Asus G1S-A1 Review

It's too bad this unit dosen't include Intel Turbo Memory. It has some cool features, but I think the Compal IFL90 will out-perform it with Turbo Memory and 512MB dedicated GPU RAM (plus the IFL90 costs less).

 

Turbo Memory is supposed to speed program load and boot time. I don't think it'll increase gaming performance.

I'm still waiting for a IFL90 review before I decide which way to go.

 

Would the G1S play Battlefield 2142 on max graphics? and BF2

 

Oh but is it compatible with the robson memory? Does it have a slot for it?

 

The benchmark scores are awesome.

I really want to see screenshots of games, FRAPS scores...basically the whole enchilada on this new GeForce 8M card.

 

Yeah I don't think the G1s has Robson as an option.
Tim

 

Nice review, but please update it so that people don't keep bringing up the DVI/HDMI issue in the pics. If you can post some updated pics, please do so. Otherwise, feel free to use ours

We will probably post another review soon.

 

I finished installing XP on the HP DV6500T and now I have no yellow question marks in the device driver table. This means there is a good chance people will be able to install XP on this laptop since it has the same chipset, which is good news for games that don't play under Vista. That would be a good idea for a web site (installing XP on the G1S), because I'm going to take pictures and make a site for the DV6500T. I'm talking step by step instructions with pictures, with Ubuntu, and possibly a small partition for Vista. That would be the ultimate laptop to have all 3 operating systems.

 

Well, now that we know that HDMI is actually there.... does anybody know if it does audio over HDMI, and if a DVI/HDMI dongle/cable is included?

 

one1sock,

Does this system have Nvidia Powermizer available to set in the Nvidia Control Panel? If so, can you run a benchmark on battery power on this system w/ 3dmark w/ powermizer set to battery-optomized, and another (on battery power) w/ it set to max performance?

Just curious how the system performs on battery, and whether or not it's playable w/ Powersaving features enabled etc.

Thanks! And Awesome Review!

 

Several corrections - Deep Color (aka xvYCC) is 48 bit, not 10 bit. In fact, most HDTVs today use 24bit color (aka sRGB or YCbCr).

PlayStation 3 is gearing up to have Deep Color support and there are already a line of HDTVs to be produced with HDMI 1.3 capability (and hence eventually Deep Color support). There are also HD camcorders with Deep Color and HDMI 1.3 support. HDMI 1.3 itself is fairly new and I even highly doubt they are yet incorporated into laptops.

 

General comment.

Why do people keep bringing up the battery life of a gaming notebook?
The battery is basically a UPS for when the power goes off.

I mean, what do people expect with a fast CPU and GPU?

I think it would be cool if they offered a 12 cell battery like they do on the HP. The extra weight isn't that much and the bump on the back acts like a nice carrying handle.

 

Great review thanks for getting one to us

 

Anyone tried to use the 4GB support?

Because for some reason when i stick in 2GB it would not boot up.

 

I just came from ASUS HQ and talked to one of their techs. Currently, there is no support for 4GB. They will implement it in a future BIOS revision.

 

What are you talking about? The ram?

Of course it supports 4 gb....why else would they be selling 4 gb???

especially for 64 bit OS...

 

we are talking about the 4GB support (2 x 2GB)

We tried testing with Vista 32BIT and Vista 64BIT system still would not fire up.

2 x 2GB will not fire up
1 x 2GB will not fire up
1 x 1GB + 1 x 2GB will fire up, but system only shows 1GB.
HOWEVER when we used CPU-Z to run it, it will show 3GB.


We will do more extensive testing with other brands of memory.

 

I got the 1 x 2GB with my GS1.

It should be here Monday.

What should I expect then? Am I getting ripped off?

 

2x 2GB Patriot DDR2-667 SODIMMs work as confirmed by our tests.

This is definitely good news. The first set of 2GB SODIMMs were just some generic 3rd party stuff that did not cut it in the G1S.

 

Hopefully 2x2g support comes through..that'll make a great difference.

I hope to see overclocked gfx card benches on this...looks like this can jump 8000 05, maybe more.

BTW Why did you post g1 pictures for a g1s review? Everone's confused about esata and the hdmi ports now.

 

Does anyone know if the HDMI and DVI can be used simultaneously for external dual displays? (with the internal display disabled)

I am moving from an Acer 5672 which can do DVI 1920x1200 + VGA 1920x1200 simultaneously, and I hope that the G1S-A1 can do dual digital (DVI + HDMI)... Any info is greatly appreciated

PS Thanks for the great review!

 

There is no DVI and HDMI. Only HDMI. The reviewer posted pictures of the Napa G1, which caused some confusion.

