ASUS B23E: 12.5 Inch Screen And Ultra-Thin Design

A new ASUS notebook hits the market with a 12.5 inch screen and an ultra-thin design. ASUS continues to present new developments in its product portfolio for the year 2012 already runs. The new release of the company is the ASUS B23E, this is an ultraportable that stands out for having a small but very interesting 12.5-inch screen, refined design and all the power of Intel hardware.

In spite of having dimensions and appearance of an ASUS ultrabook it apart from the rest and classified as an ultraportable. The model is as powerful as a ultrabook but with a much more competitive price. The format LED screen has a resolution of 1366 x 768 pixels plus a non-glare interesting resource. The design is simple with a black tone prevalent, the device is actually thicker at a traditional ultrabook.

In return this is much more powerful, this model receives second-generation processor line Core i Series models Sandy Bridge Core i3, i5 or i7. The speeds of the Intel chips can reach 2.7 GHz to complete the proposed maximum performance is a notebook with compact dimensions and low weight the ASUS B23E can receive up to 8 GB DDR3 RAM, Intel HD graphics, HDMI output , 750 GB hard disk storage, input Gigabit Ethernet, 802.11 b / g / n, Bluetooth 3.0 and USB 2.0 and 3.0.

The main focus of this notebook is a business market and data security resources prove this. The device features technology LoJack tracking equipment and password protection through the BIOS. The Asus B23E is available for purchase in the United States and its initial price is $ 922. Meanwhile Hewlett Packard launches a netbook with Intel Atom N2600 and the operating system Windows 7 Home Premium, HP betting on small laptops announced the launch of the new Mini 1104.

The netbook has a 10.1 inch display with a resolution of 1024 x 600 pixels and comes with the new generation of Intel processors. Atom N2600 processor has two cores and 1.6 GHz frequency besides GMA 3600 graphics card and up to 2 GB of RAM. The combination allowed the manufacturer to place the operating system Windows 7 Home Premium. The laptop has specifications simple, has the WiFi network connectivity and HSPA +, Bluetooth 4.0 and GPS.

To store data, the netbook has a 320 GB hard drive at 5,200 rpm and a 6-cell battery that promises a range of up to 9 hours use. Hewlett Packard Mini Model 1104 is available for purchase in the North American market for the suggested retail price of $ 399.

If you’re after a machine to play Battlefield 3, Skyrim and Modern Warfare 3, look no further. The Asus G74S is a mammoth gaming laptop, which has the power to play all the latest titles, and while you might not get as much for your money when compared with full form desktops, it’s up there with the best.

Buying a gaming laptop offers fantastic pay offs in terms of space and portability. If you don’t have room for a hulking desktop system, or like to have the option of taking your laptop away from your home, the Asus G74S is perfect.

The G74S is a whopping 17.3″ and features a full HD screen, which makes games look great. The screen is matte, so no pesky reflections will ruin your experience. While this technology takes the life out of images, the full 1920 x 1080 resolution keeps things looking great, and is just as adept at playing movies too.

Bright and beautiful

The panel is stunningly bright – great for gaming in dark rooms, and it’s also 3D-enabled, using Nvidia’s 3D Vision active-shutter technology. This means the panel has super-swift refresh rates, which makes day-to-day tasks feel snappier too.

It’s one of the slickest integrations of 3D tech we’ve seen, and with the receiver built into the body of the G74S, there was no fuss getting it working. All the content we tried looked fantastic.

To play the latest games you need the latest technology, and a top-of-the-range mobile Intel Core i7 2630QM processor is included here, which aced our lab tests. It’s up there with the biggest and baddest systems, and is the same chip found in the more famous Alienware M18x.

Anyone who makes a large gaming laptop will immediately be compared with the Alienware, but we think that the Asus is more than a match for its extra-terrestrial rival. There’s 8GB of RAM, which is double that found on the stingy M18x.

TechRadar Labs

Battery Eater ’05: 86 minutes
Cinebench: 16914
3DMark 2006: 15270

The hard drive is also a whopping 1.5TB (that’s 1500GB) which, in today’s terms, means almost unlimited space. The Alienware M18x ships with just 250GB, which gives you an idea of the great value offered by the G74S over its competitors.

