Built on.....ALL THE WAY!!!

hey everyone,

This is my first post in here and i must say this forum is GREAT...i've been doing some research on a good laptop (my first) and like alot of ppl i had pretty much narrowed it down to a dell...but after doing some further reading on that i discovered that a dell notebook came with alot of hardware problems and their customer service sucked!! At the same time i heard someone mention asus in a post so i thought ide check it out and let me tell u....I WAS REALLY IMPRESSED....for starters all the admins & users on this forum (asus) r real helpful...havent come across a forum that has this much support/review/fast replies all in a friendly atmosphere.....ive learned alot from just reading threads in here....so props to everyone for the good work.

That said...ive been a fan of asus ever since i started reading about it...ESSPECIALY when i read about the "built on" notebooks asus provided...it was exactly what i was looking for..a notebook within my price range (~$1500) yet powerful enough to meet all my needs (photo editing, hardcore gaming BF2...AASF...HL2..NFS-MW..ETC net surfing, MS office work..ETC) and something i didnt really have to worry about upgrading for at least a year.... i was looking for a core duo, a powerful dedicated GPU (256), a minimum of 1024 RAM & a good screen size that i could do everything on comfortably without worrying about lugging a 17' around.

So u guessed it...the s96j (or z96j if i can wait)!!!!!!! i love the fact that it's fully cutomizable yet u still get a high quality notebook....and since i work half the way across the world away from home it was really important that i get a notebook that i wouldnt have to worry about for at least a year (components & quality-wise)cause it's real hard to get good service...and i found it all in the 96j's (or at least i hope i did!!)...so riht now im still trying to decide between the s & z...any input would be real helpful...also anyone that has a s96j and had any problems with it PLZZZ post ure problem.....i know u get ure occasional lemon every now and then but so far i havent noticed a pattern in the problems that were encountered (other than the sound which isnt that big of a deal to me...ill be using headphones most of the time) cause like i said before i cant afford this baby dying on me out here!!

One more question here....would these specs on a s69j (T2440, 2048 RAM, 100 7200 PRM HD) be sufficient for an interior designer? someone that will be using the notebook mostly for autoCAD (and the rest of the basic stuff..no hardcore gaming or anything) or should she wait for the z69j for the higher resolution it offers? is the graphics card (ATI Radeon x1600 256mb) sufficient? Any suggestions (even if it's a different make/model) would be appreciated.

Again thanks for all the help and PLZ feel free to shatter my dream of the perfect notebook if there's something im missing here!!

To add my 2 cents i stumbled accross this site where there's a step by step description (using pics) of how to build an asus barebone for all u guys who have the guts to do it...seems pretty easy but ide still opt for the re-seller's experience AND guarantee.

http://www.directron.com/buildalaptop.html

Enjoy!

 

Absolutely.. AutoCad will fly with those specs. In my experience, AutoCad tends to be very memory hungry for complicated designs, so the 2GB of RAM is a good choice.

 

I dont think your dream will be shattered. Yeah the specs/price sound too good to be true, but it's true. There's no problem with the notebook. It's well built, nice screen, good keyboard, sufficient ports(-DVI, at least it has S-Video), and good cooling at high loads. Is there anything else you want?

The x1600 will play all the games you mentioned, but you need some tool to play NFS:MW in native resolution.

s96j's a winner or z96j, if you need more screen real estate. Go for it!

 

u said it...it DOES sound too good to be true and being the skeptical person i am, can't help but wonder if the looks were the only catch...but it's starting to sink in that it's TRUE...asus DO kick ass!!!

BTW great job with the journal...by far one of the most informative reviews on the s96j ive read so far....keep up the good work!!!