16th October 2007

Asus C90S

posted by Doomzilla in Hardware, Laptop, Modding |

I am in desperate need for a laptop to get some work done while I’m riding the bus to and from work. So, for the last few days, I’ve been dreaming about buying a laptop and have been comparing the different models. I happened upon a nice gaming laptop and instantly recognized it as the Asus C90 by its overall design. I’ve been a huge fan of the Asus C90 series barebone laptops since they came out. You can find them being used by many custom laptop retailers with minor hardware variations and paint jobs. The appeal of the C90 is that everything in the board is standardized and upgradeable, which is a common theme with today’s PC technology, but Asus took it a step further with having everything accessible by one cover held in place by four screws. Most laptops have multiple hatches that you must open to access the various components which can prove to be a real inconvenience when building or troubleshooting. Also, the Asus C90 can use desktop Core 2 Duo processors for those that want a true desktop replacement laptop. Asus have had these out for awhile now, but I can’t believe that they have not been more successful. Obviously, they aren’t going to appeal to people that want a 12″ Ultra-lightweight laptop, but everyone else should check out a system build using the C90 before making a firm decision on anything else.

The only downfall of the Asus C90 is that it is very hard right now to buy a MXM Graphics Card by itself. I contacted a few companies that sell custom laptops and they said that they could not sell me a single graphics card because they get them from the distributor already in the laptop. That really didn’t make sense since they say they are custom computer “builders”, not resellers. So, if you get a laptop you may want to order it with the video card that you know will get you through until your next laptop build. You may not be able to find a card to upgrade with from a retailer if you decide to upgrade later on.

Check out the Computer Shopper video overview of the Asus C90S from this month.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 16th, 2007 at 9:45 am and is filed under Hardware, Laptop, Modding. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

There are currently 2 responses to “Asus C90S”

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  1. 1 On October 16th, 2007, Eric Chevallier said:

    Resellers only being able to sell laptops and not parts makes sense. Distributors order parts based on systems, getting stuck with a laptop that you can’t get a video card for or being stuck with a video card that is an older slot type or some such is not good for business. Laptops are still sold as consumer devices, you wouldn’t call up Samsung and ask for a replacement DVD tray for a set top box. Upgrading anything besides RAM and hard drive in a laptop is still very niche. Almost no one does, and it’s not in any of the large manufactures interest to make parts available, there isn’t much money in it. Plus laptop technology turns over so fast, it’s not like AGP vs PCI express. Plus other things like how much power a video card would need, whether it would require more cooling, etc. You can’t just order a new better heatsink for your laptop. Most of the time you’ll be hard pressed to find a replacement anyway, let alone one that was better. And you can sometimes find a higher watt third party AC adapter that will work with your laptop model but it’s definitely not something you can count on for every model or anything.

    Anyway, I’m not impresssed with that laptop… why would I spend a bunch of money on a laptop that’s going to get like 5 minutes of battery life because it uses a desktop CPU. Plus does it even support the 1333FSB CPUs? If it doesn’t, it will soon be hard to find a CPU to put in it, let alone an upgrade CPU in the future.

    posted on October 16th, 2007 at 8:01 pm

  2. 2 On October 17th, 2007, Eric Chevallier said:

    But ya, if you’re less concerned about heat on your lap or battery life and want great gaming performance, then this might be worth a look. And at least with an MXM slot you MIGHT have a chance to upgrade the card, with a normal laptop you have no chance at all… So it’s not a total loss and this laptop does have it’s place.

    posted on October 17th, 2007 at 1:20 pm

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