downsides of a W3J

I heard that other than better specs, there is also another $100 increase or is it false?

 

^^ you can thank me for starting the thread =) i am on the same boat as you and i am kinda mad that the w3j is sold out everywhere. im gonna order as soon as a retailer here gets a new shipment.

as for your question i am pretty sure that it comes with an 8 cell battery that can last you around 3hours+.

 

Inherent issues with the screen (viewing angles, color reproduction) will be present regardless of the XP Theme being used - that only adjusts the toolbar colors, background color, etc and has no effect on the screen's color reproduction abilities. Different toolbar colors on the screen from various Themes may be more susceptible to solarizing etc depending on screen position, but that's a different issue.

From all of the published reports thus far of requirements for full AeroGlass functionality in Vista on final release, cpu and gpu in particular, there will be nothing to worry about as the W3j should be able to handle it just fine .

All W3's come with 8cell, as posted on various resellers' order pages.

 

Thats a relief, I was worry about Vista capability, thanks for your response. FOr know I have to wait until a reseller gets one so I could purchase a W3J.

 

To expand on Clearskies response, the ability to run Vista'a Aero glass look is more dependant on GPU not CPU, I have seen reports a few months ago stating that Vista my not run on any laptop with an integreted GPU, so considering the W3J has a 256mb X1600 GPU, I an sure it will run fine.

The little windows sticker on my W3J states:
"designed for windows xp, windows vista compatible".

 

Does the W3J really have that sticker for Windows Vista or is it just on the T2400+ ?

 

Phatchenny, the battery is 8 cell which is the standard size that comes with it. The optional modular bay battery is a 6 cell.

Datts168, I'm not sure if it's a default picture for all T2400+ or if W3J alone but it's there and I'm not that worried about being to run Vista.

 

Read the label...... ha ha well it dosen't say built for Vista but it does say Vista Capable, so promising..... I would wait closer untill the release of Vista though, because drivers are still a bit hard to come by, although from what I have heard most modern dual core laptops with a dedicated GPU will be able to run Vista.

oh yeah I have the 1.83Ghz model

 

That's sweet. The W3J's I've been looking at here in Taiwan are actually the T2300 and they don't have that sticker.

 

I have no questions about the w3j which i just got a few days ago...

Firstly, is it normal that the hard drive makes an unexpected "click" once in a while? I loaded 40 gigs of music onto it already and 6gigs of games and everything plays/loads normally

Secondly, when you open/close the screen, is there any sound associated with it? When i first got it it was absolutely quiet. Now when i open/close it there is a bit of a creak and other noise associated with it... Is this normal?

 

HDD only clicks if I powerdown or power on, but I wouldnt expect it to click randomly, if your laptop is on the border of hibernating and the HDD timesout, it may click, but it shouldnt click during operation.

My lid opens and closes without a peep or squeek, it is silent.

 

Battery life for W3J is as follows

Battery saving mode
No bluetooth
screen 18% (plenty fine for vision)
wifi on

3 hours 40 minutes.

 

I get that unexpected click too, like once every 15-20 seconds. I only notice it when everything else is very quiet, not sure what to make of it..

 

I wish I knew the likelihood of the spring '07 refresh of the W3J getting a DVI port, and what Ghz Santa Rosa processor it will get.

 

Its perfectly normal, I own about 6 laptop HDDs Fujitsu, Hitachi and Seagate, they all click every now and again, normally powering up or down. (as would happen when you shut down, hibernate etc, I am just guseeing here, but its probably the HDD parking the heads before power to the HDD is shut off.

 

Mine clicks during normal use, like every 10 seconds now, kind of a small "tick" sound.. Is this expected behaviour?

 

my screen creaks when i go to close it after its been sitting open for awhile. i had to send mine away after the second week of owning it, and i think that's probably why, there was a problem with the backlight so they likely opened it up and it lost its factory tightness. just out of curiosity, what is the cause of the creak and could i reduce it somehow? maybe just a screw that they didn't tighten enough?
anyway, don't take this at all as a negative point, i've been using this for 2 months since it came back and it is the best laptop of all time. and the grainyness is fixed as of today!

 

I would think that the Santa Rosa W3J would be a fairly major revision considering the different thermal conditions of the 800Mhz FSB, the need to add Robson Technology, and DX10 GPUs. Sadly, I can't wait for Santa Rosa since launch in Spring probably means it'll just be available by Fall. I just wish Merom W3Js would show up soon. That should be good enough for me.

 

just bumping to this old thread.

I think the new W3J refresh should have both the radial switch or any dedicated controls and the FN keys for the volume control... Don't you think so??? I mean, they managed to put 5 buttons on each side (10 buttons) that are always accidentally pressed and there is no volume control? i think this is very practical to use and i also think they can put that easily. this is also a very good improvement to the system..

oh, another thing.. the side of the my battery where we see it in our keyboard is already full of bruises. i think the screen touches that part of the battery when closing and opening. even though i make sure that there are no dusts between the lcd and battery, the scratching keeps on going. is it just my W3J or is there someone else has this simple issue?

 

i've had it since they were first released..no scratches

 

I agree dedicated volume buttons are very usefull, and the more anoying thing is that you cant even reach Fn+F10-F12 with one hand!

only marks I have are from carrying it in transit in my bags, just a few small scuffs around the hinge (obviuosly where the bag rubs, although it is velvet lined, I carry it in a bag nearly every day.

 

my only gripe with the w3j is the video card driver. catalyst 6.8 and 6.9 restart my computer if its not plugged in. only unchecking the powerplay box does it allow my comptuer to start up while on battery mode. i believe its a conflicting issue with powerplay and power4gear (or any other power management program). my laptop did not used to restart before i installed power4gear

 

I use the Omega 3.8.252 drivers and ATI Tool .25 Beta 10 and everything runs like normal, what you are describing is not normal, I take it you have uninstalled both drivers and P4G and downloaded the latest versions?

 

there are numerous users on this forum with my same problem. maybe i wil try the omega drivers tho. what exactly does ati tool do besides overclock the gpu?

 

yeah if it continues mine worked fine with the originsl drivers, so msybe it might be something else causing the problem?

Mainly I installed the ATI Tool so I could underclock the GPU when runing on battery, its just has different settings