What’s more, there’s also a Blu-ray drive to boot, so you can play the latest movies in high-definition.

At 4.6kg, you can get some idea of the build quality of the Asus G74S. It weighs the same as four Toshiba Ultrabooks, and is as solid as any laptop you’ll find.

Looks are uninspiring, and there’s no keyboard back lighting, or flashy extras, but that’s no great loss. The Asus G74S is a fantastic, power-packed gaming machine, which will also appeal to movie lovers looking for a desktop-replacement system too.

The screen and built-in 3D, as well as the colossal storage, make it good value buy, in spite of the high price.

Overview

We’ve got to confess, the unveiling of the Asus Zenbook has spoiled us. The beautifully slender yet sturdy body is a marvel, yet it still makes room for some powerful components for (hopefully) excellent performance.

This makes reviewing the Asus U46SV – another new laptop from the Taiwanese giant – a rather tricky business. It’s not that this laptop is ugly or anything. But imagine embarking on an illicit one-night affair with Megan Fox, then hooking up with Hilary Duff. She’s probably a very nice girl and not bad looking, but you’d be thinking of Megan during sexy time.

Let’s begin by saying we really liked the Asus U36JC, a powerful and well-built ultra-portable laptop. The Asus U46SV is a spiritual successor to the U36JC, but we were surprised by how chunky and heavy it felt when we pulled it free of its box.

The chassis is 38mm thick, which is rather bulky for a laptop of this size. It also weighs 2.3kg – a lot more than the Asus U36JC’s featherweight build. The U46SV won’t exactly weigh you down if you’re carrying it in a bag all day, but we expected something a lot slimmer and lighter. Compared to the Sony VAIO S Series, this is a boxy beast.

We also aren’t massive fans of the Asus U46SV’s aluminium build, which feels strangely like plastic. The lid is especially weak, and bends in the centre under light pressure. Both the lid and the palm rests feature a circular pattern that looks cheap compared to the beautiful finish of the Zenbook.

Still, we can’t complain when it comes to the keyboard. The popular chiclet, or ‘isolation-style’, design means that keys are well spaced, which makes it perfect for touch-typists. The keys are a great size, with no tiny Shift or Return keys to spoil the party. Even the arrow keys get plenty of space, which is a welcome relief.

We also liked the smooth touchpad, which finds plenty of space to spread out across the Asus U46SV’s palm rests. The dedicated mouse buttons aren’t set too firmly and are a haven for grimy fingerprints, but they’re hugely preferable to those pesky integrated buttons.

Specifications

For some reason, Asus built the U46SV with a jutting lip at the back, which prevents the lid from tilting back by more than 45 degrees. This makes it tricky to get a good view of the screen when this portable laptop is sat on your lap.

Thankfully the 14-inch display goes some way to rectifying this, with decent enough viewing angles. It’s also impressively bright, although blacks aren’t as deep as we’d like and images can occasionally look washed out. However, we still enjoyed watching high-definition movies and browsing our photo collection (holiday photos, not the other kind. Ahem).

Speaking of which, you can carry a large chunk of media around on the 500GB hard drive – over 100 HD films, or around a hundred thousand songs or photos. Only torrent fans should struggle to carry around their entire collections.

A five-in-one memory card reader can be used to boost storage space, or quickly copy your holiday snaps onto your laptop, ready to bore close friends and family. You also get VGA and HDMI ports for outputting to an external display, and three USB ports. One of those is USB 3.0, so you can quickly back up your files to a compatible hard drive.

Asus has also stuck an extra power button above the keyboard, for booting into its Express Gate OS. This gives you quick access to your media and the internet, booting up in mere seconds.

However, we still aren’t massive fans of the stripped-down user interface and limited functionality, and would rather wait the extra 20 seconds it takes to boot into Windows. Let’s face it, we’ve got nothing better to do with our time, except feed Doritos to the office gerbil.

You have built-in 802.11n Wi-Fi for hooking up to wireless internet networks and an Ethernet port if you prefer to trail cables across your lounge. You also get a built-in DVD drive, and in terms of features that’s about it.

We were surprised to see no more, but extras such as fingerprint scanners would probably go unused by most consumers anyway.

