W3J + T7200: Mini-review

In celebration of my 501st post, it only seems right that I really give something back to the community. Since my W3j (customized with a T7200) arrived today, I have a perfect opportunity to do so. So... without further ado... my mini-review:

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Configuration:
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo T7200
Display: 14" Wide XGA (1280x768)
Optical Drive (In swappable bay): DVD Super-Multi
Wireless: 802.11a/b/g + Bluetooth
Hard drive: 100gb + trusted computing module (disabled in the BIOS at default, thankfully)
Memory: 1 gig
Operating System: Windows XP Pro with free included upgrade to Vista Business Edition
Graphics: ATI Radeon X1600
Warranty: 2-years (may be voided with processor upgrade)
Dimensions: 330 x 247 x 30-32.7 mm (W x D x H)

< < < Full Disclosure: I am the liaison between MilestonePC and the Asus group-buy. > > >

Reasons for Buying and Where and How Purchased:
I needed a new laptop to replace my aging Dell 5150 as it has begun to stall with a few programs running and quickly found that Asus produces a unique mix of good-looking and high-performing notebooks at a reasonable price. My Dell was 15" and I was ready for something slightly smaller. 14.1" struck me as perfect and so far, I do not regret the decision. I purchased this laptop through MilestonePC as part of the group-buy. We got an excellent deal and Danny's been a pleasure to work with. My laptop came with a bluetooth mouse, an Asus carrying case, an extended two-year warranty (yes, I understand that adding a T7200 may void it) and a pocket-sized Asus Wireless WL-530g router, an exclusive to the group-buy. My laptop was shipped almost immediately after I purchased it through the website and arrived well packed a few days later.

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I opened the package to find an amazing amount of manuals, CDs, wires, and packaging inside. It was almost overwhelming.

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Build & Design:
I eventually dug out the notebook itself, plugged in the battery and it's charging cord and turned it on. My initial reaction was that this thing is built solidly. Of course, my basis for comparison is an old consumer class Dell, but still. The keyboard exhibits no flex, nor does any part of the chassis. The battery is firmly attached when installed. The very thin screen does flex a tiny bit when twisted (very little ) but with a laptop this thin, I think it would be impossible to avoid that. Pushing on the back of the LCD produces one localized ripple spot on the top right no matter where I push. I honestly do not care about this at all. The hinge is very tight (maybe too tight?) but must be since there is no latch to keep the lid closed. The lid is made of brushed aluminum and the rest of the chassis is made of a carbon-fiber/plastic composite. Overall the build quality is very impressive. One issue I've come across is the placement of the tactile buttons on the left and right. You'll read more about them later (they're very helpful) but I've found that while moving the laptop, it's almost impossible not to hit a few, forcing me to figure out what I did and restore my settings. Some owners have reported being uncomfortable with a vent on the right side of the laptop. Though some heat comes out of the vent, it is not an issue at all. The laptop never got hot during testing, though I sometimes found the keyboard slightly warmer than the rest of the chassis, perhaps because it serves almost as a vent.

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Screen:
Coming from a matte screen, I thought the W3J's glossy-type screen might produce too much glare but I've had no issues with glare thus far. Overall the screen is very nice. When I first turned on the laptop, I was surprised to see a fuzzy background. I was a bit worried... but soon discovered that the factory sends the computer out with wallpaper of the wrong size and is therefore stretched to fit the screen. A quick change of wallpaper modes from stretch to tile immediately relieved my worries. The brightness is great - I usually keep the LCD at the third to highest notch for general usage at my desk. I have found no dead pixels and the laptop comes with a zero-dead pixel guarantee. There is no screen leakage and I can't find any uneven lighting. My W3J came with the 209 BIOS version and any fuzziness that may have existed in prior models is not present in mine. The only hint at graininess/fuzziness is if I look at a dark, solid color from below. Since this isn't part of the normal viewing angles, it's not an issue.

Speakers:
I'm used to laptop speakers so I wasn't expecting anything incredible – The W3J's are no exception. In fact, I think my old Dell's speakers got slightly louder, had a tiny bit more bass and sounded less tinny overall. Luckily the headphone port (SPDIF) is top-notch and gets plenty loud. There's no hiss or interference as there was at higher volumes on my old Dell. Its location is a bit questionable – right around the mouse – but not too bad.

