Thinking about buying a S96J...

Well after a few weeks of lurking and reading I'm 99% sure I'm going to buy a S96J. The W3J was my first choice, but the wait time and the cost are what synched it for me. Plus you can't make a custom build with them.

anyway, I have a few questions about the S96J that I was wondering if anyone could answer before I hurt my credit card =D.

1. The whole "customizable lid" thing. what does that really mean? Can you buy new pop on lids (sort of like a cell phone) or is it something like, print something you want and tape it to the back? I dont care about looks THAT much, but a totally top back just feels kinda odd to me. Not even a logo (as far as I can tell)

2. 5400 vs 7200 RPMs. how much battery life will I be cutting? I've read things from 10 minutes to 45 minutes. not sure which to believe. I'd most likely get a 7200 unless the drain on battery life is pretty big.

3. T2400 vs T2500 (1.8 vs 2.0GHz) how much of a performance jump would you say is between these two? I know it's a $140ish jump, but I'll be doing a lot of digital audio/video editing along with some gaming. just wondering if it'll be worth it in the long run. I'd like to keep this laptop for 3-4 years if possible.

4. How hard is it to build it your self? I've built many PCs over the years but not a laptop. Looking at a few reviews it seems like just putting a heatpipe in with some screws. Main reason I ask is I'd like to put my own thermal paste (artic silver) on the GPU and CPU and I can save about 100 bucks if I build it my self and buy a few parts from over vendors.

was going to buy this configuration

CPU: Intel® Yonah Core-Duo T2500 2.0GHz 2M 667 FSB
RAM: Corsair 2GB DDR-2 667 SODIMM (2X1024)
HD: Seagate Momentus 80GB 7200rpm S-ATA
Internal Wireless Card: Intel® PRO/Wireless 3945 Tri-mode 802.11a/b/g
Display: 15.4" WXGA 1280 x 800 Color Shine (Glare)
VGA: ATI Mobility X1600 256MB PCI Express
Optical Drive: 8 x DVD-RW Dual Layer Super Multi Drive

which works out to $1,533 from GenTech. if I buy the HD and CPU (exact same parts) from Newegg it goes down to $1,458. Not a huge difference, but may be fun to install it my self.

think there was something else I wanted to ask.... I'm sure it will come to me.

Thanks guys!

 

the price performance ratio is better with the 1.83 T2400

 

Yes, T2400 has a better ratio then the T2500.

Also, i t hink you'll want better resolution for video editing... look for a WXGA+ (i know geared2play has them).

Jumping from 5400 to 7200 doesn't mean much battery life lost, probably around 10 minutes as you have stated. There are a lot of reviews on notebook hd done... try googling them.

Finally... I havn't actually build one of these myself, but i remember g2p say that it was very easy to build.

 

well powernotebooks.com is selling the wsxga screen for less than $100 more

but it seems to be a preorder for 6-7-06

 

thanks stamar for the link, I didnt catch that seller before. the extra screen space would be nice Im sure. Im used to 1600x1200 on my desktop right now and it really inst too much more and Im sure I'll wish I went that way in 6 months, heh.

looks like I'll be going with the 2400. going with the higher res screen seems like a better investment. now I just have to see if I can get it with out a hard drive. they dont offer 7200 ROM ones at powernotebooks.com

 

powernotebooks is good. If they don't offer a 7200RPM HD for the s96j, there's probably a good reason. Do they offer 7200RPM HD's in other models? Maybe they thought it wasn't good for this particular notebook.

I have a 7200RPM HD in my S96J and the only problem it causes is a warm palmrest and touchpad at low CPU/HD temps. When the CPU/HD temps go up and the fans kick in, the palmrest and touchpad are cool. So, I think this can be solved by downloading a fan control utility that will allow the fans to start running at lower temps.

The lids are from Kinkos so i would guess they are a printed sticker. Cool thing about it is that you can make a lid sticker from any picture you want. To tell you the truth, the cover doesn't look bad, just plain silver. At least you have an option to do something if you don't like the plain, silver, sleeper look.

Any other questions about the laptop?

 

Symetrikal, Is your left palmrest warm? My left palm rest never gets warm, the HD is under left palm rest. I also have a 7200 rpm HD (7K100).

 

My thoughts in Blue...doing the thermal paste yourself may void any warranty through the vendor - double check with them before you do it.

 

The lid has a large area for 'designs' and pretty much could be a large sticker, or whatever. I'm also pretty sure it can be switched, as per VBI rules.

5400 vs 7200, not much of a difference unless you heavily use it or benchmark it.

Same as T24 vs T25, not much of a difference.

 

does "color shine" mean glossy instead of matte? just wondering becuase both the wsxga+ and the wxga have color shine while I saw on another site they had wsxga+ as matte and wxga as glossy.
Thanks.

 

The only wsxga+ featured for the S96J is matte. The other wxga featured is glossy. I'd go with the glossy, the colours are more vibrant and such, but its up to you if you really need the wsxga+..

 

The answer is here.

 

Yeah it does, but not as warm as the right side. I'm also still checking out fan utilities so i'll get back to your pm soon flip.

 

Well I emailed powernotebooks and they said I can't swich out hard drives or order it without one because it would void the warranty. I may say to hell with it and just get a 100GB 5400 RPM drive. It'll be cooler at least, plus the price comes with a 3 year warranty anyway which is always nice to have just incase. and like Symetrikal said, maybe they only put 5400s in the S96Js for a reason? who knows.

Thanks again for all the info!

 

What the hell^^? ASUS S96J are built on laptops. They have warranty only on the barebones, they should let you do whatever you want with the rest of the parts. Powernotebooks is full of sh!t in my opinion.

 

hmm, powernotebooks would be my best deal because i can't seem to get a good warranty from g2p without racking up the price...and since im in CA, gentechpc & rjtech charge about 120$ sales tax...argh

Question: How bad are the speakers on the s96j? and how would the compare to the e1705...also, can i just buy plug in speakers to have better sound?

 

The speakers are pretty weak. I have very few issues with this notebook and that is one of them. The speakers sound OK they are just not very loud. It is not a big deal for me because I normally have headphones on when gaming or watching movies anyway. The speakers are definately better on the e1705 but that is probably not a fair comparison, 17" notebooks have more space for speakers.

 

What's your other issues with this notebook?
I think mine would be the odd looking empty lid cover..

 

The speakers only suck while listening to music. Gaming and watching movies/anime is fine in my opinion. I can live with it. Well, I guess it depends on the game. In Need for Speed: Most Wanted, the cars sound more like powertools because the speaker doesn't output low frequencies well.

 

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Not many can lay clain to a 100% inhouse warranty. Other then that our 3 year warranty if added comes out to be the same as pn's. If we had our notebooks service by our disti we can offer next day air shipping too. But we just offer round ground. We have to charge more we actually fix all parts of the notebooks in house. Though with rising labor costs i can see why having disti do your service is a smarter and cheaper idea.

 

Thats a pre-order for the z96j not the s96j. We actually physically modify the screen on the s96j. Thus the 299$ charge,.,,,,,,

 

Does that mean the Z96j is available on June 7th??

 

I have another question concerning LCD displays.

I dont really have a lot of experience with LCDs. I do know if you dont run them in their native resolution things tend to looks bad.

so if I get the higher res WSXGA+ and play a game at a lower resolution will I get a lot of tearing or ghosting or anything? desktop space is great, but running games in 1680x1050 might be a bit much for it (unless Im really under estimating the x1600).

 

Lowering resolution isnt really that bad for gaming, it only really affects the text, it looks blurrier on lower resolutions...