ASUS N81Vp Gaming Notebook Review

Thermals and Facial Recognition

I was impressed with how cool the ASUS N81Vp was while playing movies and Left4Dead! The hottest part was the hot air blowing on my hand on the right side of the laptop. (The temperature of the air coming out of the exhaust vent is show below in blue. All temperatures are in Celcius.)

The N81Vp never got very hot during DVD playback. The temps were recorded by an infrared heat gun. The fan never ran at max speed during DVD playback. The N81Vp actually ran cooler than the ASUS N10Jc netbook we reviewed last month.

While running 3DMark06 in a loop for 30 minutes, we can see that the overall temperature increases, but interestingly enough, the temperature actually decreases in a few areas when the fan ramps up to full speed. Also take notice that the temperature of the air coming out of the exhaust vent jumps up 30 degrees from playing a movie. That was some hot air blowing on my trigger finger while killing zombies in L4D!

Using the ASUS Facial Recognition Software

While I was setting up the ASUS N81Vp soon after I got it, I decided to take advantage of the facial recognition software that ASUS ships pre-installed on many of their notebooks. I had a few problems with the lighting in the room changing throughout the day affecting the software’s ability to recognize us. The software allows you to continue to add additional pictures to increase its ability to recognize your face. After adding some more pictures one evening, I decided to have my wife sit down and I was shocked to see that it immediately recognized her face unintentionally! She had not even touched the N81Vp before then! So the ASUS facial recognition software seems to not be a reliable source of security.