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Processor and Performance:
As stated earlier, my W3J has been upgraded from a T5500 to a T7200. I can't say if the upgrade was worth it since I haven't tried a W3J with a T5500 but I can't imagine a major difference in anything but benchmarks. General usage is blazingly fast. Installs zip by, programs load quickly, and, a testament to being a core duo, multitasking is incredibly easy, a huge shift from the 3.06 P4m in my Dell. This change alone has made the laptop worthwhile. The hard drive is a bit small for my needs, but that's what the swappable bay and external drives are for. The hard drive came formatted with the Fat32 filesystem but I used the script to convert to NTSF. It's also pre-partitioned in two partitions in roughly a 50-50 split, presumably one for programs and Windows and the other for files. I like this setup but I had more files to transfer than the partitions could handle so I used the G-Parted live CD to resize them accordingly and after a succesful CHKDSK, all systems were a go. There is a single 1gb RAM card in my laptop so when the time comes and prices drop, the addition of another stick should be very easy. Below are some performance statistics – all were performed with the Power4 Gear in the gaming mode:

Super-Pi:


HD-Tune:


3DMark05 (This was with the included drivers) (Also see more details about my specific test here):


3DMark05 (Test #2 with updated drivers):


Startup time (until the desktop appeared & including a few seconds to type my password):
1:03.23

Shutdown time:
20.43

Keyboard and Touchpad:
They keyboard is nice... though the placement of the Ctrl key and Fn key is really annoying. This is a common complaint from Asus laptop owners... but it never gets fixed. I'm sure with time I'll get used to it, but how hard could it be for Asus to make their keyboard like everyone else does? The physical size of the keys is good, in part due to this being a wide-screen notebook. The action and travel in each key is nice. There is no keyboard flex. This isn't a negative issue at all, but, interestingly, the keys are labeled in a unique font which you can see on the "E" key below.

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The touchpad is also nice. It's a typical synaptic touchpad and behaves virtually identically to my old Dell's, though the scrolling area on the left is marked with a line whereas the Dell was solid silver. The left and right mouse button are on a single metallic bar and I'm sure it won't be long 'till I know exactly where to push the buttons, though at the moment I occasionally miss by a little. Since it's so similar to my old one, I've had no issue transitioning.

Input and Output Ports:
Since the battery takes up the entire rear of the computer, all the ports are slightly jammed onto the sides. On the left, from back to front, there's a kensington-style lock, two USB ports, a VGA-out port, an ethernet port, a modem port and a swappable bay which comes with a DVD-super-multi drive but which can be replaced with an extra battery or extra hard drive if one were to pay for the proper housings for them. From back to front, the right side has the power input, a vent, another USB port, an S-video port, a Firewire port (small-style), an infrared sensor, a card reader, an express-card port, a microphone port and a speaker port (SPDIF). I used the card reader to upload the photos found in this review and found it very quick - much faster than going over the USB cord with my camera. On the left of the laptop are buttons which control CD-playing and on the right are buttons which control settings like wireless/bluetooth on/off and performance modes - more on that later.

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Wireless:
The W3J comes with the Mobile Intel 945 PM Express Chipset which includes Integrated 802.11a/b/g. It picks up a strong signal and hasn't dropped it. The bluetooth, for some reason, did not come properly or fully installed. After playing with one of the several wireless/bluetooth utilities in the task bar upon first start-up, it eventually installed the right drivers and began to work. The included bluetooth mouse is actually a Logitech V270 which is very portable and very useful. Asus really needs to figure out which wireless utility is best and just stick with it. Having some Toshiba programs, some Intel programs and Windows' own programs running simultaneously at startup creates quite a headache. Using MSconfig, I eventually forced only the programs I wanted to launch at startup.

Battery:
Under real-world conditions by having, Power4 Gear set to office mode, wireless and bluetooth sometimes on, sometimes off, occasional web browsing and downloading and some music playing, the battery lasted about 2:40. I imagine it would exceed 3 hours had I used a more power saving mode and had reduced the backlight. Under battery mode in Power4 Gear, I'm told I'll get around 3 hours and 15 minutes of battery life.

