w7j good for college?

hey everyone ! i need help on making a decision on the w7j. i just want to ask the w7j owners that are attending college how well does this machine perform doing tasks and carrying it around campus? i just need a nice stable portable powerhouse that i can bring to class or have an easy time carrying it everywhere i go.

also is it possible to game comfortably on the w7j? i am your occasional gamer that is into fps like cs source or hl2 that would spend no more than 2 hours gaming in my room.

my other option is a dell m1210 but the size of the screen is what is turning me off even though it has many convenient features on it. dell won't give out a good deal on it, so a w7j would save me money.

your help is greatly appreciated

 

Perhaps the Compal HGL30 is worth a look if you want to game, but it is a bit heavier. The 7600 is a better card.

Link

 

thats a pretty nice laptop. any known problems or little annoyances about it? the only thing i dont like about it is the color =P.

 

It sound like if you are an occasional gamer, the W7j would work pretty well. The 7400 should be enough to play those games. I have the V6j, which has the 7300 and I can play F.E.A.R. on medium settings, and F.E.A.R. is pretty resource intensive. I would say for classes the W7j would be great size/weight. I carry a V6j which is a little larger and a little heavier and I don't mind it at all. I would say for occasional gaming, the smaller screen would be just fine.

 

The difference between a W7 buyer and a W3 buyer is right there........ both are great machines, but the W7 buyer doesn't need all the power of the W3's gpu and could use a bit less weight to carry it around all day. If the W7 didn't exist, I'd say the W3 is the best machine you could get for what you're doing, but the W7 is really meant for a person in your situation.

 

yea occasional meaning like 1-2 hours not hardcore like on a desktop. i dont think ill be having that much time on my hands. the portability is more of a necessity than playing FEAR on high settings but i would also like the option of being able to play a game like that on a decent frame rate.

 

Ok, lets get on the same page here....... I don't consider "hardcore gaming" like the guy who drops out of school and his g/f breaks up with him becasue he's always playing games... I consider them the ones trying to push the limits of their card and always trying to get into the newest games when they come out.

The W3 is going to be a lot better for any new game that can make use of it, but it doesn't mean the W7 is going to be bad. You need to judge what you want to do with your system based on weight, size, battery life, and performance.... you do that and you'll find the perfect system for you.

 

i was also considering the w3j but will it be travel friendly like the w7j? the w3 is awesome system but i sacrifice some portability for the performance. i just dont know at this point which is more important to me. anyway i have the rest of the summer to make a decision before the fall comes.

 

The W7 is almost a pound lighter with everything......... but you could take the optical drive out of the W3 and lose a half pound..... it's going to have a couple more battery cells stock..... so it depends on what you really need... Personally, I travel a lot and the smaller form factor is even better for me, although I've traveled all over with the W3..... I don't need all the power of the x1600 and the smaller system fits better in my carry on..... totally depends. I would think a 14" notebook is certainly something you could take to class every day, but the lighter the better and the smaller the footprint, the better for lecture hall desks......

 

I will admit that I have never traveled with a 13.3 or 14" computer, but I will say that you probably won't lose much by having the .8" bigger computer. If you really want the power, go with the W3j. I have a 15" and used to have a heavy 15.4", and I can tell you that the weight you are looking at is really easy to carry, and that size wise, you will be mostly OK with either. If you think you might play some games, the W3j is it.

 

hmmmmm you guys are tempting me to spend $300 more... haha but im not sure though still the w3 isnt that much bigger than the w7. the power will always be there for me so i can expand my gaming horizon. the extra screen space is pretty nice too. i can see myself now gaming through the night instead of doing my paper due the next day. haha but its true i dont need all that power and i am on a budget.

 

Caleb has a V6 and that's the same weight as the W3, but it's 15"... great system...... I'm not tempting you into a W3 because I've done the campus jaunt and I tried to do it with a 3 pound S5..... loved it. We don't have anything that small at this time either. I think the W3 is undervalued quite a bit... meaning it's a very good deal for the price. With that said, I was the first one to tell Asus they must have made a mistake with the W7 pricing because I personally would have made more than retail for this unit to have one for myself...... so the $1,499 price should seem even more undervalued than anything else.

The big thing is, you couldn't go wrong with either, so it's not life or death.

 

question on the w7j - is the battery life good enough to last me through the lecture hall? is there anyway to extend the battery life or buy a 8 or 9 cell battery for it? the w3 is really great but i just dont need that much power. it will probably be more of a distraction with its endless gaming capability.

 

it would ultimately depend on how long your class is and if you're going to use it near a power source in class.

the W7j gets typical battery life with other similar sized machines with an Nvidia 7400 (typically 2:30 hours like the Dell Xps M1210, Sony SZ).

if you really need more battery life, you're going to have to sacrifice your gaming needs and get the integrated Z35f or buy more batteries.

 

if its your only computer, you may want a bigger screen.

 

You might get a boost if you set the card to battery instead of power, plus, if you set it up right, you should make it through a lecture. Turn the screen down, turn off wireless, things of that nature.

