ASUS UL20A-A1 Thin and Light 12.1-Inch Silver Laptop – 7.5 Hours of Battery Life

5 comments

1. 

   J. Lee on December 7, 2009 at 12:16 pm

   I got this on Nov. 16th. At the first time, I really loved it.
   
   It doesn’t look cheap at all, keyboard layout is good.
   
   I planned to get an extra 2G RAM, but I don’t need it anymore because it is so fast.

   That night, this little thing had a problem.
   
   I couldn’t change is power plan.
   
   So, I asked to Amazon.com for a replacement. I got it in two days.(Amazon rocks!)
   
   I dropped by UPS center to return one laptop, and went to library.
   
   There was another problem.
   
   When I pointed the battery icon on the right bottom side, it showed a message(plugged in, not charging)

   WTF?

   It supposed to show me (fully charged) or (plugged in, charging).
   
   I mailed to Amazon.com customer center, and also Asus.

   All of them happened only in five days.

   I don’t have time to argue on this thing since I’m taking five classes in a college.

   Think once more before you order.

2. 

   Noel P. Volin on December 7, 2009 at 2:45 pm

   When I first bought this product, Amazon sent it to the wrong address. I didn’t select the address, but Amazon defaulted to an address that was not my own, from a gift that I’d sent someone several years ago. When I noticed that the tracking was going to the wrong address, I notified Amazon and asked them to re-route. They said they were not able to do that (according to USPS they only need to file a form to do that though). Customer Service told me that a signature would be required and since I didn’t live at that address that it would be promptly returned to sender and I could go ahead and place a new order (for which I did). Well, USPS left it on the doorstep in Boston (I live in Wisconsin). Lucky for me it didn’t get stolen, but I had to track the 8 1/2 month pregnant resident down and ask them to go to a UPS location to send it back to Amazon. Amazon wouldn’t issue a credit until after they had the product back in their warehouse (even though it was their mistake). I should have to physically select an address other than my own, all purchases should default to my address or the address on the credit card. I wasted several hours over the period of several weeks trying to get this resolved, the whole time paying 18% APR for interest on the charge (it has been almost a month an no credit issued). Amazon didn’t even offer a compensatory gift card for the interest charges and troubles. The supervisor I spoke with stated that he would monitor the return package tracking and credit my account back as soon as it was in UPS’s hands. Well, that didn’t happen. After it was delivered back to Amazon, I called to confirm that. The Customer Service Manager instructed the CS Rep to tell me to wait and I’d receive an email in a few days to let me know that the process to credit me back was beginning. If you buy from Amazon, buy on price not Customer Service, and better require a signature on delivery because they didn’t take any responsibility in my case. In the battle between Wal-Mart and Amazon, Wal-Mart just might start seeing more business.

3. 

   Ahdy Messiha on December 7, 2009 at 3:23 pm

   Got this laptop yesterday. When I’m close to the router, I connect over wifi fine. When I move to 20ft away, connection is very limited to non-existent. An old sony laptop sitting right next to it connects just fine, and it only has a BG card. Not sure what’s wrong. I can only seem the Intel BGN 1000 wireless card sucks – in either case, that’s a deal breaker for an ultraPORTABLE laptop. I plan to call ASUS, if I can’t get anywhere with them, I will return the laptop – to me lack of connectivity is a deal breaker.

   I’ll post any updates.

   Other than that, it’s a nice looking light laptop with 6 hours of battery life on 50% screen brightness/wifi on. I like te brightness at about 75%.,

   UPDATE: I’m not sure what happened. I played around with a few settings, installed firefox, and my connection is almost as good as the Sony laptop (2.4 Mbps down on [...] – as compared to 0.7 Mbps I was getting previously). Hopefully, whatever I did/didn’t do stays and the connection keeps. If not, I’ll either buy a new card or return the laptop. It’s very nice though…I’d hate to return it).

   The other thing is the Synaptics touchpad driver included doesn’t support two-finger scrolling. Some people have downloaded a more generic Synaptics driver and have gotten the 2 finger scrolling to work).

4. 

   P-Shnikens on December 7, 2009 at 4:35 pm

   I have had this little guy for about 3 weeks now. Previously, I was rocking at 2004 15″ Mac Powerbook G4. I got this primarily because of the price, size, weight, and CPU configuration. On each of those, the UL2-A delivers fairly admirably. With the $75 gift card accounted for, the price is pretty good. It would have been nice to get it all the way down under $500 but it’s not sooooo far off.

