1st laptop - ASUS vs SONY

[magnosis]

Thank you all for the advice.

The warranty, and overall great feedback & reviews of ASUS notebooks are convincing.

Besides, I've always used ASUS motherboards for my PCs and I can vouch for their impeccable customer service.

So I went and bought the K72JK, for under 1000$

I still wonder if I should have spent a little extra and get the N71, for the benefits of having a 2nd hard-drive bay.

[miggs78]

I believe reading in the reviews that the N71's second hard drive bay lacks a SATA port, so even though you have the port, you can't hook it up to the mobo.. It could be a different model, maybe it was the N71, might wanna check.

I know you usually have to look at the gpu/cpu because those are things that can't be changed, but the N71's gpu would tempt me to go for it, especially if Optimum is available, that's saves some battery life..

[technix]

Asus laptops seldom have an eSATA port. Also, it is rare it would have BOTH an eSATA AND LED screen. I've only noticed $2000 gaming machines having such configuration. Imho, Asus laptops are way overrated and way more expensive for what you get.

I'd take a serious look at Toshiba and Samsung laptops before I'd ever consider an overrated Asus. Asus has good marketing, though.

[magnosis]

@miggs78: not the first person to report that. I could never find if it was that the 2nd Bay didn't have a connector, of it was the Motherboard that lacked a second port. If it's just a matter of opening the case and adding a SATA cable, it wouldn't be that bad.

[technix]

I found two Asus laptops I like... a bit epensive... $$$$!!!! However, I like the specs although it won't win any battery life awards.

Newegg.ca - ASUS G Series G51JX-X1 NoteBook Intel Core i7 720QM(1.60GHz) 15.6" 4GB Memory DDR3 1066 500GB HDD 7200rpm DVD Super Multi NVIDIA GeForce GTS 360M

and

Newegg.ca - ASUS N71JQ-X1 NoteBook Intel Core i7 720QM(1.60GHz) 17.3" 4GB Memory DDR3 1066 500GB HDD 7200rpm DVD Super Multi ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5730

This one isn't bad?:
Newegg.ca - ASUS N73JN-X1 NoteBook Intel Core i5 450M(2.40GHz) 17.3" 4GB Memory DDR3 1066 500GB HDD 7200rpm DVD Super Multi NVIDIA GeForce GT 335M

I might want a laptop with better battery life though whenever I get around to buying a new one.

I like MSI, Samsung and Toshiba laptops generally for the price/features you get. I guess some of those Asus laptops are also good.... it's just that I prefer a feature set including a decent cpu (that can do virtualization) and LED screen/16:9 or 1600x900 for screens 16" and over with an eSATA port if possible. I guess that's not a dealbreaker, the last feature request but for $1000+ laptops, I thought it should have it.

Those are the four brands I'd compare models with and trying to find the features/price I prefer. The only question mark is whether to go more with battery life or power.