The Asus U52F-BBL9 ($749 list), available at Best Buy, is a trim, lightweight laptop that offers a blend of performance and portability that are hard to beat. For users looking for a combination of productivity and portability, the Asus U52F-BBL9 offers processing and graphics power that can be used in the office and on the road.
Design
It is hard to keep your hands off the Asus U52F-BBL9 .The all-plastic construction is made incredibly touchable with the use of rubberized, soft-to-the- touch panels on the lid and palm rest. The U52F combines dark metallic grays with nearly black navy blues, a surprisingly fashionable combination that easily beats the looks of many business use laptops.
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The keyboard is chiclet-style, with a compact numeric keypad. Despite this, the numeric pad never felt cramped or crowded. It’s big enough for number crunchers to use with comfort, but doesn’t displace the full-sized keyboard too much for traditional typists. The raised palm rest offers an ergonomically pleasing typing experience that will be appreciated by anyone that spends all day at the keyboard. The trackpad has a silky matte finish that glides well under the fingertips. The right and left buttons are combined into a single bar, but it’s responsive enough that few users will wish for two distinct buttons.
Specifications
Operating System
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium
Processor Speed
2.53 GHz
Processor Name
Intel Core i5-460M
RAM
4 GB
Weight
5.9 lb
Screen Size
15.3 inches
Screen Size Type
widescreen
Graphics Card
Intel GMA HD
Storage Capacity (as Tested)
640 GB
Networking Options
802.11n
Primary Optical Drive
Dual-Layer DVD+/-RW
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Weighing 5.9 pounds, the U52F is much lighter than comparable 17-inch laptops, like the Dell Inspiron 17R-2950MBR (6.7 lbs), making it a laptop that you will gladly tote to and from work or school. Its low profile makes it easy to pack along, at only 1.3 inches thick.
Features
While the Asus U52F-BBL9 does offer a potent mix of efficiency and usability, it doesn’t offer many extras. That’s not to say, however, that the U52F-BBL9 doesn’t have a trick or two up its sleeve. Alongside the standard VGA output, headphone and microphone jacks, and RJ-45 LAN connection, you’ll find 3 USB ports and an HDMI output. A multi-format card reader lets you use a variety of flash memory cards without needing any sort of adapter. The built in webcam is perfect for Skype and videochat, and the 640GB hard drive offers ample storage for music, movies, and games.
On the laptop you will find not one, but two power buttons. One works as you may be familiar with&mdashit powers up the unit and boots up Windows. The other is a QuickStart button, which powers up the laptop and opens Asus ExpressGate–a built in Linux-based operating system that bypasses the lengthy Windows boot time to allow nearly instant web access. It’s cropped up on a number of recent laptops and netbooks, and Asus has begun offering it across a range of machines.
Asus has also quietly brought in multitouch as well. Where other laptops like the Editors’ Choice HP Pavilion dv7-4083cl ($999 list, 4 stars) offer several gesture controlled functions, the Asus U52F-BBL9 exercises a bit of restraint, limiting the user to two-fingered scrolling. Unlike the recent HP Pavilions–which have all had complaints about the multitouch–this function is implemented perfectly. It responds when you use it, it doesn’t have problems with false positives, and it doesn’t require any extra thought.
Performance
Compared with other recent laptops in the $700-800 range, the U52F-BBL9 proves to be a quick, powerful system. A PCMark Vantage score of 5,908 places it alongside Editors’ Choice HP Pavilion dv7-4083cl (5,677) and Samsung R540-11 ($999 street, 4 stars) (6,190) in terms of processing power. All three utilize Intel Core i5 processors, with the U52F-BBL9 using the M460, a small bump up from the M450 used in the HP dv7-4083cl and Samsung R540-11. . Our Photoshop CS5 test runs through several intense processing tasks, designed to slow most systems to a crawl. While high-end graphics-intensive systems will jog through them easily, most midrange systems lurch and stumble, often earning times of more than 6 minutes. The U52F-BBL9, on the other hand, scored a respectable time of 4:45. It did equally well in our video tests, completing our video encoding test in 2 minutes 41 seconds, compared with 3:26 scored by the Toshiba Satellite L675D-S7046 ($649.98 list, 2.5 stars).
The U52F-BBL9 also a solid performer, earning scores of 2,203 and 1,982 at on 3DMark at medium and high resolution tests, edging past the HP Pavilion dm4-1160us ($850 street, 4 stars) (2,123 and 1,809).
The end result of all this hardware is a system that performs extremely well when working with images and video. Amateur videographers will find that the video editing and encoding programs that normally overwhelm the processors in other mid-range laptops will run efficiently and smoothly on the U52F-BBL9.
The 6 cell, 63Wh battery is slim and light, but still provides power for the better part of a workday. The 5 hours 52 minutes of battery life that the U52F-BBL9 offers is good. The 15.3-inch screen makes the unit smaller than 17 inch variants, making this a fairly portable system.
Although it’s not an ultra-light or low-voltage system, the Asus U52F-BBL9 offers a higher level of portability and performance than many of it’s peers in the $700-800 price range. Those looking to add some entertainment options to their work machine may opt instead for the Editors’ Choice HP Pavilion dv7-4083cl, but customers looking for a no-frills laptop will find the Asus U52F-BBL9 to be more than up to the task.
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