LG S510 Thoughts and Benchmarks

Let me start to say that this laptop came to replace my recently deceased Kapok, which was P3 800. So my first person experience with high end laptops is not much.


The Laptop - LG S510-X.CP20P

• CPU - Intel Core 2 Duo T9400 (2.5 GHz, 1066 FSB, 6Mb L2 cache)
• Graphics Card - NVIDIA® GeForce® 9600M GT 512Mb GDDR3 VRAM
• Screen - 15.4" WXGA+ (1440x900, 300nit), LED Backlit LCD
• Ram - 4096MB DDR3 PC 1066 (533 Mhz) 7-7-7-20
• Hard Drive - 320 GB SATA 5.4k
• Wifi - Intel® WiFilink 5300 (up to 450 Mbps) (3x3) Triple Hexa-band Antenna
• Bluetooth (BlueCoreTM4)
• Operative System - Windows Vista Premium 32 bits
  

This laptop costed me about 1160€ ~1640$ but the tendency is to lower even further with the price cuts that HP has been making to Dv5t-1050.


Build and Design
This is probably not the choice for those looking for a flashing or glamorous notebook. It has one of the simpler designs I've ever seen in a laptop.
The outside has a metal-like painting with nothing more than LG written in the top and the inside is all black (with exception for the screen support). It has no extra buttons (Wireless on/off, bluetooth, custom applications) just a little one in the upper right corner to turn on the computer. All other options have to be made by a combination of Fn + Fx.
One thing I really appreciated was the non glossy surface (thank god). The inside part is covered with some kind of texture, it's not really flat, but feels great on your hands.
The plastics used in S510 seem to be high quality, they might look a bit cheap (the ones on the outside) but they're strong. No creaking sounds when moving or pressing the laptop. Flex is almost non existent, just a little bit in the right hand palmrest, but it requires abnormal pressure. The screen is the exception, like most laptops it's susceptible to flex bending in easily, but unlike most laptops I've seen this has no effect in the screen, no ripples, which is really great.
Overall I like it a lot. I've always been a fan of simple designs and it doesn't get much simpler than this.





Keyboard and Touchpad
This is a full sized keyboard with a numpad, which is a nice addition. It feels like a normal keyboard, not great, not bad, normal. It's generally silent except for the bigger keys, space, etc. those make a little more noise. It allows little flex but nothing that is even noticeable during normal use.
The touchpad is nice. Very responsive and has a nice touch, not to slippery or sticky, just great. The buttons click easily and aren't noisy, a simple click is heard




Screen
The screen is one of the best I've seen, really really bright, no light bleeds and its lighting is completely even (LED doing their work over here). Even in lowest brightness level you can see reasonably well as the screen pictures demonstrates. The WXGA+ resolution is the perfect size for a 15'' screen.
The viewing angles are normal for the laptops I've seen, Horizontal angles have a wider margin of error than Vertical but nothing exceptional. If I get my hands in a better camera I'll try to put some example photos here.
The glossy effect is higher in the photos because I had a glass door right next to the laptop (one of them due to the angle becomes a real mirror), as you can see in the above picture. The screen does get that "mirror" effect when there's a strong source of light from behind, but nothing we haven't got used by now.
I've compared it to a Sony SZ1VP (amazing screen), and it has the same or more quality (having a higher resolution probably helps a bit) except in the whites, while they are above average the sony still has stronger whites.


Since all the pictures were taken with the screen lowest brightness level. I've added two photos in the same conditions (glass door right next to the notebook), but with maximum brightness. The first picture seems to be in a dark environment because of the increased brightness, which makes the camera adjust.


Outdoor experience
I've tried the screen in the outdoor. It was not the sunniest day in the world but the results were surprisingly positive. It was fully usable. On direct light you can see reflections but it doesn't overwhelm the screen picture, it might bother you a bit to see some lights in the monitor, but you can still see fine. It was usable to say the least. I would have no trouble in using it outdoors.
I did another test, with a very strong lamp and while the lamp itself appears (very perfectly) reflected on the monitor, like in the outdoor results, it was still easy to work on it. I was pleasantly surprised, because I've worked a bit in a Toshiba A200-21T and the screen wasn't even half as usable with outdoor or strong indoor light. The brightness of screen must be making all the difference. Still if you have to do some work that really relies in concentration like programming and such you might want to stay in the shade.


