ASUS UL30Vt-X1 Thin and Light 13.3-Inch Black Laptop

6 comments

1. 

   G. Burgess on December 6, 2009 at 9:47 pm

   The UL30VT is a stellar machine…especially with an OCZ Vertex SSD.

   The ONLY issue I have with this machine is the touchpad. As a Mac user, I’ve become spolied by the fantastic touchpads Macbooks use. With that said, I find the touchpad response to be jerky and inconsistent. I am disappointed that multitouch and design was chosen over quality singletouch and function. I find the multitouch functions to be useless because of the inaccuracy of the touchpad. I also don’t think the surface itself is practical for a touchpad, as it is so glossy that you have to use more effort than usual to glide your finger around.

   It suprises me that I haven’t seen more talk about this…

   Apart from that, a great machine…almost perfect.

2. 

   Lee C. Howley on December 7, 2009 at 12:27 am

   Compared to its bigger brother (UL80vt-xt) the UL30vt-x1 has all the advantages. The smaller form factor is great with no power compromise. The body is nearly equally sturdy throughout. The Aluminum backing to the LED backlit screen is not only nice to look at, but helps increase the rigidness of the display.

   While the interior is plastic, the palm rests are solid with little to no flex. While they could be bigger, the palm rests will fit the average person’s hands. The keyboard is very friendly with sturdy keys. While the track pad blends in and feels fine, it does not behave as well as other computers. Additionally there are no distinct left and right mouse buttons.

   There is a very nice helping of ports, three USB, HDMI, VGA, SD Card reader and standard 3.5 mm jacks for audio. There are two panels on the bottom of the computer which can be removed to replace/upgrade the ram and HD.

   The display is crisp when viewed from strait on, although some colors can appear to be washed out at times. Viewing from the top of the LCD is not good, but from the sides and bottom it’s not as bad as I would have expected. In all don’t expect this LCD to blow you away; it is not a particularly high quality unit.

   This little guy surprises me at every turn when it comes to benchmarking. Sure its ~3400 3dmark06 score is not particularly impressive, but when you consider the units size and possible battery life it changes things. Activating the ‘Turbo’ mode gives the notebook a welcome boost over its standard 1.3 GHz clock. If you find the time to remove all of the bloat ware that comes on this laptop or perform a clean install, the speed is very impressive. I found this laptop capable of playing any source driven game, including the newer L4D2 as well as BioWare’s Dragon Age.

   The built in power switching is a very handy feature. It allows you to quickly disable and enable the Nvidia GPU and scale back processor usage to save battery. However, it does not remove the over clock, but simply limits the utilization of the CPU. You will need to restart the computer to turn off or on `Turbo’ mode. With average use (Wi-Fi on screen 70%) I have gotten between 6-8 hours of battery life. I am sure if someone tried harder they could get more.

   This product would be perfect if it didn’t come with dozens (yes dozens) of unnecessary utilities and applications that only slow the computer down. ASUS really needs to think about the customer before adding these in there. It took me over an hour to remove all of the ones I didn’t need or want! Combine that with the occasionally infuriating track pad and the so-so display, I subtract one star. I admit I am being picky, but 5/5 means perfect to me.

   This laptop is probably one of the best ultraportables out there. I see no reason to spend over a grand when this little guy surpasses nearly every other ultraportable in performance and battery life. You will not regret the purchase of this computer as long as you’re buying it for the right reasons (I.E a portable laptop that has some power and loads of battery life). In all I am very satisfied with my purchase and Amazons service. Kudos to ASUS and Amazon.
   

3. 

   David J. Moreau on December 7, 2009 at 2:03 am

   My UL30Vt-X1 arrived on Friday, December 4. I have used it quite a bit since then. I give it 5 stars because it delivers a lot for the price in a nice package.

   My wireless has been great. I know some were concerned about this. I have had no problems whatsoever. The screen looks good, though the viewing angle vertically is extremely small.

