Impressions 5 months later from reviewer of W3V

Someone sent me a message asking what I thought of the W3V i reviewd back in June so heres my answers.

Hey, well 5 months later you could say i'm definately not as happy as I was when I got it, but still like a great deal of things about it (design, perforamce, size, screen, graphics....) Here are a couple things which may or may not be the fault of Asus:

For a couple days I was unable to fully boot becasuse the Ati driver got stuck in a "infinate loop" causing windows to restart.
( I admit this is probably a software malfuntion, not to be blamed on the computer, what follows i don't believe has to do with software).
In my frustration i preseed multiple function keys upon startup, one of which was F9, little did i know this gives the option to start a recovery process (deleting everythign on the computer) and my computer had a glitch which meant once you had pressed f9, there was nothing I could do to prevent a recovery. Luckily there was a guy who was able to get windows back to how it was before, but 99.9% of the population would be capable of this.

The hot keys on the side of the laptop are erratic, sometimes working, sometimes not. Espececially frustrating when the wireless key won't work and I have no way of turning on/off the wireless internet.

Bluetooth so far has not worked when trying to connect to my phone, not sure if this is just me or the computer. Don't really care enough to check.

Heat does occur, and if you spend a lot of your time with the laptop on your lap, it will heat you up a good deal.

The location of the Kensington lock is subpar at best, if you use it (like i do in my dorm) it blocks the use of one of the usb ports.

I still like the speed and amazing graphics, i play Far Cry and I don't feel like i've lost any performance in choosing a laptop. I still like the size and the amazing screen as well as the overall design with the battery in the hinge (genius by the way, one of the best innovations to save space and look **** good). In retrospect, though some aspects of the W3V frustrate me, OVERALL I'm still happy with the W3V.

 

Joey,

A lot of your problems honestly seem to be software related and could be a result of just how you use it and what you may download. I suggest you do a full format and reinstall and 90% of your issues will go away. If they don't, call Asus and have them check for any hardware issues, but it doesn't seem likely from your statements.

In terms of heat - you do realize you have a powerhouse of a system that is going to run like one if you run it full blast...... If you're not making use of powergear (for the cpu and lcd) and powerplay (ati's graphics card ute), then you're most likely running at full blast and that's not going to be any fun if you're just emailing and surfing the web because you're going to get a lot of heat created.

In terms of your phone... what do you have? I know my Sony Ericsson was easier to link to my computers than my Motorola..... but from the computer, it was basically straightforward, from the phone side it didn't really want to connect.......... one of the big problems is figuring out the passcode for the computers BT... I think the computer is either 0000 or 1111.

Try that and I hope it helps.

 

I agree, after 5 months XP is gonna be fully of missing links the registry is gonna be fully of crap and it is usually a good time to do a full format and reinstall of XP. I do mine every 6 months, and like Justin said, 90% of any problems that I may have had disappear straight away.
a

 

oddly enough i also reformat my computer every 6 months too!
But this is on my desktop of course, i don't got a laptop yet.

But basicaly what i did on my desktop now, is have 120gb for Windows, Installed Games, Appz, Drivers and any other programs that would require install in order to use.

and on my 160gb HD, i store everything, for example, my programs for downloading are on my 120gb, but i made the downloads to go directly to my 160gb, so that big 160HD contains, images, rar, movies, music... etc etc.. stuff i basicaly download.

So when i format i would quickly recheck my viruses and spyware, and make sure my 160gb is clear, then back up my 120gb important stuff, and bam format it and reinstall Windows and i wouldn't have lost anything.. so its quite easy for me to format now.


Thanks,

MysticGolem

 

Yeah, I was going to say that it's not fair to blame all of those problems on the laptop. A format, like others have said, will probably fix most -- if not all -- of those problems.

As far as the BT goes, I've read that some service providers (I have Verizon) disable many of the features in their phones. What kind of phone do you have, and who is your provider? I would try to do some research to see if you need to hack your phone in order to open up the BT.

 

Well, Verizon has come around a bit, but they have always been notorious for crippling Bluetooth so it just works with a headset or maybe a car kit....... You're right about that... but for the most part they us LG and Samsung phones... and most of those still don't even have BT, so I'm guessing they at least know they've got a phone that could do it...... but that is an assumption I guess..... but it really is entirely the phone... well, I think a lot could be the operator as well. The first time I tried hooking BT up with my computer and my phone among other things... it was a true pain in the butt (men don't use instructions)..... but once I got it going I realized how to do it and what I was doing wrong. It'd say that BT networking is a step above WiFi in terms of difficulty to get going.... so you do need to know what your'e doing.