Speakers and Webcam
The speakers are similar to other laptop speakers, no bass, they seem to sound a little better than average if you point them directly at you, but being on the bottom of the laptop doesn't help to improve sound. To control the volume there's a small wheel in the right side of the laptop.
The webcam appears to have good quality and a good refresh rate (better in windows 32 bits) I can take a few photos if necessary. It's a 2.0 MPixel and has two mic's (one on each side) to allow stereo recording.




Input and Output Ports
The LG is presented with a wide range of ports.

Left Side

Kensigton Lock, Port Replicator, Lan (RJ45), Modem (RJ11), VGA, HDMI, USB/e-SATA combo, 6-in-1 (XD/SD/MMC Plus/MS/MS Pro), Express Card 34

Back

AC adapter, Air vent

Right Side

Volume Control, Sound Input, Sound Output, USB, DVD Super Multi Dual Layer (DVD-R/RW, +R/RW, RAM), USB

Front

Nothing but info LED's, The screen has no latch to hold it but it closes very well and stays that way. Even so you might want to be careful so nothing gets between the keyboard and the screen.

With this vast option of inputs/outputs the LG earns a nice position among the best multimedia laptops. Lacking only the shortcut keys (and probably the look)


Size and Weight
I haven't really measured it or weighted it but the officials at LG say it's something about.

Dimensions(WxDxH) 357.0 x 270.0 x 32.1 ~ 37.8 mm
Weight - 2.62kg (6cell & ODD) / 2.48 (6cell & weight saver)

While I trust their measures I'll try to weight it myself, but it's definitely lighter than most 15.4".
The weight saver is a little piece of plastic that covers the whole left in the laptop even you don't want to carry the DVD drive around.

Here's a picture comparing the height of a Sony SZ1VP to LG S510 and another comparing the size of S510 charger to the one for the SZ1VP and a pen. The S510 charger is in the middle.




Heat and Noise
There are two fan modes. Normal mode keeps the laptop fresh, it pops when it's needed. It still gets hot while gaming but under control. I've hit a maximum of 84ºC and an average of 70ºC on the graphic card while running 3Dmark06. While not playing it's normally around 50ºC. Other mode is Silent mode. I think it turns the fan off (when it is not needed) or put it on very low speeds because the fan sound simply vanishes, but the notebook remains at normal temperature. In the bios there's an automatic mode which controls the fan speed on demand. Haven't tried yet, because normal mode is silent enough in most places.

Note: In the bios, they mention another mode cool but it seems LG didn't implement it.


New: I've done some gaming tests with Spore, everything on max settings, and Crysis at med settings. Both games get average temps of 80~86ºC. Sometimes I got heat peaks of 90~92ºC in the GPU, it's only for a moment, but they're there. This results were achieved during 5~7 to hours of inenterrupt play.

I have yet to make some more temperature testing.


Battery

The only time I've used the battery in power saving mode, I've used it to surf the internet (WIFI) and download and install some programs for more than 2 hours and I still had about 30% battery. But I'll test it better later.

Finally, a real battery test In multimedia mode (original windows installation, all original software ) I was able to play a DVD for 2 hours (surprisingly accurate, give it a couple more seconds) before it hibernates. So it will be ok for most movies, during a trip or that boring class.



Performance and Benchmarks (32 Bits)
Besides being a good multimedia pc, LG S510 shines as a desktop replacement on performance, the T9400 processor and the Nvidia 9600m GT with 512 DDR3 make it one of the best performers in its league.

All the benchmarks are made with original windows installation and unless mentioned otherwise original LG/NVIDIA drivers.

Windows Experience Index

Not the most reliable benchmark but it serves as a inicial base of comparison.

