ASUS G73JH-A1 with ATi Mobility Radeon HD 5870 1GB GDDR5 - Part 2

I think some of my posts get lost in the pages filling up in this thread. I keep seeing people wondering about content on BR discs in the future, and I keep seeing warranty concerns with newegg, and pixel policy , etc..

If you search my posts you'll see what I said about (incl BR discs) optical media vs content .. and replies to my own concerns about egg's pixel policy reminded me that asus has a pixel guarantee of its own that supersedes it. I also posted yesterday that I got a squaretrade warranty instead of the one on egg. I searched around and found a 30% off squaretrade warranty coupon valid for yesterday only. There are several 20% off coupon codes still valid too. I ended up getting 3 yrs part and labor coverage for $119 (+ tax in a few states, like mine). For accidental, I'm just sticking with the 1yr accidental that comes with the notebook from asus. The total price of the x1 with 3 yr warranty was enough to make me jump and order it. I got it when it was $1449 at egg too btw.

The main things about egg is that
-- you don't get BR rom drive (if you were going to order one with it in the first place - I wasn't)
-- no 2nd hdd and you might not have 2nd drive holder/tray part when you decide to install one (might have to jimmy it with something or later order part from asus)
-- cheaper price for those items not being included
-- you can't return it for a refund because you changed your mind... you'd get warranty repair/replacement.
-- in stock (for now)
-- cheap shipping, and normally fast shipping

Unfortunately , though my account was charged last night, I've been informed by a rep that no orders are going out of egg's NJ warehouse at all today due to the weather.

 

Ah ok, so you just need something to hold it in so part of the caddy is still there, just not the top part?

 

Obviously there is allot of confusion here:

I do not know where your going with this, we never lie to any customer. We are 100% up front and honest with every customer.

Please understand with the uncertainty from ASUS on how many units are being allocated to any reseller, it is impossible to quote where any customer is in line that ordered in February as you have. Orders started on this machine 12/30/09. We do our best to provide estimates for those who ordered in early January. I apologize we can not provide a number in line for you. We ship all orders in the order they were received.

I have looked on your order details and it appears you have provided emails/phone calls to cancel/reinstate/cancel/reinstate your order. You are welcome to contact me direct to confirm how you want to proceed or contact your sales rep to clear this up. We can get to the bottom of this for you.

That is a bold statement to make. You sir, are completely wrong with your assumption.

 

Okay on the X-1:

2 year ASUS warranty

30 day zero pixel problems warranty

There is a SATA port on the motherboard for a second HD

There is space for a second HD

You need to put your own caddy or mounting as the caddy is not there. (This is easily fixed and I will post a picture guide in the owner's thread.)

The X-1 DOES have 1333Mhz 8GB DDR3.

The X-1 does have an easily replaceable optical drive for Blu-ray, although you may have to accept that the edge may stick out slightly or actually be inside the edge slightly on your replacement Blu-ray drive.

I am actually going to replace mine with a Blu-ray drive that instead of sticking out is too short instead so there are no outside edges. This will be the way to do it so you will have a small indention where the replacement drive is - it will be unnoticeable.

 

I honestly can't say as I haven't been home to look at mine yet. The only person that's received an X1 and has looked at it had to run off to work. So... yeah, hold off on it for now. I'm betting we'll need to order or fashion something though, which sucks.

Justin, I think the "two Justins" bit was just a riff off of a movie. I know you guys have been under a lot of heat with this ASUS mess.

 

Is the BD issue correctable by just switching the bezels? That's what I plan to do.

POST SOME PICS of that caddy issue please!

 

No offense intended. I am sure you will refund the money you have been holding of his that he requested three days ago.

He just seemed rather upset, and there is little reason to see why 3 days is not enough time to cancel an order.

Anyway it is between you and him and I will not comment again, forgive me if I do not feel that every business in the world is benevolent automatically, especially after he shared his story.

 

This is a brilliant idea! It should work and is by far the best solution.

I will post pics once the guide is finished. I literally just got this and am trying to figure out how the second drive is going in.

I think I may be able to mount a caddy from another ASUS notebook I have.

 

Thank You. I assumed there may have been confusion as I did cancel through email then called and told the person I did not want the refund because I was thinking of getting something else that was in stock and then changed my mind to just get the refund and since then every contact has been about the cancellation status. I was worried that something like this might have happened.

 

Definitely. Conspiracies are nice, but how would shipping units to Newegg be any more beneficial than shipping units to small resellers? In both cases, ASUS gets the sales, and with the resellers, there's the added benefit of loyal ASUS customers and tech-savvy customers getting the computer.

I would just guess that since Newegg is big, they put a large order on these things a long time ago. ASUS is expected to honor that order, and it's probably a lot easier as a company telling a small reseller that they're going to get 10 G73s instead of 30 than it is to tell Newegg that they're going to get 50 instead of 200.

