ASUS W7J Laptop Review
Overview
Asus may not be the common household name this side of the computing world but they've come out with a notebook computer that will surely impress anyone to take a closer look at their offerings. The ASUS W7J is loaded with features you won't find in a laptop of this class. That's a good thing, because ASUS is entering the increasingly competitive 13' widescreen laptop category battling the likes of big players, including Sony and Apple, for supremacy. So to stand out, ASUS impresses with a laundry list of standard features put together in a powerful and stylish package.
To begin with, the W7J is equipped with a 1.83GHz Intel Core Duo T2400 processor, 1GB of DDR2 RAM, a 100GB SATA hard drive spinning at 5400RPM, and a gorgeous 13.3' widescreen WXGA LCD with ASUS' Color Shine and Crystal Shine technology. Even more impressive is the inclusion of a dedicated nVideo GeForce Go 7400 video graphics chip, Bluetooth and WiFi 802.11a/b/g wireless communications, a 8X DVD-RW optical drive, and a 1.3mp digital web camera. Wrap all these goodies into a 4.3lb unit and you have a laptop computer that is loaded with power yet portable enough to be versatile in any situation or use. Aside from a few minor design quirks, the ASUS W7J presents itself as an exceptional value for gamers, business users and multimedia enthusiasts alike. And the $1499 MSRP price of entry is just pure icing on the cake.
Design Portability
While the ASUS isn't the thinnest laptop around at 1.45', it is very light (4.3lbs) thus making travel easier on the shoulders and arms.
Case and Design
The W7J comes in either black or white finish. It's not the cleanest looking design around, particularly from the sides, but it is stylish. However you want to describe its appearance, it's handsome no doubt. Each corner has soft rounded edges to make the laptop easier to hold and carry. Silver lining is placed around to add a touch of elegance. Simple yet classy, indeed.
Open the hinge and you're presented with a beautiful 13.3' LCD widescreen on the top half. The built-in webcam sits ontop of the screen and is accented with silver finishing. The webcam also breaks the cleanliness of the laptop design by functioning as a protruded latch opening. Right below the monitor are directional speakers that blend well with the clean designs already established.
The ASUS uses a combination of carbon fiber and plastic all around to give the laptop its lightweight attributes. The black test model we received has a matte-like finish and feel which really gives off a sense of high quality. As with any product that is available in black, the W7J is susceptible to finger prints on the casing so grubby hands beware! No flexing was evident. Immediately you can tell the laptop has a sense of sturdiness. Fit and finish is also very good.
A status indicator panel is also built on the lower edge of the keyboard area. From left to right, you have indicator lights for Power On, Battery, Disk activity, WiFi, Caps Lock, and Bluetooth.
Keyboard
Having a stylish laptop is pointless if it is not comfortable to type with, and fortunately the ASUS' keyboard works as good as It looks. The keyboard has good tactile response with each key press. Key travel is just right. However, it's the layout of the Enter, Backspace and right Shift keys that many may find fault with. These keys are made smaller such that the Page and arrow keys could be squeezed into the far right corner of the keyboard. Thus, it is really easy to hit the wrong keys than as intended. I, personally, didn't have problems with the layout but it can pose as an annoyance to some. Aside from this small caveat, the keyboard is otherwise comfortable to use. But there is one thing
For those with longer hands like myself, the keyboard may be placed too low leaving minimal space to rest the palms. I found this rather uncomfortable after prolonged use. Moving the keyboard higher up would have easily solved this problem.
| W7J Keyboard | |
| Number of keys | 83 keys |
| Number of rows | 6 rows |
| Key Pitch/Stroke | 18.5 mm / 2.35 mm |
| Special/Function Keys | Fn+F1 Suspend switch |
Touchpad
The touchpad is standard affair as far as touchpads go but it is wider to go with the laptop's widescreen display. Response is good and the surface is smooth. One quibble I do have is the rather small buttons for mouse clicks. The blue LED splitting the left and right buttons is a nice ambient touch though .
Design Continued
Connectivity Options
Front
There isn't a mechanical or magnetic latch mechanism to secure the laptop shut. There is enough weight on the screen to allow the top half the seal securely. Instead, the protruding webcam housing serves as a handle lift for allowing easy open and close with minimal effort. The panel gaps are very tight and minimal thanks to the recessed keyboard layout. Very nicely designed.
