A Bunch of W3J Questions

I've been doing a lot of research over the past few months, and I'm thinking that the W3J is the right notebook for me. However, I've still got a few questions about it that I'd like to straighten out before taking the plunge.

So, if any of you W3J owners could lend me your knowledge, I'd really appreciate it! And please don't feel obligated to answer every question here. If you only know the answers to a few of these questions, I'd still love to hear your input!

1.) I've seen pictures of brand-new W3J machines that have wireless mice and carrying bags included in the box. Does every W3J include these accessories?

2.) It's getting to be the holiday season again, and it's usually around this time of year that some of the best sales and discounts show up. What's the likelihood that the W3J will receive holiday discounts in the next month or two?

3.) The W3J's screen resolution is 1280 x 768. What happens when you try to run a program or play a game that runs at a different resolution? For example, if I were playing a game that could only run at 800 x 600, would I be able to stretch the picture so that it would take up the entire screen, or would I be stuck with black bars on the bottom, top, and sides of the screen?

4.) There are a bunch of handy hotkeys on the W3J (Play, Stop, Skip Tracks, and so on). Can any of these hotkey functions be changed? For example, can I change the function of the Stop button so that it performs the Stop function in Winamp?

5.) Power4 Gear seems like a handy application, but I've been hearing reports of issues and conflicts with it and other applications. Is it worth keeping Power4 Gear installed? And, if not, is there another program that can perform the same functions?

6.) Are there any other significant application conflicts that I should know about?

7.) Along similar lines, it sounds like trouble can result if you upgrade the video card drivers past a certain version. What kinds of troubles have you run in to when upgrading the video card drivers? For how long have these video card driver issues gone unfixed?

8.) What's the status on Vista support on the W3J? Last I heard, Vista couldn't properly run on it. Is this still the case?

And, finally, I'd like to set up a poll just to get an idea of how many people have had significant issues with their W3J machines. If you've had any noteworthy problems, please let me know what happened and what you were able to do to fix the problem.

I realize that I'm asking a lot of questions here, but this is a significant purchase, and I want to be sure that I know everything that I need to before finalizing it. I'd really appreciate any and all input that you have to offer! And, if you can think of anything else that you think I should know, I'd love to hear about it! Thanks in advance!

 

I had had the misfortune to purchase an Asus W3J. It worked fine for about five months and then suddenly it statred having serious problems that even the Asus technicians cannot still fix, although Asus denies at the same time my right to be given a new one (despite the fact I was foolish enough to purchase apartfrom he laptop the "Asus Advantage Programme", i.e., a programme that it seems that offers too many disadvantages).

After getting it back from Italy I was shocked to find out that they have actually not serviced my latpop properly and hence that it still malfunctions!!!

Although there are not many good companies around, it seems that avoiding Asus at all cost is a very good strategy indeed.

Victor Tsilonis

 

Part 1 - Short Briefing: I had had the misfortune to purchase an Asus W3J. It worked fine for about five months and then suddenly it statred having serious problems that even the Asus technicians cannot still fix, although Asus denies at the same time my right to be given a new one, despite the fact I was foolish enough to purchase apart from he laptop the "Asus Advantage Programme", i.e., a programme that it seems that offers too many disadvantages.

Part 2 - The pure facts: As an attorney I took care from the very start that my communication with the "prestigious" Asus company was made in written form. so it is interesting for anybody considering to purchase a laptop like W3J, S6F, VX1, W7, A6 or any kind of Asus motherboards or generally hardware to know how do they react and assist their so-called V.I.P. customers like myself! Please keep your laughs until the very end!

Part 3 - The Worldwide Service Asus boasts that "no matter where you go asus accompanies you all the way" --- ha,ha! I have left from Europe, but they are incapable of doing anything for a whole MONTH. If this is the best they can do for their euphimistically called V.I.P. customers, imangine what do they do for others!

Part 4 - The Asus Politeness. Please note that Asus employees were kind enough to change my personal password in order not to be able any more to send them letters they are obliged to answer through their V.I.P. service but luckily for them I found a way around it to access again the Asus V.I.P. area and make comments)

Part 5 - The Hard Core: The Communication with Asus or "So far So Good"!
Please now go to the end and read from there onwards in order to see fully the develpoment of our kind and helpful communication.