I posted the G1S pics here:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=2002604&postcount=57

 

Sooo...the G1S only has HDMI then? No DVI at all? I wanted to ask where it was since it was nowhere to be seen in the pics.

Great review, by the way, and many thanks for the proper pics!

 

Some of us actually just bring a notebook and game on battery. Current notebook config is dual-batteries, and get about 3 hours of non-stop Quake 4 and about 3.5 hours of nonstop Warcraft 3FT.

Portable gaming is definately getting more popular. That said, not everyone likes carrying around a 10 pound 17" notebook. Looking at the 14.1-15.4 screen size range has been quite convenient for mobility, and with the modern cpu + gpu performance, it's possible to get the great battery life + decent gaming performance at the same time, in a reasonable package (hooking up to external displays does exist).

Hope this helps to explain the interst in battery life.

And I do agree! They need to start putting larger batteries in these systems. The weight is minimal, but the battery life impact is huge.

 

im not sure you understood me right, i know what bit depth things are, i just refer to the bit depth of individual channels rather than all combined. yes todays TV's and LCD's providing theyre not rubbish, use 24bit colour...ie its a 8bit panel.

i meant 10bit... per channel. 10 for red, 10 for blue, 10 for green 10 for alpha (if you use it), sorry that the terminology i use when we discuss panels on anandtech, we always refere to the amount of bits per colour channel and not the sum of them.

currently we use 32bit on our computers...thats 8 bit per channel, 24bits for the colours, 8bits for the alpha. 16.7million colours
NVIO on the G80 can do 10bit per channel for its outputs... 30bits for colour. 10 for alpha (if it uses it, i dont know) . 1.07billion colours
48bit colour is 16bit per channel. which is some crazy number of colours...which i doubt the we could tell the difference.

what i was saying was, HDMI allows the extra bandwidth to use these deeper colour palettes. but at the moment panels that can display them do not appear to regularly making that paricular feature a bit of a moot point.

 

Here is a pic of the back of the laptop showing HDMI and esata ports.... sorry it took so long

 

Thanks for the clarification about no DVI port on the G1S-A1. It's crazy that NewEgg (and many other sites) still list "1 x S-Video, 1 x DVI, 1 x HDMI" on their specs.

 

I do belive there is support for robson here. g1s has a 2nd express port just like the one that houses the 802.11agn card right next to it. The sad part it the laptop has to be gutted to get to it. All g1s in the states do come with hdmi and esata. No more pcmcia which was replaced by express card slot.

 

This Same specs with me, ^_^ But i more nice because u can make reviews,
This is first my notebook...

 

HDMI will be phased out by Display Port I think in the computer market come the next few years...

Its already been adopted as an industry standard....

 

hey I'm going to order my G1S tomorow any last coment on any cons in it?
will really help me

 

Probably the only cons is the 5400 rpm of the hard drive...if you can change it with a 7200 rpm do it now!

 

howdy,
i'm really looking into the G1s right now. I'm currently using a W3V from a few years ago, still pretty good considering all the torture its been thru. A few things about the G1 have poped up that i wana make sure about:

1. Graphics card: it says it has a 256MB gforce 8600GT card with a potential of 512 or smth. some ppl say that it has 512MB? some say it can go up to 1GB? what exactly are teh specs of the card in G1s? are there different ones?

2. Hard drive: a lot of ppl have talked about upgrading the hardrive to 200GBs. to 7400. what are the benefits of this upgrade, will it ultimately affect my performance.

3. the price range: im planning on buying it in Taiwan, where the ASUS headquarters are! however, i can only find the 7300 2.0ghz with 1GB models right now for around 1666 US dollars. Gentech is listing the 2.2ghz 2GB and T7500 model for 1830 right now. Which would be the better deal...and if i upgrade it from the cheaper model, apprx how much will it cost me? (if ur in taiwan, can u plz tell me some of the prices for the T7500/2GB model?)

It really looks like a nice laptop. I waited for teh santa rosa platform when the original G1 was out...now its here! THanks!

 

1) One GFX card nVidia 8600M GT w/256MB dedicated. It can turbocache up to 1 GB if the system has enough memory. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TurboCache

2) upgrading to 200GB will increase size (duh) and speed to an extent. Upgrading to a 7200RPM drive will give you substantial gains in performance over the stock HDD

3) The first one sounds like an older model G1 or a scam. The second one is really your only bet.

 

on XoticPC website. the G1S-A1 is listed with 512MB 8600m GT. is this dedicated memory or is it 512MB with turbo memory

 

3) The first one sounds like an older model G1 or a scam. The second one is really your only bet.[/QUOTE]

is there a substantial difference between T7300 (2.0 ghz) and T7500 (2.2) since theyre both santa rosa?

