New information on Z70va and Z81sp

Ok, a couple new news bites.....

Z70va - 128mb ATI x700 / built-in bluetooth model in the Z70 series is delayed until the begining of September

Z81sp - 256mb Nvidia 6800 / P4 / 15.4" model based on the A4 chassis doesn't have an ETA yet, but two pieces of information were released about it today...... it's going to be 9 pounds (yes, thats not a misprint) and it's going to be expensive..... as a barebone, it'll be about 35% more than a Z70v/Z71v barebone..... The only benefit is that the cpu's will be cheaper as P4's are cheaper then P-M's .....

Sorry to spoil a few of your dreams, but that was just handed down the pipe about 5 minutes ago. Of course, if anything changes I'll be posting about it. We've got plenty of the Z70va's on order from the first shipment, so if they show up, they show up... We were just told not to expect that shipment before September now.

 

*shocked*

 

Thanks for the heads up. I was really holding out for the z70v refresh, but it won't be in before I need it. Now I have to make up my mind all over again.

 

Disappointing news... but not entirely surprising, either.

 

I thought this would happen.

Oh well, such is life heh.


Thanks for the update again Justin!

 

I mean if they show up tomorrow I wouldn't be surprised either, but usually they hold off on telling us the ETA's been pushed back until the day they were supposed to be here....... so mentioning it a week early usually means something.

.... *fingers crossed* ... so far they haven't pushed back the W2v again...... haha.. so lets hope we don't get that call.

 

bah... typical asus.

 

well...classes for me start at the end of august so hopefully asus can get the z70va out a little early. tho i'm still leaning a bit towards to the z70v so it'll deter me from gaming too much.

 

i guess i'll be getting the x600

 

I guess they have a large inventory of Z70V laying around they want to get rid off first?

Anyone recall the time between the two original M6 series releases? Wasn't that like months between?

 

No, my numbers show they only have less than 300 Z70v's in stock. Also, the Z70va was going to be set up as $175-200 more than the Z70v...... so they weren't looking at it as a competing model.

The M6n came out between Thanksgiving and Christmas of 2003....... the M6ne came out in early May of 2004..... so about 5 months.

 

Hmm...

Having problem getting the X700 to work properly on the Z70va? Did they even release a beta test model of it out for viewing?

 

No clue and nope. I said I wasn't about to allow a pre-order of this unit way back when some other did, mainly because the information was still way to early and the units weren't even in the build stage yet...... it was mostly a pipe dream until only a couple weeks ago when they finally got the final demos done and sent out for final debugging........ so they units should have been in build this week, but I guess that isn't going to happen...........

but it's my understanding they finally did *fit* the unit with an x700..... they just might not be ready to release it yet.

 

Justin the first m6nE (9700) came out in august. I remember this like yesturday. I had it on backorder since july. Not sure how you got may out of it. If you did you were to only one to have em in may. Nobody else had em till late july/august.
Dont blame asus for the delay of the z70va. This laptop was not suposed to be officially anounced almost 3 months before the so called official eta. Asus likes having their product talked about. Anyone who understands this would know why their eta is almost ALWAYS off.

 

Justin
I would think if they miss back to school completely it would be a big loss for them. I am still hopefull for middle of august. Who knows?

 

You're right, May was when dothan came out and the M6n's got a bios update to work with them. However, doing a search of our system, I see the first M6ne / M6bne that we shipped was on June 16th 2004.... I know we got these a month before anyone else as we bought the entire first shipment due to a lot of tv and press coverage at the time.....

 

It's being reported on another forum by a couple of folks that Rick is now claiming August 11th as a revised USA arrival date for the z70va. Is he just covering his proverbial butt so he isn't besieged by people seeking a full refund of their pre-order cash or what? I really hate when people claim something if they don't really know. I expect more from a reputable reseller. Or maybe he knows something?

