so i just got a look at benq joybook s31. in white it does look good. the build feels solid. runs cool, but that was just idling temp. the screen looks bright and good contrast, vertical viewing angle is pretty wide. to me vertical angle is more important than horizontal, applies only to notebooks, tv is a different matter.
i think its a good buy for a 2.1kg laptop.
correction, at rm3299 i think t31 is a good buy, the c2d ver, s31, is rm500 extra, which is 15-20% more performance per clock cycle. i think the radeon1150 is enough to make up for that compared to gma950.

so after seeing it in person t31 gains merit compare to the almost same price lenovo y400 and asus a8j.

now researching what people says about its reliability/aftermarket services/support.

thx for the info, you went to lowyat or penang?

R55 is Hueg like xbox, it is 15" model.

is that copper heatsink? geh i forgot to check on the s31.

http://pdlib.pconline.com.cn/product/servi...roductId=156936
lots of picture t31 here. by the looks of it aluminium heatsink.
that site just convinced me to get one.
now, between black or white.

i only found the s31 for the same price.
1.66ghz is not fast enough eh

for a machine with 3d card thats bloody cheap.

x1600 is better than geforce7400 though

both is turionx2 tl52.
benq uses ati which is ~15% better than compaq geforce6150.
t31 is 13.3", 2.1kg and compaq 14.1" 2.4kg. i like benq smaller and lighter for the same price.
as in build quality, overall i like benq better.
its not a thinkpad, so expect heat from underneath. on top, i only know its kinda cool when idling. but for the price its a good buy. i'm a budget concious buyer.

i don't like compaq glossy surface. it leaves fingerprint/oilprint, nasty. v3164 isn't glossy, so, way better.

i checked out benq s31. in an air conditioned room its pretty cool, and in bad AC room, its kinda warm. and this is about ~40-50 percent load. its all i can get with the things it got. wmv videos and explorer windows.
the heat is on the left side of the book, where the processor and hard drive is.
it will surely heat up with full load.
i think its pretty good, i expect heat leakage like any other notebook except those build like thinkpad.

the screen is not fast enough.....

will i buy it?
i'm gonna get t31, its cheaper. if i can get a good price, sure.
i like my notebook small, but not too small, and this is the cheapest.

v as in vista, otherwise, its all the same.

i hope they improve the power of the speaker. not those surround stuff.

i found RM3388, you got how much warranty?

you got windows, so its standard price.
the cheap one don't have os.
do a little review. do you like it?
how about heat?

This post has been edited by shirohamada: Feb 8 2007, 12:05 PM

write a short review, or something.
how much you paid? where?
how is the heat, under usage?

i'm getting either this or s31. dunno which one yet. t31 seems better.
how about heat ? on top and bottom.

s73g does come with c2d.
vista is ok, but your apps will run slower. ecspecially with aero on.

abput benq service. its in penang. the dropoff point in lowyat. i guess they still can fix it in lowyat.

any benq dealer? pm me

err, benq.com?

so i got a t31 today, installing windows right now.
setup is hell lot slower than desktop. oh my.

review later

i got linpus linux
too sleepy to review....

the bottom part is kinda hot when full load. you won't like it playing castle of wolfenstein on your lap ;p
up on the keyboard all is find. where the harddrive and cpu resides is warm when in use. not cool, tolerable.
yes i've only tried rtcw. no widescreen support?
i don't have any new games.
idling, its kinda cool. speedfan shows 40C when idles.
powernow works. battery life is 2hours 40minutes. kinda good. err thats when idling and web browsing only.

the screen is bright and shiny, pretty. not too much reflection though. but my eyes hurts after a while, which is bad. matte finish wins
my ears also hurt when i played my winamp playlist.

didn't use any of the bundled software.

got 1GB of ram. the stock is hyundai, bleh. added kingston value ram.
cpu-z tells me dual channel is on. but speed is 160MHz. ftw?
catalyst shows shared ram at 200Mhz.

ram is ddrII533, bleh.

lcd panel is kinda flimsy plastic. sure break with a punch
should've get asus. sturdier.

does notebook bios is really so simple? i expected moar.

oh i got a stuck pixel. which i didn't see when i checked at the store. doh!
try fixing it myself first.

boots windows kinda fast. as fast as my desktop.

lcd viewing angle is not too wide. i can only tolerate till 90degrees more. my eyes hurt.

got question? post. i'm sleeping

someone pm me about t31, so i'll post it here to.

overall i'm pretty happy with it.
but nothing is perfect.

what i don't like about it.
the glossy screen hurt my eyes, any brand with it hurt my eyes ;p
the speaker is pure evil, better get earphones, i'm not expecting anything but could've been better.
the screen built is kinda flimsy. put some pressure on it and the surface bends a little. meaning, you don't wanna stck thing on the notebook, give a punch, and drop it.
my lcd got a stuck pixel, which wan't visible when i tested it out. and benq policy is its not considered as a defect. you need to get a lot more stuck pixel. its fixable by a software, but didn't work for me, yet.
jsceenfix is the tool.
runs pretty cool when idle and small task such as web surfing, office.
get into gaming it'll burn ya, nah, but kinda hot. but except for the insulated thinkpad, every notebook does that.
my sister's dell latitude c2d t7200 runs hotter idling, didn't test in full load.
the fan isn't loud, not annoying loud. acceptable. during gaming? too busy to notice
and the most evil, is when my sister bring home an infected thumb drive, damn her friends are a virus-brewing-pot. and whe said they have antivirus, well, the next step woulde've been, USE IT.