Wprime Benchmark


PCmark vantage Using nvidia 177.98 drivers


3Dmark 06

3Dmark would not save my stats to my computer, fortunately I could publish and review them online. Seems like a good result.

3Dmark06 with 177.98 drivers gave basically the same results of 64 bits, but again the resolution was 1280x854, it seems drivers force this behaviour.

Supreme Commander


This is an overall stressing test for the laptop. Both the CPU and GPU are forced to high levels. CPU peaked at 72ºC and surprisingly GPU even after 3 tests in a row only got as high as 82ºC 2 below the temperature during 3dmark06.

Cinebench 10


I've noticed that cinebench results fluctuate a bit by 100 points (especially in opengl results). With 177.98 nvidia drivers sometimes I can get the same opengl in the image above and the same results of 64 bits. So check them out. The processor results with these drivers have not been changed in any significant way.


64 bits results

I've installed almost everything with 64 bits drivers, only the software installed from the original driver cd is 32. This time since the original drivers were for 32 bits I had to install the more recent ones from laptopvideo2go.

With this installation I got the following results:

Wprime

A small improvement in the 32M test (but as the cinebench result below will show there's probably some CPU performance to gain with 64 bits)
As for the 1024M I forgot to do it in the 32 bits version, sorry... but I'll do it if I can.

3DMark06


Since this is the 32 bits of 3dmark06 (couldn't find a 64 bits version) this might not be as relevant as it should. If we take in mind that the resolution was higher (no idea why) from 1280x800 to 1280x854 it's still a nice result.
Without aero theme the result increased by two points (not relevant).

Cinebench 10


Here the case was different. There was a significant improvement in cpu results, opengl results due to opengl results fluctuation in cinebench are about the same. The test was done after a restart and terminating some processes that were running in 32bits mode and the sidebar (I hate that thing).


I've made two more tests to check the influence of aero and got these results:


I've made this benchmarks to check if aero had some impact. Due to Cinebech opengl results fluctuation, these small changes cannot be trusted, even when comparing to 32 bits (though I think the average 64 bits results were higher by 70~100 points, but again debatable and not that much significant). I'll still leave them here because of CPU results and as a reference.
One thing to note is that both CPU scores in both tests are higher than my first, the only thing different is that I've unnistaled Avira, running in 32 bits mode, and installed nod32 native 64 version. That might be helping the sudden rise in CPU scores.

So even if it didn't show in the CPU performance bar (task manager) Antivirus software has some effect.

PcMark Vantage



I've never done this benchmark before so I don't really know how good it is. But in comparison to chaz benchmarks to Sager np8660, which has a better hard drive and at least twice as better graphic card (overall a machine with better hardware) it seems to be a nice overall score. In comparison to 32 Bits result this is an amazing improvement. Probably justifying the 64 Bits use if cinebench add not convinced you yet.

HD Tune 2.55


Everest memory test
I noticed some discrepancies from test to test. So I did 10 tests and here are the average results.




Windows 7 RTM 64 bits results

I've been using Windows 7 for while now and it's been a very good experience. So much I'm keeping it

I've also recently received my laptop from the warranty (Overheating problems) and it came with a new Bios (EMRDSF14). The problem was solved but since all they have done was replace the bios and clean the cooler and air vents I was a bit preoccupied that the new Bios was caping my processor or GPU. So I've remade some of the previous tests.

Cinebench R10 64


3D Mark 06

This benchmarck was done with the 1280x800 resolution.

As you can see, there are no drops in both results, we actually see improvements. That can be due to Windows 7 or newer drives. Anyway I'm a little more confident in this new BIOS.


Pros and Cons for now

Pros

• Great bright screen
• Good CPU and GPU Performance
• Workmanship and strong materials
• Light
• Small charger
• Simple design

Cons

• Speakers on the bottom (still sounding good though)
• No shortcut buttons
• Simple design
• High Temperatures

This is an incomplete review of this laptop, I'll add more when I can. If anyone has other benchmarks or thoughts about this laptop go ahead and post them here.

