Is it just me or does ASUS need to *simplify* their product lines?

Not only is it immensely confusing for the consumer, it fragments inventory and increases costs with so many different models (often with similar specs) under production. They really need to rebrand everything into two lines (business and home) with *one* 13", 15", 17" in each line, and toss in their miscellaneous premium units such as Leather or Carbon fiber etc.

 

asus was the only notebook i was looking at for my next notebook.

i got frustrated after trying to find a simple, easy way to configure and purchase their notebooks. the Fn / Ctrl key switch was the final nail in the coffin.

i will have to admire them from afar.

 

I agree, their performance/size/price balance is amazing, but various design choices and flaws plague each and every good notebook =\

 

Bad move.

Plus if they didn't have options, we'd lament them for not having enough.

It's a matter of finding what is right for you and then finding the model that meets those needs. Not getting caught up in everyone that is available and breaking them down from there.

 

I think their number of options makes it harder to pick just one!

 

i'm not sure if you're responding to my post or not since i didn't mention anything about options and availability. maybe you meant to quote the first post.

i also don't understand your last sentence?

 

I couldn't agree more. Asus is the company with some of most amazing engineering talent, combined with some of the most amazingly bad product management / marketing talent. It's reflected on how small a market share Asus branded laptops hold, given the quality of the product.

They should kill their Built On line of laptops, simplify their Ensemble line as suggested, and most importantly allow all laptops to be built to order. That way everyone could have the Asus quality in the form factor they want, with the exact components they want. And I would ask that local country, or regional Asus management, not be involved in picking which components will be available within a given region. (Just look at the spec sheet for your favorite Asus and then ask yourself why your regional version doesn't come with the fastest CPU spec'ed, highest screen resolution, or bluetooth included.)

Of course if they did that, the volume of messages on these message boards would probably halve. No more "what's the CPU on the new A6" type posts, along with the posts that gripe about "why is the T7200 in the new A8, and NOT the new W3", etc...

 

I think they are actually better off now than they would be if they killed the built-ons and opened up the ensembles for customization. Sure, some of the ensemble models look a little redundant. But having the ensembles available the way they are is actually a major strenght in my opinion.

Sure, you and I like to spec out every single part of our notebooks (and desktops too probably) and have the machine specifically built to order for us. But the vast majority of people do not, they don't understand the difference between Intel and AMD processors (other than that they are made by different companies), let alone the differences between C2D and Core Duo. Most people want to be able to go into the store, tell the salesperson what they want, and walk out with a machine (maybe do a little price shopping between stores). They don't want to have to spend hours online reading dense technical jargon trying to understand if they need a 64-bit processor to do what they want. Most people want to buy a computer like they buy a DVD player, go in, buy it, take it out of the box and go.

I include most college kids in this too, since while they know a bit more about software most of them have only a little more knowledge about hardware, and don't want to learn more.

I'm not being critical of most people with this, just saying that they have different needs and don't want to take the time to learn a lot about computers (which is understandable, people are busy).

 

brass you are right especially for people that dont know about computers they go in a store and a sales person says this is a good one and they believe it although they may look around abit they are probably going to go with what the salesman says.

 

Customization isn't the most important thing, I just think there are too many redundant models out there. If Asus wants to go retail (which I believe is vital for their success in the US market, given the stats on retail vs. online order sales for notebooks) they'll have to choose 2-3 notebooks to really push hard because shelf-space is so scarce. Instead of introducing so many new notebooks, I think they should perfect a handful of knockout designs and focus on selling those to the masses.

Seriously, I hate to see all this engineering talent behind Asus get wasted by sales strategy.

 

Yeah, I pretty much agree, I think one of the people that's a reseller said that they want to have something in every conceivable size and price-point for some reason, rather than focusing on making a smaller number of really nice machines. People will cough up some extra cash to get quality a lot of the time, as long as they believe you and understand what they are buying.

On the trusting the sales people note, a friend of mine went to a big-box store and said he needed a laptop that can run Civ4, the sale-drone told him that the only machine they had that he though could handle that was the qosmio, so that's what my friend bought. Thankfully I found out before his return time was up and helped him get something just as suitable, but a LOT less expensive.

 

I find it quite organized really, in terms of the suffixes and prefixes

 

I, too, find it quite organized.
If you think about it, the way Asus markets their notebooks isn't too different from IBM/Lenovo or HP... you have your main series model (e.g dv1000... or T60... or W3J)... and each series has a particular model to choose from with certain specs. Not every HP dv1000 is the same... nor is every T60. Why can't Asus have different versions of the W3J?

