Asus Laptop Review

12 Jan 2010

12 Jan, 2010 Laptop

ASUS UL30A-X5 Thin and Light 13.3-Inch Black Laptop Review

Product Description

Weighing less than 4lbs and measuring less than an inch thin, the new ASUS UL30A-X5 is a harmonious blend of form and function. Powered by an Intel Core 2 Duo ultra-low voltage processor, it boasts an impressive 12 hour battery life for all-day computing. It also sports user-centric features such as a multi-gesture touchpad and provides an impressive multimedia entertainment experience with Altec Lansing speakers and SRS Premium Sound.

Technical Details

1.3GHz Intel SU7300 Core 2 Duo Processor
4GB of DDR3 RAM, 2 slots, 4GB Max
500GB SATA Hard Drive (5400 RPM)
13.3″ HD LED LCD Display, Intel GMA 4500MHD, Wi-Fi 802.11 bgn, 0.3M Webcam
Windows 7 Home Premium Operating System (64 bit)

Pros

Keyboard. A pleasure to type on.
Touchpad. It drags at first, but once you get some finger oil on it, and change the pointer speed, it’s one of the best that I’ve used. Very smooth two finger scroller. Support for customized two and three finger click.
Screen. Bright and easy to read at 30 degree angles.
Battery life. Yes, it will do over 10 hours.
Weight/size. 1 inch thin and very light.
Body. Love the brushed black metal look on the case.
Asus facial recognition login. Didn’t think that I would care, but it’s nice to have the computer log in, without touch, when I’m sitting in front of it.
Asus FastBoot (not the BIOS fast boot). This lets you configure which programs load during startup and which load after. Speeds up the boot quite a bit.
Decent speakers. Not ear-destroying, but suitable for the size. Much better than most netbooks.

Cons

Placement of touchpad. It still registers my palm as I’m typing even at the extreme setting. Downloaded the new touchpad driver, but that didn’t fix. Still looking for a solution. This is by far the most frustrating problem. The TouchFreeze utility seems to almost fix the issue.
Case still shows fingerprints.
Web cam is low res and has difficulty in low light

Overall, this laptop is perfect and recommended for students, and travelers.