With a great SSD Notebook // Windows 7 possible

Because of the bad reviews for the workmanship of the notebook I looked at my accurate out of the box and could not fault it. Everything is meticulously crafted, the feel is very valuable by the aluminum casing, the Bluray drive is firmly seated, also the display and touchpad. The lid acts due to the material depending on the light between dark and light silver aubergine.

After unpacking and turning on the notebook in quiet environments is moderately audible. I suspected this at first the constant running two fans, in fact, it is the running noise of the hard disk, which significantly drowned the fan. The measured 33 db (A) at idle when tested at Notebookcheck stir exactly here. Since I already had a Samsung SSD 840 Basic installed in my old notebook, I wanted to take over the well. The conversion is very simple: For the screwing of the soil is needed - such as here in another review already correctly described - a Torx T4 screwdriver and a fine Kreuschlitz for the disk body. On the Internet is partially Torx T5, ​​which is not true. The Torx T4 fits exactly. The floor can be to solve all screws remove easily, remove the old hard drive and plug in the new one.

With the SSD, the notebook is almost silent even in absolutely quiet location. Although the two fans run constantly, but are extremely (!) Quiet. Even during the intensive work - opening a programming environment, compiling programs, simultaneously running a virtual machine, convert images and video - driving the fan temporarily minimally high, but also quickly back down. Only when computation-intensive games, they are a little audible - but since you anyway mostly tone.

The Asus comes with Windows 8. I like Windows 8 to be very happy, but would like a clean installation without all the programs and Apps from the manufacturer. Asus includes no program DVDs, so far you need a clean installation, its own Windows 8-DVD. I have only one Windows 8 Pro-DVD and it can not be used with the Asus-Key. Incidentally, even the Windows 8 Enterprise-DVD, which can be downloaded for the 90-day test at Microsoft. Therefore, I have installed Windows 7 Home Premium, for which I had a license left.

Windows 7 can be on the notebook with the newest Flash version 2.06 of Asus not install in UEFI mode; the screen flickers briefly at the "Starting Windows ..." the DVD installation, and then the system freezes. It could be a driver issue. Maybe it works, when Service Pack 1 and the driver slipstreamt and puts together the way a new Windows 7 media. uEFI is anyway not absolutely necessary; its biggest advantage is the faster system startup. I personally drive the computer anyway rarely down, but Be moved him most in standby. However, even at start-up, it takes with SSD with me without uEFI only about 20s until the system is ready. What is necessary in any case, is a GUID partition table instead of the normal MBR at a BIOS installation. Therefore, I had to back up my already used SSD and completely repartition. There are also instructions on the Internet on how to convert a hard disk with no data loss; how well the work, I did not try - save and play back was convenient ;-)

Asus provides for Windows 7 no driver available, so far one must together look for the driver step by step. Some can be taken directly from Asus - the Windows 8 drivers include Windows 7 versions. So for example. For the two graphics chips, sound, card reader and the ATK / ACPI driver. Asus WinFlash Also runs (if one has the ATK / ACPI driver from Asus installed!). A note for the Intel graphics driver: The has in my startup massively slows (about 1 minute waiting time at "Welcome"), when I normally install it by setup. If I instead install it via Device Manager driver update, the system runs flawlessly, yet clean switches back and forth between Intel and nVidia. For the other units - among others Network, chipset - there are at Realtek and Intel drivers.

The notebook runs extremely well and makes great fun in every way. It is with SSD extremely fast, runs very smoothly and is not to bring out of breath due to the strong Intel Core i7 even with processor-intensive tasks. The graphics convinced me, where I bought the notebook less to play, since I hardly play computer games. Therefore, I can try even older titles like Far Cry, but running well at high settings. In other reports we read of Throttling the CPU under heavy load, which you can meet by ThrottleStop (software) is - I have not tried it, so I can not say anything. When battery life to reach the specified Notebookcheck values ​​of about 5 hours at office work. I run the notebook usually via HDMI to an external monitor and let the lid folded what works very well. But the display itself convinces with good sharpness, high brightness, vivid colors and in particular by the matt screen. Also very appealing is the sound with an external subwoofer is included. The subwoofer is about the size of a soda can (0.33l) and weighs an estimated 200gr. A nice gimmick on the go if you eg. The hotel is. Typing on the illuminated keyboard is pleasant. The touchpad is fine - I personally like the touchpad but not generally so happy. The temperature development convinced; the Asus developed in compute-intensive work (see above: programming, compiling, photos / videos convert, ...) a lot of heat.

All in all I'm very happy with the notebook and consider it especially for the price of (me) around 1.060, - for a real bargain. Thumbs up in every respect.