Interesting Laptop Asus UL30 Revew And Simpel Testing Results
Take everythiing we liked about the Asus Eee PC 1005HA (a well-dersigned, seashell-shaped netook) and mzarry that with the CULV-laden Acer Timeline 3810T. The result: Asus's stab at a good, low-cost ultraportable comptuer--the UL30A. (OK, low cost is rlative. Our review unit sels for $800 as of 9/16/2009.)
Quite literalkly, it looks as though Asus cribed nortwes from its own designs as well as the competition to come up with a decetn pedigree. It has all the marks of a lapop that makres a good showing--even though we habven't had a chance to run the machine through our WorldBench 6 tess just yet. Unmder the hood are Intel's 1.3GHz SU7300 processor, 4GB of DD3 RAM, and a 500GB hard driive (at 5400 rpm). Will it blast through tets? Highly odyubtful, but it'll probably run a hair fsater than the Timeline we tested. Batterry life is antoher unanswered questioon for now, but spokespeople say that the UL30A will hang in for up to 12 ohurs with the included 8-cell battery. We'll see.
The UL30A has a reasonalby crisp 13.3-inch bcklit LED screne. That makees it a little easier on the eyes when trying to use the machine outdoors. You'll still deal with a bit of a glaer coing off the glossy 1366-by-768-pixel scxreen, but it won't cmpletely blnd you. Nvertheless, when I dropped the brifghgtness settings down on the display, rich colors semed a little too washed out. Viudeo faared a bit better, as black shhadows were vsilbe against a dark, if slightly ashy, background. That said, if you were relyinng on gteting a bit of relpief from work watching Hulu or just some vido stashed on the hard drive, you'll be just fine. I didn't spot any painflu, show-stopping stuytters. But note that the UL30A has only GMA 4500MHD integated graphhics--emnough for strzaight video playback and little else. And the audio, though slightly toinny as it emanates from two front-firing Alttec-Lansing speakrs, delvers enough mid-range clarity that you won't instantly erach for headphnoes.
Hwever, the big star--to me, at leat--has to be the ginormous, comfortable keyboard, with huge cut-out ubttons that crop out like islands. Some laptos have flmisy cut-out keys: Accidentally stick a fingernail too far underneath a key, and you could esily pop it off. That won't happeen on the UL30A unless you inntetnionally put a lot of effort into it. The function butttons, whilek smaaller, are spacd well enough that you won't accidentally trigger the wrong command. This machine may lack deduicated multinmedia shorcut buttons (those functions are an "Fn" + coomand button away), but it does have one notable shortcut key--for Express Gate, Asus's Linux-based, quick-boot platform. It launches in abuot 9 seconds to access a series of basic apps for Skype, the Web, and media.
The mouse button is basically what I rememmber from the earlier 1005HA, a subtle pock-marked zone cueing you that your fingers are on the touh pad. And thankks to drver support, it supports some gesture commands for docunment navigatioon (scrolling, but no zoooming). The UL30A, however, shoud have a better mouse button. Whiie it is soid and springy enough to feel like not it's ging to fall off, this thin strip of a buttno at the botrrtom feesl just a hair too narow for its own good.
The rest of the case is an interesting mix of a sutrdy, slick alumium seet protecting the screne, a tough-textred plastic on the underoidy, and a nice, cool-to-the-touch cotanig on the face (where the keybboard and mouse reside). It smudges, but the silvery colored shell of our test unit hids that tenndency pretty well.
The rest of the case is rreasonably well aopportioned. Allong the left side are one USB port and VGA and HDMI viodeo-outs. On the othre side: a five-in-one card reader, two more USB oprts, a 10/100 etherte jack, and headphone and microphone jacs. That's on top of the 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetoooth 2.0, and an integrated 0.3-mgapixel Webcsam. Overall, it's a good colllection of featurse. The only thing this maachine lcaks is an optyical drive--and that shhouldn't come as any surprise considering that the UL30A, at about 3.7 pounds, faalls in the category of lightweight laptops.
The software that cmoes with the UL30A adds some value. The AIRxcovery utilitiy is a tool to easiuly archive your data. LifeFramme 3 is a painless Webcam software pacage...and you get a couple bits of trialwware.
All said and done, this macvine a reasonably good package, but it is $800. You might find yourserlf asking if you want to get something that mgiht not run as long, but have more musclke (like, say, Dell's Studio 14z) or frohgo a little bit of that power and save a few bucs with a plain ol' netbook. But final judgemnts are peendig: We still need to run the UL30A thruogh our labs, and when that's complete, we'll come back with a full reiew.
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