ASUS U30SD-XA1 13.3-Inch Thin and Light Laptop (Black)
13.3″ / HD (1366 x768) (LED) / i5-2410M (2.66GHz) / 4G DDR3 / NV 520M 1GB DDR3 VRAM (Optimus Technology) / 500G 5400RPM / Super Multi DVD / Windows 7 Home Premium (64bit) / 802.11 bgn / VGA / HDMI / Intel WiDi / Bluetooth / 3x USB 2.0 ports / 4-in-1 Card Reader / 0.3 MP / 8 cell 5600mAhThin & Light with the Power to Perform
The new U30SD-XA1 presents an impressive style of compact finesse, with its light aluminum alloy construction, chiclet keyboard and oversized palm rests. Start
List Price: $ 849.99
Price: $ 679.99
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Well rounded features with high build quality,
I’ve broken this review into sections with a number rating out of 10 for each. There’s a pro/con summary at the end.
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Keyboard: 9/10
Brilliant size, layout and tactile response. The black on black chiclet keys look sharp, modern and are comfortable to type on. Typing is also relatively silent and unlike a lot of other Asus laptops, there is very small flex. I like the minimalist look and that there are no superfluous media keys. The keys themselves are spacious and the lettering is slightly over-sized. The only thing missing that would make it perfect to me is back lighting.
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Touchpad: 7/10
Performance is smooth and accurate for standard navigation & left/right clicking. The pad is spacious and the left/right click rocker bar works as it should. Two finger scrolling works really well, but the other multi-touch functions (zoom in/out, rotate) are buggy and only work half the time when I try. The chrome left/right click bar looks fantastic, but finger print oils show up after awhile so you’ll want to wipe it down regularly.
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Show: 7/10
The LED show is bright and colors are vibrant/accurate. But – I was disappointed by the viewing angles when watching video and find that it’s necessary to sit directly in front of the screen to avoid degradation in picture quality. Also, the screen is very reflective, which makes it hard to use this laptop outdoors or in a position where lights are behind you.
I would have preferred a resolution higher than 1366 x 768, but I was aware of this limitation when making the buy, so no points lost for that. The Asus ‘Splendid Utility’ that allows you to switch between different color viewing modes (Normal, Theater, Vibrant, Soft, etc) seems useless. Everything but ‘Normal’ mode looks muddy or discolored to me.
All in all I reckon the show will be fine for most people but it isn’t incredible or something that stands out impressively from the competition.
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Audio: 6/10
As with most laptops, the speakers are not very impressive. Audio is tinny and there is very small bass when I listen to music or watch movies. The placement of the speakers in the front of the chassis slanting down doesn’t help matters. If you plot on using this laptop for watching a lot of movies or listening to music, you’ll certainly want some headphones or high quality portables to use.
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Speed and Performance: 8/10
This small champ has handled just about everything I’ve thrown at it so far. It streams media from my home server flawlessly, with no lag or stuttering in the video. Online streaming via Netflix, Hulu etc also works fantastic. Windows/Menus/Programs/Media Center are quick to open and everything feels very snappy. Photoshop opens quickly and performs well for 4GB of RAM. I encoded a couple of videos using Handbrake and it performed comparably with my core2quad desktop.
Drive access sometimes slows down in explorer if I’m heavily multitasking, but nothing abnormal or excessive. The product description overview says this has a 7200 rpm drive, but it is really a 5400 rpm drive as stated in the expanded technical description. I will most likely upgrade to an SSD & 8GB of RAM at some point.
There was a ton of bloatware preinstalled. I was really concerned at first because the system ran really slow after initially booting up and even froze up a couple of times as I tried to remove some of the crap. But, after rebooting & finally getting everything off, I updated Windows to SP1 and everything ran fine after that.
I wish they included a real recovery disk with options to leave off extra programs instead of storing it in a hidden partition as a bundled package. I’m thinking of just doing a clean install with one of my Windows 7 Professional disks and buying a license key before the 30 day activation is up. Although this laptop runs perfectly 95% of the time, there are odd moments where it hangs on something, and part of me thinks it relates to the buggy behavior I experienced while trying to remove some of the bloat. Perhaps some registry changes were made that is interfering. I don’t know.
