Verdict on W3j heat?

different reviews have different comments on the heat output of the little w3j. I was wondering some ordinary consumers could comment on it. I had a z70va, and that thing got hot enough to iron wrinkles into my pants if I wasn't careful. I'm not concerned much about the air vent, but more about the temp of the bottom when it is sitting on your lap.

If it had say, been sitting on your bare lap for an hour or 2 of normal use, would it be more than mildly unconfortable? would it burn? Some laptops are actually putting warnigns not to use them on your lap, strange huh?

I know with a (relatively) high end GPU in such a small frame, it's not going to run cool, expecially when gaming, but I'm hoping its better than some of my past experiences.

 

Really? From my personal experience, the z70va was pretty cool for a laptop.

 

fantastic, that means my my judgement if heat is probably way off and I'll never find a "cool" running laptop

 

Well, the W3J is called notebook and I guess there's a reason for it It's not a "lap"top per se.... even the warnings in some of the ASUS user manuals say that it can be harmful to put such notebooks on your lap for prolonged time and doesn not recommend (at least my A8Jm manual says so, I'd assume they would put in the same warning for the W3J)...

If you really want to use it on your lap for lengthy periods of time, try getting a thin notebook cooler to put under it, might be helpful.

 

i have owned both notebooks and can say the W3J is much cooler on the bottom. I can also say the fans are more quiet, the build is superior and I'm much more happy.

 

and the graininess is better now

 

would you say those improvements are worth the price hike (250-300) of the W3j?

My prefered budget is the 1500-1600 USD range, but if it's worth the extra cost, I'd certainly rather have the w3j, from what I've seen and read anyway.

 

for that price range you can get the a8j, which is pretty cool machine or the w7j also cool. But, it depends on the usage. If you are constantly gaming or pushing the cpu and gpu to its limit then it will get hot. I don't really want to say this on the Asus section, but, have you looked at other companies? For that price range there are other companies.

 

For what the W3J can do, the heat is fine, the palmrest stays cool, some people complain about the heat comming from the vent, but you have to be a moron not to figure out that that is a good thing, i.e.

more heat out of vent = cooler laptop

I think the fan does a great job of keeping this laptop cool, I have used lesser spec dell latitude machines with integrated GPU's, where the palmrest makes your palms sweat.

If you want to check out heat my friend had a new Mac Book Pro, had same CPU and GPU as the W3J, it has no fans all passive heating, the heat comes through the chassis, after a day of ligt use my W3J is still cool to the touch, his MBP on the other hand, was very hot on the palm rest, and he said it heats up really bad when you push it hard.

I have used my W3J on my lap a few times it is ok, but the main thing for me is that the palmrest remains cool, which they do, so I am happy.

I have also used this laptop in ambient temps around 35 deg C (90degF), it pumps out hot air, but at least it keeps the system cooler and runing, would hate to see a MBP run in those sort of ambient temps, I am sure it would have to shut down?

Well thats my opinion and I have owned this laptop since June

 

Thanks for the feedback everyone.

I have looked around for other brands, but I truly haven't found much that fits the rest of my needs.

I have a thread in the "what laptop should I buy" fourm here:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=80125

In a nutshell, I'm looking for a 13.3 or 14.1 glossy screen with current midrange specs (1gb ram, 5400+ hdd speed, core duo anything). Also though, I need a dedicated GPU that can handle some meium gaming.
Specificly, phantasy star universe comes out in about a month, and I really want to be able to play it on high settings at native res and have a playable framerate (30 fps). It shouldn't be a terribly demanding game, it's an MMORPG first, so it's not too bad. Essentially it's a glorified PS2 game running in high resolution.

I dont have the greatest understanding of real life GPU preformance (benchmarks dont really help with real world situations), but I'd guess a 7600/x1600 would satisfy what I need it to do without problem. The alternative is stepping down to a 7400/x1400, but (by benchmarks) the preformance drops significantly, and I have no idea how well it would run PSU at those settings, and probably wont untill the game is out and somebody that owns a comparable system can actually test it and see. As far as I have found, I'm left with a few options.

13.3
Asus w7j Go 7400
Sony Vaio SZ Go 7400

14.1
Asus w3j x1600
Asus a8j Go 7600
Compal HGL-30 Go 7600?

of the 13.3s, I'd take the w7j over the Vaio, it's cheaper and has the same specs, and the build quality is at least as good as the Vaio.

the 14.1s, quite honestly, the Compal, and a8j are ugly machines, as well as, COMPARED TO THE w3j, poor build quality, which is a big deal to me. So I think the w3j is worth the price difference if it is cooler, quieter, and lighter than the a8j.

So, realizing this as I'm typing it, I think what I need to to first is find if the X1400 card will max out Phantasy Star Universe or not, so unless someone on here is far more knowledgeable than I, I may have to wait untill late october to make a final decision.

 

I read some comparison about temperatures (not extensive testing mind you)... read post #4
http://www.notebookforums.com/showthread.php?t=162352&highlight=w3j+a8jm+heat

Seems the W3J just runs a tad warmer than the A8Jm....

I think the W3J is lighter by 0.1 or 0.2 kg, but cooler and quieter should be very debatable....

 

w3j isnt really that hot, no place on the case other than the hdd really gets hot, just hot air comes out of the vent, which is a good thing