W2V, one week later

Alright, after one week with the W2V, I'm still as impressed with it as I was when I first opened the box. Sleek, sexy, quiet and cool, the machine still fits all of the archetypes for the Perfect Notebook. I have some more pictures for you, some of which weren't included in the original review ( http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=28210), and some updated current issues with the notebook.

Noise, Heat, and Speakers: The machine is still quiet, making little to no noise when running through the most extreme of tasks. I'll watch a DVD, run five programs at once, and play Doom 3 and the fans are hardly noticable. Heat wise, the W2V is still cool everywhere to the touch. Yes, the air vent along the right side does get hot after a while, but that is to my knowledge the primary air vent for the computer, so its only natural that that area of the notebook would be hot. Other than that, there are no known "hot spots" on th computer. The speakers are also still better than ever, with me having no problems with them.

Note: I did have one problem with the computer as it relates to heat. Apparently you have to put the notebook in standby mode before you close it, for it won't automatically go into it when closed. I had my W2V in its carrying case for alittle under an hour, and when I took it out, the notebook was scearing to the touch. After turning it off, and letting it sit for 30 mins, everything was fine, and there was no damage to any part of the W2V. I'm thinking this is something you can fix or alter in the system settings of windows, but I really haven't looked yet.

Screen: Still great, and pretty as the day I first saw it. It still gives me a smile everytime I look at it. There was some concern about possible dead pixels, but I can assure you, there are none. Asus does a good job of producing high quaility screens.

Case and Design: Once again, I'm sooo glad I bought this notebook; it is the best designed notebook on the planet right now. However I sure hope that your not Anal about finger prints and dust, because you will see them. I'm not, but at the sametime I don't like smudges all all over my palm rests and finger prints on the lid. All it takes is a rag or piece of cloth though, and off they go very easily. There was also some questions about just how thin the notebook is. I hope these pictures can clear this up.

Note: I've gotten so many complements over this thing that is actually makes me a little nervous to let it out of my sight, even for 30 secs. Am I obsessive, maybe, but everyone else who doesn't own this notebook will be envious of it.




WiFi: Ok, I was having problems with the W2V in this area. The W2V would get low on battery power, and Hibernate and as soon as I brought it back, both the Window's wireless client and Intel Proset wouldn't find any networks. Weird? But I just reinstalled the drivers, and so far, I'm getting a strong connection from both utilities. I'm also impressed with the W2V's ability to find wireless networks. This thing finds anything, and gets a strong connection where ever there is one

Battery: Still strong and Vibrant. Average times vary between 2:45 min to 3:10 mins depending on what your doing with the notebook. Currently I have 43 mins left

Keyboard: Still adjusting to it, but this is a matter of personal opinion since this is the first Asus notebook I have owned, and I'm still used to typing on my Satellite. I keep hitting the funtion key and thinking its the control key, and then for about 1 millisecond, wonder why the hell nothing is happening. The keys still feel firm there is no flex in the keyboard.



Ports: Glad to say that all of the ports (4 usb, 1 pcm slot, 1 4:1 digital card reading slot, firewire and IR link) all work as advertised. After using the Satellite for three years, and knowing that the sd card and pcm card slots worked only a 1/3 of the time, it was very refreshing to know that all of these worked well.




Other Issues: I'm not sure if this is just my W2V, or if this is happening to others, but two times now the Power4gear application will for some reason cycle through all of the power and presentation modes until you turn off the notebook forcefully (holding down the power button for 5 seconds). I'm not sure why it is doing this, but it hasn't in a while, and hopefully is something that isn't reaccuring.

Overall, aside from a few minor issues that have either already been fixed or can be fixed through driver updates, this is still, the best notebook on the planet.

 

The w2v is so darn sexy!

Nice pics, turned out alot better then mines heh.

OT: What camera?

 

nice review zero and very nice pics =) *drool*

I guess the problems you faced are just merely software issues. You might want to right click on the battery icon in your lower right corner and select 'Adjust Power Properties'

There's a tab in there that should tell the laptop to standby/hibernate when you close the lid. Fiddle with it. Good stuff. =)

And yea I don't think there's a dead pixel problem now that I saw more pics. But I do see some blue and red pixel(s) on your pictures and I'm assuming these are probably from your camera. A blue pixel appears on the keyboard area near one of the magnets! =D heh

 

Yeah, I don't know what the hell those pink and blue dots are on the pictures. I don't think it's the camera because I take pictures with it all of the time and they're not riddled with these "dots". BTW, my camera is a Minolta Dimage F100. I'm looking to buy a 5 mega pixel though.

 

Wow that W2v is sexy... I love the aluminum.

 

Yeah mine did that power mode cycle thing once, but there have been several times where I had to force shutdown on it (holding pwr button)

A couple times it just froze and the screen would display somethng like a white screen and vertical colored lines and if I was listening to music it would just stutter until I forced it off. One other time just the screen shut off but the computer was still functional.

As for the dots, Im pretty sure those are dead or stuck pixels on your camera, the reason theres so much noise esp. on the last pic is because the light isnt bright enough. It doesnt show up normally probably because you shot outdoors with sufficient light. Shooting in low light really brings out the worse in a digital camera, especially if you shoot w/o flash and low ISO, longer exposures are probably the only way to remedy this.