 

I've got the Moto e815 through Verizon. It's a great phone, but Verizon crippled it in a very similar fashion to what you said. I'm sure I would have no problem with a headset (not a fan of them) or a car kit, but they disabled the option of connecting to other devices. With the proper tools, and a little bit of hacking, you can get it to connect to your laptop or other BT devices. That way, in a pinch you could connect your laptop to the internet anywhere you have service with your phone! It would also make transfering files much quicker if I didn't need to swap my memory card out of my phone, put it in an SD card adapter, and connect it to my computer... Darn you, Verizon!

Oh well, as soon as I get the means necessary, I'll give my ohone a bit of a steroid boost!

 

Yeah... well now if you look at forums around the web, you can basically do anything .. it's verizon' software that is crippling it, so you just have to release the full potential. I forget the forum right now... but if you search for "moto bt hacks" in google... i'm sure you'll find the site.......... you can update your firmware and everything........... fix a LOT of things that you didn't even know needed fixing. A lot of things I did with my Razr actually helped battery life, voice quality and reception (believe it or not).

 

Yep, XP sucks, it always needs reformatting. I think it is almost time for me to reformat my computer, since I am starting to get random errors on start up now. Once I have the time, I shall be sticking linux on this laptop.

 

... that's actually one of the biggest crocks I've ever heard, but didn't want to get into people's personal formatting habits. XP Pro w/ SP2.... as long as you keep it updated and keep viruses and spyware off your system, there shouldn't be a single problem. If anything, viruses and spyware that are getting you down and you just don't know how to deal with them. Drivers and systems files aren't magically deleting like say in Win 98 or ME....... Some people are just used to formatting because they want to and it's a habit from the old days......... but every six months? Getting rid of your junk is one thing, but to claim is actually "needs it" is a little out in left field. Now, if you don't keep up on things, I could totally understand it.

 

Hey let's not diss Win98SE...that is my second favourite OS

But it's true... I barely reformat...XP is quite efficient as long as you stay away from spyware and viruses. On my old M6Ne, I never had to reformat it... it's still running as fast as the day when I first installed Windows.

 

I really wouldn't call it a bad idea to keep your Windows install fresh... I like to reformat every once in a while and get clean installs of all the programs I use, and get rid of registries and files leftover from programs I don't use anymore.

 

I keep my boot drive simple with just essential applications, utilities and the XP OS. I use ghost to back it up as an image of a previously fawless XP setup and the ghost image is residing on another partition of the HDD. When attack by virus or spyware or slow system performance, I can return the system to the fawless OS within 10 minutes with the image.

 

oh you don't wanna do that. It's just rebranded Clevos and Uniwills. While they're not bad themselves, I've heard a fair shair of long term complaints on models from those two companies.

You could do what I do.. partition your HD into two. one smaller one just for your windows and program files. the other for your downloads and storage stuff (which will be the bigger partition).. then install deep freeze on the c:\. that way every time you start up, it's back to the state you left it. I don't know how many times it helped me wipe out crap on my computer. Assuming you install partition then install deep freeze when the laptop is factory fresh, and you haven't browed around online.. you'd have something that's much more efficient at getting rid of spyware and adware.. simply because it's constantly wiping out the c:\ and reloading it with the previous state

 

There's also a lot of threads on how bad the support and service too.

 

Yea, I think you are right, as long as you stay away from the what could be bad from your computer you don't need to do it that often. Come on, 6 months, that is just insane. I have had my W3V for about 4 months now, it has given me a few problems, freezing because of undervolting, hibernate because of that **** old driver, but overall this is the most stable computer I have worked on and all those problems as of late have not been cropping up or haven't shown itself or that I just fixed them. I do see a few "problems" with the W3V, such as the heat, it was annoying in the beginning, but undervolting really helped, and then their are my cosmetic complaints, such as it not being in all black like I saw in all these reseller sites, it being a little heavier than I expected and it being as thick as it is, but all that just comes with the package.

The upsides outnumber the downsides, it is powerful for such a "light" notebook, terrific screen, great keyboard, great battery life, and the build quality is top notch, it is not made of the flimsy plastic Dells, HP's, Fujitsu's, and Toshiba's are made of, but the strong Carbon Fiber. The only big "problem" to me if you can call it that is just the heat. All it is is annoying, but hasn't caused any problems whatsoever.

You will never be able to find the perfect notebook, but this was as close to it as I could get without going into the $2000+ range. I love it so far and will be loving until I get this replaced, which won't be for years. It was $1750 well spent. Although, if I would have waited a month or so I could have gotten it for that price or a little cheaper from a reseller that would respond to my emails. Oh well, you live and learn.

 

What do you mean by a guy was able to get Windows back to how it was? Did someone reformat your HDD?

If so, you will need to download and install the bluetooth drivers from ASUS support site, it's a hefty 120 or so mb download.

The bluetooth drivers which come on the recovery discs do not work. You will have to dl them yourself.

