Wednesday, May 12, 2010

My BenQ S57 Part2

*UPDATED*

After about 2 weeks of usage. The laptop has been pretty smooth.
Nothing falling off, everything working as it should, maybe a few glitches with the 64bit OS but all else, -happy face-


  • Battery life is about 2 hours 15 min to about 2 hours 30 min of usage. The lappy drinks batt like water.
  • Laptop heats up quite a lot when games are on. Needs a pretty windy laptop cooler I guess. All else, its fine. At least not hot enough to barbecue yet. The fan can be heard when it is running on max speed but most likely like me, with the game sounds happening, you wont notice it at all.
  • The CD/DVD drive is fairly quiet. Only some sounds when reading the cd.
  • The touch pad could be a little more sensitive but I assume many people would be using a mouse instead.
  • I love the fact that you can touch pad lock and screen lock for this laptop. So for short periods of time, you can lock it and pesky strangers would be dumbfounded. It is also great as you don't have to wait for the screen saver or the screen to off after some time.
  • The fact that 3 USB ports are behind the laptop is a little annoying but we will just let that one go.
  • The screen is fast, clear and bright. Should open the screen with 2 hands as opening it with one hand would make this "thump" sound from the back. I am guessing the screen flexes. So 2 hands.
  • The webcam is a little unsatisfactory but I would have to let that one go as well. No perfect laptops for such a price.
  • The sound output is nice and have clear sounds? I can't really tell the difference as I plug it to external speakers so it just sounds the same when compared to my old lenovo.
  • Would be cooler to have a backlit keyboard but when in a totally dark room, the screen is bright enough to light the keys. XD
  • Keyboard still needs some time to get used to as the placement is a little to the left and it needs to be pressed a little harder than other keyboards. But many have said it is very comfortable to type in the keys.
The S57 has no problems running Left 4 Dead 2 at wide screen, medium, medium, high, high. All else is default. Even with the new heavy rain scenes, the crazy amount of mobs, better graphics and all the cool new effects, the S57 performs very well with no lags at all. Smooth sailing with the punchy HD 4560.

*UPDATE*  - Games playable - L4D2, MW1, MW2, Black Ops (Med Setting), Bad Company 2

*** Remember me mentioning the heat, well I used System Information for Windows while running Bad Company 2, the highest I have seen so far was 93' Celsius. Nothing will catch on fire but still I would advise you to elevate the laptop to have maximum airflow. If you are innovative, make your own laptop cooler as the ones in the market aren't really effective. So I would say, the laptop cooling is just so so.

Here is the screen shot of it.

2 comments:

  1. Steve Jones in Perth AuMay 21, 2011 at 6:50 PM

    Do you still have your S57? I am in Perth Au, and my wife's S57 HD 4650 is fritzed, so I need to replace it (on ebay the 512mb is around 130AU) but what I need is the service manual to work out how to access the card. Generally one takes the monitor hinge covers off, removes the monitor, take keyboard out etc. Do you know anything about this or know how I can get the service manual?

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  2. Hi Steve,
    Sorry to say I don't have enough knowledge about the hardware. Tried searching around for the service manual as well. Nothing came up. Sorry I can't really help.
    However I did come across this blogger who opened up his laptop. So perhaps he can help you out?
    http://johnsonsnews.blogspot.com/2007/08/laptop-cooling-mod-walkthrough.html

    Hope that helps!

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