Operating System and Software:
All W3J's come with Windows XP Pro and until March 31, 2007, include a free upgrade to Windows Vista (you have to pay for shipping). Though Asus does not install much bloatware, one annoyance I quickly found was a program to control the trusted computing module (TPM). It was constantly asking to be configured and I personally am against “trusted computing” so I left it disabled through the BIOS and uninstalled the software - no biggie. Asus includes a recovery partition for a quick restoration to factory settings and a copy of this same image on discs. If one wants to have a clean XP install without drivers or the Asus utilities, they need merely go through the reinstall with the included discs but stop the process and restart when prompted to give the computer the drivers CD. They'd have a clean XP system but will need to install drivers manually. Since I can obtain Symantec Corporate Virus Scanner (an excellent program compared to everything else out there), I uninstalled Norton which is intrusive and really messes with performance. Other interesting pieces of pre-installed software are Power4gear which allows a user to set modes like "High Performance", "game", "quiet office", "presentation" and "super performance". The program is easy to use and can be controlled with the tactile-button on the right side of the computer. Asus also includes "Splendid" which allows for special LCD settings like "vivid mode", "theater mode" and many more, also controlled from a tactile-button. Some freebies thrown in are Nero and an Asus branded DVD player. The W3J is able to play CDs without booting into a full Windows OS, saving battery life. To do so, one simply opens the laptop, holds down the cd button on the left and the computer boots without displaying anything on the screen. Control of the CD is done through the tactile buttons on the left. If I had memorized the location of the buttons, I could have closed the lid and continued to control the CD player despite the buttons and their labels being half covered. While playing with the partitions, I booted into a Ubuntu Dapper Drake liveCD (Linux) and it detected all of my essential hardware without a problem, though it wouldn't give me a proper screen resolution. I didn't do too much experimenting but Gparted worked well and everything in Linux, even while working solely though the RAM and cd drive (since I was running of a live CD), was smooth. Unfortunately, at the time of writing, The W3J lacks any official BIOS which properly supports Vista, though it has a “Windows Vista Capable” sticker so I could not test it. It should run it fine after a new BIOS is released.

Customer Support:
I haven't had a chance to call them and hope not to, but the consensus in the Asus forum here at NBR is that they are knowledgeable, helpful and quick. Since the North America branch of Asus laptops is rather small, there aren't many technicians and they are not outsourced. Supposedly, certain individuals in the support office are better than others so it might just matter who you get.

Conclusion:
So far, I'm extremely happy with my purchase. The build-quality is unbeatable and the specs are top-notch. Though I paid a bit more than a Dell or HP with comparable specs, I'm confident everything from the support to the build quality more than make up for the price difference. There are some minor annoyances which could be corrected by Asus to make this laptop a 100% dream machine, but at the moment it's not too far off.

Pros:
Excellent Build-Quality
Great Specs in such a small package
Great look and feel

Cons:
Locations of some ports
How easily the tactile-buttons on the left and right are hit while moving the laptop
The placement of the Fn and Ctrl keys
Weak speakers

Updates:
Since writing this, I have noticed a few things worth adding...

- I forgot the mention the built-in microphone on the frame of the screen
- I hadn't updated the video drivers - I have now and the new scores are posted above
- The tiny bit of graininess I mentioned seeing from certain angles can be eliminated with a new BIOS which I hadn't applied at the time
- I've already almost completely adjusted to the Fn Ctrl switch.
- When a Kensington-lock is being used, the lock blocks out one of the 3 USB ports which is fairly annoying
- I had the occasional BSOD due to a faulty video card which was resolved with a quick repair by Asus.

That's all for now. I'll keep you posted.

~ Brett

 

Thanks for that,

I was curious about the W3J with a chip higher than T5500. I guess from your account it is stable, so I will definetly get it too.

 

Great work. Looks like a full review, really!

 

Great review! I especially like the look of the metal-ish design.

 

Aww man I'm jealous...

Nice review.

 

WOW, loved the pics, ncie little review, covered great stuff i wanted to know.

BTW will you be gaming on a 14" screen, how does that feel?

Thanks,

MysticGolem

 

I promised myself that once I had this little beast, I'd find a game to play on it... but I haven't picked one yet. I was thinking Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter. Any other suggestions?

~ Brett

 

Wow..excellent pics.
Powerful lightweight machine with X1600 and 14 wxga form factor!

 

Is it ok to share a price with us? Great review, it's practically a full review though. Also, noticed that some of the images like 3dmark scores are not showing...

 

Actually, I can't give the group-buy price, but I can say that the MSRP is $1,799 and it's sold through the group buy for a good bit less. Are the images still dead? Maybe they're still in my cache but I can see them.

~ Brett

 

Hopefully after you know our new A8Js offer and still don't regret

We are offering A8Js with factory installed bluetooth now, with 2 year gloabl warranty.

Sorry to hijack this thread, just because I remember you said bluetooth is important to you and you chose W3J.
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Haha, no worries - build quality is just as important and from what I've read, it doesn't get much better than the W-line of Asus laptops.

