I've had my W3J refresh for about a week now (specs in sig below). Initially, I stuck with the factory default two partition drive, but noticed that startup was slow and I was having wierd issues like the lockups and no wakeup after standby that some people are experiencing. So I reformatted with my own copy of Windows XP Pro, repartitioned to my liking (C: Drive - 11GB and D: Drive - 82GB... both NTFS), and trimmed down the unnecessary processes. Now I'm getting considerably faster startup and it got rid of the issues mentioned above.
My opinions:
I love the build quality on this.. I've used a W3V before, so I knew what to expect. This machine is rock solid and beautiful. The keyboard is good.. though some of the bigger keys like Enter and Space make a bit of a sound, but it's nothing to complain about. Comparing to my ASUS Z70va that I've previously owned (which had the best matte screen I've ever seen).. I must say that the W3J screen is a bit disappointing though after getting used to the Z70va's gorgeous screen. Looking straight on.. the colors are vivid and sharp, but move your head a little and the colors start getting washed out. This is the one real con about this notebook.. the viewing angles need improving. But I can live with it. As for the noise factor.. there is none.. this machine is absolutely quiet. Again, comparing with my Z70va, the W3J controls the fan a lot better. Quite surprising considering the power this thing packs. As for heat, the air coming out the right side vent (another con for me, since I would prefer this was on the left.. but what can you do) when surfing the web, word processing, or listening to music and watching DVD's ..it is just warm. It gets hot when gaming, but nothing to worry about. It's not burn to the touch hot.. just a bit uncomfortable. The touchpad is a bit better than the previous one ASUS had been using. It feels more responsive. The speaker sound is weak, like most of you have heard.. but in the BIOS, there is a setting to raise the volume level to 8 (default at 4).. I'm still not sure if this is just for the bootup sound or if it also affects Windows. It does sound like the volume went up a bit though.. I'll keep testing.
I'll be gaming with Oblivion, Doom3, and COD2 next time, so I can get a feel on how much faster the x1600 is than the x700 that my Z70va had. Overall.. this notebook is an excellent buy. Definitely worth every penny spent.
My opinions:
I love the build quality on this.. I've used a W3V before, so I knew what to expect. This machine is rock solid and beautiful. The keyboard is good.. though some of the bigger keys like Enter and Space make a bit of a sound, but it's nothing to complain about. Comparing to my ASUS Z70va that I've previously owned (which had the best matte screen I've ever seen).. I must say that the W3J screen is a bit disappointing though after getting used to the Z70va's gorgeous screen. Looking straight on.. the colors are vivid and sharp, but move your head a little and the colors start getting washed out. This is the one real con about this notebook.. the viewing angles need improving. But I can live with it. As for the noise factor.. there is none.. this machine is absolutely quiet. Again, comparing with my Z70va, the W3J controls the fan a lot better. Quite surprising considering the power this thing packs. As for heat, the air coming out the right side vent (another con for me, since I would prefer this was on the left.. but what can you do) when surfing the web, word processing, or listening to music and watching DVD's ..it is just warm. It gets hot when gaming, but nothing to worry about. It's not burn to the touch hot.. just a bit uncomfortable. The touchpad is a bit better than the previous one ASUS had been using. It feels more responsive. The speaker sound is weak, like most of you have heard.. but in the BIOS, there is a setting to raise the volume level to 8 (default at 4).. I'm still not sure if this is just for the bootup sound or if it also affects Windows. It does sound like the volume went up a bit though.. I'll keep testing.
I'll be gaming with Oblivion, Doom3, and COD2 next time, so I can get a feel on how much faster the x1600 is than the x700 that my Z70va had. Overall.. this notebook is an excellent buy. Definitely worth every penny spent.
