How we missed this at the ASUS booth is beyond us, but leave it to the eagle-eyes at
Ars to hone in on the ASUS UL80JT with an overclockable Core i7 processor and NVIDIA GeForce 310 graphics. So it's just a run-of-the-mill gaming rig, right? Wrong. The 14-inch laptop has switchable graphics like we have never seen before; the laptop automatically switches, "second-by-second" between the NVIDIA card and the integrated Intel one, instead of the "standard" switchable graphics we've seen on laptops like the
MacBook Pro 15 or
ASUS UL80Vt which require users to switch manually. The major foreseeable benefit of this is longer battery life even when the system is using the discrete card, and ASUS touts 12 hours with the automatic solution turned on. No word on price or availability, but we're guessing ASUS will have more details soon and that we'll start seeing this this in more and more laptops as NVIDIA spreads the love around to the rest of the industry.
Update: We jumped the gun here, we've actually seen this new automatic switching technology in the recently announced
Sony Vaio Z.
posted January 11th 2010 7:18PM
I call bluff
@Vman: Silent PC Review has a write up on using a very similar ASUS UL80Vt and getting 9 hours, 11 minutes out of the machine with constant web browsing (webpage refresh every 20 seconds). They however didn't give Wi-Fi status or screen brightness for the test, which would be more informative.
http://www.silentpcreview.com/asus-ul80vt
@Vman
No bluff here. Engadget was able to get 12 hours and 15 min. out of the UL80Vt(using the intel GPU, the 4500MHD, of course), which had Intel GPU + NVIDIA G210M. The new UL80JT has Intel GPU + NVIDIA G310M, so the results should be about the same, since the Core i7 CPU is still a CULV cpu.
The review of the UL80Vt is linked in the article already, so check it out, if you haven't already.
@Cyrs Sweet. Just the thought that that thing is packing an i7 AND stretching to 12 hours on battery. It's almost contradictory.
@Vman The ASUS UL80Jt will features an Intel Core i& 640UM/620UM processor, Intel GS45 chipset, DDR3 1066Mhz memory expandable upto 4GB, 640GB hard drive, DVD drive and Nvidia GeForce G 310M with 1GB DDR3 VRAM. Wow for the battery indeed. Details: http://bit.ly/ASUS-UL80JT-Details
O my f*king god, this is awesome.
@DBx seriously. I mean if it really does get 12 hours of battery life this might be the best the to come out of CES 2010. But, I'm inclines to doubt this claim. If only Engadget had been doing it's job in Vegas and gotten the scoop on this thing. Slackers!!
JK XD
@Edobe look at the Asus ul80vt or the asus ul30vt. Theyre basically the same systems just with older CPU's but i think the power consumption is pretty equal anyway.
12 hours is with the higher capacity battery they offer so keep that in mind if you look at any benchmarks.
@Edobe
I am amazed by the fact that it switches graphic card by the second, not by the battery life claims.
I will be happy if a Core i7 last 4 hours on a laptop but I mostly use laptops plugged in anyways.
If only ATI would do the same... prefer Radeon to GeForce
@shadowj0 same here. give me a X1200M series pared with a HD5000M series and i will be a happy camper. that said i would still snap up a ul30vt-X1 in a second if i needed or could afford a laptop and Amazon could keep them in stock.
An overclockable i7 processor? Like an ULV i7?
@CJisohsocool
Yes, it is an CULV i7 CPU.
@CJisohsocool The processor itself can turbo up to 2.26Ghz already...so if that works with ASUS' Turbo33 then we're looking at 3Ghz in Turbo33 mode....which is going to make this laptop FLY...
ME WANT!!!
This is kind of like the new Vaio Z, which has an option you can switch to allow a similar thing, automatic switching between the nvidia 330m gpu and the intel gpu.
Does the updated UL30 model with similar specs have this feature ?
@Patlex According to what I've seen, yes. A Youtube hands on here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYk9kfogYr0
Nice but can other laptops be upgradable to do this, I wonder...
....the 310 is not a gaming chip GPU.
@fel - Yep, the G310 here is actually the G210 with nothing but a name change, more "newness" rebadging from Nvidia.
And the G210 was actually a minor update as well. With Nvidias arbitrary and constantly changing naming convention (310 designation only on OEMs), its near impossible to keep track of whats what.
Nvidia shenanigans aside, this is still an AMAZING machine and the hybrid graphics do enhance performance and battery life. Well done Asus! Would be a 10/10 if it had a matte screen.
12 hours with an i7? I call BS unless this has a 20 cell battery.
Its an ulv i7, which uses like 20w max for the cpu and gpu combo.
@Patlex yeah it uses 18w but that includes the integrated video. I've heard the previous ones in the ul30vt/ul80vt used 10w for the cpu alone but when the video was taken into account I've seen figures ranging from 17w to 20w so really its basically the same.
