ASUS X83VP-A1 NoteBook Intel Core 2 Duo P8700(2.53GHz) 14.1" Wide XGA 4GB Memory DDR2 800 500GB HDD 5400rpm DVD Super Multi ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4650

Pros: Great processor and video card for money, 500GB of space, acceptable battery life, 16:10 widescreen, cool design in certain lighting,

Cons: Laptop feels really cheap and plasticy. Optical drive feels very UN-solid. Fan is very loud even when just browsing the internet, fan has started to make a mechanical noise after 3 months, End key makes a clicking noise, Keyboard is hard to type on, hard drive is 5400rpm, hinge cover is loose and makes a little creaking noise,

Other Thoughts: I hope Asus Technical support is good and will fix all my problems.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Valued Asus Customer,

We sincerely apologize for the issues you have experienced with this notebook, basing on your review it appears that you may have already requested for a RMA. Please email your latest RMA number to aps_support@asus.com so that we may followup on your behalf. Thank you.

Best Regards,
Don
Asus Product Support

Pros: - Fantastic performance for the size: I don't think it should be unreasonable to want a gaming laptop that isn't an 18 inch behemoth. This one's nice and small, easy to bring with you, but still packs a powerful punch.
- Price: This laptop has the best performance I've seen for any laptop under $1000 Canadian, enough said.
- Laptop runs cool and quiet. Even when gaming, it doesn't get very loud or hot at all compared to other laptops.
- Great for multitasking.
- Higher end video card!
- Seems to be well built.
- Lots of every kind of port and input jack you'll need (5 USB ports, etc).
- I think the speakers are not bad for a laptop.
- Starts up and shuts down really fast
- Not very much bloatware, and easy to get rid of it.

Cons: - FN key and CTRL key are switched. (this is more annoying than you'd think)
- Glossy case gets really smudgy really easily, not a big deal though.
- Shortcut buttons above the keyboard, as everyone has already said, are completely invisible, and therefore useless.
- Some owners of this laptop have been experiencing problems with random crashes. I haven't had any problems though.
- Weird hard drive partition: 232GB for OS, 218 for data, I'm used to it now though.

Other Thoughts: I was very impressed by the specs of this laptop for the price, as well as it's compact size. It's not very thin but I just like the 14 inch size I guess. I bought it to use for school, everyday computing and medium gaming. It handles multitasking well, and handles modern games surprisingly well. I can run MW2 on max settings with 4XAA and not a hiccup in the framerates. Also runs Mirror's Edge, Borderlands, Mass Effect 2 flawlessly on max settings. I think the CPU is a bit outclassed by the GPU, but it hasn't struggled with any of my games so far. One thing everyone is arguing about is which graphics card the laptop has. It's listed as an HD 4650 but shows up as an HD 4670. The explanation I've accepted is that the card is indeed a 4670, and is slightly underclocked. I wouldn't reccommend bringing it back up to 4670 speeds though, because laptops are notoriously unstable with overclocking. Overall, I think it's a great buy, one of the best deals on Newegg. I love it :)

Pros: Good Graphics Nicely built inexpensive for what you get

Cons: The biggest problem is this model has a problem of shutting off no reason

Other Thoughts: The con as I stated is a real big issue with this model there's even a thread on the Asus Forum. This problem only seems to happen when the notebook is plugged in and charging. I'm sending it to Asus because they think it's a power issue. So buyer beware.

Pros: - Very fast! It can play all my online games on full setting!
- Starts up in just a few seconds
- Multitasking is a breeze
- Fan is very quiet. It's like the laptop isn't even turned on!
- Unit stays cool even if I keep it on for several hours
- Decent battery life
- Sleek yet sturdy design (but the blue bubbles design look kinda cheap and unattractive to me)

Cons: - Noisy clicker
- As stated by others, the touchpad needs getting used to. The scroller especially can be a pain.
- Annoyingly noisy clicker
- Keys on the left side of the keyboard (Capslock, Shift, Tab, Q, A, Z, etc) seem a bit flimsy
- As stated by others, the shiny surface of the laptop is a fingerprint magnet. Enjoy being OCD over it lol.

- And then, of course, the famed switched Function and Control buttons. It drove me nuts the first time.. but you get used to it. I'm not down with it yet, but I'm getting there lol.

- Oh, and the exorbitant tax. I just happen to live in 1 of 3 states that charge a ginormous tax on Newegg purchases. Lucky me.

