 "Asus U6S")
When it comes to making luxury notebooks, few manufacturers can boast of the experience that Asus has. Ranging from their leather-clad U series to the high-end VX performance series, the company has achieved a modicum of success in the luxury market that is second only to Sony’s Vaio brand.
The U6S was recently refreshed with a Penryn processor and a few changes. Let’s find out if it lives up to the sterling quality of previous products in this range.
The U6S is a 12.1-inch ultraportable that has an uncanny resemblance to the earlier VX2 model, which borrowed elements from the car brand (Lamborghini) it was supposed to embody. The U6S follows the same tradition, with a nicely tapered design that gives it a sleek, stylish ‘Italian chic’ appearance.
The finish and styling are top-notch. The lid sports a nice glossy black finish, with a surprisingly small Asus logo in the center of the lid. In direct contrast to the lid, the hinges are a nice matte-metallic color that transitions seamlessly into a beautifully designed brushed metal strip that encases the hinges and runs across the belly of the laptop.
The first question that comes to mind on seeing a design like this is: “how durable is the laptop?” The answer is… it’s very durable. This is mainly because the body is constructed from a nice magnesium alloy that offers a lot of durability – at the expense of making the laptop a tad heavier than other comparable ultra-portables.
The screen area of the U6S remains in line with the finish offered on the exterior of the laptop, with its silver-gray plastic finish. This finish extends to a small strip around the keyboard, with even the keys sporting the same silver-gray color. The palmrest is a different beast altogether, as it’s made of nice durable leather that looks classy and copes well even with sweaty palms.
The keyboard is typical Asus. Well-spaced keys, great feedback, and good elevation all combine to offer a lag-free typing experience. The touch panel is, on the other hand (to borrow a quote from my gaming colleagues) “full of fail”. Not only is it oddly positioned, its mouse keys are quite hard to work with and the pad itself does not offer a good textured finish. It’s a little too smooth for my liking.
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The screen or LCD panel of the U61 is a 12.1 inch backlit LED panel, with a native resolution of 1280x800. As expected, this panel offers amazing clarity, brightness and contrast levels. Both movies and text appear sharp, smooth and crisp. There is no banding anywhere, and the screen achieves a brilliant level of detail that can only be found in Dell’s XPS M1330 laptop.
Connectivity-wise the U6S is simply amazing. It offers 4 USB ports, Express card slot, microphone-in jack, headphone-out jack (S/PDIF), VGA port/Mini D-sub connector, RJ11 Modem jack and Ethernet slot. Check out this link for full specifications.
The Asus U6 makes good use of Intel’s Penryn platform. It sports a T8300 processor that runs at 2.4GHz, 2GB of DDR2 RAM, 250GB of storage, and its graphics are powered by a Nvidia 8400M GS chipset. These are healthy figures for a portable machine, and it was adequately reflected in its benchmark scores: 1609 in 3DMark and 5341 in PCMark. These are easily at the higher end of the spectrum when it comes to laptops in this size.
The battery life, however, was a major letdown. Previous efforts in this range have been sterling performers, achieving great – even segment-leading – battery life figures. The U6S slips up on this front, as under a full burn test it offers less than 3 hours, even with the extended battery that’s shipped by default.
The U6S is a bit of an enigma. It’s a very stylish laptop, with great connectivity and performance, but flops when it comes to its battery. This is indeed strange, as ultra-portables offer some of the best battery life figures across all laptop ranges.
The laptop costs around Rs 94,000. At its price point it’s a good machine, but it comes up against stiff competition from Dell’s XPS range. So we would recommend that you also look at other alternatives that may not boast the same sense of style, but offer equally good performance – and far better battery life.