XMG A102: Testbericht allemein (Windows)

[kufischer]

I have my XMG A102 (from http://www.mysn.de/detail.asp?userid=EA1377056A854A2C94169D1B15381E5C&KategorienOrder=010;020;010;004;010&bestellnr=XMG-A102-TOP#DNconfig) for almost one month now and as a summary I can say I am happy with it.

After after about one week I got everything running that I wanted to have. I changed the basic configuration in two positions: hard disk (180GB SATA-III Intel 520 Series) and Wireless LAN (Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6230). The latter was a decision in favor of not having trouble with a Linux install because Intel officially supports this chip for Linux. I now have a dual boot installation running Windows 7 Pro (64) and Linux (kubuntu 12.04). I'll write a second text purely for the Linux install because there is bit of hacking involved when it comes to Linux.

My main reason to buy the XMG A102 was to have a fast machine that I can take basically always with me. Because I did not have the chance to see the notebook before I bought it, I was a bit concerned whether the size would be fine for doing serious work. From my experience so far, I would say the size is only a problem if one would need to work extensively for more than one hour. However, in this case, I would suggest that one would connect to a bigger screen and a larger keyboard anyway (at least if possible). For regular work, like answering emails or searching the Web, entering text somewhere or doing minor work on word, powerpoint or excel at least for me the notebook is fine. I have not too big fingers and hands and therefore I can type 10 finger system on the keyboard without too many "accidents" and the screen is big enough for most things one want to do, at least in my opinion. However, I admit that my level of typos is slightly increased when I purely use the notebook keyboard. The main thing that is at least to me sometimes an issue is that the touchpad is comparatively large. Of course this is not too bad when one actually uses the touch pad. However, when pure typing is the task to do, one has to be careful not to touch the touch pad by accident otherwise the mouse might jump around and this might result in text entered at places where you did not want to have it.

The second reason to buy the notebook was that I wanted to be able run CUDA programs on the graphics card. Up to now, I at least got to the stage where I could run my own CUDA programs. As far as I can say for now, the GPU is the fastest I have access to and supports the 3.0 architecture which makes it the most sophisticated GPU in my environment.

The notebook gets reasonably warm inside when used for office applications. I did not play 3D games extensively but for the ones which I tested, the situation did not change much. The fan is at least in my experience most of the time silent which is very pleasant especially for office work. The temperature measuring in Linux tells me between 64 and 75 degrees where the fan at least sometimes starts to blow when the temperature is above 69. On the front left the temperature seems to be the highest and I would assume this is where the CPU sits. Still it is no problem for the left arm or hand. The surface of the notebook and the keyboard stay at a level where one can hardly feel the heat below. Same is true for the bottom side of the notebook. It is no problem to place it on your knees while using it.

Other things that some people might object to is that SD cards do not completely disappear in the SC card slot which exits to the front. This is convenient for inserting and extracting cards but might be a source to damage the card and/or the slot.

The internal mic seems to be rather weak. When I tried Skype an external mic did a much better job. However, the camera seems to be great. My Skype partner immediately reported a splendid video.

The sound produced by the internal speakers is at least to me fine. If I want to have better sound I would connect the notebook to my hifi set.

An advantage for me was also that the plugs of the general purpose power supply (in my case Trust) work without problem with the notebook. For my power supply the plug marked "P" is the correct one and seems to be the one that is used for ASUS notebooks. At least it is the same plug that I used for my ASUS F8S.

I did not have any trouble what so ever regarding a Windows install. However, I did not create the USB stick for the install on my own. Of course, I had to copy the drivers from the driver CD to the A102 and install the drivers from the copies but also this was not problem at all.

For what ever reason there seems to be an issue with German layout keyboards with this notebook. I have no idea why something like this can be an issue because it is only a couple of keys that need to be replaces compared to an English layout keyboard. I actually tried to get the notebook from a different source before but the guys from this company rejected the idea of having a German keyboard completely. So make sure that you select a German keyboard, if this is what you wanted to have, and contact mysn (if you actually want to buy there) to find out whether or when it actually is available.

At the end of this brief report, I want to stress that I do not take any responsibility regarding the content of this post. If you decide to buy this or any other notebook, it is completely your own choice. But I assure that my comments above are authentic, honest and to the best of my knowledge.

PS: Apologies for posting English to German forums, however, regarding computer stuff English is more widely used ...