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 Okay, let's just lay down a ground
rule here, read this only if you are a guy who does some sort of aerobic/mechanical
lifting exercises, leave immediately if you're someone looking for something to fit in
your DKNY teeny bag. 'cause this machine is _heavy_. Conventional logic of the late 1990s
dictates lithe bodies, gentle curves and even glamour-glamour looks in exchange for real
capability on the boardroom table. Welcome to the world of Kate Moss, Namie Amuro. But I
still like my woman heavy. err... this is a laptop review right?
Nice ass shot.
Yeah, I think it is... sorry sorry. Please don't tell the Reviews Manager that I was
babbling.
The
Competition
Last
year, we witness the release of a slew of lightweight notebooks : the Sony VAIO
(unavailable here) and the Sharp Actius (also known as the cool silver notebook that looks
like a Nokia 8810). And it seems that almost every other PC notebook manufacturer has an
ultraslim in the works. Now, all these ultraslims are pretty good to look at and yeah,
they're tiny and portable, but when it comes down to using them, they are pretty lean on
the features. Don't believe it when someone sells you a product like an ultraslim and
tells you, "Nar, you don't need a CD-ROM drive, okay, who uses CD-ROMs now, okay?
Huh, okay? 800x600 is enuff, okay." Hmm, I guess it's alright for someone to get a
ultralight if all you do is check your mail, then again, if you wanna check your mail, you
could get a Psion or even a PalmPilot. But that's not the point.
Why I need a
heavy computer.
If you're a _heavy_ computing user like I am, or you enjoy
doing a number of the following, then forget the ultralite, you need a heavyweight.
- Sucking mpegs & mp3 off your corporate LAN.
- Quake withdrawal is so bad that your nose starts watering, so you need at least a
portable quake fix at work/school/sleep.
- Opening 23 IE browser windows and you love sites like Hardwarezone that sizes nicely at
1024x768.
- Like to blast the newest mp3 you slurped off ftp://mp@mp@124.234.12.64 and irritate your
co-workers.
- Compiling a Visual C++ program.
- Running Windows.
The Asus F7400 is the high end
model in Asus's newest line of notebooks, hopefully you recall Asus, they are the famous
motherboard and graphics card manufacturer. Now, we're all familiar with the great quality
of their stuff and so how does this notebook compare up with their great product lineup?
Well, GREAT! I shan't reveal the stats of this machine, you can just wonder and drool for
all I care, I want to concentrate on the physical features of this thing first.
Big on size,
big on feel.
The first thing that struck moi when I saw the thing was
that it's wider and longer than my existing notebook, for good reason too, it's got a
bigger screen than my 13.1" (hint hint).
Wah! So big ah.
Opening up the notebook by pushing side tabs on
the LCD screen felt good, I mean it's hard to define how good pushing up an LCD screen can
be, well, but I guess it's more solid, more refined feel than the run of mill flimsy LCDs
I've pushed around. This first impression told me that this is a notebook with a great
build. The keyboard & pointing device layout is pretty conventional, reminiscent of a
Dell/HP clone. The speaker cones are next to where you place your wrist, I dunno, it felt
funny to have round things rubbing your wrists and throbbing when you type in ICQ. Weird.
The keys are pretty amply sized, and they give very good tactile response (ie. it feels
good), there's no real innovation in the input devices department, but it leaves nothing
amissed or wanting. You'll be surprised that some laptops still have weird input devices
or awkward positions, or both. A row of graphic icon appear on the status LCD below the
main LCD screen, it's pretty darn dark to discern anything, silly overlook. Overall, it's
a pretty inviting machine that asks you to stay and use it for a couple of hours. It
didn't take my breathe away at first, but I don't mind holding on to it for quite a while.
Big on features
too.
Hmm, spec junkies here is your meat :
| Dimension |
12.5 inches x 9.8 inches x 1.8 inches(318mm x
250mm x 46.5mm). |
| Weight |
7.01 lbs/3.25kg,(with Hdd, FDD, CD-ROM and Li-Ion battery
pack) |
| Processor & Cache |
Intel Pentium II Mobile Module MMC-2 in AGP architecture
Speeds at 233/266/300
32KB internal cache 512KB pipelined burst L2 cache |
| Chipset and Memory |
Intel 440BX (Pentium II) PCIset
32MB on-board, Two SODIMM sockets for expansion up to 288MB |
| BIOS |
Phoenix, 256KB Flash EPROM,PMU and Plug & Play. |
| LCD Display Panel |
14.1" Active Matrix TFT LCD Display Panel |
| Graphics & Video |
3D and AGP graphics with H/W DVD MPEG-2 playback solution
upgrade (optional daughter-card)
Supports LCD and Tri-view for external display
High quality NTSC/PAL TV video output
4MB SGRAM with 64-bit data bandwidth
XGA 1024 x 768, 32-bit colors |
| HDD |
Removable 2.5" IDE HDD with Ultra DMA/33 support.