Rear
The rear panel contains the power port, S-Video out port, one high-speed USB 2.0 port and security slot. The battery is also located here.
Left Side
On the left side, you will find data ports for Ethernet/LAN and telephone jacks, one USB 2.0 port, DVD-RW optical drive, and a 4-in-one media card reader which accepts MMC/SD/Memory Stick/Memory Stick PRO formats.
Right Side
On the right and front half, you have the volume control, microphone in jack, a headphone out jack which also doubles as a S/PDIF digital optical input, and an IEEE1394 FireWire port. Right above is the newly standardized Express Card slot. Next to these ports is a large air vent followed by another USB 2.0 port and a VGA-out port. As you can see, the ASUS has every possible input you need for modular and multimedia expansion.
Express Card
The new Express Card standard allows for a wide array of future expandability and is faster than the older PC card slots of yore and smaller too. Express Card utilizes the bandwidth of the PCI Express bus.
Heat and Noise
In my week long use of the W7J, heat and noise was never an issue. The unit stayed remarkably quiet in general use. You can still hear the fan nevertheless, but the noise is very subdued and almost silent like. You'll hear the sound of the hard drive and optical drive more so than the fan. It was only with more intensive tasks such as gaming and DVD playback that the fan was noticeably louder but still quieter than other laptops I've used. The laptop does run warm after awhile but never hot. Thankfully, you'll never feel that uncomfortable burning sensation that Apple MacBook users have been experiencing. Most of the heat is ventilated out to the right side as the fan blows warm air out from the vent. Considering the minimal amount of heat emitted, this is good news for those who type on the go. I commend ASUS for designing a well ventilated laptop while keeping the machine remarkably quiet.
Upgrading and Expansion
Upgrading the ASUS laptop couldn't be easier. There are 3 expansion bays requiring the use of a Philips head screwdriver to open up. Each bay only has 2 screws to remove. Installing additional RAM modules or replacing a new hard drive is pretty straightforward and ASUS even imprints the component's logos to help you identify which expansion door to open. As can be seen in the picture below, the bottom expansion bay provides access to the laptop's hard drive. Right above it you'll find access to the fan and processor. The small door to the right is where the RAM is installed.
Features
Technical Specifications
The ASUS W7J employs Intel's Core Duo processor clocking in at 1.83GHz. It's not the fastest around, but plenty fast for the most demanding tasks. The Core Duo chip also is embedded with 2MB of shared L2 cache with a 667MHz Front Side Bus. 1GB of 533MHz DDR2 RAM is included. While doing research of the system's internals online, I find out that the laptop's motherboard can actually handle faster 667MHz RAM. ASUS must have skimped out on the faster modules to keep costs down. Also, it appears half of the memory (512MB) is actually embedded into the motherboard, making expansion limited to one module only.
The ASUS comes standard with a 2.5' 100GB SATA disk drive that spins at 5400RPM. Its performance is much better than the usual 4200RPM units of typical laptops. The disk drive performs relatively quiet.
Speakers placed right below the screen
Display
The biggest element that will obviously get people to take notice of the ASUS W7J is indeed, its beautiful widescreen display. The 13.3' WXGA runs natively at 1280 x 800 resolution and incorporates ASUS' Color Shine (glare type) technology to greatly enhance image contrast and picture quality. Colors are as crisp as they are rich. Similar to Sony's XBRITE technology, Crystal Shine technology (high brightness) ensures the colors are at its brightest and clearest, even in outdoor situations. The results are absolutely stunning and a sight to see. Unfortunately, the glossy screen induces glare making it hard to see from certain angles.
Image quality is impressive making DVD movie watching a pleasure. Colors pop out with increased vibrancy and brightness. And darks remain dark. Text was very clear and sharp.
The glossy screen is bright but can be hard to see from certain angles
The 13.3' widescreen has just the right amount of screen real estate allowing you to work with 2 windows side-by-side with relative ease and clarity. The onscreen setup icons that work with the Fn keys are a nice feature for adjusting monitor settings on the fly.
