ASUS N81Vp Review

Asus is releasing a 15 inch version of this called the N51tp. Mostly the same specs but it will have a full number pad and better resolutions on some models.

 

PC2-6400 = 800 Mhz, right?

 

I soooooo wish this had Blu Ray and a Geforce GPU.

I've got an n80 (its predecessor...basically the same thing but with a Geforce 9650GT, and a 2.4GHz/3MB Penryn instead of the 2.6/6MB one).

Like the review says, the n80 seems really well engineered. I've been really impressed with its cooling system. Mine stays cooler with the CPUs and GPU at 100% from Folding @ Home than a lot of larger notebooks do at idle...really!

I suppose I'm glad this doesn't have a Geforce GPU, just so I don't feel sad that my n80 is now 'outdated'

 

Correct.

Interesting to see ASUS still bundling the same old mouse and carrying case after 3 years. The carrying case, by the way, is meant for 15,4" screened laptops. AFAIK ASUS had a more appropriately-sized carrying case for 14" sized notebooks.
What is more, the lower part of the chassis is once again from a 3 year old model - the A8J. Not that is bad, but rather good - especially the 5 USB ports and a large potential for ports on the back side. The down side is that the screen bezel is kind of oversized vertically.

 

I'm all for reusing the same components if it works! You can't argue with the cooling and engineering on this sucker. I'm actually really glad to hear that Asus emphasizes things WORKING over randomly redesigning it.

Dell's 1640, despite being a larger notebook, easily runs 30c+ higher than my n80.

 

I was hoping the main memory is DDR3 so it would run even cooler.

Does anyone know how the air is circulated and vented out? There are 3 grids on the bottom. Which one is the main air intake, or none of them are? I'm looking for a laptop that is truely that, a laptop, so it can sit on your lap and not afraid of blocking the air intake causing overheating (Dell XPS 13 over heated on me and died). Currently, only the Sony Vaio Z series and the Apple Macbooks with respectable specs are true laptops. But they're way overpriced and under spec'ed when compared to N81Vp.

 

Well, here we go. General 14" model laptops are finally starting to surpass my aging "gaming" laptop (5500 3dmark06 with max overclock). I guess it's finally time to upgarde.

Great review.

 

Awwwww poor baby, dont cry

Isnt it the same thing with nvidia? You put in a good CPU and your score jumps so that argument you are making is flawed. There was a guy on this site who had a 9800gts just like me with the same processor i think he was getting around 8500 3dmark when he put in an X9100 he got a 11,000 or so. CPU increasing a score substantially is NOT an ATI thing only and you have to be not so smart to think this.

also you are wrong again you said 5300 but at 1280 x 1024 it is 5720 3dmark score.

Also dont forget this is just a 4650 NOT the 4670 which will probably score about 1000+ higher. Lets wait and see real world benchmarks against nvidia then we'll see who is right.

 

My N80vn's fan vents on the right side. I would assume the N81vp, being built on the same chassis would do the same.

 

Don't know about where it's intake is, but it has MUCH better cooling than Apple's laptops, or Dell's 1640.

I've used it briefly on my lap, and sometimes the fan's ramped up one level (but that's running the CPUs at 100%).

 

GDDR3 video memory does run cooler than DDR2, however, due to being more efficient, GDDR3 are usually run at higher clock speeds, hence increasing the overall heat production.

In THIS image, the bottom intake is located where the wireless card is, the left is for the GPU and the right is located at the optical drive.

 

Vent or intake?

 

intake

10char

 

Thought so.

Vents at the bottom would probably defeat the purpose of laptop.

 

Yeah, I think the only vent is on the right. It's a really good design. You can see the metal fins in there that look just like on my Asus desktop GPU...and it cools really well.

 

You guys trying to give me hard time, eh?

 

I always give you a good time.

 

Oh, no, I was just saying, 'cause it sort of looks like there might be a vent on the left

 

How does the GDDR3 HD4650 compare to a GDDR3 9600M GT?

