Asus U46SV Review: Fast, Comfortable, Enduring, but Too Much Software - brookscreter1959

At a Glance

Expert's Rating

Pros

Unspoilt performance
Expectant battery life

Cons

Soggy
Too a good deal non-essential software

Our Finding of fact

This all-purpose laptop is stylish with cracking stats and numbers, but it's also large and you essential clean out the software bloat to fully appreciate it.

The Asus U46SV general-purpose laptop computer sets itself apart from the crowd through slap-up performance and outstanding battery life–two attributes that rarely cohabitate. The primary reason for the long 6-hour, 41-minute run clip is an unusually large 74-watt-hour stamp battery. The sizeable battery is likewise responsible for the U46SV's hefty 4.9-thump still and 6-pound locomote (with AC adapter) weights, but clever design makes the unit feel lighter than those numbers might wind you to believe.

The battery protrudes about a one-half-inch beneath the back of the otherwise i-inch thick unit. That gives you a firm, yet comfortable clasp when toting it about (part of the cause it doesn't feel as onerous as it is) and also adds a slight forward blood that puts your hand at a better typing angle. Altogether, the heavier, larger, thirster-eternal battery should please more users than it discourages them.

The U46SV sports a stylish aluminum lid and keyboard adorn, though the effect is cheapened slightly by chrome touchpad buttons and a quite bright superpowe clit. Still, while the touchpad buttons are distractingly reflective, they also have retributory the right amount of resistance. The U46SV's breathable Chiclet-style keyboard feels exactly like those launch connected Lenovo's U series (a good thing)–crisp, even though the keys travel only a deficient space. The touchpad is nicely responsive arsenic well.

Our test social unit featured an Intel Core i5-2430M CPU, 8GB of DDR3 memory, and a 750GB hard-fought push back. It also had both Intel HD Graphics 3000 for everyday use and a discrete Nvidia GeForce GT 540M GPU that propelled the unit to playable gaming frame rates in the 60s at low detail and high 30s at soprano detail at 1024 by 768 resolution. You can also buy the U46SV with a Core i3, less memory, and less capacious hard drives if our configuration's $900 terms tag seems besides steep.

Besides the starring battery life, the U46SV scored a 123 along WorldBench 6–excellent for a Core i5. Video of all resolutions plays swimmingly and is rendered to good result happening the U46SV's 14-inch, 1366 by 768 display. And so good, in fact, that when I tested with a 1080 Videodisk of True Grit (the Coen Brothers version), I wound prepared watching nearly the entire movie. Course, it's also a real good movie. That experience was best with headphones; the U46SV's speakers sound slight and thin despite the Audible Focus audio enhancement software that tries to overcome that fact.

The U46SV's ports include VGA and HDMI, three USB ports (one of which is USB 3.0), ethernet, and an SD board one-armed bandit. The laptop includes some headphone and microphone jacks, as fortunate as a Kensington lock port wine on the back. You get a webcam, too, but for few reason Asus opted for a relatively low-resolution 0.3 megapixel whole.

Though the U46SV upside-down in very nice public presentation numbers, it performs sluggishly for the first arcminute after booting with the stock software contour. This is for the most part ascribable loading a whopping 32 unaccepted startup items–the bulk of which aren't particularly useful or necessary. Whatever time culling the slag with msconfig.exe and uninstalling supererogatory software is in order of magnitude if you want the performance you paid for. Not all the software is useless: Cyberlink's Power2Go supports the integrated DVD burner, and the starter version of Office 2022 is present for productiveness chores.

As hard as Asus tries to droppings up a great hardware package with a bloated software installation, the U46SV corpse an impressive combining of performance, ergonomics, and long battery life story. Remove the preinstalled applications you don't want, and you're good to go.