ASUS W7S (3P193E) and W7Sg (3P023C) Review

[E.B.E.]

ASUS W7S (3P193E) and W7Sg (3P023C) Review

For ASUS W7Sg: see Addendum (at the end of this review)

See also:
ASUS W7S(g) XP Installation Guide
ASUS W7S Power Management in Windows Vista

I've recently bought an ASUS W7S for a friend. As I usually do when I buy a new laptop, I'll write a quick, first-thoughts, review. This is not meant as a replacement for the review already up in the Reviews Directory:
ASUS W7S User Review by Chicken Royale
Instead, I'll try to add some further insight and new information. Before that, also note there exist reviews for predecessor model, ASUS W7J. While the configuration has changed, the chassis has not, so much of what is being said there will help with judging the build quality of the notebook.
Asus W7J with Core 2 Duo Review
Asus W7J Review by naszero

My specs are the same as in the main W7S review so I won't repeat them here. The only differences are that I got a Hitachi HDD instead of a Seagate, and Windows Vista Business instead of Home Premium.

I won't go much into the performance issues because those are thoroughly discussed in the main review. Instead, I will comment more on the build quality and usability aspects.

I bought this notebook because I wanted a small-footprint, good performance notebook, which looked good. The W7S is all that. In addition it's nearly End of Life and that meant I got it 300 EUR cheaper than its typical price which lasted until a few weeks ago.

Build Quality

The build quality of the ASUS W7S is excellent. This notebook just feels rock-solid when picked up and moved around. There is zero bending when picked up from one corner. There is zero creaking no matter where I pick it up.

The screen is also quite solid, although, typically for any 13.3 incher (and really for any notebook besides the Thinkpads) the screen & frame will bend a bit when pushed and pulled from the corners. There is no weakness in the webcam area. There is a single point on the back of the screen where pressing hard will cause (minor) ripples on the screen; I suspect it is a mounting point of something. Besides that single point, I cannot cause ripples on the screen no matter how hard I push from behind.

So, although in general the build quality of ASUS notebooks has gone down recently, I am glad to report that the W7S really reflects the traditional top-notch ASUS build quality. This is no surprise though, since it's based on the same chassis as the W7J, which in turn was designed back in the golden age of ASUS notebooks (2005-early 2006).

Included Accessories. Power Adapter

I made this the second section of my review because I was really impressed by the amount and quality of the accessories that ASUS included. Especially since I bought this notebook at a very low price (since it's nearly EOL I was able to buy it for 300 EUR less than its original, typical price), I felt I got a really good package for the money I paid.

So, to the list;
* the main highlight: both 6-cell and 9-cell batteries were included. Just the extra 9-cell battery goes for 150+ EUR if I'd need to buy it separately. This was a very nice gesture from ASUS: a flush 6-cell battery for people focused on small dimensions; and a larger, 9-cell for those needing more battery life (more on the actual battery life, later).
* BlueTooth mouse, made by Logitech, ASUS-branded. Nice since it won't occupy any of the 3 USB ports.
* Carrying bag and carrying sleeve. Nothing to write home about in terms of style and quality, but very useful. Not many manufacturers include such things with their notebooks (especially a carrying sleeve in addition to the bag).
* Vista recovery DVD in five languages (EN, FR, NL, DE, RU).
* A strap for securing the adapter cable when carrying.
* An LCD-cleaning cloth (not the LCD/keyboard protector; this is a dedicated LCD cleaning cloth made out of some kind of plastic and with bumps on the surface). Although I use my own LCD cleaning liquid and cloths, this was a nice touch.

I will mention a problem with the adapter here. Well, it is positively huge. It does not actually have half of the mass of the notebook -- but it easily looks like it could have it. It is a 90W adapter, so the bulk is probably necessary. Although, I would be willing to pay more to get a more expensive, but smaller 90W adapter... The mains cable is also very short - typical for ASUS recently, it seems. It's less than a meter long. Even though it doesn't really impede usability, it just looks cheap and I can't understand why they do it. For 50-cents savings on each computer? Give me a break.

Aesthetics and Surface Materials

The notebook has the classy, subdued, "just business, no sh__ing around" look of the ASUS business line that I like and which culminated with the V6 notebooks, in my opinion. Although the W7 is not quite a V6 in that respect, it's still quite nice.

