A8 Merom notebook?

When can we expect the A8 series, specifically the A8Jm, to be updated with Core 2 Duo CPUs?

As a Linux user, I like the Dual core/Nvidia specs of the A8Jm, but I swore that my next notebook would be 64bit, so I've been holding out.

 

I've seen new A8 models when searching the ASUS support forum, and when I google'd it, seemed like Core 2 Duo machines. But still little information when they'll actually be available. Prob sometime October is my guess ...

 

The A8F- is the only "confirmed" ASUS A8 series right now with C2D...atleast on the asus website.

 

I would imagine it will be pretty quick now. Asus has already released BIOS updates for their entire lineup of notebooks which means all the need to do is drop the chip in. The biggest hold up right now is intel!

 

Ok its not on the Asus website yet but apparently they released(or are going to release the A8Js, A8Jp,A8Je and A8jv very very soon in Europe and in NA)

All with merom

NV7300 A8Jc
NV7600 A8Jm
NV7600SE A8Jv
NV7700 A8Js
X1450 A8Je
X1600 A8Ja
NV7400 A8Jp

The A8Js will be coming out with the T7200 Merom, 2x512, 120gb 5400RPM, and a Geforce Go 7700.

I'm glad I have my A8Jm still, as I can oc the 7600 > 7700....and the price tag is way out of my range....1750 euros as the websites I searched said...although th 2GHz Merom would have been nice

 

Well, they still haven't released the Merom BIOS update for the A8 series yet...

 

true linux users are 32bit only, and will be for a long time (until flash 9 works on a 64bit kernel)
i'm a linux purist, but also want a merom.
i think i'll just pop one in next year when they're cheaper, as i'm in no hurry.

 

Considering we don't even have flash 9 on a 32bit kernel, I'm not too worried about this. Besides, thats what chroot is for. I generally loathe and despise anything flash regardless, and linux has been 64 bit for quite some time, anyways. Flash is a terrible reason to choose a cpu architecture.

 

where di dyou find this info? is there somewhere i can configure one of the newer 18's to get an idea on price?

 

Nvidia Geforce 7700? Please tell me thats a typo, or is that a new unheard of to me GPU?

 

from what i gather, its the successor to the 7600, with a higher clock and DX10 support

 

Well I thought it was a typo too but thats what the website posted.

I found those details by simply googling the model names and clicking some links

Heres soemthing new...

Darrick...it seems that Asus has posted some new Core 2 Duo BIOSes on their FTP.

Under the A8J section theres a new file called R2H204AS.zip...im downloading that new to see what it is(file format looks like a new bios...but 204?)..pretty weird its only for "A8J"

Description BIOS Ver.204
First Release

Under the A8Js section theres a BIOS called A8Jsv203AS.zip

Description BIOS Ver 203
First Release

And under the A8Jn section theres a BIOS called A8JNV102AS.zip

Description BIOS Ver102
First Release

So my estimate may be wrong and they may be coming much soon rather than later....oh well im happy with the price that i got my 8jm for and i'll be using it at school rather than waiting around for the c2d.

I just hope that us Core Duo users won't be left hanging dry after the C2D notebooks come out....so hope for new BIOSes.

 

firstly it't not cpu architecture, it's the kernel you're choosing, secondly i don't think lack of flash is a bad reason to stay 32bit.
you can't do much nowadays in firefox without flash.
you're right about flash 9. i meant flash 8
flash 9 is still really bugguy anyway

 

Again, we don't even have flash 8 on a 32bit kernel
and that's what multiarch is for

 

there is a press release from asus germany wich announces the

ASUS A8JP-4S015P
- Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Prozessor T7200 (2.0 GHz, 667 MHz FSB, 4 MB L2 Cache)
- 14" TFT, WXGA+ mit High Resolution Glare Type Color Shine Technologie, Resolution 1.440x900
- ATI® Mobility Radeon™ X1700, 256 MB VRAM (512 MB HyperMemory)
- 1024 MB DDR2-667 (2x512MB)
- 120 GB HDD SATA 5.400 rpm
- 8 x DVD-Super Multi D/L Double Layer
- 0.3 Mega-Pixel Web-/Videocamera
- Intel 3945ABG WLAN 802.11a/b/g
- 1000 MBit LAN
- Bluetooth 2.0
- Interfaces: Express Card, DVI Port (DVI-D), VGA, SPDIF, 5x USB 2.0, IEEE1394, TV
Out, 4-in-1 Card Reader
- Weight: 2.4 kg
- Size: 335 x 245 x 34,8 – 37,3 (front/back) mm
- Windows XP Professional


Release date ist September 2006

 

Woahhh... WXGA+ and x1700 ???

