~U3S Owners Lounge~

Ram replacement is very easy. You just have to remove 3 screws. I've been running with 1.5gb of ram and it seems to work fine for office type stuff and some games.

 

Anyone actually weighted the AC adapter and the external DVD drive?

I am wondering what the total travel weight is. I saw that somewhere but I can't find it again.

 

eugenes,

So I take it there's an acutal RAM compartment that is accessible, like the g1s?

 

Yes. I thought I posted a photo in the first post that shows the ram slot?

 

External DVD drive = 13 oz.
AC Adapter + cord = 14 oz.
Bluetooth mouse + 2 batteries = 4.5 oz.

1 lb. = 16 oz.

 

Oh wow that's what I call a concise answer. Thanks, ExcaliberPC !

I'm kind of surprised; almost 1lb. for either the external DVD drive or the AC adapter seem high. But then again I have no comparison point.

 

It's very much like plastic. I have the black model, so I don't know about the color fade. Over the past month and a half it hasn't faded at all, and there is no warpage at all. Also, there's no smell to the leather (I hate that smell). Regardless, all of my friends really love the wrist rest actually (they're all considering buying this laptop now).

Also, I didn't get the asus external drive. I have a Liteon drive from walmart at home for installing things off a CD (I never need cd's on the road/class). The drive ran about $30 when I bought it. That's how I installed Ubuntu on this thing.

Sorry for the delay too -- I've been on vacation

 

Does the non-flushed battery annoy you? When you transport your u3, do you put it in your bag, battery facing down or up? I'm curious since it sticks out and was wondering if it would snap off or break.

Does Asus have the 3 cell battery? I bet this battery will only last about an hr or so. I guess I'm considering more about aesthetics than battery duration.

 

I just ordered my U3S-A1B with external DVD Drive. Hooray!

 

It actually doesn't at all. It's very sturdy when it's locked in, so no worries about it breaking. I put it in a 14.1" case when I put it in my backpack, and it fits perfectly without any movement or anything. If you want, I can get you the case information on the one I'm using (it's neoprene so it's padded). Anyway, it is very sturdy.

ExcaliberPC.com carries the 3 cell battery if you want something flush. I'm sure it lasts 50mins or so.

 

you guys noticed that?
Asus U3S- X2W
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220212
The same U3S, but with vista ultimate and an external dvd drive (with lightscribe) for $1600 (only in white). A good deal; too bad I really want it black!
At first I thought it came with something else than the GPS, but apparently not. Note that the pictures don't show the external DVD drive and, instead, show two batteries (?) not reported in the specs list.

 

Scythe,

Thanks for the info. I know the u3 came with a neoprene case so I was suprised to hear you got a 14.1" one. Did you get it due to the 6 cell battery sticking out and not being able to fit properly?

I think the brown case that comes with the u3 is quite ugly. For my previous ASUS L-8400 laptop, it came with a nice leather case, similar in design to the vx-2 case. Then again, the L series were more or less in the same price range as the vx-2's.

Also, the 3 cell batt ain't cheap.... $109 for 50 mins of batt performance... not worth it.

 

frencholiver,

The model you noticed on NEWEGG didn't have gps and only 120 gb harddrive. But it's cool that they included the dvd drive, like the U1f. I wonder if they bundled with the original or another brand.

 

Yeah, I saw that a couple of days ago. Kind of wrote it off because I'd rather have black. Strange if you look at the accessories picture, it looks as though there's 2 batteries and the GPS antennae is there even though it's not listed in the specs. What's also weird is that if you google U3S-X2W, almost all the hits point back to newegg. So where did this version come from?

 

there is a new review/test on a german website http://www.notebookjournal.de/tests/347/1 . they had a few negative points that would really be a deal-breaker for me. so i am wondering what people here think about it.

1. the display is not very stable, very easy to bend
2. 8400M will only give around 50 - 100% higher benchmark scores, not really useful to have it
3. external dvd-drive is extremely slow
4. battery time is only 126 w/ internal and 99min w/ 8400M, lowest result for the subnotebooks they have tested so far
and worst, 5. extremely loud, very annoying fan sound, almost always on , only in quiet/office mode chance of being silent...

i dont want to neglect to mention that they liked a lot of things too about the U3 (fastest ever in this catagory e.g.) but especially 4 and 5 would keep me from buying one.
they dont recommend it, especially considering the (official) price tag of 1800€....

