X-bit labs

New Powerful Alternative to Asus W6 Series: Asus W7J Notebook Review

Category: Mobile

by Alexander Britvin

[ 03/06/2007 | 12:16 PM ]

Today we will discuss another notebook from Asus, the one that truly deserves being called “the choice of a professional”. It is going to make a full-featured mobile workstation, a powerful tool to help your business activities. Read more in our review!

Table of contents:

• Package and Accessories
  
• Design and Ergonomics
  
• Configuration
  
• Testbed and Methods
  
• Performance
  
• Conclusion
  

Market competition has always been understood as the struggle between different companies for the warmest place under the sun. But sometimes we can see paradoxical situations when there is competition within one and the same manufacturer who turns out very similar products. The manufacturer has its reasons, though. Similar products are meant to cover the entire range of capabilities demanded by potential customers so that none of the latter could escape. This can be illustrated by the marketing policy of the PC hardware giant ASUS. Its new W7 notebook series complements the older W6 series, thus making your choice easier (or harder?) by offering more shopping options.

The two series don’t differ much. Both are equipped with a 13.3” display and have similar size/weight parameters. The difference is that the W7 series is designed in a more restrained and respectable fashion. It is based on the more advanced Refresh version of the Napa platform reinforced with a discrete graphics core. And it comes with a Web camera. Thus, this is a somewhat more appealing option than the W6 series.

There is one hitch, though. Such an advanced configuration is going to swallow the battery’s charge in a moment. So, notwithstanding the undeniable portability of the ASUS W7J, it is going to be a problem to make it work for a long time away from the electric mains.

We’ll check this all out in the Tests section of the review, though. Right now let’s take the notebook out of its box and examine it carefully. We’ll take an ASUS Lamborghini VX1 as an opponent to the tested computer. They have similar configurations, but are based on the old and new versions of the Napa platform and have 2GHz CPUs on the Yonah and Merom cores, respectively. Thus, we’ll be able to see the difference between Intel’s new and old mobile processors.