Asus UX50
The basics
The Asus UX50 is a glossy 15.6-inch with some impressive specs for its price and size: there's a 16:9 screen capable of 720p video, NVIDIA GeForce G105M graphics, 4GB of RAM and a 1.4GHz Core 2 Solo processor, plus ethernet, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 3 USB ports and a HDMI port.
The good
Asus has taken the tapered look from the Eee PC Seashell range and stuck it in this bigger model, a welcome move as though the Asus UX50 isn't actually that thin, it looks it, and because it slips most of the ports away around the back, it's smooth all the way round too. The graphics card is impressive for the size, letting you chomp through relatively new games, and you can switch to the integrated GPU to save battery life when starved from the mains.
The bad
If you thought a cubic zirconia was shiny, you've never laid eyes on the Asus UX50. It's dazzlingly bright, and while it might be the first laptop with a trackpad you can use as a mirror, it does make viewing the screen a tad tricky, and sucks in fingerprints like no other machine. The island keyboard's lay out is a bit daft too: is there really any point in a numeric keypad on the right?
The bottom line
Asus has struck a great balance between portability and desktop replacement power with the Asus UX50, and while anyone with plans for Photoshop or video editing had best steer clear, it'll do you right with a bit of casual gaming, web browsing and word processing, and won't hurt the shoulders when slipped into a backpack now and again. Check the market for bargains first, but at £999, the Asus UX50 is great mid-level effort with a pile of pizazz.
User comments (1)
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Henry Balfour12 December 2009
<snip> is there really any point in a numeric keypad on the right? <snip> Seems you have never used a Numeric Keypad, Charlie. They live on the right as that is the most common handedness of people, and the speed of entry is very much higher than using the discrete numerals at the top of the QWERTY. Silly Comment, eh? This laptiop looks great but I won't be buying one simply because the proc is too basic. It needs to be a min of 2GHz to get attention in the current market.
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