ASUS F80S-A1 PC Notebook

I bought this Asus F80S as a business notebook computer to replace my old Dell, which has a failing battery. It's mostly for business use, not for gaming, but I do use it for miscellaneous media applications. This is at least my 10th notebook computer, so I don't expect perfection. I chose this Asus because it had the right feature list, and it was available locally so I could test it properly.

After a couple of weeks of testing, here's my summary:

Pro:
-  Good feature set for a mid-range business notebook
-  Full set of drivers for both WinXP and Vista (32-bit)     
-  Bright, clear 14.1 inch diagonal WXGA screen
-  Good warranty

Con:
-  The WinXP downgrade CD advertised as included is no longer included
-  Very short battery life, generally less than 2 hours
-  Speakers have very low volume and no bass
-  Screen has limited viewing angle and uneven backlighting
-  Glossy screen and frame reflect a lot of ambient light
-  Flimsy hinge covers can pop loose and break easily (and I have seen them broken on previous Asus models)
-  Glossy plastic surfaces can scratch easily
-  Fixed webcam is hard to point and has poor color fidelity
-  Trackpad is too insensitive even on maximum sensitivity setting, and cursor movement is too slow even on fastest speed setting
-  Fingerprint scanner is a bit flakey
-  Takes a long time to charge while in use
-  Junkware clutter with initial software load, including utilities that don't even apply to this model

If you think that Con list looks a lot longer than the Pro list, you're right. There were more minor disappointments than pleasant surprises with the Asus in my testing, but in fairness many of the Cons are minor and similar to other notebooks. Don't dismiss it until you read on - I did end up keeping it, and I had the choice to return it for something else.

Physical Design and Ergonomics

The F80S style is a bit of a strange mix. The bottom exterior is textured black plastic. The top exterior is smooth (easily-scratched) black plastic with a faint inlaid pattern. There are some silver areas and silver trim lines on the exterior edges. The palm rest area is a textured silver plastic [Update: already showing wear on mine after less than 2 months]. The notebook is thinner at the front edge, thicker toward the back.

The lid does not latch closed, a choice more notebooks seem to be making lately. It seems to stay closed well enough when carrying the notebook. As usual, you can program the lid-closed switch to shut the computer down in various ways or do nothing. Unfortunately the display does not fold flat to the table with this notebook - it stops at about 45 degrees, so you can't fold it out of the way to see a monitor placed behind it.

The On/Off button is integrated very discreetly into the chrome strip above the keyboard. There's another button next to it with a cryptic icon, which turns out to be dedicated to the Power4Gear software that selects between pre-set power saving modes. There are dual-redundant power LEDs in the On button and on the front edge. Above the keyboard are the indicator LEDs for drive access, Caps Lock, and Num Lock. On the front edge are LEDs for WiFi On, Bluetooth On and Battery Charging. All are monochrome blue LEDs, except for the Battery LED, which is amber. The blue LEDs are bit over-used as a style choice for my taste. The LEDs on the front edge are visible with the lid closed.

The glossy-finish LCD screen is bright and sharp, but the backlighting is a bit uneven, and the screen leaks a lot of backlight when displaying a black background. .The glossy screen finish and the surrounding glossy black frame can reflect a lot of ambient light in a bright office environment with windows, but the screen is bright enough on maximum to overcome the reflections most of the time. The 16:9 aspect ratio is nice for watching wide-screen movies, but this is supposed to be a business notebook. Most of the time it is being used for viewing and editing documents with a vertical orientation, so the wide screen makes poor use of screen real estate Obviously this is not a particular criticism of the Asus F80S, since almost all manufacturers of business notebooks seem to be slavishly following the pack and producing models with these screens, but it's an annoyance when you are updating from older business notebooks with 4:3 matte screens (see CNET's critique on this issue:  http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10150269-1.html).

My F80S came with the 1280 x 800 WXGA screen, rather than the 1440 x 900 WXGA screen. I think the WXGA resolution is right for this size of screen. I wouldn't want anything finer, or the pixel density would make text and icons too small to read. They are already 27% smaller than on my old 14.1 inch 1024 x 768 notebook screen (116 dpi vs. 91 dpi). I went through this last time with the Dell notebooks - I found that the 1440 x 900 resolution is just too fine for a 14 inch screen for my taste.

