Non-existent ASUS products

    - I have a desire to buy a car, but I do not have the opportunity. I have the opportunity to buy a goat, but I have no desire.


    Today I want to share a painful story: the story that I had been ill with for the past year trying to buy a laptop manufactured by the remarkable company ASUS.

    About a year ago I read on Habré a preliminary review of Boomburum 'and the new at that time B-series of ASUS laptops. It was before the New Year, and I thought: “And how cool it would be to myself to arrange such a gift, if not for the New Year, then at least for the anniversary!” I was born on January 22, because a three-week supply of time for the sequence “find where to sell, take if available or order, pay and receive”At that time they seemed quite sufficient to me, given that already in early January, Yandex began to issue something intelligible to queries like “ASUS B43J to buy”. Here in this place begins the whistle with a tambourine, that is, the period of my unfulfilled naive hopes.

    Of the entire series, I liked the version of the 14-inch model B43J with a discrete video adapter and an Intel Core i5 processor. I was very pleased that 64-bit Windows 7 Professional is preinstalled on the machines. For complete happiness, I would like 4 GB of RAM. It was in this configuration that I was hoping to get a “workhorse”.

    I live in a deep Siberian village with a population of one and a half million, which is sometimes proudly called the city, the city of Novosibirsk. Whoever does not know is in Siberia, beyond the Urals, almost 3,000 km from the capital. But here we have the beginnings of civilization - unlimited Internet, IKEA and even the official BMW dealer. 2GIS has grown from our village, there are a couple more attractions, but we are not talking about them. Trading anything in Novosibirsk is completely wild, namely: you can buy in two ways - you can take what you see from the seller or ask the seller if he can take an order for a thing, if he can - wait and he will bring in 2-3 weeks . But it happens that it cannot and then you can only try to sort out other sellers, but usually the refusal of one is equivalent to the inability to buy this thing at all. “Ha!” - you say, “So you can order it in an online store or just from a seller in another city or country, and it will arrive by mail (alternative delivery service)!” Here I will make a reservation - I don’t really like this option, firstly because of issues with a guarantee, and secondly I don’t want to get a brick or a bag of grain. But this, as it turned out, is not a barrier.

    By my birthday, all the sellers available to me shook their heads inadvertently and only shrugged their hands - “We don’t ... We don’t know such a model, we don’t have any suppliers, we can’t bring it.” Meanwhile, Yandex.Market was already timidly showing prices at several Moscow sellers for one single configuration.

    Looking ahead, I want to tell how much I was surprised that it is theoretically impossible to find out the possible configurations of a particular model! For most manufacturers, each model still has N possible configurations, each of which has its own unique alphanumeric identifier. This is logical and very convenient, and even more so if it is publicly available information, - for example, on the official website I’ve chosen the configuration and look for where it is and how much it costs, and you’re already clearly looking for exactly what you have chosen. But not at ASUS! I suspect that their models also have a list of configurations, but even their tech support does not know about it. This is either some kind of commercial secret or just a blatant mess. Well, or the second - the reason for the first. On sites (by the way, ASUS has several sites and everything is updated disgustingly) we can find a section on the model,nowhere . And the funniest thing is that on sale eventually there are models that with their filling do not even fit into this meager bunch of available information (for example, on sale we see an option with a processor that is not included in the list of installed ones, but laptops with those listed - on sale just do not see).

    In March, the opportunity arose to buy the object of desire in the option “on order”. But I was delighted early - the only configuration with a “crooked” set of 2 + 1 GB memory dies. Seriously: I don’t understand - why collect 3-gigabyte configurations and then put on them a 64-bit operating system, which is all 4 tough? Anyway. The point is that I did not want such a configuration. “Wait!” The seller said, and his colleagues echoed him.

    I began to wait. After a month or two, now I don’t remember exactly, in a similar purchase option it was possible to buy a configuration with four gigabytes of RAM, but ... with Windows 7 Home Premium. I was again amazed - why on the model for the business sector is the home version of the operating system. Again: "Wait."

    As it turned out, the situation is typical not only for Novosibirsk, but also for Russia in general, at least if you trust Yandex.Market and generally web search.

    At this moment I thought that it is probably worth the manufacturer to ask about the opportunity to get acquainted with the list of possible configurations, and maybe get advice - where and how to buy the one you liked. To both questions, the manufacturer only shrugged. I did not receive a reply to my email at all, and on the phone every time no one could answer me intelligibly.

    Then new laptop models of other manufacturers appeared on the market, already with updated Intel i3 / 5/7 processors, and I switched the focus from ASUS to the other side. I spat on ASUS and almost forgot, but ( by tradition?) On New Year's Eve, I was struck by another review of the beautiful business portability from ASUS, now with updated model suffixes and, accordingly, the filling. I don’t already know what, but I was sunk into the design of these devices, and I was eager to buy one of them. This time, the B43S. Well, or B33E, if everything is really bad with the first one (at the moment there’s such a mess on the manufacturer’s websites that it’s not immediately clear whether he even releases these models). And always with Core i5, Windows 7 Professional and 4 GB of RAM.

    And again with his forehead against the wall. B43S for sellers in nature at the moment does not exist, although his reviews, which I came across, are dated at least three months earlier. But when it appears on sale ... Something tells me that options will be available either with the wrong processors or the wrong operating system. Or else some illogical configurations, probably especially for Russia, because it’s hard to understand, as the classic said, and therefore we only need to supply very special configurations.

    B33E - is already available, but only with i3, i5 seems to exist in nature (represented by Yandex.Market), but it is very sluggish and mysterious. In addition, Intel HD Graphics 3000 does not inspire me so much that I strongly doubt the ability to force myself to vote for it in rubles.

    I am sure that I am not the only one who does not understand why everything is so stupidly happening. And, I think, many people, driven by such desires to buy ASUS products, eventually compromise and buy something, but not quite what we would like. I previously decided to write and publish this text, maybe at least it will allow me to reach out to a strange producer.

    I called ASUS products non-existent because at the time of their relevance they do not exist in availability, at least in logical and most desirable configurations.

    PS: The phrase from the title of the first review I mentioned here after this whole story acquired completely different, very unexpected at the time of its reading, shades.

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