New Models - What looks hot for gaming?

Being a person on the road a lot (pilot), and doing games from time to time (WoW, HL2, etc), what models would be most eye catching of the Duo core technology that are out or on the near horizon for ASUS. Looking at proportables website and the new models are starting to pop up.

 

V6j - available now
W3j - I think this is official, easily into April now

I travel a lot and these are my choices...... i know either can handle what you want to throw at them.

 

Any thoughts on the brightness or picture quality of the two models Justin?

How do the two video cards compare? I've tried searching but can't find anything definitive (and can't afford to invest a ton of time right now researching).

Basically 14" wide - W3j vs. 15" standard in the v6j.

I'm trying to decide myself.

 

If you had to compare in Screen Wise the !5" SXGA is better with higher resolution, but with the W3J it uses a WXGA which is lower res but enough for a screen only 14.1Inch.

As for Graphics card V6J usese Nvidia Go 7400 128MB Graphics card witch is ok, can handle games well, but still is slow but enough to work with. As for the W3J chaeaper addtion, has a ATI X1600 256MB (512 Hypermemory) which is faster and out perfroms the Nvidia card and is a better pick. Also W3J is cheaper buy couple hundred dollars, only diff is that the V6J screen is what makes it more expensive.

 

If you hang out a bit you will find more better valued built on notebooks with much much better video cards. The 7400 just dont cut it.

 

G2P, I take it you prefer the Built On's to the Ensemble units? I do agree that the Built On's offer a better value, but with all the talk of Asus differentiating more between the BTOs and Ensembles, I'm thinking it would be wise to stick with their premier brand.

 

^ Hopefully there will be something there that continues to make them their "premier" brand in more than just a title. Materials are important - I hope they also work to make the units functionally different as well (improved/enhanced keyboards...etc).

Not may companies are innovating in that way those these days.

 

I have to admit the ensmbles receive alot of extra attention on aesthetics. Thats where it ends. Same mobo same keyboard same quality atleast it was before napa. Doesnt look like they want ensembles adhering to napa like they do whitebooks

 

I've been researching notebooks for the last month or so and was wondering how does the A7J stack up to the V6j and the W3J? Or should I wait for the Z96j? (wish the Z96ja was still coming)

 

....... the A7 and V6 aren't even worth comparing.. they're not for the same purpose ... two different sizes...... same goes for the W3j, but you can compare the w3j and V6j.... but compare their specs if you will.... the W3j will have more video power, but both are amazing.

The Z96j is going to be popular because I think it's going to pretty inexpensive for what you're going to be able to put in it.... sort of like the pricing of the Z71v now.......

The model that was cancelled was the Z92ja... not Z96ja...

 

So the V6j is a good gaming / watching movies type of machine?
What is the hype with widescreen? Never owned a widescreen computer? Better for watching movies?

 

Well two of the nicest middle of road sized systems (W3 / V6) both actually play the same size widescreen movie....... the W3 is a 14" widescreen and the V6 is a 15" regular ratio........ both have the same width, but the V6 has about an inch and half more height...... making it better for a lot of people to also deal with office programs......

The way to look at it is like this..... a 17" widescreen is just a wider 15" regular ratio........ if comparing those two sizes were you thing and you wanted more room - you go with the 17" .... below is a diagram I made a long time ago sort of showing that..... Widescreen is nice, but it depends on what you need and the real size that's right for you.

 

Gizbug,
Yes widescreen is better for movies because most movies are anamorphic widescreen. However, games are just coming around to supporting widescreen. HL2 does, I know for sure because I play it on my Dell 2405 (24 inch widescreen) at home. However, others will be stretched looking if you try and play them at the native resolution of your monitor if it is a widescreen. There is a solution, however, for lots of games. Check out this website for loads of help:
http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/

Also, widescreen is nice if you are deadheading on passenger airlines in coach class. As that guy in front of you that weighs 300 lbs leans back in his seat and about bends it at a 45 degree angle into your lap, a standard screen laptop will not work as well as a widescreen one for fitting in that little space in front of you on that tray.

One more thing. Remember, the higher the resolution the monitor, the more horsepower you need to run it. For example, when I got my 24 inch monitor, it's native resolution is 1900x1200. I think I was running 1280x1024 before that. Guess what? My one year old AGP 9800Pro graphics card just couldn't cut it for cranking up the settings, so along with the nice, expensive, new monitor came a nice, expensive, new graphics card
Good Luck in your choice

 

the w3J will be 128 onboard, 256 with hyper memory

 

Funny how the W3j models we can buy features 256MB of dedicated memory for the graphic card . . .

 

The V6J, I was reading on a ZDNet review says " It's got a Intel Core Duo T2400 (1.83GHz) processor, an Nvidia GeForce Go7400 graphics chip and a whopping 2GB of DDR2-667 SDRAM." When I looked at Proportable, it says 1.66 processor and 1 gig of ram. With the notebookreview discount, you get a free gig of ram though, to make it 2 gig. Am I missing something here? ( http://www.zdnet.com.au/reviews/soa/ASUS_V6J/0,39023344,39239216,00.htm?feed=rss )

 

I think you're confusing it w/ the V6J.

Note the .au in the URL - different specs than the US one.

 

YOU CAN"T TRUST ANY REVIEW SITE UNLESS THEY SAY IT CAME FROM US.. especailly if you want to sit and ask if you're missing something... you're not missing anything, other people are confusing you. A review of the V6j on line right now... didn't come from the US..... it's too early for them to have jumped on that...

1. the model we have is the US model... get out of this thread and look at others... there's a whole new crowd in this forum this month and it doesn't appear that anyone reads other threads.

2. at this time our free ram stick option is still a 533mhz ddr2 stick and with ddr2 677 costing twice the price, we're not going to give that away at this time. The member program is probably going to change soon anyway and we'll have other options and really aren't platform specific.

 

Now THAT'S a buzzkill.

 

HL2 and WoW will run on the 7400 just fine. I run HL2 on a nVidia Ti4200 (128MB ram) just fine, so, a 7400 can't be all that bad.

Can you run it with the highest AA and AF and HDR settings? NOPE, but still not a bad card in the long run.

Will it run BF2? Hahah, a SLI-7800GTX with the top CPU has issues with BF2, it is just a poorly coded game (another post all in its self)

Even he V6va is fine for gaming.

I am in the same boat as the op, W3V vs W3J vs V6va vs V6J -- I know no matter what I get I will be happy, but which? I just want one that does not scractch easily...

 

What do you mean?

 

he wanted a purdy stick of 677mhz ddr2 with his member discount, and apparently he was on some sort of psychoactive substance whose potency failed upon hearing the sad sad news. i weep with you, my friend.

 

Ok.... well right now the ram option is what is it...... it's a certain cost which we've absorbed... we're certainly can't give something worth twice... otherwise we'd be offered 2gb of 533...... I mean to keep the value to the same, we might actually make it a free stick of 512mb 677...... but I have a feeling we're going to scrap it altogether and come up with another option in place of it.

 

maybe an option of 1gig 533, or 512meg of 677? just shooting out ideas here..

 

Will the V6J hold two sticks of ram?

 

Why wouldnt it? Look up the specs. I believe most lappys are two sticks reguardless

 

You're right. I was reading that some models come with 1 stick, not that the model can only hold one stick.