I hate to start a new thread... but Some Merom's have hit shore and other systems now have rebates!

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When I finally acquire a notebook, it will be a first time for me. Fortunately, I don't always have to learn the hard way, and am doing all I can to avoid Dell/Hp(not horrible mind you, just not me). After a brief notion of the dell Latitude, I give the business notebooks some credit, I ended up aiming straight for Asus.

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Asus should try market penetration using the exact opposite of Dell's strategy. Their notebooks are pricier and a bit more elitist and as long as their ensembles remain quality products, they can continue to charge the premium, and people will pay. But their achilles heel indeed seems to be their ear to the ground or lack thereof. If they can't connect to the end buyer with the liquid capital, then at least don't leave the resellers frustrated, possibly disgruntled, otherwise they will end up losing the argument for the premium price, quality notwithstanding. I hope to watch the fallout from this Merom episode, and hopefully they will reform a bit from it. But there are alternate factors, such as the Q4 shortage in mid-high end Merom chips and such. I'm not familiar with Asus long term history so maybe Justin can drop in to tell us whether they have done this before and improved from such a point in the past?

p.s. sorry for the long rant

 

As much as Id like to just blame Asus, and I really would like to, a lot of this entire mix-up is a direct result of Intel. Asus would gladly ship more than the few hundred computers they are able to over the next few months to North America... if there were computers to ship. The sheer lack of Merom chips coming from Intel is as much to blame as Asus' distribution model. Then again, somehow Dell and a few other big brands have managed to get this sorted out... but obviously not everyone. At this point, I'd be surprised to see even reasonable numbers of people with Merom Asus laptops before the end of the year.

~ Brett

 

Maybe true the notebook is only a low proportion for them, but they actually are working hard to make it big, Asus couldn't make a lot ensemble models because of the limit of OEM / ODM contract before, now the OEM / ODM don't care anymore, that is why we saw so many ensemble models in the past year, Asus has been too excited on ensembles and forgot barebones, now Asus realized this and started agian on both tracks, the first good model will be available in spring of 2007, it will have a piano finish like LG notebooks.

 

You guys and gals know that you're privied to information that people aren't privied to about dell and hp and sony and apple and place like that, right?Those places don't give anyone an ETA till they have a certain level of stock in the US - that's already sat for a period of time. Yes, Asus is always going to be later to market because until their big money starts coming from their own products, they have other clients that are far more important....... understand that and you'll probably accept that good things come to those who wait So we know when things are leaving Taiwan and everything along the entire process....... it pisses some people off because they can't wait, but it helps others know exactly what is going on.

On to Asus shipping everything to Europe..... Not Taiwan's fault and Taiwan IS "Asus".... Every country, as I've mentioned and obviously enough, orders what they think will sell in their area...... it's 100% up to them. In Italy, I can tell you for a fact, not only can they sell "old" models, but they can do it for almost a year after "new" stuff comes in. That's because people realize what they need and they don't need to overbuy - like americans. Likewise, the market is much better over there for a company like Asus. Europeans will pay more for quality and they look at a brand like Asus and prefer it because not everyone knows about it and perhaps that's becasue it's better than what everyone else can afford. Asus notebooks fetch a ton over there also. It costs a small fourtune to securely ship and insure a notebook for overseas delivery and when you're looking at 15-20% duties, that's HUGE...... so, when it's all said and done, at $2,000 laptop might costs $300 to ship and $400 in duties...... and it's still cheaper for someone to buy from us than the store down the street. That says a lot! If Asus could actually get paid for their quality, more would come in here faster.... obviously...

If Asus could price the notebooks where they really belong, people would still buy them...... and it would make it worth while for the dealers and Asus to bring things in faster...... and it would keep people from comparing a good system like a W3 to anything dell ever has to offer..... However Asus wants the priceing to be competitive (which means the consumer gets a better value because it costs more to make the asus than the similiar priced dell), but it's priced near the dell to bring that person who would buy the dell over to Asus for a look......... Here's the problem though... if you're balancing a dell of any kind against an Asus, you really don't know what the benefits and it means it's a crap shoot in terms of what you'll end up getting in the end.

