u3

I was in my local computer store, Central Computers, today looking at computer cases and coincidentally heard an Asus rep giving the store's sales people a run down of the product line, including the U3 that was being released this week. Unfortunately the meter was running outside (6 minutes for 25 cents!!!)(and the parking tickets are equivalently expensive too) and I had to leave before I could ask any questions. I think he said that the price was $1600. But except for mentioning that it was under 4Lbs, included GPS, and had DX10 graphics he didn't list out the hardware, like processor, graphics card, ram, etc.

Well here it is at newegg:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220222&Tpk=asus+u3

Looks like an 8400M G w/ 128M. I know that is slower than either 8600M GS or GT with 512, but how much slower?

Otherwise it looks like just about what I've been waiting for. Anybody know if there are better graphics coming soon in this form factor?

 

Well I'm not sure if you can expect mid-high-range graphics in a 13.3 or less form factor... those are portability laptops so battery life is a concern (not too good anyway with ASUS these days) and also the thermal management becomes an issue when the laptop is so small.

 

３X USB ports but one will be used for external OD so only 2 ports available

 

Well, its supposedly in stock. Does someone want to buy one and give us the details?

 

I'm trying to get a review unit sent to me, but I'm Canadian, so that may be kinda tough

But yea, There are alot of reluctant buyers because of the wide range of strengths and weaknesses on this notebook.

 

I won't buy one unless it can be undervolted to do 2.5 hours on the small battery and 6.5 on the extended.

 

ExcaliberPc already made me the quotation
still waiting for the bank to open and make the transfer
but the whole process might take 10-14 days to get the U3 on my hand as i'm from oversea still have to pass through the custom blah blah...

 

I am getting one shipped to me tomorow or Tuesday. Hopefully I can produce a review of the whole thing a few days after I get it.

 

cool so you just placed your order？ What color u get?

 

I am placing it tomorrow. I am getting the white version. I am in the same situation as you(bank wire transfer), not sure if I trust paypal because of the horror stories people have.

I just want something unique and once the xp1330 become in stock, we are going to see a flood of them which I do not want to be part of. By coincidence I have a leather phone too, so I guess they will go well together. I am still not ready for the all leather laptop yet.

The only meh I have is the no optical drive but I can live with it.

 

I love the white color too but its really easy to get dirty so i rather go for the Black one. XP1330? You mean DELL M1330? Anyway just forget about the Dell, not worth it. The optical drive is not a problem i can tell you not even use it everyday. Most of my data are store in external hdd unless i used the OD to burn something otherwise i will keep in my lappy bag.
I'm waiting the bank to open so that i can do the transfering... can't wait!

 

i'm gonna order one today.

 

Kenny,

We have a unit set aside for you, please let me know if you need anything else. Thanks!

 

Please hold for me. I'm going to do transfer today. Cheers

 

hmm...so has anyone gotten their hands on one yet? i would love to hear how much battery life can be squeezed out of the u3

 

Mine and kennyy's(In fact, his is probably going to arrive today.) are shipping. Hopefully I will get a review prepared by the end of this week. Hopefully shipping is fast and I don't get nailed at the border too hard, as I was already nailed by PC Financial(Ridiculously expensive wire transfer).

 

mine is arrived but still seized with the stupid custom. They haven't send me any notice yet...problem have to wait them to clear the damn process and Australian customs are damn lazy...can't wait to get my babe... lol

 

I've been eyeing this notebook since I found it on Newegg... it has everything I want but I could find only one review, and that was based on pre-production hardware and didn't go into much detail...

http://www.trustedreviews.com/notebooks/review/2007/08/23/Exclusive-Asus-U3-Hands-On/p1

So I'm waiting on better review before I take the plunge. Most importantly, I'd like to hear about the quality of the screen.

Screen - how are the horizontal/vertical viewing angles, brightness, etc?
Can it play 1080p video (smoothly) to an HDTV through the HDMI port?
Can it pipe audio through HDMI as well?
Can it play video on external display while letting you work on the desktop, using the built-in screen, at the same time?
How strong is the chassis - solid or flexible?
Keyboard quality?
Will any external (usb) DVD drive work or do you have to spring for the one from Asus?
Does it come with the battery that sticks out of the back or is it flush?
What kind of transfer speeds can you get through its eSATA port?
What GPS software does it come with..?

TIA!

Not having a DVD drive is perfectly fine with me, preferred even. Hardly ever use it in the other laptops I've had. Rather skip it and save the weight.

