Notebook Trio: ASUS A8JS and G2P and ABS Mayhem Z5
by Jarred Walton on December 29, 2006 12:15 PM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
ASUS A8JS - Internals and Usage
Turning to the bottom of the unit, we can see the battery as well as the two main access panels. In the interest of time, we won't bother showing the fully dismantled laptop, as all of the areas you are likely to need access to can be reached through the bottom panels.
The battery is actually quite difficult to remove, as it fits very snugly into place. Besides pressing the release button, we had to use a flat screwdriver to help pop the battery out. On the bright side, it is very unlikely that you will accidentally remove the battery.
The battery itself is a 6-cell model rated at 11.1V and 4800 mAHr (or if you prefer, 11.1V x 4800 mAHr = 53 WHr).
The bottom right access panel houses the hard drive as well as the Bluetooth/WiFi card.
The other panel provides access to the two memory slots, the GPU module, and the CPU heatsink and socket. It is possible to upgrade the processor to something faster, although doing so does require a bit of effort and voids your warranty. In order to access the CPU socket, you will need to remove both the graphics module as well as the processor heat sink. All of this can be relatively difficult to do, and for now there really isn't much point as the fastest Core 2 Duo processors aren't significantly better than the T7200. The extra 16% performance boost that you might get from a T7600 generally isn't worth the accompanying price hike; if you need a faster processor, it's probably a lot easier in the long run to get a system that comes with the CPU preinstalled.
ASUS includes a 100GB 7200 RPM SATA hard drive from Hitachi, which matches the highest performance laptop drives currently on offer. Seagate also makes 100GB 7200 RPM laptop drives, but if you want to get a 2.5" hard drive larger than 100GB, you will need to give up the 7200 RPM spindle speed. Luckily, where hard drive performance in the past has often been abysmal on laptops, the latest models typically offer acceptable performance - not as fast as desktop hard drives still, but adequate for the majority of users. Hard drive performance also becomes less of a factor when running on systems with 2GB of memory, as the large memory capacity alleviates the need for the operating system/applications to access the hard drive as often.
Using the ASUS A8JS on a day-to-day basis was a very good experience. Battery life is decent, lasting over two hours for most tasks, and performance was more than acceptable. The graphics chip is capable of powering the display at its native resolution in most games, although there are a few titles that struggle unless you either turn down the resolution or turn down the detail settings. Watching movies, surfing the Internet, or doing other office work also gave us no cause for complaint. It should also be noted that not once during all of our testing have we encountered any problems with this laptop - no crashes, lockups, or any other unexpected behavior. Whether sitting idle or running at maximum capacity, the A8JS has proved itself to be rock solid.
That is not to say that the laptop is perfect, but then few things are. The keyboard layout is decent, providing access to all of the most important keys. The lack of a number keypad might be an issue for some people, but there's not much that can be done about that in a 14" chassis. Switching from a desktop to a laptop keyboard can be a bit disconcerting, so there's definitely a learning period where you need to become acclimated to the new layout. The keys are also slightly smaller than your typical desktop keyboard, but that's to be expected. The function ("Fn") key provides access to additional options that some people might find useful, for example allowing a portion of the keyboard to function as a number keypad temporarily. It also provides access to settings for display brightness, display output, volume, mute, WiFi on/off, trackpad on/off, and sleep/suspend mode. A couple of these functions (Fn + F9 = trackpad on/off) are not labeled, but given that we just listed one of the more useful shortcuts that shouldn't be a problem. We only wish the Fn key and the Ctrl key locations were reversed, as we are accustomed to having the Ctrl key in the bottom-left corner of our keyboards.
If we had to choose just one laptop out of these three as the best option for the most people, it would be the ASUS A8JS. It offers everything people are likely to need in reasonable quantities: good performance, decent battery life, relatively lightweight and compact design, all the important features, and a reasonable price. It is one of the best midrange notebooks that we have ever had the pleasure of using, and we can easily recommend it for anyone looking for a good all-around laptop. About the only people that might not be satisfied are those who would like a larger and/or brighter display or a faster graphics processor.
