asus laptop

Dilbert-FirestormDilbert-Firestorm Nuclear Wasteland, Gretna, LA New
edited November 2009 in Hardware
is this model good? better than the MSI GT725?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220642

I'm marvelling its 600gb hard drive... wow. I'd be happy with a 320gb drive.

its a bit more than I wanted to spend which is around $1300.

1499 is on par with the prices that I've seen shop googling for the MSI GT725, although I'm uncertain if they have any in stock. I've made 2 ordering attempts, both flopped. the 1st vendor informed me that it was out of stock and no longer manufactured and the 2nd vendor apparently was a scamming website based in Japan (they wanted the transaction done thru ebay gift cards - thought it was strange).

Comments

  • mertesnmertesn I am Bobby Miller Yukon, OK Icrontian
    edited October 2009
    I can't find the MSI laptop for sale anywhere, and it's not listed on the MSI web site either. My guess is they probably discontinued it.

    The Asus laptop specs look great for gaming. The 640GB hard drive is actually 2x320GB drives, making this a three bay system (two for hard drives and one for an optical drive). Personal opinion is that the graphics card may be a bit of a heat monster. I would wait for a laptop with AMD 4800 or 5800 series graphics if at all possible. They should run much cooler and provide better performance at 1920x1200 resolution.

    A cautionary tale of Asus customer support is below. Not meant to discourage a purchase - it's just the experience I've had the last two years.

    I have purchased two Asus laptops. The two year warranty is a great selling point, especially when you consider the first year includes accidental damage. Both are gaming-class notebooks, and I don't have any major complaints about the systems themselves - it's the post-purchase customer support that has been an issue recently. The first laptop RMA (two years ago) took four days (graphics card died). Asus paid for overnight shipping to and from their repair facility, and everything was fine. A year later, the touchpad died. The RMA process took nearly two weeks and it still wasn't fixed correctly - some noob repair guy jammed the mouse buttons six feet to the right and lifted the button covers way above the surface...something that should have never left the repair shop. This led to the next RMA (another two weeks) to fix the repair. Asus's repair shop ended up calling me telling me the laptop worked just fine and didn't think there was anything that needed fixing. I explained the situation, and they begrudgingly fixed things...sort of. Unfortunately that was the last repair under warranty and the buttons are still slightly off, but otherwise working.

    The second laptop's only RMA has made me seriously question any further purchase of Asus laptops. The display hinge basically exploded. Somehow tension built up through normal opening/closing of the display, and the left display hinge snapped, taking out the motherboard and anything in that corner. Again, Asus paid for shipping to and from the repair facility. Sent the laptop in and ... nothing. I heard nothing from them for two weeks. Their RMA tracking site showed the laptop being received in July, and midway through August it was still "awaiting repair". I called to inquire its status, and was told they were waiting on a motherboard and it would be up to six weeks before the repair was done. After explaining that it was used for school (which started in two weeks), they offered to replace the laptop if a new motherboard didn't arrive soon. Two weeks after that (we're at a month now), they said a motherboard had arrived and the repair would be completed that day. They shipped the laptop back to me, at which time I discovered they failed to return my AC adapter. It took another three weeks of dealing with two levels of customer service (and a bunch of promised, but unreturned phone calls) before I finally got hold of a supervisor's supervisor who was most helpful and as disgusted as I was with the quality of support I had received. She arranged for a new AC adapter to be sent and promised to make sure changes were made to prevent a situation like this from happening again. The whole ordeal took eight weeks.

    So, in summary: Hardware is great, repair process started great but went downhill quickly.
  • Dilbert-FirestormDilbert-Firestorm Nuclear Wasteland, Gretna, LA New
    edited October 2009
    mertesn wrote:
    I can't find the MSI laptop for sale anywhere, and it's not listed on the MSI web site either. My guess is they probably discontinued it.

    The Asus laptop specs look great for gaming. The 640GB hard drive is actually 2x320GB drives, making this a three bay system (two for hard drives and one for an optical drive). Personal opinion is that the graphics card may be a bit of a heat monster. I would wait for a laptop with AMD 4800 or 5800 series graphics if at all possible. They should run much cooler and provide better performance at 1920x1200 resolution.

    A cautionary tale of Asus customer support is below. Not meant to discourage a purchase - it's just the experience I've had the last two years.

    I have purchased two Asus laptops. The two year warranty is a great selling point, especially when you consider the first year includes accidental damage. Both are gaming-class notebooks, and I don't have any major complaints about the systems themselves - it's the post-purchase customer support that has been an issue recently. The first laptop RMA (two years ago) took four days (graphics card died). Asus paid for overnight shipping to and from their repair facility, and everything was fine. A year later, the touchpad died. The RMA process took nearly two weeks and it still wasn't fixed correctly - some noob repair guy jammed the mouse buttons six feet to the right and lifted the button covers way above the surface...something that should have never left the repair shop. This led to the next RMA (another two weeks) to fix the repair. Asus's repair shop ended up calling me telling me the laptop worked just fine and didn't think there was anything that needed fixing. I explained the situation, and they begrudgingly fixed things...sort of. Unfortunately that was the last repair under warranty and the buttons are still slightly off, but otherwise working.