There are still rather large bezels for the LCD (1-1.5 cm each side, 3-4 cm on the bottom where speakers are located). I suppose the larger size of the LCD frame is necessary to accommodate the larger size of the machine box itself, where the components are located. However when I see these bezels I always think "they could have fit a larger screen in there, why didn't they?" The best notebook in this respect was the ASUS W3, I think, where virtually no LCD space was wasted. The W7 is just typical; one can get much worse, like with the G series that have huge bezels, for instance.

The webcam is a gaudy accessory that I could very well do without; but it seems it's more and more difficult to find a notebook without one nowadays... so I couldn't help it.

Now to the surface materials. Almost all the surface (palmrest, bottom, LCD cover) is made from the same material. It's some kind of plastic (Carbon-Fiber? Magnesium alloy? I don't know) with white-ish flakes in it. It feels very solid, and it is not shiny (I hate shiny notebooks); however, it does pick up fingerprints rather easily, and they are not that easy to remove (can be done though with some patience). This is my only gripe with the materials.

Keyboard and Mouse

The keyboard is very nice. There is enough feedback in the keys, and they bounce up just right. There is some flex in the middle, horizontal band of the keyboard, most pronounced in the Enter key region. The flex is very minor though (0.5 to 1mm I should say) and only shows when the keys are pressed really hard. The keyboard is somewhat quieter (less rattle) than my V6 keyboard, probably because it's not so tightly placed on the notebook internals (the W7 is a good deal thicker than the V6).

Surprisingly, the shrunk Enter, Backspace, backslash, and right Shift keys do not negatively affect the usability of the keyboard. Nice job there, ASUS engineers; at least with my typing style it seems I always hit those small keys in the right place without noticing it. So even though the smaller keys may seem like not such a good idea, at least in my case they have no drawbacks. Note the ~/` key is also smaller but it's used so rarely it's barely worth mentioning.

One thing that is giving me some headaches is the placement of the Fn (function shift) button to the right of the Control key; rather than in my older ASUS notebooks where it was in the lower-left corner of the keyboard. I got used to that so it takes a while until I will get used to this new configuration. But it won't be more than a few days.

About the mouse, I find the bluetooth connection gives a somewhat "jerky" movement. Also after a period of mouse inactivity there is a dead-time of about half a second, between the moment when you start operating the mouse, and the moment when the cursor actually starts moving. Coupled with the rapid consumption rate of batteries (both on the laptop and on the mouse) due to high energy requirements for BlueTooth, I'm not really sure yet whether saving a USB port for the bluetooth mouse is such a hot tradeoff... time will tell.

Internals

The main point to mention here is that the W7S has an integrated 512MB of RAM, which is soldered on the mainboard. This means that the maximum amount of RAM up to which this computer can be upgraded is 2.5GB, which may be limiting for some people. It should suffice for most people though -- nowadays there is rarely a need for more than 2.5GB except for very demanding tasks like high-end gaming; and this computer is not equipped for that sort of thing, anyway. For people in countries where the successor to the W7S, W7Sg, has been released: lucky you, you get 1GB of integrated RAM, which brings the max RAM to 3GB, right up to the place where it would have been limited by 32-bit operating systems anyway; this is better.

On the bright side, the Intel Core 2 Duo T7500 (Santa Rosa, 2.2 GHz) CPU will cut through tasks like a hot knife through butter. There is also the NVIDIA 8400 GPU, which will help with some occasional gaming (new titles will only run on low settings though, so if you're a hardcore gamer look elsewhere, specifically at a larger notebook than 13.3 inches).

The 160GB HDD will be spacious enough for most users.

Ports & Placement, Hotbuttons, LEDs

VGA right, Express slot & Firewire, audio right; network left; and power adapter back may create some cable spaghetti in an office environment. Can't be helped much in such a small frame, I'm afraid. (there is no docking port)

Also, the 3 USB ports are very sparsely distributed: one left, one back, one right. This may be annoying to some; on the other hand, perhaps others will appreciate this. Myself, I have no comments one way or the other.

Connectivity is quite good, with WLAN, Gigabit Ethernet, Modem, FireWire, S-Video & VGA out, 54mm Express Slot and SDcard reader.

As to hotbuttons, they are nearly nonexistent. There is a main wireless toggle switch on/off which kills the WLAN as well as bluetooth; and a power-profile button near it, which is useless except when you're using the included Power4Gear. A nice touch is the analog-looking volume dial; it's actually digital and you only push it slightly forward or backward, you don't truly rotate to change the volume. Nice, anyway.