Also how have you been treating your laptop? Being a PC technician and working with many laptops I notice a lot of people abuse them, only a small percentage take care of there electronic equipment. This could be related to your hot keys not functioning properly or it could just be drivers which need updating.

You should format and reload and install latest drivers from ASUS website.

 

"The bluetooth drivers which come on the recovery discs do not work. You will have to dl them yourself."

This is wrong. I recently installed the bluetooth drivers off the CD and proceeded to hack a couple Verizon phones and test out the Bluetooth. Works fine.

 

Ati infinite loop.....Whatever.....Your problem was user error. 99% of the users on these forums are the majority of asus customers as well. I would venture to say a large majority of asus users know when the problem is user error. Your error was certainly that. Blame your self not the laptop.

 

Nicely put.

 

Fujitsu doesn't use all plastic. They often use magnesium in every model. They are one of the brands known for their build quality. It is up there with IBM, and CANNOT be compared to Dell , Toshiba, and most of HP's lines.

 

Yea, sorry about that, I was just listing the names of notebook companies that came to my head. I didn't realise that until I reread my post just now. My final decision was actually between a Fujitsu S7000 series and the ASUS W3V, but the W3V won out as I compiled a list comparing the two, but I have heard that it won't last as long the ASUS, if put under extreme stress, although the screen is amazing, seeing it in person is a totally different story than reading about it.

But overall as I said earlier, I don't regret my choice in the W3V, it simply is almost perfect.

 

ok.. user error? so i did something to cause the ati driver to do that. I think ur full of it. If you know it was user error then let me know what I did for the driver to do that.

And whats with a glitch in the asus bios on my computer that doen't allow (once f9 has been pressed) for windows xp to reboot, trapping the harddrive in a recovery process, the only means of correcting is by using fdisk. honestly. I talked with an asus rep ( 2 actually, the first couldn't speak english), and he said he has heard of this happening before so its not just me.

BTW: i don't use verizon, my phone that i was trying to use the bluetooth on unsuccessfully is a motorola V330 with T-mobile service.

thanks guys

 

Joey.. i'm not sure what your bios issue is... but pressing F9 on an Ensemble brings up the auto reformat and reinstall options..... I don't know why you're hitting F9 unless that's what you're doing, but to get into the bios you hit F2...

 

totally agree with your problems being software related.

I kinda wish they had a 14" Z70Va hahaha as that screen size seems to be ideal for size/power/weight considereations.

 

Well, i've been using for W3v for about 6 months now, the only thing i dislike about this darling is its battery life, with:

notebook hardware control running on battery opt (800mhz PROCESSOR, GRAPHICS GPU from 400mhz/250mhz clocked down to 200mhz/125mhz, and harddisk enable spindown w/ disabled harddisk monitor
+
power gear 4 on office/email settings
= hits btw 1hr 50 to 2 hours tops. preety poor battery life. (programes that i run mainly is office word, no itunes or whatsoever.. =( )


with all the latest software updates too!
So thats the only flaw i hate about it =(

 

JingYou,

You only get 2 hours tops on your W3V? I get a little over 4 hours with my screen brightnesss turned down, doing low power tasks like email and web browsing.

I run NHC, but not Power4Gear at the same time, and don't even underclock the graphics card or tweak the HDD settings in NHC.

Make sure your screen brightness is turned down, and disable P4G in the msconfig startup tab.

Your battery life is atypical...

 

Yeah... Hitting as many keys on your keyboard as you can during startup is kind of... yeah.

 

Wow oh my 4 hours on ur w3v, thats very very long! gheez i'm gona try disabling P4G and see if it helps. Will update after trying this.

 

I also use CHC/NHC on my W3V, undervolted to 1.007 at 800MHZ, GPU at 300/175, and I get about 4:15 on battery with screen around half but constant web usage. JingYou, I'd definitely disable PowerGear and download NHC. 2 hours on a W3V is just wrong -- I got about 3.5 out of the box!

 

I get about 4+ hours on my Z63a... the W3V shouldn't be much less than that. I'm not even undervolting...

 

I've had my w3v for about 8 months now and overally I'm pretty happy w/ it. I do have some problems w/ it though. The battery life is mediocre for one. I do a lot of typing and the wrist rest is really discolored and i tried to clean it w/ the weakest cleaner i could find and the silver color came off. The biggest problem, and this probably is software related, is that I can't ever shutdown w/o just turning the thing off. If i try to restart, every program decides it wants to malfunction (especially wcourier.exe) and ten minutes later it still hasn't restarted. It also takes FOREVER to start up, seemingly freezing on my desktop screen before the icons come up. Oh well, i like the computer though...if anyone knows how to resolve the problems, i'd like to hear it.

 

Sounds like you should re-install the OS...
This has nothing to do with the computer itself... just buggy software.