As for Ameria having Dell......... yeah, well you know how people get stuck in abusive relationships and people won't why they don't just leave? Well, think of it in the same manner. I know tons and TONS of people that I run into that think a computer lasts a year... year and half and then they need to buy a new one... desktop, notebook... whatever. They think that things always go wrong... period...... Dell will send you a new drive for your broken one, for just seconds of being on the phone. Some think that's wonderful, however others realize it's more expensive to keep you on the phone than to replace the junk drive in your system (that's really poor support if you ask me), but in the same manner, people think that's how things happen and when it's time to get a new computer, they think well dell was quick to replace this and they're cheap, whatever...... and they buy another one. They get trapped in that life and it's what dell depends on..... think about it. If you can convince one family that you have a great product and great service....... you'll get repeat sales. For us, customers tell us they'll deffinately buy their next system from us and we tell them, that's great, but we hope it's not for a long time, because that system is going to hold up. Well, dell will get you back in a year or a little more and that turns into a really great business. I mean to just replace parts that crap out and look like a god is ridiculous..... I'm surprised more people don't look at that and say, I bought a piece of crap, and that fast and easy replacement of the broken drive shouldn't have even been something I had to do, so of course it should have been quick and easy........ I could go on all day about this, but I hope people taking time out of their lives and putting it into the Asus forum - already have this opinion or could at least understand mine.....

Anyway... finally... Intel... You know that a cpu costs under $20 to make, but the market will support that same cpu for $400 to the public? Now, Asus is making a ton on that, of course they are..... but basically, a company like Asus is making a good deal of their money right from the cpu, as well as a small percentage of the rest of the parts. Intel will push the next big thing right after all the ODM's and OEM's make their big purchases for the "new thing"........ then Intel gets consumers to say, well maybe I'll hold out for that and they really screw a lot of people that way. That and because they're ETA's are pathetic..... P.A.T.H.E.T.I.C......... They told everyone Merom would be out in August, while all of the documentation I officially recieved and Asus received stated that it would be November before there would be a good deal of cpus to build with. So, Intel releases a small amount in August and gets people going and hungry, but there's not enough to go around.... and as it turns out, it's going to be awfully late before we get a good amount. The funny thing is, that this time it may come back to bite intel in the ass..... They want say the release of the next gen chipset will be in Q1 - making people think January, but I believe it would be the last day of March, at the earliest....... well if the stock of Merom's gets better for November, companies like Asus already show stock for Q4 is going to be low.... perhaps they just won't buy them (this is the US office at least)........ If they do that, intel could get stuck with all these cpus and if that happens, they're more likely not to push the next gen stuff as early as they planned to.

To conclude... I know this is a lot... but, yeah, things like this have happened in the past, but everyone needs to realize that Asus would eat me for dinner if it meant getting their products into best buy or something..... so, I watch my back and everyone else should do the same. There are so many models now that they're bumping into each other and just to seperate them, they need to change things up. Asus' studies tell them what's working and what's not and what something could sell for and what people are looking for. Last year, they're study told them that most of the people who bought their systems didn't know they had a 2 year warranty or a carrying case coming with their sysems. So, they chucked those and brought the price down a couple hundred bucks, figuring that it would help sales. The funny thing is it didn't. Any honestly, we're all to blame... With so many people holding out for Merom's - as far back as June - sales sorta sucks for the first summer in years and those numbers help Asus figure out what's going on down the road. So, in one way, all of you that wanted to hold out for merom told Asus that they can't count on the super high end market because either they don't really have the money or they're just going to keep waiting for the next big thing. Right now, Santa Rosa is almost as close as Merom was when people started to wait........ and considering that's a Generational jump forward, Asus wants to try to get the attention of people outside the little asus bubble. They want the people who they know appreciate accessories and warranties and such and they want to attract them. I said, I knew the warranty and carrying case was coming, but if they were going to keep the same level cpu, the price would need to go up. Well they have market research that says they'll be more successful to lower the cpu instead of raising the price....... We can argue with it, but it's up to them and that's what they decided... This happened in the past.... when the core duo's came out, cpus that were once 2.0ghz were dropped to 1.6ghz.... no one liked it, but they also didn't see one of the reasons why. The new 1.6 easily left the single core 2.1 in the dust....... So, they were actually getting much more performance, but it's the end of the world if the number that people see goes down.... True, in years, once 64bit is a real reality, a 1.6ghz that's 64bit is certainly going to be able to go things a 2.0ghz 32bit cpu couldn't....... But in the end, a lot of this is Intel's problem in terms of Supply, but Asus' market research goes into what this market can support and everyone who didn't buy a laptop during the summer months really goes to part of the problem... so in a way, we're all sort of responsible, so throwing the blame around really isn't going to help.

... thanks for listening

 

wow justin!?! your post above is what i can call a novel.. lol probably the longest post i've ever seen that is not a sticky. anyways, your knowledge is really very helpful to us consumers. thank you very much.