All the rest is achieved through Fn+F key combinations. One particularly annoying oversight is the lack of dedicated combinations for WLAN on-off, and for BlueTooth on/off. This means that you need an additional piece of software, Wireless Console, running in the background to turn these two devices selectively on and off; and also that several clicks are necessary to do it. All the F-buttons are occupied with other stuff though, so I can't blame the engineers much. But I could live without dedicated mail and browser buttons, for instance, if that meant I get my wireless hotbuttons back. But that's just me...

Some comments about the LEDs. They have the typical ASUS business blue theme, and they are nice. The power and battery-charging LEDs are also replicated on the LCD cover so you can see them when the notebook is closed. That's nice, although coming from the V6 where the wireless and bluetooth are also replicated, having only two LEDs replicated seems cheap. But it's better than none.

Heat and Noise

This little notebook can generate quite an amount of heat, with the high-end CPU and the dedicated GPU. Good power profiles for both CPU and GPU are absolutely essential to keep the heat down when used for light (such as office) work. On this note, I must say that there is no direct access in Vista to the NVIDIA PowerMizer, and the Vista power profiles only use the Balanced and High Performance GPU profiles; no Power Saving; and that takes its toll on heat. The use of these profiles is also automatic and cannot be set by the user, as far as I could find out.

The fan always runs. It can be heard, but only in a quiet environment. One thing which is not so good is that on QuietOffice, during web browsing, the fan will jump between the lower RPM setting and a higher one, with a period of a few minutes. As a control engineer , I do not appreciate this kind of oscillation which wears out the fan too fast. I hope Windows XP will solve that.

If the power profile is well setup, the heat that propagates to the palmrest is not annoying (at least not to me). When the fan is running anywhere faster than the first RPM setpoint, the mouse hand will feel the warm air, which can become annoying.

Battery Life

As usual with newer ASUS notebooks, battery life is quite bad. Some may say even abysmal. The 6-cell battery gets 2 hours with a power-saving profile for the CPU; and a Balanced GPU profile. The 9-cell gets 3 hours or slightly more.

Note that for these tests I had bluetooth on, and I was browsing the Internet using a HSDPA (3G) modem, which sucks quite a lot of current from its USB port. Also I used comfortable brightness levels in daylight. So you will be able to squeeze more if all wireless devices are off, no USB ports are used, and the brightness is throttled down a bit.

Also, I feel I can get a significant battery boost (as much as 20-30%) by (a) downgrading (upgrading?) to XP, which in turn leads to (b) the PowerSaving profile becoming available for the GPU. That'll also save a bit of heat.

The 6-cell battery is (almost) flush with the system, it protrudes only a few millimeters. The 9-cell battery protrudes one inch (2 to 3 centimeters). It can be difficult getting a good orientation of the power adapter cable when the 9-cell battery is in, since the power plug is close to the battery edge.

Screen

Very bright (can hurt your eyes on higher brightness levels in a dark room), nice colors. Typical viewangles (horizontal good, vertical bad).

It's glossy, like almost all new notebook screens. I have a major gripe with that: if I want to use a mirror I have one in the bathroom. In daylight, this screen acts comfortably as a mirror. You need to turn the brightness up to see anything, and you'll still have some problems trying to look at the text instead of yourself.

Glossy screens are bad, and that's my final word. But just like webcams, they're necessary evils nowadays...

Windows Vista

I had a long rant prepared for Vista but I don't feel like writing it just now; anyway it's not really the right place and the Internet is full of them. Suffice to say, Vista does exactly the same things like XP, just that it does them in a different way (but only at the surface, once you get deep enough into the interface you realize the components are actually the same); and it does them slower. Sometimes, it does things differently just for the sake of doing it differently. There are slowdowns and apparent freezes of applications for basic things like starting to download a file, or starting up Control Panel. It just isn't worth the trouble of dealing with Vista over XP. I know people will say it was the same way with Windows 98 and XP, but it's not true. With Windows 98, you had a system that couldn't last more than 24 hours without being restarted or giving a BSOD. XP eliminated all that, and that meant it was worth every cent and every usability problem. Vista just doesn't have anything to offer, really, for all the headaches that it causes.

So I recommend it from the bottom of my heart, for anyone with an ASUS computer and Vista: unless you need it for some very particular reason like DX10 support or something similar, do yourselves a favor and upgrade to XP.

Conclusions

Overall, I feel this is an excellent piece of machinery. I already knew most of the drawbacks before I bought, and I'm willing to living with them, because at their expense I get a powerful machine which has the top-notch ASUS quality of its earlier days.

