*Official UL30VT-X1 Owners Lounge*

Studio XPS 1340 is a pretty good deal on dell outlet site.. you can get a 2.4ghz(1066 fsb!) core2duo.... 9500m.. 320gb(7200)..4gb..draft.. higher res screen.. dvd drve.. etc.. for about $800.. and if you grab a 15 percent coupon code which are around quite a bit you could be under $700.
The laptops about .5 inch thicker... half the battery life and weighs 1.5 lb's more... but has a dvd drive. performance wise probably a little better.. although the 9500m won't quite get you the g210m's performance.

The size, Battery life and the g210m are Huge to me so I'm going with the ASUS.. which is on order.. can't wait!

 

Having previously owned a SXPS13 and played around with a friend's UL30vt, I can safely say that the trade offs are about the same.

SXPS13 pros over the UL30vt:
-built quality-the built quality of the SXPS13 is EXTREMELY good. I have also owned a Sony Vaio SR. I can safely say that the built quality of the SXPS13 is above and beyond both the UL30vt AND the Vaio SR COMBINED!
-screen-If you get the WLED screen, which should cost $100 extra, then you will have an extremely good screen. Best screen I had ever seen in a long time. Even the normal screen is relatively good.
-processor speed-obviously the SXPS13's processor is a lot faster than the UL30vt's.
-price-the SXPS13 is simply cheaper.
-looks-I know this is subjective, but imho the SXPS13 looks a lot more classy than the UL30vt.
-DELL in-home service-I have had an ASUS before, so I can safely say that DELL's warranty service is much better than that of ASUS. Then again, your laptop shouldn't be frequently breaking apart in the first place. Also, if you really took care of your laptop, the warranty shouldn't matter at all.

UL30vt pros over the SXPS13:
-weight-the UL30vt is 1lb lighter than the the SXPS13. Since the 13inch category of laptops are supposed to be portable, weight should be a big consideration in the purchase.
-thickness-the UL30vt is somewhat thinner than the SXPS13, but the compromise is that the UL30vt lacks an optical drive. Seriously tho, who uses optical drives these days? I know I don't.
-graphics-for the mobile gamer in all of us, the UL30vt's included GPU chip is much better than the SXPS13. Even though the UL30vt's processor is slower, you will still gamer much better on it than the SXPS13.
-heat-imo the heat on the SXPS13 really wasn't that bad at all. It never really got uncomfortably hot on me. The UL30vt, on the other hand, will stay super cool. Great heat management is always a plus.
-battery life-yep, you knew this was going to happen. The UL30vt's battery life is simply unmatched by any 13inch laptop with a discrete gpu. It's even better than the Vaio Z!!!

 

I have both sitting on my desk right now, studio xps 13 has better build quality, and more sturdy. The LCD is brighter and of a higher quality. The keys are backlight.

Everything else goes to ul30vt, I personally prefer the ul30vt more for its battery and much thinner footprint and the video card.

 

Nope... Works fine for me. No idea what would be the issue... Sorry.

 

Merry Christmas Everyone!!!

}:^)~

 

Happy holidays, all!

I've been wrestling with the idea of returning my UL30VT after playing with a Mac side by side.

Aesthetically, the UL30VT isn't bad, but is a major fingerprint magnet. Heat is amazing on this thing - it barely ever gets warm and always maintains a comfy temp. The keyboard has no flex. I've actually grown accustomed to the touchpad. It's quite smooth but still pales in comparison to the MBP. Which is fine, but the MBP screen is much nicer than the screen on the UL30VT, which is STILL fine, but the MBP keyboard is backlit, an issue I thought would be moot, but I realized how much I wanted a backlit after pounding away on the VT in bed, at night. Which is STILL fine, but my UL30VT has the loudest, horrible sounding and feeling creaky palm rest right above the left speaker, which is where I rest my palm when typing. This was the dealbreaker.

I like the MBP 13, but wish it was as light as the VT, with discrete graphics like the VT.

A shame, really. I thought the UL30VT was perfect for me.