 

At least I try to give full responses to questions......... some people in here write novels of long and multiple questions... and expect to get answered. At least I feel those who asked a question will at least pick out the paragraph that responds to them.... who knows.

 

Well there was a lot of response to this thread while I was sleeping...

 

wow again, you are also very quick to reply. i just edited my post above and you have already a reply. anyways, thanks again.

 

I agree with Justin about the pricing and comparisons between Asus and Dell. More importantly, however, when comparing Dell and Asus I think we're falling into the trap of comparing only their products. Dell can price like it does (I think we can all agree that Dell is pretty cheap) because it is taking advantage of economies of scale (it's making money through volume). Asus has such low presence in terms of people being aware of their notebook line that the only reason it is surviving is that it is serving a niche market that Dell has yet to competently appeal to. If Asus is serious about their Asus-brand notebook sales, they need to make some investments in advertising for acquiring consumer awareness and valuable shelf space.

Truthfully, I think I rather prefer how it is today. Having VERY personalized attention from vendors is unheard of and we should count ourselves among the lucky that we get skilled help as well as quality products. A rare combination, indeed.

 

You can also make the case that Dell - regardless of their low prices - gets more for what they do sell because of their name.... they use cheaper components and yet can get more for them becuase of their name...... Dell can make more on a cheap $500 desktop than we could make on one 3x times that cost.

 

I hate to be difficult and ask a question that has been sort of answered in the thread, but I've read the whole thing and am still unsure. I am planning on ordering a new laptop, it's going to be an ASUS, I have pretty much decided that I want the W3J.

A lot of resellers have sold out of the "older" W3J, but it looks to me like that would work almost as well for me as the "newer" merom model, I want to use it for light-mid gaming and taking notes, writing papers, surfing, etc. So if I can find one then it looks like that will work fine. It also seems that there is some sort of discount going on the remaining W3J's, but I'm not clear how much it is.

That said, I would clearly prefer the newer model, since if I'm slapping down around $1700 for a notebook the extra $100 isn't going to be worrying me, but it doesn't look like these will be available in any numbers until at least next month, and quite likely longer than that, which means my other question is this: if everyone runs out of W3J's while I'm waiting, and the new one's aren't in stock, will I just be out of luck for a few months?

 

Right, it'll be just fine for you, I'm sure.... Just good luck finding one. Asus sold of them about six weeks ago and I know we sold out of what we finally had left about a week or so ago. Find someone with stock left and I'll find you someone that no one has ever head of.... if the joke isn't obvious enough, I'm just saying that they'd have to be a little hole in the ground because people have been thinking what you've been thinking for the last couple months and if someone has stock - they're not in the public eye enough to get rid of them.

There is no rebate on the the current W3j's - just basically every other model. Asus only put a rebate on stock THEY had left...... so they really don't care about left over stock that dealers have... since they were sold out of the W3j's, no rebate.

There will be NO stock of the new ones for about a month and from there, stock will be low as there are waiting lists everywhere that are getting pretty long. However, the key is to actually be the one with the order in early. We've been collecting names for the advanced order, but when the email goes out that the page is up, the last person on the list could be the first to get an order in.

.... so I don't think you're going to be out of luck, you just need to commit one way or the other and then go from there.

 

Newegg still has them...

~ Brett

 

New egg doesn't stock Asus' notebooks..... I give it a 50/50 chance they don't cancel the order after it's in when they find out they can't get them.... like I said, there's a chance, but it's unlikely. I too can say we have something in stock, but unlike big discount resellers, we actually don't list stock that isn't physically here..... keeps us from having to tell a customer afterward that we don't actually know what's going on.

 

I can verify that the stock here in Italy is old -I went to a major shopping mall, and with the exception of the MacBook, every laptop was at least a year old...

 

well, i've previously decided to buy the merom w7j 13" when it comes out. but since it doesnt have a 4mb cache, i will rather buy a 12-13" with a 4 mb cache from another brand.

goodbye asus

 

It's fun watching economics at work sometimes. Thanks for the lengthy response Justin, whatever the market will bear is I guess the moral of the story. I see what ASUS is doing, I just think they are using the same old solutions do a new problems. As to being partly to blame for waiting, I readily admit I have been an outspoken proponent of Santa Rosa, and in principle, I am indeed partly to blame. But as a consumer in a capitalist society, its on the producer not the consumer to bear the end spillover cost. I can only apologize to those who wanted a W3JP in late sept.- oct.

 

YOU all realize that Asus is doing just that, don't you? They may not be making a model exactly how YOU want it, but they've gone down that road and YOU don't buy the systems in the configurations you say YOU will.... so they're moving more towards the middle to broaden their audience...