Wi-Fi and Bluetooth
The ASUS W7J comes built-in with the Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG miniPCI wireless network card, part of the 'Centrino Duo' trio (CPU, Chipset & Wi-Fi) technology. This allows the laptop to connect to any industry standard 802.11a/b/g network. The switch on the top left of the keyboard allows you to toggle or disable the wireless signals, including Bluetooth. In terms of real world wireless performance, signal strength and download speeds were very good with no noticeable issues or signal cutoffs.
The laptop also has Bluetooth featuring EDR 2.0 for syncing up with compatible wireless devices. Unfortunately, during testing I did not have an EDR-compliant device to test it with, but the laptop did recognize my Bluetooth-capable cell phone and I was able to transfer and exchange contacts through Microsoft Outlook.
Features Continued 1.3MP WebCam
Mounted at the top of the bezel of the LCD panel is a built-in 1.3mp web camera ideal for video conferencing and instant messaging. This feature is particularly useful for Skype users. The webcam can also double as a surveillance system with the included security software.
Overall, the camera provided decent shots and image quality was smooth while using it with Skype.
Optical Drive
Included is a built-in 8X DVD-RW optical drive manufactured jointly by Samsung and Toshiba. This drive is capable of burning & reading DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD-RW, DVD+RW, DVD-RAM, CD-R/RW discs. Noise is kept to a drowned hum in most circumstances but can get noisy once it hits max speed. Testing the drive yielded no problems.
Battery
The laptop comes with a standard 6-cell battery rated at 4800mAh. The battery protrudes slightly from the back of the machine.
AC Adapter
Unlike the behemoth of a power supply that comes with the XBOX360, the ASUS power brick is small making it easy to place into the bag or out of the way when connected to the laptop. Unfortunately, it does not come with a Velcro strap to organize the lengthy power cables.
The ASUS Power Adapter next to the Nokia 8801 Mobile Phone
Power Management
The ASUS comes with its own power management software (Power4Gear) to regulate CPU performance under various environments. There are 8 different settings. The Battery Saving profile allows you to maximize the battery to its fullest by powering down the CPU to 25% and lowering the screen brightness. For more processor intensive tasks such as DVD playback or graphic imaging, it's best to switch to the Super Performance setting. Gamers will be happy to know that there is a dedicated Gaming profile. While I haven't noticed much difference in performance under different system profiles, I find that leaving the laptop in the High Performance setting is fine for most tasks as the Core Duo processor seems to power down when necessary anyway. And you can always switch to Windows' default management system if you're feeling unconvinced.
Software
The ASUS comes bundled with Microsoft Windows XP Professional SP2 and a 90-day trial edition of Norton Anti-virus. Upon startup, you'll be presented with a vast number of utilities that will preoccupy a portion of the taskbar. ASUS felt that the laptop could be optimized completely with their own set of utilities preinstalled. They seem to add bloat more than anything else, but fortunately you can easily uninstall the software with ease.
For example, I found ASUS' wireless connectivity utility more of a hassle to deal with in connecting to my wireless network. It would constantly nag on me requesting if I wanted to connect to a wireless network, yet it had trouble connecting. Out of frustration I ended up switching to Windows' default wireless connection wizard and everything worked fine.
Setup Method
The ASUS W7J was set to run at full performance by setting the power scheme set to 'Home/Office Desk' with the AC plugged in, meaning that the CPU will not underclock while running the tests. For the battery performance test, the power scheme was set to 'Portable/Laptop'. This activates Intel's Enhanced Speedstep technology, which lowers CPU speed when not needed, thus increasing battery life. Screen brightness and audio were both set to 50%, Bluetooth was disabled and Wi-Fi were turned on. Each test was repeated 3 times to ensure accuracy. Before each test was run, the laptop was rebooted and its hard drive defragmented.
Bapco SYSmark2004SE is popular benchmark suite consists of two different performance scenarios and generates an overall score by taking the geometric mean of the individual scores.