PS.: Since english isn't my primary language, I'm sure there's lots of mistakes, specially grammatical. If whoever reads this would be kind enough to point them out to me I would be grateful.

PS2.: Sorry for the pictures quality they were taken with my cell phone (I really need to get a real digital camera)

 

I've added Supreme Commander and Cinebench 10 benchmarks since my first post (other minor text changes like pros and cons).

I've just finished installing Windows Vista Business 64 and I'm going to make some tests on it. So more benchmarks might take 1 or 2 days. I'll also put some info about the driver availability, and general work applications performance.

 

Great review! (+rep) Terrific job, man!

Looks like a very nice laptop I dig the weightsaver thing, pretty neat. Will check back for your battery life results.

From the looks of it this would actually be my 15.4" laptop of choice. Perfect screen (LED & res), great graphicscard, nice weight!

 

Thanks. I'll see if I can test it tomorrow. I guess I'll have to put 32 bits up again lol

New: I've added some 64 bits benchmarks (looks good for now).

 

New: More 64 bits benchmark (aero and AV related). Added a charger size omparison picture. Edited the Heat and Noise part (this is important since a fan mode was removed).

 

Boas noites companheiro!
Me and 2 more friends are thinking seriously on buying the s510. First of all, really THANKS for your review. there isn't any benchmark on the web of this notebook (appart of lg's) and in lg spain there are errors (ddr2 instead of 3 in a tech information and in others magically evolution to ddr3, WXGA instead of WXGA+ for example)
I'll be great if you include in the tech information the mhz of the ram, and other technical and concrete information like the EVEREST ultimate edition says in its resume. Reply if interested and i'll be proud to help you!
In spain LG sells the XCP50B, not the 20B one, and i dont know the difference... If anybody knows please post...
And, i'm very interested too in 2 more things:
first is the price. I cant found it here for - of 1268 €. And second is the screen. It looks like a glossy one (you said that is higher in the photos, but glossy, in the end). My question is: how it looks if used outdoors? And with direct sun? I know that isn't a thoughbook with his 1000 cd, but...

Muito obrigado!

 

Thanks for your review. It's really helpful to help me choose between LG S510 model and HP DV5-1050ep, as in Portugal the price differs almost 250 euros (in favor of the HP model, 900 euros versus 1150 euros of the LG S510). I'm still a bit unsure on which model I should buy, but your review was very helpful to clarify some issues about this LG model.

[Portuguese Mode On]Muito obrigado pela tua review Estava a ponderar comprar este portátil, mas estava indeciso entre este modelo LG S510 e o HP DV5-1050EP, devido à diferença de preço substancial entre eles (neste momento aproximadamente 250 euros, sendo que o LG custa aprox. 1150 euros e o HP custa 900 euros).[/Portuguese Mode Off]

 

I was reading today the post about the s510 posted in techzonept and i'm very worried about that minicrashes when connected to battery... I see a merlin3000 here too (suppose you man ) so you must know that errors. Do you see any?

 

CeroT the laptop sold in spain seems to be different accoreding to es.lg.com. The screen is WXGA and appears no to be LED. The ram is also DDR2. So if you're buying this, if you can buy it from Portugal, it's cheaper and the LG warranty is international, so no problems there. Still, give LG customer support a call before you 'pull the trigger' on this one.

Yep same guy over here lol I've heard about the mini-crashes but never noticed any. They supposedly happen in energy plans other than High Perfirmance. I will try to test the battery tomorrow, that way I can say more about this.


Xpirito
I had the same doubt about HP DV5T-1050 and LG S510 (HP had a price of about 1080). But as you can see I chose this one and no regrets at all. But if someone has a lower budget, the HP seems like the best choice for that line of price. It's a very good laptop.