 

Dont blame rick or asus. He just didnt know better. There is a reason why asus reps tell us this misinformation. In case anyone is wondering ...why o why would they lie to us??? Good marketing and smart people who know they can cover the a$$ becuase they are huge and the only people to suffer are resellers. Most have learned not to take anything literally. I am pretty sure Rick is kicking him self now, but you gotta feel bad for the guy he just didnt know how they are.... being the new guy. After this you can call him a Jedi master too. Hmmhhdhgf hint Hint jhijeifiopefoc cough cough hnnhghgh dont do it again hjhjfhfjkghodhpshu.

 

Asus told us about this model before the Z70v even hit port originally. The only difference is that I was told it was going to be a mid Q3 product and that was in the end of April. Until we see a full functioning demo, Asus can say they're going to put a 256mb x800 in something like the W5 and we can't go and just put that information out there.

1. we have non-disclousure agreements we sign just to get information that is more than about 45 days away
2. we're the last leg in the information trail and when it's wrong it's got to be corrected ASAP and when it's really off people wonder if we were lied to or we lied to them.

It's a nasty circle.

 

So, how does/did the non-disclosure agreement appy to the early release of the "refresh" or did it?

BTW, I don't think that Rick intentionally intended to deceive lest my previous post made it in any way seem that I did. I am, however, somewhat sure that he is now fielding a lot of calls from annoyed people.

 

It appears that ISTNC is doing right by their customers. Their website now states:

Cancellation for Pre-Sales Order because of product availability delay will NOT incur a cancellation fee.

That sounds pretty definite to me.

Now I have a bigger problem Do I wait for the refresh or go for the Acer Ferrari 4005, Sager 3880 or maybe even the W2V. I'm tiring of all this waiting.....

Also, does the delay of the Z70va push the availability of the DVI output back to, oh, say, 2006?

 

Not intended? Perhaps. The consequences of such actions are obvious to a teenager. This move i think was driven by "hunger". I wont say greed. I truly hope it was not. I hope a lesson was learned here. The thing that really got me heated are all the lies. They are not as easy to see here as the obvious but easy to figure out if you ve been following certain handfull of resellers posts.

 

Very frustrating since the W1 was my first choice and then the bad news and now my second choice z70va is delayed as well. Are we indefinitely delayed similar to the W1 refresh? I really do not want to go with Toshiba or Fujitsu. Asus seem to have the best value for the money.

Could a reseller give us some guesstimates on ETA (80% third week of August, etc), any updated news would be much appreciated. We'll try not to hold you to it...

Thanks.

 

The sooner that the preorder for the z70va is taken off sellers website the sooner we will see the z70va. As of now becuase of this preorder the unit has been delayed

 

Let me tell you something.... I'm not trusting Asus' new ETA on the Z70va. I'm not going to comment on it again until it comes in. It could be tomorrow or October, but for the time being, I'm sort of sick of it all.

If you're waiting for this model, then wait. If not, get something else.

 

I totally agree with you, I'm sick of this topic also. There should be a sticky that says, "It's not out yet. Don't know when. Go about your business." And whoever comes on and inquires, the mods can just drop that link and close the thread. Hee Hee...

 

What others would you recommend as equal or better substitutes with excellent build quality, power and screens? Even if by other manufacturers.
(hehehe) :decision:

 

Well, first, I'm not about to say there is a good substitute..... the W2 and Z71v are going to be the only thing that compares in graphics performance. If you want the Z70va, wait and wait as long as it takes.

My bottom line is, if the units surprisingly show up tomorrow, they'll be on our site and ready to go just as soon as possible. If they don't come in for two months.... then that's life and they will be *new* systems whenever they come out. For me, when Asus can't give me a straight answer, that's bad news. Sometimes it works out where they didn't know something got shipped from Taiwan and they magically show up.... other times they expect it and expect it and they get the run around and things get delayed.