- Internet Content Creation: In this scenario, the content creator creates a product related website targeting a broadband and narrowband audience. The user first renders a 3D model to a bitmap, while preparing web pages using a web site publishing tool. The user opens a video editing package, creates a movie from several raw input movie cuts and sound cuts and starts exporting it. While waiting on this operation, the user imports the rendered image into an image-processing package; modifies it and saves the results. Back in the 3D modeling software, the user modifies a 3D model and exports it to a vector-graphics format. Once the movie is assembled, the user edits it and creates special effects using one of the modified images as input. The user extracts content from an archive. Meanwhile, he uses an animation creation tool to open the exported 3D vector graphics file. He modifies it by including other pictures and optimizes it for faster animation. The final movie with the special effects is then compressed in a format that can be broadcast over broadband Internet. The web site is given the final touches and the system is scanned for viruses.
- Office Productivity : In this scenario, the office productivity user creates a marketing presentation and supporting documents for a new product. The user receives email containing a collection of documents in a compressed file. The user reviews his email and updates his calendar while a virus checking software scans the system. The corporate web site is viewed and the user begins creating the collateral documents. The user also accesses a database and runs some queries. A collection of documents are compressed. The queries' results are imported into a spreadsheet and used to generate graphical charts. The user then transcribes a document.. The user edits and adds elements to a slide show template. Finally, the user looks at the results of his work (both the slide show and the portable document) in an Internet browser
Bapco MobileMark 2005 is the latest version of the premier notebook battery life and performance under battery life metric based on real world applications.
- Office Productivity: The workloads in this category model a mobile professional at a fictitious automobile company. The worker creates documents using Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint, accesses email, and creates graphics and animation with Photoshop and Flash to include in a multimedia presentation. An Internet browser is used to view presentations. The user also invokes file compression and virus detection in the background.
- DVD Playback: The DVD playback 2005 workload is based on a 1 hours 55 minute movie that BAPCo has created from content provided by BMW. The DVD playback test starts the movie playerapplication, sets up a full screen playback, and the loops over the content on the disk in the DVDplayer. This playback will continue until system shutdown at battery depletion.
- Internet Content Creation: In this scenario, the content creator creates a product related website targeting a broadband and narrowband audience. The user first renders a 3D model to a bitmap, while preparing web pages using a web site publishing tool. The user opens a video editing package, creates a movie from several raw input movie cuts and sound cuts and starts exporting it. While waiting on this operation, the user imports the rendered image into an image-processing package; modifies it and saves the results. Back in the 3D modeling software, the user modifies a 3D model and exports it to a vector-graphics format. Once the movie is assembled, the user edits it and creates special effects using one of the modified images as input. The user extracts content from an archive. Meanwhile, he uses an animation creation tool to open the exported 3D vector graphics file. He modifies it by including other pictures and optimizes it for faster animation. The final movie with the special effects is then compressed in a format that can be broadcast over broadband Internet. The web site is given the final touches and the system is scanned for viruses.
- Office Productivity: In this scenario, the office productivity user creates a marketing presentation and supporting documents for a new product. The user receives email containing a collection of documents in a compressed file. The user reviews his email and updates his calendar while a virus checking software scans the system. The corporate web site is viewed and the user begins creating the collateral documents. The user also accesses a database and runs some queries. A collection of documents are compressed. The queries' results are imported into a spreadsheet and used to generate graphical charts. The user then transcribes a document.. The user edits and adds elements to a slide show template. Finally, the user looks at the results of his work (both the slide show and the portable document) in an Internet browser.
- Office Productivity: The workloads in this category model a mobile professional at a fictitious automobile company. The worker creates documents using Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint, accesses email, and creates graphics and animation with Photoshop and Flash to include in a multimedia presentation. An Internet browser is used to view presentations. The user also invokes file compression and virus detection in the background.
- DVD Playback: The DVD playback 2005 workload is based on a 1 hours 55 minute movie that BAPCo has created from content provided by BMW. The DVD playback test starts the movie playerapplication, sets up a full screen playback, and the loops over the content on the disk in the DVDplayer. This playback will continue until system shutdown at battery depletion.
- Lightweight and sturdy
- Clean and stylish design
- Built-in 1.3mp webcam
- Dedicated nVidia graphics card
- 13.3-inch widescreen with XBRITE built on LED.
- Good Value, good price
- Small trackpad buttons
- Uncomfortable to type with for user's with longer hands
- Keyboard layout
- No DVI.
