Just got the W3J and very disappointed.

no no, i think you got me wrong. i said that the W3J did not meet my EXPECTATION to sound quality, not my NEEDS. i mean, it is just not right for the 14" W3J to be beaten by the 10.6" vaio t-16. i am not very picky to screen quality that is why i noted that i can live with it. again, to put it in simple terms, i just don't buy any laptop for sound quality. i think you are being too black and white. i hope you got me now.

 

So why did you title the thread "just got the W3J and very disappointed" ?

Had you explained that the screen is good for work/ internet etc but grainny for watching DVDs, I could understand that.

 

again, the screen is good but not the best i've seen.. this is all based from my preference from saying it is GOOD. i am actually very disappointed about the speakers and if you read my posts, i'm not even complaining too much to the lcd except for the first post. i've had enough with the lcd issue bec. like what i've said, i can live with it. maybe i went too much by saying it is one of the annoying issues, this is bec. it failed to MY comparisons, not to YOUR comparisons.

please, read the entire thread first. i hope for your kind consideration.

also, i don't want to be an *ss in this forum, i just want to tell everyone on what I think on W3J.

 

I took your post for what it is. You are unhappy with the overall quality of the notebook from lcd to the audio to the cosmetics. A very one sided review and frankly extremely negative. I doubt anyone elsereading will feel otherwise

 

I think this guy should be left alone......... before the thread gets closed though, I'd like to know what 14" widescreen WXGA resolution panel he's seen that's better........ You can't compare a 14" widescreen to a 14" regular ratio or a 15 or 15.4" or a 12"...... they're all different and the "best screens" are no doubt 15.4" models at this point, just because of what they can fit into a panel of that size........ but if anyone would like to challenage the W3j's screen with any other 14" WXGA - I'd love to know who has a better one. I think that's the root of this story.

 

You know, if Asus just sold their laptops through retail shops in north america then there wouldn't be all this fuss because people would go to the store, use the laptop in person, and know what to expect from it. And after they start selling laptops directly in north america then they could open repair shops in major cities and then we could just walk in and get our laptops repaired ourselves instead of having to pay and wait for shipping.

 

Berryjuce. You are arguing mostly with two guys (read internet stores) who make living selling ASUS laptops. What do you want from them? To admit that this laptop as well as a couple of other models has almost no sound at all? And a bad display? Common. Be realistic and stop humbly asking their permissions to express you opinion. This could affect their sales. They are afraid of such posts as hell. They will tell you everything that helps their sales and will do everything to prevent such posting from leveling ASUS to the ground.
As per your questions – Yes, you bought wrong laptop. It is not made for normal people who needs functionality but for people who admire brushed gun metal and ATI X1600.
The issue with sound is well known from W3V that suffered the same problem. The only way you can enhance the loudness of the speakers is to solder some capacitors in parallel with each of them. It is done by some asus services in other countries and it does help a little.
You can also replace a screen later if you do not like it. A few hundred dollars does not make a big deal for you now.

 

Good point I have used this technique in car audio, capacitor acts like a passive crossover, cuts out the bass and the energy is transfered to the mid-high range is is effective and does raise the volume by approx 25% just depends on which value capacitor, as different values cut of the bass at different frequencies, and because laptops dont have any bass anyway its only going to improve the sound.

Also my friend at work used some software that boosts the laptops volume I will try and find out what it was.

Also in terms of sound output, I just got a pair of schure E500's and I can tell you the output quality is fine, I will post on this later when I have time.

 

I feel otherwise.

I think Berryjuice brought up issues that might or might not be with his W3J. But instead of everying picking on him, it would be nice if people could help him try to pinpoint whether it is a defect or personal expectation.

So far the posts picking on him, totally outweight the amount of posts that tell him to, maybe try this, or try that, to see whether it's just him, his W3J or all W3J's are just like that.

Berryjuice my W3J is pretty loud imo. I'm sure you've already checked all possible settings and different types of media (CD's, mp3) and if they all don't sound decent, you might want to contact a tech from where you bought it and see if they can help.

 

ya, Berry i see what your saying and i dont meant for my post to sound like a attack i just dont really see how any built in audio in a laptop this size is ever going to be enough.

If we are talking just impressions and not expectations, i agree, the audio as far as volume is lousy in the W3J but then again ... i think it was intended to be used with external speakers or headphones anyways so it wasnt a high priority to ASUS engineers.

So basically this is a case of "a dozen of one and 2 half dozens of the other". Were saying the same thing just ... hanging up on terminology and idiology.

As for what u can do about this ... i have a pair of wrap around sony headphones that ive just paired with my laptop that i use when i really care about audio and that does great for me. Maybe you should buy a nice pair of headphones or speakers to go with ur W3J?

 

i have the say the w3j has the best onboard sound i've heard (using expensive grado headphones) !!!

I was pleasantly surprised and would have been otherwise ready to spend $150 on a replacement audio card for the lappy

 

On a sidenote, i tried setting the bios speaker volume to 8, and the mp3's now do play at a very reasonable volume (can't really confirm it made a definate improvement tho)...

As for the volume playing DVD's... I remember one program I used allowed you to boost the volume (Gain control), which can easily fix the problem with the volume not reachin a high enough level.