Super portable laptop battery 12 hours

Asus UL30A-A1 is a good choice in the affordable ultraportable segment with eye-catching design, full features, and good battery life .

Like the HP Pavilion dv2, Asus UL30A-A1 is a model under $ 800 in the ultraportable laptop segment with all the features. The 13-inch UL30A-A1 weighs nearly 1.7 kg, high mobility, eye-catching design and good battery life while the price is only about 800 USD (in Singapore).

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Asus UL30A-A1 premium aluminum case. Photo: Notebookreview .

The tendency to design glossy enclosures makes many people uncomfortable because of the aesthetic disadvantages of fingerprint retention. Therefore, Asus used a case made of polished aluminum metal which is both superior to plastic but beautiful, because it does not cling to dust or show fingerprints on the surface.

UL30A-A1 uses 13.3-inch LED display, resolution of 1366 x 768 pixels, 16: 9 ratio. The screen is glossy but not glaring, with good horizontal viewing angles, about 70 degrees to both sides but limited when viewed along the screen.

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UL30A-A1 uses LED display, good horizontal viewing angle. Photo: Notebookreview .

The loudspeaker system has a high volume but when turned on, the music is easily distorted. But, more disappointing is the 0.3 Megapixel webcam catch very poor image while the other latoples, although cheaper still equipped with 1.3 Megapixel webcam or more.

Leaving optical drive is characteristic of the ultraportable segment. UL30A-A1 lacks an optical drive but is quite full of the necessary connectors with both VGA and HDMI video outputs, an additional USB port on the left flank, the right is the SD / MMC memory card slot, Micro audio jacks / Headphone, 2 USB ports and power slot.

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The UL30A-A1 is neatly designed thanks to the optical drive. Photo: Computershopper .

Chiclet keyboard is wide and comfortable. Black keys with white painted characters stand out on the background of the frame and silver case. Sensitive keys but Asus' redesign of the keyboard makes it difficult for users to get familiar with it. The right Shift key is only half the size of the left Shift key while the space between the keys is quite wide.

If the keyboard is lower than the surface of the frame, then the touchpad is higher, the same plane with the hand placed and wide to the Spacebar is easy to type. But with the textured surface still very easy to use with the right mouse button below.

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The touchpad's sprawling Spacebar keys are slightly inconvenient. Photo: Notebookreview .

UL30A-A1 runs Intel CULV Core 2 Duo SU7300 power-saving processor, using DDR3 4 GB RAM memory. According to Computershopper, it scored 2,112 points with the PCMark Vantage Benchmark test (assessing system-wide performance), 800 points lower than the average of the ultra-portable models of approximately $ 2,000, but Higher than HP Pavilion dv2 costs 749 USD 500 points.

The processing speed of multimedia files is also a bit slower than high-end models. Testing converting 11 .mp3 music files to .aac with iTunes software was carried out by Computershopper taking 7 minutes 30 seconds slower than 2 minutes compared to the average but on par with the speed of Fujitsu LifeBook P8020 priced at 2,500 USD.

While the time needed to perform a test of converting video formats with Windows Media Encoder (WME) takes 10 minutes 14 seconds, longer than the average of 1 minute, and up to 11 minutes faster than the HP Pavilion dv2. If during the WME test running additional antivirus software BitDefender full-scan mode, the video file conversion time would take another 2 minutes while the HP Pavilion dv2 needed another 6 minutes to complete the test.

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UL30A-A1 has an average performance. Photos: Images-amazon .

With 3DMark06 assessing the graphics power of the machine, the UL30A-A1 is 836 points at native resolution of 1,366 x 768 pixels and 762 points at 1,024 x 768 pixels lower. Particularly for this test, Asus UL30A-A1 cannot match the HP Pavilion dv2 with a more powerful ATI discrete graphics card. But the ability to combine Intel GMA 4500MHD and CPU SU7300 integrated graphics in 2.736 graphics processing with Cinebench 10 testing, on par with the Apple MacBook Air (2,728 points) performance running Intel Core 2 Duo 1 CPU, 6 GHz.

Not featured in the performance by Asus UL30A-A1 is a ultraportable model limited in processing speed but with good battery life. UL30A-A1 has a time to watch online videos via Wi-Fi for 5 hours 34 minutes, much better than the average 3 hours 14 minutes, which is also higher than the HP EliteBook 2530's 5-hour and 5-minute results. price of 2600 USD. When running lighter applications if advertising, 8-cell battery can help UL30A-A1 operate continuously for 12 hours. Using an 8 cell battery, the total weight of the device is only 1.7 kg. Applying "Ice Cool" technology, UL30A-A1 good heat dissipation and cool air system even when used long while the AC adapter charger is the opposite, quite hot when charging long.

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Express Gate provides quick access to popular applications. Photo: Cnet UK .

Like many new models of Asus, UL30A-A1 also has built-in Express Gate tool to help users do not need to boot into Windows but still access quickly popular applications such as Web, Skype, Music Player, Online Gaming, Photo Manager and Chat. Express Gate boot time only takes 10 seconds after turning on the device.

Overall, compact and rugged design with high-quality aluminum shell still needs to improve the keyboard layout and touchpad for users to use more conveniently. Song, good battery life, average performance, reasonable price help Asus UL30A-A1 become a bright choice in affordable ultraportable segment besides popular models like Acer Timeline AS3810T or MSI X-Slim X340.