~ Brett

 

I guess people really wanna see pictures, huh? Well... give the public what they want:




~ Brett

 

When you say less than $1799, does that include all the package, router/mouse and anything extra seen on the pics?

 

Everything but a T7200. The stock processor is a T5500.

~ Brett

 

Thanks Nrbelex! Its a great review, with awesome pictures!

 

You get a good discount off $1799, you get a North American full package, on top of that, you get a free wireless router made by Asus. The one you can see from his review, a pocket size 4-port wireless router.

 

Weird question, but is that the power on button?

 

Yep-kind of a neat location.

 

I currently have my laptop connected to an external LCD display. Also have wireless keyboard and mouse connected to it as well. So everytime I want to turn on my dv5000t, I will have to open the laptop and power it on.

So what you are telling me is that the W3J can remain closed, and I can power it up from that button in the picture? If so, thats nice!!!

 

actually it doesn't power up with the lid close, at least from the few times that i've tried it. i have to open it up slightly, push the buttom and then it would turn on. its not a big deal, but would have been convenient. i also have my W3J hooked up to an external monitor, keyboard and mouse.

 

Is there anything for us poor Europeans? Prices in the U.S. are already much lower and this group-buy discount only makes us more jealous!

 

i just wish it was true 16:10 aspect ratio (1280*800, or better still 1440*900) and had a DVI out. Then it would be perfect.
I think I'll keep my A8Jm until at least that happens, and a DX10 gfx card

 

Hey MysticGolem,

You seem to be asking alot about gaming on a 14" screen.

Well, I've owned an A8Jm since the end of July and I have gamed quite a bit. In short, native widescreen games will be fine and very playable, but standard aspect ratio games are less so. Having an nVidia card is a boon because the card will do scaling while keeping the aspect ratio (e.g. it stretches it but there's still black bars; the alternative is just using, say, 1024x768 pixels, thus having horizontal AND vertical bars). But even with the fixed aspect scaling, it's still small.

Keeping a standard ratio game standard (important for games like wc3) means you're basically playing on a 12" screen. For wc3 I found that to be just fine, but F.E.A.R. was, to be honest, VERY hard to play.

So that's why I got a gateway 21" widescreen monitor (with component inputs for my PS2!). Gaming on this thing is obviously fantastic regardless of standard/widescreen because it's ENORMOUS.

But when you get to a screen of that size, you really get to appreciate the DVI output. No tuning of the picture each time you connect it to the laptop (you must with VGA connection), and everything is ridiculously sharp.

I doubt a 15.4" would be much better than a 14" for gaming. It will be better obviously and widescreen games will be perfect, but standard ratio will still be too small.

What I'm telling you is that if you want to game, you're probably going to want a separate monitor. And if you can afford a good monitor, you'll want DVI.

Hope that helps!

PS if you DO get a monitor, get one with a USB hub so you don't have to connect all your USB stuff every time. Also, it's nigh-impossible to use a laptop keyboard with the monitor because you can't put a laptop directly in front of the screen.

 

Interesting information rwei, thank you for your honesty .

I have tested these three laptops, Z96j, Z70va, Z71v and the LG S1, these are all 15.4" with no DVI, Danny at MilestonePC let me play around with them and tested my games on them.

For me I enjoyed playing on the LG S1 the most, because it was the most powerfull laptop but the screen was amazing, and good at scaling.

I used to play WC3, but i now play W40K DOW DC and LORTR BFME 2, I did see black bars when playing W40K DOW, I played that on the Z70va, i liked it, however, when playing FPS games, the LG S1 did the best in scaling.

To me I found from my semi-limited experience with gaming on a 15.4" for all types of games to be quite good, aslong as the screen can scale effectively.

I've never games on a 14" screen laptop, but I do thank you for telling me what it's like to game on a 14" laptop.

As many know the laptop that is on top of my list is the V1J because of the docking stating and mini dvi and multi-bay, if i feel that the V1J's 15.4" screen is not enough or not suitable enough for my gaming and home needs, i will definately purchase an LCD.

Thanks,

MysticGolem

 

If this had a DVI port it would be perfect for my needs. Awesome machine!

 

Hi Brett, I see you got a 4105 3DMark05 score. What version of Catalyst did you use when you did the test? Was the test done with 6.8 version or ASUS' stock driver?

 

great review.. and ya i want to know what driver you used too

 

Great review! I'm really tempted to get one of these. Too bad you can't share with us the price you paid

 

Yea, I forget to mention that. All drivers are stock. The ATI driver is labeled 8.204.1.0.