it looks good. in black. white is plastic.
why i didn't get a twinhead? my sister said its too small, accountant use excel, and any smaller will blind you, its raelly her notebook, i'm just the consultant. and the paint will get worn in time, as i saw in a user posted image. t31 is kinda those coloured pallet kind of plastic, rather than paint.
it does feel plasticky, but bleh, good enough.
it does looks good, and feels good to. the touchpad is responsive, and the button button needs a small click, unlike compaq v3000 which is deep, its crap.keyboard is kinda good, not as good as a real keyboard, but good.


gaming?
i've only tried wolfenstein enemy territory, don't know how to run widescreen yet, but at 1024x768 with settings to high i can get 50fps max.
it'll only get a slowdown when there's a crap lot of artillery and air strike at once, briefly. very playable. this is quake3 engine mind that. halo 1 runs pretty smooth at 800x600. this is with 128MB shared video ram dual channel 1GB ram

i only got 2-2.5hours of battery with idling and light work.
with full battery, playing wolfET alittle bit, 50minutes at 80%.

why i didn't get c2d base system, which i'm glad i didn't, gma950 kinda suck. from the test on the dell latitude. despite being dx9, it doesn't run videos in vmr9 properly, this is with coreavc and ffdshow. the chroma kinda b0rked, so i run it in overlaymixer, simple xvid avi got stuck in the first frame. mplayerc crashed. so only vmr7 worked. this is not an extensive test. but the setup works on my t31 and desktop. i blame gma
dedicated is out of budget, but if you want to go for core duo, achievable, light weight? no.

i really did my homework before buying, all 3 months of it. and came to conclude with benq, the condition, which is, cheap, light, small, and got power

when you buy check your ram speeds, i only got 533, bleh, 667 would've been better, its the same price.
check for dead and stuck pixel, stuck pixel is visible under dark/black screen. dead visible in white.

get 1GB of ram, will extend your battery life. the logic is, when you turn of your paging file, the hdd won't get accessed everytime you do something. and hdd is a TNB eater rather than ram. and you're gonna get a better, faster experience.

you can get s31 with core duo for RM2999.

finally. i think its a good buy. no regrets, exceptfor the missed stuck pixel and 533 ram.

oh, and i heard twinhead had kinda bad after sales support, but i'm not saying benq is avy better, cause i really don't know, yet


mine is not a review, but what i think of it ;p
its not that small same width as a 15" xga.
it uses intergrated graphics, meaning shared, max is 256MB, really 128 is enough the bottleneck is there, 256MB would give a miniscule boost if any.

for IGP its the best now, don't know about intel x3000, but that propably release in june? nvidia6150 is good to. gma950, bleh.

haven't benchmark yet, too lazy.

---

Added on March 22, 2007, 5:17 pmwould've been faster if you drive to penang and get it fixed
koatcha >_<

if all yo do is surf the web and do office work, you might want to consider sempron system. if in taiwan t31 does come with a sempron. you might get a cooler system, my desktop runs a sempron and it max out at 35C idles at 24-28C. the turion x2 idles at ~40C and on fire when maxed out
dunnno about celeron.
sempron system would be twinheaed and fujitsu's 15incher. cheap too.

really, reading manga with x2 is overkill.
you might want it if you encode video, does 3d apps, gimp, mathematical research. folding.

what you need is ram.

continue here
http://forum.lowyat.net/topic/401339/+363#
http://forum.lowyat.net/topic/401339/+600#

This post has been edited by shirohamada: Apr 20 2007, 01:09 AM

waht teh crap. i want 3 year warranty.
damnit

oh here's some new info for t31.
i found some time to test on videos.
not codec, but the renderer.

tested with mpc 6.4.9.0
ffdshow and coreavc

overlay mixer, i use this most of the time. not the prettiest, but fast. works.
vmr7/9 renderless, cause theres a lot of excess unuse power , it works perfect, almost. but it introduces tearing in fast motion. i don't like it. the video looks better than overlaymixer though.
this might've something to do with the lcd screen? cause on crt there's way less tearing, and my desktop is only nvidia6100 IGP.
vmr9mixing and yuv mixing is unuseable. it uses too much renderer speed that it drop frames, for 720p stuff. SDTV seems ok.

vmr9 windowed seems the right choice. theres still some tearing but way less. so its useable. video looks the same as renderless. i use vobsub, so no problem there.

vmr7 windowed pretty much looks like overlaymixer, pointless to use.

well, for 1080p h264 stuff only overlay works. anything else drop frames.

oh i also tried fear combat, playable at 800x4xx (ws) with low graphihc settings. i get like 20+ fps. but didn't like the game much, its a 1.8GB waste of download

gma950 is kinda crappy. vmr9 renderless is b0rk unless you use yuv mixing, which is damn slow. overlaymixer is b0rk too, so you might want to consider that.