Stay away from Asus A730W!!!!

[SeaJohn]

I got a 730W a couple of weeks ago and have now returned it, hopefully for a full refund.

This thing is simply horrible. Read the following and beware. I'm going back to ipaq.

- Battery life is totally unacceptable. It comes with 2 batteries; I had both fully charged Friday night. By Sunday night both were below 5% of capacity and I had done very little - a couple of hours of ebook reading, a few minutes of bluetooth internet browsing, a few minutes of game playing, and a few minutes of video playback. Under similar usage, my previous PDA (ipaq) would last 3-4 days on ONE battery.

- The 802.11b adapter is very poor - I had major problems connecting to most networks which I was able to connect to with no problem when using my previous ipaq. When connected, the range was very poor.

- The camera application stopped working a couple of days after I got it. After I did a hard reset, it came back, and then stopped working again a few days later.

- The back cover, which you have to remove to change the battery (which you have to do daily) is a very cheap piece of plastic which feels like it will break if you breathe on it too hard.

- The video h/w is SLOW...Benchmarks I tried with BetaPlayer were 50% to 75% below those of my friend's ipaq 47xx (or something like that)

[Gatewood]

You must just have a lemon. Mine is pretty wonderful. The WiFi is especially good, and it connects instantly both at home and at any and every hotspot. I do have the larger battery, but the regular battery hasn't been so bad, either. It's not as big a battery as some, but I use WiFi, read books, play games, etc., without a problem. I agree about the back panel. It's a bit creaky. I wish it were stronger feeling, but the screen is gorgeous, and the WiFi is one of the best of the various PPCs I have. And by the way, I have eight of them. Don't ask why. ;)

[SeaJohn]

Thanks for the info. We ended up keeping it, although I haven't been using it. I'll try sending it back for warranty replacement.

I agree; the display is really nice.

[robint]

It's a small world, lolol.

I bought Gate's Asus. :::waves to Gatewood::: I'm only looking around the forums today because I am curious about viewpoints. I do this every time I buy a new PPC or Palm OS PDA. I buy one, use it for a month or so, then I read customer views. Prior to purchasing, I usually read reviews by critics, etc. I've only had the Asus for two weeks, but it's made an incredible impact on me.

Anyway, the main point I agree with is the battery power. However, I'm homebound, have an extra 1100mAh battery, as well as an 1800mAh, so I'm not going to end up without battery power. And, since I am a mega-PPC/PDA user, I just drop the PDA into the charger when not in use, so I don't usually take out the extra batteries - unless I'm going to have a long day at the hospital and/or doctor's. The camera's not so hot, but I have plenty of digital cameras, including those that come with a couple of Palm OS devices I have.

I have never had WiFi problems, and believe me, I use the WiFi 24/7. I use all of the PIM features as well - and since I'm using Outlook Express with these, all of my devices - Palm, PPC, Zaurus and BlackBerry - are always up-to-date. I tend to be very detail-oriented, so running Hotsync and/or ActiveSync takes just a few moments daily if a change has been made. Then, with my BlackBerry 7100T's automatic reconciliation, I don't have to do this manually.

In any case, I absolutely love the Asus. I had, two weeks before buying the Asus, purchased a used Dell and also a used Toshiba. And, since my latest Palm OS PDA was a total bust - um, the LifeDrive - I deserved a VGA PPC when one came within my reach.

So, back to looking around this forum, and still loving this PPC that no one can make me believe it was a waste of my funds.