[Email communications with Asus removed by Admin]

 

^^^

 

Try not to listen to overseas complaints. Very different company overseas vs the usa. Alot of overseas customers give asus fremont a bad name for no good reason.
1. yes every w3j with merom has a bag and bt mouse
2. The likelyhood is that the w3j will probably be backordered during the holidays then have a discount. ensembles rarely have any discounts until a refresh is around the corner. So if you dont mind a 100$ rebate for an old product i guess every 3-6 months it happens. w3j has never had a rebate yet and it went through 1 refresh.
3. it is stretched automatically. You need not do it manually. The same thing happens on your desktop or any other lcd.
4. You can not change the function of it but you can make it work with winamp
5. I dont use it. i use nhc my self
6. dont upgrade the vga driver. Keep the base drivers of the cd. Those work 100%.
7. some conflicts in the past included stanby recovery which seems to have been solved with the refresh. If not there are 3 solutions prior to the refresh
8. It is vista compatible. Thus far atk drivers are not available. we tried rc1 about a month ago. It may have changes since then. Asus actually gurantees compatibility them selves.
Keep in midn thsi forum is made for people with problems. If you dont see any posts on a product it does not mean it has no problems it usually means the product is not popular or the target audience is not likely to find trivial issues like standby problems or something similar

 

1. Yes, all Asus Ensemble models with Core 2 Duo processors come with those accessories.

2. Discounts only seem to come out at the transition between models. You might find a retailer that's selling products as part of a holiday sale, but I doubt Asus itself will drop the price.

3. Games and programs that need to be re-scaled are automatically. You can still manually toy with the settings through the games themselves if you still find an issue.

4. The keys cannot be reprogrammed.

5. I'm currently using Power4 Gear. I haven't had any issues with it (unless it's causing the screen not to recover after turning black, which is my only issue). It's fairly useful, especially when running off the battery or watching a movie.

6. Nope

7. You've got to be willing to encounter some issues if you chose to upgrade the video driver beyond updates Asus releases. The stock driver is stable (though it may cause the aforementioned inability to bring the screen back after it turns black) and I've found 6.10 (so far) to be stable. 6.11 was causing major issues when running of the battery and before a reinstall, 6.10 was giving me BSOD sometimes. The reinstall of the driver seems to have done the trick. I put the computer through a minor stress test - 3DMark and some game playing which were the usual culprits when I still had the issue - and so far nothing.

8. I've heard conflicting reports but I assume it is working since those who seem to know what they're doing haven't posted any major issues recently. Maybe a recent BIOS fixed any Vista conflicts which existed in the past.

~ Brett

 

We can't have email communications that are personal copied and pasted into the forums, it's for your own good too so that spammers can't get ahold of your email and start sending you stuff.

 

hes got one more he started a whole thread with the same

 

What you say is absolutely true, but the fact is I have become so furious by their behaviour that I intend even to set up a couple of websites with my written communication with Asus.

I bought W3J from Europe and I sent it to its European Centre in Italy for repair. It's a fairly new model if I am not mistaken and they should have all necessary spare parts readily available.

However, Asus not only does not have any spare parts but it has kept my laptop for a month! Right now, I am even enquiring whether I should take any legal action against Asus.

Another ludicrous detail is that I had paid extra for the Asus advantage programme because as a professional I wanted to make sure I would have the best service available. I truly wonder how bad their service can it be if that is really the best they can do!?!

It is a shame that a company I used to admire and respect shows such a bad behaviour to its customers.

It seems that Companies like Asus want to fool their customers and then they treat them unhumanely. I believe it is up to everybody having such an experience publicize this and tries to make his/her voice heard as much as posssible. Only through this way good companies like Asus will they learn that customers should be treated fairly.

Victor

 

I think they can be reprogrammed
check this out http://power4gear.bk-kicks.com/hcontrol.htm

 

True, but that program requires doing some mods that I don't care enough to fiddle around with. So, yes, I guess you're right, though it's not official.

~ Brett

 

Back to the original topic...

You shouldn't have much to worry about over the W3J. Its got some of the best build quality out there, is nice. I understand there's someone here (I can't remember your name) that has had problems with his W3J, but you have to remember that the only reason you hear negativity, and not much positive comments about ANY laptop is because the satisfied customer wouldn't be ranting about his/her laptop.

 

I'll buy W3J in december this year..
I already found lots of infos and chose W3J..
the advantages of this laptop are the quality, the price, and the qeight (only 2.2kg)
the disadvantage is nothing (this laptop was released in june this year, so it already has some updated drives/bios)

 

I'll give you a small disadvantage, e7fendy

Its specs are slightly lower than before, surpassed by its brother the A8Js. But in terms of looks it can't be touched by any other laptop.

 

lol..
thx smartsam11, yeah.. i saw a8js too, but the quality is not as good as w3j.
for me, the quality is no 1, because i wanna use it for quite a long times (maybe for bout 4 or 5 years)

 

2.2Kg including battery?

 

see this review for more details
http://www.trustedreviews.com/article.aspx?art=3031

it says 1.6kg to 2.2kg with extended battery

 

Extended battery? I didn't think there was one, where can one of those be picked up at, how much more battery life, does anyone know?