 

the naming is quite organized, once you figure out the affixes. the model numbers are far less useful though. if there was a brief indication of size, that would make a world of difference. 1=11", 2=12", 3=13.3" etc...

i like the variety, even the redundant variety within size categories (w3, a8, z62).

i think asus does not have the specification selection that others do because they choose to sell only through resellers, rather than setting up an online store.

 

Kill the built on line? Could you guys imagine what would happen if ASUS did this? I imagine they would need a truck to hold all of the lawsuits papers. All of the companies that take their built on line, slap their name on it and sell it have a contract with them.

It's also probably a big reason why ASUS never released the W3 chassis as a built on like they had said they were going to. They were making a boatload of money off of the ensemble W3j that they said screw that, if we release that chassis our w3 sales will drop.

 

Some of the products are not marketed intelligently.

I think the a8js is perfect for small online resellers because the stats sell it.

But a v6j needs a personal retail store enviornment to sell. You need to see it to understand why it costs so much, like the Thinkpad.

 

I think that Asus is doing OK, if you went to some other company and didn't customize your computer, it would be just as hard to pick. I do agree about some computers like the V6j, though. It is a hard sell without seeing, but once you do, wow!

 

Asus should simplify their product line not just because of us, another thing they gain is at the production line, which they can pump out more notebooks.

 

I really don't what to see Asus decrease their product line -especially it it means splitting their notebooks into business and enthusiast models like all the other major notebook brands. I bought an A8Js (still on order) because I wanted a DTR in a 14.1" wide screen chassis. Now go to Dell, HP, or Sony and find a 14.1" wide screen laptop that even has a GPU and you'll understand why I'm buying an Asus...

P.S. One of the biggest complaints on the Dell forum is that there isn't a 15" XPS laptop...

 

Asus only really has 6 lines of notebooks, if you view their global site.
Digital Home
Business
New Concept
Portability
Personal Entertainment Center
Super Mobility

Its not that their product line is complex, Its just that we, as users, know it to that level of complexity.

comparing on the level, lets say w3 to an a8, is like comparing to that of dells inspiron 1300 to an inspiron 9400.

I think the product line is fine. : )

 

I think some models should not be there, like the Z62 series. To me it's a mystery as why they didn't do a built-on version of the W3J (like the Z63a). The z63a was a big success in North America. I don't care about gaming, so a GMA950 would be fine for me. Same with the W1 line, that would have been a huge success here I think. Marketing IS strange at Asus.

 

Hmm, time to sum this up with my opinion, like what i've been saying for over 6 months about ASUS, I like their product but don't like the marketing, many will agree.

The suffixes and prefixes are an easy way to organize their laptop, GJ ASUS

ASUS offers a variety of chasis for the user to chose from in their screen size.

ASUS prices do for the most part match what people want to pay for a quality made laptop. (quality is subject on a different scale, however for this purpose we can state ASUS has higher quality than most Brands)

ASUS Built-On laptops were an instant HIT! however think of it this way ASUS resellers sell an 800$ chasis like the Z70va, how much profit do you think ASUS is really making off of this? (despite numbers of sales) However if you compare it to the ASUS reseller selling a 1800$ laptop ASUS would make more per unit.

I will agree that most consumers do not want to customize or know how or what customization is all about because the consumers do not know a lot about each component.

For the North American market, Dell is advertising built to order, and ASUS in itself does not offer this, however the resellers can do it by voiding warranty and increasing the price accordingly.

You have to remember ASUS is a international company and sell these laptops worldwide, however so does Dell but i am not 100% sure on Dell's marketing strategy in other countries.

Just an FYI, in North America ASUS is not a TOP 5 seller, however in the European and Asian markets ASUS is a Top 5 seller. So this goes to show ASUS is doing something right.

As for splitting the ASUS model into Business and Home, this is pretty much pointless if ASUS models were allowed to be built to spec. For example, if ASUS allowed a black W7J wit a fingerprint reader, we could consider it a Business notebook because of the features.

If ASUS is going just keep the Ensemble units the way they are, then the way they are organizing their laptop is good. Dell just renames the E1604 to E6400 for home and business, but of course Dell has the B and M series

If you want to compare straight figures of production and marketing, Dell has roughly 10+ models in which all are customizeable to the end users specs, also all of them are pretty decently priced with or without coupons. Of course there's a quality question mark.

