U30JC discussion thread

For now, I've opted to just go through and remove all of the bloatware. I decided that the 2 partitions wasn't a big enough deal to me to warrant going through all of that. Disk is cheap enough that ending up wasting 20GB or so isn't going to hurt.

 

Amazon, Newegg & XOTIC PC all show it sold out. (But you already knew that )

XOTIC PC has had the best deals so far on the U30JC (when it is in stock). $869 w/ free shipping and 3% more off ($843) if you pay by Paypal, wire transfer or money order. ETA in stock by the end of April!

 

I thought charging a higher price to credit card buyers was a violation
of the agreement that the merchant has to sign with the card companies?
Who's going to send a MO to a stranger without charge back protection?

 

Well they aren't really charging a higher price for credit card users; they are simply offering a discount for people who decide to go with Paypal

In my opinion, I would avoid using Paypal. If there are any issues, it is such a hassle to deal with Paypal.

 

But even at their list price of $869, XOTIC PC is still cheaper (though Amazon dropped their price as well.)

 

I just ordered one from GenTechPC. Same price as XoticPC. 3% discount for it too. Customer service was friendly in helping me get the discount. Just give them a call and ask if they still have stock

 

If you don't mind paying with paypal Bing.com still has 8% cashback for Ebay BIN sales & it looks like Gentech & excaliberpc.com both are selling this laptop there for $899 free shipping minus almost $72 which you get back after 2 months or in some cases instantly like with my excaliberpc order. Hopefully the ETA of tomorrow is accurate though. I looked up the latter seller & it looks like they're a major seller of ASUS laptops so warranties shouldn't be an issue.

 

Just a question on Optimus drivers

Will installing both the Intel & nVidia drivers (on ASUS' U30JC support site) retain the Optimus functionality of the U30JC, or should nVidia's Optimus driver (on nVidia's driver site) be installed too, or not at all?

 

I ordered one yesterday from GenTech. I can't tell for sure if they have it in stock...I just called them and asked them when I was ready to order. As of yesterday, they had some...

 

The screen resolution and quality are the biggest bummer for me on this otherwise amazing system. I'm hoping for an envy 13 refresh at a lower price as it has a beautiful screen at a descent res. All other systems seem to compromise in one area or another.

The Acer 3820TG looks good, but I'm waiting for reviews. Again, I'm not expecting big things from the screen.

}:^)~

 

Yeah... I ordered one from them yesterday too. They told me they had them in stock. I also got the 3% discount by paying with cash. $843 shipping next week. Great Deal from a reputable reseller!

I would love to get the Acer TimelineX series but they are not out in the US yet. I am returning home this summer so I won't be in the US. I had to get the laptop before mid-May. Even when Acer gets them available in the US in the first day of May, so many people will buy it and there will be long lines of waiting.

What I need is a somewhat portable laptop to do some casual gaming and movie playing. With decent battery life too. This laptop should do the job I didn't want to get old gen CULV stuff. Sacrificing 2-3 hours of battery life for a Core i3 is worth it for me.

 

I'm getting more intrigued by this model day by day and am borderline between this and the ul30vt/jt models.
can someone post some nice, high res pics of this lappy.
for some reason, after seeing how thin the UL models are, the u30jc just seems too thick in comparison but I get the sense that it's not such a big deal when you actually see and use it in person.

icing on the cake would be a side by side comparison of ul30vt v/s u30jc !
lets go!!!!!!!

 

I've never installed nVIDIA's Optimus drivers from their site. Just the Intel & nVIDIA drivers from the ASUS site specific to the U30Jc. Optimus works fine for me.

You do need to be careful about installing newer nVIDIA drivers from nVIDIA's site ( NOT recommended) as Optimus has to have specialized drivers to make both the Intel & nVIDIA GPU's work together in the switching ... or so I understand. I think it's best to stick with ASUS' site or be sure and read guides in forums like this about how to upgade the nVIDIA driver only.

 

There's a CNET video review. When the guy holds it up, it doesn't look that thick. But not slim either. Just a regular sized laptop.

 

First, let me say I dont own any of these laptops so I am just expressing my opinion based on my research.

At this point you would need to decide what you need the laptop for.
The U30JC battery is marketed as having 9.5 hours while the UL30JT is marketed as having 10 hours .. UL30JT wins there.. but its only half of an hour. Of course these numbers would be on an extreme power savings mode I imagine.

Thickness and weight - U30JC 1.2 inches / 4.9lbs , UL30JT under 1 inch /3.8 lbs I think .. UL30JT wins

Optical Drive U30JC has an ODD UL30JT has none ... some people prefer with while some don't so winner there.

Build Quality and Screen .. I read that the U30JC has a nice solid build quality, while the U30VT had some minor problems, if its the same body then the problem may still exist on the UL30JT

Performance - The i3 should blow away the i5 and i7 UM processors, but no actual benchmarks are available.

