Any questions for Asus?

Hi guys,
I recently learned that one of my best friend's gf is currently working for Asus as a regional sales manager. She's coming into town soon and we were planning to meet up for a little chat. Does anyone have any burning questions that they would like me to pass on? I'm not exactly sure what a sales manger actually does, but I'm hoping she can at least tell me the issues with their battery life... ARGHH!!!!

Hit me up with some question

 

Profit margins. I have a good overview of profit for mainstream companies like Dell & HP, it'd be interesting to see what Asus makes on a computer like the G1s.

 

Well... Battery life issue: Why is it that an asus with the same (or worse/efficient) specs delivers so much worse batterylife (and don't accept the explanation of high performance parts).

 

She's a sales manager, not a technician or engineer or executive. There's a huge difference in what she's likely to know/have answers for.

 

When is the US getting the black Atom powered EEE900? And will they lower the price to $500?

 

That's true. Maybe if they plan to recitfy the situation? Though she probably won't know that either...

 

Hmm.. interesting question... I'd actually like to know too! I hope these figures won't be "confidential".

This is definitely a question I'm gonna ask and keep pestering until they tell me the truth!!!

 

It'll definitely be confidential. That's why you'll have to ask it a bit naively. Something like "How much do you guys make on a laptop?" or "How much does it cost to make a laptop?" versus "What's your profit margins?"

 

Ahh.. I see what you mean

 

Yeah, perhaps she'll have no idea about this battery life business, but then again, it's worth a try. It is the most pressing question for ASUS notebooks nowadays (that and the down-going build quality)

 

I'm sure Asus is aware of the battery issue. The question is why isn't Asus addressing this issue? My best guess is probably the costs involved to fix it or simply because Asus doesn't view this as a serious issue.

Sure, I'll pass this question along

 

I'd like some answers about the C90S. Any video cards or cpus that we will be able to upgrade to in the near future? I think a sales manager would know the answer to that...

 

Does Asus have any plans to produce a laptop with high-end graphics capabilities? I'm thinking of something with an nVidia 8800m GTX GPU.

 

Good one. I remember Asus promising different GPUs for the C90s and so far, only the 8600m GT w/ GDDR3 was the only other option.

Yea, it would be nice to see a 8800m GTX. It's weird wouldn't you think? Asus has launched the G series geared towards gamers, but they held back on the GPU! Gamers need more power!!!

 

Probably they figure it doesn;t affect their sales significantly. And they are probably right. So why spend money on fixing it?

The question is whether she is aware of the problem, not ASUS...

 

Ok... here's an update...
So I met up with my friend who's working at Asus and asked a whole bunch of questions.

It is in the works, but for now the best GPU Asus is offering is the 8700mGT 256/512mb GDDR3

Probably... there's still no confirmed answer since the C90P is coming out soon and most likely won't be using the MXMII form.

Sorry, but exact numbers can't be released, however as a retailer/reseller, selling Asus branded laptops is more profitable than any other brands or most other brands

My friend didn't really comment on this... but from what my friend heard, people at Asus has talked about this issue. whether or not they're going to do anything is a separate story.

Yes to the Atom, but most likely no to the price (at least for now... as you know prices can always change at the last moment)


For those who are interested in the C90P specs are:
CPU: supports wolfdale series up to 3.16ghz (turbogear is able to OC CPU up to 40% and FSB up to 1533mhz)
Chipset: Intel P35 Express
GPU: up to 8700 GT DDR3 256/512mb
HDD: SATA up to 25ogb
RAM: 4gb DDR2 667/800mhz
everything else will be the same as the C90s

Also, a new G70S 17" laptop is coming out soon in the US! ... this baby can support dual SLI 8700 GS GDDR3 GPUs and dual HDDs as well as a x9000 CPU.

 

I would have liked to know whats up with the C90P they are being very quiet about it. Wonder if the project will be scraped because unless the gpu jumps up there is no big reason to change. (well lets hope they fixed all the c90s bugs)

 

As far as i know, the C90P will not be scraped. the GPU is going to support up to 8700GT and can support wolfdale CPUs

 

My only request, GDDR3 for all ATI and nVidia GPU.

