Asus U35JC/U45JC

Anyone know if the 258.96 drivers are safe to use yet? I heard some say that their laptops froze on startup and that users had to resort to system restore.

 

If you flash bios 208, the latest nvidia drivers should work with no problems

 

Uh oh, that's how I bricked my UL80JT: by updating the BIOS!

I'll give it a shot later tonight and hope that all goes well.

 

Ive tried to do a driver update and the touchpad still isn't working....

EDIT:
Ken at Gentech is taking care of it

 

just wanted to let you guys know in case anyone was wondering...

i got my Zeroshock III case today and the u35jc-a1 (from gentechpc) fits perfectly inside it, it's like they were made for each other!

 

Anyone ever order from EXCaliburPC.com? Are they reliable?

 

I told you that buying from Ken Lee at GenTechPC.com would pay off. Ken's the man!

Let's see Jeff Bezos at Amazon.com take care of a touchpad....

 

you're talking about the regular zeroshock iii not configured for any other computer right?

 

Yeah, I just really hope the problem wasn't simply my ineptitude with computers in general with the solution being an easy one. I called Asus support too, which walked me through the same solution Ken did about the touchpad possibly being disabled and re-enabling it with FN+F9.

The odd thing was, under the hardware it didn't even have the mouse/trackpad listed.

From the few hours I had with it, it was a REALLY nice laptop. I almost overlooked the fact that I couldn't get the trackpad to work because it was so nice. The vent on the left side did get pretty warm during startup, but it wasn't a big deal. Maybe I was so amazed, but I didn't even notice keyboard flex. Screen was fantastic.

 

Yes the regular black Zeroshock III for up to 13.3 inch screen...i bought mine from amazon, the one found at this link:
Amazon.com: Zeroshock III 13-inch Widescreen Notebook Case: Electronics

 

I want to get the Zeroshock III from ebay, but does this one ZEROSHOCK III 13.3" LAPTOP BAG CASE DELL VOSTRO 1320 - eBay (item 220648853085 end time Sep-03-10 16:37:16 PDT)
also fit the U35JC? I think the seller just type random 13" laptop names into the title, or is this actually made FOR the Dell Vostro?

 

I just wanted to throw in one more non-scientific benchmark: The U35JC plays Borderlands (a game based on the UT3 engine, so a bit newer and more demanding than the source engine that Team Fortress 2 runs on) on native resolution with a mix of medium and high graphics settings (and all the extra bits, like bloom, depth of field, dynamic occlusion, etc. on) without an issue.

I can't get it to report its FPS to me (or don't know how, anyway) but I don't notice any frame drops or choppiness that would make me think its anything under 30-ish FPS at least.

This may not be the world's most powerful graphics card, but it seems to have handled anything I've thrown at it so far. At least, once I convinced it to start turning the discrete GPU on.

 

i think the ones with computer names are actually made for those computers. the macbook pro one is different dimensions.

 

So I got mine. And am trying to wipe and reinstall windows. The problem is MS does not have the image download on their site anymore. Thank god for MSDN but really, now I have to wait for 3-4 hours before its done downloading.

 

I have to say, I really really like the touchpad. The grippy texture feels just right and it's very responsive.

 

AMD is retiring the ATI name later this year.

It's the end of an era....

 

OK. Thanks for the info. How does this relevant to the U35/U45 conversation?

 

My U35JC has been shipped by ExcaliburPC tonight!!!! I just got really excited there for a moment lol...

 

Aw I wish I can get it soon too.. Waiting for it to be in stock at Canada Computers

 

what are your U35JCs idling at? Mines at 56C CPU and 58C GPU while these are normal range they do look a tad high for idle temps, wouldve liked to see 47-50C idle temps. My laptop is also warm most of the time from the left side near the vent all the way towards the center. . Ambient temperatures are 25C.

But its still never hot even while gaming

 

Fn+F9 turns the touchpad both off and on. Be sure it is on.

Otherwise, plug in a USB mouse so that you can get into Windows and troubleshoot it.