Performance

TechRadar Labs

Cinebench ’10: 9816
3D Mark ’06: 8771
Battery Eater: 330 minutes

While we’re less than impressed by the build and looks of the Asus U46SV, we can’t deny that the laptop is stuffed with power. One of Intel’s latest Sandy Bridge chips, the Core i5 2410M, is ably backed up by 4GB of memory and is strong enough to run any number of applications at once.

The Cinebench score of 9,816 isn’t one of the best we’ve seen lately – that award goes to the Toshiba Qosmio X770, which managed a stupendous 17,063. However, we’re confident that even demanding users will get years of use from the Asus U46SV.

This laptop also caters to movie and music editors with its Nvidia GeForce GT 540M graphics card. You can run dedicated editing software without any kind of stuttering or issues, and even have a blast on modern games (although you’ll need to turn down detail levels on the more complex titles to keep a respectable frame rate).

If you’re more into watching movies than fiddling with them, you can enjoy HD video with smooth playback. We recommend plugging in some decent speakers or headphones, though. The Asus U46SV’s built-in efforts are tinny and, strangely, the sound seems to come from the right-hand side of the laptop instead of hitting you head-on.

Despite the excellent performance and dedicated GPU, the Asus U46SV somehow pulls off fantastic battery life. We test our laptops by looping an HD video on full brightness, with performance settings turned to max, which gives a good indication of the minimum life to expect. Most portable laptops manage less than three hours before dying, but the Asus U46SV lasted almost double that before the screen went black.

It’s a damn shame the body isn’t slimmer or lighter, or this would be one of the most portable laptops we’ve used in a long time.

Verdict

After enjoying our time with the Asus U36JC, we really hoped that the Asus U46SV would be a worthy update, packing similarly strong performance into another light and slender chassis. However, when we pulled the U46SV from its box, it wasn’t quite what we expected.

We liked

We certainly weren’t disappointed with the performance. The Intel Core i5 Sandy Bridge processor can multitask with the best of them, while a dedicated Nvidia graphics card copes with video editing and gaming.

Despite the powerful components, you can still enjoy movies for almost six hours before the battery dies. This is one of the best results we’ve seen in a long time. Movies look good on the bright 14-inch screen, even if colours are occasionally saturated.

If you’d rather bash out a novel or chat with friends online, the firm isolation-style keyboard will keep you satisfied. You can store plenty of files on the 500GB hard drive, and you get a decent range of ports, including USB 3.0.

We disliked

Performance impressed, but the build of the Asus U46SV is a letdown. While the Asus U36JC had a sleek ultra-portable body, this update has a chunkier chassis and weighs a meaty 2.3kg. It’s still portable, but we expected this laptop to be just as light, if not lighter.

We were also disappointed by the build quality. The lid flexes far too easily under pressure, and the design isn’t too appealing. There’s also a lack of exciting features.

Verdict

While the Asus U46SV is powerful and its impressive battery life makes up in some part for the bulky build, we’d recommend holding off for the upcoming Asus Zenbook instead.

Asus has built a great reputation over the years, offering laptops that pack style and power at competitive prices. Few multimedia machines can match the value offered by the N73SV but its flawed usability unfortunately lets the side down early on.

Finished with a brushed aluminium lid and contrasting gunmetal and black interior, the chassis feels suitably well put together and looks every bit the high-end media centre, despite its surprisingly low price.

Sadly, this quality does not extend to the keyboard. While the large keys are responsive and easy to type on, the board is poorly mounted and bounces a great deal during use. The touchpad fares little better, proving sluggish and slow to respond.

A vertical panel of multimedia keys sits to the left of the keyboard, providing a fast way to control your music and movies. The six backlit buttons can be easily seen in the dark, but we found no easy way to disable the backlighting, so they can prove a little distracting at times.

At 3.5kg this is not a laptop for frequent travellers and its bulky dimensions make it far better suited to life at home on your desk. This is reflected in the limited 193-minute battery life, although this still managed to beat the sub-standard results of the other machines.

The most obvious strength of this laptop is its stunning 17.3-inch screen. The exceptionally bright and colourful panel shows images and videos to glorious effect, while the Full HD resolution makes the most of the built-in Blu-ray drive. Even the glossy coating is not overly reflective.