 

Hopefully they are lazy and you don't get charged any taxes or customs.
(Goes like this. Customs guys, " Its a laptop, well we got find the retail of this baby, and fill out the forms, Ow man I don't want to fill out a form."Other Customs guys," Its not some Koala eating panther or anything, lets just say it is a computer case to some guy named ASUS, that it was a gift and not do any paper work. Other Customs guy, "That genius, lets just grab an oversized australian beer right now to celebrate our hard work, we deserve it."

Well on a serious note, how long did shipping take?

Unfortunately I won't be able to test Esata speeds, however I am guess like USB, this is typically more dependent on the device that is being plugged in and not the computer when all the proper standards are met.

The software they use is apparently this software for gps. http://www.software.nxp.com/About/technologies/spot/Index.html
And according to excaliberpc.com any external Dvd burner should work(prior post information from them).

 

lol i hope so...but it's very low % of not getting charge for GST.

 

Did you get your kennyy yet. Mine is at Canadian customs(got through the border yesterday night) and I feel it might take about 2 more days atleast if snags don't stop my laptop from coming to me.

 

not yet still with the bloody custom. My friends told i should received at notification by mail and i need to pay 1st and they need about 24 hours time to process then only allow me to pick up. If it is UPS that it should be easy cause UPS will deal all the paper work and helping you paying the taxes and delivered to your door. So we only need to pay the money to UPS.

I had talked to excaliberpc mail it to me by using UPS unfortunately they don't use UPS...

I hope i received the notification by today

 

Thats good, ups and fedex charge the most expensive handling fees. USPS I heard charges the lowest which is what I used, but how delivery is handled its given to ems so I don't know how this is going to work out.

Boy the handling of the item is taking longer than the shipping. I hope mine isn't the same or I will get it next week.

 

eh the u3 is so hot I wish it came out 2 weeks ago then I would have canceled my v2s order and ordered the u3. Its so nice.....so thin so much style.....yet fast and smooth. But I'm happy with my v2s so no complaints. Can't wait for a review. Does any one know what is made up of? Mag alloy with some tough plastics? Is the u series known for their quality?

 

I believe its made out of Magnesium aluminum alloy. And judging by that composition it sounds more of a metallic thing as alloys are typically metal combinations rather than plastic ones.

 

I came in expecting a topic about unreal tournament 3.... :/

 

U3 is good, but I am rather to wait "U6" sooooooooooo sexy. U3 is already on sale in Taiwan. Europen version contains GPS but, Taiwanese version has 3.5G HSDPA.

 

Problem is, it may be magnesium alloy to protect the LCD, but plastic over the frame. =/

 

Whats the U6, I haven't seen anything about it. I put U6 asus on the google and get nothing.

 

Third picture is a closeup of the U6.

The U6 is the luxury portable 13.3" notebook, probably with integrated graphics, leather and whatnot .

 

tajoh u trying to send me pm right? damn my pm box is so full

although i delete all pm i still get "Your PM box is 100% full" WTF

anyway i still not received any notification yet...so pissed off with oz custom!!

 

wow, looks really nice there . . . .

if only it had a 8400GS . . .

 

I heard your doing a review to from Ken Wind(he said two people on this forum have purchased them for review purposes,(ie me and you(i don't know anyone else getting a u3) in another part of this forum. I was wondering what kind you are doing so we both don't overlap to the point where it is a carbon copy.

Its kind of funny that both of the people that bought them were foreigners and we are being held up at customs. I thought mine was going to be released yesterday but alas, I wish.

Everyone is just itching to get the review and these Customs are just twidling their thumbs.

With the announcement of the u6 those, it going to take alot of convincing to get people to get this thing.

Do you have more than 20 messages stored up? I somehow got to 24 before they stopped letting me putting anymore messages in.

 

i'm about to get it too but i've spent too much already just wating for another price drop. ExcaliberPC always have decent pricing. HIghly recommended them.

 

It just got released and some places don't even have stock yet. Its going to take a while for another pricedrop unless it spectacularly sucks which I hope not because I already bought this thing.

Please battery life be 3 hours +.

 

i don' think the price will drop if not i will screaming like a *****...lol

yeah heard from Taiwan friend the battery life can up to 3 hours

anyway how is your shipping progress? I'm still waiting mine..hope it will arrive to day... can't wait

 

Still at customs, its like they enjoy taking as long as possible. It got to the border in 1.5 business days and it been there for close to 3 days. What are they doing?

Are you doing a review kennyy?

Yeah I am hoping undervoltmine and stuff to see if I can get a bit more out of it. With such a hungry processor hopefully I can get another half hour out of it.

I almost want to call the border to see what is going on, but that would do nothing and out of spite they might decide to charge me PST too for sure. Hopefully I will only have to pay PST.

 

i would like to do a review, but currently very busy with my Uni works, maybe i will make a small or quick review..

 

Me too. I am busy with uni work too but still want to do a thorough review as I can.