 

You can check it in www.milestonepc.com and www.proportable.com. For battery life etc, it's been discussed many times here, search for 'optical battery' and/or 'swappable battery' or something like that.

 

Ah, thx, I though it meant extended life main battery, shoulda know better,

 

Actually I really want to buy one, but I can't find it in my country.

 

It's kind of got me buggered why ASUS can't make an extended main battery for the W3J. Surely it couldn't be that hard to put another row of cells under the upward curve of the main battery. It stays clear of the hinges and would still look great, as well as giving probably 50% extra life. Opinions???????
C'mon guys, let's lobby for anextended main battery. I still like to use my optical drive, so why have to replace it with a secondary battery?

 

You are the worst attorney ever.

 

Maybe, but I am the worst buyer as well!

I can't believe I was foolish enough to purchase a Asus W3J!

I had been waiting for it to be serviced for more than a month and when I eventually got it back (i.e. just yesterday), I was utterly shocked to find out that it still malfunctions the same way it did before sending it to Asus!

I hope you won't regret the same mistake! Have a nice day if possible!

 

I have a W3J and can't be happier

 

Actually, a lot of people have complained about it, so possibly future W3J models/versions will have that included. We never know, wettek .

Robohgedhang, you live in Jakarta, Indonesia, right? That's the location you've stated. There has to be some reseller in Indonesia that will ship you a W3J, and if not, PROPortable ( www.proportable.com), a trusted reseller here at NBR Forums, will ship anywhere in the world, as long as its accepted there. Taxes and the payment in US dollars, you'll have to figure out, unfortunately.

 

Hi smartsam11, what I meant by 'one' is W3J's optical battery, not the W3J itself, which I already own now. W3J is available in Indonesia, although it's the low end (the one with T2300). But you are right, PROPortable and MileStonePC will ship the W3J to anywhere in the world. However, it's different in the case of W3J' optical battery. PROPortable has a rule for minimum price for international delivery, which is basically the cost of the notebook, ie I can't just buy the battery because the cost is under the limit. As for Danny I don't know...

 

I am pretty sure that the Asus estore carries the 6 cell optical bay battery. It's listed with the W3v parts, but I am pretty sure it's the same battery. It's even a little cheaper there too. Although, I am not sure if they will ship interational. If they don't, they should.

 

I still can't install Vista on the latest bios 210...goes into the reboot loop...am I missing anything? =(

 

Hi, just wondering, whats the Logitech mouse that is supplied with the carry bag you get with the W3J? Is it the V200?

 

It's a silver V270.

Cheers.

 

Very nice, thank you for the response. Cant wait until my W3J arrives!!!

 

I would like to thank everyone for sharing their experiences (both good and bad) with the W3J. I've been reading every post made over the last few days, and your input has really helped me out.

I'm pretty much set on the W3J, but now I have to decide between going with the 2.0GHz Core Duo W3J or the 1.66GHz Core 2 Duo W3J. I've been trying to find as many benchmarks as possible to compare the performances of these processors, but I can't find anyone that's directly compared the two of them.

Ideally, I'd love to see a direct comparison between the CD and C2D versions of the W3J. As it stands, I haven't been able to find any benchmarks of the C2D W3J. Does anyone know where I can find this information?

Again, thank you all very much for your help! I'd still love to hear any more input that anyone would like to share!

 

Alright, it seems like there may not be any Core 2 Duo W3J benchmarks available at the moment. In that case, I'll just ask flat out: between the 2.0GHz Core Duo and the 1.66GHz Core 2 Duo, which would be the overall better performer? I'm mostly interested in gaming performance, but I'm also trying to get an idea of which processor would be faster for general use.

 

If you compared Core Duo to Core 2 Duo you will see that in many benchmarks that the C2D is 5-15% better than Core Duo.

Lets average it and say the C2D is 10% better than Core Duo.

So a C2D @1.66ghz multiplied by 10% = 1.82ghz in terms of Core Duo, so a Core Duo 2.0ghz would be only 180mhz faster...not much.

In anycase, the C2D speed is not much to consider, when the fact that the 64bit processing is more important, and more futureproofing.

However, there's a price difference, in which may sway you one way or the other.

 

isnt all core2 duo 32 bit right now?

 

Core Duo is 32 bit but Core 2 Duo is 64 bit


anyway, i'll buy a W3J core duo, because it's much cheaper

 

I went with a core duo version because I needed my w3j before December. The system is great, just do a thurough search about things... how to do the bios flash, how to do the hotkey change, and don't get the newest catalyst 6.9 drivers, get the 6.7's or you'll start having the system reboot itself endlessly if you aren't running on ac power also the speakers are very weak, but the headphone plug is very loud