s96 or z96 ?

Iam really confused on choosing between these two notebooks. First because Iam short on budgest (my budget only limits me to $1700) . And I don't really know which one is actually better for me. Iam not going to use my laptop for a lot of gaming, maybe sometimes and only for playing games such as NFS most wanted (mid-class game). I use my notebook most for browsing the internet, downloading stuff, watching movies, and microsoft word. Please I need your help and comment!

 

I recommend you go down to your local Best Buy or COMPUSA and check out the different resolutions in person.

That will give you the best idea as to which of the two you will prefer.

 

chrisyano,

I tried to do the same thing, but you're going to have a hard time finding a high res notebook display in a retail store like best buy or compusa

best bet might be an apple store if you have one

 

Um, there are 15.4 HP that is high res. check that out.

 

Go for the Z96. It is by far the better choice. Don't worry about the extra $150. You can configure it for high end gaming for about $1500-1600 including 3 year warranty, extra battery(9 cell) and WinXP. If you were tight on money, you could pull off something for about $1200 that would still run great, but you'd have to give up some extras and buy lower-end hardware.

What resolution(s) is/are your current computer(s) using? I found the switch from WXGA to WSXGA fantastic. I'm never going to even consider going back.

Get an Asus Z96J. You won't regret it.

 

I've configured the z96 with the same spec but the price is much higher than the s96. I usually have my computer resolution set at 1280 x 780 pixel. Any other helpfull comment would be welcome because I only want to buy between these two notebooks and din't want to change to other brand. Thanks

 

OK. Have you ever used a WSXGA(1680x1050) screen before? How good are your eyes? I find WSXGA far more comfortable than WXGA. The Z96 price should be identical to the S96 except exactly $150 more. If it is anything more or less than that, they are not configured the same.

 

i paid 1650$, check my sig for specs

 

Actually I never had a laptop before so this will be my first laptop and I never tried the WSXGA screen. Iam now wearing glasses and I hope that the new laptop that I will get will not affect my eyes badly.

 

Go for the S96j. No need to spend extra money, especially if its your first laptop. If you were going to do engineering work then you'd need the extra res, but you're casual so its fine.

 

I paid $1600, same specs as Kenshin except I got a Hitachi 60 gb 7200 RPM drive and a T2400 proc, but I got a spare 9 cell battery. Ordered barebones from G2P and parts from Newegg.

Go with the Z96. If this is your first laptop, you don't want to S96. Z96 has MUCH better warranty.

I wear glassed and have no problem with the screen. I am absolutely in love with it. Without my glasses I can't see a thing. But I'm only 15 years old, so I don't have those problems where I have to hold papers an arm and a half's length out in front of me to read them and such. People like those tend to complain about text being too small on a WSXGA. I find it just right. Doesn't seem small one bit. Very sharp and clear. WXGA looks like crap now.

Don't make the mistake I did. I went cheap on my first laptop. I got some use out of it, but I would have much rather gotten something decent. Now the S96 isn't nearly as cheap as my first laptop($500 HP craptop) I would definately recommend the Z96. While the S96 isn't necessarily a bad choice(although with Intel's warranty policies it might be) and Z96 is just a much better choice. That's all.

 

It really all depends on what you're going to do with the screen. If you're going to be just doing word processing and watching movies, then the WXGA is a better value and the WSXGA goes unused. Also when gaming, you may have to turn the res down anyways to get better results with the image always looking worse when not in native res. So stick with S96j, intel warranty should be fine. JPZ is just pushing this all out of proportions.

 

No I'm not. The S96 has the worst warranty I have EVER seen for a laptop. EVER.

WSXGA is still a great choice. Everything looks much clearer than WXGA. WSXGA is GREAT for movies. Most games run perfect at native. Those that don't run great at 1280x1024 scaled to full, and look better than WXGA at native. I find the WSXGA to be much more comfortable for web-browsing and work processing.

The $150 for the Z96 alone is worth the extra to get the Asus warranty. Why do people buy an Asus in the first place? 3 Reasons. Reliable notebooks. Good support. Great options for hardware. The only thing that would make me get a VBi notebook is if that notebook were flawless, and there was no chance of anything breaking. While the S96 is solid, it still doesn't compare to the more expensive ensemble units and some other notebooks. This means that there is always the possibility of something breaking, and then you are stuck with Intel.

Trust me, you don't want to get screwed over your first notebook. You are already spending atleast $1200.

Isn't it worth it to pay $150 to protect that investment? Not to mention the added bonuses of the Z96.

Read my review on www.asusforum.com to find out what I mean by Inte'ls warranty policies. Or dig up the posts by Eddie and Justin from G2P and ProPortable from when they were discussing the VBi program. Trust me, the VBi program SUCKS.