Whereas ASUS has 25+ models plus some Built-on models to try and capture every market. However many will find this to be redundant and useless, I will explain why:

If the ASUS W3J was customizable, including the GPU, since Dell has customizable GPU, meaning ASUS can do the same, and had a DVI port, there would be almost no point for ASUS to create the A8 series right?

Well your almost right but what if the end user wants or like the inferior chasis of the a8. But in anycase as someone previously mentioned, if the W3J was the only 14" Widescreen notebook in production yes the Chasis price would be around $800ish, thus meaning they are ramping up production, which in long term decrease cost because they don't have to produce the a8 series.

So that covers the 14" notebook, now on the 15.4" everyone here is still waiting on hte V1J, but that is pretty much the all round ASUS notebook, lets assume the V1J was also customizeable, ramp up the production, decrease the cost because of all the other ASUS 15.4" notebook will not be needed to be produced like the S96j, Z96j, W1J and etc. Once again the price would be close to 800$ per chasis.

In anycase lets assume chasis makes a total of 10 chasis that fits the needs of all consumers because all of them you can custumize basicaly almost everything, from CPU to a fingerprint reader and a webcam. Aside having extra features in customization increase cost of production so beware.

Just add another dimension, someone mentioned different variations of the same laptop, yes ASUS does do this in other countries, for exmaple the V1J comes in about 2-3 variations for a particular country, high spec, low spec and something else. Once again, if ASUS did that for all models in all countries, I personaly don't know whether prices would go down due to more production of a partuclar model or if the price would go up for the exact same reason.

However Toshiba offers variations and their prices are low, but at a cost to quality and service.

Now lets to the marketing and sales.

Dell does not need resellers to sell brand new laptop, thus customization for them is easy to do, thus Dell is advertising Built to Order and that Great. Dell sells in volume and that how they make profits, plus extra money when the user upgrades.

NOTE: Remember companies need to make money, this is their primary goal, their other goals are further down there, like marketing support, in Dell's case support is also a relatively high priority. (some will disagree LOL)

Now with that said there's roughly 4 ways a company can make profits in my mind.

1) Direct marketing and sales, the BEST example is Dell, who offers customization and good prices. End users benefit from this because they get what they want and at a price they can afford, however there's a slight compramize in quality, however Dell makes up for that in their support.

So Dell makes a lot of money because they are able to target ANY consumer of ANY price range, but if an end user wants quality, they will stride away from Dell, Acer and Toshiba. ASIDE: If Dell offered their products in high quality form with chasis made from carbon fibre or alluminum alloy at an extra cost of 200$ or so, you think ASUS will survive?? HINT HINT HINT Dell (that's the winning formula they are missing in which they need to tack on)

2) Direct sales but no customization, 3 companies come to mind, HP/Compaq and Toshiba and Acer. This is also good for the consumer because cheap prices and these are readily available from almost any local store, like Futureshop, Best Buy, Fry's and etc.

These companies offer the same laptop with different configurations and specs in which the end users pick and then purchase, it is very close to what the end under wants, but not entirely like Dell's full customization.

Once again, profits are made directly on the sale of an entire unit and in masses, these companies also have to have good support and technical help.
In North America you can see Dell, Acer, Tosh, HP in the TOP Sellers.

3) Simply chasis production and sold through reseller, one big company comes to mind is Compal and then ASUS, but lets just look at Compal for this case.

Compal simply produces great chasis, with good quality and sells them to Brands, like Alienware, Vodoo, Sager and etc, this allows for customization for end users, good pricing, (Yes Alienware and Vodoo cost more for the same at Sager) and Compal does not need to have a big support line.

But remember profits is the key here, Compal sells the chasis, each one roughly at 700$ how much profit do you think they are making?? Not much since the screen eats up most of the production cost. Compal needs to sell millions constantly to make a lot of profit. Yes i am putting aside the fact that Compal is an ODM for several companies and produce other's chasis too.

So you will have to go through a reseller to buy it and the reseller provides the customer support. Is it good or bad? The best choice is pick a reputable company and then go from there. This can be seen as an advantage or disadvantage, its up to you.

4) This is where ASUS would fit in, ASUS offers almost everything but misses out in many things too.
ASUS offers ensemble units that can be sold direct like Toshiba, however they are sold through a reseller, thus YES the price goes up, because there's a distributor and supplier etc, they are called the middle man. Hence direct sales like Dell laptop cut the middle man out and they are cheaper (sorta).