 

I sold my 13" MBP last week in anticipation of getting the UL30VT but seeing this makes me leery. Honestly, I liked the MBP but I really wish there was a version with more USB ports and NO optical drive. I really don't see Apple doing this unless they completely revamped the Air.

Not sure which laptop I'm going to get now. Maybe the UL30VT-A2 will fix some quirks but I'm not getting my hopes up.

 

For those of you using Linux on UL30VT, here's how you can power down the Nvidia card to save up to 4W of power.

Disclaimer: this is a quick hack that happens to work for me. Use at your own risk. I'm assuming some level of UNIX knowledge in my instructions below, i.e., an ability to compile and install stuff. I used Ubuntu 9.10, 64-bit, with the 2.6.31-16 kernel. The code is derived from "lenovo_acpi.c" by Sylvain Joyeux, which I found here.

Code:

#include <acpi/acpi.h>

MODULE_LICENSE("GPL");

static acpi_handle root_handle;

static int __init kill_nvidia(void)
{
    acpi_status status;
    // The device handle
    acpi_handle handle;
    struct acpi_object_list args;
    // For the return value
    struct acpi_buffer buffer = { ACPI_ALLOCATE_BUFFER, NULL };

    status = acpi_get_handle(root_handle, "\\_SB.PCI0.P0P1.VGA._OFF", &handle);
    if (ACPI_FAILURE(status))
    {
        printk("asus_nvidia: cannot get ACPI handle: %s\n", acpi_format_exception(status));
        return -ENOSYS;
    }

    args.count = 0;
    args.pointer = NULL;

    status = acpi_evaluate_object(handle, NULL, &args, &buffer);
    if (ACPI_FAILURE(status))
    {
        printk("asus_nvidia: _OFF method call failed: %s\n", acpi_format_exception(status));
        return -ENOSYS;
    }
    kfree(buffer.pointer);

    printk("asus_nvidia: disabled the discrete graphics card\n");
    return 0;
}

static void dummy(void)
{
}

module_init(kill_nvidia);
module_exit(dummy);

Save the above code snippet as "asus_nvidia.c". This will need to be compiled as a Linux kernel module and loaded into a running kernel.

Here's the Makefile you can use to compile it:

Code:

ifneq ($(KERNELRELEASE),)
  obj-m := asus_nvidia.o
else
  KERNELDIR ?= /lib/modules/$(shell uname -r)/build
  PWD := $(shell pwd)

default:
        $(MAKE) -C $(KERNELDIR) M=$(PWD) $(EXTRA_FLAGS) modules

clean:
        $(MAKE) -C $(KERNELDIR) M=$(PWD) $(EXTRA_FLAGS) clean

endif

To compile it, simply run:

Code:

make

To install it, run as root:

Code:

cp asus_nvidia.ko /lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/
depmod

To try it out, run as root:

Code:

modprobe asus_nvidia

To load it on each reboot on Ubuntu, run as root:

Code:

echo asus_nvidia >>/etc/modules

That last step will be different on other distros, e.g., on Gentoo you need to append the module name to /etc/modules.autoload.d/kernel-2.6.

You can verify the effect using "powertop". I saw around 13W before loading the module and around 9W after loading it.

One side-effect of using this that I noticed is that, for some reason, ACPI "video" events are no longer generated when using the LCD brightness adjustment hotkeys, so the little Gnome pop-up window does not appear and the brightness does not change; then again, the brightness doesn't normally change without the module either. I'll post more on brightness tomorrow, as I found some workarounds that let you adjust it under Linux.

 

thanks mil2, that works for me, instantly the battery life estimate increased by 60%

ya the brightness doesn't work well, only after reboot it would take affect for me.

 

I think you should take my situation with a grain of salt. Seems like I'm the only one experiencing with such full blown problems. The UL30VT is a very capable, stylish W7 machine.

For me the UL30VT - creaky palm rest + backlit keyboard would be the perfect machine for me at this moment. That, or if Apple decides to release the MBP 13 refresh with dedicated graphics, I'd also be satisfied.