Asus K53S review

Some may find the K53J’s textured lid a bit boring, but it does help you grip the laptop when you’re carrying it. Inside, the dark brown keyboard panel has a brushed-metal finish which we found stylish. The Chiclet-style keys are flat-topped and have a light action but lack bite in the keystroke, so there’s less feedback than we’d like.

As with the K52JC, the K53S also squeezes in a numeric keypad on the right, and its keys are far too small. If you use a numberpad regularly, you’ll be annoyed that the “0” key, which is normally double-width, has been chopped in half to fit the cursor key in. Otherwise, the layout is good, with a row of page navigation keys above the numberpad. The touchpad is large and responsive, and its two buttons are large and have a light action.

Although the K53S seems thinner than other 15.6in laptops thanks to its tapered case, it weighs more than most. At 2.7kg, you’re not going to want to carry it around for too long. However, the battery lasted four hours and 39 minutes in our test, so you won’t need to stay near a power socket.

The lure of a dedicated graphics card may be tempting, but if gaming is a priority, the K53S isn’t the best choice. It might be faster than integrated graphics, but not by much. Its inclusion doesn’t justify the £50 premium over the Dell Inspiron 15R, especially as the hard disk is 180GB smaller and there are no USB3 ports.