Hello everyone, here is my review of my new Asus W3v, I hope you find it informative and that it helps you in your buying decisions. First a little background, I'm a long time computer and Windows user but I've used only desktops with limited exposure to any kind of portable computer. I just recently commissioned in the US Navy and found out that I will most likely be making a 6 month deployment on an aircraft carrier early next year, as a result I decided to purchase a laptop instead of a new desktop so that I can bring with me on deployment.
Criteria
Under $2000, high build quality, DVD-RW, dedicated graphics card (mainly for World of Warcraft), widescreen, and not gianormous.
Case/Shell/what have you
I've been really impressed and satisfied with the overall look, feel, style of the case itself. The lid is a dark gray brushed aluminum which gives it a really nice look and feel of quality. The rest is (what I assume) high grade plastic, all grays and blacks. Nothing really calls attention to itself, one random thing that I like is that none of the ports are colored pink, yellow, orange and what ever else I've seen used. The side shortcut button feel a little flimsy but as long as they're not abused I don't really see it becoming an issue.
Screen
14" widescreen and I love it. If you've been reading about the W3v elsewhere you know about the screen angle issue and yes, I can see what others have been talking about but it's not really that big of a deal. Once you find the right angle for the way you're sitting it's fine. When I'm at home I sit it on my desk next to my 17" KDS LCD for my desktop there's a huge difference. The W3v's screen is so much crisper and smooth. The KDS is a matte type but still, the difference is huge. Colors are great, all black is a little washed out but the only time I really see that is when Windows is starting up.
I've heard about light leaking, sparkles and all that but honestly I'm not really sure how to recognize it. When you get the black screen when XP starts up I can kind of tell where the light sources are along the top, not sure if that's what meant by light leak or not. I'll be glad to answer any specific questions though. Oh yeah, the screen is glossy, meaning if you sit in the right light you can get some reflection, but it's not bad.
Battery
Unfortunately I can't help much here. So far I've mostly been running it on AC either at work or at home. I've never let the battery get much use, though when I was on it the system said it would last about 2 hours and 45 minutes on High Performance (more on this later). I'll report back when I mess around with it more.
Miscellaneous
The first thing I noticed when I finally got to the desktop... the system tray lit up like a Christmas tree. There was a ton of junk in it and that's one thing I'm really anal about... a program better have a damn good reason to be sitting in my system tray or it gets the boot. Now I'm down to 4 icons, Norton, wireless connection, power4gear, and the hardware remover icon. It will take some work to clean it out but it was worth it.
Included software was pretty minimal but that's the way I like it. Asus' power4gear thing is pretty interesting. I'm still figuring out how it works but basically one "scheme" in the Windows power configuration screen lets you cycle through 7 different actual setups with a shortcut button on the right side of the laptop itself. You have stuff like Office, Game, High Performance, Super Performance, DVD, and Presentation.
Heh, I think I'm getting sidetracked... let's try to get back to a real review...
Issues
Only 2. First is the heat. As I'm sure you've heard, this puppy get's kind of warm. Mainly around between and around the 6 key and 0 key at the top of the keyboard and also at the right palm rest, this is where the processor and harddrive reside respectively. It's really not that bad doing just basic work, surfing, etc. Not much more then any other laptop of this size (my guess anyway). However, gaming you will notice it. I played Warcraft for about 3 hours last night and the keyboard definitely got warm. Nothing so bad that made me want to stop playing but every once and a while I'd stop and just kind of think, "man, that's a lot of heat for one chip." The one vent does put out some pretty hot air but again it's not bad during normal operations, playing Warcraft however it would ramp up and if I had my hand in front of it, it could become uncomfortable. And finally, I don't know that I would want to use it as an actual "laptop" for any extended amount of time. Normal operation is tolerable but she'll definitely warm you up.
Second issue and it's actually kind of random. I don't know why but after hibernating and coming back up, the shortcut key on the right that disables and enables the touchpad stops working. It's probably something that I can fix but I just haven't figured out how yet.
Hmmm... sorry if it seems like I rambled ^^. I would post pictures but I forgot to charge my camera so that will have to wait until tomorrow. Anyways, I hope this helps. If anyone has any specific questions feel free to post and I'll answer as best as I can. I'm sure I left all kind of things out that people might be wondering.