Any news on the pricing?

 

i shall not suffer buyer's remorse
i shall not suffer buyer's remorse
i shall not suffer buyer's remorse...1440x900 gbit lan arggghhhhhhhhh

i dont need it...
i shall not suffer buyer's remorse
i shall not suffer buyer's remorse
i shall not suffer buyer's remorse

 

A8Js mini review with pic: http://laptopmag.com/Review/Asus-A8Js.htm

 

That's very interesting news.

To me there's 2 ways to release a Merom notebook.

One way is to do what dell is doing, quickly drop in the Merom and sell sell sell, and therefore they get the market share early.

The other way is to wait, and from the looks of it, if ATI does release new GPUs like the rumoured X1700 in which there's basicaly no official news on the X1700 yet. Then those who wait get better performance than those who buy early.

So in regards to the A8j and V1J if both come with Merom + X1700 and takes roughly 1-2 months to come, then it will be worth the wait and those who bought early will definately feel some remorse, not because of the CPU but because of the GPU.

But if ASUS plans on just keeping the 7600 and X1600 and still take 2 months to release it...then they have already lost market share and we ended up waiting for somethnig we should have available to us now.

Look at the front page, Dell is already pumping out Merom notebooks, and yet we are still awaiting to see the first ASUS Merom notebook to hit NA.

Whatever the case... hurry UP ASUS!!!!

Thanks,

MysticGolem

 

i feel the same. i want dx10 support too!

 

sigh... i hope we get an nvidia equivalent to that notebook...

holy **** nvm, there is one! /me happy

 

is this anything that's being U.S. released?

 

price of the A8JP is 1600€ in germany

 

lol ... don't worry zydus... soon after ppl start getting those.. next year they'll be out with the next big one... then those ppl will be feeling the same as us right now

 

hehe true...im so happy with my A8J i have no complaints

 

is there no GBit-LAN at the a8jm?

 

all of the A8J series has GBit Lan.

Hehe....I doubt I will feel buyers remorse I mean I have it right here right now...and Merom buyers have to wait So the way I look at it...I'm here using my beautiful A8Jm with Vista pre-RC1 and XP Pro with 2GB RAM.....while others are still waiting. I also got it so I can have it right now for school..although its not needed....its sure nice to have right now

because who knows......you're here today....you could be gone tomorrow...it was good while it lasted.

 

Everyone keeps mentioning the Nvidia Geforce 7700, but I find no mention of it here on Nvidia's page. Is this a publishing mistake or is there something else going on?

http://www.nvidia.com/page/mobile.html

 

ya, i just got my F3a yesterday. i asked the people at the store about the new merom chip and the asus notebooks. this was one of the notebook spec i saw and i can confirm that geforce 7700 is not a typo. i saw it too. i'm pretty sure it's correct but i don't know if it's an upgrade from 7600 or a downgrade. as for the people who feels "buyer remorse", don't be. merom really isn't that big of an upgrade. 64bit computer still has a long way to go. merom is a little bit faster but it's more expensive and creates more heat. also, the battery life won't be as good as yonah. i'm happy with my core duo comp!

 

seriously people, the main reason ppl want 64 bit now is vista compatibility (or at least to run the "real" version of vista). By the time vista is released the new sonoma chips will be comming out and the prices of c2d will plummet...then we core duo users can all upgrade and possibly get the t7200 at a fraction of the price that people will be paying for it in the next few weeks/months. Definitely no need for buyers remorse!

 

btw... an interesting thought:

A8Jm with 1280x800 and Go7600 = Max 2hrs 45mins with wifi on and acceptable brightness...

A8Js with 1440x900 and Go7700 = ??? I'm guessing even less than that

Now hopefully ASUS will then have to figure out ways to make a larger capacity battery to fit in the current structure

 

My impression is that the 7700 is an upgrade from the 7600 with a higher clock speed, and (maybe?) DX10 support.
It's definately not a downgrade, or else it would be called the 7500, now wouldn't it?

According to the review that was quickly taken down, the A8Js gets about two and a half hours of battery life.

 

unless they come out with say, a 9-cell battery.

Im speculating whether the a8js merom itenary will be swappable with the current a8js.

 

Do you know why that A8Js review disappeared?

 

My best guess would be NDAs, but no one knows for sure, I don't think

 

Does anyone who read the article have a cached version?