   I wanted a laptop small enough that it could hide in a backpack during travel in distant lands. A 10″ would have been more physically convenient but far inferior as far as performance goes and rare in usable 1366X768 resolution. So it’s not netbook small, but it’s still pretty trim, and the power brick is downright tiny – really, it’s like the size of a portable mouse. Although, having had that Mac Powerbook for so long, I am partial to the swap-able outlet/3-prong cord option for travel vs. home use.

   I suppose it’s heavier than I was really shooting for. Originally I was looking at the Dell Latitude E4200 and it’s feathery 2.2(?) lb weight but even through the Dell outlet, the price just wouldn’t drop close enough to contend with the Asus. Still it’s definitely lighter than my old Mac, so I won’t complain.

   The CPU has really impressed me. I can run any computer in to the ground and make it cry for mercy. Dozens of web browser tabs, no problem. Then another browser along side it with VLC or Media Player going, of course. Throw in Word, and Excel, and my IM client, TrueCrypt, KeePass, Wireshark portable, and then startup XP in Virtual Box for good measure and run Photoshop inside it… okay it’s not liking that so much! But I really should upgrade to 4GB Ram before I expect that much out of any computer. But really, the SU7300 powers up to meet my reasonable requirements just fine. It is virtualization enabled and with nothing else really running in Win7, Virtual Box will run XP or Ubuntu 9.10 at idle with about 10%-15% CPU utilization.

   The build quality is mostly good with a few minor shortcomings. And those shortcomings are highlighted against the well fitted, all aluminum construction of the Powerbook of course. The center of the keyboard, from about the b up to the 6 depresses a bit. I guess it’s “flex” but I’ve never ha a computer that had flex so I don’t know if this is serious enough to warrant the label. It’s not springy flex anyway. In fact the chicklet style keys are pretty solid, it’s more the surround that makes the plastic sea between all the little island keys that bounces ever so gently.

   The shiny black surround of the screen is a lint magnet. The Aluminum lid is nice and the silver/grey plastic palm rest, while glossy, is light enough to haide the fingerprint smudges. The plastic underside of the computer is fairly solid , not aluminum like I’m used to, but good enough. As far as ports go, the ethernet port doesn’t have any indicator lights but it’s not really a big deal I guess. Originally, I wasn’t worried about getting the VGA port without an HDMI option, but I do with for the HDMI over the VGA by coincidence… I have a monitor with one open port, the DVI of course. I’m used to having only 2 USB ports, so 3 is plenty, and I have an itty-bitty micro bluethooth adapter that I picked up for about $3 often filling one so I don’t miss built-in blue-tooth either.
   
   Really, this computer is all about the CPU and a bit of style and grace. If I wasn’t worried about taxing the CPU, an Acer with the SU4100 or the SU2300 on sale for $400 or less would have been a sure bet.

   The UL20-A’s battery is also pretty good when set to powersave (win+X is a nice little quick access feature) but on performance it will suck the juice pretty quickly. Powersave + a movie in VLC though and it will sip for a bunch of hours.

   All in all, I like it. Windows 7 networking, not so much, but the Asus UL20-A, yeah.

5. 

   P. Groleau on December 7, 2009 at 4:59 pm

   For about 3 weeks, I had been reading the forums about the ASUS UL30A & UL20A & the wireless network problems that many people complained about.It seemed so wide spread that I was afraid to buy one & just kept putting it off & continued using my ASUS EEE PC1005HA P. Finally, I decided to give it a shot. I only wished I had ordered one sooner. In my house, my 1005, had “good” reception when I was 40′ away & when I was at the college I work at, the reception was “very weak”. The area I’m in at school is brick walls & metel roofing & I’m about 70′ away from the nearest signal. Now with the UL20A. At home, my signal is “excellent” & at the school, it’s “very good”. Therefore, I can honestly say that I have no wireless problem what so ever. HOWEVER, the left side of the keyboard is a bit loose & makes a bit of noise when typing. I can live with it but it would be nice if it was as quiet as the right side. If you’re considering buying one of these units but are worried about the wireless problem, I would suggest you take the plunge & check it out for yourself. I love mine.