ASUS U30JC-QHDA1-A1 Intel Core I5-430M 13.3IN 1366X768 LED 4GB 500GB NVIDIA G310M 512MB W7P Notebook

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This laptop is set to guide me through 4 years of university. It's sleek design, great battery life, and nice specs will hopefully support 4 years of no hassle. So far it has exceeded my expectations, aside from its gaming capabilities, but I did not buy it for that.I recommend this laptop for anyone in the market for a laptop with good battery life, as well as a discrete graphics card for slightly more demanding applications, such as games.Also, for anyone interested, the keyboard does have the the french keyboard letters in a different colour on keys that would be different if you wanted the french layout. ALl of the english keyboard is there though, don't fret about that!It's fairly early in my ownership, but so far I cannot see any complaints, its fast, affordable, and I think the best bang for my buck. It may not be as powerful as some others, but its battery life will put it above those!

Comment:
I was looking for an all-around laptop with a good edge in performance as well as portability.This laptop has a bit of everything - it's nicely built, it's portable, it has the chiclet keyboard (which, imo, is very comfortable for typing), and it's powerful enough to some games on the side.The keyboard is, unfortunately, a bilingual one. eb4y sells some US keyboards for about $20.The 13.3" screen has average colors, contrast, and poor viewing angles. It's nearly impossible to distinguish colors when viewed at an off-angle vertically. Horizontally, the viewing angles are a bit poor but much better than the vertical angles.I find the glossy screen to be a bit annoying while there is a source of natural light nearby.The speakers are a bit quiet, but I usually have headphones or earphones around so it's not much of an issue.The ELAN multi-touch touchpad is pretty good. Scroling takes a bit getting used to with it. I recommend adjusting the sensitivity of the multi-touch reception.I would have liked to see a USB 3.0 port or at the very least, an eSATA port, but there are only threee USB 2.0 ports. The video-out ports are fair, with it having a VGA port and an HDMI port.The battery life, quoted from Windows 7, while using the battery-saving options and about 30% brightness, is around 7 hours while writing this review.I would like to praise the Nvidia Optimus system. It kicks in right when you need it to, but some programs you will need to add to the Nvidia Control Panel for Optimus to automatically switch to discrete video card. Unlike the older generation of Optimus, the transition from Intel GMA to Nvidia discrete is seamless and you will never notice it. There is a program called OptimusTestTool that you can use to monitor when the discrete card is enabled.Performance wise, this machine is pretty snappy at Windows 7. The only real bottleneck is the 500GB 5400 RPM hard drive included. I may end up getting a small SSD for the OS and programs, and sticking the hard drive for storage in the DVD slot (Check eb4y for a 12.5mm, SATA optical caddy!)Game performance: With low settings, AA/AF off, I measured at the lowest, 35 FPS in a middle of a 16v16 Team Fortress 2 firefight. This is definitely playable.Overall I would give this machine a 4.5/5, just for the keyboard. I'm not a fan of the French-Canadian Bilingual keyboard at all; In fact I had to remap the bottom left "" key to a shift button!If you don't mind the keyboard or don't mind replacing the keyboard later on, then I recommend the U30JC.

Comment:
I needed a laptop for work and I wanted something that was compact and portable, that had exceptional battery life but was also still powerful. I also wanted something with a bit of gaming moxy and switchable graphics so that I could repurpose the machine for personal use later on. There really weren't a lot of competitively-priced options on the market and I waited and waited for ASUS to deliver the UL30jt but it never came...I decided to buy this machine figuring that I would be settling for second best, as I really needed a new laptop, but I was pleasantly surprised by what ASUS has delivered. I've been using it for over a month in the office and I am happier with it now than I was initially! It's a fantastic machine.The first thing I did was to swap out the stock HDD for an Intel SSD and then do a fresh install of Windows 7 Pro. This got rid of the slow included HDD and the big package of ASUS bloatware. With that out of the way, I got to work. It's fast! This machine handles my job functions with aplomb. I run SQL developer on here, a virtual XP machine, remote desktop, browsers, music, Office and more all at once.When I need to go portable, I can squeeze about 10 hours out of the 8-cell battery with the screen set to 25% brightness, the processor set to 50% max clock and WiFi on with light browsing and word processing-type tasks. Doing all of my plugged-in tasks could bring it down to 3.5-odd hours. I think you could get a couple DVDs in on a single charge but I haven't tried.Although the air coming out of the side grille is quite hot, the machine runs cool to the touch and the fan rarely ever makes any noise. Even when the CPU is heavily loaded, the machine remains pretty quiet. The fan is constantly on and does not do any of the annoying spin up and down drone that some other laptops are notorious for doing.Build quality is excellent. You can pick the machine up by the corners, including at the CD tray, and it hardly bends. The lid is bouncy in the middle, but you can securely grip the closed laptop at the edges without concern. I also really appreciate that the laptop doesn't tilt up at the back - it sits flat. The keyboard is quite bouncy, but the chiclet keys make it a non-issue.My biggest complaints come with the screen. Number 1, 1366x768 simply doesn't offer enough screen real estate. I wouldn't mind 1920x1080 even in a screen this size. Number 2, the glossy screen is crap for a working machine. I can see the screen of the person in the cubicle across from me reflected in my own screen! Number 3, the extra-shiny plastic that the screen bezel (and battery) are made out of attract astonishing amounts of dust. It's ridiculous.The speakers are one of the substantial weak points on this machine too. They probably wouldn't be powerful enough to make a presentation comfortably audible in a boardroom.I'd like for the machine to be thinner and lighter, but honestly it's a great size and since it's such a powerful and sturdy unit in a 13" package, I'm quite willing to forgive.The package includes a mini travel mouse and a decent little case, by the way. A nice touch.The only thing I haven't really tried much of is gaming. I don't think the 310M would have a problem with too many games and modest settings at 1366x768. I did check to make sure Optimus works, though - it's cool. HD video clips and stuff like that are a snap. They barely even get the machine working.All-in-all, I am very satisfied. This is a very well-rounded laptop and I think it'd suit almost any task. ASUS could do some work to improve the weakness in the screen, but you're getting a great deal here, I think.

Comment:
Was required to get a laptop for school, so I bought this one, and it was a great decisionReally nice, very fast, switchable graphics to boot.Came with 8 cell battery which gives it wonderful battery life (around 7 or 8 hours web browsing and using office)Includes bluetooth, a travel mouse and travel case, which are all awesome.Highly recommended!Keyboard has some flex, but it is much better than my 4 year old laptop's keyboard.