W3J Graininess?

I was looking at the Asus W3J, and it seems like an excellent laptop, but it has the x1600 gpu, and this card has made me extremely wary of it with its grainy issue, so what I would like to know is, has any W3J owners experienced this?

 

Not too much.

 

So far, nobody with a notebook with the X1600 running Windows has reported not seeing the graininess. It doesn't bother and goes almost unnoticed by the vast majority of users.

So far only one reseller has put any pressure on Asus to fix this. You can follow the graininess thread to see how it progresses.

 

Everyone put pressure on asus to follow up not just one reseller. Asus tells every one the same thing. "We put a request to taiwan". Its worthless unless there are mass returns and there have not been. In truth i ve seen no returns for this issue but i did see for others. I ve heard the same shpeel from asus pm gm and intel. It means nothing dont get your hopes up. It may take as long as a year until they get enough user complaints. Resellers are unable to do anything unless the public backs them

 

To the op. Before the s96j grainy thread and before i made it known that the problem is not with the screen and present on the w3j the w3j screen and the laptop in general got rave reviews. It still does. Take it anyway you want but it speaks volumes about the severity of this problem.

 

When my W3J arrives, I'll let you know if I notice this problem or not.

My personal feeling is probably going to be that people are blowing this WAY out of proportion. The Asus line is built solidly, with great hardware, and has almost no 'bad' points to it...so then people start to nitpick.

I think what you ought to do... heck, maybe *I* will do this... is take the W3J into a store like Best Buy, etc....and do side-by-side comparisons to the screens from the 'big players', like Dell, Gateway, HP, Sony, etc. I might even ask joe-smoe people to come over and tell me which screen they prefer. Maybe that will finally put an end to the 'grainy' laptop screen issue.

Frankly, I think we should give all the people that complain about it old laptops from 3-4 years ago, and see them complain about grainy, icky, dim screens. Bah. (/rant)

 

haha thanks for the advice and that would be great info to have chet, its just ive been looking at a number of laptops over the summer and it has become a huge headache for me. I just cant seem to find something that fits all that im looking for. I also tend to nitpick when it comes to large purchases on this so trying to make the best informed decision possible. Thanks again!

 

I am with you on this, large purchase you need to be carefull, you are not buying a can of coke.

About the ATI 1600, I know one laptop HP DV9000t that uses taht and I saw people on HP side talking about ASUS W3J and they said it does not have the ASUS problem, so I asume is LCD of ASUS not GPU.

 

It's X1600, even on macbook after booting into windows XP they have it. Although some models due to some old bios or so can be free of it

 

remember. reviews are based on opinions on a very short term basis. sometimes less than a day or 2.

 

Slightly, but only on very flat colours, and to be honest when viewing DVD's, playing games or viewing Images it is a fantastic screen, everyone at work that has seen it comments about how nice the screen is, and when I point out the grainyness, most of them cant see it!!

I guess I am just fussy.

 

Just got mine yesterday and didn't notice any graininess issue, though I've only used it to surf the web, and play Civ 4.


Edit: using the MS paint to draw a grey square, yeah, I can see it now but its hardly noticeable for my general use purposes. Still wouldn't mind it if Asus/ATI/Intel comes out with a fix.

 

Tell it to the peope with the z96 and s96. Those screens are equally nice but the people in that thread will have your head if you tell them their screens are better then most. I think the difference is that most of those people were on a budget while the people that bought a w3j just wanted the best notebook. Not sure why there is such a gap between the crowd that would readily pay 2000$ for something ready and the crowd that only pays for something they put together them selves. Just to remind everyone its not the screen that shows grainy greys and blues its the vga card

 

Has anyone dual booted with MAC OS or Linux. If so does the graininess issue exist in other OS environments?

 

I have tried booting Ubuntu FROM CD and the graininess is still noticeable. I don't have any idea if it will make a difference if i will install it completely to my hard disk.

 

does not make any difference.

 

Ah, so the reason it bothers us is because we're cheap? Dang, you should have reminded me before I spent $1400 on this notebook when I could have spent half that on a Dell with equivolent specs. Brilliant!

Car salesman say the same thing actually. The guys who walk in and happily pay sticker price are generally the most content with their cars down the road.

 

wasnt it already established that the slight grainyness is due to certain x1600 GPU's?