Other Thoughts: In conclusion, the flaws I see in the laptop is very trivial. The specs and the low price definitely makes it a BARGAIN. My techie friends were the ones who recommended this laptop to me, and I can see why they unanimously agreed that I should purchase this one. It's simply amazing. If I can cuddle with my laptop every night without making it look too weird.. I would.

Pros: I am an animator-to-be finishing up my B.S. I make heavy use of Maya, Photoshop, and After Effects. I purchased this notebook as a supplement to my desktop

Maya runs surprisingly smoothly. Render times are longer than with my desktop's Q6600, but they are still reasonable. Photoshop and After Effects don't show any issues. Still, 800 pixels is pretty short, so when possible, I prefer an external monitor.

Games run much better than expected. I've only tried out Left 4 Dead 2, Portal, Tomb Raider Anniversary, and Quake Wars just for the purpose of this review. The first three are great at full resolution and maximum or near-maximum settings. Quake Wars runs poorly even at the lowest settings.

I appreciate the form factor- five pounds is a good weight, and the dimensions aren't too awkward to carry around like a 17" notebook.

This thing has connections up the wazoo - I find the five USB ports, card reader, and HDMI output very useful. Hopefully soon I'll make use of t

Cons: The keyboard is atrocious. When it's at my desk, I have to use a USB keyboard. Maybe it will just take getting used to, but I type at about half my normal speed because the keys just don't seem to register strokes as expected. Since this is a portable computer, I debated docking an egg for this.

The screen is washed out. This is expected with a cheap notebook display. Duplicated on my TV via HDMI, this display doesn't do warm tones well.

When I was setting everything up, the optical drive got incredibly loud due to vibration. It hasn't happened since then, but it can. Luckily most games are all-digital now.

Other Thoughts: My previous primary notebook was a ThinkPad T43 with a 64 MB ATI card. I also owned (not used) an Alienware Aurora that for about three months in 2006 was top-of-the-line.

My experience with this notebook has been fantastic. It has meaty specs and does not weigh 13 pounds. It's so nice to have a notebook that I can use for getting real work done or just sitting online writing a review of itself.

This notebook is a great value. It can keep up with most current software (though not all games), and it doesn't cost a premium price when most notebooks are outdated within a year anyway. It brings together a lot of high-spec, mediocre hardware. While I wouldn't use it as a primary computer for graphics work, in that regard it does function very well as a robust little supplement for my desktop.

I always recommend a desktop to people who need real hardware. This isn't the best, but it'll do what you want decently. If you need a portable companion, this notebook is a sensible o

Pros: -Ati Radeon 4670 HD 1GB: Modern Warfare 2 runs PERFECTLY on high settings, quality, and anti-aliasing.
-500GB drive
-5 USB ports I mean I don't even need a usb hub anymore!
- Bluetooth integrated (that's rare)
-4 speakers!!!! (two on the front and two on the bottom right below the palm rest)
-Bright screen and good quality
-Runs very quiet and cool
- >$1000 for $800
- Many cool features and includes recovery disk

Cons: -Speakers are weak?
-Small screen (altough it makes the laptop more portable)
-Most plugs in the back (2 of the usb and the HDMI + more)

- Full of bloatware

Other Thoughts: Man this is a cool Laptop and I am gonna use it for College and Gaming. I will recommend this to everyone I know that needs a laptop around this price

Pros: *Great video, and for those who want to know... The Sims 3 is AWESOME on this machine. I have all settings on high and it's beautiful. I haven't noticed any lag at all even with 5400rpm drive (would have been nice to have 7200 though.)

*Express gate is nice, but the browser is a bit limited. Pages don't load all the way down, can't scroll, stuff like that.

*Machine is quiet, even after "Sim"ming all day the fan will run, but it's not hot.

*Ultra quiet keyboard.

*Little bloatware.

*Very pretty

Ordered this on Monday (Noon-ish) got it Tuesday -standard delivery. Newegg rocks that!!!

Cons: *You have to burn your own recovery disks. (4dvd's)

*Oh, yeah... DVD drive a bit noisy~

*Wish Fn/ctrl keys were reversed, but not a big deal.

*The keyboard does skip a bit, so you have to press those keys!

*Like everyone else said... fingerprint magnet, but they give you little buff cloth. :)

*5 Instant keys on top are almost invisible. I have to remind myself they are there and then I have look at the manual to see what they do.

