ASUS U36SD-A1 13.3-Inch Thin and Light Laptop (Black)
- Intel Core i5-2410M (2.3GHz)
- 4GB DDR3 1066 MHz, 2 SODDIMM Sockets, up to 8GB
- 640 GB – Serial ATA-300 – 5400 rpm
- 13.3-Inch HD (1366 *768) LED,Nvidia GT 520 1G
- Windows Home Premium 64-bit Operating System
13.3″ (1366 *768) LED/i5 -2410M Dual Core (2.3GHz)/4GB DDR3 RAM/Nvidia GT 520 1G/640G 5400/Windows 7 Home Premium (64bit)/802.11BGN/0.3M Pixel/Bluetooth/ 8 Cell Battery/1 USB 3.0/2 USB 2.0/5-in-1 card reader/2YR Global Warranty/1YR Accidental Hurt Warranty/30-Day Zero Bright Dot/2-Way FREE shipping/24-7 tech support
List Price: $ 899.99
Price: $ 888.95
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Asus U36SD Review,
Okay first thing first. I did not really buy this computer from Amazon, I bought it from a Microsoft retail store and it is really not a U36SD-A1 but a U36SD-RBK5 but as far as I can tell the only difference is the RBK5 does not come with built in bluetooth. No huge deal for me.
For those of you who don’t feel like reading all of the following, I’ll summarize this review into pros and cons.
PROS:
Awesome build quality
Thin
Decent track pad
Dedicated graphics
No optical drive
Cons:
Glossy bezel
No backlit keyboad
Sub par screen for this category
The build quality is very nice throughout the entire laptop. There is small to no flexing in any part of the keyboard or palm rest and the entire body has a really nice feel to it. Asus claims it has a “nanometer coating” and a “magnesium aluminum” frame, I’m not sure what a nanometer coating is but it feels nice and does seem to resist fingerprints pretty decently. I am slightly worried about how scratch resistant the coating will be, but I guess only time will tell how strong it really is. The only thing I don’t like about the body of this laptop is the glossy bezel. How hard would it have been to extend this awesome feeling material to the relatively thin bezel around the screen? The glossy material is the only thing that looks cheap on this computer..
This laptop is awesomely thin. It’s the first thing every one I’ve shown it has pointed out. It’s not as thin as a MacBook Air or the Samsung Series 9 but I couldn’t imagine anyone thinking this beauty was stout. You can’t tell from any of the pictures posted, but the included 8 cell battery sticks out about 3/8″ from the bottom of the laptop. It really props the computer up at a nice angle so it doesn’t bother me. Overall I’m really pleased with the design of this computer.
The keyboard is pretty nice as well. Not much to say about it, if you’ve used a chicklet keyboard before than you pretty much know what youre getting. I would’ve loved to see a backlit keyboard option, but I guess sacrifices had to be made in order to keep this form factor.
The trackpad appears to have the same nanometer coating as the rest of the body, albeit a slightly slipperier version. It feels excellent and is honestly large. One tweak I stumbled upon is a small program that enables two finger scrolling. Two finger scrolling is one of the few things I’m envious about on my friends’ macs so finding a way to enable it (and enable it well) was pretty exciting for me.[...] It should be noted that the trackpad, by default, has the typical scrolling area on the right hand side, but I found this to be a small hard to use sometimes and happily ditched it for two finger scrolling.
The screen is reasonably sharp and colors come out just okay but I wish the resolution was slightly higher and I kind of expect a laptop in mid 2011 to come with something better. I mean my Dell m1330 I bought 3 years ago has the same resolution! Come on Asus, at least offer a nicer screen as an upgrade option…
I haven’t had any issues with the performance yet, but then again I wouldn’t expect any with what I’ve used it for thus far. It runs perfectly fine with half a dozen or so tabs open in chrome plus utorrent running in the background and vlc playing a 720p movie. I haven’t tried any video editing or gaming yet on it but for day to day use it will certainly not disappoint. I’m thankful to have a dedicated graphics card as my last laptop did not. I’m not a huge gamer but I reckon it should be able to run most modern games with the detail turned down a small at a reasonable frame rate.
Battery life is respectable. I’ve been getting around 4-5 hours with the brightness cranked all the way up while browsing the internet and watching the occasional video. Turn down the brightness a small bit and it could easily last another hour or so.
