Asus UL50VS review: first look
By Benny Har-Even in Editorial
In what is probably not an amazing coincidence, Asus has launched a flurry of products that are available on just the same day as Windows 7. Funnily enough, pretty much all of them will ship with Windows 7 - funny how these things pan out.
Two products caught our eye. Well, mine anyway.
Firstly was theUL50VS, a notebook that despite its decent 15.6in display, can according to Asus manage up to 12 hours away from the mains - which seems frankly amazing if true.
Key to this is certainly the use of a Intel Core 2 Duo SU7300 - a CULV processor- which stands for Consumer Ultra Low Voltage. This runs at a rather lowly 1.3GHz, but still seemed comfortable with Windows 7 Professional 64-bit - which I was told Asus is now going with as standard. The 4GB of DDR3 RAM probably helped here though.
First impressions of the notebook were pretty good and we were surprised to see an RRP of just £1,099 inc VAT, especially as it features a 160GB SSD.
The display is LED backlit and it wasn’t wanting for brightness but it only offers 1,366 x 768 pixels. This isn’t much on a screen of this size and is clearly where a lot of cost has been saved.
The lid was quite thin, and has a brushed aluminium finish but the main body is constructed of glossy black plastic that had already attracted a serious amount of fingerprints.
Elsewhere the spec is good, with switchable graphics a highlight, letting you choose between long-life Intel GMA X4500HD or Nvidia G210M for more video punch.
This is activated on the fly inside Windows 7 by pressing a button at the top left. Press it when the machine is off, and it will boot in about 10 seconds into a basic Linux OS, giving you access to the web, pictures, and Skyp. It works too.
With 802.11n Wi-Fi, Gigabit Ethernet and Blluetooth this is a laptop that will attract both consumer and business interest - the latter helped particularly by the keyboard featuring a dedicated number pad.
The really impressive bit though is that 12 hour battery life - after all, getting half of that from a laptop this size would be impressive so we look forward to getting our hands on a finished sample to test this out.
We also like the look of a new Asus Eee PC videophone, which has been upgraded from the first one released last year with the addition of a touch screen.It looks good but the RRP of £240 seems a bit steep. Luckily it’ll be on offer this Christmas for £199, which could see it reach some, rather large, stockings.
Not yet rated
Loading ...
Tag cloud
Most commented posts
Highest Rated Blog Posts
- 3G iPhone, but still on O2. Really? (100%)
- Big in Japan (100%)
- Windows 7 making Mac OS X lose its lustre? (100%)
- Acer Ferrari One netbook photos (100%)
- Chrome OS netbooks - Sidekicks for geeks? (100%)
- Microsoft employees not all evil shocker (100%)
- Business Class (100%)
- I want my ‘Annex-M’ (100%)
- A lesson in 3D at Dreamworks HQ (100%)
- What I’d like to see in the new iPhone (100%)