 

so apparently if you buy the bamboo from amazon, they are willing to give you an $150 gift card.
Amazon.com: ASUS U43JC-X1 14-Inch Bamboo Laptop (10 Hours of Battery Life): Electronics

hmm i seemed to have screwed up, just click on the amazon.com.

 

If you look HERE, it links to Microsoft's Digital River where you can still easily download the ISO's. About halfway down the page are the links to the ISO's.

And here is the direct link to the Windows 7 x64 Home Premium ISO.

 

I've been on the web for about an hour now, plugged in and running on high performance and HWMonitor tells me my nVidia GPU idle temp is 48-51C.

Of course, that's with the U30Jc.

If I'm on it for hours, sometimes my GPU temp will shoot up for no clear reason. But usually it stays about there.

 

Yep, I did this several times both with Ken and Asus support. The laptop seemed to think about doing something, but it didn't actually affect the touchpad.

I used a USB mouse to try to download Asus touchpad drivers, check on the touchpad hardware, etc...The laptop didn't even detect the touchpad under the installed hardware list.

I'm glad I got it from Ken, like I said before he's taking care of it

 

I just received my U45jc and I must say that I really love it. It's really sleek and just great to look at. I don't notice much flex on the keyboard at all and the track pad is very responsive. Also, I feel that it's really light. At least much lighter than my Dell Inspiron.

However, after an hour, I cannot figure out a way to get online. (I'm typing this on my old computer) The wireless network I normally connect to is not listed anywhere. In fact, no wireless networks show up when I try to find a wireless network. Anyone know what I should do? Also, I ordered the Intel Advanced-N 6200 wireless card, and when I looked at my wireless card, it says Atheros AR8131 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet Controller. I don't know much about computers, but does anyone know what I should do. I also ordered a recovery DVD and I don't think that came with. Also, does anyone know how I can check what kind of hard drive I have on my laptop? I just want to make sure it's the 7200rpm one I ordered.
Thanks in advanced for all the help!

 

for the cpu, mine also like tht if u on hi performance mode on power4gear bcoz min n max proc at 100%..

try lowering ur min proc state n it should lower lil bit..

bout the gpu, i dunno how to lower it down as im also like urs, temp around 55C

 

So can you manually choose to switch graphics or not? I keep hearing this crap about optimus not doing its job of switching over to discrete

Shame about the lack of physical volume control to though. It seems like Asus arent really innovating or fixing things like flex or viewing angles either, theyre just keep pumping out new notebooks that all have the same problems

 

Seems like a lot of people finding niggles, but steve73, you say its not light, but 1.8kg for a 13.3inch is pretty light imo

My last MSI U230 12.1inch was 1.5kg with a 6 cel battery, and that was light enough to carry around easy. Plus the battery only last 3 hours. So only an extra 0.3KG for a 13.3inch and 11 hours battery, seems acceptable to me.

And to people complaing abotu the bloatware, you should be clean installing windows everytime you buy new laptop anyway, its a no brainer to me even if it only has a little bloatware. I like to start from fresh.

 

With a BIOS update to 208, you can install the latest nVidia 258.96 drivers. Optimus then performs fairly flawlessly and also responds well to user requests to run certain programs under the IGP or discrete GPU.

A physical volume switch? Do many laptop makers even include that any more. My old laptops with a physical volume wheel had problems after a while with shorts & static when used. I, for one, am glad they went to digital use only for changing the volume.

 

Who did you order the laptop from? Did they clearly charge you for those upgrades?

I'd phone them and check out what happened. Could be the upgrade & included recovery DVD's were not included or done after all. In that case, they are liable to make it right.

And don't pay any attention to the Atheros AR8131 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet Controller. That's not your wireless card but is for the LAN cable and is a different device.

You want to look below it in the Device Manager/Network adapters list to the type of "Wireless Network adapter." What type and make does it list?

It should list the Intel 6200. If it doesn't, then they never switched out the card.

 

I am slightly bothered by the track pad. It keeps jumping around a lot... especially while trying 2 finder scroll. But I guess I'll get used to it.