 

I think people need to watch what they say about the resellers and realize that they have absolutely no control over when laptops arrive at their store/warehouse and they are simply just waiting for Asus to send the products to them. It's totally out of their hands.

Also, remember that patience is a virtue. It's not a cliche, it's a fact.



To the resellers that are continually active on this forum spending their valuable time helping people and answering questions: THANK YOU!

 

Just dug up some Core i7 720QM benches to look at, prob been posted before.

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/laptops/2009/11/13/intel-core-i7-mobile-720qm-benchmarked/2

http://www.pcgameshardware.com/&menu=browser&mode=article&image_id=1197204&article_id=695848&page=1

 

I second that. They're really going above and beyond what most companies I deal with do. Simply the fact that a lot of you guys can just call them up or send an e-mail and get a response regarding the inventory situation and what shipment you're on is amazing, IMO.

 

time for speculation:
X1 - shipped - sold - delivered
A2 - shipped - sold - delivered
A1 - in limbo -
and the difference is - blue ray drive

anyone think this may be the actual source of the shipping delays from ASUS?

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=458344


FOLLOW THE LINK

PICS

 

Yep, looks like a G73 alright!

 

I jest my good man, I jest

T'was merely an attempt to lighten the mood which had seemed to spread across this fair thread with a classic riddle, rephrased slightly as I understand there are two fellas named Justin at your firm. No harm meant in any way. Anyways, a quick google brought me this reiteration of the riddle:

--
You are traveling down a street and come to a fork in the road. Two guys are standing there, and one of them will always tell you a lie, and one of them will always tell you the truth.
Unfortunately, you don’t know which guy is which, and only one of the two roads leads to the town you need to get to.
Assuming both guys know which road leads to the town, what one question can you ask to find out which path to take?
--

Apologies if it offended, kind sir

 

I have worked with both Justins from XOTICPC over different periods of times. They have both treated me exceptionally well and fair. I have gone through several back and forth issues of my own probably making it harder for them to process my purchases than many people. I know I am well taken care of by them in my purchase quest as I would be by any the primary resellers that contribute to this forum. Judging from the many threads here, most others apparently feel the same way. Their support and patience before, during and after the sale is why many of us end up going to them for our purchases. Remember that this is their livelihood and our support system.

 

i can not agree with the concept that telling you -when your ETA is- and informing people on a computer forum dedicated to the subject of delays is somehow above and beyond. I consider this to be a minimum business standard for a small production/limited quantity item these days.

social networking for industry is a valid and increasingly important function for many companies, more so for smaller/close margin companies in a niche market.

i do not mean to imlpy that they are not helpful, just that it is not exceptional

 

I'm so disappointed. When I first customized the G73JH-A1 on xoticpc.com I had it in RAID 0 configuration and ice diamond thermal compound. Today the page had no raid options or thermal compound options so I e-mailed Justin W and was told that it turns out the A1 and A2 have no raid capabilities and there's no thermal compounds options available. And also the details page says "ETA Middle to Late February." Well the e-mail from Justin tells me the the ETA is now late March, early April. That sucks! I was way excited and now I need to find something with the same kind a price and with at least raid 0 and preferably a thermal compound option! :-( :-(

 

Why do you feel like you need RAID 0 and thermal compound?

RAID 0 doubles the chance of you losing all your data in the case of a drive failure and reports on here claim that the thermal compound doesn't really help cooling much if at all.

 

Just outta curiosity, does anybody know if Xotic is honouring people who already ordered CPU/Thermal paste upgrades like GenTech is?

I'd kinda like to have it (even though there's not much diff apparently, and it's already a cool running laptop) but at the same time, I totally understand that it's a pain for them, and I might just cancel that upgrade anyway...I just don't recall Justin saying anything besides that they probably wouldn't be doing it, but nothing official.

 

I just wanted to clear up something on Newegg not shipping due to snowstorm.

I ordered my X1 this morning and it shipped from CA today. So not all of them are coming from NJ. By the way, I live in Colorado... so maybe your shipping address determines what warehouse they ship it from.

I also did the rush delivery, for only $2.99 I thought it was worth it.

 

luckydevil,

This is NOT a forum dedicated to the subject of delays. This is a forum dedicated to sharing information on the G73JH-A1. And just because you see the re-sellers posting about the Asus delays on this site (something that they don't have to do) doesn't mean that they aren't keeping their customers updated in personal e-mails. They are only putting this out there as a courtesy to non-customers that may be curious about the delay rumors.

If you (or anyone else) have a personal complaint about your re-seller, maybe you want to handle it privately with your re-seller and not publicly in this forum.

OK, I'll step down from my soapbox now,

NightBandit

 

Now that you mention it, mine came from CA as well- I'm in WI though.