The keyboard ergonomics are ok. There are minor layout differences and a slightly different feel from my previous notebook, but I'll get accustomed to it. Some of the keys rattle loosely, and the right side of the space bar clacks loudly when I type. Of more concern is that I noticed a couple of store demo models with broken-off keys, so they may be a bit flimsy. Another minor annoyance is the way that Asus has used low-contrast labels on the keys, which is a habit with other Asus models too I see. That makes it difficult to use in low light situations where you can't easily read the key labels. Does Asus think that low contrast is somehow more stylish than stark white lettering on black?

The Synaptics touch pad is a bit of a disappointment. I liked the feel and movement of my last Synaptics touchpad, but this one doesn't seem as good. The maximum speed of pointer movement allowed in the software settings is too slow for me, especially with the extra-wide screen to move across, and the sensitivity has to be cranked all the way up to maximum in order for the vertical scroll slider on the right of the touch pad to work.

This model has a recessed fingerprint scanner built into the touchpad, between the two buttons, but it's it's a bit flakey. Initially in Vista neither I nor anyone else who tried it could get it to scan a fingerprint successfully better than one time in twenty, let alone match a previous scan. But in WinXP it worked fine, even though it apparently uses the same software. Going back to the Vista version later for another try, I got it to work a little better, but still not as well as in WinXP. However, even if it worked consistently and reliably, any would-be cracker could easily lift my clearly-visible fingerprints from that shiny black lid, which kind of makes it useless as a security measure. Oh well, it's more of a gimmick.

The built-in stereo speakers are on the front lower edge. There's an Altec Lansing logo on the chrome strip above the keyboard, but the speakers are not very good. They are only capable of very low volume, and have almost no bass. Speaker volume and mute can be controlled with Function keys. There's a built-in microphone above the keyboard. It picks up key sounds when you type, but it's not usually a problem. There's a headphone jack and microphone jack on the left side if you don't want to use the built-in speakers and microphone.

There's a built-in webcam above the LCD screen. It has no tilt capability independently of the panel, so it's difficult to get the angle right for both aiming the webcam and viewing the screen. Color and low-light capability are not the best. But it's really only intended for occasional video calling use. Asus does provide one interesting feature for the webcam: automatic face recognition login software. This actually works, once you've taken a sample image capture of your face and enabled the login software. All you have to do is present your face to the webcam and it automatically zeroes in on you, matches your face to the stored image, and proceeds to log you in within a couple of seconds. However it's as insecure as the fingerprint scanner, as recent tests have shown that a photograph can substitute for your face.

Drives

The built-in hard drive is a WDC WD3200BEVT 320 Gbyte 5400rpm SATA medium-performance low-power model (http://www.westerndigital.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=377). This is an upgrade from the 250 Gbyte drive in earlier versions of the F80S, but the performance is the same. It comes configured with 3 partitions, including a hidden Asus restore partition with a copy of the factory Vista configuration, which you can restore by pressing F9 during boot to enter the BIOS restore utility. Unfortunately it is easy to wipe out the restore partition accidentally when installing a new operating system, and no way is provided to recover it. But most people would want to get rid of it anyway to free up the space once they've customized their setup and established a different means of backup.

There's a Hitachi GSA-T50N 8x Super-Multi-Format CD/DVD reader/writer optical drive with a pop-out tray on the right side (http://www.hepm-hitachi.com.my/hepm_products_sm.htm). It supports most formats, including dual-layer writing and DVD-RAM. It has no separate indicator lamp to show when it's operating. Strangely Asus includes pre-installed Lightscribe software in their default software load, but this Hitachi drive does not support Lightscribe.

CPU, Memory, Graphics and Performance

My F80S was factory configured with an Intel Core2 Duo P8400 CPU operating at 2.26 GHz, and 4 Gbytes of RAM. Of course since Asus does not supply a 64-bit version of Vista or WinXP, only the first 3 Gbytes of RAM can actually be used. The F80S uses DDR2 667 MHz RAM, so it's not as fast as some other notebooks using DDR3 RAM.

