ASUS X550Z

[JefferyD90]

So I purchased a new notebook a few days ago, Its a AMD APU based notebook with a mid-ranged dedicated video card.  Looking at their website it seems like it is a extremely new model.  I do feel like it was good deal, right now its $650.

 

But, I do have some things that I feel like people might want to know.  It could help someone find a notebook for them.

 

1.  It feels REALLY nice in the hands.  Its a tad bit heavy, but it is thin a lot thinner than I expected.  It has a DVD drive, and when I purchased it I expected that the fact that there is even a DVD drive was going to make it too thick for me.  It is a very thin unit.  So thin, that they had to engineer a "clip" for the LAN port because it is thinner than a RJ-45 jack.  All of that coupled with how NICE the brushed aluminum look is.  It is right up there with premium $1000+ notebooks.

 

Overall, the physical look of the notebook is a plus.

 

2.  The notebook comes with a fairly higher end APU that would compete with ANY processor in this price range.  Performance is going to be at least acceptable.  Doing all the things I have done thus far, which doesn't include any games, it seems very responsive and more than capable.  One thing I am not happy about is that it comes with a platter based HDD, not a SSD.  I feel like all computers from this day forth should always come with a SSD regardless of circumstance.

 

The performance of the notebook is a minus 1 because of the lack of SSD.

 

3.  Support.  This is the end all be all of notebook computers.  What does the manufacture's support page look like?  Pretty awful.  It doesn't have critical drivers there for you to download.  For example, the touchpad doesn't have a driver, as well as the media card reader, the ATK keyboard driver is not "supported on this model" when you go to install it, and the "ASUS Update Utility" (once installed) has only 1 update and you guessed it its a new version of the ASUS Update Utility.  Honestly, the support page for this notebook is fairly awful.

 

It is a new model, so giving them a month or two to get it under control might be good.  But as of right now, this is a minus 2.  Quite literally unacceptable.

 

In conclusion, if you are okay with a platter based HDD and you will use the preinstalled Operating System, this notebook is HIGHLY recommended.  Personally, I will be replacing the HDD with a SSD within a month or two (when I decide to install Windows 10 on it).  And by that time I'm hoping that ASUS will have their support pages ironed out and everything.  Right now, I give it a 3/5 with the expectation for it to be a 4/5 or even a 4.5/5.

 

(planning a video review once Windows 10 launches.  The notebook is advertised as Windows 10 ready and everything, so I'm expecting they aren't putting much effort on the Windows 8.1 version of the drivers.  It might even be the reason that the ATK driver isn't supported because its not running the version of Windows it wants, it is the newest version of the ATK driver.)

[JefferyD90]

So, after about a week or so I am going to give a small update.  It does seem this model of notebook is designed, with the idea that it will upgrade amazingly with Windows 10.  As of right now, the notebooks support site has already been updated with some Windows 10 drivers.  So the software issues that I have had, might not be a issue so much.

 

But I do have a slight change to my overall view of the device.  It is either too heavy, or the battery doesn't last long enough.  If it was lighter weight, or if the battery lasted longer I'd be a lot happier with the purchase.

 

As of right now I give it a 3.5/5.

[Metal]

So how is the laptop for gaming?

[JefferyD90]

So how is the laptop for gaming?

Its actually REALLY powerful for a $600 notebook.  CS:GO was getting something like 120fps...  And the other games I play on there aren't worth mentioning, it runs them amazingly.  (Balloon Tower Defense 5 and Tropico 4)

[asus x550z battery issue]

I bough one of them yesterday, the battery is really bad.

 

it works barely for two hours.. is the same for you?

 

if I start to watch some youtube videos in less than 1 hour the battery is down

[JefferyD90]

I bough one of them yesterday, the battery is really bad.

 

it works barely for two hours.. is the same for you?

 

if I start to watch some youtube videos in less than 1 hour the battery is down

The battery life, for me, isn't amazing.  But I certainly got better than a few hours.  I'd say around 3.5-4 hours is what I'm getting.

 

Although I am NOT using the stock OS.  I did a clean install of a retail version of Windows.

[abc123xyz]

is there any over heating issue because of the AMD microprocessor? 

i have heard that AMD microprocessor heat up a lot faster. 

[JefferyD90]

is there any over heating issue because of the AMD microprocessor? 

i have heard that AMD microprocessor heat up a lot faster. 

Nothing unusual at all.

[z7777z]

Do you recommend a particular SSD? Thanks for your review, was a good read.

[JefferyD90]

Do you recommend a particular SSD? Thanks for your review, was a good read.

I personally am fond of just about anything Kingston.  You generally get good performance per dollar with them.

[Promyvion]

I was thinking about buying this laptop but I certainly don't want to run it with Windows 10. I'd like to keep running windows 7. Have you experienced anything more with the ASUS support page as far as updating the driver downloads? I'm hoping the drivers would be compatible with an older OS as this has never really been a problem with most desktop hardware in my experience. Thanks

[HipstA_j]

I have the same notebook

Have you tried overclocking it?I want to run a bit more demanding games on it since the radeon dual graphics r5 M230 series and r6 aren't that good enough since I understand it's a budget pc

But I wanna squeeze a bit more power out of it and that's why I'm asking if you tried overclocking it yet if so what's the safest voltage you found?

[JefferyD90]

HipstA_j, on 26 Dec 2015 - 11:55 PM, said:

I have the same notebook

Have you tried overclocking it?I want to run a bit more demanding games on it since the radeon dual graphics r5 M230 series and r6 aren't that good enough since I understand it's a budget pc

But I wanna squeeze a bit more power out of it and that's why I'm asking if you tried overclocking it yet if so what's the safest voltage you found?

Well, I haven't found a game that I have wanted to play that it cant.  I mean it plays the Star Wars Battlefront game just fine considering details and resolution.  As regard to overclocking, you shouldn't have to touch the voltage at all.

[HipstA_j]

On 12/28/2015 at 4:49 AM, JefferyD90 said:

Well, I haven't found a game that I have wanted to play that it cant.  I mean it plays the Star Wars Battlefront game just fine considering details and resolution.  As regard to overclocking, you shouldn't have to touch the voltage at all.

Perhaps you have a different model since the asus x series has a lot of laptops. Maybe your GPU is much stronger than my model unless you modified some settings on battle front because my model can't run a heavy graphic game like battlefront without heavy frame drop. My model came with the AMD A10 7400P dual graphics R5 and R6 for high performance. 

[JefferyD90]

On ‎3‎/‎29‎/‎2016 at 8:27 PM, HipstA_j said:

Perhaps you have a different model since the asus x series has a lot of laptops. Maybe your GPU is much stronger than my model unless you modified some settings on battle front because my model can't run a heavy graphic game like battlefront without heavy frame drop. My model came with the AMD A10 7400P dual graphics R5 and R6 for high performance. 

I'm sorry but something must be wrong with your machine, like I said I can run just about any game I've thrown at it.  I didn't expect this notebook to actually play GTA V or anything like that at 1080p, but at 768 it is more than capable.