But here is a question. I wiped and reinstalled windows. What do you guys recommend I install from the driver cd that is absolutely necessary, and what can i live without? Like for example, I would like to have working Fn keys, but i don't really want the stupid graphic to pop up every time I press one; I would prefer simple and to the point standard windows sliders.

 

What can I say? I actually like the eye candy. I love it when animated, rippling, wavy things pop up when I do something like change the power settings or sound.

No, it's not practical, but it doesn't slow down any thing either. So, IMO, why not have the wavy, swishy things pop up? It's like the Matrix movies. Things hapened so I could say, "That looks cool!"

It's one of the reasons I like Win 7 x64 so much.

 

I ordered from Amazon last week even though it said backordered... and it shipped in a day and is scheduled to arrive today. Not certain if that is 'standard' (maybe I got lucky and someone cancelled an existing order) but could work the same for you.

 

Just did a test this morning to see what idle life the battery gives, the 35's been sitting beside me at work for 6 hours 35 minutes with display at full (10) brightness and is just about to die. That's also with the asus Super Hybrid Engine Thingy on. Minimum background applications, no internet but usb mouse attached. Not bad figures but would be interested in hearing how I can eke the extra 2-3 advertised hours out of it...that said im new to windows 7 so there could be all kinds of power-sapping tomfoolery going on under the hood that I'm unaware of.

Regarding the manual gfx switching, i havent upgraded my bios etc as advised yet but there's a nvidia control panel option to pick an exe file and tell it to always use either nvidia high performance gpu or the poxy onboard one (the latter actually did manage a fairly hectic round of Dawn of War Soulstorm last night so its not entirely useless)

 

6hr35min idle time wi-fi off? That seems low.

 

My U35JC arrived and I'm in love with it. It's 100 times better than my previous laptop in every single way. For one, this one has a battery! But maybe more so, there are more pixels in the U35JC bright display, even though it takes up less than half the volume of my previous laptop.

The build quality seems really solid. I like the keyboard. I think the display is great. Sure light leaks and black isn't black. But it's bright and crisp. Viewing angle not so good. But yeah, I still like the display - I mainly look at my laptop front on anyways . TBH, I don't see it being much different to the Mac's display if you don't include the light leaking, blacks and viewing angle. Which, hear me out, you may very well not include if it's primarily a browsing/office machine. Having said that, I've given Planet Earth 1080p a look, and it is gorgeous too, (even with viewing angle, light blacks and leaking light). Just noticed, the screen doesn't bend all the way back to 180', but that shouldn't be an issue for most.

I really think 13" is where it's at. It's the sweet spot for a laptop, if you want a portable laptop, which, I assume everyone wants, at least a little bit of portability. It's great to fling around, easily portable - I can chuck it on my bed and into my bag without effort. Also, the keyboard perfectly spans the width of the machine. I just don't see any valid reason for getting a 15". Unless you are really sure you're gonna spend almost all of your time at your desk. But then, maybe go for a 17" and make it a true desktop replacement. 13" is just the right size. I know Steve jobs has said so. Anandtech has said so. When I look around my lectures at all the laptops, the 13" looks right (not the netbooks and not the 15"). And now I've got to feel it for myself, it just feels right.

The styling is great. Macish cloned (I got the silver), admitedly, but at least I'm not another who got a mac just cos everyone else did, or to be trendy. It looks unique, but pretty. I like the cool looking blue leds lights for power and hard disk etc. Maybe blue backlit keys would be cool, but what you don't know you can't miss.

No problems with overheating, or with fan noise, or with trackpad. Speakers seem good. Maybe they should point out frontwards or upwards instead of down. If I tilt my laptop up a little, I can hear the sound much clearer.