YOU = the high-end asus fanatics...

 

I know, it's sad isn't it? My younger sister's PC at home is going on 5 years old... Somehow I always manage to clean all the spyware off and keep it running. 1.13ghz K7 and 512 RAM, they don't need anything more for the web and IM and Winamp. I had to replace their old 40GB WD drive with a new one a year out of warranty, and some fans here and there, but thats it.

I have my three year old desktop here as a media PC, spinning the tunes and playing the movies in the living room. The 'new' desktop is a year old and I expect to get at least another year to year and a half out of it before a full system upgrade. I just need a DX10 video card to be Vista Premium ready.

The Z33 I expect to keep until I can't get batteries for it anymore. I doubt it will ever see Vista, but I'm sure XP has at least another... Hmm.. 5 years of security updates after Vista gets released?

I guess that's just how I am with my technology though. I still have my old K6-233 with a Voodoo 3 2000 under the bed at home... I'm just not one to let a machine die while it still might be useful.

If I bought Dell, though, I'm sure that a 1-1.5 year lifetime would seem perfectly normal I know a lot of people at school whole surely think so.... a couple years then it fries and you get a new one... That's just not me though. Anything I buy I expect to last a long time, I can't stand things that break, partly because I'm so picky buying in the first place that replacing stuff is a pain in the ass.

As far as Asus goes, I sometimes wish I had pursued the computer business I used to dream about when I was a kid instead of engineering... I could see myself selling Asus for sure.

 

Well I pursured it in college and still managed to get two architecture degrees and start a design firm..... Eventually I'd like to do more work between the two businesses.... To date I only have one prototype media center and a handful of notebook and other system designs.... Eventually I hope I can bring something more to the table.......

... just saying itn't not impossible.

but back to the crap pc bashing... yeah, you and I aren't the only ones who should be able to see this.

 

so does anyone know what they new eta of the w3j is ?

 

A8js and W3jp are now set with the same ETA, which is the end of October....... as I said before, the A8js got bumped back two weeks (from the middle of October) and the W3jp got bumped up to two weeks (from early November).....

 

any idea how much will the Asus W2P will cost?
wondering because the w2jb version has some good rebates

 

I am somewhat "fearful" that some of us won't get the Merom models till much later because there will be a shortage of Merom processors Q4 2006.

------>further delays? Please comment.

 

As soon as Asus fills up the entire W3 LCD panel with screen, they have my biznazz.

 

bezel space required for magnets

 

Ok, well first the magnets are small, but there is very little bezel to begin with... no more than the W7 and certainly less than even the W2 - which isn't a lot.. and all of the W series use this type of latch and it actually saves space. Since no one makes a bigger than 14" widescreen till you get to 15.4", the system's footprint would need to be smaller... and that certainly can't happen - not on the W3 as we know it..... maybe a future 14" widescreen in the W series, but not the W3.

The new W2p is probably going to be up there... It's at least $2,500 and if Asus does go with the HD-DVD drive, I can see the cost of the unit going up quite a bit. Now there are a ton of improvements on this model, but there are $250 rebates on the current model, which was already reduced twice this summer because no one was buying them with the WXGA+ screen - so if you don't need WSXGA+, I think the current W2jb is a steal.

I wouldn't say it was time to worry about supply..... I'm worried, but not for sales from the informed consumers like from the forum.... they'll be some of the first to pick them up. I'm worried more about holiday sales for people who don't even consider an Asus until the middle or end of November and then want to buy... and stock may close to nothing, if anything is available at all by that point.

 

Well I've always been the opposite, doing a major upgrade or new build every six months or so.

Why? Is it my spendthrift American attitude? Na, it's my l33t math skills.

Six months is short enough that the value of my old parts hasn't depreciated much and by applying their resale price to a newer and better part, I end up with minimal expenditure.

Notebooks are different, obviously, and, frankly, that's their biggest appeal to me at the moment.

 

OK, so we have confirmation that some of our models are shipping out to us today and will be here on Wednesday. The following shows the stock we're getting in and of that stock how many are left as of 4pm EST after advanced orders and the orders that came in today. Also, after each model, we have confirmation of a subsequent order for some models that will be here at PROPortable during the week of the 22nd of October.

W5F-G164H-A: 10 shipped / 3 left / NO ETA for more
W7J-3P076P: 25 shipped / 12 left / NO ETA for more
A8FM-4P002H-A: 10 shipped / 2 left / NO ETA for more
A8JS-4S013P: 25 shipped / 6 left / ETA week of 10/22 (15 more)
R1F-K018T: 35 shipped / 0 left / ETA week of 10/22 (15 more)

 

Justin, I am glad you started a new thread, some very good information in here.