[Portuguese Mode On] É bom ver compatriotas por aqui lol [/Portuguese Mode Off]

Today I wasn't able to do much here but.
New: added Hard drive benchamarks, and Everest memory test results (an average of ten) both in Vista 64 (I suppose they won't be much different in 32).
By some reason I can't run 3Dmark vantage I've only tried it in Vista 64, but I will retry later in Vista 32.

 

I call them the sunday for the dd2 or ddr3 (ddr3 in the downloadable specs im pdf from es.lg), and confirmed me that was ddr3, the ddr2 information was a mistake. And In that pdf, the screen specs are these: "15.4"WXGA Fine Bright Technology (1280X800)", but i think that's LED too (led was a spec for the s510).
I'll call them tomorrow and i'll say you the concrete specs, so you can put the differences between models 20p and 50p, but i think they will read me the spec on his web... (when i said them the mistake on memory, the girl to phone said me 3 times that was ddr2, later ask to his chief and it was dd3... lol
In this week i'll see one in a market, and if i could see the specs... vista says specs of his screen or only the gpu, cpu and memory?
Ah, and thanks for your answer and for the specific specs!
Edit: ****... according to the specs in the global site ( http://www.lge.com/products/model/detail/s510.jhtml), WXGA has no led backlit...

 

It makes sense if it is ddr3, making a model with ddr2 would require them to replace more than the ram modules. The screen on the other hand it's easier and by some reason companys tend to just release LED in WXGA+, dell does the same.

Just go to "display settings" and change the resolution, if you don't see 1440x900 than it's not WXGA+.

 

New: did some changes to the whole review.

1. 32 bits benchmarks are now one the end of the review, just above 64 bits.
2. Added screen outdoor and strong light experiences to screen area.
3. Removed directly positive references to cinebench opengl results on 64 bits because of the results fluctuation (there's still a comment). These also applies to "with aero" and "without aero" tests.
4. Added more 32 bits results with 177.98 nvidia drivers.
4a. 3D mark has the same results.

One note: the PCmark vantage in 64 bits has a very noticeable improvement over the 32 bits.

edit:
5. Added 2 screen pictures with heavy light from the balcony (like the first ones) but now with screen in maximum brightness.

 

New: "multimedia mode" battery results

 

Notebookjournal reviewed the LG S510 and they agree on the screen, they say it's best in class. Very bright and excellent contrast.

They ran many benchmarks as well.
http://www.notebookjournal.de/tests/647/3

 

Excellent review

 

I've always loved LG notebooks, but they are hard to come by in the U.S., and fairly expensive.

Excellent review, and benchmarks!

 

how is it for heat and weight when using on your lap? Now that you've had it for a while how is it for lugging around, daily use?

no 1280 x 768 w/LED? I hope it comes in upcoming models ... not holding my breath ...

 

Thanks for the review

I'd be happy about any linux compatibility information for this one. Google returns very few appropriate results.

 

Excellent review.

 

Thank you everyone, glad you like the review. It's also nice to see another review about this laptop.

About your questions:
The laptop is light, the 2.6 Kg is an adequate weight (lower than most) for a 15.4''. I've been carrying it around in a backpack and it doesn't bother me at all. My last laptop started to wear me out after a while. The fact it has a small charger also helps.
The charger has exactly the same size of HP's dv5t-1050 (I think it's the same charger, just branded differently).

Heat wise the laptop normally runs fresh, only gets hot while gaming. I usually use it on my lap but on top of thin book, so I don't block the air vents. It's not the most cool environment but during normal use it keeps a nice temperature.

The 9600M GT provides great performance but it also generates a good amount of heat. While gaming spore (everything maxed out) and Crysis (med settings) average at 80~86ºC, sometimes there's a high peak at 90~92ºC, but it lowers immediately, still it's a bit hot. I'm probably going to buy a notebook cooler over the next week. So if someone has a good suggestion it would be great.
A detail that might be important is that while the exaust vents gets really hot to touch, the palmrest gets warm but at no point becomes unconfortable to work.

The hottest point, gaming or not, is always the GPU.

I will post my results with the cooling pad in a few days.

Linux compatibility will probably be addressed in the next week or so since I need it to university.