Ok, tremendous amounts of bloatware, but so what, you can just get rid of it. I'm liking Windows 7, my first time using it on one of my machines. But still, boot times? Seriously! Over a minute (even after removing most bloatware). My old XP machine Celeron M (4 years old), is a faster booter! Why can't the manufacturers sort this out? I guess it's gonna take an upgrade to a SSD. Looking forward to Chrome OS, cos that's supposed to boot in 7 seconds or something (albeit on a SSD). Can't wait to take this machine to a cloud OS at some point in the future. EDIT: Apologies. I have fiddled a bit with fastboot and been measuring again, and it's consistently 45 seconds to boot - I think the other results were due to either booting from battery/windows updates/bad fastboot config.

I'm still figuring out power modes and all that. I love the screen fully bright which really drains the battery. I've been through 3 cycles of battery. And, I think its lasted well over 3 hours everytime (with my full brightness, copying to hdd, planet earth viewing, wireless etc.) I'm yet to try last a good 8 hours. But I'm sure it's possible if I get the settings right, and just do moderate browsing instead of 1080p video viewing. If you're leaving your house for the whole day, I think you would need to take your charger as backup. So there's still room for a bit of work in that department.

One thing which is bugging me, is the audio seems to freeze and repeat for about a second every so often while playing audio. I think this must be due to some power settings for the cpu. If anyone has any suggestions it would be most appreciated.

I think this is going to be my last laptop. I'll put an SSD in in a year when capacity is higher and prices have gone down and possibly buy another battery at some point. Then this should last till some paddy keyboardless goodness becomes standard. Serious gamers might be in a different box.

Thorough recommend on my end, but this is coming from someone who hasn't played with comparable beauties in the same category. I work as a tech support guy and see about 30 laptops a week (normally 15" cheap student ones). The best ones i see are macs and probably the sony vaoi's. Those have solid build quality. But this good old ASUS has solid build quality too, pretty styling and alround performance.

If you're looking in this market, you're probably looking at the Acer 3820 too, which I have no experience with. I went with the ASUS, because of Anandtech's recommendation to be honest. But it makes sense that ASUS would have better build quality, durability and styling.My U35JC arrived and I'm in love with it. It's 100 times better than my previous laptop in every single way. For one, this one has a battery! But maybe more so, there are more pixels in the U35JC bright display, even though it takes up less than half the volume of my previous laptop.

The build quality seems really solid. I like the keyboard. I think the display is great. Sure light leaks and black isn't black. But it's bright and crisp. Viewing angle not so good. But yeah, I still like the display - I mainly look at my laptop front on anyways . TBH, I don't see it being much different to the Mac's display if you don't include the light leaking, blacks and viewing angle. Which, hear me out, you may very well not include if it's primarily a browsing/office machine. Having said that, I've given Planet Earth 1080p a look, and it is gorgeous too, (even with viewing angle, light blacks and leaking light). Just noticed, the screen doesn't bend all the way back to 180', but that shouldn't be an issue for most.

I really think 13" is where it's at. It's the sweet spot for a laptop, if you want a portable laptop, which, I assume everyone wants, at least a little bit of portability. It's great to fling around, easily portable - I can chuck it on my bed and into my bag without effort. Also, the keyboard perfectly spans the width of the machine. I just don't see any valid reason for getting a 15". Unless you are really sure you're gonna spend almost all of your time at your desk. But then, maybe go for a 17" and make it a true desktop replacement. 13" is just the right size. I know Steve jobs has said so. Anandtech has said so. When I look around my lectures at all the laptops, the 13" looks right (not the netbooks and not the 15"). And now I've got to feel it for myself, it just feels right.

The styling is great. Macish cloned (I got the silver), admitedly, but at least I'm not another who got a mac just cos everyone else did, or to be trendy. It looks unique, but pretty. I like the cool looking blue leds lights for power and hard disk etc. Maybe blue backlit keys would be cool, but what you don't know you can't miss.

No problems with overheating, or with fan noise, or with trackpad. Speakers seem good. Maybe they should point out frontwards or upwards instead of down. If I tilt my laptop up a little, I can hear the sound much clearer.

