Another S96J Review

S96J review

I originally ordered the laptop May 25, 2006 from powernotebooks.
My configuration for the laptop is:

1 PowerPro A 2:24 ULTRA (ASUS S96J) - $1,408.00
15.4" WXGA (1280x800) "Color Shine" LCD w/ATi RADEON X1600 w/256MB
Intel® Core™ Duo T2400 1.83GHz Processor w/2,048k L2 On-die cache - 667MHz FSB
2,048MB (2 SODIMMS) DDR2/667 Dual Channel Memory
100GB SATA/150 Hard Drive at 5,400 RPM
Combo Dual Layer SuperMulti DVDR Drive w/Softwares
Built-in Intel® PRO/Wireless 3945 802.11a/b/g
Smart Li-ion Battery (6-Cell)
Full Range Auto Switching AC Adapter
NO Video Adapters for External Monitors
NO Arctic Silver 5
NO Operating System
1 PowerPro 3-year Warranty - Next Business Day Shipping - Lifetime 24/7 - $0.00


To give some background on where I am coming from, this laptop is the fourth laptop that I have owned. My previous 3 laptops were all IBM's, and all have serviced me admirably. My T20 is still working as a linux testbed, and I do all my main software development on a T41 at work. The T41 is a 2 year old laptop, and works wonderfully for all my development needs. Initially, I was tempted to go with yet another IBM but decided against it based on cost/performance and because I wanted to try something new. The S96J offered the most in terms of cost/performance and the 3 year warranty provided by powernotebooks helped me choose them as my vendor.

The laptop arrived at the UPS depot on June 5, 2006. They originally tried delivering it to my doorstep, but because I wasn't home, they held it for me at the depot. Ron emailed me concerning the exception in delivery which I felt was a nice touch.

The laptop was double boxed and covered with plastic protective covering. I have read about laptops whose palm rests were discolored over used, so I initially used the laptop with the shipping plastic covering over the palm rests. This turned out to be a very bad idea and ended up making things worse. Dirt and grime got caught in between the covering and the plastic, and the friction from my hands during typing left hairline scratches all over the palm rests.

I felt the build quality was good in areas but average in others. No creaks were heard when I held the laptop with one hand from a corner, and the entire chassis felt solid. The lcd backing however could have been better built as slight pressure on the the back of the lcd would create ripple patterns on the lcd. Based on my observations from the plastic wrap, I believe the plastic (or the paint) could have been better designed to withstand (or hide) the tell-tale signs of use. Lastly, the feel of the laptop (and I will come back to this issue later...) wasn't quite up to what I was used to on my typematrix (which is similar to a notebook keyboard (typematrix.com)) or the IBM thinkpads's, but nevertheless I felt that I was not bothered by the difference.

The quality of LCD was better than I expected; colors were vibrant and contrasty. The glossy aspect of the LCD bothered me less than I expected it would, and the screen was definitely bright enough for my taste. I found that 80 % (as noted in other posts) was the sweet spot in terms of contrast and brightness.

I've read in other posts that the laptop speakers did not have enough volume. Personally, I found them perfectly fine in that aspect. Sound quality is merely serviceable but this is to be expected from any laptop.

There are plenty of performance marks for this laptop in other posts, so I will not be doing those in this review. The only game I play is WoW and this laptop is a killer on that game, so much so that it's torture now to play on my outdated desktop (with a 9600 pro).

Installation of Windows XP Pro SP 2 and associated was mostly a breeze. I had some issues with the webcam as Windows recognizes the camera under "Scanners and Cameras" in the Control Panel but images acquired were blank. asimobile.com has a nice a support page with drivers and the faq clearly shows what the solution is to this issue under "Top Tech Issues".

I have used this laptop for nearly a month now, and my general impressions of the laptop are positive. I found the SD card slot to be particularly useful for uploading camera images onto the laptop. The system has been rock solid.

The only issue I have had with this laptop involved a key snapping off the keyboard. This happened within a week of me receiving this laptop. I notified Ron of this when he sent an email to check up on how I liked my laptop, and was informed that I had nothing to worry as the 3 year warranty will cover this if it gets worse. Unfortunately for me it did. After another two weeks of use, after I snapped the key back on the keyboard, the key snapped off again. I did not have the same luck with trying to put the key on as I did the first time, and noticed that one of the tabs on the key was bent. Since I really wanted to get the key back on and get back to what I was doing on my laptop, I tried a few more times with the key until the tab broke completely off. At that point I stopped attempting to put the key back.

The remainder of this review concerns my experience with trying to apply the warranty to my problem. I will try to present my experience as objectively as I can.

I emailed Ron that night (Sunday night) regarding this issue, and received a response sometime the next day. I was told to get in touch with the tech support team which I on Monday night. After discussing the issue with the gentleman which picked up immediately after I called, I was informed that the three year warranty did not cover physical damage to the laptop. Naturally, I was shocked as I assumed with my email exchange with Ron that this would be covered under the warranty. The reason why it wasn't covered under warranty was because one of the tabs broke off. I was furious and a little bit of this slipped into the conversation. To his credit, he kept his cool and reiterated that there was nothing he can do and that I should speak to my sales representative. I tried to talk to his manager (Don) and he told me the same thing but was slightly more optimistic in his explanation that this issue will most likely be resolved if I was to speak with my sales representative.

So the next day came about and I called the office in the morning. I spoke to Charlotte and she told me she'll get back to me to see what she can do. She got back to me later that day and told me that a new keyboard will be sent out for me to install and I was to send old keyboard back to them. This was the solution I hoped for as this would allow me to work on the laptop in the interim and I thanked Charlotte for her help.

Given my experiences with both the laptop and the warranty experience, would I purchase this laptop again? Up to the point before the key snapped off, I was completely satisfied with the total package the S96J gave me. I did try browsing around (in my frustration) to see if their was another laptop that I *should* have purchased. No luck in that endeavor, and this only reinforced my initial decision to choose this laptop. I am very glad that things did turn out for the better with regards to the warranty issue so yes, I would purchase this laptop (from powernotebooks) again. [I initially thought the return period is 30 days. I was wrong, the return period is 15 days so the service powernotebooks extended to me is even more appreciated.]





Full resolution images can be found on my flickr account (skchow)

I hope this information will prove useful for those still on the fence with regards to this laptop.

 

i just got my s96 from powernotebooks today. I'm glad everything was resolved! I hope I didn't miss if you explained this but which key was it and did it randomly snap off or was it under some odd circumstance?

 

I suspect that you have nothing to worry about and that my instance was probably just some sort of oddball random thing. The key that did snap off was the B key and this was under normal typing use.

 

hm.... this is basically the first most 'negative' review on the s96j i've seen so far. maybe its realyl one of those 'one in xxxx' units with some flaws. but hey! i think powernotebooks is nice enough to replace it with a new keyboard, since it really was 'physical damage' done by human XD hehe
im going to be ordering this laptop soon, finally!

 

Yea, first review I've seen with a bit of negative stuff, well maybe it was just a bad unit.

 

In my review I cite some negatives including keyboard flex and annoyingly loud touchpad buttons.

Skchow is also comparing the fit and finish to IBM notebooks which, IMO, are the pinnacle in those regards. Comparing them to Dells levels the field quite a bit.

Thanks for the review.

 

The touchpad buttons are also loud and a bit stiff on my sample. But then again the buttons can be avoided most of the time by tapping on the trackpad. In case there are those who don't know this and other little tips, I would suggest taking a look at:
http://www.ehow.com/how_12628_trackpad-command-point.html

If anyone knows of any software that can replicate the action of right click on the trackpad, I would be grateful.