 

Lots of bias in these posts, esp this one. Let's look at some points:

1. S96J has 2years warranty from intel, Z96J has 1 year warranty from ASUS (who everyone knows is horrible at warranties). Which one wins?
2. Wether you run WXGA or WSXGA, movies will look exactly the same, because it's not the screen resolution that determines how good the movie quality is.. It's the Movie's resolution.
3. Games played at 1280x1024 will use about 20% more resources than games played on native WXGA. This means 20% less frames. Let's look at the backfiring: your games look stretched when you play a 4:3 game on a 16:10 display, or you will have some hideous black lines on the sides.
4. It's impossible for me to understand how WSXGA is more comfortable to web read, when you hafta squint your eyes to see the letters which are ridiculously small.

Mate, go with the WXGA, even if you'll buy the Z96J, you will probabily find yourself tuning down the resolution to 1280x768 because the small letters in WSXGA are unreadable for most people, and changing fonts in programs is a waste of time.

 

We could go on with throwing stones at each other for the next few hours, but I'm going to leave it at this. Looks like someone is a tad uninformed.

The S96 does have 2 years. But the POLICIES suck. I will comment on this in a minute because it is so long. Asus does have a 1 year warranty, and even though asus may be "horrible at warranties" the reseller handle's asus warranties. Buy from a respectable dealer and you are set. They can do all the repairs themselves. Not in the case of the S96. If anything goes wrong with that, you're set back 1-2 months. Not to mention you are screwed.

when you run a movie on WSXGA over WXGA, there are more pixels on the screen. Of course, the movie has to be scaled... but it looks better when the pixels are smaller and there are less visual anomolies. Plus, when you want to want HD video, the WSXGA will oen the WXGA.

True.

Not true. Games are designed to run at a 4:3 ratio. While there may be more pixels, games run better at 1280x1024 than at 1280x800. This is because the games were optimized to be run at this resolution and not at a "custom" resolution.

Games played on in 1280x1024 scaled to a WSXGA screen look BETTER than the same game played at WXGA native. AND they run better. Sure it may be scaled, but it by no means looks stretched or even non-native. The image quality between WSXGA native gaming and 1280x1024 scaled to native is un-noticeable.

Dude. I'm practially legally blind. I wear glasses. I don't have to even THINK about squinting. When I moved from a WXGA screen to WSXGA, I didn't even notice that things were smaller. I barely saw the difference. Then I went back to use my old WXGA laptop for a minute, and it now looks like crap. Everything is so blurry and unclear.

Web-browsing is better on the higher resolution screen because text and images are sharper, and you can fit a whole lot more on the screen. Better yet, you can have TWO pages open side by side if you want to. You can't do that with WXGA. 640 pixels just isn't enough to see a webpage. 840 on the other hand isn't too bad. And when you view things like forums where the text position is based on the resolution you are viewing it at, everything will move up and give you more room. I can view 2-3 LONG posts at once on my WSXGA whereas I couldn't even do one on my WXGA. All the text spreads out rather than up-down so the posts are closer together.



And I need to ask you this: Have you ever used a WSXGA machine? Have you ever even owned one? What about gamed on one?

Here are Intel's warranty policies as stated by Eddie from G2P and Donald from powernotebooks.com:

 

First time poster here. I've been reading this discussion about the warranty differences between the s96j and the z96j. However, when I look at the reseller sites (such as gentech or powernotebooks), both places have the option to have 3yr warranties for their notebooks. So if there were any defects with either the s96j or z96j, wouldn't we just deal directly with the reseller for repairs? In this case, wouldn't the warranties for both notebooks be exactly the same?

I apologize in advance if I am completely wrong.

 

Yes I completely agree with thegandlighs. I think warranty does not matter anymore if they provide with the reseller guarantee. Iam not a heavy gamer actually, Iam just looking for a laptop which has high performance and will suit me just finefor about 3-4 years and has a price range about $1600-$1700. I personally consider s96 because it has cheaper price, but Iam still confused with the z96 too. Any addtional comments will be very helpfull to me.

 

You are indeed wrong. To a point.

There is a problem with resellers offering a 3 year warranty on the S96. Intel will not give out spare parts to resellers, and forces all repairs to be done through Intel. So once the Intel warranty expires, the resellers have no way to fix the S96's that come in except by pulling parts from brand new S96's.

You do get your warranty taken care of by your reseller. But in the case of the S96, being Vbi, the resellers must then go through Intel. This will cause massive delays in repairs, and the chance that you do not get the same notebook back is likely. The replacement notebook may have scratches or other damage on the chassis or LCD from previous owners. It also may have dead pixels. There is nothing to protect against this. Also, the replacement chassis will not have your VBi custom panel; it may have none, or it may have someone else's, depending on the previous owner.

