N
(UPDATED)Review-> Zenith Director Plus Ultra Laptop
hello everyone..
i am really sorry for not updating this thread in time. You wont believe but my company gave me a 3 day notice to fly to Taiwan to replace my buddy there at customer company.
so as u can understand that i had to complete a hell lot of work before and after coming to Taiwan. So could not come online and could not test the lappy.
First i thought that how unlucky i am... if i knew before that i would be going to taiwan i would have bought my laptop from taiwan itself...(i see every 2nd electronic thing in india have "Made in Taiwan" stamp). So one day i went shopping here... i was surprised to see that laptops are more expensive here than india!! i got some relief. Then thought of buying mobile phones... they are *exactly* the same price as in india!! It remindes me of mangos in india... i mean india produces so much mango but all get exported and we get then at high price. May be the same case here with laptops..
anyways i will not bore u more... but i have some bad news for all of u waiting for the review... I do not get even a single minute here to play games on my laptop...... and i put a hell lot of programming/heavy applications.. MySql server, java ides, Qt creator, visual studio, bitdefender 2009 internet security, on the lappy.
the lappy runs fast even these applications running in background. I have not shutdown this laptop for the last 3-4 days coz did not got time in the day and in the night there is regular download going on for movies/games (although i do not watch them, saving for future
).
It heats up only a little when not playing games... but i remember when palying games it heats like anything(only the fan side which blows really hot air that i can use it for hair dryer). but know i am confident that nothing will happen to it. Once it slipped from my bed... nothing seem to be broken... it was mishandeled in the flight as well... lucky me...!!
The booting time of this lappy is very long. After the winxp logo comes up the bar animates about 10 times and then there is a 30 sec black screen before coming to login screen.. this happed after i installed many applications and antivirus.
the palmrest attracts dust and fingure prints too easily.. i hv stopped cleaning it.
The shortcut buttons on the keyboard requires a software utility which is very slow in response... the bluetooth button does not work so i hv to on/off it through the utility.
as soon as i will get a chance to play games.. i will try to update. currently i do not hav any games here but i started downloading them.
ps:-
somebody asked where i bought this lappy... i bought it from "Bits n Bytes" jayanti market Jaipur.
original post:-
===========================
hi friends...
so finally after two long delays i got my laptop last sunday. i am writing this on this laptop only...
guys i am not a good writer, i have never written any review before. i am busy these days so first i will write a quick intro and elaborate this post later. I just wanted to post this becoz so many ppl are confused about this laptop and like me they have not seen anybody using zenith laptops.
I was buying the laptop with C2DP8400 2.2Ghz processor but that was 44k, in 40k i got T5800 @2Ghz. (will update about the FSB of this later). Why?? becoz i read somewhere that 4k is too much for 200Mhz increase and i am always near to power socket so i dont need much battery life.
here is the config.
C2D T5800 @2Ghz (800mhz FSB(not sure about this, may be 1066mhz))
4Gb ram
320Gb hdd sata 5400rpm
15.4 1280x800 screen
and rest everything u expect
although it has 4Gb ram but 32bit windows only shows 3gb ram, i google it and found out that this is the case with 32bit, the total addresable is 4gb but windows assigns some parts of its address lines to address other things..(google it for more info). the customer care says that if u install 64bit OS than only u get 4gb ram
Looks:
I like the looks, not as good as dell or hp, but definitely better than lenovos i hv seen. I have the pure black color with small white circles here and there.
Build quality:
the keyboard is ok. the keys responds well and have nice feedback.
screen is good and gives just about the right brightness
the laptop is heavy but the body do not look tough.
the dvd writer tray plastic is very very poor quality.
Bad points:
one really annoying thing is that they hv put mouse tracker not in the center but slightly towards left. every now and then my thumb or palm touches it while typing and the cursor goes here and there. i need to always keep my left hand a little up on the palm rest.
the speaker have very low sound output. but the sound quality is ok.
there are no shortcut buttons on the panel, i dont know why? there is lot of empty space on top. all the shortcuts are merged in function keys, so u hv to use "Fn" + function keys to use simple thing like mute.
the carry bag can only carry this laptop, no extra pockets.. ok they do hv some but really of no use. forget about the looks. but build quality is very good.
More bad points:
..coming soon, (only used this lappy for two days, plz tell me what more u want tested)
Good points:
ok so lets see why i like this lappy..
Games:
for now i only played GTA4,, call of duty 5, nfs carbon... no problems at all... at 1200x800 res all was blown away... gosh... i luv my laptop..
the system is very fast... windows xp runs like win98. will test Fedora 10 and vista soon.
all my prgramming softwares like visual studio 2008, eclipse, ran like anything.
More Good points..
..see "more bad points"..
guys i am very sorry i could not give a good review.. i will edit this post this weekend. plz tell me what to write.
final verdict;-
i strongly recommed this laptop.
just a word of caution.. be prepared to be the victim of remarks from your surroundings like these:
"what ?? tune zenith kyo liya?'
"abe hcl le leta"?
"zenith is chepo.. no quality".
but remember, those ppl really dont know that u have 9600GS inside. and they never will want to know.
hello everyone..
i am really sorry for not updating this thread in time. You wont believe but my company gave me a 3 day notice to fly to Taiwan to replace my buddy there at customer company.
so as u can understand that i had to complete a hell lot of work before and after coming to Taiwan. So could not come online and could not test the lappy.