Any other benchmarks that you think might be relevant. Please make a suggestion I'll try to do it if I can.


New: Added heat results from spore an crysis to the Heat and Noise area.

 

New: added a photo of the notebook without the back covers.

 

Excellent review merlin3000.
Have you tested Ubuntu Linux in LG S510? Does it recognize all components?
Thanks.

 

boas Merlin! Estou interessado em comprar o LG S510 também, mas estou com algumas dúvidas e gostava que me esclarecesses algumas coisas. Pode ser?

 

Hey Merlin,

great review ! After this I also bought a S510. Yesterday it arrived with a pre-installed Vista 32 Bit so I took my own Vista 64 MSDNAA DVD and installed it. First thing I discovered is that the LG Intelligent Update doesnt find anything for Vista 64 Bit. So I tried to discover a new version of LG I.U. in order not to search for every driver on the LG website -nothing.
So where did you get all that 64 Bit drivers from ?
Can you give me a link or do you have some webspace to upload the complete thing as a zip ?

That would be so nice from you

Greetz Jakob

 

Hi guys,

Nice post m3rlin! congrats again

I would like to question you guys if someone know a sub model of S510 that is called X.CP22P.
I would like to compare this one to CP20 and CP21P, but I was unable to find something on the web.
I know that this laptop is for sell in Portugal, I dont know if exists elsewhere..
Can someone help on this?

Regards,

Alvaro

 

Sorry about the delay. I've had a lot of work to some classes (still do) so I haven't been able to test a couple of things. I'm waiting for a break to install and really test this on Linux.

I got the drivers from intel for turbo memory, wireless (look for 5300), and ethernet (look for Intel® 82567 Gigabit Ethernet).

Sound drivers from realtek (look for HD Audio Codec Driver in the quicklinks)

Touchpad drivers from synaptics

and finally graphic drivers from laptopvideo2go

You can also check http://s510.globalfree.net/ it's in portuguese but the right side menu is a no-brainer. The owner (who by the way is the poster above) as done a great work gathering info and resources about LG S510 in one place.

 

Dear all, believe or not I was buying my LGs510 to see if was possible use the laptop to work and play a nice game as call of duty to play 4 without problems.

The Specs of my LG S510 are:

Intel ® Core ™ 2 Duo Processor T9600, 6MB L2 Cache, 2.5GHz, 1066MHz FSB
4096MB DDR3 Memory
Video NVIDIA ® GeForce ® 9600M GT (GDDR3 512MB)

Apparently more then good for this game.

After a format just install the game and the probles beguin. I was playing resolution sugested by the game 1024 *800. First 2 or 3 minutes all was ok , graphics and speed, after that a noise strange appears and the game freeze with a big lag. I Press ALT TAB and check with the resource mnitor of my vista home edition, CPU is 100% usage , memory is confortable at 45%. Some seconds more and I can ear the sound come again with no problems. Back again with ALT TAB , for more 3 minutes with no probs.

If video got any prob , I never run the game like I have done some minutes.
Who can help me solving this problem.
I check is not only the call of duty I try more games and the situation is the same.
Th3m4sk

 

Actually I've had that probblem. Not with call of duty but with Fallout 3. No idea why still :/.

But I've played Crysis, Spore, Supreme Commander... all without problems.

One thing I can recommend is to put the latest Nvidia drivers in your laptop, if not working try some in www.laptopvideo2go.com and upgrade intel Turbo Memory drivers (some people add some mini-freezes with the original ones).

Edit: And make sure that the fan is not in silent mode, that lowers graphic card performance.

 

Hey Merlin or whoever owns this laptop, few questions.

How hard is it to replace components in the laptop?. I saw the picture without the cover, but im still not sure if there was something blocking the way of the hardrive, or cpu, etc.

Also, is the GPU MXM (removable) or is it integrated into the motherboard?

One last thing is, have you been able to overclock at all, either through the nvidia system tools 6.03 (Ntune) or bios? Does GPU-Z detect the video bios?

thanks again.

