W3j in Canada?

I'm looking to buy the W3j in early September, but I don't know where to buy Asus computers in Canada besides the store formerly known as Radio Shack, and they only have the budget models at my local store. I'd like to get it in person rather than online, but I'll order it in if that's not possible. Where's a good place to find the W3j? Also, when can we expect the updated version with the 1x1024 RAM and the 2.0 GHz processor?

 

See here and the followup post below it for recommended Canada retailers.

Current ETA on W3j refresh is around mid-July.

 

You can make a call to milestonepc.com, go to their stores to see the samples. You will feel free to test it right away.

 

MilestonePC and Canadacomputers...but I'd give Danny the business over at MilestonePC. He'll definitely treat you right. Both companies have floor models...but again, If you can get to one of MilestonePC's locations, I'd give them the business over Canadacomputers.

Here's a link to the Asus models
http://www.milestonepc.com/canada/index.php?cPath=187_87

And here's one for Contact info
http://www.milestonepc.com/canada/contact_us.php

Good luck

 

Thanks everyone. It's a bit of a trek up to Toronto to see it in person, but I'm contacting Milestone as we speak. It sounds like they're an excellent place to shop, from what I've read around the forums.

 

*NOTE ost written yesterday. I just sat down and saw it wasnt sent*
I seriously hate to call you out like this, but Canada is second only to Russia in land mass. If you want to pick it up localy, you might want to tell us where you live!!!

I've been shopping around and so far the best prices are in ontario. www.milestonepc.com has it listed for $1999 ( Direct Link) I live in BC so NCIX is most convenient. They have it listed at $2102 but will price match any $CAD listing so I'm probably going to go through them.

At this point though, the W7J at $1649 is winning me over. It may not be as game capable (expecially with 128 DDR2 vs 512 DDR3 GPU), but I have access to a desktop pc if I want to do any "serious" gaming.

 

I'd like to add that if you live in Ontario, NCIX is often a GREAT way to go because you will save yourself PST - it only applies to BC residents.

 

Really? Could I place a purchase from Ontario for pick-up? There has to be a way!

 

I should probably have mentioned that I'm in London, Ontario, so Milestone is closer but i'll end up taxed, while NCIX is where I normally shop and I won't pay PST, but it'll take a while to get here unless I spring for express shipping. It costs about $70 to take a train into Toronto, so I'm going to have to go in sort of blind as far as test runs.

Edit: Wow, apparently it's quite fast to get it shipped from NCIX by courier, and it only costs about $30. Of course, shipping insurance is 70 bucks, but I don't trust them not to break the thing so it's a must.

It's $2,539.12 from NCIX, with 2 year warranty extension and without any price matching, and I can't figure out how much it is from Milestone because I have to enter payment info before I can see a total and I really don't want to accidentally buy it right now.

Who would you guys recommend I go with?

 

Guy... it's $1999!! I've already spoken with a sales rep at NCIX and they matched it... TRUST!

****, how much is sales tax in Ontario... you're willing to pay an extra $202 (102list price, 30shipping and 70insurance) to save the sales tax?

 

The provincial tax is about $147, apparently - this doesn't incorporate the warranty, but it's probably the same price from both places since it's actually an ASUS warranty, not a dealer warranty. It does seem to be slightly cheaper overall to buy it from Milestone, so I think that is the way I'll go in September when I actually get this thing.

On another note, I checked the whole list of ASUS resellers, and I believe there's only one other place online that sells the W3j in Canada. What gives? Seems like it should be a popular laptop to me, but a lot of the stores carry almost all of the Ensemble models except this one - this includes some of the new models for most of them, so it's not just an outdated product line.

 

Asus doesnt seem to be a well stocked product period. Most of the resellers (esp. in Canada) probably don't even realize how much hype there is for the W3J. Laptop sales through NCIX probably only amount to ~5% of there revenues and ~1% of their profits. It's not in their best interests to push the product because 90% of their clients still think laptops are under powered and over priced. Most stores are concerned with high volume high margin sales which doesnt include a laptop only well known to the educated consumers (Most of which accumulate on these forums).

 

You're right about that - I wouldn't have known about the W3J without these forums, and I only found them because I've been researching laptops for months and reading every review I could get my hands on. Most stores aren't going to sell a ton of $2000 laptops when the average person won't know the difference from an $800 Dell, and the North American release came with zero fanfare (except here, of course.) I was initially going to go for the Acer Travelmate 8200, since I was supposed to get the laptop in May and the W3J wasn't out yet, but I'm glad I had a resource like this place to tell me "get the W3J instead."