    The second laptop's only RMA has made me seriously question any further purchase of Asus laptops. The display hinge basically exploded. Somehow tension built up through normal opening/closing of the display, and the left display hinge snapped, taking out the motherboard and anything in that corner. Again, Asus paid for shipping to and from the repair facility. Sent the laptop in and ... nothing. I heard nothing from them for two weeks. Their RMA tracking site showed the laptop being received in July, and midway through August it was still "awaiting repair". I called to inquire its status, and was told they were waiting on a motherboard and it would be up to six weeks before the repair was done. After explaining that it was used for school (which started in two weeks), they offered to replace the laptop if a new motherboard didn't arrive soon. Two weeks after that (we're at a month now), they said a motherboard had arrived and the repair would be completed that day. They shipped the laptop back to me, at which time I discovered they failed to return my AC adapter. It took another three weeks of dealing with two levels of customer service (and a bunch of promised, but unreturned phone calls) before I finally got hold of a supervisor's supervisor who was most helpful and as disgusted as I was with the quality of support I had received. She arranged for a new AC adapter to be sent and promised to make sure changes were made to prevent a situation like this from happening again. The whole ordeal took eight weeks.

    So, in summary: Hardware is great, repair process started great but went downhill quickly.


    does getting Neweggs extended warranty worthwhile getting?

    Shop google shows at least 5 or 6 vendors having MSI gt725 between 1,400 to 1800. I emailed one of them, but never heard back from them about its availability.

    2 hard drives? I didn't catch that. well, from what I can tell, the 260M card appears to be equavalent to the ati 4850 & Nvidia 9800. the 4850 is the better card?
  • Dilbert-FirestormDilbert-Firestorm Nuclear Wasteland, Gretna, LA New
    edited October 2009
    btw, doesn't Nvidia GTX260M have any overheat issues? I think someone said all Nvidia GPU had overheat issues.

    Nvidia 4800 & 5800 series gpu, when is that coming out.

    some one told me to take a look at Best Buys' ASUS offerings, the G72. well, they are cheaper than Neweggs. Unfortunately, those laptops are not at my local Best Buy.

    http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olstemplatemapper.jsp?id=pcat17080&type=page&qp=crootcategoryid%23%23-1%23%23-1~~q70726f63657373696e6774696d653a3e313930302d30312d3031~~cabcat0500000%23%230%23%2311a~~cabcat0502000%23%230%23%23o~~f534%7C%7C31372671756f743b20616e64205570~~nf510%7C%7C41737573&list=y&nrp=20&sc=abComputerSP&ks=960&usc=abcat0500000&sp=%2Bcurrentprice+skuid&list=y&iht=n&st=processingtime%3A%3E1900-01-01
  • mertesnmertesn I am Bobby Miller Yukon, OK Icrontian
    edited October 2009
    Dilbert Firestorm wrote:
    btw, doesn't Nvidia GTX260M have any overheat issues? I think someone said all Nvidia GPU had overheat issues.

    Nvidia 4800 & 5800 series gpu, when is that coming out.

    some one told me to take a look at Best Buys' ASUS offerings, the G72. well, they are cheaper than Neweggs. Unfortunately, those laptops are not at my local Best Buy.

    http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olstemplatemapper.jsp?id=pcat17080&type=page&qp=crootcategoryid%23%23-1%23%23-1~~q70726f63657373696e6774696d653a3e313930302d30312d3031~~cabcat0500000%23%230%23%2311a~~cabcat0502000%23%230%23%23o~~f534%7C%7C31372671756f743b20616e64205570~~nf510%7C%7C41737573&list=y&nrp=20&sc=abComputerSP&ks=960&usc=abcat0500000&sp=%2Bcurrentprice+skuid&list=y&iht=n&st=processingtime%3A%3E1900-01-01
    I've heard nothing regarding a 5800 mobile series. Can't happen soon enough IMHO.

    The Best Buy notebooks are cheaper mostly because they use 1600x900 resolution on a 17.3" display. If you're ok with the resolution then go for it. If you want 1920x1200, be ready to pay a little more.

    I have no experience with either video card, so I can't speak to their actual performance or heat. Look around for reviews and decide what you want.
    Dilbert Firestorm wrote:
    does getting Neweggs extended warranty worthwhile getting?
    I've never purchased an extended warranty from Newegg, but $100 to extend a warranty to four years isn't a bad deal.
  • Sledgehammer70Sledgehammer70 California Icrontian
    edited November 2009
    Not sure if you purchased your laptop but my wife & I have 2 ASUS laptops that are amazing machines. I even did a nice review on my laptop a few years ago here:) That GPU is a very nice one in the system you linked and will play most games on some good settings.
  • Dilbert-FirestormDilbert-Firestorm Nuclear Wasteland, Gretna, LA New
    edited November 2009
    warranty, is it worthwhile getting?
  • jaredjared College Station, TX Icrontian
    edited November 2009
    I'm sorry, but I have to.

    Free Asus laptop!! MIRITE GUYZ? :D
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