ASUS U5A Notebook

Thursday, March 09, 2006

Price: Rs 80,000 (2 yrs warranty)

Key Specs:752 MB RAM, 80GB HDD, multi format DVD writer

Contact: ASUSTek Computers, Mumbai. Tel: 022-40058894. Email id: info_india@asus.com.tw RQS# E26 or SMS 130326 to 9811800601

This notebook is meant for executives who travel frequently. It's a Centrino having a 2 GHz Pentium M CPU, a 12.1 inch XGA LCD screen, a 752 MB RAM, 80 GB HDD and a DVD-writer. The notebook also ships with a Bluetooth V2.0+EDR (Enhanced Data Rate) port, which allows a maximum data transfer rate of 2.1 Mbps. This is three times faster than a standard Bluetooth without EDR. The device ships with TPM (Trusted Platform Module) security, which is an onboard hardware used to handle various security tasks. The notebook has three USB 2.0 ports, one PCMCIAII slot, an in-built wireless card, a Gigabit LAN and a 56K modem and a card reader. We tested the notebook using our standard slew of MobileMark 2005, SysMark 2004 and BatteryMark 2004 benchmarks. From the MobileMark2005 benchmark, we used the DVD playback test and the Reader test to evaluate the battery life. The DVD playback battery test gave a score of 156 minutes and the Reader test gave a battery life rating of 176 mins. BatteryMark 2002 gave a score of 2 hrs and 20 mins, which is somewhat similar to MobileMark's DVD playback test score, but it isn't good at all compared to the 3 hrs that ASUS W5F notebook scored in our review last month.   MobileMark 2005's productivity test uses MS Office, Adobe PhotoShop, Macromedia Flash 5, McAfee Virus Scan, etc. to test the notebook and gave it a performance rating of 213 marks.  In SysMark 2004, which tests the system for office productivity and Internet content creation, it got an overall score of 210 SysMarks, which almost similar to  the Sysmark score received by ASUS W5F.

Bottom Line: With such  features and performance, the notebook is worth buying, and if you are really concerned about eco-friendliness, this one's for you.

Swapnil Arora

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