 

I forgot to mention this but why did this notebook not get an "Editors choice" award? It only had ONE con ?

Here Azno:

http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-9600M-GT.9449.0.html

There this should give you at least a overview of what is and isnt possible

 

Looking at the image, the vent is located on the left side of the sidepanel (notebook's back faces up). There are 2 grids up and 1 grid down on the back pane. So which one is the air intake? Can the fan be seen through it? Can anyone with N81 verify that one of the 3 grids is the main air intake (putting a piece of tissue see if it sticks)?

 

All 3 grids are air intakes.

This video from GenTechPC will give you a better idea where the fan is located.

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Thanks,
That really helped. Kinda strange that there is no opening right above the fan. But I guess the design works since the laptop runs really cool.

In terms of performance, which one is better: the N81vn-c1 (NV 9650m 1GB DDR3) or N81vp-c1 (ATI 4650 1GB DDR3)? Both laptops have the same CPU.

 

Definitely the N81vp.

 

Because, 14'' notebooks are not meant to be gaming machines. Even for the specs, the price is rather high, and the battery life is poor. I think NBR bases their editor's choices off of what would suit the mainstream user the best. 14'' gaming notebooks are a very small niche in the notebook sector; most 14'' notebooks are business class or basic light-weight, web-surfing notebooks.

 

Like dtwn said, the N81Vp will perform better.

 

I dont know about that, people who are buying these notebooks want power on the go. Also the battery life while not great is still fine, 2 hours and 20 minutes is great when you consider the type of power this thing is packing(processor and GPU).

Also it's base price may be expensive but how many 14" give you this power for the money?

 

Nice review Kevin!

Mu wish came true-the notebook displayed @ cebit was pre-pruduction or defected! Party!

 

What do you mean?

 

I think Xirurg is referring to the N81Vp he saw at cebit having a less than ideal build quality.

 

Ah, that. Thank you.

 

If it's anything like my N50, the main exhaust is at the very back of the notebook (near the fan), facing back and down on the left side (if you were facing the notebook) I usually hang my laptop slightly over the edge of table/bed so the exhaust can do it's thing.

My N50 also has Air Ionizer, which the N81 seems to of forgotten? This used to also be included in the air ducting system, not sure the little hole at the front right is still there or not.

I would like to see Asus make a 9cell battery for the N series, otherwise the N81 is the perfect little 16:9 laptop. The refinements over N80 series like built in CIR port, and all cable/accessories at the back, extra USB ports and Ati DDR3 card with 7.1HDMI audio output make it a very nice 14" package. If they added the new U80 touchpad and LED backlit keyboard, It would be a upgrade i would make.

 

Just as a heads up in case anyone didn't know, the N81Vp is only $1259 on Xoticpc.com so I don't know where these claims of it being too expensive come from.

 

As far as I can tell, my N80 has these features too.

 

Sorry it must just be the N50 that only has 3USB and no CIR port.

 

-.-' I barely even read reviews that aren't by chaz anymore. Gaming benchmarks are always left out if chaz doesn't do the review.

 

If you want some gaming benchmarks, GenTech has them posted on their website. For convenience sake, I've linked them below. Make sure to watch in HD so you can view the FPS in the top left corner

Call of Duty 4 Demo
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Crysis Demo
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FEAR 2 Demo
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i commented on this before but i was shocked to know that this midranged card could run crysis on high and medium Mixed it. ATI really upped there game this time.

 

Like I have posted earlier these game demos look great, good job by GenTech for actually showing this card in action, it really does make a world of difference.
Most resellers don't have this sort of thing when you visit there sites, It's good to see a business give there customers what they want, some actual visuals instead of only numbers.

 

The component placement, as seen in the video, just confirms that its based off the A8J. I don't think a 9cell battery will happen for the N81Vp because it sure didn't for the A8J Because of the way the battery is located, flush with the case.

 

For comparison sake, any numbers (from these notebooks: N81Vn/N81Vp) that we can look at? Always a fan of Nvidia. Now looking for a new laptop after my Dell XPS 13 fried on my lap.