ASUS makes more money selling the W3J as a whole per unit, than selling the chasis of the Z70va, 1800$ vs 800$.
ASUS does offer built on models however only a few of them, since the ensemble units are ASUS major priority, all of ASUS laptop are sold through resellers.
These resellers can offer upgrades and customization and good service provided you find the right one with a good reputation.
Once again, ASUS does not need to have a big support line due to the fact the resellers will mainly take care of it, and ASUS just has to have a repair bay to physically fix them, ASUS does have a support line but it is not as vast as Dells.

So ASUS make more profits per unit in ensembles with low costs for support, thanks to the resellers.

With this said, i'm pretty sure ASUS made their decision knowingly do it their own way, or maybe they didn't know about this. Who knows, but you can see the outcomes of each type of business and they all work, some better than others of course. Pick one method and think it through in terms of Profits for the Company, Prices for Consumers and Support for Help.

Thanks,

MysitcGolem (Yes i've said a lot, read the entire thing as a whole please)

 

I would also like to add 2 Dynamics that need to be layed out.

Production rate:
I have watched ASUS over 3 CPU changes, Pent-M, yonah, and Merom, and ASUS in my mind has been slow.
Lets roll back, and look at the date of when Yonah was released, the only high performance laptop that was out, was the Acer 8204 which was 2500$ and was being shipped out in Feburary. Acer was very very happy about this because all consumers at that time only had 1 choice to make, and that's to buy that laptop. I'm sure if the S96j or Z96j were also available then, ASUS would have recieved a nice jump in profits.

So yes, the company who rolls out a model first after a technological change gets the $$$, lol. ASUS unfortunately was extremely slow in releasing all their 20+ model to North America, thus you can see how some profits are made and lost in the production rate.

Aside, ASUS is only 1 month behind when they released the Merom notebook, when you compare them to Dell, however there's a lot of waiters here, that want a W3J+ but only havethe A8js available with Merom. Yes once again ASUS will take their time. LOL, but it will be ok.

The next thing to look at is the resellers themselve:

Resellers actually benefit a company like ASUS, why? Because if a resellers promotes themself they are also promoting ASUS too along side it. So this benefits ASUS, the harder resellers work and have a good reputation, this reflects very positively for ASUS.

Bringing about the ASUS name and brand will help any brand, but everyone has heared of Dell, but there are many North Americans who still haven't heard of ASUS yet. Once they find out what ASUS is all about, good performance, quality, and resellers, i'm sure they will interested to know more about ASUS.

For those who may have not gotten my final opinion on this matter, here it is:

The Ideal: I would like to see roughly 10 models that are fully customizeable by the reseller. This is the absolute best for consumers because we get lower prices and everything we want, but as I said earlier Companies are made to make money. So this will not be the best in my opinion for ASUS to make money, because there's not much money to be made from an 800$ chasis, when compared to a 1800$ laptop.

The Practical: This route may proove to be very good for ASUS while still satisfying the consumers. ASUS Should roughly have 10-15 units, in which they would come in variations, high specs, medium spec, and low specs. These laptops should be also sold through resellers.
All in all The consumer will still have a price to pay, but gets something close to what they want, ASUS makes their money, and reseller get the business because there are variations to the laptop in which the low speced laptop will open up the low end cost market to ASUS.

FYI: ASUS does offer some variations for some notebooks in other countries, I wish they just did the same for all countries including North America.

Thanks,

MysticGolem (by all means add your opinions, critique me too, )

 

Mystic Golem,

Great post. I agree with much of what you said. I only want to add a couple of things. I think that the big elephant in the room is build to order (BTO). I think that if Asus opened that door, it would allow them greater freedom in reducing and simplifying their laptop product line. It would allow them to add new technology quicker, because in some cases it could be added to existing product lines without necessitating an entire laptop design/redesign. They could, as others and yourself have pointed out, reduce their line to a manageable amount of either business and consumer lines, or whatever they came up with. Perhaps they would settle on an expensive line, (W3), and an inexpensive line (A8), and call it what they want. If they did that, they could easily reduce costs in laptop engineering, marketing and sales, inventory, service and support, across the board.