 

Hi guys,
Sorry for my English, it's not very good. I'm from Poland and I'm also interested in buying similar laptop. You can check the details here. The main difference is P8600 CPU, I guess that's all. The one, last thing before buying it I am worried about is a construction - is it well made, with usage of good components? Will it last around 2-3 years without problems? Can you compare the quality of materials used in this laptop to the for example Asus or Lenovo? The reason why I'm asking is that in Poland LG isn't very popular (regarding laptops) and therefore there is little information about it and about warranty service.
And final question, for folks who already have LG, would you choose it one more time if you could? Thanks for all help and once again sorry for any language mistakes.

 

Knivez The hard drive is a bit tricky to remove, you have to be carefull while doing it. There's a little metal piece around the hardrive holding the cable next to the hardrive. Ram seems to be easy to remove.

I ddon't think the graphic car is MXM, but even if it is you probably don't want to mess around there. Check http://www.mxm-upgrade.com/. I haven't overclocked but some people have, it's as easy as any other laptop.

Teenek The constructiosn is good, not excepcional but good. As far as Asus go, it's about the same. Lenovo I can't tell because I've never seen one live (here in Portugal you don't see many lenovos) but from what people say I believe Lenovo have a better construction. Still LG S510 as a nice build, almost zero flex (except on the back of the screen) so if you treat it well will hold for some years problems free.

 

ah thanks for the info. I was wondering if you could post some more pics of the power adapter/brick, as well as the plug, because if I buy it for the U.S, i will need an adapter.

Any sort of voltage info labeled on the power adapter would be useful too.

 

Thanks for help, I'm a happy owner of LG S510 and it is just a perfect laptop for me. Once again, thanks!

 

teenek, can you describe the area above the keyboard? I read theres some flex on one review and that it is uneven in the center (dips down a bit)

is this true?

 

i have this model but am getting very low Windows experience index processor rating with this specs:
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU T9600 @ 2.80GHz
Memory: 3066MB RAM DDR3



anyone know wats the problem?

 

can you be more specific on how to remove the hardrive or disconnect the cable to remove the hd?

 

what? Something is wrong there your processor should state 4.9 dont worry about it that scale is really messed up and isnt accurate its not a big deal. as long as your are getting good 3dmarks and pcmark you should be fine.

 

I bought LG S510 and it's awesome!! the Intel Turbo Memory makes the hard disk super fast.... and the DDR3 is the fastest ram ever. Combine this with the Nvidia graphic card and it rocks. The startup is fast. Apparently you cannot even buy this in the Korean market because of it's high demand. LG has special rights to access these. I played Devil may cry 4 on this and the graphics were awesome. Also my computer broke down here in China, and they have free warranty services (Korea is famous for this) even here in Shanghai! also, if you pull the computer apart, you can see it's tightly built. Unlike ACER which broke down on me, This is solid built Korea stuff!

 

Korea built stuff made in China

After looking after Dell Studio 1537, 1555, the really overpriced XPS 16 in Bulgaria and many other finally I got what i believe is a nice compromise between what i want for the price. So I've bought S510 as well (see sig for the details).

The most important thing for me was the screen so I missed the one by Merlin, but did read the reviews over HardwareJournal.de and Chip.de - they state the display is amazing. I went to the store to check if the screen is the same LG screen NJ tested - it was so I bought it immediatly.

I made a big compromise with the keyboard, but i think it's worth it. The LG is not sold in Bulgaria so there is a Greek company that operates in BG. SO they import things made for Greece. To sell the LG in Bulgaria they had to engrave bulgarian alphabet on the keyboard thus I have English, Greek and Bulgarian symbols all together... its a mess looking at the keyboard, but in a matter a fact i am not watching the keyboard while writing so it's not a real issue over here.

I am happy with my choice and hopefully the laptop will be fine for many years ahead.

 

Cool that you two are enjoying it.

Its time LG comes fully to America. I think they would have a big following as LG is pretty well known here in America.

 

Looks like a very nice laptop .

