Z35f questions ...

Hi,

I've been looking into different websites for the Z35f and some places state that the on board soldered memory is 533mhz and other say it's 667mhz. Anyone knows what is the real memory speed ? Also, does anyone made a review of this laptop ? I've seen one on the geared2play forum but I would like some inputs from actual owners here. Is it the same chassis as the W7J but without the gfx card and camera ? Thanks a lot.

 

Try CPU-Z it always does it's job right

 

it is not the same chassis. the z35f is made of abs plastic, while i believe that the w7j is made of carbon fiber. as for the speed of the ram, it really doesn't matter b/c 533 and 667mhz actually perform quite similarly due to the high cas latency of the 667 mhz. the z35f does have much better battery life though...

 

I don't have one, I'm looking to buy one ...

 

It's a free program.
You can download it here : http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php

 

No, no, I meant that I don't have the laptop, I'm planning to buy either a W7J or Z35F but I'm trying to compare between the two by looking into forums and reviews on the web.

 

http://www.ec.kingston.com/ecom/con...es+Z35F+Notebook&distributor=0&submit1=Search

Chances are, it's a 533MHz that's built-in. I seem to remember someone wanting to desolder it and resolder 667MHz chips from an SODIMM, but I don't think that would be worth it.

It might be better to get a W7J, though. The barebones usually ends up costing just as much as (if not more than) a full "Built by ASUS" unit and comes with a better warranty (1yr for BB vs. 2 yr for BBA w/ 30day ZBD).

Other main differences that I see are that W7J comes in black and white, has a T5500 processor with a 120GB HDD and 1 GB total (512 built-in + 512), a webcam, Gigabit LAN, discrete graphics card (nVidia 7400TC 128MB) and Vista Home Premium (probably don't care since you're using Ubuntu).

 

The Z35 gets significantly better battery life, though. If dedicated graphics aren't required I'd go that route for just that reason.

 

Z35 has 533MHz RAM. It really doesn't make a difference performance-wise, and the DDR2 667 RAM is backwards compatible (it will run at 533MHz).

Essentially, the Z35 is a plastic W7J without the dedicated GPU or camera. It will get way better battery life though, as Jumper said. I would still get the W7J and then add an extended battery, because the carbon fibre/magnesium casing of the W7 will make it way more durable.

 

Actually 533 as it turns out is upwards compatible. cpu is 667, ram is scaled upwards to meet the speed. i dont know why asus advertises 533. it really is 667. its basically forced by the chipset

 

I've had a chance to use both (I owned a w7j and a friend owned a z35f) and while I agree with everybody else that the w7j may be the better overall product the z35f is not that far behind. The build of the z35f is pretty solid too, especially compared to other some other laptops out there.

The z35f does get waaay better battery life compared to the w7j so if you don't need a dedicated graphics card I'd suggest saving a couple hundred bucks and just get a z35f. To save money maybe you could get a z35f without a hard drive, ram, and windows and just get those separately.

 

What would be your opinion on the overall look when comparing the 2 ? Thanks all for your inputs so far, it's been of great help.

 

The system bus can be asynchronous with the memory bus. This has been the case for quite some time.

If it is really DDR2-667 RAM, it's more likely some batches were 533 and some were 667, possibly due to costs of RAM during production. The relative price difference is not much (might be cheaper in some cases due to better availability of 667!). The price has pretty much settled right now, but who knows what it was when they initially purchased the units.

As far as forced by the chipset, if you go against the automatic settings, that's what we call overclocking. The SPD chip determines what is best for the system, and that is usually used by default. It *may* be possible that they put better chips into the system which are actually rated for higher speeds, but there's also the issue of added tolerance since laptops have a tendency of working at higher internal temperatures and sometimes less stable voltages than a desktop (ie: using the better chips with deliberately conservative settings).

 

In terms of looks, the w7j looks more professional than the z35f. The z35 looks a lot like a macbook because of the color. The battery of the z35 does stick out of the back a little bit but it actually doesn't look that bad. Both have great keyboards but I think the trackpad on the z35f is a little bit smaller than the one on the w7j (or at least that's how it felt to me).

What are you planning on doing with your laptop and are you leaning towards one over another?

 

Hmm, I remember PROPortable saying that the W7J RAM (and I assume all other models with embedded RAM) was 533MHz because the speed of embedded RAM trailed the standard memory that we buy. However, that was at the time of the introduction of the W7J last July, so it might have changed since then.

 

Basically, I plan on installing Ubuntu and doing some C# development with Mono. My gaming needs are basics as I mostly play emulators like Dgen and Zsnes so embedded gfx do the job. Still, so far I prefer the W7 and the price difference with a Z35f that is configured like the W7 is not that big. The battery life is not that important to me as I mostly use my laptop on AC.

 

You can't go wrong with either one. If you are strapped for cash you can always get the z35f with just the processor and upgrade yourself to save a couple of hundred bucks. Otherwise the w7j would probably be the better buy and you won't be disappointed.

 

Yea, go for the W7J. The price difference is minimal, to say the least, and you get a better constructed and more powerful notebook. I think they look about the same, aside from color and webcam, but thats just me.