It would be interesting to read the text at least

 

Google's cache was able to recover the first page...
Here's the link: http://66.249.93.104/search?hl=et&q=cache:http://laptopmag.com/Review/Asus-A8Js.htm&btnG=Otsi&lr=

Just in case it wont work, here's the text from the 1st page:

Price: $1,499
by Jamie Bsales

Date Posted: 08/29/2006The Asus A8Js is a sleek thin-and-light machine with a focus on gaming and multimedia. At $1,499, you're not likely to find a lower-priced notebook with this much 3D-graphics power.

The silver-and-black chassis weighs 5.2 pounds, and is comfortable in the hand thanks to the system's rounded edges. Flip the lid and you'll find a sharp-looking silver keyboard deck with a full-sized black keyboard. The keyboard is comfortable to use, though the glossy touchpad takes some getting used to. We were surprised to see no dedicated volume (you can use Fn + F11/F12) or multimedia buttons.

The 14.1-inch glossy widescreen panel delivers deep, rich colors (though watch out for glare in typical office lighting conditions). As with other notebook LCDs, the panel's viewing angle is fine from side to side, but poor from above. The 1440 x 900-pixel resolution means increased screen real estate, but also rather small fonts in applications at default settings.

The A8Js delivers plenty of features for the price, including a built-in webcam, a 100GB hard drive, a dual-layer multiformat DVD burner, 2GB of RAM, and both 802.11a/b/g Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2.0.

The 2-GHz Core 2 Duo T7200 processor delivered good productivity test results with a MobileMark05 score of 227. More impressive is the whopping 9,754 on 3DMark03, thanks to the 512MB Nvidia GeForce Go 7700 graphics engine, making the A8Js an affordable gaming portable in addition to a solid workaday PC. The tradeoff for this graphics power is short battery life, as the system lasted just 2 hours and 36 minutes.

If you can live with limited tech support hours (19 hours weekdays and 9.5 hours weekends), the Asus A8Js delivers the most muscle per pound of any 14.1-inch notebook.​

Hope this helps.

Oh, and http://www.computer-nachrichten.de/hardware/artikel/2006/asus_a8jp mentions on page 2, that the ASUS A8JP (with ATI x1700) will be avalable in Germany in September, for 1599€

 

Thanks for posting, Dima (repped).

Note that there was only one page to the review--the "QuickSpecs" link target was just the same photo as shown in the Google cache.

 

thanks, so are those 3dmark03 numbers an improvement over a go 7600?

 

Well, the Go 7600's should get 6000-8000 points in 3DMark03 without overclocking (depends on the version). So... Yeah. The Go 7700 doesn't look too bad. Wonder if heat will become a problem in smaller laptops for Go 7700 tho.

 

True but in 03 the rest of the system plays a bigger factor...so the C2D processor would add a few 3dmarks....

its too bad that it only gets 2h 36m battery life...thats even a bit worse than the a8jm...i can get around 2h45 to 2h50.

 

with undervolting?

 

undervolting a Yonah processor doesn't help much at all since Intel locked the lowest voltage at 0.95v. Of course there's a large savings at the highest multipliers, but since most of the time it's the lowest multiplier we're dealing with, there's hardly any improvement. The only benefits are a bit lower temps and if you continuously use CPU at max . With undervolting, I haven't seen much battery life improvement on my A8Jm, 5 minutes max.

 

I have been reading this forum recently and was just about to buy an A8Jm... lots of info here.

Well, I gave Asus a quick call about the availability of the A8Js in Canada. I talked to a nice person who told me, after I insisted a bit, that it would be available in the end of September or early October.

Guess I was lucky Laptop Magazine leaked the info, I was just about to accept a quote on the A8Jm when I found about it here. =)

 

If the A8Js really looks like the Laptop Magazine article, then I'd want to
wait simply because it looks cooler than the A8Jm. If the screen res goes to 900x1440, well, that's cool, but that would be a better resolution for the F3Js. Is anyone suspicious that the picture of the A8Js in the review really is something more like the V1J? It looks like too expensive of a build quality, and too thin for the A8 series...

 

As far as i know all of the A8's looks the same.
Laptop Magazine got a picutre of 17" Asus, dont know which..

This is the correct A8Js:
Flash presentation
Specs
Overview

Most of you probably knew, but for those who did not..


BTW: Norwegian webshops are getting the A8Js in stock right now
http://www.prisguide.no/product.php?productId=54260

The Norwegian price 15-16000 NOK is equivalent to about 1650-1800 USD, in case you wondered..