 

Sorry if I didn't answered someone, but I've been rather busy (still am) just a little update. The laptop has been having some problems with overheating. It reaches very high temperatures doing rather mundane things and while playing I've hit above 100º in both CPU and GPU.

It seems to be a global problem and there are several units beeing sent to LG because of this problem. For the most part it seems they're solving the problems *fingers crossed*. My unit ships tomorrow and the tech support has been nothing but nice and helpfull.
I'll update the review with the resultswhen I get the machine back.

If anyone wondered Windows 7 runs smoothly in this machine. It installs everything but the turbo memory and now with the release os intel turbo memory drivers for win7 RC1 it tells you where to get it in the action center.

Not much else to say. Still happy with the machine ( I'll miss it so much ) If anyone has any more question you can make them I'll try to answer faster


P.S.: I see some of you are buying this. Do your self a favor and put out an extra buck for a cooler. Something that blows air. I'll geet one has soon as I get it back and post the results.

 

Hi Merlin,

Thanks. I am having the same heat issues- Can you post your results and tell me if they have fixed the issue?

 

I'll do it has soon as I have it. But in the cases I know tech support would usually take about 20 days to send it back, so don't wait up

Now that I'm working with a 4~5 year old DELL D510, I can see how great the S510 was lol but I have to say this dell is a war machine lol it has taken quite a beating and it's still standing proud. Slow.. but proud

 

Hi Merlin,

Thanks for the info- I'm one of the few people that bought one from Germany and had it shipped to the United States. LG doesnt officially sell/support the notebook, so i'm in talks with the re-seller to see where/how I can send it in for repairs.

It seems that the cooling system by design isn't sufficient, so it would be great if you could post the results as well as maybe noting what has been altered inside that has fixed the issue.

thanks

 

HM, banned eh? Weird.

 

Hopefully this problem has been already fixed in the factory. I will have this overheating in mind when I try 9600s performance as I have the the laptop for more than a month, but I am yet to install a game. Probably will try Prototype as I am currently playing this title on my desktop with Radeon 2600 XT which should have similar performance to the 9600m GT (if it has something in common with the desktop 9600 GT, of course).

As for Windows 7 - i've tried it and while I didn't install all LG software it seems that BatteryMiser doesn't work at this point and windows is constantly saying that I have to change the battery as soon as possible even if the LG gadget says that the battery is charged enough (it doesn't matter if thats 20, 50 or even 100% charged). Also I noticed that after updating the camera application (mycam?) the resolution has been reduced from 640x480 to only 320x240 so if you decide to Install Win 7 and the camera app be sure NOT to update the software.

I was so curious to see the memory manufacturer and the cards so I opened the back and saw that my memory is 2+1GB DDR3 Hynix which is quite a logical thing considering that Hynix is a korean company and LG and Samsung are not any bussiness relationship eg. you want see a Samsung panel in any LG product (Monitor, Television) and vise versa, same goes for memory, hard drives and so on. As I am not able to recheck the pics from the first post rightt now because imgshack is blocked from my work - if somebody is interested to see the memory, turbo memory and wi-fi 5300 chips/mobos together with fan + cpu, chipset and gpu cooling pipe i will be posting few pics. The memory backcover is a bit tricky, but after first try to remove it and put it back you get used to it.

Update: now i can see that a pic of the internals was posted.

 

Hey Merlin,

any updates on laptop? Have u got it back and tried games on it? Are the temps any better?

 

Hm, looks like he hasnt been on in a while.

 

Sorry. Haven't had much time for anything. Since the laptop came all I've been able to do is write reports for my graduation project.

All I can say for now is CPU temps are still good. Gaming temps, for C&C Red Alert 3, I tried it in the day it came and it reached 95 degrees. Not sure if it was the game, I'll try crisis (one of the games I tested initially) as soon as I can.

To knivez Sorry again lol, I don't have the file with the Bios. I can see if I can extract it. But if you go to a repair center they sould do it for free, at least it was what the repair center told me here.