~ Brett

 

Hmm. I wanted to see if I could update my graphics driver but I've ran into a problem. The ATI control center offers no way to do it so I went to the their website. Once there, I found a driver from October 31st (probably newer than mine) but it's labeled 6.10 even though mine is 8.204.1.0. I downloaded the new one and tried to run it but was told it couldn't be applied. On the website with the driver there's a list of "Notebook Manufacturers and System Integrators Supported" but Asus isn't one of them. Maybe that's why... any thoughts?

~ Brett

 

You could just use Omega drivers since they're generally faster anyways. I think ATI only releases stock drivers to manufacturers who requests it while others like to use their own custom drivers, which I believe really just involve adding their logo. There are cracks I think to allow ATI drivers to be used on other systems.

Congradulations on the W3J BTW.

 

Hi again Brett, OK here are what I know:
1. If you want the latest Mobility Catalyst (I believe the latest version is 6.10), go here: http://ati.amd.com/online/mobilecatalyst/
2. If you want to download older versions (I believe the 6.8 version is the best until now in terms of stability and problems), go here: http://www.3dnews.ru/download/drivers/ati/ (remember that what you need are drivers with 'mobility' name)
3. If you want the Omegas, go here: http://www.omegadrivers.net/
Personally I like the original more than the Omegas, and 6.8 is what I use in my W3J. I guess with 6.8 you will get a 3DMark05 score higher than 4105. My stock 3DMark05 score with 6.8 is around 4184, that's with a Yonah T2400, mind you. IIRC someone with a T7400 has a 4400-ish stock score.

 

So is that link always live with the newest drivers? Why doesn't the utility found here work? Where can I find the actual version of the driver I currently have since it lists something like 8.xxx.xxx?

Thanks!
~ Brett

 

Ok, I got 4357 with the new drivers. I haven't done any other optimizations so I'm pretty happy with that.

~ Brett

 

Yes, that link from ati.amd is always live with the newest driver. I don't know about that funny utility from ATI, maybe they have something strange in their minds... Your default driver comes from ASUS and they use different number system, someone previously posted about how to check the ATI version in the ASUS' driver, but I don't remember where...

 

Yeah, 4357 stock with a T7200 is what I expect. BTW which driver do you use now? The 6.10 or 6.8?

 

6.10, though I didn't really adjust any settings or disable any processes before running 3DMark, so who knows where my score could have gone.

~ Brett

 

It's good to know that with a T7200 and T7400 W3J can reach higher stock score. Some owners of A8Js with Go7700 and T7200 reported stock 3DMark05 score of around 4230.. so in terms of 3DMark05 score, X1600 and Go7700 are not too different...

 

Updates:
Since writing this, I have noticed a few things worth adding...

- I forgot the mention the built-in microphone on the frame of the screen
- I hadn't updated the video drivers - I have now and the new scores are posted above
- The tiny bit of graininess I mentioned seeing from certain angles can be eliminated with a new BIOS which I hadn't applied at the time
- I've already almost completely adjusted to the Fn Ctrl switch.
- When a Kensington-lock is being used, the lock blocks out one of the 3 USB ports which is fairly annoying

That's all for now. I'll keep you posted.

~ Brett

 

Dood dont put it near EDGES!!!! lol MAN YOU GOT A FREE ROUTER?!!?!?!?! Living in the US sucks! We dont get any of the extras >.<

 

Actually, I do live in the U.S. As an exclusive to the group-buy (which is open to anybody in North America), a free Asus wireless router was included.

~ Brett

 

**** you! do you need it? ill give you 20 bucks for it

 

Haha, actually I do sometimes use it... and it's worth a good deal more than $20 anyway. Try eBay

~ Brett

 

That's a great feature! Is it able to do something similar for DVDs, i.e. play them like a portable DVD player without booting into Windows?

 

I'm 99% sure it's just for CDs. The button has a disc icon with "CD" printed on it...

~ Brett

 

Concerning security it seem the W3J now comes with a TPM chip, what is the harddrive password protection (does this lock the whole harddrive if no password is given?) and bios listed under the security features at the asus website?

Also how come you dont trust "trusted computing group" and the TPM chip?

Great looking computer by the way

 

Hard drive protection means that one must enter a password before even getting out of the BIOS and into the operating system. Literally anything on the hard drive is locked away and it's very hard to foil.

As for trusted computing... well there's a whole slew of reasons but Richard Stallman (yes, Richard Stallman of GNU fame) puts it well in this document:

Another organization, appropriately named Against-TCPA has a whole explanation of the matter.

~ Brett