 

I'll have to ask Ken to get me some battery life #'s too I think the ones posted here on this review are misleading since it was not in power save mode.

 

Wow, there seems to be lots of improvements from the F8 series! I'm actually looking foward to upgrading to the N series when Windows 7 becomes available in notebooks.

Just wondering though...so the N81Vp shares the same chassis as the N80 series, except now the screen size is smaller than before (16:9 vs. 16:10) or is this just resolution-wise? Why would companies decide to do that, the screens in 14" notebooks are small as is!

 

WOW!! The 3d mark 06 is better than the 9600m gt and it also runs cooler.

 

Guys, for some reason they're using a higher end ATi GPU and not a higher end Nvidia GPU-but remember, ATi does NOT support their GPUs, and Nvidia does. Anandtech is saying do not buy a laptop with anything but an Nvidia GPU, which I completely agree with. Right now Nvidia is supporting their mobile GPUs better than ATi supports their desktop GPUs (while ATi isn't supporting their mobile ones at all).

I wouldn't have bought my n80 if it had that ionizer. The exhaust is on the rear right.

 

Hm? Doesn't ATI/AMD have release monthly updated for their graphics drivers? There are mobility drivers or you can use modded drivers. Their Linux support isn't as good though.

I like the fact that ATI cards are being used since I'm still miffed at Nvidia for the defective 8xxx series fiasco which they still haven't fessed up to.

I can deal with updating my drivers, not hardware that fails prematurely due to heat cycling.

 

For their desktop GPUs, not their mobile ones. And even on the desktop, their drivers are a lot worse. Anandtech has called them out on that too. They hit this arbitrary target of throwing out drivers every month or whatever, without actually regression testing them remotely as extensively as Nvidia does. New drivers may break old fixes, etc. (Heck even on my desktop from a few years back I couldn't run some older games I wanted to play, had to run them on my even older Nvidia system.)

Yes they did, ages ago. And it wasn't something they could have known about. It was a pretty complex issue, but if I'm remembering it right, it amounted to they were using the same process as before to be conservative ab out it, while ATi changed theirs. As it happened, at the (process size maybe?) the old process had issues, but they couldn't have known that ahead of time, and other companies were hit by it too.

 

About the 16:9 resolution... Yes, maybe at 1st glance it appears smaller than 16:10 because people instinctly know 10>9, right? Call me crazy, but it seems to me that 16:9 is HIGHER resolution than 16:10, at least in this case when comparing the n81 series to the n80.

N80 = 16:10 = 1280x800 = 1,024,000 pixels
N81 = 16:09 = 1366x768 = 1,049,000 pixels

I've been reading people's grumblings about the n81's lower resolution, for weeks... and I've sort of bit my tongue, in the meantime. But no more! lol

It's simply a wider resolution, but not as tall... and when all things are said and done, there's MORE pixels on screen. The move to 16:9 is most likely in an effort to become more media friendly, in terms of video/film, as 16:9 is a very common display ratio. It's your preference whether you'd like a certain amount of pixels added to the vertical aspect, or the horizontal aspect of your screen... but as far as resolution goes, the N81 is HIGHER resolution than the N80.

I have no comment on how this messes up game spec resolution tests for comparison, 'cause that's something I'm not overly familiar with.


As an after thought... I really really wish Asus would offer additional batteries for the N8* series that are larger than 6cell. C'mon! Where's an 8 or 9 cell??? Bah!

 

animboy, the 1366x768 16:9 resolution is usually compared to the 1440x900 16:10 and not with the 1280x800.

So,
1366x768 = 1,049,000 pixels
1440x900 = 1,296,000 pixels

 

Good point about the resolution. Personally I can't say I care-I mean it's almost the same thing either way.

(I just checked my donut mark scores for the hey of it-probably spewing my system with all kinds of weird APIs in the process, and semi-strangely my scores increase 12% going from its standard res to the notebook's lower resolution screen, while the pixels are 28% different.)