Subjectively I don't find the Asus any faster in routine operations than my trusty antique desktop computer or my former Dell notebook, both of which are more than 5 years old now. The extra RAM makes the Asus a bit faster than the old 512 Mbyte Dell notebook when running multiple applications, but it still lags the desktop computer because its 5400rpm hard drive is slower to load applications and documents than the 7200rpm drive on the desktop. I'm comparing WinXP here - Vista is a bit more sluggish on the Asus than WinXP.

Things are a bit better with CPU-intensive applications. I ran some comparison tests with AutoGK converting a 1-hour DVD recording to XVid, a lengthy CPU-intensive task which benefits from a multi-core CPU and lots of fast RAM. Conversion time for the Asus was about 42 minutes in WinXP, and just a bit slower in Vista at 48 minutes. My old desktop, with an AMD Athlon CPU running at 2.7 GHz, took 101 minutes. So the Asus is more than twice as fast at this task, as you might expect with two CPU cores. Still, I'm not blown away by the performance gain after 5 years of improvements.

This notebook has an ATI Mobility Radeon HD3470 graphics chipset with 256 Mbytes dedicated video memory, which is a step up from the integrated Intel GMA graphics in many business computers, although it consumes more power. It supports two monitors via the VGA out or the HDMI out, although I found it has the usual quirks trying to get resolution and aspect ratio right on both monitors at the same time. Both the Asus Probe utility and ATI's Catalyst Control Center report 512 Mbytes of VRAM, but this is because they are including system RAM which the ATI video card can steal using its Hypermemory shared memory feature. That's actually not a bad use for the excess system RAM, considering that the 32-bit operating system can only use the first 3 Gbytes of RAM.

Ports and Interfaces

There are 3 USB 2.0 ports, two on the left side and one on the back. No Firewire or eSATA. It's a small problem for right-handed people using a USB mouse that there isn't a USB port on the right side.

The ethernet port uses the SiS191 chipset. It supports 10/100 Mbps speeds, but not 1000 Mbps in this implementation (I tested it to be sure).

This notebook has WiFi (B/G.N) (an Atheros AR928x chipset, http://www.atheros.com/pt/AR9285.htm) and a Bluetooth adapter by Broadcom. There are blue LEDs on the front edge of the notebook for WiFi and Bluetooth, showing when they are active. You can turn them on or off with Function keys supproted by the included system tray hotkey utility. Also on the front edge of the notebook is a wireless on/off slider switch which allows you to quickly turn both wireless functions off for security or for airplane use. The markings on the slide switch are invisible, but toward the center of the notebook is On. I've had some problems with the WiFi adapter being stuck disabled after being turned off with this switch, which seems to be a software problems caused by the Atheros software losing synch with the hardware settings after rebooting.

[Update: It actually uses an Azurewave AW-NE771 wireless card internally. It has 2 built-in antennas, which allows it to support 802.11n at speeds up to 300 Mbps in the 2.4 GHz band. No 5 GHz band support unfortunately. I needed to install an updated Atheros WinXP driver to enable speeds greater than 54 Mpbs. The wireless card and memory are accessible under a panel on the bottom of the notebook. Very nice copper heat pipes in there connecting the processor and graphics chips to the cooling fan.]

There's a built-in 56K telephone modem with a telephone jack on the left side next to the ethernet jack, a feature which is becoming less common on modern notebooks.

The usual 3.5mm microphone input and headphone output jacks are also found on the left side. Don't know if the input supports stereo or not.

There's an HDMI output port on the left side, which can also be used as a DVI port with an adapter. The HDMI port supports digital audio output. No mention of HDCP compliance. There's a VGA port on the back. No other video outputs or inputs. Strangely Asus has included an S-Video to composite video cable in the box. Since there's no S-Video output on this notebook, and there's no mention of it in the manual, it's probably just a mistake. There's no parts list in the box, so it's hard to tell.

There's one Expresscard slot on the left, no PC card slot. These Expresscards are starting to become more available, but the selection is still fairly limited and expensive. About the only types I think would be of much use are the high-speed Firewire and eSATA cards. Just about everything else wouldn't benefit from the interface speed and would be cheaper and more convenient on USB.