By simplifying their product lines it would strengthen their appeal. People, experts and general users alike, would have less to keep track of, and more ability to measure up the Asus models (or lines) against competitive offerings from others. They also could stop worrying if they were buying the "right" Asus laptop. Frankly the notion that this would be confusing for the casual end user, is, well, confusing. Look at the business model of anyone who does offer BTO, and you can see that they all offer stock configurations. Noone needs to order an additional thing to have a decently configured laptop. (I certainly wasn't envisioning a box of parts showing up on my front porch..) But BTO does one other very important thing. It brings in the crowd of people, that is often times referred to as the "technical recommenders". People like you and others on these boards, that when you talk, people listen. It's sometimes referred to as the 20% that brings in 80% of the business. After having won YOU over, the entre into the market is much easier, because of the buzz, credible buzz, that's created. So BTO, and more importantly, catering to the influential customer in this market, is much more important than the actual laptops that will get sold to that customer. And businesses know it. Frankly Asus knows it too. Although I would disagree with them and Acer, on their approach. I don't have many geek friends who are impressed with Ferrari or Lamorghini, (on their computers), but I know most are impressed with 2+ghz C2D, 512mb GPUs, 2GB (or 4B) RAM, and 7200rpm 160GB SATA drives.. (plus Bluetooth and VERY high res screens..)

The sad part of this discussion, (and why I referred to it as the elephant in the room, as in "the elephant in the room that noone wants to talk about"), is that the history of this business has used BTO not to enhance a relationship with resellers, which could have certainly been done, but to cut them out altogether. Dell, and then later to a lesser degree, Apple, popularized BTO with their consumers, to the detriment, (or should I say evisceration), of their reseller channel. (Dell does business the same way in the other countries I've visited BTW..) The problem is that EVERY laptop manufacturer with a decent market share, does BTO now. EVERY ONE. Dell, HP (or is that HP, Dell), IBM/Lenovo, Toshiba, and Apple. Heck most boutique computer vendors do it too. Which while giving great flexibility of choice for end users, also screwed the end users too. For my last 8 laptop purchases I had to deal with the manufacturer (because I bought it BTO), for my warranty issues, and while they were all handled (some took a LONG time), it's not like when I went back to the local store I bought my pool table from, and told them that I would like them to reinstall the slates, because I felt the balls rolled funny. (They came to my house on a Sunday, and did it with a smile..) I should say that HP and Toshiba do a decent job of supporting a reseller channel even with a direct BTO purchase option. Maybe even IBM too. (Not Dell of course..) They do this by making some models not available as BTO, etc.

So a simplification of the product line? Yes. A BTO option? Very much Yes. I also think it's key to simplifying the product line. Doing so would create confusion? I don't think so. More successful name brand recognition? Absolutely. Cutting out the resellers? Not at all. A system where Asus laptops are simplified into a few, easy to understand product lines (with default configurations), are orderable through premier Asus resellers, who can customize a laptop config with a select group of Asus and/or Asus qualified parts, which is backed by one warranty that can be frontline serviced by the reseller, but also backed by Asus. That's my ideal..

 

As far as I know, Asus doesn't have the production capability to do BTO Ensemble models. They have to fulfill their orders for laptops from OEMs first and foremost, which limits what is available. Also, doing BTO Ensemble would require an entire online ordering/distribution system that they just don't have.
They made a decision to go with single configurations/dealers with Ensemble for a reason, and obviously it works in Asia and Europe.

The Built-On and Ensemble lines were differentiated started with the current model lines, which is why the Z63 went away. There used to be a lot of shared chassis between the two lines, or at least similarities (S5 being a single-spindle version of the M5, for instance) all of which have been removed for the most part. That way Asus isn't competing with itself, which is always a bad thing.

 

lol you should probably take the time to click on each of those "categories" and see for yourself whether they represent ASUS product lines. These are nothing more than general categories with different ASUS laptops cross-posted among them. Dont even get me started on the ASUS website

 

Jas, great post, I agree with you totaly, however I was in the same thinking mindset of you back 3 months ago. My thinking changed because I was being biased and i didn't even know i was being biased.

There are roughly 2 sides to this story:
1) ASUS - First goal make profits, don't forget it, they want to make money the best way possible without hurting customers and their Brand.
2) Customers - Want quality for the most part, cheaper prices for the most part, BTO customization and personalization of laptop for the most part.

NOTE: the reason why i state "for the most part" is because everyone has a different level of computer literacy and in which they may or may not know what to buy or what certain parts do, except how much or how little a laptop costs.

Jumper's comment is correct in my opinion Jas, and I agree with him and why ASUS did what they did. Just an FYI ASUS is an ODM, meaning they make chasis for other brands like Apple. Plus they sell their own brand name Laptops.

Jas there's one fundemental problem with the BTO theory for ASUS, as Jumper mentioned, but taking it one step further in terms of pratical use, how can you make ASUS product BTO?