Ok, tremendous amounts of bloatware, but so what, you can just get rid of it. I'm liking Windows 7, my first time using it on one of my machines. But still, boot times? Seriously! Over a minute (even after removing most bloatware). My old XP machine Celeron M (4 years old), is a faster booter! Why can't the manufacturers sort this out? I guess it's gonna take an upgrade to a SSD. Looking forward to Chrome OS, cos that's supposed to boot in 7 seconds or something (albeit on a SSD). Can't wait to take this machine to a cloud OS at some point in the future. EDIT: Apologies. I have fiddled a bit with fastboot and been measuring again, and it's consistently 45 seconds to boot - I think the other results were due to either booting from battery/windows updates/bad fastboot config.

I'm still figuring out power modes and all that. I love the screen fully bright which really drains the battery. I've been through 3 cycles of battery. And, I think its lasted well over 3 hours everytime (with my full brightness, copying to hdd, planet earth viewing, wireless etc.) I'm yet to try last a good 8 hours. But I'm sure it's possible if I get the settings right, and just do moderate browsing instead of 1080p video viewing. If you're leaving your house for the whole day, I think you would need to take your charger as backup. So there's still room for a bit of work in that department.

One thing which is bugging me, is the audio seems to freeze and repeat for about a second every so often while playing audio. I think this must be due to some power settings for the cpu. If anyone has any suggestions it would be most appreciated.

I think this is going to be my last laptop. I'll put an SSD in in a year when capacity is higher and prices have gone down and possibly buy another battery at some point. Then this should last till some paddy keyboardless goodness becomes standard. Serious gamers might be in a different box.

Thorough recommend on my end, but this is coming from someone who hasn't played with comparable beauties in the same category. I work as a tech support guy and see about 30 laptops a week (normally 15" cheap student ones). The best ones i see are macs and probably the sony vaoi's. Those have solid build quality. But this good old ASUS has solid build quality too, pretty styling and alround performance.

If you're looking in this market, you're probably looking at the Acer 3820 too, which I have no experience with. I went with the ASUS, because of Anandtech's recommendation to be honest. But it makes sense that ASUS would have better build quality, durability and styling.

 

My U35JC arrived and I'm in love with it. It's 100 times better than my previous laptop in every single way. For one, this one has a battery! But maybe more so, there are more pixels in the U35JC bright display, even though it takes up less than half the volume of my previous laptop.

The build quality seems really solid. I like the keyboard. I think the display is great. Sure light leaks and black isn't black. But it's bright and crisp. Viewing angle not so good. But yeah, I still like the display - I mainly look at my laptop front on anyways . TBH, I don't see it being much different to the Mac's display if you don't include the light leaking, blacks and viewing angle. Which, hear me out, you may very well not include if it's primarily a browsing/office machine. Having said that, I've given Planet Earth 1080p a look, and it is gorgeous too, (even with viewing angle, light blacks and leaking light). Just noticed, the screen doesn't bend all the way back to 180', but that shouldn't be an issue for most.

I really think 13" is where it's at. It's the sweet spot for a laptop, if you want a portable laptop, which, I assume everyone wants, at least a little bit of portability. It's great to fling around, easily portable - I can chuck it on my bed and into my bag without effort. Also, the keyboard perfectly spans the width of the machine. I just don't see any valid reason for getting a 15". Unless you are really sure you're gonna spend almost all of your time at your desk. But then, maybe go for a 17" and make it a true desktop replacement. 13" is just the right size. I know Steve jobs has said so. Anandtech has said so. When I look around my lectures at all the laptops, the 13" looks right (not the netbooks and not the 15"). And now I've got to feel it for myself, it just feels right.

The styling is great. Macish cloned (I got the silver), admitedly, but at least I'm not another who got a mac just cos everyone else did, or to be trendy. It looks unique, but pretty. I like the cool looking blue leds lights for power and hard disk etc. Maybe blue backlit keys would be cool, but what you don't know you can't miss.

No problems with overheating, or with fan noise, or with trackpad. Speakers seem good. Maybe they should point out frontwards or upwards instead of down. If I tilt my laptop up a little, I can hear the sound much clearer.

