A couple q's for W3V owners

I was seriously considering this laptop until I heard of the W3J. I then read the chassis will be identical, which keeps my questions still valid if I opt for the Core Duo replacement.

1) How good is the DVD burner? I have read posts about replacing notebook optical drives with NEC burners. I also read I need to essentially have remove the faceplate and rails from the stock Asus burner. My question is, it doesn't matter what the stock optical drive is, right? Meaning, it can be a CD-RW or DVD-RW and the rails/faceplate will be the same between the two types?

Also, does anyone have any instructions online I could refer to in case I decide to replace the optical drive?

2) Have heard good things about the keyboard. Are the keys very flat? Pictures dont' seem to give me a good visual for some reason. Do the keys wiggle when you move your fingertips across them laterally? I checked out the dv1000 and didn't like that about the keyboard.

3) Battery life! Why do reviews give the oddest figures? One reviewer said don't expect more than 2.5 hours, another said at least 3, another said 3.5-4.

I want to know: with wifi on and max brightness, and bluetooth off, how much battery life will I get if I'm just surfing/typing? No music playing, nothing else.

 

As long as you use good media the burner will be fine. I never have issues burning. the keyboard is great very sturdy and top notch. No need for instructions the optical drive is removable just slides out. I dont think all burners will fit it but you will def need to swap the face plate with the asus one dont see that being much of an issue. And a battery on a w3v will get 4 hours with light use 3.5 pretty much with wifi max brightness. the w3j should be around the same maybe a half hour less but i doubt it. You also can get an optical bay battery and get two hours more battery life.

 

My dvd burner is pickey with the media. I've used good quality discs as well. For example, it didn't like the tayo-yuden -R and the Maxell -R discs but the tdk +R have been working well.

The keyboard is good. No flex anywhere and Im a fairly heavy typer. The keys are pretty flat but practically no side-to-side wiggle. While I'd prefer an IBM thinkpad style keyboard, I think the w3v is better than average.

I get about 3.5 hours (sometimes higher) with med-low brightness and lght usage.

Hope that helps.

 

Usually your ODD take a firmware update that, in part, helps the ODD recognize various media. Find out the exact model and go to its website where they will have instructions how to install it or will provide an installer file to do it. That should help; if it's not recognizing Taiyo-Yuden, that's really too bad. It's the best.

 

If you want even more battery power, undervolt the processor slightly.