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What Do You Think of ASUS Laptops?
Dan Guisinger asks: "I'm looking at replacing a laptop that was recently stolen and came across ASUS's new B1000 series laptop. It seams to have everything one could want, dual FireWire ports, DVD, CDRW, 15" screen, upgradable Pentium III cpu using mPGA2 sockets...it even has finger print security. My only problem while looking at the specs is the measly 1024x768 XGA resolution it supports. I am unable to find reviews on this laptop, nor most other ASUS laptops. Can anyone speak of the quality of their laptops overall? How about this particular model, has anyone seen or used the B1000?"
Linux installs without too much of a hassle too. The only tricky part is setting up X especially if you have the geoforce 2go.
We've a seen few laptop-related postings lately, and I think they're interesting since I'd like to buy one. But I assume that the problem most of us have here is the MS tax. I've seen quite a few of the upper-end Dell and Gateway machines, and they look really nice. My guess is that the only reason people are looking at these off brands (not that ASUS is an off brand, I know their mobos are good, but don't you want Dell/Gateway grade tech support for a device with proprietary parts?) is because they'd rather not pay for the MS license that they'll never use. Let me get back to the point...
Oh yeah. We know that Dell and Gateway (and others, of course) aren't offering Linux laptops right now, but does anyone know if they'll sell one without an installed OS? Also, has anyone here had success with getting a refund on the Windows license (i.e. http://www.linuxmall.com/refund/)?
What would people consider a good, cheap laptop, and where would you get it?
My guess for minimal requirements would be:
I could imagine using this machine to write code, but probably generally not to build major projects. The speed of the CPU wouldn't be a major issue, and as long as there was a decent amount of memory, (say 128 MB) that would be ok.
Would an Apple iBook be an option? I like the concept of OSX, and I hear X.1 is reasonably fast, but would it be on an iBook? Are they really durable or do they just look like it because of the titanium shell? Do PPC linux distros run on that hardware? Is it any less open than a typical PC-type laptop?
As for where to get it, I wouldn't mind getting a used laptop, I'm not looking for cutting-edge, state of the art. Is there anything to look out for in buying a used laptop? Is it reasonably easy to find good used laptops? How about good used Apple laptops?
It's a thin laptop, probably the thinnest one out there (sony included), but the quality however, leaves much for desire. Fans for the system stops working for BOTH of the laptop so now it's running hot as hell. The Screen is not as good as the Inspiron 8000 not in terms of resolution (which i8000 just murdered that little beast), the brghtness is nowhere as good. But it's sure cheap though, I say go for the Dell (feel kidda cheap, I don't care what you say) or Toshiba.
kawai
Agreed. Check this out. http://groups.google.com/groups?q=asus+tech+suppor t&hl=en&sa=N&tab=wg
You can read on and on about their nonexistant support. Their products are well made, but their driver support is horrible.
... to replace a laptop I recently sold and found this one. 1 Ghz, 512 Mb, 30 Gb, 15"@1400x1050, DVD, on-board 10/100 and modem, etc for less that $1600. Except for the modem, which I can't tell, all the hardware is supported in Linux and you can order it with NO OS.
Saving my pennies now to pick one up.
Top items of what I care most about in a laptop:
1. very low weight (because I travel with a backpack)(3-4lbs, ideally w/cd & power supply)
2. low power usage (so I can use portable solar panels)
3. long battery life
4. low price (less than $1500, without ludicriously priced batteries like the Sony Vaio series has)
5. durable
-I don't need resolution above 1024x768 or a large screen -- I'd rather the screen was smaller so it uses less power.
- I don't need speed above 500 mhz (it's nice but I don't need it)
-I do need a cd-rw --for backup and reading cds.
- I like the IBM thinkpad x20, but it consumes peaks around 57 watts! -- it may as well be a desktop. -- so I can't use solar panels.
I wish they made more with these specs...
yes, it may be great bang for the buck, but my sony VAIO PCG-N505VE is a Celeron 333MHz, 128MB RAM, 6GB HD and the LCD is about 10.1 Inches, and it can do 1024x768. this is an old laptop, works great but these newer notebooks should at the _LEAST_ be able to do 1280x1024, look at the IBM X20, or X21, they both have killer resolution(x20 will do 1280x1024 I believe and the x21 will do 1400x1050)!!
Privacy? Not in this lifetime.
I'm a linux user from Portugal,Western Europe,
and i'm confused because in the italian Asus
site it announced that the B1 could do 1400x1050
http://www.asus.it/nb/b1/b1_specifiche.htmas anyone have aa ideia what information is correct
I will consider any notebook only if it is based on the Palomino (i.e., Athlon 4) PowerNOW architecture.
I have been using an L8400 since a few month now, and I am very happy with it. After a few twirks with Debian, I got everything working in Linux (except the Winmodem), and it runs like a charm.
:)
Possibly if I was to name the weakest point of the notebook I would say its battery life, which is some 2.5 hours. This is for the L8400 series though.
ASUS is has a very good price, too. All in all: I would buy it a second time
The company I work for purchased two ASUS M8000s about a year and a half ago; Pentium III 500MHz, 128MB RAM, XGA TFT LCD. As a piece of hardware, they've performed really well, running Win98, Win2k and Linux with no issues at all. However we've had a lot of problems with the manufacturing of the device.
Both laptops have had problems with the screen flickering about a year after we bought them. Seems like the connection between the laptop base and the LCD screen is not all that great. Moving the laptop lid up and down changes the brightness, so you have to now fiddle with them until they show up at their full brightness. One of the laptops had the entire screen portion replaced, however six months after it's started to flicker again: sounds like a design fault to me.
The plastic that encases the screen on one of the laptops has split at the bottom right-hand corner where the screen meets the base. When you open and close the laptop lid, a lot of strain gets put on this area and after one and a half years, it wasn't up to it. The left-hand side is showing signs of wear as well.
Finally, on both laptops, we've had problems with the computer freezing for no apparent reason. Seems like the chips on board the motherboard come loose very easily, and all that is required is for someone to open it up and wriggle them back into their sockets, because the freezing stops after that's done.
So all in all, they're a great laptop for the first year of operation, then Bad Stuff starts happening, at least in the M8000s. Be sure to get an extended warranty if you're going to go for an ASUS.