My new A8JM from Portable One!

I received my new a8jm today from portable one! Placed my order yesterday morning online after making my decision. Got a call from Victor at Portable One wanting to discuss the order and make sure we were on the same page because I was asking for a quicker than normal turnaround. He verified to make sure it could happen and called me back to let me know...Great Service!
The laptop arrived this morning by 9:00am and I am very impressed so far. It looks much nicer in person than in pictures.
So far my intial impressions are:
Screen: Great with even color and dark blacks. No dead pixels and the high gloss looks very nice.

Size: I am coming from a 17 inch behemoth so this feels like a gnat.

Heat: Surprisingly cool..haven't cranked any games yet or even loaded benchmarks, but the bottomside is a bit warm, but not hot. It is a ton cooler than my wife's macbook or my dell. There is some warm air that comes from the vent on rt side.

Keyboard: Very good and crisp. Some slight buckling around the f3 and f4 buttons, but no big deal. Touchpad seems ok..just need to get used to it. Scroll function not working that great..maybe I need a new driver.

Noise: A very quiet machine..fan comes on occasionally, but isn't very loud. I can hear the hd, but overall seems quiet for the power.

Build: Seems good with not really any creaks or groans. No rippling when moving lcd.

My 2 gigs of ram will be here tomorrow so I will do some overclocking and run some benchmarks.

I was slightly concerned about being satisfied with the build of this laptop compared to the w3j, but after actually receving it...I am glad I went for it.
Having dvi, extra usb and a cooler running gpu..not to mention saving some money are all good things. Time will tell how the laptop performs and hopefully it will be trouble free.

If you are thinking of getting one...get it from the guys at Portable One.

 

For the scroll, head to Synapstic's site and download the driver, and it'll work fine afterwards

 

Congrats on the machine.

 

Hey, congrats CDD! I'm seriously looking at this machine since I'm having trouble getting a good price on the V6J in Australia... sure, it's a nice machine but $3000 AUD is right at the edge of my budget.

Having the DVI out compensates for the smaller, lower res screen on the A8Jm.

 

Congratz!! enjoy it, and then do a small review

Yah definately Tedj I would agree with you, that's why i have been consideriing 14" laptops.

Portable 14" laptop with a external LCD is a great combo to have, also since the a8jm has DVI and is cheaper than the W3J

Thanks,

MysticGolem

 

Congrats, enjoy your new laptop

btw the PortableOne brochure mentions something about Motion Detection System as well as having dedicated Email and Internet buttons. Can you verify that it's there? Coz my regular A8Jm sure doesn't have any of those.

 

I am so jealous, but congrat on your new A8jm.
I am very intersting of getting one, maybe at Portable one too, I dont know where else to get it, ZipZoomFly dont have it anymore.
I wonder will it get refresh like the W3j, I think I will get one in mid July whether they refresh or not.
Btw, CDD can you tell me more about the screen, I am a newbie at this, my friend got a laptop with the screen like liquid, when you touch it feel like water, the other friend got a laptop but the screen got like a glass or mirror in front. So wat kind of screen are they?
Thanks and have a nice day

 

It seems the drivers on mine are newer (8.2) than what is on the synaptic web site(8.1..). I tweaked sensitivity a bit so I will see how that treats me.

 

Motion detection must be some software option for the camera, but I have not found it as of yet. Nothing on dedicated buttons for email or internet either. Not sure if any of the buttons can be programmed for frequently used apps.

 

Congratulations on the new Asus, dude! Keep us updated with how everything works out for you! I second MysticGolem, if you could do a little review when you get the chance, that would be sweet!

 

My Portable One MX/W3V came loaded up with the newest drivers I could locate...I had set aside time to laboriously optimize it when it came out of the box but the work had been done for me! Kudos to the Portable One guys for making owning one of their machines so painless. I love, love, love the lack of bloat in their delivery image...although I do kind of wish the machine came with the original XP discs for the future when I know I'll screw something up and have to reinstall Windows.

Oh, and my scroll works great. It actually has a neat feature where you can "toss" the scroll and the page will progress at medium or fast (depending on the speed of your "toss" motion) scroll without further input, stopping when you tap. When I discovered that feature I actually called my friend over to see it because I thought it was so cool

 

I agree about it being up to date and not loaded with junk. Just got my ram and installed it..dloading nhc as I type. Looks like upgrading processor and gpu would be very straight forward. I will do a full review after a few days of use.

 

Function + f3 goes to default email client and function + f4 goes to default web browser. function + f9 also disables/enables the touchpad.

 

hosw the visibility outside?

 

Thanks for the info.

 

I recall seeing in a thread somewhere that the older Synaptics drivers from their website worked better than the newer Asus ones. Try searching the archives and see if you can find that info.