So do you prefer performance over weight ?

 

What's the wisdom on the u30jc's chiclet style keyboard that has frame
material between the keys? I've only used dell laptops recently that have
contiguous keys (jammed up against each other with nothing in between).

Is it harder to use?

I remember back in the '80's, the TRS-80 color computer had such
a keyboard (where there was space between the keys) and as I remember
it was a step up in usability to the more "modern" Commodore 64 keyboard.

 

Lads lets take it easy in here. Whilst what's on paper and online forums might or might not reflect a laptop's true attributes, there is no need to jump on anyone over it. Please keep the thread friendly.

Thank you,
Johnny T
NBR Moderation Team

 

do we have anymore videos of this laptop? i can only find 1 or 2 on youtube.

 

Sorry about that I do apologize and retract my previous and offensive statements. A question was asked by one of the members and I was just stating my opinion based on my past research as these are two of the PCs that I am currently looking at with the intentions of purchasing one. So i thought it would be helpful to share what I have gathered so far.

I apologize, now lets back to the topic... the U30JC.

 

my u30jc just came in today =D loving the looks and everything, havnt had a chance to give it a full run just yet, i was just wondering if anyone out ther found that widget that they used in one of the video reviews, that shows when it switches between the graphics cards.

also, just wondering what the major sources of bloatware were that people got rid of?

 

I know this is not of much help but from this website

"BBurke_NVIDIA said...

We have a software program that we use to demo Optimus to press. You can see it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQVgBObCFhY&feature=related (jump to 5:11 mark)

I will see if we can make it avilable wider."

http://blogs.nvidia.com/ntersect/2010/03/optimus-engineering-coolness-for-geforce-and-ion.html

 

Yes, I'd like to find the widget/gadget as well. On the videos, it's called "nVIDIA Test Tool".

 

Here's an excellent explanatory article:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=380681

 

thanks appreciate it

 

I pulled the trigger yesterday and ordered a U30JC. It was a hard choice between it and the ul30vt. It would be a lenghty post if I threw up what fully determined it to be honest. Hopefully it will arrive before the end of next week!

 

Amazon's stock is still backordered

 

Yes, it was a toss-up for me as well. I ultimately chose to go with the U30JC due to Optimus auto-switching, i3-2.26GHz dual-core, a very nice chassis, ... and while I didn't want the internal DVD drive, I must admit that I am enjoying having it readily available. The extra pound isn't very noticeable to me in my bag. It feels much lighter & smaller than my 2007 15" Dell.

The U30JC's extra $140 or so price tag was the biggest hesitation (along with the loss of 2+ hrs battery life) as, for my uses, the UL30VT would have been fine.

I had thought the screen was better by various reviews, but I'm not so sure. I still feel the screen lacks deeper colors (blacks feel washed out.) As proof of this, I sat my ASUS 1000HA 10" netbook next to my U30JC, both using the same photo wallpaper that had lots of blacks and subtle grays. Both screens were very bright (way better than my '07 Dell) but my 1000HA had much better blacks (with no moving around to hit a sweet-spot) and yet maintained the grays compared to my new U30JC ... which was still good, but not up to the contrast of the 1000HA. I am still looking to tweak the Intel Control Panel more on this.

But unless there are lots of blacks up on the screen (wallpaper) or a film in HULU, I don't notice the weakness of the blacks and in normal use, the colors look great. So I suppose I should stop bothering about it.

The keyboard is excellent IMO. I love its feel & sound: not clicky, yet not mushy either.

Another weird challenge is Optimus itself. Both nVIDIA & Intel have their control panels & in both, you can strengthen the contrast & colors. But even when I run a HULU film under Firefox & a DVD under PowerDVD at the same time (both specified to run using the nVIDIA chip under nVIDIA's Control Panel), I find that the Intel CP affects my contrast levels (while the apps are playing) but not the nVIDIA CP. I've not figured out why yet.

But when I run 3DMark06, it's the nVIDIA chip that's clearly playing. My scores show that.

So I guess it doesn't matter. Optimus works.

In normal use, I don't notice the washed-out blacks. Actually, my screen colors look very good & clear. And my colors & contrast in films under PowerDVD also look excellent, so nVIDIA's CP must be working there.

I've no idea why HULU is doing what it's doing. I get the feeling it is still deciding to use my Intel chip, even though I am running it as HD (480) and telling the NVIDIA control panel to run Firefox using the nVIDIA GPU.

Suggestions, anyone?

 

A point of interest on my U30JC's wireless card:

My ASUS 1000HA 10" netbook shows 6 available connections in my condo area. (I had upgraded the internal card to an Intel 4965 bgn+added a 3rd antenna).

