W3J Questions (Sorry!)

Sorry about all these questions, I'm so confused.

I want to buy a W3J as soon as possible for Uni, which I start next week. I am, however, utterly baffled by all the different models around, and the differences between them.

Every UK website I go on at the moment is out of stock of one particular model - W3J-H002P (1.83GHz Core Duo, 1024 MB RAM, BT 2.0+, 100GB HDD) - with one website claiming it is discontinued. Another site states that they will be stocking the Core 2 Duo T5400 model by the end of September, and another claims that the W3J-H002P will be back in stock soon. Nobody has any mention of a Core 2 Duo with the T7200 or above chip in. As well as all this I keep seeing mention on here of a "refreshed" model which sounds the same as the W3J-H002P but with a 2GHz processor.

I suppose the questions are:

Any clue as to when the T7200 models will be released?
Is there such thing as a "refreshed model" with the upgraded processor?
Has the W3J-H002P been discontinued?
Are the 1.83GHz chips significantly slower than the 2GHz?
Are the optical bay batteries available in the UK?
Why is there such a shortage of W3Js?

Sorry again, I'd imagine these questions have been asked a hundred times before but I couldn't find the answers anywhere.

Thanks for the help.

 

1.83 and 2.00 theres no significant difference, the core 2duo version of the w3j will unfortunately come with the t5500 and not the t7200 that everyone was hoping for..mainly because the latter has twice the l2 cache

there should be two core duo versions of the w3j the one you mentioned is the one i have and the first version..the 2nd is with the 2.0GHz but from what you're saying neither of those are available

 

It's really gotten to a bad point when someone has legitimate questions and they need to state that they're sorry for asking them in the subject of their thread........ It's not that people shouldn't ask questions, it's just those who really have good ones see all of the clutter on the forum from others....

1. To the US, they should be at customs early next month, with shipments to end users mid to late October. For the UK - you'd have to call Asus over there to see.

2. In the US, the second shipment that came in after the last Intel price drop, came in with a 2.0ghz cpu - again, this is the US - the UK is totally seperate and may have different models.

3. the W3J-H002P isn't a model we ever had here in the US - so I couldn't help you there.

4. Benchmarks can barely tell the different in those two cpu speeds.... so you probably never will either.

5. If you can't get them in the UK - you could order them from US, but they should be.

6. The shortages around the world mainly had to do with cpus and the mid model year update to Merom..... Asus claimed an earlier shortage in July to lack of x1600 chips.... but of late, it's deffiantely because of Merom and essentially a delayed release to ODM's.

How that helps.

 

Thank you both, very helpful.

One last question with regards performance enhancements with the Merom:

How much of a real world difference does that extra cache between the T5600 and T7200 actually make? Is there a greater performance gap between these two chips than between the 1.83 and 2GHz Core Duo ones?

If not I think may just got for the T5600, as I can't really wait until November!

Edit - Yet another Question!

Having found a site that sells "built on" ASUS notebooks, I checked the FAQ to see what this meant. The FAQ makes out that Ensemble notebooks are of a much higher quality than Built On, is this the case? One reason for choosing ASUS is their build quality, would I be foolish then to buy a Built On ASUS notebook?

 

Having just purchased a built-on model from Asus, I'm not satisfied with how it's put together. If Asus has a reputation for high quality, it surely must come from their Ensembles. Do yourself a favor, and spend the extra cash on an Ensemble. Plus, they look much sleeker/cooler.

 

the difference between Core Duo 1 and 2 with the same clock speed (but 2Mb cache vs 4MB) is maximum about 15%, mostly in graphic rendering, in games you are mostly GPU limited, so don't expect much difference (if any).

The Core Duo 2 can run 64-bit code, albeit it's slower in normal applications in this mode (due to the increase in instruction length) some real benefits can be seen if the application was heavy optimized for 64-bit.

 

Good post/answers, I was wondering about the core 2 duo upgrade myself, but seeing how they won't realy be taken advantage of before a year or two, I will go ahead and purchase the W3J with a T2500 now, and maybe upgrade in the future.

 

In search of some more UK-relevant answers I phoned an online retailer today, and got very few answers about anything.

None of the shops I've been in contact with have been given a date by Asus of when the Core 2 Duo models will be supplied, I couldn't even get out of him which model processor will be used in them. "As soon as we hear the website will be updated" apparently.

I asked him about the optical bay battery and he didn't seme to really know what I was talking about, but claimed theys hould be able to get hold of extra batteries.

I also asked him whether the laptops this specific shop sold were ensemble or built on. He was completely baffled by the question. I had to repeat myself 4 times, at which point he said "No, as soon as Asus gives us the release date we will be able to tell you what processor they are using." Er. Not willing to give him an explaination of what I meant I simply accepted his statement, thanked him for his help said goodbye.

W3Js seem to be out of stock pretty much everywhere in the UK, and there appears to be confusion on all sides as to what the actual situation is.

EDIT: I just phoned another couple of places. One first claimed to be able to get any Asus laptop, and a few seconds later said "Oh.. but we can't get that one. Call in a few weeks and we might be able to". Another shop said that it was an old model and had been updated/replaced, and was no longer available. I asked if it was likely that it will be upgraded to Core 2 Duo and he said no. Think I'll pay the place a visit tomorrow with a print out from the UK Asus website which shows the CPU options to include C2D.

 

i went down to this shop in London the other day and asked for the w3j core 2 duo version... he called asus uk right then and there and they confirmed that it will be shipping end of sept... however no plans for the V1J (core 2 duo version) in the near future...

 

Aha, marvellous. I'm hoping I'll get the same result tomorrow then, get one on preorder! I've been hunting around relentlessly today to find an alternative, but nothing fits the bill.