Turning to the bottom of the unit, we can see the battery as well as the two main access panels. In the interest of time, we won't bother showing the fully dismantled laptop, as all of the areas you are likely to need access to can be reached through the bottom panels.
 |
| Click to enlarge |
The battery is actually quite difficult to remove, as it fits very snugly into place. Besides pressing the release button, we had to use a flat screwdriver to help pop the battery out. On the bright side, it is very unlikely that you will accidentally remove the battery.
 |
| Click to enlarge |
The battery itself is a 6-cell model rated at 11.1V and 4800 mAHr (or if you prefer, 11.1V x 4800 mAHr = 53 WHr).
 |
| Click to enlarge |
The bottom right access panel houses the hard drive as well as the Bluetooth/WiFi card.
 |
| Click to enlarge |
The other panel provides access to the two memory slots, the GPU module, and the CPU heatsink and socket. It is possible to upgrade the processor to something faster, although doing so does require a bit of effort and voids your warranty. In order to access the CPU socket, you will need to remove both the graphics module as well as the processor heat sink. All of this can be relatively difficult to do, and for now there really isn't much point as the fastest Core 2 Duo processors aren't significantly better than the T7200. The extra 16% performance boost that you might get from a T7600 generally isn't worth the accompanying price hike; if you need a faster processor, it's probably a lot easier in the long run to get a system that comes with the CPU preinstalled.
 |
| Click to enlarge |
ASUS includes a 100GB 7200 RPM SATA hard drive from Hitachi, which matches the highest performance laptop drives currently on offer. Seagate also makes 100GB 7200 RPM laptop drives, but if you want to get a 2.5" hard drive larger than 100GB, you will need to give up the 7200 RPM spindle speed. Luckily, where hard drive performance in the past has often been abysmal on laptops, the latest models typically offer acceptable performance - not as fast as desktop hard drives still, but adequate for the majority of users. Hard drive performance also becomes less of a factor when running on systems with 2GB of memory, as the large memory capacity alleviates the need for the operating system/applications to access the hard drive as often.
Using the ASUS A8JS on a day-to-day basis was a very good experience. Battery life is decent, lasting over two hours for most tasks, and performance was more than acceptable. The graphics chip is capable of powering the display at its native resolution in most games, although there are a few titles that struggle unless you either turn down the resolution or turn down the detail settings. Watching movies, surfing the Internet, or doing other office work also gave us no cause for complaint. It should also be noted that not once during all of our testing have we encountered any problems with this laptop - no crashes, lockups, or any other unexpected behavior. Whether sitting idle or running at maximum capacity, the A8JS has proved itself to be rock solid.
That is not to say that the laptop is perfect, but then few things are. The keyboard layout is decent, providing access to all of the most important keys. The lack of a number keypad might be an issue for some people, but there's not much that can be done about that in a 14" chassis. Switching from a desktop to a laptop keyboard can be a bit disconcerting, so there's definitely a learning period where you need to become acclimated to the new layout. The keys are also slightly smaller than your typical desktop keyboard, but that's to be expected. The function ("Fn") key provides access to additional options that some people might find useful, for example allowing a portion of the keyboard to function as a number keypad temporarily. It also provides access to settings for display brightness, display output, volume, mute, WiFi on/off, trackpad on/off, and sleep/suspend mode. A couple of these functions (Fn + F9 = trackpad on/off) are not labeled, but given that we just listed one of the more useful shortcuts that shouldn't be a problem. We only wish the Fn key and the Ctrl key locations were reversed, as we are accustomed to having the Ctrl key in the bottom-left corner of our keyboards.
If we had to choose just one laptop out of these three as the best option for the most people, it would be the ASUS A8JS. It offers everything people are likely to need in reasonable quantities: good performance, decent battery life, relatively lightweight and compact design, all the important features, and a reasonable price. It is one of the best midrange notebooks that we have ever had the pleasure of using, and we can easily recommend it for anyone looking for a good all-around laptop. About the only people that might not be satisfied are those who would like a larger and/or brighter display or a faster graphics processor.
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unclebud - Saturday, December 30, 2006 - link
"Seems all the usual suspects are on a holiday"more than likely they were just thrown speechless by such extreme bias in this "review"...
newsflash - it can have a sorry gma 900 in it that can barely play rollercoaster tycoon and call it a "gaming laptop" if they want...
ugh. i tried skipping around to get something valuable out of this "article", but there aren't any pictures of the models even...
going to reread mr anand's review of his laptop to cheer myself up -- now that's a thorough review!
JarredWalton - Saturday, December 30, 2006 - link
"but there aren't any pictures of the models even"Umm... what? There are 36 images (with enlarged shots) in the article, plus another 30 or so graphs/charts. If you're not seeing them, either your browser is incorrectly configured and is blocking the images, or else the servers are having issues. And if someone called a GMA900 a "gaming notebook" they would be lying; calling an X1700 laptop a gaming laptop is more of an exaggeration, but it's clearly not the fastest mobile GPU.