This is an outrage. I don't see why anyone would buy an S96 with warranty policies like this. This is why Eddie from G2P is seriously considering not selling ANY VBi notebooks. He has clearly stated that he is steering all customers away from VBi notebooks whether he carries them or not.

I have tried higher resolutions on my desktop(CRT) and I don't really like them at all. For some reason it is a tad small, and way too blurry on a CRT. It looks just perfect on a laptop though. And if anything is too small, you can scale up the fonts and icons so it looks bigger.

Z96 is highly recommended. S96 is highly not-recommended due to Intel's warranty policies.

Please look above at what I quoted from Donald from powernotebooks.com. He is a reliable reseller. He even states that all these VBi horrors apply to the Vbi notebooks he sells. Sure, if you buy from someplace like powernotebooks.com or geared2play.com, the reseller will probably take care of you, but I'm sure there will be nightmares of some proportion regardless.

For all those people with an S96, I hope that nothing ever happens to your notebook.

 

If I purchase a three year warranty from a reseller (say $125 from gentech.com), I expect the same service (in terms of timeliness and quality of repair) during year one and year three. That's the main reason why I would purchase one in the first place.

For those resellers that know they will not be able to provide the same type of warranty service throughout that three year period, they should make that clear in their order pages. How is one supposed to know that there would be this difference between warranties (for example z96j vs. s96j) if they did not read these forums? In powernotebooks.com, all it states is "3-Year Parts and Labor Warranty w/Next Business Day shipping Standard" no matter if it was the s96j or the z96j. This would lead me to believe that even during year three, I should get the same prompt warranty service as year one.

 

But the z96j is more pricey than the s96j, besides Iam not going to use higher reolution as well.

 

But you get more for your money, and a more reliable warranty. You're sure you won't "use" the WSXGA resolution? Not even when playing NFS?(That was you, wasn't it?).

Get your hands on some 15.4" notebooks, and take a look at what WXGA and WSXGA look like at 15.4". You just don't know what you will like better until you see it in person.

If you like the WSXGA samples, then definately get the Z96. If you don't like the WSXGA, then I guess you could go for the S96. It is your money after all. Just offering my advice.

Also, check out my review on the Z96. You'll find it very detailed.

http://www.geared2play.com//phpbb/nfphpbb/viewtopic.php?t=829&sid=c9c1c0fdf11a0e313d20bffe4538a66f

 

Asus cover 1 year warranty for the barebone and Intel has 2 year. This is how the warranty for Z96j is done, so whether you like it or not, buying a Z96j you will still deal with Intel.

 

If you're looking for a cheap, fast notebook and don't need/want the higher resolution, go with the s96j. Any way you look at it you're going to be dealing with your reseller first, not to mention the fact that any warranty work is going to be a giant pain in the ass regardless of whether it's VBI or 'Asus Warranty'. Cross your fingers, pray you won't have to send it back in, and buy the S96J. Enjoy the money I just saved you.

 

Go with the s96j for sure, don't listen to JPZ.

 

Wow your posts are too long for me to read right now, one thing i'm gunna comment on however is:
you said that 1280x1024 is better for gaming than 1280x800.. I TOTALLY disagree with that. Widescreen gaming is ownage. You see much more on the sides, giving you a more real experience. That's one of the reasons why most movies today coming on DVDs are widescreens: because it feels more real and looks better

 

The truth is I haven't seen the WSXGA screen and don't know the differences between the WXGA. Iam just looking for a good LCD screen that will not make my eyes tired and increase the thickness of my glasses, that's all.

 

Unless you have 20/20 vision (with or without glasses) and dont plan on leaning back in your chair while reading text I'd be careful about the WSXGA+ screen if I were you

I wish I could see one in person to be sure of it, but I can't find a store that sells any notebooks that have high res displays

 

READ THE WHOLE POST. Then it will be clear. There WAS a reason it was long.

Yes, that is true. But you guys don't get the point. If the notebook is VBi, the reseller then HAS to go through Intel. ALL repairs must be carried out by Intel for a VBi notebook. For the Z96, however, repairs can be made by the reseller. And regardless of who repairs the Z96, I'm sure you're going to get your old notebook back rather than someone else's abused POS.

Even if you buy an S96 from the best reseller, they have to send it to Intel for repair, and Intel will then send back someone else's notebook as a replacement. Read the quotes from Donald from Powernotebooks.com.

 

True however 99.9% of the resellers out there do NOT perform motherboard or lcd level repairs in house. Most doent do any repairs. So if you buy z or s your notebook is most probably going back to asus, a larger disti, or going to be repaired by user as many resellers still dont provide any service even the ones on asus where to buy section. 100% Self service resellers are a rare treade in this game. I can name one out of maybee few in the whole nation.