I value your opinion because you are in the game and know how to play nice.


Justin, I am in a pickle. I like the smallness of the W7J. I can live with the slower CPU and video card. The 9 cell battery can boost the life of the laptop but costs 200 dollars more. Another draw back is it only has 1536, which should still be enough but its not the 2GB bragging rights.

The A8J is awesome. Great CPU, great video card. 14" screen, still small but not 13"3, the difference between them is probably minimal, i still havent had the time to check it out in person though. Has DVI, which I think I will use in the future.

the cost difference between them on milestones page (probably where i will buy from because i live in toronto) is like 60 bucks.

Justin, shed some wisdom on tis issue, which one should I get and why?


thank you!



one smaller question, did the 7400 get an upgrade? before it was a 64mb with shared memory, now its 128 ddr2, is it dedicated now?

 

bragging rights should be left to the high school study halls - honestly. When 2gb sticks come out, you can put even more in there, but yeah a gig and half is a lot, especially for a 13" notebook.

I prefer all W series to everything else, so I'm biased... but then again we sell all of them, again... biased. If you're between the W7 and A8, I'd say if you're not a top end gamer - and you need to be realistic with yourself about it - and say you want something even more portable, it's a hands down winner.

The 7400 isn't an upgrade and wasn't an upgrade... the W7 always came with 128mb dedicated vram - same as now..... not sure where you got that information?!

 

hmm, i forget, must have read it somewhere.

if i go for the W7J should i take that 100 rebate and go for the older model? That would help fund the expensive 9 cell battery. its the same video card, just a different processor.

How much if the W3J going for? just curious, its probably out of my price range.

wow i'm so torn between the two... i should make a chart.

 

I found it, but its the 7400 on the dell.

http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=3199

 

Asus' October Rebates are up!

http://usa.asus.com/event/rebate/Rebates/October2006.html

 

No, there are new rebates that started on Monday: http://www.proportable.com/promo/rebates/octoberrebate.pdf

There really aren't any of the current W7's left, but in terms of what would be better to get I guess that isn't up to me. The new ones are in the US and will be here mid week for us to start shipping out to customers.

 

? not sure what you mean? its the same file

 

Oh, you said the october rebates are up - as in they've been posted... I thought you meant they were up - as in they're over. Never mind..

 

When can I get a V6va or V6j for $1200 or less?

 

Depends if they are still in stock, and check the price, its -$200 MiR. Though thats only for the V6j - Not sure if the V6va has a rebate still.

 

Just about when hell freezes over.... oh you said where not when... I don't know.

 

Dumb question and it may have been answered.....

How does Core 2 Duo @ 1.66ghz compare to Core Duo @ 2ghz?

 

Pretty much the same performance as the 1.6ghz core duo - which frankly isn't that much lower in performance than a 2.0ghz in the first place. But other than that you don't see any other difference until you start running 64bit software (which should be a couple years at best) and at that point I'm not sure how I could tell you they would compare.... but obviously the core duo is 32bit, so what's the speed difference going to matter there if it can't run the software at that point? I would say at that point, it's not going to matter because by time 64bit means anything, most people will be buying a new system years down the road.

 

Core Duo will be measurably faster, but not noticeably. C2D might fetch a few bucks more come resale time though.

 

I have 2 similar questions to RobsMob,

When it comes to Archiving/Unarchiving files with Winrar, which is probably the most cpu intensive task I do, would there be a big difference between the 2ghz core duo and the 1.66 core2duo.

Also, at the moment I have a 2.6 ghz P4 processor (with 1 GB ram and a Ati Radeon 9800 graphic card) so about how large a speed increase should I expect from the Merom W3J.

 

In Winrar, the 1.6 C2D and 2.0 CD will be almost identical in performance. I mean that literally in that it will be within 1-2% either way.

 

Thanks, Hyperluminous. I'm sure I won't notice a difference in any of the other programs I regularly use: MS Office, Firefox, Winamp and Azureus.

 

I went with the P-M 2.0 when I bought my Z33, and to be quite honest, I wish I had put the $$ towards the DVD+-RW instead and gone with a 1.6 or a 1.83.

 

Is there a price cut planned for the S6f? The specs are getting pretty dated (unless it's been discontinued).

 

Good point about the 64bit. Thanks for the input.

 

The S6f's are only about a month old in the states... and they're not getting updated till what looks like January at best. For an 11" notebook - trust me, those specs aren't dated and you wouldn't want anything more in them either.