Good news, mine was released by customs and is now in a sorting plant. Hopefully they can ship it from vancouver(still has to travel 2400 km to get to me), hopefully it gets here soon(friday at best). Man those aussie Customs sound like they have a very cushie job.

I hope they are not playing Frisbie with your U3s.

 

U6 = Replacement for the W5. I actually like it better, and afaik, it was a 12", no?

 

New to the board and this is my first post. Since you guys are both waiting for your U3S, I figure I'll post my initial impressions.

I've been using the U3S for around a week now (ordered from excaliberpc as well).

I don't have exact battery life numbers, but with wifi/bluetooth off, battery saving mode, integrated graphics, and medium brightness, I can get at least 2.5 hours of use doing typical office work. If you want me to run some benchmarks, let me know.

My only (minor) complains are for the lcd, touchpad, and built in webcam. Compared to my G2S, the lcd is definitely not as bright and vertical view angles can use some improvement. The buttons on the touchpad are not very responsive, using the included bluetooth mouse fixes that problem. The 1.3MP camera is average at best. All in all, I think it's a great business notebook.

Gaming with the U3S seems ok, at least with Guild Wars. The resolution bothers me more than the framerate. One thing I did notice is that the fan kicks on quite often and can be heard in a quiet environment. The vent is on the left hand side, so definitely an improvement over the W7S for a right-hander like me.

I received the external OD today and it's a good match with the silver trim of the U3S, also fits well into the included notebook bag. I used the OD to install the GPS software (did not come installed with my unit). Initial impressions of the GPS program is just average. It looks like you have to use the mouse to enter state/city/address. For some reason, certain keys do not register when the GPS window is on top.

Cheers,

-Eugene

 

Thats pretty terrible battery life for no optical drive and six cells. Are there any bios updates, because this is something I would expect to get better with time?

Did you try to reduce any of the settings in vista. Totally Disable component in device manager.

When did you order yours? I would expect someone who lived in the US to get theirs first(especially if you were in SF), I just didn't know about it. You should start a u3s owners lounge.

I hope I can salvage a bit more battery life out of it, unless we can get more than three hours out of the thing there are going to be alot of people that won't get the u3.

I can't believe the touch bad is wierd, usually included mice are junk. I would rather have a good touchbad than a good mouse. From your impression it sounds like alot of things need to be fixed with drivers.

 

i'm really worry about the battery life...
Asus sell 9 cells battery? If yes i think we have to get one....

eugenes why don't you start a U3S lounge and write some review since u already had the U3S on hand...
i'm checking my mail box everyday...this feeling is so uncomfortable

 

Let me run some actual battery benchmarks. I ordered my U3S a little over 2 weeks ago.

The touchpad itself is ok for moving the curser around, but the two buttons are extremely stiff and hard to press. Hopefully it's something that will improve with time as I break in the system.

I actually think the included mouse is quite nice.

 

interesting thread guys.

kennyy do you know what service Excaliber uses for international shipments? is it UPS, fedex, usps?

how long did it take from ordering untill it reached your country? (australia?)

thanks

 

Check out the review I posted on this thread.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=172780&page=2

It has an extended battery giving a good batery life and it was a very positive review, obtaining Editors Choice, check it out!

 

Well guys I must say I am very frustrated by all this. I have been waiting for a good review of the for so long (like many other people I am sure). But I've gotta be less frustrated than you guys who have their laptops stuck at the customs though
Anyways the few reviews we know of are on pre-production models, or partial reviews, or sort-of-reviews. There is so much confusion about battery life, screen quality and type, what options it has (GPS, turbo memory or HSDPA... and their availability) that everybody is confused. What I mean by all this is that all you guys who have ordered an U3 have a formidable opportinity here to write a good, serious and important review that could set a benchmark and dissipate the unknowns. Clearly the U3 has a great potential: it's ASUS, has good quality, is portable, it's well designed... and it's not a Dell M1330. Plus that would really make me feel better when I call exCaliberPC to place my order

My understanding is that ASUS has concentrated too much on low-budget laptops recently and now they are back into the game with the U series. Well, maybe that's just wishful thinking. So I'm waiting for the review.

 

frencholivier, feel free to ask me any questions you have regarding the u3s. I don't have any experience at writing reviews, nor do I have a suite of benchmark programs sitting on my desk, so the best I can do is give you some approximate numbers and my impressions.

To answer one of your questions above, the U3S can take a single module, either GPS, turbo memory, or HSDPA. It looks like GPS is what is being released as U3S-A1, so there may be an A2 model later on that has turbo memory instead of GPS.

I'll upload some photos and more details later today. If you guys have a suggestion on what programs I can download to benchmark, let me know.