 

Fair enough, Justin.
I guess I'll just have to deal with my acute case of "paralysis by analysis" and figure out what I'm going to do. Luckily (or unluckily) for me, since I'm waaay beyond school my only real deadline is a self imposed one. <G>

 

Lets pretend it never happen? Who voted for that one? verheat:

 

.... I wish, haha. It was always on the table, I just thought it was going to be October all along until someone else wasted the time posting the initial ETA. If we did that, we would have set up the pre-order for the W2's back April as they were "supposed" to be here a few weeks after the W3's........

 

Point being dont jump the gun.......or something like that....i think i got scarred after this nonsence. I am leavin on a vacation. If anyone has a question i will be glued to my chair not reading anymore.

 

By the way Justin I lost my bet for end of july on the x700. Remember we had a pool going a while before all this preorder nonsence? I had picked end of july. Funny how things worked out.

 

We have been selling Built on Asus since April of 2002 when the L3 series came out. They weren't even called "Built on Asus" then. What we learned with that release, and virtually every new release since then is:

1. They give you a date when they are due to arrive, but they almost never arrive then.
2. They almost never tell you that they are not going to arrive on that date until either the day before they were supposed to arrive, or the day they were supposed to arrive. They then put it out another two weeks or so, and on many of their releases kept pushing it back, but only telling you the day or day before the latest date they were supposed to arrive.

I think it is part of their corporate culture. Since Rick is new, and lacks experience with Asus (and the notebook industry...Asus isn't the only one that seriously misses their intial release dates), his "hunger" pulled him right into the trap. I find it interesting that the experienced, or maybe just wiser resellers knew better.

 

Everyone tried telling Rick in one way or another but for the most part everyone mostly stood by and kept their lips sealed. Nothing wrong with preorders so long as you have ordered the units your self. He never did, nobody did 2 months ago and as far as i know not now. Havent been selling this that long. Its been just about 1.5 years but we did desktops built on asus long before that. L5 was the first successfull laptop for us. Wonder why it had such a short life. It had few problems unlike the z80k counterparts with their amd line.

 

Acer Ferrari looks good.

 

Ha... if you want to go with that over the W2..... go for it ... I don't think you'll be as happy though.


The first notebook we imported and sold was the M1. To date the only notebook that came in on time in early 2001. The problem was, the ETA was for just the single unit that was ordered from Taiwan............ and the units were already "out" for the ordering from there. Since then, I'm going to some what disagree with Donald...... I'd venture to say that 35% of Asus' products come in when they're supposed to.... While 50% come in late and 10% come in VERY late. If you notice I've still got 5% left....... well just for instance, there are notebooks that come in early. The Z70v, if you look at our ETA's back in April, the unit wasn't to be released until July 1st at the earliest. I think we ended up getting them a couple weeks after I put up that ETA, and shipped some in the first weeks of May --- almost 2 months early.

Does any of this really help any of us? No....... but I think the Z70v was the early delivery for the year and all the notebooks in the spring comprised the "on time" deliveries......... so that scares me a bit, but there's only so long a unit can be delayed for, especially when they are shipping to other countries already (like the W2) ...

 

Will the Z81sp be capable of using Pentium 64 bit chips or no?

 

Not that the specs show.... aren't they a different pin anyway?

 

I'm not positive but i think they are socket 775.

 

All I know right now is that it's spec'd as taking up to a 3.6ghz / 800mhz / 1mb cache / 90nm - P4. That's the Prescott if I'm not mistaken, which is also considered a model 560, I believe. Those are socket 775 cpus. So at this time, I know we'll be offering the following:

Intel® Pentium® 4 processor 560 - 3.6GHz
Intel® Pentium® 4 processor 550 - 3.4GHz
Intel® Pentium® 4 processor 540 - 3.2GHz
Intel® Pentium® 4 processor 530 - 3.0GHz
Intel® Pentium® 4 processor 520 - 2.8GHz

 

I doubt initial support will allow for dual core and em64 capable chips. With a bios revision anything is possible. Em64 has been out for a while so its possible these laptops will support it. Time will tell. Once we get em in we will test them out.