*Touch pad is very sensitive and scroll feature is hard to get used to. Use a mouse.

*I contacted Newegg, to ask if I had the right notebook. I bought the X83 but the box it came in says N81V. Live online chat girl just kept telling me to call ASUS because it was a technical question. I Just wanted to know if I got the right item...<grrr> gave up on her.

Other Thoughts: Lots of frustration trying to decipher the model. Label on back says N81VP and below barcode (on same label) says X83vp. When I tried to register on ASUS website, it wouldn't let me saying the S/N and Model didn't match to either one.
Called ASUS, they did a manual reg. for me. It's an N81V series with some of the X83 features like 5400 vs 7200 HDD; no fingerprint reader.

Be sure to register the Accidental warranty. You can do it online, BUT you still HAVE to mail in the card, receipt and confirming email.

All in all, nice. I am happy (so far) with my purchase.

note: After doing auto updates, my CD/DVD was corrupted. Uninstalled (responsible software... you'll recognize it), uninstalled/reinstalled CD/DVD, updated drivers, etc. Didn't help.

To fix- Proceed with caution: must edit registry but this does work: Google "removing GEAR drivers." link to: DRIVERS: Windows - Updating, removing, 64 bit versions, etc - GEAR ... Follow instructions for your ver. of Windows.

Pros: -Price ~$800
-Great specs for just about anything, even gaming.
-5 USB ports! and others rare ports like HDMI and eSATA.
-Express gate is neat. Not sure if I'll use it though.
-POST takes only one second so startup is quick.
-Works great with Linux Mint 8 x64, including suspend/resume
-Good warranty, 1 year accidental, 2 years limited.

Cons: -Fingerprints get everywhere.
-Touchpad slider is a little tricky. You have to touch it just the right way for it to work.

Other Thoughts: -ATI driver reads Radeon 4670 even though Newegg says 4650
-Hard drive is partitioned as 1.Recovery? 20GB, 2.Win 7 120GB, 3.Data 340GB

Pros: awesomeness is all i can describe this this this work of art

oh also it seems that the model is not on the asus website that the newegg reports it as (x83vp-a1) its more like n81vp in case your looking for drivers like i needed to lol

Cons: the res

and all the mislabeling

the system fan

Other Thoughts: newegg says it a ati 4650 but guess what its a oem version of a 4670 that not on the ati site bt guess what the sticker on it says 4670 the gpu testing software says 4670
but yeah if yeah playing a game that has no way of getting the settings set to low and for 4 hours straight this thing will crank up the fan seriously there were like 4 levels i heard so far make sure to get laptop cooler for this beauty
but yeah after a old desktop mobo went bad i had to use a old lappy tho three years old it works bu the intel graphics suck everything was on low and still sucked but i had to wait 6 months and suffered withdrawal symptoms but yeah after i got this and after 6 months of withdrawal i feel like at times that i am dreaming like this could never happened in million years again like my lifes worth of luck came all to a end with this lappy
i give thanks to newegg asus and the ppl of the interwebs and my close friend who has a one but form the n80 series

Pros: A lot of computer in a compact package. Fast dual core processor, decent video card, large quiet disk, decent battery life (3.5 hours), low dissipation--runs pretty cool.

Nice layout for the I/O jacks--a few on the side, most in the back. Allows quick connection of accessories like external mouse (which I prefer to the touchpad) and USB, but neat connection of lots of stuff in the back if you are using as a desktop substitute.

Cons: -Reversed function and control keys is really annoying if you use another computer.
-Had the first one die on me after almost exactly one month (more below)

Other Thoughts: More details on the failure of the first one. It died in an odd way--I was running it on battery, and it went dead. Subsequently it wouldn't work on battery, or charge the battery, but would work on the AC supply. It failed just about 30 days after I got it, but when I was out of the country, so it was a few days past Newegg's 30 day exchange guarantee, but they honored it anyway. Thanks guys! You'll be getting my business for a long time.

I've had another Asus laptop for 2 years--and M50-SAX1. That one had a 16 or 17 inch display and a numeric keypad. It's interesting to compare the two. Their comparable as computers, but this one seems a bit more refined (and it was about $400 cheaper). It has a smaller display, a larger hard drive, a newer video card, better battery life... but unavoidably, a compressed keyboard. I got the second laptop for my wife, and, assuming the power circuitry failure was a fluke, it seems like a good purchase.