February 14th, 2008Review of ASUS U5A
In an age of life form in touch with the work yet from hotels, cafes, bars, and bistros; and every possible turn of the world, travel bugs living out of suitcases (for business or enjoyment) are eternally prying for that moveable piece of skill that can cater to their needs of a lightweight laptop that pockets a good bundle of features.
Asus appears to have beaten the right chord by understand this want. As a result, they have accessorized their already rising line of laptops with the introduction of U5A; a compact and lightweight notebook that has nearly all the features obtainable by a traditional desktop computer.
Features
The Asus U5A is an excellent instance of notebook technology coming of an age. This beauty of a portable computer has a 12.1″ Active Matrix LCD screen; and allowing for the features it provides the U5A is so light; it could give a ramp model a run for her money.
The U5A is powered by an Intel Pentium M 760 running at 2 GHz, 768 MB DDR2 RAM, 80 GB HDD, a multi format 8X DVD +/- RW drive. Other standard features like WLAN 802.11b/g and Bluetooth are available as well. Unlike the X600 on hand on the W3H00V, this one has an included Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 900 which provides decent graphics as well.
Cleverly placed function keys on the keypad provide easy access to turn on/off more than a few functions as and when the require be. The U5A has a built-in support for a serial monitor. Card slots on the side support PCMCIA, SD, MMC, MS, and Pro MS cards. It has three USB ports that you can use to connect a variety of devices to the laptop.
Performance
Though the U5A lacks the attractiveness of the Color Shine screen of the W3H00V, the Active Matrix LCD provides good color and depth. Also, the viewing angle is fairly good. It also sports a few power saving modes that one can switch physically. The U5A performed really well when it came to standard operations like word dispensation and a few low-end games. Since this is a 12″ notebook, the keyboard is a little compressed which may be a problem for those familiar to the standard keyboards.
The standard package includes a 6-cell 4800 mAH Li-Ion battery that contentedly provides an average of 175 minutes of incessant usage. It weighs around 1.3 kilograms with the battery and optical drive attached.
Allowing for the looks of the laptop it seems that Asus is seriously aiming at breaking off from the hooks of tradition by making their notebooks more of a lifestyle icon rather than fashion statement. The U5A is priced at around Rs. 67,499 exclusive of taxes and has 2 yr global warranty and is bundled with the Windows XP Home Edition SP2. The price is reasonable as evaluate to other 12″ notebooks obtainable in the market.
