Review: Brave's - ASUS W5A Initial Impressions w/pics

I received my new Laptop this morning and I was excited to open it up. But before doing so, I thought I'd post a review with my first impressions of the laptop. I don't remember seeing any reviews for the W5A in these forums so if this is a repeat, I'm sorry.

First off Asus sent the Laptop in 3 Business Days; which is alot faster than Dell. Dell seems to ship out their product roughly around a week after ordering. Of course, if you think about the number of orders Dell gets compared to Asus, it only makes sense that they'd take longer.

The box was a little bigger than expected but to my surprise it was because Asus threw in a Carrying bag and a Soft Notebook Sleeve. Very nice of them.







My first impression upon opening the Laptop box was . I remember thinking "Man that thing is small... oooohhh and light too." The laptop itself comes in a nice Pearl White finish (similar to the OEM factory Paint on my White Diamond Pearl 2003 Acura TL Type S). I was hesitant to choose the White model mostly becase I was afraid of it being prone to getting dirty; but my girlfriend really pushed for me to get the White model and I must say, it looks awesome.





I know the Ultra Portable Laptops these days all come generally in the same sizes: The Asus W5A, Alienware Sentia, and the Dell 700m all have pretty similar weight/height/width/depths. I have never owned a laptop and have only seen my roommates rather large Dell Inspiron 9300 so seeing something of this size came as a shock.

The size specs of the W5A are as follows: 4lbs, 11.7 x 8.7 x 1.2 inches. I have a Dell 700m which I purchasd for my girlfriend coming in later this week, so I'll be able to compare the two closely.









As seen in the pictures above the W5A comes with the following buttons/ports on the sides of the base:

3 USB ports (one Located on each side and one on the back)
1 IEEE 1394 Data Port
SD/MMC/MS/MS Pro Card reader (too bad my Canon S410 Uses a big ass mem card)
Headphone + Mic Jack
VGA Port/ Mini DSub
S Video Out
Modem Jack
LAN Jack
Type II PCMCIA Slot
Manual Volume Control Slider
Wireless ON/OFF switch

Another cool thing to note, but not really that cool if you think about it; the W5A comes with a built in RF receiver for a Logitech Wireless mouse. Included in the package was a matching Logitech wireless mouse in White Pearl. At first the idea seemed fascinating to me, but then I realized that if I lose/damage this mouse, then the functionality of the built in RF receiver is.. well.. pointless. Good idea, but just two qualms: compatibility of RF receiver appears to be limited (I dont even know if a replacement logitech mouse would work) and two... the mouse is kind of ugly IMO. But eh. I guess if all else fails, I can purchase a blue tooth mouse and connect via the Built in Blue Tooth.

Lastly, the screen is absolutely beautiful; crystal clear and bright (brightness can be adjusted by holding the Function Key and hitting either F5 or F6) and no Dead pixels at all. The built in speakers sound great, although I assume the built in 5.1 Audio in the Alienware Sentia may sound better (not sure as I have not seen/heard or tested one).

The built in 1.3 megapixal swivel cam is a cool idea, but I've already seen it on the Sony Vaio. It's a cool feature I guess, but not my thing really since I already own a digital camera. I guess it'd be cool if I were to have a video conference through my laptop... but I don't see that happening anytime soon.

These last photos are "toys" I've accumulated in the past few months: my new W5A, a Tungsten E PDA (borrowed from my girlfriend), Black Motorola Razr... an athlon 64 System etc..





I plan to do a full benchmark Review later this week (using Mobilemark, and 3dmark) after I break my laptop in. I need to remove a bunch of useless software that was pre-installed and maybe swap out the 40 gig 4200 RPM HD for the Hitachi Travelstar 60 gig 7200 RPM HD. Oh and Also upgrade the Ram from 512mb to 1.256 gig (the W5A comes with 256 MB of on board memory and one So Dimm slot that supports DDR2 Ram, the Website states that it can support up to 768 total, but others have claimed that it can support a one gig stick of ram in there. I assume that the reason why Asus only stated 512 mb being supported in the slot is because when the released the W5A in March, none of the companies were offering a 1 gig stick of DDR2 Notebook ram. Either way, I'll find out soon enough and will post the results soon.)