Powerful sound

Sound quality also impresses. Using technology co-developed with audio specialist, Bang & Olufsen ICEpower, the audio from the speakers is loud, clear and detailed. We noticed some slight treble distortion at higher volumes, but bass and mid frequencies were always clear.

Despite using the same dedicated Nvidia graphics card as the, the Asus almost doubles its power. Bettered by only the Acer Aspire 8951G and Toshiba Qosmio X770-107, there is plenty of power for light gaming and running high-definition video – a great result at this low price.

Office performance is no slouch either, despite falling some behind the powerful Intel Core i7 laptops. The Core i5 processor is backed by a healthy 6GB of memory and software opens and runs swiftly, with plenty of power for multi-tasking.

You also get a healthy amount of storage, thanks to the Asus’ 640GB hard drive. While it falls far behind the vast disks of the more expensive Acer and Toshiba, there is still ample room for storing large multimedia collections.

TechRadar Labs

Battery Eater ’05: 193 minutes
Cinebench: 9798
3DMark 2006: 7905

A final unique feature of this laptop is its ExpressGate Cloud operating system. Installed along with Windows 7 it enables you to boot into a basic, panel-based OS in nine seconds, to access your photos, music, a calendar and a web browser faster than you can with Windows. We found the software needless, however, and find it unlikely anyone would use it on a regular basis.

If you can overlook the flawed user interface, the N73SV has a lot to offer at this price. Offering power, Blu-ray compatibility, an excellent screen and surprisingly strong audio, it makes a very good entry-level media centre. If you tend to work more than you play, though, the bouncy keyboard could be a deal breaker.

There was a genuine air of excitement when the Asus Automobili Lamborghini VX7 rolled into the office.

A Lamborghini Gallardo boasts a 552bhp V10 engine and its namesake is running the laptop equivalent – an Intel Core i7-2630QM CPU, Nvidia GeForce GTX 460QM GPU and 8GB of RAM.

The lid is sculpted to resemble the front of a Lamborghini, complete with the famous badge on the front. The base of the laptop protrudes out behind the screen hinge and sports mock Lamborghini rear lights and two gigantic vents.

Although our review unit was black, this laptop is also available in a striking orange finish that we think looks even better. The inside of the laptop is also designed to mimic its four-wheel counterpart with a black and chrome finish – and the power button even reads ‘start engine’.

Better yet, the palmrests either side of the matt-black touchpad are stitched leather, just like the upholstery of a proper super-car.

Not everyone will be a fan of the chunky design and, if you like your laptops slim and svelte, this isn’t the machine for you. The design also means that it’s incredibly heavy at 3.9kg and even if you wanted to carry it round, the dimensions make it hard to fit comfortably into a bag.

Even though you’re consigned to a desk, usability is fantastic. The 15.6-inch Super-TFT screen is bright and it runs at a native pixel resolution of 1920 x 1080, so even the most complex websites and dense pictures are rendered in extremely sharp detail.

Cool running

Aside from looking the part, the two large vents at the rear of the VX7 keep it cool during prolonged gaming sessions and we had no problems with excessive heat during our tests.

If you want to up your usage from pictures and web browsing to editing video and playing games, then the Asus really comes into its own. The Nvidia GeForce GTX 460QM is one of Nvidia’s top GPUs and when we tested Need for Speed: Shift and Tom Clancy’s HAWX, each on the highest detail settings, the VX7 showed no signs of lag.

TechRadar Labs

Battery Eater ’05: 119 minutes
Cinebench: 16,760
3DMark 2006: 7653

The VX7 also boasts a Blu-ray drive and dual 750GB hard drives, adding up to well over a terabyte of storage space.

Asus is keen to label the VX7 as a high-performance laptop rather than simply a gamer’s machine, and both the usability and range of features reflect this. The isolation-style keyboard is very comfortable to use and backlit for when you end up working late.

The VX7 also features four USB ports for transferring data and documents, one of which uses USB 3.0 technology for twice the speed. Elsewhere, HDMI and VGA-Out ports let you connect to another monitor for presentations or even an HDTV.