There's a memory card slot on the front. It supports SD cards, including SDHC and mini or micro SD with an adapter (tested and confirmed). According to the specs it also supports Sony Memory Stick in several variations, but I don't have any to test. Surprisingly it also supports xD memory cards, a fact not mentioned in the specs I read, but shown only in a diagram in the user manual. I tested it with an xD card from my Fuji camera, and it works.

Power

The AC charger is pretty standard, neither especially big nor especially small. It supports dual voltage. It has a short interchangeable regional AC power cord and a reasonably long DC power cord. It plugs into the notebook on the left side rear. There's an amber "charging" indicator on the front of the notebook which is visible with the lid open or closed. It goes off when the battery is fully charged. When operating on battery power, it flashes when battery power is getting low. It takes about 2 hours to charge fully when not in use, but much longer when the notebook is on. The F80S will run on the power supply alone, without the battery installed.

My generic notebook power supply unit works in place of the Asus charger, using one of its standard interchangeable power plugs and a setting of 19 volts DC. It both powers the F80S and charges the battery. My last Dell notebook also accepted 19 volt DC power, but it had a weird proprietary thing where it would not charge the battery unless it recognized an official Dell charger (which is why I always test for this now!).

Unfortunately the battery life seems relatively short for a 6 cell battery. I'm only getting about 90 minutes with heavy use, maybe 2 hours with lighter use in the Battery Saver mode with a dimmed display. That matches the experience of other users I've talked to. I've seen some reviews reporting more than 3 hours battery life for the F80S, but they are definitely not accurate.

Software

Asus supplies the F80S with Windows Vista Business installed, clearly positioning it as a business notebook.

An important reason for buying a business notebook is that Windows Vista Business includes a WinXP downgrade license, and WinXP is officially supported with all the required drivers provided. I'm not going to get into the Vista vs. XP argument here - suffice to say that I needed XP. The downgrade is an official offer from Microsoft to all purchasers of Vista Business or Ultimate. You are licensed to install either Vista or WinXP, but not both simultaneously. If you have the OEM "recovery" disc for the operating system you are installing, you don't have to activate Windows after installation. If you install WinXP from your own retail disc, you have to activate with Microsoft by telephone, giving your Vista Business or Ultimate license number and explaining that you want a WinXP downgrade. You are allowed to switch back to Vista in future. However I can tell you that this process does not work well - I called the Microsoft telephone activation number as directed, and they were completely clueless, switching me around 3 different departments and never successfully completing the process. Microsoft *really* doesn't want you to use XP!

Asus advertises that the WinXP downgrade CD is included with this model, something I was counting on when I bought it. Turns out, not so much. Asus quietly stopped including the WinXP CD several months ago and didn't tell retailers. After several support calls and faxes to Asus, they somewhat grudgingly agreed to send me the WinXP disc, and it did eventually arrive.

However I actually wanted to set this notebook up to dual-boot WinXP and Vista, a solution which seems to me to offer a much smoother transition. Fortunately I had my own WinXP Pro CD, and all the WinXP drivers and utilities are posted on the Asus web site, so I didn't have to wait for the Asus WinXP recovery CD. Unfortunately their WinXP drivers and utilities are in 66 separate download packages which each have to be installed separately, and some individual items took more than 12 hours to download at the speed of the Asus server! Some utilities would not install correctly, and when I eventually received the promised WinXP drivers CD from Asus, it turned out to have different versions from the web site. This was exactly the situation I was hoping to avoid, so I was very disappointed with Asus.

Setting up WinXP and Vista to dual boot correctly is exasperating, especially when trying to use an OEM recovery disc instead of a retail install disc for one or both, but that's a whole other saga which I won't go into. Note that Microsoft has taken the position that dual booting is simultaneous use by their definition, so they do not agree that you can use both your Vista and included WinXP downgrade license this way, but it's ok if you bring your own additional XP or Vista license.

[Update: I was able to update Vista 32-bit to Win7 32-bit later on without problems. No driver updates were needed.]