Anyhow, this Laptop's first impression on me is a good one; although I'm new to Laptops in general, this Laptop appears stunning, and if Asus' Notebooks are of the same build quality as their Motherboards/Video cards, then I should have nothing to worry about.

I leave you guys with the Official specs on my Laptop and hopefully, I can sell a few of you guys on getting a W5A too.

Intel® Pentium® M 740 (1.73GHz, 533MHz FSB, 2MB L2 cache)
Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional
Intel Centrino Mobile Technology with Intel 915GM Chipset
12.1" widescreen WXGA (1280x800) "Color-Shine" LCD display
40GB hard drive
512MB DDR2 400, upgradable to 768MB
802.11a/b/g wireless, Bluetooth™, RF mouse receiver
1.3M pixel web-camera
3 X USB, TV-Out, Card Reader, 1394, PCMCIA
4 lbs, 11.7 x 8.7 x 1.2 inches
$1649 Retail
Purchased for much less

Note: Please stop sending me PM's asking how I got it for so cheap; it was through an "inside" contact who discounted me.

Sorry for the late replies; I've been really busy now that i've graduated college and getting ready for law school has been a pain.

But just to answer some general questions:

The W5A is equipped with the new Sonoma Intel Pentium M 740 processor (915 intel chipset 533 fsb).

The Build quality of this thing is superb: No keyboard flex at all, crisp clear screen, the smoothest touch pad I have tested thus far, and it comes with all the "little things" that ultimately drew me into buying it. (Such as built in bluetooth, built in RF) A couple of cool things: unlike the dell Laptops which require you to hold function and push F5/F6 to lower/raise volume, the W5A has a volume slider on the right side of the laptop. Also althought I didn't thing much of it before, having 3 USB ports, all on different sides is a superb idea. (Comparing with my Girlfriends 700m which has two on the right side, stacked on top of each other, it's difficult to input certain USB devices into the 700m) Built in SD card reader which also reads Duo and Pro Duo cards, etc. Just too much damn cool stuff to list. The W5A also has a full sized keyboard, unlike the 700m which has shrunken keys. Oh yeah, and also I really the fact that the W5A doesn't have a closing latch; I just realized how annoying they can be when playing with the 700m.

Geez, I feel bad. I'm not knocking on the 700m or anything: my girlfriend loves the thing and it's perfect for... well what both she and I were looking for in a laptop. Basically we were looking for a word processing/email/internet laptop and well... she opted for the 700m which cost her around $800... whereas I had to dish out $600 more for the W5A. Were I to do it again... I'd still pick the W5A.

However, if I had a limited budget, and I was looking for a sound affordable ultra portable, the 700m is definitely a winner. In terms of pricing, the 700m is a better buy. Also, I like the screen on the 700m better than the W5A. The 700m screen is extremely "shiny" (for lack of a better word) and sharp.

Now onto some technical junk:

When performing normal tasks (I.E. internet browsing, e-mail, AIM, etc) the cpu stays at a constant 47-49 degrees. This is with the W5A being run on a flat wooden desk in average room temp (anywhere from 78-82 degrees).

As for the cpu fan, I have yet to hear the cpu fan turn on.

I assume that the cpu fan type is one that is always on and it is extremely quiet: I mean really silent, using a decibal reader in my desk with my laptop turned off then on, the reader didn't even pick up the noise change.

A couple things that I noticed:

I recently downloaded the Centrion Hardware Control program to do some tests on the heat issue.

For the most part when performing normal tasks, like I've already said the temp stays at a constant 47-49 degrees.

However, when putting the CPU under stress: in my case running games (i've only run a GBA emulator at this point) I have seen the heat of the cpu jump to 58-62 degrees.

60 degrees is a little too hot for comfortand I've been using the Centrino Hardware Control to manage my voltage to prevent my cpu from getting that hot.

I still havent run any significant tests yet: I apologize as I have been busy with stupid crap, but I am getting around to it.

I recently purchased a dell 700m for my girlfriend (1.8 ghz, 512 ram) and a friend of mine ordered an Alienware Sentia (2.0 ghz 512 Ram) today. II plan to do a ultra portable laptop round up review. Stay tuned...

