ASUS U3 news

Initial excitement about this notebook is fading pretty quickly. The lack of an optical drive really isn't being made up for in any other categories... and tripups like 512mb soldered in RAM hold it back.

Of course, time will have to wait for a hands-on review but the stats aren't looking great at the moment.

I'm also with Jumper in a general dissapointment with the battery life of the past year's Asus lineup. I've been holding out for a V2S, but just a 6cell, when the V2Je barely topped 2 hours with the 6cell? Seriously?!

That near-6 hours w/ a 9cell m1330 is looking more and more tempting, even with the month+ wait.

 

Why the battery life is too short?

 

Well, some would say it's an inevitable result of having very powerful components in such a small notebook, others would say it's because of bad design.

I would say that ASUS is trying too stuff too many powerful components into their notebooks, disregarding battery life even in models where it should actually be an essential consideration (like ultra-portables).

 

Vista eats batteries for lunch.

 

That too, indeed. But most of that should be fixed by turning off the fancy UI effects.

 

Here is a hands on review for the U3 : http://www.trustedreviews.com/notebooks/review/2007/08/23/Exclusive-Asus-U3-Hands-On/p1

 

Thanks for the link, but in the review don't explain me anything that i didn't know before...

 

Geez,2.12kg including 6 cell? Might as well get the M1330 or SZ6!

 

The 6 cell battery outside the notebook structure??

 

What's up with the external optical drive?
That's why I won't buy it...
I'm gonna get the F8...
Slightly bigger, but an internal optical drive.
I can't believe Asus want's customers to carry an external drive around.

 

Most people don't need an optical drive when they're on the go.

BTW the F8 isn't even on the same class as the U3. You can't compare a budget model with a premium one.

 

Those pillocks just can't get it that we guys hate soldered-on RAM... Come one, wake up and browse the forums here!

Stupid engineers.

 

True, but the M1330 gets rediculously good battery life. I want THAT!

 

Well, I do not know Asus's reason for doing so. Maybe they are using a higher clock RAM or "overclocked" RAM, to boost performance, hence the need to use a certain type of RAM for compatibility. They did this for their Motherboard P5K3.

Asus P5K3 - Turbo D3 Onboard Memory

 

Like what Bordello has replied, one of the reason is that most people do not need optical drive when on the go.

Moreover, removing the optical drive save weight and also save power. Standing-by drives also consume power.

 

Right, but in this case all the RAM is soldered on.

In our case, only one slot is soldered on. When the user upgrades, even if the soldered RAM had originally run at higher clocks, the mainboard will run at the lowest clock that fits both RAM chips -- i.e. the new RAM. Thus nullifying any overclock advantage.

There are probably other reasons like difficulty of ensuring access to the RAM slot or whatever. I am not questioning soldered RAM altogether; I am however questioning the reasoning behind soldering a 512MB chip, in Q3 2007, effectively limiting the size of the memory that can be added to the notebook to 2.5GB. We all now this will not be enough in the coming years. And the U3 is supposed to be (I think) a business-oriented notebook that should last the user at least a few years.

 

Yup, it's a puzzle why 512MB. Even Intel Turbo Memory comes with 1GB.

 

Yes, I mean, if they made it even 1GB, it would be pretty much alright.

They do this for most of their smaller (sub 2kg) notebooks; the W5, W7, S6 and U1 all have the 512MB soldered into the mobo as well; only the F9 escapes it and gets 2 free slots. I guess I can understand with the S6 and U1, since they are extremely small 11" notebooks so its probably more space effective to use soldered DIMMs, but with the other larger notebooks, using a soldered DIMM is pretty bad, and having the soldered DIMM as a 512MB unit is beyond unacceptable. Last year, it was ok, since people were still using XP, and nobody really needed more than a gig of memory, but now its pathetic. 1GB will *barely* run Vista, and most consumer notebooks have moved to 2GB, and if the max RAM is just over the 'standard', then it will be a problem for future usability.

 

Yeah, I think your observation is quite accurate that most Asus small form factor notebook feature soldered RAM to save space. I remembered Asus was using micro-SoDimm RAM for S5 and M5 (both are 12" size notebooks) a few years ago.

 

"discrete mode" means what?

 

It means you can only use the HDMI output when using the Geforce 8400.

 

Well, saving space, but thats only for smaller notebooks! The W7 is 1.5" thick for chrissake!

 

any ideas when will the U3 (not U3s) will be for sell?

 

What is the difference?

 

I think there is only one model, the U3s. The U3 is the series, the 's' is the generation of processors, S being for Santa Rosa.