- Disaappointing battery performance
Setup Method
The ASUS W7J was set to run at full performance by setting the power scheme set to 'Home/Office Desk' with the AC plugged in, meaning that the CPU will not underclock while running the tests. For the battery performance test, the power scheme was set to 'Portable/Laptop'. This activates Intel's Enhanced Speedstep technology, which lowers CPU speed when not needed, thus increasing battery life. Screen brightness and audio were both set to 50%, Bluetooth was disabled and Wi-Fi were turned on. Each test was repeated 3 times to ensure accuracy. Before each test was run, the laptop was rebooted and its hard drive defragmented.
Bapco SYSmark2004SE is popular benchmark suite consists of two different performance scenarios and generates an overall score by taking the geometric mean of the individual scores.
Bapco MobileMark 2005 is the latest version of the premier notebook battery life and performance under battery life metric based on real world applications.
3DMark 2001 SE PRO build 3.3.0 measures graphics performance by benchmarking the CPU, memory, and graphics through a series of 21 tests, including simulated games, theoretical tests, DX8 feature tests, and image quality tests. Resolution was set to 1024x768 with all default settings.
3DMark 2003 build 3.6.0 measures DX9 performance through a series of 3D game based sound, graphics, and CPU tests. Resolution was set to 1024x768 with all default settings.
3DMark2005 build 1.2.0 is a graphics intensive benchmark best suited for the latest generation of DirectX 9.0 graphics cards. It combines high quality 3D tests, CPU tests, and is the first benchmark to require Pixel Shader 2.0 support, making this a highly stressful 3D benchmark.
PCMark 2005 Advanced build 1.1.0 is the latest update to Futuremark's popular overall system benchmarking program. The 2005 version adds multithreading, DirectX 9, Windows Media Player 10, virus scanning, High Defintion video playback (WMVHD), and a vast number of other tests to its suite. Testing your computer's CPU, RAM, hard drive and graphics card, PCMark05 drives your computer to the max to determine its strengths and weaknesses.
Configurations
| Specifications | Asus W7J | Sony VAIO SZ270P | HP Pavilion dv2000z |
| Processor | Intel Core Duo T2400 1.83GHz | Intel Core Duo T2400 1.83GHz | AMD Turion X2 TL-52 (1.60GHz, 512KB L2 Cache) |
| Front Side Bus | 667 MHz | 667 MHz | 1600 MHz |
| Chipset | 945PM | 945GM | ATI RS485M |
| LCD | 13.3-inch Widescreen Glossy (1280x800) | 13.3-inch Widescreen XBRITE (1280x800) | 14" WXGA TFT LCD (1280x800) |
| Hard Drive | 100GB Hitachi 5400RPM 8MB Cache SATA | 120GB Toshiba 5400RPM 8MB Cache SATA | 80GBFujitsu 5400RPM 8MB Cache SATA |
| Memory | 1GB DDR2 PC2-4200 533MH | 1GB DDR2 PC2-4200 533MH | 1GGB DDR2 667 PC5300 SDRAM (2 x 512MB) |
| Graphics | Nvidia GeForce Go 7400 128MB | Nvidia GeForce Go 7400 128MB | NVIDIA Go 6150 |
| Graphics Interface | VGA-out | VGA-out | VGA-out |
| Optical Drive | Dual Layer DVD burner | Dual Layer DVD burner | Dual Layer DVD Burner |
| Weight | 4.3 lbs. with 6-cell battery | 3.7 lbs. with 8-cell battery | 5.29 lbs. with 6-cell battery |
| Operating System | Windows XP Pro w/SP2 | Windows XP Pro w/SP2 | Windows XP Pro w/SP2 |
| Battery | 4,800 mAh | 5,200 mAh | 4.000 mAh |
Now comes to what matters most how well does the ASUS perform in light of its competition? For benchmark testing, we compared the ASUS to the Sony VAIO SZ270P and HP Pavilion dv2000z. The Sony is perhaps the W7J's closest competitor in features, power and size, making this truly a close match to watch.
Bapco SYSmark2004SE
Internet Content Creation
Office Productivity
Total Score
The ASUS just barely beats out the Sony by only 2 points. Should be no surprise as both laptops have the same Core Duo processor and motherboard installed.
