asus dilemma #7283: w3v or z70va refresh help!

Ive been trolling and crawling the notebook forum sites for about 8 months and have come to the point where I now need my own asap. I have been waiting for the refresh but am having second thoughts about a 15.4" widescreen. Previously I owned a toshiba m45 15.4 wxga then my employer's dell 14" non wide-screen. Using a 15.4 now seems huge! The main things I will be doing is running multiple vmware machines, some compiling, casual gaming (HL2, SoF2 etc) etc. I was ultimately concerned about the w3v's wxga compared to the refresh's wsxga and the amount of real estate Ill lose.

Likes
w3v:
1.lo-profile design/looks is exactly what i been looking for
2.never had a notebook with glossy so that might be a plus?

z70va:
1.wsxga
2.x700


Dislikes
w3v
1.wxga
2.?

z70va
1.the lcd profile.. the bottom part with the speakers seems so large
2.its a 15.4

:asus:

 

The speakers on the m6 series(aka z70v/a) makes the LCD taller, and thats actually a good thing, since it increases the height, you don't have to stare down at the LCD, but instead straight across.

The z70v/a, or rather 15.4" do seem large compared to a 14".

So right now, its basically about size, not many 14.1" if any have wsxga.

Best of luck

 

also, regarding the resolution, wsxga+ looks great on a 15.4" screen, but I think it's just too small on a 14" screen. I think the one resolution notch down will actually be better for visibility on the smaller screen size.

 

I thought the Z70V series was pretty big also, due to the speakers on being built on the display panel. But after hearing the sound from all 4 speakers, I rather have them than take them off. Hope that helps.

 

You can't pick between a 14" widescreen and a 15.4" widescreen based on the resolution... at least not in this case. WSXGA+ would be way too high for a 14" widescreen coming from a graphics professional standpoint... WSXGA+ is super high for a 15.4" but is liked by most that use it........... The 17" W2 is WSXGA+ and it's a great res even for a graphics professional.... so take that as you will.

Anyone who can claim to get better sound out of the extra speakers on the M6 series (Z70) are BSing themselves...... Those speakers were put there to fill the gap in a design that was meant to fit a 15" regular ratio screen and also a 15.4" widescreen in the same chassis'.......... In over a year and a half I haven't heard better sound coming from those 4 speakers than I've heard coming from the 2 speakers on the M6n (which has the same two bottom speakers but lacks the speakers on the screen). The M6 has great sound to begin with, but the extra speakers honestly don't do much. Sound on the M6 (Z70) is better than the W3 but only because the speakers are bigger... that's it.

 

thanks for the input so far all..im still leaning toward the w3v, but im going to bestbuy today to check out overall size comparisons for the 14 wxga's and 15.4 wsxga's





not sure if this is possible, but can someone post some pics of a w3v side by side with the z70v(a)?