A main thing I want to stress is that, although this computer is not very well known and you don't see it mentioned too often, it is a very worthy 13.3" alternative for people who want high computing performance and occasional gaming in a portable package, and don't mind too much poor battery life. It is especially good as an alternative to the significantly higher-priced U3S/U3Sg. That notebook also looks gaudier/flashier, which may deter people like me; the W7S does not suffer from this disadvantage.

Pros:
- Excellent build quality, inherited from the golden age of ASUS notebooks
- Very good looks, subdued, business, black-gray theme
- Small, light (at least with the 6-cell battery, under 2 kilos)
- High performance (especially noteworthy given the small package)
- Excellent array of included accessories, including two batteries: 6-cell and 9-cell

Cons:
- Bad battery life, compounded by Vista and lack of access to NVIDIA PowerMizer.
- Higher-than-average heat generation
- A few choices made by ASUS engineers that impede usability in my opinion, such as lack of dedicated WLAN and Bluetooth on/off switches.
- The "necessary evils" of 2008 computers: glossy screen and webcam
- Huge power adapter (although not at all heavy)
- Integrated 512MB of RAM, limiting the max amount of RAM to 2.5GB.
- Surface picks up fingerprints a bit too easily

(don't feel put off by the larger number of cons, I always tend to stress the negative aspects more in my reviews)

Addendum: ASUS W7Sg
Written 15 June 2008

After buying the W7S for my friend, as discussed above, I finally managed to buy an ASUS W7Sg for myself. I had been waiting for it for months, and it gave no sign of being introduced in The Netherlands. Luckily I had to make a trip to Hong Kong, and I found it there (and at a much better price, too).

Since from a usability standpoint the W7Sg is virtually identical to the W7S, and only some internals are different, I will only write the W7Sg review as an addendum. Let's start with the configuration:

W7S-3P023C

• CPU: Intel T9300 (Penryn 2.5GHz 6MB cache)
• RAM: 3GB (1 integrated, 2 on the single expansion slot available)
• GPU: NVIDIA 9300M G
• HDD: Hitachi 250GB 5400RPM
• OS: Vista 32bit in one out of 5 languages EN/RU/ES/CS/CT
• In the box: Bag, sleeve, 6-cell battery, BlueTooth laser mouse, LCD cleaning cloth, cable tie.
• and all the rest, as described in the W7S reviews in the main directory, for instance.

Note that I wiped Vista as soon as I could, so all the remarks below are based on data from Windows XP.

There are three main points where this notebook differs from the W7S, namely:

1. Perfomance: Both the Penryn and the 9300M NVIDIA are a step up in performance from the W7S. I don't have numbers for the W7S, but the Penryn T9300 computes 2M digits of Pi, with SuperPI, in 42 seconds, and the NVIDIA gets above 1800 points in 3DMark06 with a driver from the 175.xx series. Compared e.g., to the T2400 1.8GHz in my V6J, the Penryn is twice faster. Compared to the 8400 in the W7S, the 9300M seems to be much faster: the 8400 only got around 1100 points. Note though the OS difference during the tests (XP W7Sg, Vista W7S). The GPU driver version was the same, though.
2. Heat: It was a very pleasant surprise that the W7Sg actually gets less hot than the W7S, even though the components are faster. It's all in the die size: both the CPU and the GPU are manufactured on a smaller process than for the W7S. Whereas the W7S idled at around 60CPU/70GPU, the W7Sg idles at around 52CPU/65GPU. That may not look like much, but among other things it removes the constant ramping up and then back down of the fan, that the W7S does, because 60 degrees is precisely the threshold temperature between two different fan speeds. I used to say that it's likely there will be little heat improvement from the die shrink in the new Penryn CPU/9XXX GPU series notebooks. I was quite wrong: there is a significant improvement.
3. RAM: The amount of soldered RAM has increased to 1GB. This means the notebook takes up to 3GB, instead of 2.5.

Also probably because of the die shrink, combined with XP on the W7Sg versus Vista on the W7S, I get 2:20 on the 6-cell battery, which is 10 to 20 minutes more than on the W7S. That would mean that the W7Sg gets 3.5 hours with a 9-cell battery. Not bad at all.

Another thing I should mention is that although XP offers access to PowerMizer, the settings are very limited in the latest driver versions: one can only choose whether to activate PowerMizer on battery, or not. On AC power, the GPU still changes clocks as the driver sees fit between three available profiles, and there is no way to cap the clocks or to force them at a larger value.