Capacity in 2GB/3GB/4GB/6GB or higher. |
| FDD |
Built-in 3.5" 1.44MB FDD |
| Audio |
Built-in 16-bit stereo sound, Sound Blaster Pro
compatible, with 3D sound effects
Built-in AC'97 CODEC
64-voice wavetable synthesizer
Full duplex audio
Built-in stereo speakers and microphone |
| PC Card |
PCMCIA 2.1 compliance, supports one Type III or two Type
II Cards
32-bit PC CardBus architecture and Zoomed VideoTM
Support.
Pipelined architecture allows 130MB/sec throughput via CardBus to PCI local bus |
| Keyboard |
Desktop-like 19mm full-size 86-key keyboard with Windows
function keys |
| Infrared(IrDA) |
One IrDA 1.1 compliance controller with two lens,
FIR-4Mbps/SIR-115.2Kbps. |
| Modem/FAX |
Built-in 56K V.90 Modem
Video-conferencing I/F V.80 supported
Hosted-based digital voice and data |
| Modular Bay |
Removable 5.25" ATAPI 24x CD-ROM drive module, or
interchangeable with others like DVD drive
For battery pack |
| CD-ROM |
Built-in 5.25" ATAPI 24x CD-ROM or DVD-ROM |
| Pointing Device |
Built-in Touchpad pointing device
2 click buttons
"Taps" at your fingerTips enhancement |
| Interface |
One 16550 UART compatible Serial port/D-sub 9-pin
One bi-directional EPP/ECP Parallel port/D-sub 25-pin.
One PS/2 Keyboard/Mouse port with Y cable.
Two lens for Infrared port support IrDA V1.1 up to 4Mbps.
One S-video composite port supports NTSC/PAL video output for TV set
Audio phonejacks for headphone/speaker-out, mic-in, line-in, and line-out
One VGA port/mini Dub 15-pin for PCI Port Replicator.
One USB port.
|
| LED Status Indicator |
AC-in, battery charging, battery gauge, HDD access, CD-ROM
access, PC cards, Suspend mode, Caps lock, Scroll Lock, Num Lock, and Pad Lock. |
| Battery Pack |
Li-Ion 9 cells, 4800mAh, 48W(Typ.)
Run-down life: 2.5~3hrs (Approx.).
Charging Time, 3~5hrs (Power off).
Battery low beep warning |
| Power Management |
Full feature SMI power management, stand-by,
suspend-to-Disk and suspend-to-RAM.
APM 1.2 supported
ACPI 1.0 supported |
| Ventilation Solutions |
Large-size aluminum heatsink plates with heat pipes.
Temperature-controlled cooling fan.
|
| A/C Adaptor |
Output : 19Vdc, 2.4A, 45W(Typ.).
Input : 100~240Vac 50/60Hz universal. |
| Casing |
Metal painting and plastic structure |
Oh my god! They killed Kenny.
It's a _very_ comprehensive notebook, the only
thing that it's short of probably is an integrated 10/100BaseT port, but nothing can't be
solved with a PCMCIA ethercard. I particularly like the speakers, 'cause it can _really_
blast music. I was watching South Park in RealVideo on the F7400 and I was at the other
end of the room, and it still sounded good. Not bad for a pair of vibrating bulges under
your wrist.
Big LCD + Big
Gfx = Great Entertainment machine.
Having 8mb of video ram in an AGP2X port was silly, the LCD
went up to only 1024x768 so even putting it at 32bits color (which it already was) still
left some room. Sigh, I wished I had that much video ram on my desktop. Things people put
in their laptops nowadays.
The first thing, I installed on the machine was
Unreal, I've never laid hands on a laptop with 8mb of video ram (compared to my crap 4mb
Voodoo Rush!) so I figured how it'll perform as a games machine. Running Unreal at 800x600
at 16bit was smooth and realistic (as far as the software renderer goes), it might not
beat your cool blue Voodoo2 SLi, but if you ever have any urge to kill something and watch
it splat when you are in the train then get this notebook.
The only gripe I had with the graphics was that
the sky in 3DMark99 wasn't rendered properly, some polygons seems to be screwed and it
looks pretty bad. It's a driver's thing, so I hope Asus has got a patched up version
coming.
Tried some VCDs with the rig, no gripes to
report, playback was smooth, I tried outting the output to a tv and hell!, VCDs looks so
much better on TV. Wonders of interlacing. However, the desktop was unusable in the TV
mode, erm... 'cause PAL/NTSC (you can choose either in the BIOS) is slightly less than
640x480 lines, so it sucked looking at the 1024x768 desktop. It's the TV's fault this
time.
Battery
Longevity.
Okay, this is hard to beat : 2 hours and 34 minutes for a
single full charge of the battery. I was sucking a 400mb file off the LAN (using PCMCIA
ether), playing VCD; sounds and all, installing a 137mb Sim City 3000 demo and playing it,
ran the 3DMark99 and then ... finally, the thing couldn't take it anymore and the Power
Management kicked in at 1% of battery life.
Err, in less
than 2 sentences.
Buy this laptop if you're a _heavy_ user, be prepared to
lug the thing around, but know that you're lugging a desktop replacement. On a scale of 0
- 5, it gets a 4.5, the missing 0.5 is 'cause it could've been smaller.
Written by Edward.
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