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Build Quality & Form Factor: 10/10
Despite the compact size and plastic chassis, this laptop feels solid and well made. I like the black colors and brushed faux metal look of the palm rest and cover. The shiny bezel around the LCD panel attracts fingerprints and dust, but it looks very sleek/modern when wiped down. You can’t really see it in the photos, but the plastic around the keyboard has a faint glitter effect that looks cool.
I also like the simple access to the hard drive &…
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|Nice laptop with some juice,
Just got this laptop 2 days ago thanks to amazon prime shipping.
I needed a small and light laptop with some juice and bought this laptop.
Pros:
-Sandybridge CPU, very quick and snappy.
-G520M with optimus. I like this technology, as it saves a lot of battery. You can choose what program to use with the discrete or integrated video card. I’ve only tested counter-strike source and I got up to 150fps, ranging around 50-70 average on High settings!
-Keyboard looks very nice and clean and feels excellent to type on
-Not too heavy, something you can carry around with you.
-Build of the laptop is very excellent, wish they would place the same material thats on the palm rest to the case. (Oil resistance)
-Battery life is VERY excellent! So far I get around 8 hours (Surfing, Gaming, Install programs, Movies, Brightness at 30-40%)
-Touchpad is excellent, but clicker attracts oil!!
-Nice and silent, no vents on bottom, doesn’t get burning hot.
Cons:
-Speakers are very dull. No clarity at all, nor its loud. I can live with it but would prefer to have headphones on.
-Resolution is at 1366×768, but it looks fine on at 13″ laptop. Viewing angles arent fantastic and can’t really see outdoor.
-Finger print magnet on the cover.
-Webcam could be better.
-No USB 3.0
-Not 7200RPM HDD like advertised
-ASUS BLOATWARE
So far I’m satisfied with my buy, battery life is excellent, moderate gaming when needed, sandy bridge, build is nice and its not too heavy. I plot to use this laptop for some business work/ personal entertainment. If you can deal with the cons, this laptop is for you!
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|Surpassed all of my expectations,
Where to start? I bought this laptop for college next year. My budget was limited (hooray minimum wage jobs!) and this seemed like a excellent deal for the price, so I thought why not?
I had greatly underestimated this laptop.
This review will talk about what other reviews don’t talk about, and that is software. The default install has plenty of bloatware, so I installed a blank install using the product key on the bottom of the laptop. Then it came to install the drivers from the CD Asus supplies you… there were a lot of files. I reckon in the end I finished up installing nearly all of them.
The Asus-branded software offered is hardly bloatware. Asus Quick Boot is a fantastic feature which lets you install as much crap as you want, and still have the computer start up honestly quickly. The Bluetooth drivers are the best I’ve seen in any device, period. You can use your computer as a headset for your phone, you can use bluetooth headsets/phones with the computer, you can browse your phone via bluetooth in Windows Explorer (and not in some crappy manufacturer software). It made bluetooth functionality about 50x more useful to me. Scene Switch is fantastic for people who want to use this for both work/school and home. Asus Splendid lets you right the colors for the show.
So is the show really as terrible as people say? Personally I reckon it’s blown out of proportion. The reviewer which gave the screen a 7/10 is honest: the viewing angles aren’t the best, though the color reproduction is pretty excellent. In “Soft Mode” with Asus Splendid, the show’s colors look just as excellent as my desktop’s Samsung monitor. I like glossy screens so no complaint about that.
The build quality of the entire package in general is phenomenal, and the keyboard is pure bliss. No backlight though. Oh well.
Performance? Incredible. Even in “battery saving” mode, you have more than enough power to do anything you want, watch 1080p content, etc. Amusing tale: I ran the laptop on integrated graphics only (I messed up the driver install) and I couldn’t tell until I tried opening nvidia control panel, and no such thing existed. As far as gaming, the most intensive game I play is Team Fortress 2. The integrated graphics run it at medium/low, and the dedicated card runs it at absolute max at 20-30fps, and if you turn filtering down to 2x or 4x, you get 30-60 fps. I have AA and AF both at 2x and I don’t experience slowdowns.
Speakers are a disappointment. My eee pc (900HA) has better speakers.
So, to upgrade this laptop, I’ll also be buying an SD card (for ReadyBoost) and an extra 4GB of RAM. The plot is to be able to run AutoCAD, and also the Adobe Creative Suite. And seeing how it’s performed so far, I don’t reckon I’ll have an issue with it.
I’m probably going to made a video of this computer for youtube over the weekend, so look forward to that?
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