Asus M5200A Battery |
Posted: October 21, 2014 |
The standard 6-cell battery delivers moderate battery life. I have normally obtained around 2.5hrs of life with constant typing and some music playing. The charge of the battery is about the same time (2.5hrs) for a full charge. An optional 9-cell battery is available for those wishing to gain a bit longer battery time. For my personal use, I normally have the notebook plugged in and the battery life has not been an issue.I decided to go with Windows Vista Business (32-bit) for my operating system. Although Vista does have its fair share of annoying quirks, I have been able to customize it to suit my needs. For example, I was able to turn off the incredibly annoying “User Account Control” that feels the need to ask me if I’m sure that I want to install something or change the location of a program. Vista Business has not crashed or demonstrated any problems yet. Additionally, I have not had any compatibility issues with Vista and older software or hardware yet. The manufacturer provided the OEM Vista Business disc along with all of the Asus drivers and program discs with the notebook. As for included software, it is minimal. Aside from the Windows included software and computer drivers, the only software Asus included was “ChkMail” – a program that makes a little light on the front of my computer when I have new email (I have turned it off), “Nero Essentials” – a CD/DVD burning program, and software to go with the built-in 2.0MP camera. I have not had any problems with any of this software, and it has been very nice not to have to delete a million trial versions of different programs. I bought this notebook configured as listed from Powernotebooks.com. Total price was $1,420 including the 3 year warranty. I think this is a fantastic price for the configuration and the warranty support tops it all off and allows me to bypass the typical Asus VBI (Verified by Intel) build.When I first saw pictures of the design online, I didn’t care too much for it. However, when actually having this thing in front of you, it looks much better and sleeker than the pictures. The silver and black combination looks nice and doesn’t give off any weird glare or attract fingerprints. The case is plastic but thick and appears to be pretty sturdy and solid. It fits on my lap well and feels like a quality build. There are no “ripples” on my LCD screen and it is pretty resistant to twisting. The screen doesn’t wobble anymore than any other notebooks that I have used and appears to be pretty stable overall.The LCD screen is very bright (almost too bright) for everything that I have wanted to do and there are no dead pixels or leaks noticeable. My screen is a 1280 X 800 resolution, as this was the only choice for this computer. All in all, I am very happy with this resolution setting on this size of monitor as it keeps everything a manageable size to read when switching from program to program.In typical Asus fashion, the audio-out is located on the front of the notebook. This feature is great for using headphones but somewhat awkward for connecting external speakers. My notebook came with a built in Intel PRO/Wireless 4965 802.11a/g/n card. This card has worked fantastic for my home and school networks so far and seems to have ample range. There is no Bluetooth available on this notebook, nor is there an infrared port (neither of which I have any real use for anyway).The ASUS UL20A was the first 12-inch laptop in the UL series and quickly became popular with students and working adults who needed a lightweight laptop. The unfortunate down side to the UL20A was that it used a relatively low-performance version of the CULV processors. Now ASUS has revived the UL20 as the UL20FT, featuring a new Core i3 low voltage processor and a larger hard drive. The notebook chassis itself remains unchanged other than a slight modification to accommodate a new 16:9 ratio widescreen display. ASUS UL20Vf The ASUS UL20FT offers a fairly average number of ports for a 12-inch notebook. ASUS gives you three USB 2.0 ports, Ethernet, two video out ports, a media card reader and dual audio jacks. This is pretty much par for the course when it comes to thin and light laptops and netbooks. Still, we would have liked to see at least one high speed data port, suach as USB 3.0, eSATA or even an ExpressCard slot, on this laptop. The UL20FT also lacks an optical drive in order to make the chassis as thin as possible, but this will probably only bother people who like to watch DVDs during a flight. I needed a replacement for my old Sempron based desktop PC, so I thought about entering the notebook world. Although I’m not a heavy gamer, I wanted dedicated graphics to be able to play some older games like Warcraft 3 or NFS-Underground without taking RAM from my system or worrying about low resolutions or visual effects.While running in a more demanding environment, you can get 10% of the battery consumed in only 10 minutes. While playing Need for Speed Underground with every visual and sound effect enabled, battery life only lasted for an hour and a half.The market for 15-inch laptops might be pretty packed, but the ASUS N53JF-XE1 with its powerful Intel Core i5 processor and Nvidia GeForce GT 425M graphics packs more punch than the competition. Did we mention it also has a 1080p screen? Read our review to find out more.Overall, the ASUS N53JF-XE1 is a pretty well-equipped notebook that competes well against systems like the Dell XPS 15, HP ENVY 14 and Lenovo IdeaPad Y560D. It isn’t too often that you’ll find a 15-inch laptop with a 1080p display, powerful processor and graphics, and even a USB 3.0 port for a street price of just over $1,000. Tags:
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