Asus U30jc user review

Dear All!

For a month I’ve been using mentioned Asus U30jc, a stronger version, here’s some official specifications. I have a i5 520M and 500G HDD version.

For Polish readers: there’s a nice “pro” review in here: http://www.notebookcheck.pl/Recenzja-Asus-U30JC.29433.0.html

General impression

It’s pretty small, because its diagonal is 13.3” only. Such a choice was made because of portability – tests indicate about 5-8 hrs of continuous work. As shown in pictures under the article it’s metal styled, looks elegant but aggressive as well. Touch pad is not deep, keyboard is nearly natural size. Speakers are placed on the front panel, quite an effective solution. Overall quality of product is satisfying.

Pros

• power’s dreaming in this notebook: Intel i5-520M processor featuring integrated graphics card and descent virtualization technologies, such as VT-x, VT-d
• nVidia Optimus which allows to use two graphics cards interchangeably, depending on situation (plugged or on battery, text writing or gaming). Nice article about Optimus technology is here (Polish readers)
• Portable size and weight – 13.3″ and nearly 2kg
• Nice metal finish
• HDMI port

Cons

• Poor quality of elements around keys on island-style keyboard
• Island-style keyboad – but it’s up to you
• Poor quality of endings around screen, moreover they are glossy black and it is annoying sometimes
• It’s rather thick, your wrists may ache after a few hours of work before getting used to it
• Lots of Asus-ware, kinda obligatory for smooth and pleasant work

Media

Windows Experience Index

Index update run recently with the newest nVidia drivers. Previous version achieved the result of 5.9.

Hi performance battery life

Here we see approx. battery life in hi performance mode with wifi on, some IM, Chrome, Thunderbird and Paint.NET, but kinda idle usage, just web browsing and cropping some screenshots.

Battery saving mode

And there we got aggressive battery saving mode, same situation as above, result is amazing. If I turned audio player on – it would be something like this:

While listening to music

And final picture – listening to music in hi performance mode:

Music in hi performance mode

Conclusion

A nice summary found over the net:

In general, a 13-inch system hits the sweet spot of being the biggest laptop we’d consider carrying around every day, and also the smallest we’d consider using on a daily basis for serious work.

This sentence was found here, it suits the situation. I’ve performed some tests and during my train travels: I was listening to the music (mp3) and reading some pdfs. Battery lasted for 5hrs. Without music it would be around 8 hrs of continuous work. Amazing!
Here it’s presented as a student friendly and ideal for campus life. I totally agree – now  there’s no need to carry a charger with you, laptop can be at your service for the whole day!

This notebook is something more than a long-life notepad, because of GeForce 310M which provides gaming experience as well. No proofs are provided by me, you gotta just believe.

I can recommend this particular model to all active people who sometimes enjoy themselves with games.

You’re feedback is more than welcome.

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