The Glade 4.0

Thinking of buying it tomorrow...I haven't seen this much power packed into a laptop ever, let alone at such a low price.
(Note that it would replace my desktop.)

Summary:
Intel Core i7-720QM
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5870 1GB GDDR5
8 GB DDR3 RAM
17.3" 1600x900 LED-backlit monitor
Altec Lansing Audio
802.11n
Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit
DVD-R/CD-R drive. Tons of ports and card readers and stuff
Backlit keyboard
$1499 Cdn

http://www.bestbuy.ca/en-CA/product/asu ... 0ca552en02

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

Sounds Awesome. I need an upgrade myself. Must Save

_________________
"Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one." Charles Mackay

sounds sweet

_________________
Darksiege
Traveller, Calé, Whisperer
Lead me not into temptation; for I know a shortcut

It looks like you'll want to get a heat-dissipating lap-pad or something. =P My significantly less powerful one can get quite warm while gaming. Same goes for the power brick, make sure you don't stick it permanently back somewhere with bad ventilation/heat sensitive stuff.

But looks nice.

I think I've come to the conclusion that I won't upgrade the laptop 'till they make an affordable-ish tablet with multi-touch that I feel I can still do some light gaming on. I feel like we're probably not far from seeing multi-touch tablets, so I give it a year and a half to two years.

_________________
"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

With a laptop like this, you're absolutely right. A cooling pad would be a good idea.

Now that said...I've done some reading on this thing. It runs surprisingly cool. Not the coolest laptop ever, but the reviewer did the scientific temperature gages at different points of the laptop and it came in only a little warmer than average. On the anecdotal side, it never got uncomfortable sitting in his lap, and under heavy load, the fans all ran faster making parts of it actually run cooler when measured. Apparently the Mobility 5870 is, in addition to being the fastest mobile chip on the planet, rather cool-running. And the mobile i7 is a very smart chip...turning cores on and off and alternating clockspeeds between 1.6 and 2.8 depending on demand and heat...looks very nice.

Still, laptop 7200 rpm hard drives alone give heat concerns, let alone all the other nice stuff.

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

Yeah. Also don't discount the heat of the exhaust. Depending on how you sit with it, that can also be a "whoah, forgot about that" factor.

_________________
"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

And this is why i hate computer shopping.

On investigating, this still-outstanding deal on a laptop is a special model configured by Asus for BestBuy Canada. The original Asus model sports a full 1080p screen instead of a 900p model, and a 2 year warranty instead of a 1 year warranty. I can buy it at CanadaComputers.com for $1699, a full $200 more than the Bestbuy model.

Of course, a 1 year warranty extension from bestbuy costs $320, which doesn't even get me a prettier 1080p monitor. So now i'm thinking my price just went up another $200...and it was already on the edge of the "I don't want to pay this much for a laptop" point.

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

When you consider how long that unit will be serviceable, it seems like the extra few $$ for a better screen would be well spent.

Absolutely. I am just getting miserly. What started as a look for a cheap replacement laptop turned into this, because it's just too damned good a deal and my desktop needs replacing, too.

I've got it on hold now with the only store left in ontario that still has one. It's about a 45 minute drive away. I'm considering going and buying it right now before my sensible side returns.

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

GO NOW!! GO GO GO GO GO!!!

_________________

Holy shitsnacks!

It's done. I'm posting from her now. She's really purrrrty.

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

Hooray!

_________________

Holy shitsnacks!

Isn't the LED panel amazing? I sprung for one on this Dell laptop 18-months ago when I bought it and I'm soooooo glad I did.

Taly,

I bought an Asus G72 from BB to replace my aging desktop in November. It's worked fine, so far. Runs L4D2 easily and WoW. I bought a Zalman cooler off newegg for $50.

Quiet and the fans in the laptop cycle off more often than on.

_________________
"It's real, grew up in trife life, the times of white lines
The hype vice, murderous nighttimes and knife fights invite crimes" - Nasir Jones

Dragon Age runs at 1080p with all settings absolutely maxed, no slowdowns.

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

How is the cooling on this? When its running fast do the fans generate a lot of noise? And do they exhaust out the bottom, back, or sides ?

I'm considering a PC for audio recording, and am trying to decide between a laptop and silent (home built) desktop. Noise is a consideration.

I find it very quiet for a laptop. The only fans blow out the back, and are somewhat large due to the design. Compared to my old dell, this thing is nearly silent.

The only time i've felt it get warm is when trying out Mass Effect 2 at 1920x1080 with all settings maxed (which it handles wonderfully, it just starts "breaking a sweat," you could say.) It was still pretty quiet.

There is a vent on the bottom, but I think it's just for the subwoofer. There are no fans there.

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

I second the use of Zalman cooling pads. Not cheap, but they are quiet and keep my laptop a good 20 degrees cooler.

Without the cooling pad, the area around the touchpad is too hot to touch- with the cooling pad, I can feel no heat buildup, at all.

_________________
Darksiege: You are not a god damned vulcan homie.

I'm not sure how well they'd work with this laptop.

This laptop only gets warm in one place: along the very back. (even then, it never gets uncomfortably warm there.) It has an unusual design from a cooling perspective. The back portion of the laptop is rather large and roomy, and most of the heat generating components are there. Unlike my old laptop, the keyboard and touchpad never get warm at all.

I think much of a cooling pad's functionality would be wasted as it would be cooling a portion of the laptop that doesn't heat up, unless I set the laptop forward on it so the back edge of the laptop was at the center of the pad. It couldn't hurt, but ...

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

Nice video review of my laptop here. They discuss the fact that it runs surprisingly cool and nearly silent. They looped 3dMark vantage for a half hour, the system was about 25-30 C on top, while the back of the laptop reached 38 Celsius in one spot.
Part 1
[youtube]53ec1AXkZfY[/youtube]

Part 2
[youtube]97UJaliJRug[/youtube]

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

I think the 'vents' on the bottom are air intakes...

Maybe. Hmm.

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

Well I can tell you with my G72's design, which would be rear exhaust and bottom suction, my fan only ever cycles on when running games and even then it goes off fairly often. This is with a black Zalman NC2000 which fits well.

The design of the anodized aluminum shells (mind you, this is based my gut analysis) is that actual mechanism of heat transfer is two-fold: convection and conduction.

Well, duh Ryan, you say. Any two surfaces in real life not in a vacuum will exchange heat by all three modes of transfer. However, I believe it is designed to transfer through both modes. Convective heat transfer is obvious - forced convection is the whole idea behind cooling fans blowing over heat sinks.

However, the shell of the cooler maintains a very cool temperature and is designed to minimize the air space between the bottom of the laptop and drilled aluminum, as air has very bad heat conductive characteristics. This flies in the face of convective heat transfer where this gap would probably (again, gut back of the envelope analysis) optimize convection at a space of an inch or two. Therefore, we can reasonably conclude the design premise is to also provide a large cool surface to remain in near contact with. The shell is very cool to the touch and this further jives with this hypothesis.

I think this cooler would work well with any sort of ventilation configuration in any laptop. There's simply a much greater volume of air shoved through this thing than any laptop could possibly circulate. This design is further optimized air through the whole plane captures whatever ventilation on the bottom of your laptop regardless of where the designers placed it.

And it's quiet and has a variable speed pot dial. Very handy.

_________________
"It's real, grew up in trife life, the times of white lines
The hype vice, murderous nighttimes and knife fights invite crimes" - Nasir Jones