The pre-installed software provided by Asus includes a modest set of utilities, mostly for operating the various hardware features, plus of course the usual 3-month trial version of Norton Internet Security. Little or no documentation is provided for most of the utilities, and the little documentation provided is written in broken English. Some of utiltiies installed aren't applicable to the F80S and are apparently a mistake, e.g., the Lightscribe software and Express Gate. Express Gate is a simplified version of Linux which can be installed to boot first by default on some Asus computers to quickly provide internet browsing and media playback functionality without booting Windows. It's pre-installed on the F80S, but it doesn't work. I see that questions posted about this on the Asus support web site by other users have gone unanswered for months. I'm not sure there's much point to it anyway, since restoring Windows from hibernation apparently takes only a few seconds longer.

Asus has posted several BIOS firmware updates for the F80S. Nothing major, but I installed the latest version anyway, using the EasyFlash utility built into the BIOS (there are also Windows and DOS versions, but the built-in BIOS utility is the safest). The update went smoothly and did not affect my Windows installations, although I encountered a small bug that the EasyFlash utility could not see the BIOS update file in the root directory of the C: drive. It was ok if I moved it to a subdirectory or to the D: drive.

I have to mention the atrocious spelling and incomprehensible broken English in the BIOS (see for example the description of the Wake on LAN option under Power settings). I don't know whether Asus or AMI are responsible, but it's pretty bad!

Packaging

The box contents are quite sparse. Aside from the notebook itself, the AC charger and the battery, there's not much else. The notebook itself is well covered with protective stick-ons to prevent scratching of the smooth shiny plastic surfaces, and Asus throws in a polishing cloth to wipe off fingerprints - which probably doesn't bode well for how it will look after 6 months of normal use! Asus also throws in the mysterious S-Video to composite video cable, and an unnecessary velcro cable tie. It's like Asus is picking randomly from a grab bag of accessories.

There's a very short Getting Started guide in several languages, mostly text without illustrations. There's a short user manual covering the major hardware and software features, with few details. Notably absent are a packing list to verify the box contents, Windows licensing information (aside from the Windows Vista license sticker on the bottom of the notebook), and any warranty/service information.

The discs included are the Asus Windows Vista Business Recovery DVD, an Asus F20 drivers CD (for Vista-32 only), and a Asus/Cyberlink PowerDVD Producer CD. I later received the WinXP recovery CD and WinXP utilities CD separately from Asus after requesting them.

Overall I was not impressed by the out-of-box experience. Asus has a ways to go to catch up with the competition.

Warranty and Support

Asus includes an enhanced notebook warranty for U.S. and Canadian buyers (http://promos.asus.com/US/event/ASUS360/index.html), offering 2 years international support with free shipping, and guaranteed no defective screen pixels out of the box. They also offer a free one year physical damage warranty (e.g., if you drop it and break it), but only if you register by mail. As usual, routine wear and tear and battery replacement after the first year are not covered. Apparently the same warranty is not offered through all retailers, so double check. I don't know anyone who has had to test the warranty, so I can't comment on how well it works.

Asus has an extensive internet support web site - so extensive that it can be difficult to find the support information and downloads for your model, but I did eventually find it. Usually the site was responsive, but for some reason some of the biggest downloads seem to be hosted on a different site with very slow and unreliable communications.

Update: I have asked Asus several questions about this notebook in their online support forums, but I received no answers. That seems to be the common experience in the Asus support forums.

Asus does answer their telephone support line, as I had reason to test over the missing WinXP CD issue. English was an issue, and they weren't immediately helpful or knowledgeable. But they did eventually come through with the missing CD, so I would give them at least mediocre marks for telephone support. That's about the best you can hope for these days.

Overall

I decided to keep the Asus F80S after trying it for a couple of weeks, but it was a close thing. If I hadn't invested so much effort in getting it set up, I would probably have returned it. The feature list is good, but I find myself underwhelmed by most aspects of it in actual use. The battery life is poor, the performance seems unspectacular, the ergonomics are so-so, and I have some concerns about the quality of construction. I was also annoyed with Asus over the extra effort I had to go through to install WinXP after I had specifically chosen this notebook to avoid that effort.