PCMark05 Advanced
Here are the associated scores:
| PCMark05 | W7J | VAIO SZ270 | Pavilion dv2000z |
| CPU | 4239 | 4264 | 3268 |
| Memory | 2888 | 2898 | 2868 |
| Graphics | 2157 | 2218 | 1154 |
| HDD | 3616 | 3352 | 3699 |
and the PCMark05 Advanced Overall Score:
We added these tests for a better way to compare dual core systems. Looking at numerous testing methods and results, we found the existing SYSmark2004SE benchmarks to be an excellent choice. The tests are easily performed and repeatable, providing a consistent and simple way to test dual core systems. The three sub-tests below show a noticeable correlation in CPU and memory performance, the two most important aspects of a multi-CPU system.
Bapco SYSmark2004SE
3D Content Creation
"The user renders a 3D model to a bitmap using 3ds max 5.1, while preparing web pages in Dreamweaver MX. Then the user renders a 3D animation in a vector graphics format."
With a dedicated graphics chip built into the Sony and ASUS, both post impressive figures.The ASUS edges out by only 1 point which is close!
2D Content Creation
"The user uses Premiere 6.5 to create a movie from several raw input movie cuts and sound cuts and starts exporting it. While waiting on this operation, the user imports the rendered image into Photoshop 7.01, modifies it and saves the results. Once the movie is assembled, the user edits it and creates special effects using After Effects 5.5."
Web Publication
"The user extracts content from an archive using WinZip 8.1. Meanwhile, he uses Flash MX to open the exported 3D vector graphics file. He modifies it by including other pictures and optimizes it for faster animation. The final movie with the special effects is then compressed using Windows Media Encoder 9 series in a format that can be broadcast over broadband Internet. The web site is given the final touches in Dreamweaver MX and the system is scanned by VirusScan 7.0."
3DMark 2003
With the Sony beating the ASUS by over 100 points, it may seem that the VAIO is clearly the better performer in 3D tasks. The HP is no competition as it employs an integrated graphics chip.
3DMark 05
3DMark 06
FEAR
Running the game FEAR with medium graphics settings, the ASUS was able to produce up to 40fps. Pretty good for a mid-range laptop but it still is 6 frames shy of the Sony.
Quake 4
As we have just seen from the performance figures, the ASUS W7J and the Sony VAIO laptops make for one close match-up. Both display impressively close, but high figures. It seems however, that the ASUS performs better in standard 2D processing tasks while the Sony edges out - just barely - in 3D graphics performance and gaming. To truly see which laptop is the better performing, it all comes down to battery performance and the following numbers will shock you.
Despite posting performance figures that very closely match the Sony, ASUS unfortunately came out with very dismal battery performance. In all three tests conducted, the W7J managed only a paltry ~2.5 hours of battery time before recharging. That's very disappointing considering the performance figures this laptop is capable of next to the VAIO, which is truly the W7J's direct competitor. Even the HP faired better in most tests. By today's standards, 2.5 hours just doesn't cut it.
What should be noted, however, is ASUS - use of a 6-cell battery instead of an 8-cell, which Sony employs. Therefore, if you intend on using this laptop while on the road, plan on getting an extra spare battery or leaving it plugged in.
Conclusion
Pros:
Cons:
Recommendation
The ASUS W7J presents itself as an all-around excellent value for the price. It's heavy on features and power without compromising on weight, size, or style. You get a speedy processor, plenty of storage and RAM, and even a built-in webcam for taking snapshots. The gorgeous and vibrant 13.3" widescreen combined with the powerful nVidia Go video graphics card makes this laptop more than your standard run-of-the-mill workhorse, allowing you to view DVD movies or play a couple 3D-intensive games the way they were meant to be experienced (well, almost). Whether you're using the laptop solely for work or for leisure use, the ASUS is a very versatile laptop that has everything you need to do both. But at $1499, the W7J is still one heck of a steal and presents itself as a strong contender against the bigger players out there. Sony and Dell, watch out!
Availability/Warranty
The W7J is availablw now starting at $1499. ASUS offers one (2) year limited global hardware warranty and one (1) year battery pack warranty.
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