PS. If anyone has a Sony Vaio T Series Notebook and is willing to participate in this review with me, send me a PM. I'll send details of what tests to run and what data to retrieve/post. Thanks

EDIT: One thing I did not mention, the W5A comes with a small button on the upper left of the keyboard that toggles between different CPU modes.

There are at total of Eight modes:

Super High Performance
High performance
Game
DVD Movie
Email/Office
Presentation
CD Audio
Battery Saving

So far I've been running the laptop in the "Game" Mode. I assume running the W5A in the other modes would drastically effect battery life as well as CPU temps.

This Laptop has so many options that it can run anyway you want it to.

If I haven't said it already, I love this thing and have become a firm believer in ASUS.

Warning

WARNING:

As of 3:30 PM Pst today, my beautiful Asus W5A has died.

I was running some basic programs (Internet Explorer, AOL Instant Messenger) when my LCD screen suddenly went black and the Processor Fan suddenly jumped into high gear. (My first time ever hearing the processor fan running that fast). I left the Laptop running like this for about five minutes. When nothing changed, I decided to shut it down manually (holding power button). However, when trying to turn it back on, it resumed in the exact same manner: the LCD screen remains black and the processor fan runs extremely high.

I recieved this laptop on 6/27/2005.... It is 7/8/2005. I've had this thing for less than 2 weeks (11 days to be exact) and it's already dead.

I've contacted my retailer for an exchange.

I'm hoping that this is just a case of receiving the one "faulty" one out of Asus' line of laptops.

Just letting you all know ahead of time... and it seems like I'll be able to do a review of Asus' customer care.

EDIT: After running several tests, I've found out that I have faulty ram. I basically uninstalled the 1 stick of 256 DDR2 ram and booted up the cpu. It booted up fine. I reinstalled the stick and it booted up.. but when running RAM intensive programs (games/virus check/etc) it would once again crash causing the LCD Screen to go black and the processor fan to kick into high mode.

I plan to upgrade to a bigger stick of ram soon. I dont think it's worth it to RMA for 1 stick of 256 ram.

lol... thats my girlfriend...

flashram: I am also unable to get a resoultion higher than 1280 X 768. This might be due to display drivers that have not been yet updated... but I'm not too sure at this time. I'll look into it, but I dont plan to make the resolution any higher: I would have to squint if the font was any smaller.

Shirley-: Yes Shirley- what you have heard about the 700m is absolutely true: the 700m touch pad buttons are very "clunky." The touch pad for the W5A on the other hand is very "solid": infact a little too solid and almost on the verge of stiff. But if I had to choose between the two, I prefer the W5A touchpad buttons because they don't feel like cheap plastic. I think the touchpad buttons on the W5A are aluminum... not sure, but it's definitely metal.

coolmrmarz: Yes this thing is very quiet: if you read my second post, I wrote that I originally speculated that this laptop had a static CPU fan, meaning that I thought it originally had a CPU fan that always stayed on. I originally thought this because I had never once heard the CPU fan kick it into high gear: when you turn on the machine the fan turns on but it is extremely silent. You can't even tell a fan is running unless you put your hand over the vent on the right side and feel the air flowing. However, I have learned recently that there is indeed an active CPU fan that does kick it into high gear when the CPU temp gets too hot: I found this out not by over heating my laptop, but when it crashed and the CPU fan kicked in to high gear. When the cpu fan is on high, its fairly audible: about as loud as any other laptop fan when they get hot. I dont really know why the CPU fan turned on high when my laptop crashed due to a faulty stick of ram - probably a safety mechanism to turn the fan on whenever the laptop crashes to prevent overheating from possible voltage issues... but who knows. If you want to watch DVD's on your laptop, then I do suggest thinking about the 700m as well. It's a good machine and the price is very good for that type of laptop. In fact, I still can't get over the fact that my girlfriend's 700m has a better screen than my Asus W5a. The viewing angle on the 700m's screen is absolutley amazing: it's pretty much the same as the Sony Vaio Xbrite notebooks. The W5A viewing angle is O.K. but no where near as great as the 700m.

THanks for the positive replies guys and stay tuned for more technical reviews on the W5A.