ASUS Asus SU7300 1.3G 4GB 320G - UL80VT-A1 - UL80VT-A1 PC Notebook
- Weight: 4.8 lb.
- Mobile Technology: Wi-Fi Certified
- Operating System: Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium
- Processor: Core 2 Duo 1.3 GHz
- Laptop Type: Thin and Light Laptop
- Installed Memory: 4 GB (DDR3 SDRAM)
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Light weight, long battery life laptop when a netbook won't do
Pros
battery life, weight, size, keyboard, HDMI out, switchable graphics
Cons
no bluetooth, poor screen contrast, fingerprint magnet
Recommended it?
Yes
The Bottom Line:
Need a laptop that's thin and light, but need more power, larger screen and an optical drive not found in netbooks? This is it!
It's all about battery life with the Asus UL80VT! To cut to the chase, yes, you really can get 8 hours on a charge, even with WiFi! Sure, some netbooks get 8 or 10 hours, and I do have one of those for even easier travel, but then we're talking about a slower processor (Atom), no DVD, no HDMI, and smaller screen and keyboard (I reviewed my Asus netbook here). The UL80VT is what I take when I need some of those extras, but don't want to give up the long battery run-time. Now I often leave power adapters behind when I know I only need a few hours of computer time, and definitely no more dragging them through the house to work in another room for a bit. Sometimes I find that it's been several days since I've had to find a charger and plug up!
Overall I'm quite pleased with this laptop. It's plenty fast with 4GB RAM, doesn't have too terribly many junk applications to remove (wish it shipped with none), and offers a lot more than a netbook. It's one of the lightest weight full-size laptops around and it looks great, other than being a fingerprint magnet. Actually, not only does it attract fingerprints, but it has just enough of that "brushed aluminum" texture that unlike a completely gloss finish, it's very difficult to remove them too. It looks particularly modern and sleek when opened if you remove all those stupid stickers on the wrist rest, some of which get stuck pretty good. I don't need to be reminded that the laptop is made for Windows 7! I only wish they would have integrated Bluetooth though.
Graphics: One of the clever ways that Asus squeeze out more batter life in a full-size laptop is to provide two graphics chipsets. If you need more power, such as for gaming, you can press a button to boost up to the dedicated NVIDIA graphics chipsets. For normal computing needs though, you can run from the integrated chipset, which is much lower power and helps to extend the battery life. Just a press of a button switches between the two. You can also set it for auto-detect which will switch between the two based on whether the laptop is plugged in or on battery.
Display: The screen is LED, which makes for a cool looking thin lid, and probably helps keep the weight down. But I'm not impressed at all with the quality of the display. There seems to be way too much contrast. Sometimes, if you've got the screen tilted just a little too far up or down it can be difficult to see things like text entry boxes where you have to see the light grey shadow on a white box. Colors, in general, just seem to be too washed out. To me this is one of the weakest points of this laptop. It's also a high-gloss screen, which means more reflections of lights (inside) or sky (outside). I have more difficulty using this laptop outside than my previous laptop with a matte screen.
Processor, heat, and memory: The Asus UL80VT uses an Intel ULV processor, providing plenty of computing power (no problem showing HD 720p video, etc.), but giving off less heat and drawing less power. Yes, you really can use this in your lap without it getting too hot. And the wrist-rest and touchpad area don't get too warm either. Additionally, even when the fan is running, it's pretty quiet. Nice. With 4GB of memory, the machine is very efficient and snappy.
OS and boot: The laptop is loaded with Windows 7 64-bit, which is a nice improvement in many areas over XP. You might occasionally have trouble finding a 64-bit driver for older peripherals like scanners since 32-bit drivers won't work, but it's not a problem with most manufacturers. If a manufacturer doesn't have a Windows 7 specific driver, then a Windows Vista 64-bit driver usually works. Boot time is under 1 minute. ExpressGate is a mini-OS that can load in about 10 seconds and get you right on the web, but I don't find much use for it. I usually just close the lid to the laptop, letting it hibernate so that Win 7 is ready to go again in about 25 seconds.
Input: I like the keyboard on the UL80VT with the flat "chicklet" keys that are becoming popular these days. It has a nice solid feel. I've read other reviews from people unhappy with the touchpad, but I don't have any problems. It's integrated into the surface with small dimples to distinguish it from the rest of the wrist rest. I understand what people are saying about too much friction with the dimples making it uncomfortable, because I have another laptop with that problem (actually an Asus netbook), but this one is not too bad at all in my opinion. It's also multi-touch so you can do multi-finger gestures such as using two fingers to scroll. The buttons are actually a single button with a rocker in the middle, which I didn't think I'd like. Again, others have complained about this but I found that I got used to it very quickly, so it's a non-issue for me.
Bluetooth: There is none! How did they miss this when it's standard on so many laptops now, including their own Netbooks. I have a Bluetooth mouse. Sure you can get a micro-bluetooth adapter and just leave it in a USB port, which I do, but there are two disadvantages. One is that you give up a USB port. The other is that that there's not a quick way to turn off the radio to conserve battery when not in use other than to yank it out, and then the little thing is so darn easy to lose! An integrated one can be toggled off and on with a function key press, as with the Asus netbooks.