My wife's 13" white Macbook shows 7 connections.

My new U30JC shows 13 available connections (whoa!).

 

It is still a violation of merchant agreements. Merchants are not supposed to make any single form of payment more attractive than another or place restrictions on their use, including discounts for cash. Government entities are the only exceptions.

 

@quatro: wow that's amazing. i did not expect the wireless card to be *that* good

@GJBenn85: it seems you are more informed about CC regulations than i am.

 

And my wife's Macbook is only a year old (April 2009).

I was very surprised by the reception power of the U30JC's wireless card.

 

Thanks for the updates, Quatro. How do you feel about the viewing angles? Is battery life as advertised for you? What's your take on build quality/aesthetics?

 

1) IMO, the vertical viewing angles are bad. In regular work, it's not that noticeable. But in dark wallpapers or in movies, you can clearly see it. My ASUS 1000HA 10" screen is much better in that respect. (I've compared them side-by-side showing the identical dark-based photo wallpaper.)

When I go to a dark screen photo, I can see that the bottom is lighter (blacks are gray) while the upper two edges are dark. If I tilt it back a bit until the bottom edge is dark, the upper edges become abnormally dark & almost in a negative. If I pull the screen toward me, the upper edges get lighter, but then the lower edges get even lighter & more washed-out. It feels impossible for me to get it perfect. But I may just be being picky. My '97 Dell Vostro 15" is just as bad. I'm getting used to it, but using the Control Panel, I can't seem to tweak it to be right.

2) Battery life with wifi, balanced power scheme & Word Office apps, I can get 7-8 hrs. If I turned off the wifi and put it in battery saving mode and used Office apps only, I'm sure I could get more.

3) The notebook looks superb & very classy with the brushed aluminum lid & palm-rest. Even the trackpad area looks classy to me. The build feels very solid: keyboard, chassis, all great.

BUT ... to me, while the aluminum lid looks great, it's probably actually a weakness. The lid is thin and I can easily bend the metal on the lid. Anything dropped on the lid would surely dent the metal, but this would be true in ALL of the UL series of ASUS where they've used aluminum lids. Macbook unibody lids are much thicker and so stronger.

Sometimes during the first week when I went to lift the lid, I'd grasp it with two fingers on the upper & lower edge of the lid (near the webcam) and several times, I heard a pop as the black plastic bezel popped into the aluminum lid slightly. That may just be my unit.

It has stopped doing that the last few days, so I suppose it worked itself out. But the aluminum plate on the lid feels thinnish and the black plastic bezel is VERY flexible (on the lower edge of the screen, the bezel easily pops out, which a complaint I heard about the UL30VT as well. NOTE: I ended up pressing hard on the lower bottom edge of the bezel (and the top side of the lid at the same time) along the bottom of the screen and as I went along the bottom from left to right I found several places that popped. After a few pops, it stopped and the bezel is now more in place. Seems it wasn't popped on well at the factory!

They could have made the aluminum thicker, but that would have added thickness and weight, so I suppose you can't have it both ways. Due to the aluminum lid, I'm being extra-careful with it (much more than my unbreakable ASUS 10" 1000HA!).

The weight feels good. Not very heavy in my hand. Not that thick when closed, though it is 3/16" thicker than the UL30VT due to the DVD drive. And the front edge isn't as thin and tapered as the UL30VT, also due to the DVD drive, which is near the front right side.

Hope that helps. For me, I'd give it a 4 out of 5 stars. Is it really worth $150 more than the UL30VT? I'm undecided.

Optimus is nifty, but it doesn't look like it was that hard to switch on the UL30VT, perhaps a few seconds. That part of it isn't much of a deciding factor to me.

 

okay, i actually had to do a google search to find out what you were talking about. for the ulxxvt series, they had a hardware button to toggle discrete vid card on and off, whereas optimus does it automatically for you.


.... i just found that out today.

 

Optimus is far superior to Hybrid Graphics. Hybrid Graphics requires a special combined video driver which the notebook manufacturer releases. Optimus uses standard Nvidia drivers that are released and supported by Nvidia. Most Hybrid Graphics notebooks have had maybe two driver updates since the notebook was released. There also are no "official" Hybrid Graphics drivers above the 188 series currently. A great video review and information on Optimus vs Hybrid Graphics can be found here.

 

A good point. I forgot reading about that.

Still, I'm not sure manual switching in the UL*VT models, since it never required a restart, was that big of a deal to start with.

Driver updates are another matter indeed.

Though when I look at nVIDIA's site, it lists it's current "standard" WHQL driver for the GeForce 310M as being ver 197.16 ... which won't install on the U30JC saying it couldn't find compatible drivers for my hardware. I tried to be sure the nVIDIA chip is on by playing a ripped DVD via PowerDVD. No joy. On ASUS' site, they list the nVIDIA driver as ver 189.64 as the one to use and that one sees the nVIDIA GPU (whether in use or not) and installs easily.