Finally, I had a lot of trouble installing XP, because of a bug which prevents the GPU from being detected with 3GB or more of RAM. I had to investigate around the Internet for a solution, and do a trial-and-error approach of disabling PCI Express Root ports, to get the GPU to work.

That's pretty much it. In closing, I will edit the list of Pros and Cons of the W7S, so that it properly reflects the qualities and drawbacks of the W7Sg.

Pros:
- Excellent build quality, inherited from the golden age of ASUS notebooks
- Very good looks, subdued, business, black-gray theme
- Small, light (at least with the 6-cell battery, under 2 kilos)
- Excellent performance with the high-end Penryn 9300 GPU and 3GB of RAM (especially noteworthy given the small package)
- Good heat management (again, especially noteworthy given the high-performance components in the small package)

Cons:
- Not so good battery life, but seems better than the ASUS average
- A few choices made by ASUS engineers that impede usability in my opinion, such as lack of dedicated WLAN and Bluetooth on/off switches
- The "necessary evils" of 2008 computers: glossy screen and webcam
- Huge power adapter (although not at all heavy)
- Surface picks up fingerprints a bit too easily
- Lack of the 9-cell battery in the box (the W7S had it)


Hoping this helps,

E.B.E.

[Oldman]

Here in US, newegg offers $200 mail-in rebate today.
Thanks for sharing thoughts about notebook values that differ from CPU/GPU/3D marks comparison.

[niGht kiD]

Thanks for the review

My 1st laptop, and I'm satisfied

[E.B.E.]

Yeah, this little notebook is more than worth its money, but it's not very popular nowadays. People who want ASUS always seem to go for the high-juice GPUs or the shiny stuff nowadays.

[Chicken Royale]

Good write up.

It's nice to see a little community for the W7S here, and it's interesting that you mention the little headache with the FN key but I'm not too familiar with other laptops that locate it differently. I like how you talk about the no-nonsense design on the W7S and how you include the battery life performance of a 9-cell battery, as this was lacking in my review.

One problem with the heat though; the other day I was encoding some videos on 'high performance mode' and after an hour or so the laptop switched itself off from overheating, maybe it's time to invest in a notebook cooler

[E.B.E.]

I suggest a thorough fan & heatsink cleaning if you didn't already do that; and undervolting. If you use XP also make sure the GPU is in PowerSavings mode.

Unfortunately if you use Vista the HighPerf Power4Gear mode will automatically put the GPU in HighPerf mode as well, which will add significantly more heat. One work around this would be to tweak the 'Battery Saving' profile so that it actually allows the CPU to go full blast. This might trick Vista into letting the GPU in Balanced mode, and reduce the heat. You could then use the QuietOffice profile when you want to keep the CPU downclocked.

By the way I had forgotten about your W7S disassembly guide. I'll add it to the Info Booth ASAP.

[John Ratsey]

Samsung have traditionally put the Fn key in the bottom left corner but their latest product, the R410, has moved Fn to the right and put Ctrl in the corner. Perhaps there is a trend towards standardisation.

John

[Chicken Royale]

Originally Posted by E.B.E.

Unfortunately if you use Vista the HighPerf Power4Gear mode will automatically put the GPU in HighPerf mode as well, which will add significantly more heat. One work around this would be to tweak the 'Battery Saving' profile so that it actually allows the CPU to go full blast. This might trick Vista into letting the GPU in Balanced mode, and reduce the heat. You could then use the QuietOffice profile when you want to keep the CPU downclocked.

I might try that, but I am bit concerned with the GPU because the laptop has to power a 20 inch external monitor which I am using as my primary output, and ever since I had that external monitor the heatsink fan has been spooling louder and more regularly.

May need to clean the heatsink fan again as well

[E.B.E.]

I read on some older thread that actually driving an external monitor automatically pushes the GPU in Vista to the highest clocks.

One more reason to go back to XP...

[eastheaven]

I have a question about this laptop as sold on EXCaliberpc..
They have two different versions, W7S-B2B and W7S-B3B.
B2B
http://www.excaliberpc.com/Asus_W7S-...id-582274.html

B3B
http://www.excaliberpc.com/Asus_W7S-...id-584945.html

I skimmed over the specs and couldn't find anything different, but B3B costs $100 more. I'm willing to pay the extra $100 if whatever the difference between the two is worth it, but I can't find out what it is.

If anyone could help me, that would be great. =)