 

so the Asus U3 doesn't even gonna have LED screen?
thats a bad joke from Asus...

to put HDMI output but not LED screen...

 

No idea, they haven't advertised it but the model that NBR previewed did have it.

I'm assuming this:

U3s-A1: 1.6 C2D, 8400/x3100, 120gb, 1.5gb RAM - $1699
U3s-B1: 2.0 C2D, 8400/x3100, 160gb, 2.5gb RAM, LED screen - $2199
U3s-C1: 2.0 C2D, 8400/x3100, 160gb, 2.5gb RAM, LED screen, GPS - $2399

 

Sooooooo, the only U3 anyone will want is too damn expensive? I mean, this even beats out the Sony SZ6 in price, and that even has an optical drive. If the $1699 model had LED, it would be worth it, but without it, its almost useless.

C'mon Asus! You can't price it over Sony and expect it to sell! Get a clue...

 

Coriolis, thanks for fast answers.

there is an advertisment for U3 on their website
but i see no LED there... (Asus Global website).

i'm pretty much gonna buy it if there is a LED on it.
but my problem is that i'm leaving the United State in the very begining of October.

 

Hopefully the U3s will be out by mid September but, alas, no one knows for sure.

 

where you took the details\prices from?

 

I made it up, I said I'm assuming it to be like that. The price of the U3s is speculated to start from $1599 to $1799, and that's pretty low. So I just assumed that 'could' be what it would be like.

 

the ram not running in dual channel might present a performance hit no?

 

Not as large as one would assume, unlike desktops.

 

Dual channel memory only boosts performance by about 1%, so its essentially useless.

 

Wow, the price of the U3s-C1 (the model w/ LED screen and GPS) is so much higher than the base of $1699. I'll have to wait for several reviews to see if it's worth it. At that price, this machine better be flawless.

 

PLEASE NOTE THOSE PRICES ARE NOT FIRM AND NOT MSRP NOR REAL!

I just made assumptions based on previous price points and all.

 

weight
more than the sony sz but has no optical drive... no thx

 

Hmm, I think there will not be a third model at all, the second model will include the GPS into the price.

But again, this is pure speculation, like cori said. I would be really happy if everything was baked into the $1700 price tag, but that seems too good to be true.

 

http://www.notebook.de/asus-u3s-serie-g-701/
Europe price are in (although they are not using the actual U3 photo)
1689€, I would guess when it reaches the US, it would be $1749 or so.

http://www.notebook.de/asus-w2w-serie-g-700/
W2W can also be preordered, 2299€ top end. Sadly i m still looking for the ones without the "HD DVD" ROM. Looks like it ll have integrated web cam and a GDDR3 HD 2600

 

But the U3S-3P040G not include gps?

 

doesn't look like the U3 will have a LED screen, at least not from that link?

 

Who is not going to carry a DVD drive?
What happens if you have harddrive errors or you need to load windows files that have been corrupted and you're traveling? You're just not going to travel without your drive?
Also, the U3 is going to be able to play games. Most games require the games disk to be in an otpical drive before the game is played.
The engineers really dropped the ball on this one. Just put the drive in the notebook...solves all issues.

 

For the second issue with games, you can always convert the disc to an ISO file on your hard disk and mount it to a drive.

 

Its not that easy, you'll most likely need a "no cd" patch too, which is illegal.

 

Not really, burn it as an image, then load the image. There is plenty of freeware programs to do this. I do this with all my CD games, not only does it prevent wear on the CD/DVD disc, it also improves load times, battery usage and noise. It's a lifesaver for notebook users.

I've only used my OD less then a dozen times, 3-4 times was to do a restore on my HD, twice was to install Ubuntu and the rest was to make images of my games.

 

Unfortunately that takes hard drive space, which if you have a lot of video content, ends up being at a constant premium. (I've got less than 20GB left on a 250GB external hard drive - 170GB is video, and I've got like 30GB of music, plus a bunch of CD images). I guess if you make use of the internal hard drive for it, it should be fine.

I do agree, if you look at computer usage, you rarely use a OD ever, only to install/run software and games, and maybe the occasional DVD. Primarily for this reason, I could care less whether the computer has an optical drive or not.

 

any update news for this notebook? Would it be a great choice if compare to Dell M1330?

 

No.....This is another botched concept by Asus. Nobody knows final deets or a release date, it doesn't look like its gonna have LED or GPS, its really not that light considering its triaged the optical drive, and the battery life is pretty pathetic.

 

PortableOne.com says they will have it in stock in 2 weeks...

I heard from somewhere that says U3S does have LED...but only on higher models...not sure though...

and yeah...what about the GPS...didn't hear anything about it...just says in the windows live sweepstakes....