An extra GB of RAM certainly matters alot!

thx

 

Not as much as a GB of RAM, I made that comment because Asus builds those laptops themselves (minus a couple parts) and for a G1S to fit that description they would have to have taken it apart an put worse pieces in, or simply be lying.

To glisk:
That is 512 with TurboCaching.

 

Camera is satisfactory if you have good lighting.

 

The review specifically mentions that the keyboard is quiet on the new G1. I have the G1S and the left side is very clicky and quite a bit louder than the right--enough that it's noisy in quiet meetings/classes. Is the new model's keyboard more stable?

 

wait, there's a new model, isnt it just the G1S?

 

alright....I was looking around on nvidia's site and i saw that the 8600GT had 512 memory. However, some people say taht it can go up to 1GB with RAM help...how does that work?

 

I really love how this laptop looks and it's specs. The touchpad and buttons look so cool. If it were only within my budget.....Looking forward to the C90

 

So i got the laptop, but it has a stuck red pixel... I drove to the fremont repair center and dropped the laptop off to get repaired only to have them tell me after a six hour wait that the pixel is not bright enough... now me being the fool that i am didn't say much in protest, but after brooding over it believe that the warrantee did not state anywhere that the pixel has to be a certain number of lumens or anything. They should replace it as long as it is a lit pixel instead of a black pixel right? So I am just wondering what I should do now. Should I call them and have them tell me that they cant do anything, drive there only to have them possibly reject my argument or go through some other means. Other than that... the laptop is amazing.. lol.
So if anyone has any ideas, that would be great.
thanks.

 

Call asus, they have a 30 day dead pixel guarantee. If it is longer then that still call them because asus is not stingy about things like this and will probably fix your problem for free but you may have to pay the shipping.

 

I just got a G1S, I love it, but am pissed at Asus for not including proper XP driver support. So I figured it out myself and with the help of some others.

Creating The Install Disc

To get XP installed you're going to have to integrate the SATA drivers into your XP disc. To do this you will need 2 tools and will need to copy/paste the contents of your XP disc to a folder on your hard drive.

nLite - Used to integrate the drivers into the XP disc.
SATA Integration Driver - The driver

When nLite asks you for the driver to integrate, select the file "iaahci.inf" from the driver folder. (The other files will be added automatically)

Installing The XP Drivers

http://nsa.f28.us/G1S/Asus_G1S_XP_Driver_Pack.zip (242 MB)

Drivers Included:

* ACPI Control
* Audio
* Bluetooth
* Chipset
* Ethernet
* Flash Media Controller
* Modem
* Raid Configurer
* TouchPad
* Video
* Wireless

Utilities Included:

* Direct Console
* Email LED
* GameFace
* IP Switch
* LifeFrame2
* MultiFrame
* NB Probe
* Power4 Gear
* Splendid XP
* Asus Video Security
* Wireless Console


NOTE: Install the chipset and ACPI drivers first

After you have the chipset and ACPI drivers installed and have rebooted, install the audio drivers. Once the audio driver installation is complete, do not reboot. Go to:

Control Panel (Classic View) -> System -> Hardware Tab -> Device Manager

In the Device Manager, under "System Devices", select "PCI Device" as shown:



Let Windows automatically install drivers for it. Reboot and your audio will work.

Enjoy having XP on your laptop. I'm going to tackle Vista (64-bit) next.

 

its seems that a lot of ppl are switchin to XP. Can anyone of u guys post actual performance differences between vista and xp (eg. gaming graphics, cpu stuff). im probably goin to get the G1s in a month or so, any suggestions?

 

Hey, new guy here. I just got this notebook and had the hdd upgraded to a 7200.2 and I'm trying to slipstream the ESATA driver into my XP install. When I select the inf file the following box that pops up has a whole list of controllers. Am I correct in picking the ICH8M-E/M one only, or....?

 

Is there a way to get the Direct Messenger display to show anything other than "ASUS" in XP? Even the clock would be nice.

 

So i get the blue screen of death whenever McAfee autoscans... anyone else have that problem? Ive just turned off the autoscan and its fine, but curiosity still has me thinking about it.

 

You can try unsticking it yourself also. First you can try gently rubbing the spot with your finger, perhaps also wrapped in a soft piece of cloth if you don't want smudges. If it doesn't work you can try putting your finger on the stuck pixel (to remember where it is), turn laptop off, press the spot where pixel was while powering laptop up again.

If neither of those work you can download a movie file that rapidly flashes colors and keep it running for a day. There's one at http://www.psp-vault.com/Article168.psp