 

1800 Euros = 2478$ Canadian, wow, you guys get ripped off, here in Canada it sells for 1558$ = 1132 Euros. We dont' have the LED display on it here but still ...

 

I guess the stock too much white colour one just want to clear them..hehe

 

It comes with a leather "pouch" which does little for protection. Also, that pouch is fully leather and bulky. I bought the 14.1" case due to the battery lip on the back of the laptop. It fits it really well. I agree the case is ugly, and that's why I don't use it, lol. The pouch/case for the laptop is made by Targus, however it's just really shoddy. Hence why I bought the neoprene case

 

1) I haven't been able to bend it...it's very stable for me.
2) I can't tell the difference between the onboard card and the nVidia -- however many games require ram on the graphics card, and hence why it's not pointless for the nVidia. You can't play half the games with the onboard intel.
3) I bought a different external...I only use it when I need to install stuff anyway. The bootable USB thumb drive is all I need now.
4) With the bluetooth turned off, I save about 20 mins of time. With the wifi and the bluetooth off my Ubuntu says I get 2:30 on my 6-cell. Otherwise I get 2hrs time with all things running under Ubuntu (and that's with special effects running and all on the nvidia card). I'll try with the onboard soon and see what it gives me. Regardless, it's pretty decent for a 6-cell battery. Asus should come out with a 9-cell and justify it's portability in the market. That'll give us some extra time at least.
5) Under linux it's very quiet. I hardly notice it's running...like right now. And I'm running on the nVidia card. I think perhaps this is a Vista issue? Only time I notice it is while I'm playing games...but it's far quieter then my last laptop (Inspiron)

 

i love the pouch very much, give it to me if you don't like it LOL

 

we either, and no gps and no 3G.... but hey we get a slow external drive!

street price is about 1600€ (incl. VAT), compared to your prices still ridiculous

 

I live in Montreal, Canada. Where can I get this laptop and how much? Does it have the CPU whine issue that a lot of centrino duo machines are experiencing?

 

http://www.etccomputer.ca/eShop/default.asp?categoryid=104, It's a store based in Toronto, I've dealt with them in the past, no problems, quick shipping.

 

Just orderd my u3s-a1b from ExcaliberPc
Can't wait to get it! Hopefully I made the right choice over the v2s-b1!

Will be going down to Toronto from Michigan for Thanksgiving break so I'll let you guys know how the gps performed.

 

Congrats man, I just got a black one too.

 

I have a question about the white one. Does the leather is absolutely white, or more cream, beige...? And does the leather match with the rest of the notebook?
Thank you.

 

Judging by the pics on the first page of this thread, I would say it looks more creamish than super white. It's possible that the leather may have been super white, but changed over time...

I believe eugenes can help you with the exact answer.

 

The leather is creamish and is not the same shade of white as the rest of the notebook. I actually like it, since it gives a little contrast with the touchpad (which is also not quite the same white as everything else).

Btw, the white leather does get dirty and will stain. I wear long sleeve shirts and some darker colors have rubbed off on the leather. It's not noticible unless you're actively looking for stains.

 

I have now running WINXP on my notebook, but i still have one device, which is unsure to get a driver for it.

USB Device
and also big problems with the sound driver (WDM_R180.exe does not work)
-> audio device on high definition audio bus - which driver should i use??

(Which driver should i choose?)

kind regards - chris -

 

I've read the whole thread but couldn't find an answer to this: will the GPS (which it seems is done mostly in software) be usable by other software such as Google Earth Pro, or is one limited to the bundled application?

 

I don't see why you cannot use another GPS software. The GPS module is mapped to a COM port. I'll try with MapPoint today and post an update here.

 

Thanks eugenes, that sounds encouraging. The COM port part, especially, because at the very least it would then be possible to use GpsGate or something like it (even GooPs, maybe) to hook up with Google Earth.

I have another question regarding the U3's special goodies, and the good folks at ExcaliberPC might be able to answer it: does the 3G modem come bundled in North America? Does it have fallback compatibility with 1xRTT?

[edit] Since writing the last paragraph I realized the slot at the back allows for either the GPS, 3G or Turbo Memory modules, only one at a time. So I'm guessing no 3G bundled in the US. [/edit]

Thanks a bunch, folks.

 

Hi guys,

i just bought a U3S (french version). It comes with a 6 cells and 9 cells batteries, GPS, but no HSDPA/3G.