With the higher capacity batteries they apparently got close to the 12 hour mark also with dedicated video and cpu turbo boost (or whatever) off.
I'm so fucking sick of Asus putting that uni-button design on their trackpads. If I wanted that shitty design, I'd waste umpteen-thousand dollars on a crappy Mac. Give me two physical buttons!
@Solidstate89 Between that and the chicklet-style keys, it might as well be a fucking Mac. Tragic that no one seems to learn from the near cult-following that ThinkPad keyboards attract. HP's using these too and it's breaking my heart.
@franktronic
To be fair, the chiclet style keyboard was originally Sony's idea. Apple just copied it from them. But yeah, I'm really getting sick of all the chiclet designs in general.
@franktronic
I like the chicklet style keyboards, I think the Thinkpad keyboards are ugly and stupid.
@CJisohsocool
When describing how well a keyboard feels when typing with it; "ugly and stupid" does not an intelligent opinion make.
@Solidstate89
Yeah it is. It's ugly and stupid. Id rather have something that looks nice :] You'll get used to the new layout after a day or 2.
@Solidstate89 - it IS two physical buttons, it simply has a single cover over the two for aesthetics.
@franktronic last time i strolled through campus there were a lot more Macs than Lenovos. so from a business standpoint it makes way more sense to go with the Mac inspired design. not saying its better, just more popular. popular sells. better doesn't necessarily. look at the iPod.
@kojo87
Errrrrrrrrrrrr ipod is better which is why more people buy them. Go tell your competing companies to learn to compete which is why they laid down for years until Apple brought out the ipod touch before they started bringing out theirs. Yeah so much for competition.
They also are coming out with a UL30jt 13.3" (no optical drive) I was getting ready to buy a UL30vt before seeing the UL30jt news a couple of days ago. Also there is a i5 U30jc with bluray drive that's coming. Both supposedly according to this guy in 4-8 weeks.
http://zedomax.com/blog/2010/01/08/asus-u30jc-hands-on-review-at-ces-2010/
Insane. And I thought 7 hours in the MBP was amazing.
Time to step it up, Apple.
I really wish I had one of these. They're sexy and fast and I spent $1200 on my Vaio FW which gets 2.5hrs. Sad face.
Attention Hookers. This uses the new dual core i5 ULV chip (at 1.06ghz) Tnats why it gets 12 hours battery life. It can turbo to 2.13ghz
@CJisohsocool
Or you could go to the link and see the screen shot of the performance monitor listing a 1.20GHz i7.
Ya know, if you wanted to.
Umm, automatic switchable graphics is already in the to-be-released VAIO Z? You've posted pictures of the goddamn switch and you say you've never seen something like this before?
@revoltracers
Its explained in the post.
@revoltracers its also in the Asus ul30vt and ul80vt which have been out fow a while now.
@revoltracers Totally right. Adding back link to the Z Series.
@Smigit It hasn't been in those, it will be new to this series it appears.
@Joanna Stern sorry I missed the word automatic. Still, you could swap it so its not a biggie
is that 12hours with wifi?
I'm more interested in Asus's support. Sure they make great products, but what if something fails? Do I get Next Business day on-site support? Is that even available to be purchased? I consider these things before buying a laptop. I'm not willing to send it in and wait to get it repaired.
@Zclyh3
And are you willing to pay for that service? That part of the warranty will easily add a minimum of $300 to your purchase and is usually only avail to business accounts. For your run of the mill user, may cost anywhere from $400 and up.
I'm comparing this to our Dell and HP warranty contracts. On a $1200 dollar machine, $300 is easily 4 year warranty
But if you've got it, and are that paranoid, go for it.
@PBB
Given the video work I do, I would pay for it. With Dell I'd gladly pay $300 for a 4 year NBD warranty. I've had motherboards die on my XPS m1330 and my Lattitude E6400. The warranty for the E6400 was only another $100. Downtime is definitely important and no matter where I am in the country, I can always count on getting NBD support from Dell. Can Asus offer that? Like I said, companies can make great products, but I expect top notch support as well, even if it's costs and should be available. Dell offers the best repair support of any company (for those willing to pay). I've had experiences with HP and Lenovo. Both are garbage.
@Zclyh3 I don't know about next day replacement but they do have a 2 year international warranty I think on many of these models as well as having one year of "accidental damage" cover.
Whether that meets your needs I don't know but as far as things go they seem ok at least for the more mainstream user.
how the hell did engadget miss this... i checked engadget every hour during CES for news of a laptop with the new ULV arrandales. not one laptop was reported by engadget with these new ULV arrandales, i thought there were no plans on releasing them for a while... good thing some other people picked up the slack for engadget
Way to ignore my tip, Engadget. Told you guys about this, like, yesterday.