Webcam: We've used the integrated 1.3mp webcam to Skype with grandparents. It works well. We were able to do this from my Asus netbook too and found that the quality of our image on the other end is considerably better with this laptop than with the Asus netbook, also with a 1.3pm webcam. The difference seems to be in the processor, as Skype said the netbook wasn't fast enough to encode the higher-quality image. So there's another plus for the UL80VT over a netbook. Asus also includes a program that will learn and later detect your face via the webcam as a method to login to Windows. You have to let it take a bunch of snapshots of yourself in various locatons and lighting situations to improve its accuracy, but then it gets pretty good. I'm not sure that it's that much faster than typing your password, but it's pretty cool anyhow!
Overall I'm quite pleased with this laptop. It's plenty fast with 4GB RAM, doesn't have too terribly many junk applications to remove (wish it shipped with none), and offers a lot more than a netbook. It's one of the lightest weight full-size laptops around and it looks great, other than being a fingerprint magnet. Actually, not only does it attract fingerprints, but it has just enough of that "brushed aluminum" texture that unlike a completely gloss finish, it's very difficult to remove them too. It looks particularly modern and sleek when opened if you remove all those stupid stickers on the wrist rest, some of which get stuck pretty good. I don't need to be reminded that the laptop is made for Windows 7! I only wish they would have integrated Bluetooth though.
Graphics: One of the clever ways that Asus squeeze out more batter life in a full-size laptop is to provide two graphics chipsets. If you need more power, such as for gaming, you can press a button to boost up to the dedicated NVIDIA graphics chipsets. For normal computing needs though, you can run from the integrated chipset, which is much lower power and helps to extend the battery life. Just a press of a button switches between the two. You can also set it for auto-detect which will switch between the two based on whether the laptop is plugged in or on battery.
Display: The screen is LED, which makes for a cool looking thin lid, and probably helps keep the weight down. But I'm not impressed at all with the quality of the display. There seems to be way too much contrast. Sometimes, if you've got the screen tilted just a little too far up or down it can be difficult to see things like text entry boxes where you have to see the light grey shadow on a white box. Colors, in general, just seem to be too washed out. To me this is one of the weakest points of this laptop. It's also a high-gloss screen, which means more reflections of lights (inside) or sky (outside). I have more difficulty using this laptop outside than my previous laptop with a matte screen.
Processor, heat, and memory: The Asus UL80VT uses an Intel ULV processor, providing plenty of computing power (no problem showing HD 720p video, etc.), but giving off less heat and drawing less power. Yes, you really can use this in your lap without it getting too hot. And the wrist-rest and touchpad area don't get too warm either. Additionally, even when the fan is running, it's pretty quiet. Nice. With 4GB of memory, the machine is very efficient and snappy.
OS and boot: The laptop is loaded with Windows 7 64-bit, which is a nice improvement in many areas over XP. You might occasionally have trouble finding a 64-bit driver for older peripherals like scanners since 32-bit drivers won't work, but it's not a problem with most manufacturers. If a manufacturer doesn't have a Windows 7 specific driver, then a Windows Vista 64-bit driver usually works. Boot time is under 1 minute. ExpressGate is a mini-OS that can load in about 10 seconds and get you right on the web, but I don't find much use for it. I usually just close the lid to the laptop, letting it hibernate so that Win 7 is ready to go again in about 25 seconds.
Input: I like the keyboard on the UL80VT with the flat "chicklet" keys that are becoming popular these days. It has a nice solid feel. I've read other reviews from people unhappy with the touchpad, but I don't have any problems. It's integrated into the surface with small dimples to distinguish it from the rest of the wrist rest. I understand what people are saying about too much friction with the dimples making it uncomfortable, because I have another laptop with that problem (actually an Asus netbook), but this one is not too bad at all in my opinion. It's also multi-touch so you can do multi-finger gestures such as using two fingers to scroll. The buttons are actually a single button with a rocker in the middle, which I didn't think I'd like. Again, others have complained about this but I found that I got used to it very quickly, so it's a non-issue for me.
Bluetooth: There is none! How did they miss this when it's standard on so many laptops now, including their own Netbooks. I have a Bluetooth mouse. Sure you can get a micro-bluetooth adapter and just leave it in a USB port, which I do, but there are two disadvantages. One is that you give up a USB port. The other is that that there's not a quick way to turn off the radio to conserve battery when not in use other than to yank it out, and then the little thing is so darn easy to lose! An integrated one can be toggled off and on with a function key press, as with the Asus netbooks.
Webcam: We've used the integrated 1.3mp webcam to Skype with grandparents. It works well. We were able to do this from my Asus netbook too and found that the quality of our image on the other end is considerably better with this laptop than with the Asus netbook, also with a 1.3pm webcam. The difference seems to be in the processor, as Skype said the netbook wasn't fast enough to encode the higher-quality image. So there's another plus for the UL80VT over a netbook. Asus also includes a program that will learn and later detect your face via the webcam as a method to login to Windows. You have to let it take a bunch of snapshots of yourself in various locatons and lighting situations to improve its accuracy, but then it gets pretty good. I'm not sure that it's that much faster than typing your password, but it's pretty cool anyhow!
