Asus W5F-G001P review

Gallery

Verdict:

The W5F is the most stylish notebook in the group and has a great keyboard and touch pad. Its battery isn't the best, though, and we would want more memory.

Review Date: 27 Jul 2006

Price when reviewed: inc VAT

Reviewed By: Seth Barton

Our Rating 4 stars out of 5

Review
Specs

Asus's W5F-G001P is beautifully designed and more stylish than its competitors. We tested a white version, but it's also available in black.

FEATURES

Asus's keyboard is easily the best here. The spacing and layout of the keys are excellent, as it uses almost the full width of the chassis. The keys feel firm to the touch, have good depth of travel and distinct feedback. The touch pad is equally satisfying. It's accurate and its buttons are neatly built into the aluminium surround.

The lightweight 1.75kg chassis is stiff and should survive a few heavy knocks. It has all the usual ports, including three USB connectors and a memory card reader. There's even a handy dedicated volume control. The long speaker beneath the display is surprisingly good when compared to most notebook speakers.

The display itself is good, although our white test showed a greenish tinge and the colour wheel test wasn't perfectly blended. It's good enough for anything other than serious photo manipulation. Above the display is a built-in webcam for videoconferencing or chat.

Inside there's an 80GB hard disk, and Windows XP Professional Edition is installed as standard. This is one of only two notebooks to include a two-year warranty.

PERFORMANCE

The W5F uses a fast 1.83GHz Intel Core Duo T2400 processor. It came second to last in our application benchmarks, however, with a score of 109, as it has just 512MB of RAM. Upgrading to 1GB would give a significant performance boost at a cost of around £60.

The six-cell battery lasted over three-and-a-half hours in our light-usage test. It's good enough for use on the move, but the Sony and Toshiba notebooks lasted far longer.

Prev Next

Get more reviews, tutorials and in-depth advice, every month with Computer Shopper.
Click here to try 3 issues for £1

< Previous Reviews : Laptops Next >

Sponsored Links

Be the first to comment on this article

You need to Login or Register to comment.