Should ASUS make a system where it is very similar to Dell and make BTO laptops like Dell is, make as in produce and the method of selling. If so, then what happens to the loyal resellers? Well you guessed it they will be gone, I personaly would rather keep the resellers because of the service they provide , despite the fact the middle man increase prices for consumers, but this is a price people are willing to pay since people want service and quality.

Or lets scratch the Dell method of producing and selling laptops and move towards the Compal example, you know Sager, Alienware and Vodoo. Yes the Chasis is made by ASUS and then goes to the reseller and the reseller BTO's the laptop to the consumer's need.

This is the MOST ideal for the consumer, because the consumer gets the best price, service, warranty, and components. However, as I previously mentioned above, the problem is that ASUS will then be trying to make profits off of 800$ chasis, there may not be a lot of money to be made on just 800$ when compared to ASUS selling a system as a whole for 1800$. Companies are built to make money first everything else is secondary.
Other can and will argue if all ASUS model are BTO through resellers, there should be a huge increase in sales thus balancing the profits when compared to selling Ensemble units.
There's also another fundamental problem with that, not every North American knows the ASUS name or Brand, some will also argue that word of mouth that ASUS BTO should bring about more sales, and it does but it is definately not enough.

I want to hint at another thing that we all may be unconsciencously looking for the perfect brand that provides the perfect laptop using current technology, and offers, cheap affordable BTO chasis with good quality materials.
If you remember what i hinted at, All that Dell has to do is make an option in which turns their somewhat cheap plastic laptops into carbon fibre masterpieces and since Dell already has the winning formula of sales, this would dominate the market. So yes, I do see Dell being the only company that comes close to what the people would want, they already offer BTO with cheap prices and coupons to further drive down prices. Once they realise that people are now and also wanting quality, they can easily produce carbon fibre chasis and grab the market.

Sony did have this option for their lids for some laptops, they offered a premium black carbon fibre lid for something like 500$ or so, and people bought them because of the quality and strength of this material. (despite Sony's sneaky trickery with this situation)

Hence in practicality, since everything from ASUS is already set the way they are and things are going good for ASUS, I say make 10-15 models and produce them in 3-5 variations for different consumers and price points.

Battlemage i agree with your comment, i personaly do no look at each of these categories as true representation of these laptops. To me ASUS had to put a title above each laptop so they decided to put those Names for each laptop, but truely who cares how ASUS categorizes these laptops, it is what the consumer wants that is important.

All in all most repsonses here DO AGREE that ASUS needs to cut down on producing all these redundant machines and controversial decision making laptop purchases. Also many responses believe that all these extra production of redundant laptops drives costs up, and i do believe this is true aswell.

Thanks,

MysticGolem

 

I guess honestly I don't see the 'redundancy' you speak of in the current lineup. The Ensemble line only overlaps at areas like the W3J/A8J, which are different price points and different goals. No problems there.

The Built On line has a 13.3" (Z35), an integrated graphics 14" (Z62F), a dedicated graphics 14" (Z62J), an integrated 15.4" (Z96F), a dedicated low-res 15.4" (S96J), a dedicated high-res 15.4 (Z96J), and a 17" (Z84F).

There isn't a lot of overlap, really. I don't think Asus is wasting production lines or making redundant models. If anything the two models lines are more clearly defined and better laid out then this time last year, especially with the elimination of chassis overlap between the two.

I also think that the Ensemble/Built-On/reseller system is fine for the type and quality of products Asus sells. Adding customization to the Ensembles would mean significant labor costs for the resellers, which would either be added onto the costs of individual orders or absorbed by everyone, even those who don't customize.

Asus is in the process of 'spinning off' the branded products division from the ODM production division. I'm very interested in what strategic changes this will bring, but I hope they don't compromise the quality of build and presentation present in the Ensembles.... Because I still want to buy one

 

but thats how it works with a lot of companies. its like if you click in 'inspiron on dell, you go into a bunch of other ones"

 

Actually the dell website is much better organized from my perspective. when i click inspiron i get inspiron, i dont get xps and vice versa. Dell doesnt have general categories like "thin and light", "desktop replacement" but even that would be better than the asus "categories" where laptops are just thrown in and cross-posted. These categories dont represent the asus product line at all. Im not attacking the product line, im just frustrated by that aspect of the bad design of their website...which might go with what justin said about poor marketing..

 

Another well reasoned and written response. Thanks for the great depth and sensible tone to the discussion. I think that we all discuss this because at it's heart, we know Asus makes a great laptop. I do, and I found an Asus deal I could support, and ordered an A8Js, (but customized a bit over at P1). So I got my Asus a little customized..

 

Response to original question: Nah.