As is always the case with high-performance machines, the battery life suffers badly. The VX7 managed only 119 minutes on battery, giving enough time for one high-definition (HD) movie. This fact, as well as the aforementioned weight and dimensions, means you won’t be taking this away from the mains for any great length of time.

Understandably, cost is a factor and, although it’s not quite the £160,000 needed for a real Lamborghini, the asking price of the VX7 is pretty steep. But if you can afford it, this is a fantastically designed piece of kit that will easily satisfy all your computing needs.

Israeli newspaper Ynet has reported that Asustek is going to release the Asus Eee Pad EP90 8.9-inch tablet computer.

The EP90 is based on the Nvidia Tegra platform with a dual core 1GHz processor. It most likely runs Microsoft Windows 7 Embedded OS, since Ynet suggests that the device will be able to run Microsoft Office suite.

Asustek’s tablet reportedly weighs 650 grams and has a 1024×600 touch display, 16GB or 32GB of storage, a 4-6 hour battery life, 0.3MP front-facing camera, HDMI port, Bluetooth, and GPS.

There’s no word on pricing and availability.

The Asus Eee PC 1015T 10.1-inch netbook, powered by the latest AMD Ultrathin platform, is now available for pre-order in the US.

ExcaliberPC offers the Eee PC 1015T in black, white, blue, and red color. The 2.7-pound netbook comes with the AMD V105 single-core CPU at 1.2GHz, ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4250 integrated graphics, 1GB DDR3 memory, a 250GB hard drive with Windows 7 Starter pre-loaded, and a 6-cell battery for up to 6 hours of run time.

The 1015T has a 0.3MP web camera, stereo speakers, 802.11n Wi-Fi, three USB ports, an MMC/SD(SDHC) card reader, and a VGA connector.

Asustek’s AMD-based netbook is priced at $349 and is expected to start shipping on October 20th.

Asustek has introduced the 1080p playback-capable Asus Eee PC 1015PN netbook, featuring the latest Nvidia ION 512MB DDR3 dedicated graphics, Optimus GPU switching technology, and the Intel Atom N550 dual core processor.

The high-end Eee PC 1015PN netbook has a 10.1-inch LED-backlight display with a resolution of 1024×600 and matte finish, 1GB of DDR3 memory, a 250GB hard drive, a battery life of “up to 9.5 hours”, and Windows 7 Starter OS.

Asustek’s full HD netbook also has an HDMI output port, support for 7.1 channel surround sound, a 0.3MP web camera, a chiclet-style keyboard, 802.11n Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth.

It weighs 2.76 pounds and is available in black (1015PN-PU17-BK), blue (1015PN-PU17-BU), and red (1015PN-PU17-RD) color.

The Asus Eee PC 1015PN can be purchased now for $429.99 via Amazon and B&H.

Asustek has officially released the recently leaked ASUS-Lamborghini Eee PC VX6 12.1-inch ultraportable notebook, featuring a dual-core Atom CPU, switchable graphics, and a look co-designed by car maker Lamborghini.

The VX6 comes with the Intel Atom D525 1.83GHz dual-core CPU, aimed at use in small form factor desktop PCs, as well as with Nvidia Optimus switchable GPU technology that combines the Nvidia ION 2 dedicated GPU for more 3D gaming power and Intel’s integrated graphics for a longer battery life. The laptop also supports full HD 1080p video playback on an external display via HDMI and includes Bang & Olufsen Icepower for a rich audio experience.

The display has a 720p resolution.

Asustek’s stylish ultraportable has a black or white glossy exterior also features USB 3.0 and Bluetooth 3.0 technologies, and the Express Gate instant-on OS besides Windows 7 Home Premium.

The ASUS-Lamborghini Eee PC VX6 is available in the UK for £499, which is around $800 USD. There’s no word on availability in other countries.

Asustek has published user manuals of the upcoming Asus Eee PC Lamborghini VX6 ultraportable laptop.

According to the manuals, the Eee PC VX6 features a 12.1″ 1366×768 display, the dual-core Intel Atom D525 1.83GHz processor, NVIDIA ION 2 graphics, and Windows 7 Home Premium OS.

The Lamborghini-inspired and branded notebook has VGA and HDMI outputs, three USB ports, an SD card slot, and a multitouch touchpad.

There is no word on release date and pricing.