One final note is the lack of an optical drive. A lot of people may be hesitant because of this, but this was really a requirement for me while I was searching for a new computer. For most people I know and myself the optical drive goes largely unused. In the three years I owned my ancient laptop I used the optical drive maybe 4-5 times. I see no reason in lugging it around everyday if I hardly ever use it. I bought an external usb optical drive on sale from fry’s for $30, so if I ever need to install a program from a dvd then I’ll still be okay. Physical media like CD are quickly become obsolete and I for one am glad to see them go.
So to wrap it up I really like this laptop. I would certainly recommend it to anyone looking for a thin 13.3″ computer at a reasonable price. Plus if youre a student (like me) and buy this computer in the month you get a free xbox 360 if you buy it from a participating store…
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|Slim, Quick and light,
Asus U36sd-A1, is one of the best laptops I have ever seen or felt. This piece of awesomeness is quick, sturdy and thinner than any other laptop in this category (excluding samsung which is overly priced). The solid metallic feel is fantastic and fun to carry it around in one hand.
I chose to buy this after researching for over 2 weeks. Only competitor to this laptop worth trying is Toshiba Portege R830 series. But it has negative remarks for the cooling system they brag about but not sure how genuine the remarks are.
I have had a Toshiba before which lasted for 5 years without a glitch but it’s time to try something new.
Asus, being the first in most reliable laptops (second being Toshiba), there’s no chance I could avoid trying Asus this time. I bought this piece from gentechpc, configured to 6GB RAM. It has a nice small button at the top left corner which allows you to change performance modes (high performance, battery saving, entertainment mode, silent office mode) which is a cool feature.
Optimus technology changes the graphic card access between nvidia and in house intel graphic cards, saving power. I have only heard about this feature but believe me it’s really fantastic seeing it practically.
One full charge gave me 7hrs of battery life with battery saving mode and 4hrs of battery with high performance mode. I tested Video editing (mpeg encoding) for speed, heat and noise. Encoding was quick, but it got small hotter and noise negligible. Playing 1080p videos for an hour may make it hot but compared to other laptops (macbook pro, toshiba portege which my friends own), it’s less.
Chiclet Keyboard feel is fantastic and all keys are easily accessible. You know, ctrl, end, home keys in some laptops are annoying.
Browsing is fun, can’t get better than this. It has a usb3 which I never tested for video cos I reckon there’s no receiver yet in the market. 4.8Gb/s transfer rate would certainly be excellent to see.
Only cons are speakers, price and optical drive but if you are willing to spend 30 bucks for external dvd/cd drive, then you are excellent to go. I personally go with latest tech and I reckon optical drive is obsolete but for blu-ray burners.
I reckon price is reasonable compared to its competitors (vaio, toshiba{if configured}, lenovo/thinkpad) with similar form factor.
To maintain this form factor I can imagine the placement of low powered speakers. But, the inbuilt 5.1 soundblaster card makes your headset or external speaker experience fantastic.
All-in-all you gotta experience it! I would certainly recommend this laptop to Tech enthusiasts cos there’s much to explore.
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|SOLID BODY + THIN + QUICK = WIN!,
I bought this laptop from a local Microsoft Store yesterday after stumbling upon an external link Amazon gave on this page. THIS was the laptop I had been waiting 9 months for since the U36JC debut. Felt like I just had a baby.. so joyous!
Anyway, as I unveiled it, I was impressed on how THIN the body was while having an AMAZINGLY solid frame. The laptop base does not bend if you hold it at any of the corners! It certainly does not feel like cheap plastic (probably because it really IS made of lightweight metal) & has a classy satin feel to it. It has a fingerprint-repelling nano-coating seemingly all over the body too. It is also so light for having such a powerful processor + graphics card. My computer friend was right to have me wait/hold out until this came out. I was tempted with HPs, Sonys, Acers but from his repair experience on so many laptops, those were all junk! (HPs were decent in the middle but still the construction felt cheap/plastic).
Such a powerful [Sandy Bridge] processor in such a solid body with such a thin profile has finally become a dream come right. Portability without the sacrifice of quality & power.. such is the legendary motherboard manufacturer ASUS!
FANTASTIC JOB ASUS!!!
Kai
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