Asus M5623N-MH review

ASUS might not have been back in the notebook market for long, but if its M5623N-MH is anything to go by, the company has hit form remarkably quickly.

Weighing just 1.5kg and with a footprint a touch smaller than a copy of Computer Shopper, you could forget you were carrying it around. Other people are sure to notice it, however, as the slick design will turn heads.

For a notebook of this size you'd expect corners to be cut and a reduced specification. Fortunately, this isn't the case. An Intel Pentium M 715 processor running at 1.5GHz and 512MB of RAM provide the core specification. Our test results of 80 in the Shopper application benchmarks and 2,500 in PCMark04 aren't bad for a PC of this specification. Used purely as a workhorse the M5623N-MH should cope well, although it's slow at intensive tasks such as video editing.

Unfortunately, the onboard Intel graphics, which are set to share 8MB of system memory, just aren't good enough to play any 3D games bar very old ones. But as this isn't really the purpose of this notebook, we'll excuse it.

Due to the size of the chassis, only a 12.1" LCD can fit inside. Its 1,024x768 resolution might sound low compared to other notebooks, but a higher resolution would be harder to read onscreen. The LCD has a crisp picture with even lighting across the whole screen. The rear of the case is sufficiently thick to protect the screen from bumps.

The keyboard isn't perfect but it's cleverly designed. The standard alpha-numeric keys are well sized and comfortable to use. Due to space considerations the other keys, such as the cursors, are slightly smaller than average.

Storage is provided by a 40GB hard disk. This is quite small by today's standards and would quickly fill up if you have a lot of music and digital pictures. The drive is quite empty to start with, though, as ASUS provides only Windows XP Home Edition and no additional software.

A dual-format DVD rewriter is a nice touch, as it provides a method of archiving old files when the hard disk is beginning to get full. Somehow, ASUS has also managed to squeeze in SD and PC Card slots, network, modem and three USB2 slots. With 802.11g wireless networking onboard, connectivity is just as good as on larger notebooks.

This notebook falls down in battery life. In our tests it lasted under two hours, which is quite poor compared to other Centrino-based notebooks. For a day's work you'd have to buy another battery.

The M5623N-MH comes with a slip case and full carry case and is very good value. If you're looking for a work notebook to carry with you on a regular basis, you'll be happy with this.