 

nah its not gonna be my only computer but it will be on campus. through tweaking of the brightness and shutting off wifi and bt maybe i can go through a class.

any other annoyances i should go through with a w7j?

 

Well those aren't annoyances, they're suggested for any system you want to get the max life out of. You're just going to have to consider that you've got a little firecracker of a system and to keep it light and small, it's going to have a slightly smaller battery as well. Wifi doesn't use that much life over the 2-3 hours, but bluetooth could... you could get an extra 20% of life if you use powergear and use email mode or something instead of full blast on the CPU... The lcd brightness is a big thing as well. Basically, I'd set up a powergear profile for school lectures and use something like the email mode which will keep you in under 1ghz of power and something under 50% brightness. It's just a matter of the normal everyday things that you need to try out and get to learn so you can figure out how you can use your system on a regular basis. IF you have another computer, smaller is certainly better.

 

I've got the w7j and the battery life on quiet office is just under 3 hours with standard use [sometimes wireless on sometimes off - no gaming etc.]

The combination of portability and power is amazing and I'm very happy I waited for it. Other than the tiny button to eject the CD's I have no complaints about it yet. I'm not used to the keyboard layout but that's something that time will fix. The screen is a beauty and the sounds not too bad either. Don't worry about the hot palmrest. I've got a 7200 rpm hd inside and I upgraded the cpu as well and it's barely warm and certainly not HOT.

 

You life sounds bad and then you mention the cpu upgrade and the hard drive upgrade.... still bad for average use for that system..... makes me wonder what powergear settings you're using and if you're actually using the system with more power than you need?

 

i dont plan on doing any upgrades if i do get the w7j so ill just buy it as the ensemble. having a lower rpm hd will hopefully reduce heat and extend the battery life just a bit.

how is the sound on it and are there any earphone jacks anywhere?

 

I have exactly the same dilemma as of now: w7j vs. w3j, buying at the end of summer. I come from an 8-pound Pavilion, so either way it'll be an improvement in weight.

I have two questions for owners:

1) does the w3j gets significantly hot on the bottom?
2) how much heavier would the w7j be with a 9-cell battery?

TIA

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i have been thinking about what you guys said about how if i do go with a w3j im not really gonna lose out much on portability seeing theres a removable optical drive to shed half a pound. i started to realize that the w3j will be a better investment in the long run since i always did want to get a gaming system yet portable. the price difference isnt as much as i thought because i figured i might have to buy a spare battery for it. the w3j has a longer battery life and it only has 1 lb over it. my only dislike about it as the function key switch with the ctrl key >_<. guess it will just take some getting used to.

 

You will get used to the switch, it took me about two weeks to be used to it. The W3j looks to be a nice machine, but you will be happy with just about any Asus that you buy.

 

question about the media buttons on the side of the W3 - does this only work with using something like winamp or can you use it for like watchind dvd's ?

 

the buttons on the left side control Windows Media Player (while booted up). it controls the CD player when the laptop is off.

there is a third party program that lets you change what the media buttons on the left and right do.

 

I think some things that you need to consider when getting a laptop for college are portability and screen size. Since you want to be able to take your laptop with you to lectures and to the library when you study or whatever, its important to have a light laptop. In this category having the w7j would be beneficial since saving an extra pound can be a real difference when you also have to carry books etc.

On the other hand, it is your only computer and you need to consider the smaller screen on the w7j. Maybe you want to watch a movie on your laptop or a tv show every now and then. Having a larger screen would definitely make your experience more enjoyable and would probably let more ppl watch at the same time (great way to get girls from your hall to hang out in your room ).

Another thing that you have to consider is battery life. During lectures you are always going to be running on battery and if you have multiple lectures in one day 3 hours might not be enough to get you through them all. However, it seems as though the battery lives on the w3j and the w7j are pretty similar so maybe this won't be the deciding factor but keep in mind that you can get a 6 cell modular battery for the w3j and probably add another 1.5-2 hours to your battery life.

I've had to make this decision last year when I bought a laptop for college and right now I'm trying to decide if I want to switch from a w3v to a w7j or get a w3j. Since I'm in Taiwan right now I can get either a w3j or a w7j at very attractive prices so I'm very tempted to get a new laptop. In the end I think I lean towards the w3j since it is a little bigger but still a very portable laptop. Since most ppl in college end up getting 15.4'' screens because they dont know any better, a 14'' w3j just seems better than every one elses laptop in every way .

oh, and about the function key being the left of the ctrl key..if you play CS you will probably have to change crouch to shift and walk to caps lock or else you will almost always accidently hit the fn key when trying to crouch and prolly end up dying

 

I just bought a w7j for my last year in college, I like the added portability of the smaller screen, you can feel the extra pound, i spend more time walking then I do on my computer, so the lighter the better. If you do want to watch movies and such, spend the 300 you save and get a screen. Just my thoughts

 

yea in terms of screen size i dont know why people dont consider using a lcd screen at home....i mean i dont usually game or watch too many movies on the road..at college i just hook my laptop to my lcd...

im probably in the minority here but i already use in CSS the shift key for crouch and ctrl for walk....maybe its fate....lol hahaha