W3J - I jumped ship from the W7J! :D (last minute questions!)

Alright, I got over my W7J phase (mainly because I couldn't get the white lol) and will be getting a W3J! (Decision is -FINAL-)

Last minute questions before I place an order!

1) What exactly is the optical drive battery thing?

2) What's the difference between that and purchasing an additional battery?

3) Does the optical drive make the laptop heavier/bulkier?

4) Has anyone had any problems doing a clean install of XP after getting their W3J? (missing drivers from CD, messed up functions, missing dlls, mousepad stops working, no audio..etc)


When I get some questions answered, it looks like I'll be ordering a unit from C9Tech. It's priced lower than the normal 1799 and even gives a -50$ for being a student (must show proof though). Out of curiosity, do other places offer a student discount like this? I really need to find the most affordable place to order from right now, since I still have to pay for my tuition in 3 weeks! Help a student out! =)

Thanks again to everyone on the Asus boards for being a great help.

-Yaki

 

1. It's a battery that goes where your DVD drive is (6-cell). Tested with that and the main battery you can get 5.5 hours of usage without tapping into the wall outlet.

2. Don't have to shut down to put another main battery on.

3. I'd image it wouldn't change it much, MAYBE an extra tenth of a pound.

4. I've heard people do it without any problems. If you are missing drivers ASUS has them on their site.

Check out btotech.com, they are selling W3J's for 1749. But their student discount doesn't work on W series notebooks. I know the feeling of the cost of tuition

 

The OD is modular and you have 4 options for it:

1. The Optical Drive DVDRW+-
2. The Hard Drive OD Tray, you can have another HD there for more space.
3. The 6 cell battery for more battery life.
4. An empty plastic bay, called the travelers bay, so you can shave off 0..4-0.5lb~

 

These guys answered your questions pretty well. It would be interesting to get an accurate mesurment of the ODD and the battery to what the difference is.

If you can afford to wait for Merom, you should join the group buy. Click my signature!

 

Nobody mentioned how fun is to show off to people that you have 7+ hrs left in your battery.. (with both regular battery and bay battery in place..lol)


C.

 

I thought it was closer to 6 or more accurately 5.5hours... 7 is incredible! Considering the primary battery only puts out 3.5hours by itself and the bay battery has 2 less cells than the primary battery, that incredible 7 hour figure becomes unrealistic.

 

Ah I see... so if I get the optical bay battery, I can't get the DVD burner/drive?

 

3hr is avg to max with main battery. with optical 5hr would be avg to max. If you really tried you can pull of 7hr but you really rhave to try hard! 5hr. 3hr on an 8cell thats what most yonah equipped laptops get with a few exceptions. z35f for example gets 3hr avg EASY! It actually gets almost 3 hr watching a dvd. Read my review i posted on this forum somewhere. do a search

 

If my understanding is correct, this optical bay just serves as sort of an expansion slot where I can put stuff such as the optical bay battery, or the DVD drive.... ?

So, if I have the DVD drive in, and I decide I want to put the extra battery in (optical battery) I just pull out the DVD drive and slide in the OD battery?

 

100% correct! It is called hot swappable or hot swap because you do not need to power down to remove the components!

You can also get a hard drive bracket and put whatever speed size 2.5" HDD you want. Somebody said he was going to run windows on the main HDD and use a swappable bay to run Linux!

 

Nice! Well, I'm pretty much sold. Time to see if there's a cheaper place than C9 lol

 

If you can wait... join the Group Buy! You'll get a merom W3J and save money!

 

I'd wait if I could honestly, but at most I'd need to have a laptop by the end of the 2nd or 3rd week of September :/ Sorry!

 

yeah, im gonna run tiger x86 on my second hard drive.
I wouldnt wait for the merom if i were you. It doesnt add gaming performance, or noticeable battery performance. The optical drive isnt fast enough to allow for any increase in audio ripping performance either.
But it is a faster chip. I didnt wait - i'm more bumed about not waiting for the x1700 to be honest, i can always upgrade to a merom when i need 64bit for vista - as i think it will make a big difference there - but there is 5 months to wait for that.
What i really want to know is - if the the merom runs cooler than the yonah - then can i stick in a higer clocking merom to replace my yonah. i.e. if they have a 2.8ghz merom out in five months, then can i swap that for my t2500 and not have overheating problems. obviously i know the 800fsb/ quad core merom is out of the question.