Buying Asus N71JQ-A1 from Canada

With a long time research and consideration, I'd like to purchase an Asus N71JQ, X1 or A1, to treat myself. However, I could not find a local store that carries the model. Thus, shopping Online from the retailers that are recommended by NBR seems a good option. Now comes the question, anyone from Canada has bought notebooks from either Xoticpc or GenTech? powernotebook does not provide the option to opt the Blu-ray which will save about $100 buck, thus is not listed.

Of the Xoticpc and GenTech, have they ever had promotion of *free shipping to Canada? or I could try to negotiate with them??

BTW, would putting Arctic Coling MX-2 Thermal Compound on GPU&CPU for $25 be a good choice?

Thanks for the reply.

 

greytech (based in Ontario) is where I ordered my g73-a1 from. They seem pretty legit as I have spoken with them numerous times. See if they carry the model you want. If you buy from the american companies your gonna get hacked with custom fees...

 

You can purchase it from Canada Computers for $1615.88 CAN with taxes:
http://canadacomputers.com/index.php?do=ShowProduct&cmd=pd&pid=028021&cid=NBK.300.358
The N71JQ is okay and all, but if you want to save cash and get a better notebook you can always buy my G51J-A1 instead.

 

G51J-A1 is great, however I guess that fonts on 15.6 with FHD would be too small for my eyes. Honestly, I'm kinda worring about the 1600*900 on N71JQ, would be a problem to run WOW smooth in high settings in native resolution with the 5730.

I just checked GreyTech, they do carry the N71 now however it lists the graphic card as 5470??? Should not it be 5730?

 

Correct its 5730 and WoW should be no problem minus maybe shadows.

 

If you don't care about the warrenty you can get the n61jq-x1 from newegg.ca. I live in NS, Canada and it arrived exactly 1 week after it was ordered and was 100 dollars cheaper then the A1 at canada computers. But with that 100 you also get an additional year warrenty and a 500gb hd. Screen resolution is fine for me and plays all games I've thrown at it with no lag, with the exception of Dark Void. I don't play wow so can't comment on how it would play but I can play crysis on high at native resolution with no slow down issues during game play.

 

Honestly I am not concerned by the warranty time. 1 year or 2 years is no biggie for me. Harddisk wise, 320GB should be fine, too.

I'll take a look at some 16 and 17 laptops in a local FS store today to see which one looks good to my own eyes, 1388 on 16 or 1600*900 on 17.

The other thing that I am wondering is whether customization of the thermal paste would do wonder on the performance/oc-ability. Buying from Xoticpc or GenTech would allow me to have IC diamnd or AS5 to be applied on both GPU&CPU for $35, however buying from other places (NewEgg & Amazon) would have NO such option.

 

Well from what I can tell it does help with overclocking of the gpu. I have stock paste and if I go any higher then 810mhz on the memory of the video card my screen artifacts like crazy. People with IC diamond are reporting up to 1000mhz with no issues. The core on the other hand I haven't pushed it to the max but got 700 with no issues.

 

I have been looking around on many Canadian online shops however the best I could find is N71JQ-A1 about $1,450. While N71JQ-X1 from Amazon.com is only USD 1.2K which is only about CAD 1,250. I don't really care whether it's 1 year or 2 year warranty and blue-ray combo so I'd want to get a N71JQ-X1. Too bad Amazon.ca does not carry it.

Is there an option to buy this notebook from Amazon.com to Canada? Has anybody here bought notebooks from US? How much the custom charge on them?

Thanks.

 

I have bought a notebook from the States before and the main problem is the brockage fees being ridiculously high. I would advise you not to go with international orders.

 

I'm in Vancouver and purchased from Generic Computers.
I also shopped NCIX and A-Power.
Check ASUS website: http://promos.asus.com/wheretobuy/CA/NB_ca.htm?prod=NB&ctry=US
Many resellers haven't updated their website with current models; best to call.
Some increase price if paying via credit card; all should match prices.
Go for local if you can to get personal support.

 

The trick is to use an Express service. UPS canada standard will hurt you with lots of brokerage fees. UPS Worldwide Expedited or Express have the brokerage fees included in the shipping price and overall you save and get your stuff faster

 

Thanks mate. I found a N71 from CC. Never bought anything from there though. With GST and shipping is almost 1,5K. That really stretches my budget which was supposed to be around 1.2K. With two day's intensive search, I don't feel that I can find a N61JQ-A1 in Canada now. So the N61JQ-X1 from Newegg seems a viable option.

$400 between 16 and 17, that's a hard call now.

 

ASUS N71JQ-A1 CDN$ 1,498.99 free shipping only 1 left in stock.

I think the N61 comes with low res 1366x768 while the N71 comes with 1600x900.

 

Doesn't NCIX have the N61JQ-A1?
http://ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=50004&vpn=N61JQ-A1&manufacture=ASUS

 

Availability: Back Order
This product is available but currently we do not have stock. Order it today and we will ship when it's available.

 

That is correct, however resolution is also based on dpi.
If I did my trigonometry correctly, the N61 has 98 pixels per horizontal inch (or dpi) while N71 has 108. I'm assuming 16:9 ratio but I do not have mine yet. Someone else a while ago had done some measurements and said there was basically no difference in resolution between these 2 screens. Yes the N71 has more pixels, but must also 'spread' them across a larger screen.