I was wondering :

- Can we add more than 1.5GB of RAM? for example replace the 1GB RAM with a 2GB?

- Have anybody tried the eSata connector? I connected the U3S to a 2.5" eSata external HD, but it wasnt detected.

ps : I love it!

 

You can replace the the 1GB stick with a 2GB one.

 

Cool, i need to find where to buy that 2GB RAM

 

I am now a proud owner of a U3S-A1B. Just got it this weekend in the mail. I haven't had too much time to play with it yet, been a busy weekend. My first impressions are a bit marred by Vista. I haven't used it before and it's driving me crazy. There's just some things that were so simple in XP that Vista makes incredibly difficult. I spent 2 hours last night trying to get the network connection set up to grab files off of another computer. Still not happy with the network setup, but at least it's somewhat functional. Well Vista complaints are for another thread.

As for the laptop, I like it a lot. The look, feel, and design are great. The U3S feels solid and well built while still being light. The keyboard is solid and the key travel is to my liking. The touchpad buttons are a bit hard to depress as others have reported, but I'm sure I'll get used to that. My only other complaint is that the lid is a fingerprint magnet. Nothing that some cleaning can't cure, but a bit annoying.

Well those are my first impressions. Once I get Vista properly tuned, I'll be sure to post some more complete impressions. Cheers.

 

I'm actually having the exact opposite problem. I've been using vista for the last 5 months or so and going back to xp on my work notebook just feels off.

 

The US version does not come with the 3G modem. As far as I can tell, Asus did not even include the slot for a sim card. If you look at the photos in the first post, you'll seen an icon for 3G in the HDD bay, but no actual slot for anything.

 

This is one of the reasons why I'm going with white. The other reason is a matter of personal opinion, in that at least as far as the screenshots go I think the silver keyboard is a better match for the white U3S. One reviewer expressed a variant of this idea, saying that Asus should've gone all black with the U3S-A1B much as they did with the U1F.

 

Ok, problem solved



Sound driver is very tricky ... @XP

U3S running @ WinXP SP2 (since 2 hours^^)

Does anyone tested the audio output with folowing cable?
(tos link optical)



becouse normally you could choose spdif in the sound menu.
It is only HD Audio possible. (but that comes with the hdmi 1.3 i think and not with the normal spdif connection)

 

I have another question for the owners (eugenes?). Will I be able to use the Asus external ODD with a desktop PC or a different laptop model? That connector on the first post pics looks suspiciously proprietary.

 

It's possible that the connection at the ODD end is proprietary, but the port it's connected to at the notebook side is standard USB 2.0 so it should work with other systems (although you may need to install drivers for it).

 

I've been trying to get the gps to work with gpsd and gpsDrive under linux, I'll report back if I can get it working.

It's a bit of a hassle (I'm thinking it needs a special initiating command)

 

Hmm, very interesting! Please report back, as I intend to use this notebook heavily under Linux.

 

The connector provides a usb connection and also power. If you can find a power adapter that'll work with the ODD, then you can use it with other systems.

 

Hi Nghia !

Could you please give me more informations about your french package ?

- which one did you buy ? U3S-3P013C / 56C / 62E / other ?
- LED or not ?
- 8400M G or GS ?
- WiFi n or not ?
- Ethernet 10/100 or gigabit interface ?
- and finally, where did you get it ?


(You can answer in the french discussion here)

Thanks !

 

I've had more time to use my U3S and I think I've almost got Vista tuned now. Since I like to game, I put on a couple games to check out how well this 8400G is. So far I've only tried Portal and Hellgate London. Haven't run any benchmarks or anything, but they are playable if you put all the settings to medium and turn off the AA. So that makes me happy knowing that I can play some more current games. If I feel adventurous I might do some actual benchmarks.

I also tried out the HDMI output. I connected it directly to my projector and it worked like a champ. I haven't experimented too much, but as far as I can tell the audio does not go through the HDMI. I've included some pictures to show you the HDMI and Hellgate in action.

 

Btw, Audio does go through the HDMI cable... There's an option you need to check/uncheck relating to the sound so the sound will carry through. I cannot name the exact option off the top of my head, but search through this forums. The answer is in here somwhere.

 

Found it...

Thanks for the heads up. Once you mentioned it, I remember reading this before.

 

do you mean SPDIF through the normal audio plugin?
(like i posted on my ast site)