Asus M50VM: Finally got it!

[Myopic]

Been waiting days for this to arrive. Phew...PIC HEAVY THREAD!

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ASUS M50VM
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Typical brown packing box:


Contents:


OK not so fast! Here's the carrying case:




And now the main attraction, under the spotlight:

Nice white box, I'm a sucker for clean packaging

Unboxing again...:


...Here we go! In virgin plastic protective sheets:




Battery goes in:


In all its glory:



The touchpad is a little odd. Has your horizontal and vertical scroll to the bottom and right side; however if you tap the top right corner of it, the touchpad goes backlit in blue; enabling the multimedia functions on it, its possible to suddenly activate it when scrolling through webpages...

Lets start from the top. A 1.3M webcam with vertical swivel (small angle though), quality-wise I found it rather clear...:



Specs:
-Intel Core2Duo T9400 2.53Ghz, 6Mb L2, 1066MHz FSB
-2+2Gb RAM, 800Mhz
-Nvidia 9600M GS 1GB
-500GB 5400rpm HDD
-15.4" WSXGA+ 1680x1050 res.
-Blu-Ray (Read-only), DVD Combo drive
-1.3M webcam, vertical swivel
-Intel ABGN Wireless, Bluetooth, infrared
-Vista Home Premium 32bit
-2 year Global Warranty

...I went for this solely for gaming performance, initally I opted for the Asus G50, however its not out yet here and I needed a laptop asap.

Now, the keyboard. First thing you'll notice; a numberpad crammed into a 15.4" laptop! Personally I don't use numberpads much though...:

Either I'm not used to the keyboard, or its really hard to type on! It tends to skip some letters...Or I'm too used to desktop keyboards. If I were to type normally I'd get something like: "Helloy myname is Myopic and I love making tyops"

Marketing gimmicks...Altec Lansing Speakers:



At the front left of the laptop theres the connectivity; Infrared and bluetooth switch (nothing on the front right though):


Left side of the laptop; VGA, heat vents outward to the side instead of the bottom, USB, IEEE 1394, E-Sata, HDMI, SD reader, and that huge slot which my memory fails to recall the name...


Rear:


Rear left; Power and Ethernet (and a tinier slot, for modem?)


Rear right; Kensington slot:


Right side; USB, Blu-ray DVD Combo Read only (agh darnit; I'd rather ditch this for a better graphics card!), USB, USB (4 in total throughout the notebook), audio ports:


Overall the laptop runs rather cool; except the exhaust vent to the left; I kinda had a BSOD once when leaving it on the bed, not sure if thats the cause though...

Performance wise, I pulled out C&C3 and experimented. 1680x1050, highest settings no AA, no Shadows...Lovely. Rather smooth gameplay I must say!

This is my first foray into Vista; True its 32bit so I don't use the full 4GB RAM it came with...Under Windows Experience Index the laptop scored a 5.0 (though I don't really refer to that; I'd use other benchmarks)...So far so good.

The gloss surface overall is killin me though! Was tough to photograph with the dust here and there...and the low lighting (thankfully I finally got a DSLR; huge stepup from my phone cam...)

I might do a few benchmarks when I'm free; Guess I'll probably be playing games first!

Last shot:



Pics photographed using a Nikon D40 on a tripod.

[drew and not u]

Awesome looking laptop, Asus's are great. Not to crap on your purchase, but if it's purely for gaming performance, why didn't you go with a model with a higher end GPU, like a 9800? Even with the 9600 I'm sure it will stick kick some ass.

[azianai]

and just to clarify a bit, that Disk Drive, is it BluRay read only DVD burner? Or both read only?
Anyway, looks great as a notebook, you'll prob get about the same performance from the 9600mGT as a standard desktop 8600GT.

[Myopic]

@drew: Sadly I had limited choice...This was the highest performance I could find out of a 15.4" laptop here in Malaysia

@azianai: Whoops my bad. Yea it can burn DVDs...Not Blu-ray though.

If only I could get my hands on one of those Clevo's with 9800s on it...But this will do; I'm really happy with its performance so far

[gvblake22]

Wow, this guy is awesome! Not too many people wait for their expensive new laptop to be delivered only to tediously unpack it and take pictures for us tech-hungry HL members before they even turn it on!

[drew and not u]

Good call, thanks for the great pics! That's a killer notebook, I'm sure you'll love it.

[RA1D]

nice pics man, thanks for sharing

[Parker]

Wow thats a sweet laptop!!!

And awesome pics! What camera do you have?

Thanks for sharing man!

[azianai]

Oh im sure you'll love it, i was ok with an 8600mGS on my old HP notebook.
That 9600mGS will be more than enough to play majority of games at a great level (minus Crysis, but who cares about Crysis).

[Yellowhello]

Looks great!