w3j impressions (yet another)

I've had my w3 for about 5 hours.

I am thoroughly impressed with this notebook. The shock/amazement begain immediately when opening the box. As I pulled the notebook out of the plastic I was amazed at how light it was. I assumed the battery had to be out of it - and it was - but I was still amazed at the weight even with it in. Cosmetically, aesthetically, and structurally...everything screamed quality, quality, quality - right from the start. It is beautiful! 'nuff said.

The first thing I did was dload some of the necessary software to begin overclocking my card. I haven't undertaken that project yet as it will be my first time oc'ing an ATI card and I wanted to have a little fun first.

It detected the wireless in our house right off the bat and I got that up and running perfectly. I surfed the net for a bit and then installed Oblivion - a game I bought 2 months ago knowing that I wouldn't be able to play until I got my w3.

Oblivion automatically detected "high settings" and 1024x768 resolution. I bumped it up to 1280x768. The results were as expected. I didn't get a solid framerate of 30 - it mostly hovered in the low 20's with HDR on and AA off. Once I got outside it hovered in the mid teens. I imagine that after tweaking the ini file and ocing my performance will increase at least to the point where I'd get close to 30 fps if not over.

The laptop is amazingly quiet. I never heard the fan over the speakers when playing.

Heat was also a non-issue as far as I'm concerned. Yes it does blow out onto my hand and I guess it is "noticeable" but certainly isn't "uncomfortable" or causing me to move my hand farther away (it isn't making my hand sweat). My mouse is set about a foot away from the vent (probably a tad bit less) and I've had no desire to move it. The right palm rest is warmer than the left. It makes my hand sweat a little. Hopefully the rests don't fade like some have on the w3v but I guess that remains to be seen.

I haven't tested batter life yet. I don't even have the battery in right now but will soon.

Keyboard feels great. No problems with the layout.

Screen looks great but I have no idea how it compares to other notebooks.

The buttons on the side are convenient. I messed around with the left side (CD and DVD [while laptop is on]) while watching a movie and those were nice. The same with the buttons on the right. My personal favorites are the disable touchpad and screen adjust buttons...lol. I'm sure the battery one will come in handy too.

Took the stickes off without any residue (if any residue was left I just dabbed it with the sticker to get it off).

Nothing to complain about at all. I mentioned before that I kept hitting the scroll while trying to click using the touchpad but that can be disabled and more than likely due to my inexperience with a touchpad.

My only issue thus far has been the partioning of the drives. The unit came partitioned into 2 drives (C is 54 gigs with windows, D is 36 or so with nothing). I'd like to merge the two and will try doing so again once 3dmark05 gets done dloading which it appears to be almost done...

So I've gotta run...

Stock 3dmark05 score of 3909 - sweet!

I'll be checking all night so fire away with any questions. :asus:

 

Enjoy! .

 

Got mine in today also. Simply amazing!

 

If you dont mind please do a battery life test. Thats a key factor for me in determining whether to buy it.

Thanks

 

What process are you going to use to merge the two drives??? Aside from that, keep us posted and ENJOY!!!

 

Thats kind of the thing...I have no clue. I've never done it before. I currently have a demo of paragon partition manager dloaded to try and merge the two. However, it looks like I can't completely get rid of the D (non-windows, no content) drive. I can delete it but the space from it doesn't automatically go over to the C and thats what I want to do.

If I have to have two partitions I'd like to set it up so it is just windows on one and everything else on the other. I know that will probably involve reformating both drives. I'm hoping someone who knows more about it can shove me in the right direction honestly as even the software I'm using wants to maintain the D drive with something like 70 megs on it. I looked at another post using the search function (some guy with a Dell had 3 partitions from factory, I think his "3" was including recovery though). He never managed to get rid of his either and left it with miscellaneous megs on it.

I don't even care if I lose data. I'm purposely postponing moving over my files until I get this take care of.

*shrugs*

 

i hear that partition magic is a pretty good software for this....

 

Yes use that.

 

I actually just dloaded it and I'm in the wizard now. It looks like it is going to work *fingers crossed*

 

@ Second full charge, it shows 3h10mins. at 99%.

I charged it b/f anything when I first opened it and it looked like I was going to get approx. 3h30mins. I bet it averages out to about that.

BTW the keyboard is sweet...really has a nice feel -wide slick keys. I'm not good yet with the mouse button but it's just a matter of positioning my hand better.

Meant to say that's with default brightness, wireless on, and surfing.

 

Haha that was cute.

I went all the way through the wizard and once I got to the point where my operation was pending and hit "apply" to execute the changes it reminded me that it was the trial version and apparently didn't do anything.

Thats cool....

I guess I have a C drive that is 56 gigs and a D drive that is 36 gigs. Worse things have happened.

 

Same thing happened in partition manager when I hit "apply changes." I attempted to make D drive 20 gigs and the C 71 gigs.

Its weird it would be set up this way without anyway to resolve it -that is without paying 60 bucks.

 

Pay for software? Silly rabbit!

 

http://www.download.com/Super-Fdisk/3000-2248_4-10287081.html?tag=lst-0-5

maybe this? i have never used it, but it is free....

edit: also, did you use this partition manager? it is supposedly free, though very old...

http://www.ranish.com/part/

 

I use Partition Manager and it's great. Seems that you can't merge the partitions though since Asus (and the backup software) sets the Windows partition as the Primary active, and the D: drive as the extended logical partition. Being so, Partition Manager can't merge the two since they are not "adjacent" partitions. I don't know if Partition Magic would merge the two but...
Why not use the back up discs and select to install Windows in one primary partition only. Then use Partition Magic (or any other software) to create another partition.

 

If I reformat can I just set it up as one partition? That is something I wasn't aware of and would be willing to do.

 

You should be able to.

 

Where'd you buy your w3j? I'm thinking about buying one with just about the same specs.

 

Wow, that battery life is better than I expected. The W3J is still on my short list for my next purchase.

 

I got my w3j from Justin - ProPortable on this board. I would highly recommend ordering from them.