25
HAlex
6y

So I had to buy a laptop

I had a Lenovo G50-70 (2014) it was really good, mid-range i5, 6GB of RAM and to speed it up I've installed an SSD. 3 years (and some formatting) later it started being slow, I couldn't even play Minecraft anymore (and the battery was dying)

This year we're learning and using PCs for the first (real) time, so I needed a good laptop.

I started searching everywhere, Google, shops, Amazon... (Excluding HP and Acers for good reasons 😂) so I've found this Asus, which isn't really famous, but the model is UX510UX.
FHD display, Nvidia 950M, i7-7500U, really good battery, 8GB of RAM, 1TB of hard disk

I bought an additional 128GB M.2 SSD from WD (I'm sorry but I can't live with a HDD 😂)

All of this for ~700€
I'm very happy for the purchase, the laptop is all metal (pinky bronze, but I like it)

It's really powerful, I can play GTA with mid-high details without any lag. (Remember, I play GTA on the desktop with a 1080 Ti so my standards are high)

I'm happy 😄!

Comments
  • 2
    Zenbooks are pretty good laptops idd
  • 1
    What's wrong with Acers? I've had mine for 3 yrs and not a single problem, it even fell from ~1m height on concrete and got banged up pretty good, but the components inside are just fine ☺ btw i like your new laptop!
  • 3
    @nikola1402 my brother had an Acer a long time ago, it survived a lot of drops, it was great. During the years Acers changed their way to produce laptops, and I'm not a fan of it 😅
  • 1
    @HAlex yeah, i've heard that about dell too...i've always wanted a dell and then i started reading how shitty they've become :)
  • 3
    ASUS laptop won't disappoint you, especially above i5 specs. My ASUS is still kicking strong since 2010. I am hoping to celebrate 10 years anniversary. 😁
  • 1
    If you still have that Lenovo, did you find out why was it being slow? Also for battery, I have same issue (I have an i3 model as my secondary/windows laptop) which started about a year and half after I bought it. I had the display driver & timer unit die once. Somehow my old Sony VAIO is still chugging along just fine. I recently upgraded to an SSD and it boots to login screen in Ubuntu under 5 seconds now (HDD would take about a minute plus). I am thinking about getting a new laptop and I like the Dell mostly but I've read the quality on recent ones are bad. I guess I have to go for the MacBook pro next.
  • 0
    Yea... My ASUS Zenbook display got 4 dead pixels in the first year, keyboard scratches it when it is closed, so bow it has permanent matte marks. Maybe the price/specs is good. But the specs/quality is not.

    And before you say "why didn't you send it over warranty". The display is eligible for warranty when dead pixels are about 2% of all or sth like that...
  • 0
    @flag0 I still have it but I didn't find out why it was slow, I tried using Ubuntu but even Ubuntu was lagging out 😅
  • 0
    @afrometal wow that's awful
    I guess it depends on the model, at this point not even Asus is 100% perfect
  • 0
    Zenbook UX303UB. Similar spec, 13", 256GB SSD, 8GB RAM, i7-6500U, nvidia 940M
  • 1
    @HAlex and frankly cant play shit on it. Wouldnt even try to run my GTA V on it, which is sad that my old laptop that was able to run it broke few months after I bought it (the gta).
  • 0
    Here's some advice from owner of a very similar Asus laptop:
    1 Replace your battery every year. The battery life will drop to <2 hours by the end of an year of usage. Also things like 'hibernation when the battery reaches low level' fail and the laptop abruptly shuts down.
    2 Don't update to the latest Nvidia drivers. Just stick to the latest one available on the Asus site. The graphic card seems to have some power regulation issue if you update to the Nvidia driver.
    3 After every major Windows update (eg., Windows 8 to 10, 10 to creators, creators to fall creators), the BIOS gets quirks like the sleep failing. You'll need to reflash your BIOS. There's also this trick to reflashing to the same(or lower) version which isn't directly allowed by Asus. There are scores of Asus laptop owners who have the same issue littered all over different forums but Asus isn't ready to accept it as their fault.
    4 If you BSOD regularly due to driver power failure, try reflashing BIOS. It might work.
  • 0
    @avalanche no BSODS. I use Manjaro as a daily, Windows for casual gaming only. Always used newest drivers without any problems. I have it for almost 2 years now, battery still around 7-9h, about as new (new reached about 10 sometimes).

    Just dont leave your laptop plugged into the wall all the time. Use it on battery as it is meant to be used. Discharge to ~20%, then charge to ~80-90%. Full charge tends to break the battery lifespan, and leaving it plugged in at 100% even more.
  • 0
    @afrometal my Lenovo y500 still has a the same battery capacity as it had 4 years ago and I almost always had it plugged in as I either used it at university or at home.
  • 1
    I'm a proud owner of the zenbook 3 deluxe 😍 way more expensive at around 1700euros, but I really wanted a very light laptop that's great looking. Thinking of replacing it with the refreshed version i7-8500u which is a quad core beast.
  • 1
    Is the RAM soldered onto the main board? Would love to go with super thin laptops like the X1 carbon but I read that you can not upgrade lot of them when they become outdated and my laptops normally live 4+ years.
  • 0
    @marcom It's protected with a thin layer that you can easily remove
  • 0
    I have zenbook for almost 2 years. Almost the same specs - I have 16GB of RAM and 512GB SSD and maybe some other slight differences. I'm more than happy that I bought it. Performance is very good. There is still around 90% of battery (I'm working every single day) so it's pretty good result. The only thing that sucks is nvidia graphics and linux drivers for it. Works on windows very well tho but I'm using windows once a month or less.

    So yeah, zenbooks are very good and I can recommend buying one :)

    PS. I'm not connected with Asus in any way ;)
  • 0
    @HAlex by lag what do you mean exactly? Did it take time to load things? Does it stutters? Any crashes?
  • 0
    @flag0 45 % the first, 45 % the second reason and 10% the last 😂😂
  • 0
    @HAlex most likely it's the hard disk.
  • 0
    @flag0 as I said I've installed a Samsung SSD
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