesn't it cost like $35 on Amazon itself or have I gotten the wrong card?

 

Have decided to go with the Intel Dual Band 7260AC after painstakingly going through various reviews of all the cards on offer



Just in case anyone is interested in doing the same:
- Gentech charges $35 to replace and keeps the stock card
- If you do it yourself, Newegg charge $28.99 for the card (free shipping) and you get to keep the stock card (perhaps sell it) BUT
- You MAY or may not void your warranty. Depends on where the warranty seal is and if you have to destroy it to get to the Wireless Card

 

With a system image and Windows repair disc you're good, you could just use EaseUS, Marcium or Acronis or some such to nuke the recovery partition and re-size. Only value of a system wipe would be if you wanted to do a clean install from scratch, but I think the bloatware on this is minimal enough that it's not necessary.

/.02

 

Yes, not a problem.

 

There were only a handful of peanuts in the larger box mine came in. The Gigabyte box itself is substantial, and don't forget the power brick. I'll weigh just the Gigabyte box, the unit and it's brick. I'm going to bet that's at least 6#.

 

Believe so, it has their logo on it.

 

Haven't done the wireless card yet, but will soon as the stock one doesn't do dual band or the higher AC throughput. Looked at it as I was in there and no tape on it or the HDD. No tape on the bottom cover either as it's lifted off.

I'll clean up my unboxing video and put it up on YouTube this weekend.

 

I'm a bit concerned with the build in battery, because this means you can not remove it when it's fully charged to increase its lifetime. Does Gigabyte offer an option to prevent charging ? (Like only recharge if battery is dropping below XY%)

 

Thank you B'midbar! You're a star.

Oh crap, didn't think about that. But Li-poly batteries do last pretty long apparently. Also from what I asked and found out from Gigabyte NB on Facebook, buying a replacement is possible from their service centre.

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 4

 

Li-Poly batteries have a lower cycle count than Li-Ion batteries, and from experience i know that they are usually loosing >>50% of their maximum charge within 2 years, if kept in the device. ... and replacement batteries usually go for ~100€ or more ...

 

Oh yeah sorry, other way around. Oh no plus since this is a small company like Gigabyte, it's not like Anker or something will make replacement batteries, only the OEM will. Reconsidering this laptop now, unless this comes under warranty.

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 4

 

Great info, thanks!
50db is quite bearable, does it happend during movies?

Have you checked the power profiles?

I think I'm just gonna pull the trigger.

 

Can anyone comment on throttling when on battery?
I've heard some reports of really bad throttling and just wanted to check.

Sent from my SGH-M919 using Tapatalk 2