 

XoticPC took care of this issue and I am very pleased now! My lesson learned is when doing business with any significant amount of money if it all possible talk to someone directly. Miscommunication was the problem and it's all been straigtened out.

 

Thanks for clearing this up with me rquinn19. We greatly appreciate the follow up forum post and phone call to clarify your situation.

 

mine will ship out from CA as well even though i'm in AL. looks like most of X1's are located in CA.

 

Wonder if someone is going to try and cut a slot in the side of the g73 and reroute a sata port to make a Esata port for it.

 

I didn't mean to imply they are all coming out of NJ, I just said mine is stuck there. I'm in NY state, and NJ is snowbombed. I got rush order free because I signed up for preferred account for the 12mo no interest.. but not so rushed with snow oh well. I just did standard ups 3day anyway. So now it might end up being monday instead of friday.. could be worse.

 

nightbandit,
my speculations about delays were no more OT than about a dozen previous ones. and if you have been reading the thread it IS about 50% of the conversation here. the delays and the resulting feelings.

my opinion about the service quality of the resellers was simply that,expressed in the same way and on the same forum as others have previously done, and in specific directly related to other customer service opinion posted on this thread.
so, umm, step off.
k?

 

Yeah, like march or april

 

Yea the CA warehouse is bigger than the NJ one by quite a bit. My X-1 came from CA and my SSD came from the NJ warehouse.

 

You know, I was just thinking about doing that. But with an extra 500gb HDD, I decided it's too much work when my backup drive is essentially built-in to the computer.

 

I want it because it allows the computer to run better and without it I find it pointless to have two 500gb hard drives. I treat everything I own like gold and baby it so the chances of it having a hard drive failure are slim. I've never had a hard drive fail on me. I also have a external hard drive to back everything up.

I just wanted the thermal compound because it was only 35 bucks more so no big deal with paying 35 bucks to be better safe than sorry.

Like I said tho I don't mind that I can't get the thermal compound so much but I'd really like the RAID 0 so I feel like I'm getting use of the 2nd 500 gb hard drive. I really want the G73 for the Radeon HD 5780 too and it seems like the best future proof laptop for the best price right now.

 

esata slot ripped off a sata to esata bracket idea is clever. if there was a dummy port or gap left on the case that I could use to wedge an esata port into I'd actually consider it, but I wouldn't damage the chasis vs warranty by cutting into it for that its not worth it. Gigabit lan for transfers off a different pc at home/work, and using usb2 external hdd cable will have to do on the road in a pinch.

 

http://newmodeus.com/shop/index.php?cPath=2_27&main_page=index

Thinkpads have this as an available part, also.

Could be hacked easily.

 

So wait The X-1 comes with 1333Mhz 8GB DDR3
but the A1 1066MHz 8GB DDR3? whats that all about...

 

newegg raised the price again to 1549.99 for X1 models...it's keep going up. i guess there are only few available at this time.

 

Um, it doesn't matter a whole lot how you treat it. Hard drives fail, it's a fact of life with anything that has moving parts. I highly suggest you back up your data to an external source if you keep any precious data on a RAID 0 stripe.

 

It's luck of the draw. All of them officially ship with 1066, but at least some of Asus' G series units are actually shipping with 1333.

 

Have we seen one yet with 1066? So far every person that's posted info that I've seen has said they have 1333.

 

I HATE newegg and I HATE my friend who i had told to order on my behalf..
Told him when it was $1420, now $1550!!!
arghh!!
fbkdlvgkdjhbvhkbshjkblv

Explanation for those tempted to flame me by saying its my fault i dint order on my own:
I live in India, was going to get a friend in US to buy it
hmph.. well ex-friend anyway

 

While it's true every owner with one in his/her possession has found the 1333 RAM inside the G73, we've also seen the label ouside the box that specifically calls for 8Gb of 1066 RAM as the standard memory. So, something clearly happened for Asus to put in the more expensive RAM. The G73 is supposed to come with 1066.

 

Sorry Kurt,

That REALLY really sucks! Do you need me to step in?

 

Unfortunately, that is the darkside of newegg. If something is selling like crazy, they are known to increase the price.

 

Wow ask your friend to pay the difference

 

euisungkim

I preordered from Excaliberpc on 1/5/10. it still haven't arrived yet. =/ Asus send the computers faster to Gentech. =(

the ETA went to Mar 2.

Hardest part is waiting... and waiting... and waiting.

=/ Excaliberpc please get ur shipment fast.

 

Sometimes frustration and the generational addiction to instant gratification gets the better of me. I spent a lot of time researching various boutiques, and yours stuck out to me as a customer service-driven small business. I'll stick it out, Justin, and I really admire you being active in a message board like this for the community of your customers. Just...want...mobile...gaming...ambrosia!!!

 

It's just supply and demand. Whether we like it or not is something else.