I have been searching for a new laptop for the past few months. I always wanted to get a 12″-13″, light weight model and longer battery life. I was looking at Lenovo’s U350 series as they were the first to have DDR3 laptops in the 13″ form factor. But I have waited for a long time and it is still not available in Canada. So I kept searching until couple weeks ago.

ASUS = Expensive?

ASUS have always been my brand when choosing a laptop because of their innovations and quality. My first laptop was customized with an ASUS barebone in 2002. It is still working perfectly fine today in my dad’s office. The only factor that would hold me back from getting another ASUS laptop was its price. Most of ASUS’ laptops are over $1000, especially for the 12″ – 13″ models.

ASUS != Expensive

Finally, 2 weeks ago I bought the ASUS UL30A-2A laptop for less than a thousand dollar. Its configuration is this:

• Intel® Core 2 Duo ULV SU7300 processor
• Windows7® Home Premium 64
• 4GB DDR3 memory
• 500GB hard drive
• 13.3″ HD (1366×768) screen
• Built-in Wireless N
• HDMI output

I have waited for Windows 7 to be officially released so that I can get this laptop with the new OS pre-installed. The large hard drive and 4GB of memory is more than enough for me to virtualize another operation system such as Ubuntu Linux using VirtualBox. It is also nice to have HDMI output along with the stand VGA port. The LCD screen is bright and sharp and it’s perfect for watching movies.

Substitute of MacBook Air

However, the features attracted me the most about this laptop are its physical size and battery life. It is under 1 inch thick and it weighs a little bit more than 3 pounds, which gives me a feeling of a MacBook Air. Due to this light weight design, it dosen’t have an optical drive but that’s fine to me because I can easily store CD/DVD images on the spacious hard drive.

10 Hours Up Time

Regarding the battery life, it just amazed me. The ASUS website claims that it can run for 12-hours but I never believe in any manufacturer’s claim about battery life. However, I was able to get at least 7-8 hours with normal usage. I also had a practice in which I like to remote control my laptop from my desktop at work so that I can use a larger screen and only one set of keyboard and mouse among 2 computers. With this practice, I can turn off the screen of the laptop and the ASUS UL30A is able to last for 10 hours before I need to plug in the power.

Other features worth mentioning are:

• SmartLogon – ASUS developed facial recognition technology where it utilizes the built-in webcam to recognize your face and automatically logs you on to Windows.
• Speaters – It uses Altec Lansing speakers which are much better than other brand’s low budget laptops.
• Express Gate – This model incorporates the Express Gate in which you can boot into a stripped Linux operating system within 8 seconds. It gives you a web browser, music player, online gaming, photo manager, chat, and Skype functions.

Nothing is Perfect

Well, nothing is perfect in reality and there are some downside of this laptop. The touchpad is not working very well as it is very difficult to make very precise move with the pointer. The pointer seems to be “skipping” on the screen. This is probably due to the “too smooth” surface of the track pad. Another weakness is that it doesn’t come with bluetooth, which seems to be a standard for today’s laptops. But it is also a standard that I don’t really need and good to trade it off for a lower price tag.

Reminder

If you are looking for mobility and affordability, then this ASUS UL30A would be a very good choice with up-to-date technologies. And if you are getting an ASUS laptop, you should not forget to register it with ASUS within 60 date to activate the 1 year Accidental Warranty. Just in case you “accidentally” dropped your laptop.