Asus W7J 13.3 inch Portable Core Duo Notebook Review

Weight, Temperature, Noise

The weight of the Asus W7J is extremely light in my hands and it’s easily picked up using a single hand without the need for bracing. Comparing the weights of the laptops we’ve reviewed in the past, we can see that the W7J is right at the 5 lbs. mark which makes it a portable laptop, rather than an ultra-portable unit.

Metric version of the above chart.

Compared to Asus’ advertised weight of 1950 grams, we’re about 200g heavier. In fact, all the Asus laptops we’ve reviewed are roughly 200g heavier than the advertised weight. The Dell and Compaq laptops we’ve tested are nearly spot-on with the manufacturer’s spec, so perhaps Asus is weighing their units without a CPU and RAM?

Though the W7J is 1 pound heavier than the W5F, the relative weight feels about the same. The power adapter weight is a bit heavier than the W5F and adds another pound to your total system weight.

Celsius version of the above chart
* Ambient temperature will affect results.

Celsius version of the above chart
* Ambient temperature will affect results.

The above temprature chart requires some careful analysis. The Asus W7J is a hot laptop, but why? The answer lies with the GPU. When idling and under load, the NVIDIA GeForce Go 7400 generates a lot of heat, which will increase the temperatures of the CPU, hard drive, and the exterior casing of the laptop. The small form factor of the laptop certainly doesn’t help the heat situation — the internal parts are closer adding to each other’s heat, and the case doesn’t allow for aggressive cooling schemes like on the Dell XPS M1710.

However, even though the Asus W7J is a toasty laptop, the fan on the laptop is not unbearable in terms of noise. When loaded full-blast, the W7J is quiet and gives off nothing more than a gentle blowing / rushing air sound. The cooling appeared to be adequate as it never failed or showed any signs of instability during testing.