Asus UL30JT

exactly what I'm waiting for !!

one of these two or maybe U33JC (USB 3.0 )

 

Battery life will go to the Asus because of the ULV processor. The Acer will definitely have more horsepower with the standard Core i5/i7 cpu's and be a really viable gaming laptop especially the config with the HD5650. I think it all depends on the type of performance you need and battery life. The Acer will have switchable graphics so I think 6hrs of battery life is very reasonable with the integrated.

 

The Asus U33JC is identical to UL30JT, except it uses the 35W i5/i7 CPUs that are in the Acer. So if you want the CPU horsepower, you can still buy Asus U30JC if you like everything else about UL30JT.

 

The battery performance with U33Jc is not comparable to the Ul30jt. The total power consumption of the platform will increase a lot when using the normal arrandales and not the ulv ones. The same thing with the acer. You can also expect the U33jc to be quite expensive and, as somebody already mentioned, not very widely available (I haven't seen a single asus bamboo laptop for sale here in Finland while we usually get almost all the same models as in USA)

 

should i hit this deal now? over the 30JT?

http://www.redflagdeals.com/forums/...510-35-off-march-8-10-does-hot-yessss-863296/

 

When comparing the UL series with notebooks of other brands, you all cannot forget that only Asus ones have the factory-supported 33% overclocking capability.

 

That lenovo is more than a pound heavier than the Asus. Battery life will be lower and the video card doesn't have good performance.

 

Is this the UL30JT, then?

http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/08/asus-debuts-business-minded-pl30jt-laptop/

"Business minded" as in sporting a sturdier build? If so, and if the price is right, this one is a killer. If only I could find their models in Europe as easily.

 

no there is the UL30JT and the PL30JT, look here for the difference..

ASUS World Magazine March & April 2010
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=465353

 

I dont see how you could be between those 2, they are so different, if you want gamming, then the ACER is the only option... if you dont want gamming, why would you go with the ACER?

 

I also fail to see the similarity between the two except that they are both sort of leading edge in their respective sectors. I would think that if you value performance over battery life and portability, get that Acer. Otherwise the ASUS. Personally, portability and battery life is more important so ASUS wins for me. There must be another ASUS model that compares better to this Acer than UL30JT.

 

Ummm how are they NOT comparable? They are both THIN, LIGHT, and promote ALL DAY COMPUTING.

Acer gets 8 hours while asus gets 10. Both these battery lives are still considered top echelon. And when you factor in that the Acer has almost a gfx that can produce 3 times the power, and a cpu that's almost 3 times as fast. I'm willing to sacrifice from 10 to 8 for 3 times the performance...

And plus, this is still their timeline series which was always meant to compete with Asus UL series.

 

You obviously value performance more than portability or battery power so Acer in this case is better for you. In my case, I value the former factors more.

 

I have to agree with impruv here. The Acer is only slighly heavier and slightly thicker and only has slightly less battery power. So, in other words, it's just slightly less portable than the Asus UL30 series. Yet it will have an edge in performance.

But price may be what really sets these systems apart. We'll just have to wait and see. Both are on my list to consider purchasing over the next couple months. It will come down to a price/benefit analysis.

 

Battery life, for me 8-10 is a moot point but I guess you might need it so I'll give you that.

But portability? They are both <1 inch and the weight is Asus: 1.7kg vs Acer: 1.8kg.

That really makes it much less portable for you?

And of course, the quality/cooling/warranty of Acer since it's obviously a lower grade brand than Acer. Maybe they will start stepping up

 

doublepost

 

Not sure I would agree that Asus is a lower grade than Acer. Acer ships more computers, but HP ships more than anyone and we know what their quality is like. Asus has been having great reviews as of late and has a great track record on reliability. Both make great computers, which ultimately is good for all of us. Let the competition continue!

 

acer my have better performance
but only 3:15 hours battery time in the real world

they put regular notebook processor and a power eating gpu




acer 3820 review
http://itc.ua/node/44570

 

I don't really want to help turn this thread into the Acer 3820 thread but I'm just wondering if anyone knows how Acer plans to do the switchable graphics with an ATI card? Is it automatic switching using drivers that they brewed up themselves or is it a hardware switch? I really don't mind a hardware switch (as long as I don't have to restart/log off to do the switch).