 

Yeah, Eddie, can you help me out here? You are one of the people who does not support the VBi program...

The point I was making in the quote above is that you will be getting your own notebook back if you send a Z96 in for repair. If you send in an S96, you will probably be getting back someone else's.

If anyone's S96 breaks, they send it in and it doesn't come back for over a month, then when it comes back it has 8 dead pixels, the screen is covered in scratches and the chassis is cracked, with pink ponies all over the back of the notebook on the VBi panel, don't say I didn't warn you.

 

That can actually happen to any manufacturer repair center. Hi volume = low attentikn to detail.

 

Yes, but how often? The way Intel makes it sound, it sounds like you will be getting someone else's notebook 90% of the time.

I RMA'd my Uniwill to a horrible reseller, who RMA'd it to a crap ODM, Uniwill, and I still have the original notebook. And I RMA'd it 5 times in a row over the course of 11months. My notebook got a tad scratched in the process, but nothing too bad. I pulled the thing apart when the warranty expired and painted it, so it looks brand new. =)

 

I think not all S96j repaired will be as horrible as that

 

I think VBI is good because parts are exchangeable over multiple platforms, meaning part life is extended and prices can be kept at reasonable levels. The Z96J may be ok because it looks like it shares a lot with the S96J.

Ofcourse, if what you all are claiming regarding warrantee is true, then it may be more of a hassle than one would want to deal with. I've personally never exercised a warrantee before so i wouldn't know.

 

It's not fun. No fun at all.

The Z96 has all the benefits of the VBi program. You can put all the Vbi parts in the Z96. But you don't have to live by the horrid intel warranty policies. In a way, it is the perfect VBx laptop.

Of course not all. But there is the chance that it can happen. Murphy's law right there. Anything that can go wrong will go wrong in the worst possible way. I feel sorry for anyone who gets their notebook back with pink ponies on it though.....

 

Asus for 1st year, Intel for 2 years after. So either way you're dealing with Intel in the end.

 

Is there any possiblities that the z96j will lower their price by mid of August?

 

From what I've heard, the Z/S96 will be going up in price. So far is has been. S96 used to be $550 or so, now it is close to $700 at some resellers.

 

I should then buy my laptop as soon as possible

 

Well, i emailed Donald at Powernotebooks about the warranty on my computer and here is what he had to say (emphasis on last paragraph):

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=1425928

I do not have to worry about sending my computer to Intel or any such variation because i am covered under the PowerPro warranty. I love it!

 

So I think I don't have to worry about the warranty issue if that's so, I'll be getting a notebook from powernotebooks by the way.

 

Well, if anyone MUST get an S96, get it through powernotebooks.com
Talk to Eddie from G2P aswell... He's also an excellent reseller, but I'm not sure how he is handing the warranty on the VBi notebooks.

Thanks SaferSephiroth.

Perhaps. Perhaps not. Are you building it yourself, or buying fully configured? The prices on the laptop parts will be dropping on their own... I could have saved almost $50 if I bought parts when the Z96 got in stock rather than a month before I ordered it... all the prices on the parts dropped.

If you are buying fully configured, you won't see the price drops right away, and I would just buy now. Unless you want to wait for a Merom.

 

Yes, it's best if you ask all the resellers that carry the S96J about how they will handle the warranty, don't limit yourself. If you have already done this then please ignore.

 

I e-mailed Ken about their warranty with the s96j and he said that they do the repairs themselves. For those with a standard warranty, the first year they get the repairs done at gentech, but the 2nd year they get sent over to intel. However, if you purchase a 3 yr warranty with Gentech (for only $125 more), then ALL the repairs are done at Gentech during that 3 yr period.

So I think that if you get a good warranty with resellers such as powernotebooks.com or gentech.com, the consumers should not notice a difference between the warranty services for the s96j and z96j.

 

Ha ha. I disagree. Show it to me in writing! The proof is in the pudding i belive is the term. Show me a single asus vendor that can lay claim to 100% inhouse service in writing! Aside from the obvious ofcourse

 

This is what appears to be stated by the resellers such as powernotebooks.com. Donald from powernotebooks.com even states that "We do all repairs, including component level repairs (that means we will fix or replace from inventory, the motherboard or LCD or whatever) without sending the shell out to Intel or sending any of the other components out to the various manufacturers for replacement. Our in shop turn around is rarely more than 2-3 business days, and the same laptop you sent us will go right back to you via Next Business Day Air."

 

Ok dont prove it to me. I dont really care. Just telling you that a stated written warranty would encompass such service. We have it in writing