I really do love this laptop. I've never really been a fan of them but since necessity deemed I find one I'm glad I finally settled on the W3v.
Criteria
Under $2000, high build quality, DVD-RW, dedicated graphics card (mainly for World of Warcraft), widescreen, and not gianormous.
Case/Shell/what have you
I've been really impressed and satisfied with the overall look, feel, style of the case itself. The lid is a dark gray brushed aluminum which gives it a really nice look and feel of quality. The rest is (what I assume) high grade plastic, all grays and blacks. Nothing really calls attention to itself, one random thing that I like is that none of the ports are colored pink, yellow, orange and what ever else I've seen used. The side shortcut button feel a little flimsy but as long as they're not abused I don't really see it becoming an issue.
Screen
14" widescreen and I love it. If you've been reading about the W3v elsewhere you know about the screen angle issue and yes, I can see what others have been talking about but it's not really that big of a deal. Once you find the right angle for the way you're sitting it's fine. When I'm at home I sit it on my desk next to my 17" KDS LCD for my desktop there's a huge difference. The W3v's screen is so much crisper and smooth. The KDS is a matte type but still, the difference is huge. Colors are great, all black is a little washed out but the only time I really see that is when Windows is starting up.
I've heard about light leaking, sparkles and all that but honestly I'm not really sure how to recognize it. When you get the black screen when XP starts up I can kind of tell where the light sources are along the top, not sure if that's what meant by light leak or not. I'll be glad to answer any specific questions though. Oh yeah, the screen is glossy, meaning if you sit in the right light you can get some reflection, but it's not bad.
Battery
Unfortunately I can't help much here. So far I've mostly been running it on AC either at work or at home. I've never let the battery get much use, though when I was on it the system said it would last about 2 hours and 45 minutes on High Performance (more on this later). I'll report back when I mess around with it more.
Miscellaneous
The first thing I noticed when I finally got to the desktop... the system tray lit up like a Christmas tree. There was a ton of junk in it and that's one thing I'm really anal about... a program better have a damn good reason to be sitting in my system tray or it gets the boot. Now I'm down to 4 icons, Norton, wireless connection, power4gear, and the hardware remover icon. It will take some work to clean it out but it was worth it.
Included software was pretty minimal but that's the way I like it. Asus' power4gear thing is pretty interesting. I'm still figuring out how it works but basically one "scheme" in the Windows power configuration screen lets you cycle through 7 different actual setups with a shortcut button on the right side of the laptop itself. You have stuff like Office, Game, High Performance, Super Performance, DVD, and Presentation.
Heh, I think I'm getting sidetracked... let's try to get back to a real review...
Issues
Only 2. First is the heat. As I'm sure you've heard, this puppy get's kind of warm. Mainly around between and around the 6 key and 0 key at the top of the keyboard and also at the right palm rest, this is where the processor and harddrive reside respectively. It's really not that bad doing just basic work, surfing, etc. Not much more then any other laptop of this size (my guess anyway). However, gaming you will notice it. I played Warcraft for about 3 hours last night and the keyboard definitely got warm. Nothing so bad that made me want to stop playing but every once and a while I'd stop and just kind of think, "man, that's a lot of heat for one chip." The one vent does put out some pretty hot air but again it's not bad during normal operations, playing Warcraft however it would ramp up and if I had my hand in front of it, it could become uncomfortable. And finally, I don't know that I would want to use it as an actual "laptop" for any extended amount of time. Normal operation is tolerable but she'll definitely warm you up.
Second issue and it's actually kind of random. I don't know why but after hibernating and coming back up, the shortcut key on the right that disables and enables the touchpad stops working. It's probably something that I can fix but I just haven't figured out how yet.
Hmmm... sorry if it seems like I rambled ^^. I would post pictures but I forgot to charge my camera so that will have to wait until tomorrow. Anyways, I hope this helps. If anyone has any specific questions feel free to post and I'll answer as best as I can. I'm sure I left all kind of things out that people might be wondering.
I really do love this laptop. I've never really been a fan of them but since necessity deemed I find one I'm glad I finally settled on the W3v.