I honestly have no idea what you mean by bias, so I'd be happy if you would point out areas that are "biased" rather than just giving a blanket label to the article.
mino - Friday, December 29, 2006 - link
Overall a nice review, those ASU are getting some serious popularity here in Europe while the reviews are nowhere to find..However, ranting for half a page about 14inch not having numeric keypad? I would have thought it was under you level of knowledge...
While the KB is NOT perfect in any sense - small enter, small keys.. - the absence of numeric keypad is natural.
Maybe you should spend a few weeks on road with some 17inch baby of yours to see how "important" numeric keypad really is...
One thing I hate about A8J is that transreflective (CrystalSomething) screen. It is pretty much unusable the moment the sun shines, and it does shine a bit too much in the summer.
JarredWalton - Friday, December 29, 2006 - link
I wasn't really complaining about the lack of a numpad on the 14" A8Js, merely pointing out that it's not there and you really can't fit one into such a chassis. My "rant" for half a paragraph was dedicated to the Fn key - and mostly I was just talking about the uses and making a minor complaint about it not being switched with the Ctrl key location. Unless you're looking somewhere else?I tried to discuss my feelings about the keyboards on each laptop, as that's pretty important with long-term use. Given what I do for a living (writing), I would actually avoid purchasing the G2P (as tested) and the Mayhem Z5 purely on the basis of the keyboard alone. The US G2P might actually be fine, as the primary issue I had was with the mixed up locations (relative to most keyboards) of the \ and " keys.
As for the G2P, that's where I complained about the missing numpad, and it's a 17" model notebook. I complained about this same issue on the Dell XPS M1710 and E1705, as I use numpads on a regular basis and find them to be important. Ironically, the ABS includes a numpad, which I liked, but the other missing keys (Home - PgDn) were at least as irritating to me as the lack of a numpad. Obviously, my taste in keyboards isn't the same as every other person's, which I why I started the article talking about the importance of trying out laptops in person where possible - or try a similar laptop if that's all you can do.
Ideally, I'd like a 17" notebook to have a numpad and a layout very much like the ABS, only shrink the width of the Backspace, \, Enter, and Shift keys and put in a column with Home, End, PgUp, and PgDn similar to how the two ASUS laptops do it. There's plenty of room there for those keys... or just extend the keyboard area down a bit and put the keys right above the cursors like on a regular keyboard.
As for the two ASUS laptop LCDs, I didn't find the LCD on the G2P to have problems in bright light (sunlight is a stretch but possible). Hopefully all newer ASUS laptops have LCDs more like the G2P. The A8J on the other hand is definitely the worst LCD of the bunch and really suitable for indoor use only (or on overcast days). When I first used it I didn't think too much about the LCD quality, as most laptop LCDs can't compete with desktop LCDs in terms of brightness and color quality. After playing with the other notebooks, however, I became quite unhappy with the A8J LCD. Sure, it helps battery life, but all you need to do is have more brightness levels to allow for lowered battery use on LCDs like the G2P.
mino - Saturday, December 30, 2006 - link
Seems all the usuall suspect are on a holiday :)Maybe I should read a bit more thoroughy, and sllep more too :). Point taken.
As for the display, the are two things. I am yet to see an glossy surface LCD to be usable on sunlight. They are nice and sharp for movies and indoors. But my observation is that the moment sun shines (also through an unprotected window) the display changes to a mirror - well, it called an "mirror effect" dispaly sometimes :). At the same conditionas even a poor-quality anti-glare one retains usability.
That said I will have to pass the A8J, otherwise it is pretty solid bundle(I like the BT+DVI+14"WXGA+ combo).
Should the time come when the notebook are regularly of built-to-order variety such is it with cars now. That way most of these "issues" with manufacturer isung bad display, VGA, CPU and so on would be a thing of the past.
It would not even increase the price too much provided good automation is employed. Actually this would greatly simplify the abundance of notebook based of the same chassis with a bit different internals only.
Hell, just ASUS has 5+ series with the same 15.4inch chassis...
mino - Saturday, December 30, 2006 - link
spelling, here you come :(francisco54 - Friday, May 16, 2014 - link
hola mepodeia mamdar los draivers de este ordenador