If the standard nVIDIA driver will suffice under Optimus, why won't nVIDIA'S site WHQL driver for the GeForce 310M install?

** UPDATE NOTE: I see. On nVIDIA's site, I needed to go to their page on Optimus that links over to their "Optimus Driver Update 189.42" released on 3/11. That's odd & humorous seeing as ASUS has a MORE RECENT DRIVER 189.64 released on 4/13.

How can ASUS release a driver that nVIDIA hasn't yet released on their own chip?

 

Does anyone know when this will come out in australia yet?

 

Sorry, RandomGuy (BTW, I LOVED your avatar. It made me laugh & laugh just looking at it), but can ANY of us know when & where ASUS is going to release anything?

They seem very uncommunicative in that area.

Do any of the ASUS resellers in Australia know anything? Any AU online sites?

 

Optimus is still very new and AFAIK Nvidia is still working on adding full support to their drivers. With that said the drivers should still be "Optimus capable" and all that should be needed is a correctly modified INF. If you would like to try this I can mod one up for you. Just give me the version of the drivers you would like to try. (I can't guarantee this will work but it should.)

Drivers are not mutually exclusive and in many cases you will see many different versions between notebook manufacturers and Nvidia. I have heard that notebook manufacturers must pay Nvidia in order to cover their specific configurations (not sure how true this is however.)

 

Though if it's just an INF change, surely nVIDIA would change/update their latest drivers to be Optimus compliant instead of forcing Optimus users to go looking on thier Optimus ad page to find the Optimus-specific drivers. Why haven't they just updated their INF files?

 

Nvidia uses a unified driver architecture which means in most cases their drivers are universal. They often only add GPU and technology support to the INF that they have thoroughly tested. In other words while it may work, they can not afford to add support if there is a possibility it will screw something up. This is part of the reason sites like LaptopVideo2Go are so popular with Nvidia notebook users.

 

Okay. I'm game to be the guinea pig.

I'm presently using Optimus nVIDIA driver ver 189.64 for the Geforce 310M.

Their latest driver for the 310M is the 197.16:
http://www.nvidia.com/object/notebook_winvista_win7_x64_197.16_whql.html

Could you modify the INF file and email it to me? I'll PM you my email address.

Thanks!

 

hahha thanks. umm ive tried 1 but he had no idea what i was talking about. We are talking about Australia here haha. I dont think any of the australian ASUS people would know of the u30jc.

 

TheRandomGuy - just order it from the US. I'm in Melbourne, ordered it last week from B&H ( http://www.bhphotovideo.com/), and it arrived yesterday. With delivery it came to just under $1100 AUS - a saving of several hundred compared to local pricing.

 

That comes to about $1,025 US. Not bad for shipping it all of the way to Australia!

 

Anyone know of a way to know which graphics chip Optimus is using at any given time?

Oh, for a copy of that " nVIDIA Test Tool" gadget reviewers of the U30Jc were using!

 

Just out of curiosity, does anyone know if the U30JC has its processor socketed or simply soldered onto the motherboard and therefore irreplaceable? If it does have a socket, has anyone considered swapping a Core i5 or even better Core i7-620 in? The U30 (and Upcoming U33, which is the model I really want) listed procs all the way up to the i7-620 compatibility and it seems that outside the US there is at least an i5 floating around, so I'd really like to see if the bios can handle other processors besides the i3.

If it comes down to it, I'll buy a U30/U33 with an i3 and then install an i7-620 myself should it be possible. I'd hate to think that after the awesome specs in Asusworld, these laptops will be limited to the no Turbo Boost, no Hyperthreading i3.

 

Well, I like my 2-yr warranty & 1-yr accidental damage warranty, so that part of my notebook will not be opened, except under dire need. RAM, HD and wireless card I can mess with (& do). Keyboard too, ... but not the CPU.

Besides, the i3's 2.26GHz dual-core, 4-thread processor is fine for my needs. No need to overclock it.

Plus, why:
1) void your warranty?
2) pay even MORE for another mobile i5 or i7 chip?
3) reduce your battery life further?

Is it the never-ending quest of faster, no matter WHAT the specs? Or is it the curious challenge of "Can I do it?" Or the fun of tinkering?

My son just ordered an i7-720QM quad-core processor-based notebook, and on the forum, people are already talking about how to overclock it. When is enough enough? ... Never, it seems.

Don't worry, ChivalricRonin. I'm just messing with you.

 

is this notebook available for sale? or still out of stock?

 

dang it, i was so close to getting this laptop. after something fortunate happened, i can now splurge on something extravagant like the macbook pro even though i know u30jc is a better unit. decisions decisions.