A7J vs. W2J? What explains price difference?

What am I missing that explains why the W2J is/will be $800 more expensive than the A7J?? (the WXGA to WSXGA+ was the most significant i could find..and I prefer bigger text anyhow)

Are there any downsides to the A7J that explain why it's so much cheaper?
And can anyone comment on the quality of the 2 screens? Say, compared to s stand-alone desktop LCD? Thanks

 

The W2j is much thinner, better looking, slimmer, etc. It was also much more well planned, engineered, and of course, designed.

Look at my Z83v/W2v review, they are basically the same units, just upgraded processors and video cards. However, I don't know if they are using the same screens.

 

Dear Coriolis:
The main differences you mention seem to be aesthetic/portability issues -- "thinner, better looking, slimmer". Since I'm planning to use it as a DTR and rarely move it, are there any important performance differences that I should care about?

 

Tammy,

Aesthetic/portability issues create a big price difference when you need to fit the same stuff into a smaller place.... so design and materials bring the price up a quite a bit..... if it didn't, there'd be no need for heavier, thicker systems any more.

Another big jump is in the screen. The A7j has a WXGA+ 17" colorshine, while the W2j will have a WSXGA+ 17" colorshine. The res difference jumps the price up a couple hundred.

However the rest of the differences come in the configuration........ a 1.66 ghz verses a 2.0... 512mb verses 1gb... Dual Layer tray drive verses Super Multi slot load drive... XP Home verses XP Pro

Little things like that add up to a lot.

 

Gotcha. I actually prefer the WXGA+ (lower resolution) becuase of eyesight issues -- I simply can't read the fonts on my husband's WSXGA+ 15.4" notebook and I don't think I'd do much better on a 17".
Can't the A7j be ordered with XP Pro, tho?
And I would appreciate very much appreciate your comments on the quality of the screen -- do you think the glossy's a problem for Office apps? Can you compare the quality of the ASUS Splendid etc. (I realize it's subjective) to other well-regarded screens, like Fujitsu for glossy and IBM for matte?
Thanks

 

Not to mention the W2j is a very solid machine looks aside. A plastic notebook will not be as rigid as the w2j. its their top model the A series is their budget notebook. also the W2J screen is very very nice.

 

No, the enesemble models come as is and xp home is used on the model that is brought into the US. Font size is really a very little issue created by a higher resolution which can be solved by a half dozen free programs out there on the web....... but WSXGA+ is not as high on a 17" as it is a 15.4".. that should be kept in mind as well. Basically, don't buy it just for the screen because you can bump those fonts up... in fact, you can download something like eyesaver and try it on your husbands computer first to see what it'll do for you.

Asus' Splendid technology is in all of the screens this year..... all it really is a software package which tweaks the color settings (at least as far as I've seen and I've seen it on a half dozen laptops and about the same amount of desktop monitors.... Asus' Colorshine screen is similiar to Fujitsu's glaretype display...... so much in fact that Samsung makes the screens for Asus, Fujitsu and Sony.... They are all a bit different based on the settings used with the screen, but they are all very similiar.