W3J LightScribe

Does the W3J have LightScribe?

 

Negative...

...and I think one was originally intended to be in the W2j but was not ready so they went w/ the slot load w/out it.

 

Awww... researched LS and it's soem amazing stuff... s'all good, still love the W3 w/ or w/out it.

 

can't you just upgrade the drive?

 

The problem is that the LS drive's bezel might not fit correctly or snugly against the W3 chassis, and require a bit of "engineering" to make it work/look right if at all.

 

I'd prefer a slot loader over lightscribe anyday...

 

There is a good chance that you will be able to change the bezel if you change the optical drive. I have done this on a couple of notebooks. The bezels are held on by a screw or two and some clips. My experience forms a very limited sample, but I suspect that there is some standardisation between the bezel mountains. Otherwise it would be hell for notebook manufacturers to use different optical drives. However, until you know that your own substitution works you have to proceed at your own risk. As for the LightScribe technology, the output may be nice, but I believe that it is quite slow, even in fast desktop drives, so it could be very slow in notebooks.

John

 

No light scribe on the W3j...... maybe this time next year... or maybe by the end of this year.. I don't know..... It's funny TedJ mentioned he'd rather have a slot drive. I said the same thing last year and that's how I convinced Asus everyone would pay a little more for a slot load drive in their W2....... well everyone, including me, has come to the conclusion that it's cool as anything, but after 3-4 weeks, it becomes "just a drive", if not "just a drive that becomes slightly annoying". See, the slot load drives want to spit out any disc that's in the drive as you're turning off the system. No doubt it's not good to keep any disc in a system when you're moving it around, but some don't like that). Also, the mechanical noise it makes when it sucks in the disc may and has gotten to some people. So, really.. it's cool as anything... but there's a positive and negative way to look at everything... and usually you'll never see anyone selling something point out the negative side, but I certainly don't mind on anything I really notice myself. Slot loads will certainly sell more notebooks, but a couple months down the road it's going to simply be an optical drive that you just use to read and burn discs..... if that makes any sense.

 

PROPortable... that's amazing that you got the W2's hooked up with slot drives. Considering all the Apple notebooks use that technology... we could get used to it. I actually prefer it, I wouldn't mind it spitting out the CD or DVD at all, I usually like to grab it out and leave my slot empty.

Perhaps you could get the W3's some slots =) But then I would already have had my W3 already =) Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, can't wait!!

 

The slot drives are more expensive... that's a big factor honestly.. and the W2v was the first notebook to get that new drive when it came out in September.... But like I said... it's got the cool factor, but it might not "get old"... but certainly loses it's "that's sweet" factor after a month or so.... that's all I'm saying.

 

Makes sense... Only thing I'm concerned about with slot v. traditional is the fact that they sometimes are so brittle and one wrong move could snap it. (I know it's one out of a million chance... but still).

Thanks for putting in that slot for the W2 is all I'm saying, glad ASUS listens to it's vendors and puts it to action.

Read about some guy ranting about Sony recently =) Makes me glad I returned my Vaio for the W3J.... really glad.

 

I understand perfectly what you're saying, PROPortable. Perhaps the "cool factor" would wear of fairly quickly, but I've seen a couple of tray loaders of questionable durability... and several reports of tray loading drives "flopping open" while the notebook was being moved.

But mainly it's for the geek points...

 

Well, I like both in different situations....... so I can see the good and bad of both. The downside to a slot load is that it's got a mechanism which sucks the drive in..... talk about more things to break.... I've only once ever seen or heard of anyone breaking off their tray from a cd drive... so that's rather rare. If you hit the eject button on a tray load, yeah the tray might pop out... but you could just as easily hit the eject on a slot load and if a disc is in the drive, you're going to pop that out...... so you're only safe if nothing is in there...... A lot of people think a slot load helps you save space when inserting a disc.... but you still need the space to put the disc in... and typically that's about the same as a tray would pop out... so that's really a misconception.

They're both good... .slots are more expensive and will sell more systems without a doubt.... I've found them to be pretty darn good in terms of holding up in the laptops so far but only time will tell there, but the apples have held up for years now without much being said.... so whatever.. i guess.