As for your palm rest... can't help you there. You could replace it... but it's probably not worth it (unless aesthetics are that important to you)

 

My impressions 8 months later...
I still enjoy my W3v greatly and would recommend it over any of it's direct competitors (which are few) and over most (ok, all) other brands. However, the media/function keys on the side are very annoying especially when moving the thing while it's on. My right speaker went out (would ASUS fix this through the warranty?) and the thing has been getting increasingly hot over the months at idle. I have had software trouble and had to reinstall the OS twice but I believe that was due to a faulty external hard drive. Overall I enjoy it and use it often. I now consider it better in terms of it's value than in the quality of the thing. I don't reget my decision to buy the W3v because it is simply one of the best nokebook for price, features, proformance and styling, but it could certianly be a better notebook and I enjoy it less now than when I got it.

 

sounds like a lot of people went over the honeymoon period..

i actually wonder whether asus did anything else different for the w3j other than putting in a faster proc, faster graphics, and cooler (subjective) touchpad

 

On many occassions the increased startup time is a direct result of the installation of too many programs that run background processes. This is why Windows starts up super fast when you first get it (i.e. when you haven't installed any programs), but much slower later on (i.e. when you install Norton Anitivirus).

 

Maybe the different color is a response to the fading as described above. Who knows - could be the color is more durable, maybe a different material - I'm speculating of course.

Most of the "issues" are purely software as stated...some don't take care of their PCs w/ Anti-spyware...etc. so that could be the culprit as well.

 

A little extreme don't you think? Possibly not the best manner to win customers. Sarcasm + brute statements = harsh

Just an FYI - I don't think the entire frame is carbon fiber (although I may be wrong). What I do know is that carbon fiber is not designed to be "strong" by nature, but "light"

Plastic can be a lot firmer than carbon fiber. Loving your laptop is a great thing, but don't become a blatant fanboy. You could regret it on your next notebook decision.

 

Nah, every one of these issues was from bloated expectations......

1. battery life...... the W3v was battery whore for a 14" centrino... (the w3j is more so) and it's going to suck the battery life like a drunk girl at a frat house..... 3-4 hours is GREAT for that system........ you can't have 5-6-7 hours with that sort of spec.

2. hot palmrest.... again, 1/32" between your palms and a 5400rpm hitachi hard drive... the heat, as I demonstrated the heat was actually coming through the right side of the aluminum touchpad (aluminum... duh) which transferred the heat a lot better than it did through the palmrest... 5400rpm produces heat... 7200rpm even more so... I suggest if you go with 7200rpm certainly go with a seagate.. if you want less hear out of the 5400rpm - go buy a seagate as well...

3. in terms of "startup speeds".... people who think their computer is growing old and slowing down.. they honestly need that smack in the head to tell them it's not the computer - it's THEM.... honestly..... just get to the point and don't baby them. Startup speed is either going to be an issue of RAM (unlikely, but possible)... but 99% of the time is all the **** that's starting up on the system........ I've fixed too many people's systems to believe that anyone who doesn't realize that's why it's slow - could be having other problems... If they know to look for that stuff, then ok, it might be something else... but if they want to get down and blame the computer, I'd guarentee it's loaded like your crazy uncle on the fourth of july.

 

Having my w3v for a few months now I'd like to add my thoughts here.

Battery life is never an issue for me. There's always a plug somewhere. Also, one of the reasons why I got the w3v is for the modular bay. +2 hours (at least) for the battery in the module bay, I'm planning to get a modular battery before I go on a trip to Montreal (5+ hours on the plane).

The palmrest isn't hot at all. The bottom where the hard drive is though gets pretty warm. I guess that's because there's this heat spreader directing the heat towards the bottom. (at least on my laptop anyway)

 

Carbon fiber is stronger than steel (pound for pound) and is as strong as steel with a lot less weight and therefore space being taken up......... When it comes to a laptop, you don't have a 10-15 layer carbon fiber layup... you've got 1-2. Carbon fiber isn't designed up by nature (other than the fact that the graphite strands technically COME from natue.... but it's meant to be strong AND light. What CF does in a layup like on a computer is allow for less thickness in the plastic and yet retain the same rigidity and strength.... pure abs plastic at 1/32" thick would buckle under the pressure of your palms.. that's why a purely plastic system has panels almost triple that thickness.... the laptop made out of CF isn't "stronger", but is AS strong with a lower thickness of panels...... which translates into a lighter system and a thinner system..

... hope that makes sense.

 

i think the overriding conclusion is that, if you want it to remain a 'baby' you gotta treat it like one. i dig the software issues, cause i have a desktop to take care of too. taking care of spyware, registry, all this comes hand in hand with owning a computer imo. w3 is good alright, despite the expected 'flaws' that comes w the power in a small frame. im only worried about the rate of wear n tear over time. but i think it's gonna be alrite.. i went to see the w3v yesterday, and i cant wait till i get my own w3j.