According to Notebook Review, ASUS' 14.1-inch A8Jm Core Duo-powered laptop is a powerful, feature-filled machine that provides good value for its $1,550 pricetag -- but you also have to factor the cost of potential Geek Squad service calls into that price, because ASUS' tech support options, both online and over-the-phone, are judged to be pretty mediocre. Still, even after having no luck -- and getting no help -- figuring out why the InstantON button on his unit was causing the notebook to boot directly into Windows, the reviewer doesn't hesitate to recommend the A8Jm almost without reservation, citing its video capabilities (a nVidia GeForce Go 7600 card pushing 1,280 x 800 pixels), connectivity options (WiFi, ExpressCard, card reader, and FireWire, DVI, S/PDIF, and five USB 2.0 ports), quiet operation, and most importantly, the speed of its 1.83GHz T2400 processor and 667MHz DDR2 RAM. Besides that buggy InstantON button, the lack of built-in Bluetooth seems to be the only real knock against this model (especially since European versions have it while North American ones don't), but that's an issue you can easily remedy on your own.
posted Jun 9th 2006 2:24PM
I wouldn't call ASUS's support bad, just unpredicatable: If you send them an email for tech support, or phone, they are very helpful, and generally reply to emails within 12 hours. They also honour warranties: my brother killed his laptop hard disk, and they happily replaced it. However, they initially sent him back someone else's machine, then phoned to say ooops, there's been a messup, so it took about two weeks to get the laptop repaired.
ch424
The A8Jm is at the top of my list. It has everything I could possibly want. 14" WXGA, a good CPU, lots of RAM, a good GPU, and a quality build, and not everybody knows what it is.
I got the A8Jm and it's sweet :) i recommend it to anyone you can get it at portable one in the US.
Well designed, visually at least.