Ok, tremendous amounts of bloatware, but so what, you can just get rid of it. I'm liking Windows 7, my first time using it on one of my machines. But still, boot times? Seriously! Over a minute (even after removing most bloatware). My old XP machine Celeron M (4 years old), is a faster booter! Why can't the manufacturers sort this out? I guess it's gonna take an upgrade to a SSD. Looking forward to Chrome OS, cos that's supposed to boot in 7 seconds or something (albeit on a SSD). Can't wait to take this machine to a cloud OS at some point in the future. EDIT: Apologies. I have fiddled a bit with fastboot and been measuring again, and it's consistently 45 seconds to boot - I think the other results were due to either booting from battery/windows updates/bad fastboot config.

I'm still figuring out power modes and all that. I love the screen fully bright which really drains the battery. I've been through 3 cycles of battery. And, I think its lasted well over 3 hours everytime (with my full brightness, copying to hdd, planet earth viewing, wireless etc.) I'm yet to try last a good 8 hours. But I'm sure it's possible if I get the settings right, and just do moderate browsing instead of 1080p video viewing. If you're leaving your house for the whole day, I think you would need to take your charger as backup. So there's still room for a bit of work in that department.

One thing which is bugging me, is the audio seems to freeze and repeat for about a second every so often while playing audio. I think this must be due to some power settings for the cpu. If anyone has any suggestions it would be most appreciated.

I think this is going to be my last laptop. I'll put an SSD in in a year when capacity is higher and prices have gone down and possibly buy another battery at some point. Then this should last till some paddy keyboardless goodness becomes standard. Serious gamers might be in a different box.

Thorough recommend on my end, but this is coming from someone who hasn't played with comparable beauties in the same category. I work as a tech support guy and see about 30 laptops a week (normally 15" cheap student ones). The best ones i see are macs and probably the sony vaoi's. Those have solid build quality. But this good old ASUS has solid build quality too, pretty styling and alround performance.

If you're looking in this market, you're probably looking at the Acer 3820 too, which I have no experience with. I went with the ASUS, because of Anandtech's recommendation to be honest. But it makes sense that ASUS would have better build quality, durability and styling.My U35JC arrived and I'm in love with it. It's 100 times better than my previous laptop in every single way. For one, this one has a battery! But maybe more so, there are more pixels in the U35JC bright display, even though it takes up less than half the volume of my previous laptop.

The build quality seems really solid. I like the keyboard. I think the display is great. Sure light leaks and black isn't black. But it's bright and crisp. Viewing angle not so good. But yeah, I still like the display - I mainly look at my laptop front on anyways . TBH, I don't see it being much different to the Mac's display if you don't include the light leaking, blacks and viewing angle. Which, hear me out, you may very well not include if it's primarily a browsing/office machine. Having said that, I've given Planet Earth 1080p a look, and it is gorgeous too, (even with viewing angle, light blacks and leaking light). Just noticed, the screen doesn't bend all the way back to 180', but that shouldn't be an issue for most.

I really think 13" is where it's at. It's the sweet spot for a laptop, if you want a portable laptop, which, I assume everyone wants, at least a little bit of portability. It's great to fling around, easily portable - I can chuck it on my bed and into my bag without effort. Also, the keyboard perfectly spans the width of the machine. I just don't see any valid reason for getting a 15". Unless you are really sure you're gonna spend almost all of your time at your desk. But then, maybe go for a 17" and make it a true desktop replacement. 13" is just the right size. I know Steve jobs has said so. Anandtech has said so. When I look around my lectures at all the laptops, the 13" looks right (not the netbooks and not the 15"). And now I've got to feel it for myself, it just feels right.

The styling is great. Macish cloned (I got the silver), admitedly, but at least I'm not another who got a mac just cos everyone else did, or to be trendy. It looks unique, but pretty. I like the cool looking blue leds lights for power and hard disk etc. Maybe blue backlit keys would be cool, but what you don't know you can't miss.

No problems with overheating, or with fan noise, or with trackpad. Speakers seem good. Maybe they should point out frontwards or upwards instead of down. If I tilt my laptop up a little, I can hear the sound much clearer.