 

If you want the acer to perform 3 times better than ul30jt, you have a battery life of about 2hrs. If you want the promised 8hrs you'll get almost exactly same performance as the ul30jt when aiming for 8hrs battery life. I know you exaggerate the numbers but the acer CPU will perform almost at the same levels as the ul30jt. Also the graphics are not that different and when you talk about battery life of over 6hrs they both use the same IGP.

 

Acer has Ati graphics and the Optimus technology is exclusive to nVidia I guess. So only hard switch for ati (which means unoptimized batter performance when portability is desired and 3d applications run)

 

3:15 is for the discrete gfx card. As you can see, they get 6 hours on the intel gfx card. This is with the standard battery and there is an option for a higher capacity battery that will hit 8 hours.

Similar to this asus, if you turn on the 310m discrete gfx card and turbo33... you will not get the mentioned 8 hours.. probably 4-5.

From what I can tell, it's software based and you choose performance/battery gpu option. How it works behind the scenes I'm not too share. Didn't notice any hardware switches though I hope there is! Don't think they had to restart.

The promised 8 hours will still being using a much stronger CPU than the asus. From the chart posted above, with the 3 times performance you will be getting 3 hours. If you turbo'd the asus + 310m you will get 4-5. Still the touted 2 hours better. And are you seriously telling me both processors are about the same? LOL. The asus has a ulv i7/i5 where the acer has the standard i5/i7. I'll take the i5 520m vs i5 520um. The i5 520um that could be in the asus is ranked 142 with a turbo boost that say will more than double the performance. Go up to maybe 30-50 ranks. The i5 520m in the acer is ranked 12th and still has the option to turbo boost.

 

I just checked out the website posted little earlier and from the looks of this picture maybe the switch at the top left is the hardware switch for the graphics?

Also, translated with Google, the article said that the 3820 will be shipped with a stronger battery (hopefully capable of 8hrs) than the sample sent to them for review.

 

This review shows a software interface for the switching. I hope there is a physical switch as well.

Go to the 2:30min mark on the video to see the software interface.

 

Great info. Thanks! Guess you have to take their battery claims with a grain of salt. On the other hand Asus UL30vt users have been reporting real world battery results in the 8 hour range.

 

That review says that a more powerful battery will be in the release model of the Acer - this is in agreement with Acer's site, which claims a 6000mAH battery rather than the 4400mAH in the test (note that this is an increase of 36% which will make a huge difference). Additionally, the article also claims the existence of an optional 9-cell battery.

As such, the claims for battery life of the release model may not be too far off the mark.

 

I see in some pictures of the UL30JT that the ENTER key is "L" shaped as opposed to being rectangular shaped. is this a regional/language/etc difference? I just want to know how I could be sure when I'm ordering a laptop. thanks.

 

Hopefully, as with the original Acer and ASUS "netbooks", we'll see a plethora of 3rd-party battery alternatives offering lots more power time - probably accompanied by non-flush silhouettes which, though perhaps esthetically-challenged, offer a convenient "handle" for easier carrying.

 

You are correct, it is due to regional/language differences.

The US keyboard will have the rectangular enter key.

 

thx for the reply. so can i be sure that if I'm buying a laptop from the US, the enter key will be horizontal? it seems like we have a mix of both here in Canada

 

I am expecting that UL30JT to offer significantly better battery life. If it doesn't, then I will look into Acer more seriously. As for the weight, the difference is less than what I was expecting so +1 to Acer. I will never play high-end games on this laptop, so additional GPU power means absoultely nothing for me. My main use of this laptop will be mostly browsing internet and software development, with significant time away from power sources.

Both are not ideal though. What I want is a 13 inch with more resolution, weight of JT, and battery life of JT. Perhaps a CPU power of this Acer. But I cannot afford Sony Z.

 

The JT will not offer significantly better battery life. 2 hours max.
There has been a review on the acer already with the SMALL battery and it got 6 hours so the high powered will get at least 8. The mentioned 10 hour for the JT will then be 2 hours more, since rarely if ever does a laptop get more than advertised.

 

There are rumors of delays of the new Macbook Air because Intel has not been able to supply ULV chips on time (and Apple get's preferential treatment from Intel typically) so that's probably a factor in what we are seeing.

 

I'll be watching out for the review of the larger battery version.