First i thought that how unlucky i am... if i knew before that i would be going to taiwan i would have bought my laptop from taiwan itself...(i see every 2nd electronic thing in india have "Made in Taiwan" stamp). So one day i went shopping here... i was surprised to see that laptops are more expensive here than india!! i got some relief. Then thought of buying mobile phones... they are *exactly* the same price as in india!! It remindes me of mangos in india... i mean india produces so much mango but all get exported and we get then at high price. May be the same case here with laptops..
anyways i will not bore u more... but i have some bad news for all of u waiting for the review... I do not get even a single minute here to play games on my laptop...... and i put a hell lot of programming/heavy applications.. MySql server, java ides, Qt creator, visual studio, bitdefender 2009 internet security, on the lappy.
the lappy runs fast even these applications running in background. I have not shutdown this laptop for the last 3-4 days coz did not got time in the day and in the night there is regular download going on for movies/games (although i do not watch them, saving for future
). It heats up only a little when not playing games... but i remember when palying games it heats like anything(only the fan side which blows really hot air that i can use it for hair dryer). but know i am confident that nothing will happen to it. Once it slipped from my bed... nothing seem to be broken... it was mishandeled in the flight as well... lucky me...!!
The booting time of this lappy is very long. After the winxp logo comes up the bar animates about 10 times and then there is a 30 sec black screen before coming to login screen.. this happed after i installed many applications and antivirus.
the palmrest attracts dust and fingure prints too easily.. i hv stopped cleaning it.
The shortcut buttons on the keyboard requires a software utility which is very slow in response... the bluetooth button does not work so i hv to on/off it through the utility.
as soon as i will get a chance to play games.. i will try to update. currently i do not hav any games here but i started downloading them.
ps:-
somebody asked where i bought this lappy... i bought it from "Bits n Bytes" jayanti market Jaipur.
original post:-
===========================
hi friends...
so finally after two long delays i got my laptop last sunday. i am writing this on this laptop only...
guys i am not a good writer, i have never written any review before. i am busy these days so first i will write a quick intro and elaborate this post later. I just wanted to post this becoz so many ppl are confused about this laptop and like me they have not seen anybody using zenith laptops.
I was buying the laptop with C2DP8400 2.2Ghz processor but that was 44k, in 40k i got T5800 @2Ghz. (will update about the FSB of this later). Why?? becoz i read somewhere that 4k is too much for 200Mhz increase and i am always near to power socket so i dont need much battery life.
here is the config.
C2D T5800 @2Ghz (800mhz FSB(not sure about this, may be 1066mhz))
4Gb ram
320Gb hdd sata 5400rpm
15.4 1280x800 screen
and rest everything u expect
although it has 4Gb ram but 32bit windows only shows 3gb ram, i google it and found out that this is the case with 32bit, the total addresable is 4gb but windows assigns some parts of its address lines to address other things..(google it for more info). the customer care says that if u install 64bit OS than only u get 4gb ram
Looks:
I like the looks, not as good as dell or hp, but definitely better than lenovos i hv seen. I have the pure black color with small white circles here and there.
Build quality:
the keyboard is ok. the keys responds well and have nice feedback.
screen is good and gives just about the right brightness
the laptop is heavy but the body do not look tough.
the dvd writer tray plastic is very very poor quality.
Bad points:
one really annoying thing is that they hv put mouse tracker not in the center but slightly towards left. every now and then my thumb or palm touches it while typing and the cursor goes here and there. i need to always keep my left hand a little up on the palm rest.
the speaker have very low sound output. but the sound quality is ok.
there are no shortcut buttons on the panel, i dont know why? there is lot of empty space on top. all the shortcuts are merged in function keys, so u hv to use "Fn" + function keys to use simple thing like mute.
the carry bag can only carry this laptop, no extra pockets.. ok they do hv some but really of no use. forget about the looks. but build quality is very good.
More bad points:
..coming soon, (only used this lappy for two days, plz tell me what more u want tested)
Good points:
ok so lets see why i like this lappy..
Games:
for now i only played GTA4,, call of duty 5, nfs carbon... no problems at all... at 1200x800 res all was blown away... gosh... i luv my laptop..
the system is very fast... windows xp runs like win98. will test Fedora 10 and vista soon.
all my prgramming softwares like visual studio 2008, eclipse, ran like anything.
More Good points..
..see "more bad points"..
guys i am very sorry i could not give a good review.. i will edit this post this weekend. plz tell me what to write.
final verdict;-
i strongly recommed this laptop.
just a word of caution.. be prepared to be the victim of remarks from your surroundings like these:
"what ?? tune zenith kyo liya?'
"abe hcl le leta"?
"zenith is chepo.. no quality".
but remember, those ppl really dont know that u have 9600GS inside. and they never will want to know.
In 40k you expect a company to provide you features like HDD shock absorbers! High resolution screen!! Woah!! 
And people don't have big budgets like u have!! OK!?!? And that MSI GT627 laptop ain't available in India for 55k!! U're just converting the price from some international site into INR! 
We're taking about a budget gaming laptop here so better not barge in with suggestions about higher expensive laptops from other companies..every1 knows bout em.. 
8)
As for RAM too, the chipset is Cantiga GM45, same one used by Dell on their Studio(except 14, it still is on 965GM) and Inspiron series of laptops, so one can easily upgrade its RAM to 8GB and that too 800MHz! 
but since I can't, I have to make the most of what I've got. Moreover I won't be even using this laptop for long. 
No problems as yet..have installed a few more games like xmen