Ok, tremendous amounts of bloatware, but so what, you can just get rid of it. I'm liking Windows 7, my first time using it on one of my machines. But still, boot times? Seriously! Over a minute (even after removing most bloatware). My old XP machine Celeron M (4 years old), is a faster booter! Why can't the manufacturers sort this out? I guess it's gonna take an upgrade to a SSD. Looking forward to Chrome OS, cos that's supposed to boot in 7 seconds or something (albeit on a SSD). Can't wait to take this machine to a cloud OS at some point in the future. EDIT: Apologies. I have fiddled a bit with fastboot and been measuring again, and it's consistently 45 seconds to boot - I think the other results were due to either booting from battery/windows updates/bad fastboot config.

I'm still figuring out power modes and all that. I love the screen fully bright which really drains the battery. I've been through 3 cycles of battery. And, I think its lasted well over 3 hours everytime (with my full brightness, copying to hdd, planet earth viewing, wireless etc.) I'm yet to try last a good 8 hours. But I'm sure it's possible if I get the settings right, and just do moderate browsing instead of 1080p video viewing. If you're leaving your house for the whole day, I think you would need to take your charger as backup. So there's still room for a bit of work in that department.

One thing which is bugging me, is the audio seems to freeze and repeat for about a second every so often while playing audio. I think this must be due to some power settings for the cpu. If anyone has any suggestions it would be most appreciated.

I think this is going to be my last laptop. I'll put an SSD in in a year when capacity is higher and prices have gone down and possibly buy another battery at some point. Then this should last till some paddy keyboardless goodness becomes standard. Serious gamers might be in a different box.

Thorough recommend on my end, but this is coming from someone who hasn't played with comparable beauties in the same category. I work as a tech support guy and see about 30 laptops a week (normally 15" cheap student ones). The best ones i see are macs and probably the sony vaoi's. Those have solid build quality. But this good old ASUS has solid build quality too, pretty styling and alround performance.

If you're looking in this market, you're probably looking at the Acer 3820 too, which I have no experience with. I went with the ASUS, because of Anandtech's recommendation to be honest. But it makes sense that ASUS would have better build quality, durability and styling.

 

Thanks for your review podpi! Can't wait to get my U35JC. I am stuck waiting on J&R or Buy.com to get it in stock.

 

re: battery
in fairness thats pretty much out of the box with only the most obvious battery-saving features enabled/disabled, im sure there is scope to squeeze another 60-90 mins out of it at least but I'm skeptical about 10-11 hours of battery (unless its used exclusively in DOS or something) i'm assuming having the display at full brightness could be the main culprit, knocked down 20-30% could make a big difference

 

I am sure you could never see the 10 hours estimated. I was hoping for around an 8 hour idle time though. I hope I can get 6-7 hours while web browsing.

 

check this out.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus/380681-asus-utility-bloatware-guide.html

 

If I had a dollar for every time I heard that, I'd be rich!

Oh wait, I am!

 

Normally, I would agree. But Acer has a winner with its 3820TG (see my specs in my signature and my avatar for a pic). It's got style and substance.

The 3820TG has done for Acer what the G35 sedan and coupe did for Infiniti.

 

Finally!

Ordered from ExcaliberPC.com and they will be shipping it today.

 

Congratulations on your journey finally coming to an end Relentless! Ive been following this thread for a long time and saw what you dealt with. =)

 

i agree acer has done a good job with the 3820TG, but have you seen both side by side? buildwise, the u35jc was better (albeit not by a longshot) in my (and other's) opinion.

 

Yes! It is such a relief! Thank you. Cannot wait for it to finally arrive.

 

As a whole, ASUS makes better constructed laptops than Acer.

The 3820TG sets a new standard for Acer. My point is that "it is not your father's Acer".

 

A better test to me would be to use it on basic Office apps with about 50-60% brightness and not just SHE but the power saving mode on Battery Saving mode, wifi off and then later wifi on but no flash sites visited..