 

NO. It was never established that it was directly coming from the GPU. All that was proven was that it was not coming from the screen. Eddie did not test the screens loading in different OS environments as far as I've read. It was just a question whether or not the OS had anything to do with it.

 

Quoted by Hyper from the other thread.

 

I did test with vista and same was present. Its not the screens i am 100% sure of that.

 

I know it doesn't have anything to do with screens but maybe it's the windows OS drivers. Do others using drivers for linux or mac see the same issues?

 

Brilliant you jumped to that conclusion because i was pointing to the fact that people that buy prebuilt ensemble or bto are generally less picky then those that built them selves. As for the dell comparison. I find that hard to belive that you can get equivalent dell for half. maybee 200$ less but i get your point regard;ess

 

that car analogy doesn't hold unless you are jay leno or jerry seinfeld..sticker can make a huge difference for the rest of us normal folk..2-3 thousand at least..and this is for cars around 30k...that said i did buy a w3j haha

 

What is the point here?

Yes, some people are willing to pay a lot more than the hardware is worth, for the convenience. For people with the right tech skill that's basically just throwing away money. That said, the S96J is the first laptop I built (I've built desktops). It's a lot easier using the VBI barebones and building up than any previous machines I've seen.

The rest of us like to know exactly what is going into the machine, building it to our own specifications. I don't care how pretty something is, when I know it's a beast under the hood, because I made sure it was that way.

In any case, how much we were willing to pay has nothing to do with the graininess issue.

The only reason I _might_ be less picky with a BTO or prebuilt machine is if it were something like a Dell, where you go into the purchase not knowing exactly what's in the thing (brands), and as such you give it some leeway because you expect it to have issues, and really should've known better.

Krista

 

Self builders are usually more picky and less easy to please. Simple point. The w3j is just as popular as the s96j. I cant say it sold more units but as you can see until i made it known there was not a single thread on the w3j. Infact every reviewer praised the screen. Same goes for the s96j until a few months later. Anyways you get the point i said it 20 times already

 

Self builders are picky about the parts they put in. But, they have a right to expect those parts to work properly once they've picked them... and.. of course, they probably know more about how the parts are Supposed to work than non-tech folks.

Still, I have a problem with a part being made with a flaw. If they knew about it before they shipped, that makes me angry. If they refuse to fix it, even if they know it's a flaw, because it still works to a certain extent... and still sells as it is (and continues to fool some with the specs), that just makes me furious.

In any case, they shouldn't take advantage of those who don't know better. If I put my laptop beside a screen that's equally as nice (with a high end gpu), but without the freckles, I know which would be preferred by everyone. It's just that most can't do that comparison.

Anyway, it's good you 'get the point'. It'd be better if you stopped putting down those of us who are wanting a fix for this issue every chance you get.

Krista

 

I have a S96J and I love the display. I do notice the graininess, kind of like a dusty screen look, on certain light colors. Right now if I look at the right angle, the NBR forum wallpaper looks grainy. Hopefully something can be done about this, as I believe it to be a driver related issue.

 

You are mistaking me for someone else. I gave all of you what you needed to start with. I handed you a cause. That was not the screen. As for the rest i can safely say that if you put this screen next to most laptops, pictures, games, videos, webwork and graphics in the same native resolution the appearance will be equivalent or better. You are blowing this way out of proportion as empasized by various w3j owners s96j owners and z96j owners. Why is the return rate on both the w3j s96j and z96j extremely low as compared to other models that dont share the same issue?. I am not arguing with you but i keep stressing the point. This issue has been blown out of proportion. if it were not the case i would have pulled it from the shelves long ago due to a high rate of returns. I did no such thing and i dont plan on it. Please stop accusing me of trying to block your noble cause. I will correct anyone when i feel like it if i feel like they are mistaken. i am here to offer a popular oppinion. I reflect the vast majority of the users. I only offer what i hear and feel. if i felt otherwise i would be the firs tto admit it. In this case i do not. I feel the issue is blown out of proportion but would not mind a solution if it ever comes. i ve done my share of work to help all of you who feel this is a worthy issue. Give thanks where it is due. And thanks is due right here. You so far only criticised me.

 

Actually I have thanked you, in various posts, multiple times.

However, you have also been quite rude, multiple times. It's hard to keep the 'thankful' feeling.

In any case, those of us who Are bothered by the defect are going to continue to try to get it solved. Those who don't care, should just leave the issue alone.

Krista