Does this add any additional weight or sticks out at the back?

 

The mentioned 1.8kg should be with the high capacity battery since that is what Acer advertises, the 6000mAh. For whatever reason, the early test machine the russian site got had the 4400mAh.

 

If you buy in Canada, the laptop might have the English/French bilingual keyboards which has the L shaped enter key and slightly different arrangement of the keys. If you buy from the US, you're pretty much guaranteed a standard US keyboard with the rectangular (or as you call it "horizontal") enter key.

 

The Acer offers ONLY the bilingual keyboard in Canada - ASUS ONLY the US keyboard.

 

Yeah I just found this out about Acer. This pretty much makes my decision easy for me - no Acer for me.

 

Lol wow really? I found the keyboard to be annoying at first but got used to it after a week. I didn't know this could be a deal breaker for anyone at all.

 

I lived in Montreal for more than 10 years so I had my share of experiences with them - I still cannot get used to it. Now I live in Toronto - I have even less incentive to get used to it.... I guess I am a slow learner...

 

You could always get a USA keyboard off ebay, but that's an extra 20 to 30 dollars that shouldn't need to be spent.
----
I don't even know why Canada has to have bilingual keyboards, as maybe 10% of the population actually needs it? And they are all consolidated in Quebec anyways... I hope they separate so we don't have to conform to their uselessness.
/rant

 

This time, I am trying to stay within Canada in case I need warranty repair or exchange.

Agreed about bilingual keyboard situation in Canada...

 

Asus has many good features and maybe one of the most important one is that we already know very much about the build quality. The jt uses the same chassis as vt and we have positive reviews on it.

and plz post things about the acer in a different thread.

 

Damn, that sucks. The acer was looking tempting.

 

Bilingual keyboard is the same as US only keyboard except for one key. Get used to it. There's no difference.

 

Seriously? Then we are not talking about the same layout... The one I am used to was seriously different when it came down to symbols...

EDIT: Is this what we are talking about?

http://www.theblog.ca/bilingual-canadian-keyboard

This is the one that used to drive me crazy...

 

Which is it?

 

It is the white one. I used to mis-hit Enter, Right Shift key, \ and | symbols. My touch typing method seem too hard-coded into US keyboard layout.

 

Whole reason why I don't buy any laptops other than Asus in Canada is solely because of the ty Canadian Bilingual keyboards. The only people that use is are French Canadians which is like 10% of the Country.

Main reason why I don't buy Acer laptops as there's no option in Canada to forgo the ty Bilingual keyboards. I hate the shortened left shift key as I'm predominately a left shifter, and having the "\" key where the enter key is suppose to take up the longer single side irritates me, but not as much as the left shift key does for me. I would have bought the Timeline AS1810TZ but nooo... has the crappy bilingual keyboard, I've checked it out at Canada Computers and they can't get the US keyboard option.

Sure Dell, Lenovo, HP and others do offer the English/US keyboard options, but I don't never did like buying from those companies.

Oh I would have loved to have bought the Sony Vaio X laptop for my comic book database as an ultra ultra portable solution for my comic book conventions and stuff, but it has the ty Bilingual keyboard. I asked the Sony store guy at 3 different stores and they say you can try to order the US model from the online store. When I went to the american Sony store, it only gave me options for shipping in the US only. Talk about FAIL, but that was months ago.

Then Asus comes out with the UL30VT and that got me sold, was gonna pull the trigger and grab the UL30VT-X1 but litterly only weeks out they announce the UL30JT which is what I'm holding out on how, because I didn't like the glossy finish on the VT as I've seen it on my friend's UL80A.

Anyways I can't wait for the UL30JT, it seems like it'll be out at the end of the month or sometime in April, which works out great for me, as I'll have the cash available for one. UL30JT seems to be the perfect portable laptop for me as it has the performance I want, the the size, longevity and style that I've always loved Asus for. Which is why I only buy Asus motherboards in all my desktops, and I've owned 2 Asus laptops which I've all loved.

 

We went through pretty much the same experience. Even considered 1810T and Sony Z but found out about the keyboard thing. Unfortunately, I am not in the position to wait for another 2 weeks so I am almost ready to go with UL30VT-A1. Been waiting ever since they announced this model.

Any good news reguarding the release date of JT?