 

I'd like to know why Asus seem to be good in the US but why they are sooo crap in the UK. and how long the turn around time on a warranty repair over there is.

 

In the US? I've seen turnaround times mentioned from the order of days (even sent today and picked up tomorrow), up to a week or so. So quite a radical difference from the UK

Here in the NL, I've never had a shorter turnaround than say this Monday up until next Friday.

 

C90P will have a P35?? wow thats quite an upgrade, how big will this thin be?

 

Well, Asus outsources their repairing service to another company in the UK (it was CRC group, now called Regenersis?) and I guess part of the issue can be blamed with their poor service. In the US and Canada, Asus has their own service centers and they are pretty darn good. Like EBE said, the turn around time usually ranges from a few days to a week.

 

From the looks of it, it'll probably be the same size as the C90S. The chassis, turbogear, ACE door etc are identical to the C90S.

 

Really... I sure wish I could see a C90S in person so I can get a feel for it

 

I would really like to know why Asus has not been agressive in marketing like other companies here in the U.S. given that Asus does make high quality products and also have competitive prices. I would like to know if Asus plans to put more into retail stores. I now that they recently had some products in best buy stores at the end of last year and this year.

Tell your friend thanks also for answerin our questions.

 

This was actually one of my questions and the answer I got surprised me a little. Asus doesn't believe in spending huge amounts of money to boost sales. Whether it's spending millions of dollars on one particular product or on a complete line of products. What they are doing is minimize costs, but trying to get the same effect from advertising mainly via word of mouth and electronic shows. Weird huh? but this worked surprisingly well for the eeepc. Little or no advertising was implemented, yet the eeepc shook the world and put huge pressure on other companies to release similar ultra cheap & portable PCs.
They also can't really advertise since Asus doesn't have a physical retail store like the sony store nor a venue to shop on asus.com like dell and hp. They primarily sell products through resellers like gentech and larger retail chain store like best-buy etc. It would also be unreasonable for Asus to advertise at the moment...say a TV commercial, Asus would have to list over 50 websites/stores where their products are being sold.
One thing I also found out was, Asus produces a whole lot of products, ranging from GPS & cell phones to high end servers. We are all familiar with their famous mobos and GPUs, but have you ever heard of an Asus home theater PC or gigabit switches? So i'm guessing they would rather prefer focusing on manufacturing rather than sales.

 

I'm actually surprised no one has showed interest to the new G70S... No one here likes a 17" SLI 8700?

 

Nope, not when there's 8800m GTX's available in far more attractive chassis.

A question I thought of now is why asus has soo many diverging lines? They have something like 21 different 15" chassis on the swedish market. And then there's the configs... There are like 18 different F3's...

While some are older models, there are enough current (santa rosa/whatever the turion line is called) for them to need to keep several different production lines. That can't be cheap. And really, it doesn't make sense to compete with yourself to the degree that Asus does...

 

emporiumboutique: My question would have been what are they going to do with the varying CS quality around the world. I'm from Hong Kong (and I recognise your avatar as the cartoon weatherman on HK Ch.1 news) and the CS we get there is very good. However, many customers want to take their laptop abroad for studying and they want to know what the CS is like overseas (mainly US, Australia, UK). I've heard some complaints about the UK and Australian services so even though I am very pleased with the HK service, I am not sure if I should recommend Asus to UK users.

BTW I am studying in London and I would like to know if anyone here has tried the UK service?

 

I thought they also have their own centres in the UK now, ditching CRC.

 

Any questions I have re Asus notebooks I ask here. Besides if this guys gf is coming into town there will be probably be not alot of talk about computers !

 

How about when ASUS is going to get back to me about my 8600 GDDR3 that needs to be replaced but it's a discontinued model. What will my options be? My warranty is up in Sept. Hah doubt this will be an unknown ?

 

Richardlai, at this point I suggest you do not have your ASUS notebook serviced in UK. They more often than not destroy computers rather than repair them, by what I've seen posted in these forums. See for instance the ASUS Warranty thread, or the ASUS Quality thread linked from the Info Booth, or the last pages of the ASUS F3 Crack thread...

