The Asus U46SV is a 14-inch laptop that will appeal not just because it packs a lot of power into a small package, but because it looks and feels much more stylish than most of its rivals. The lid and palm-rests are brushed aluminium with a circular design pattern, and the finish provides a solid, quality feel that you don’t often get with laptops from Taiwanese PC manufacturers. Asus hasn’t carried it though: the black underside looks pretty much like any other Windows laptop. Still, shiny side out, the U46 looks more like a £999 than a £699 model, which is what it costs in the UK.
Asus hasn’t skimped on the power or the battery life either. The U46 has one of this year’s Sandy Bay chips, a 2.3GHz Intel Core i5 with 4GB of memory (expandable to 8GB), plus an Nvidia GeForce GT540M graphics chip with its own gigabyte of video memory. On the Windows Experience Index, the processor is rated at 6.9, the RAM at 5.9, desktop graphics 4.3, gaming graphics 6.5, and the hard drive 5.9. The operating system is 64-bit Windows 7 Professional rather than Home Premium. The U46 certainly feels tough enough for business use, and it’s very cool in operation.
The U stands for ultraportable, but the U46 is a full-specification laptop, with a slimline DVD drive as well as a 500GB hard drive. Unusually, there’s a USB 3.0 port, as well as two USB 2.0 ports, Ethernet, HDMI and VGA video ports, a 4-in-1 card reader, 0.3MP webcam, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi b/g/n, and Intel’s WiDi for driving wireless displays. Asus has also included its exclusive USB Charger+, which enables other devices to be recharged much quicker than usual, which should be a boon to iPhone users.
All this is packed into a casing that’s about an inch thick. Obviously there are skinnier laptops, and Asus is just about to launch some thinner UX models based on Intel’s Ultrabook design. However, ultrathin machines often have fewer features and cost more, so you have to consider how much saving a couple of millimetres is actually worth.
Asus has got the thickness down partly by using a very thin 14-inch screen — the thinnest you can get, at the moment. While not matt, it’s far less glossy than most of the ones I see nowadays. However, it’s not much bigger than the usual 13.3-inch screen, and it has the same widescreen resolution: 1366 x 768 pixels.
The keyboard is the now-standard isolated type, and unlikely to arouse comment either way: it’s fine for touch-typing but not in the ThinkPad class. The touchpad is very good indeed. However, the built-in speakers sound tinny and have very little bass.
Asus quotes the U46′s battery life as “up to 10 hours”, which is very good for a machine with a fast Core i5 chip. Of course, you will get less than that if you have Wi-Fi turned on, the screen brightness turned up, and watch lots of videos. But it should certainly get you through a normal working day, with 7-8 hours of normal use, and more if you use the power- saving options. If you’re a long-haul flyer, the battery is removable, so you can always carry a spare.
The main drawback with the U46SV is that it weighs 2.1kg (4.6lbs) with the 4-cell battery, and even more with the 8-cell 10-hour battery in the sample that I borrowed for review, which Asus says will ship as standard. (The 8-cell battery also projects below the bottom of the case, making it more than an inch thick.) The U46′s attractions — the 14-inch screen, solid metal finish, built-in DVD, 500GB hard drive etc — all contribute to bumping up the weight beyond what I’d consider ultraportable.
The U46SV is, in fact, much the same size and weight as a 13.3-inch Apple MacBook Pro, and has much the same specification. The Asus has the edge in having a slightly larger screen, a dedicated graphics processor and its USB Charger+, while also costing £300 less in the UK than Apple’s online £999 price. I wouldn’t discourage anyone from paying 40 percent more for the Mac if that’s what they want, but in comparison, the Asus looks a pretty good deal at £699.