 

Yes, like EBE said, if you're planning to move to the UK, I would be wary on purchasing an Asus notebook. The US and Canada are probably the 2 countries with best Asus CS. Hong Kong and Taiwan isn't bad either. I have a friend in Australia that says Asus CS is average (nothing spectacular like a one week turn around, but isn't as bad as UK CS).

I haven't heard any news on this. But if that's true, then we'll still have to see how their CS will improve with their new centers

Well, my friend's gf was in town, but my friend wasn't. I just met her for a couple hours to chat about computers etc

 

Oh boy...hope you guys are still friends after she leaves town.

Anyway...I do wonder why Asus comes out with essentially the same notebooks sometimes with different model names but both looking a lot like each other. Ie the F8Sn & , I think , M51's.

 

Those two are actually quite different, if one looks at the screen size for instance (14 vs. 15").

As to the difference between the F and M series, the 1st is supposed to be the affordable/budget series & the second a "multimedia" notebook series.

But indeed, sometimes there are almost duplicate notebooks and ASUS seems to be competing with itself I don't think anybody has figured out why.

 

me either. It's counter productive to have as many laptops as they have. Check my last post on the Asus 15" market penetration in sweden. Waaay too many lines.

 

Wow...that is a LOT of notebooks. That makes no sense at all. Classic case of more NOT being better !

 

I agree there are a lot of lines for the 15". However, they are also geared towards different market segments, not to mention most consumers are looking for the mainstream 15" form.

eg. G1 series = gaming
F3 series = budget
M50/51 = multimedia
C90 = desktop replacement
VX2 = luxury
V1 = business

Yea, I guess some lines do overlap in terms of the same components used, but designs and features can vary greatly.

 

Don't forget
F5, which is even budgetier than the F3
X55, which looks like a M50 or M51 with a matte lid
X53, which is like ^^ but with slower hardware
X50, which is even slower hardware.
The last three belong to the same series, probably.

The thing is, you don't really wanna give a consumer that much choice. They'll wonder why go for this, when you can go for that, which has the same specs or close to it, for much less. Then they'll buy a cheaper laptop, which will break and turn the consumer off Asus.

That should be 5 lines, Tops: budget, mainstream, gaming, business, luxury. And even that is a bit much. For 15", I say Budget, mainstream, business.

And then there's the various versions of the same Series. I still don't get the point 11 current versions of the F3. I think it's 11 anyways, I don't know which AMD version are still in production. But there's 6 intel ones (F3E, F3Sc, F3SE, F3SG, F3SR, F3Sv), all with different GPU's. While diversity and choice is good, it's only to a point. After that, the different F3's are competing with themselves.

Now, the ultraportable market (12" and smaller). Asus has 9 current models. A bit much, isn't it? 2 or 3 would be better.

Also remember that Asus has pretty much every size of laptop on the market (except larger than 17 and that weird 16" from Acer). Imagine the diversity in all those sizes.

The point of converging the lines is to keep down costs. When you have less models, you have less production lines. You can use the money saved to improve the present lines (say make the business models the same build quality as HP 8510p, for instance) and develop proper replacements. And fix that damn battery issue.

If incoherence, repetetion or contradictions is found in above rant, that's cause I wrote the parts out of order.

 

The only possible solution I can come up with is that Asus is trying to please any possible buyer with any possible configuration in order to corner the notebook market. THEN Asus will proceed to cull all their models down to a sensible number.

While my logic may seem absurd...so is Asus's for creating all those models. I fear the horrible UK tech/customer support problem(s) is only the start of bad things to come if Asus does not start acting like the once great m/b producer it once was.

 

Well that's a shame for UK customers as Asus is gaining momentum here in the UK, yet when customers realise their CS is unsatisfactory, Asus will have a hard time.

However, I must point out that coming from a fast-paced city like Hong Kong, the Brits seem to be less efficient (no offence though, just my two pence).

 

It's like the bottled-water companies filling up the shelves with bottles of all sizes, some of which are of silly sizes that people would obviously never buy.

 

If she's in the sales department, the chances of her knowing anything at all about the products (except profit margins, and sales figures) is almost zero