   There is less 3rd party software on the laptop than came with my HP and Dell laptops, which is a good thing. Most of what comes preinstalled are ASUS utilities. These utilities tend to have no documentation. I Googled some to find out what they were. I went ahead and registered the Trend Micro antivirus that came with it and will use that for the free 60 days before installing Avast.

   I like the Fastboot utility. It allows you to manage what starts immediately at startup for quicker booting. I assume that everything still starts up eventually, but some are delayed to allow you to get control of the OS first.

   It is light and feels good when I carry it. It stays cool on my lap. The speakers also do a good job compared to what I expected. I haven’t carried it around outside yet, so I can’t yet vouch for its ultraportable-ness.

   I’m still trying to figure out the implications of the warranty card. It says that you get another year of the accident warranty if you submit the card within 60 days. Does this mean my warranty for hardware failure would end in a year, but if hardware fails and then I decide you pour water on the machine, I could then get warranty coverage during the second year?

   The video mode button is very convenient. Turning the turbo on and off is not as easily done. It requires going into an applet and clicking on a button (and then rebooting). I would like to see a one click method of overclocking (though rebooting would still be required). Perhaps something in the system tray could offer this.

   I was sad when I found out that only black would be available for the UL30Vt at first. I thought the silver version had an incredible profile and black is so business world. The machine looks quite nice, but is a bit drab. The blue function labels on the keyboard help some, as does the subtle speckles in the palm rest. Finger prints are as bad as you can imagine.

   I am not yet comfortable with the keyboard. I feel I have to hammer the keys to get them to register at times. Especially the space bar. The spacing is good — I have had no problems touch typing, apart from the 40 unregistered space bar hits in this review. Regarding key placement, my only complaint is that it is not easy to increase the volume with one hand due to the distance between the F12/volume increase button and the Fn key that needs to be pressed with it. My hand spans that distance uncomfortably.

   The tracking device is a mixed bag. The stickiness is good for letting you know your finger is in the correct location, but it takes practice to get two finger scrolling down pat. I am improving, but it still can be a chore. I modified my 2 and 3 finger clicks to be right click and maximize respectively. I was disappointed that the maximize would only maximize. Doing it for a maximized window would not un-maximize it. Hopefully a driver upgrade could fix that if I complain to the maker. I do not like the trackpad button. It seems a blatant example of compromising function for form. Even that doesn’t work well as it has a gift for collecting fingerprints that look even worse then the fingerprints on the chassis. I find myself wiping down the palm rest and mouse pad a lot, but it does look nice wiped down.

   I haven’t had a chance to test the battery because I have been indexing around 230GB of PDFs that I copied to my hard disk and want to get that done as soon as possible.

   This grade may be inflated because of how much I hate my most recent portable laptop before this from HP.

4. 

   A. Markey on December 7, 2009 at 4:36 am

   Look and Feel (4/5):
   
   Besides the brushed aluminum lid (which is very good looking by the way), the plastic body feels very sturdy. I’m not the biggest fan of glossy plastic (would prefer matte), but it doesn’t make the laptop feel or look cheap like other laptops.

   The keyboard is nice to type on, much like the newer generation macbook / macbook pros. The trackpad is definitely unusual with it being made out of the same glossy plastic as the body, but once the initial shock of not having a usual trackpad surface is over with it’s a pleasure to use. The multitouch is as good as you can get on a non-apple laptop too (that’s not saying much, but I commend asus for the addition of it).

   Power and Performance (5/5):
   
   This is the first ultra portable computer that I’ve used that has very little compromise in terms of power and performance. Out of the box the 1.3ghz processor is actually overclocked by Asus to squeeze out even more power. I am a developer and can run multiple development environments / surf the web / run iTunes and the computer does not skip a beat.

   I also love the ability to dial up the power of the computer when I’m not concerned about battery life and dial it back down when I’m trying to conserve. The Asus guys really engineered a great machine here.

   If youre wondering how the Nvidia dedicated graphics performs, I just fired up Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 and played it at 1280×768 without a hitch! Again, no compromises there with bad gaming performance.

   Durability (Initial thoughts: 4/5)
   
   While it’s not an aluminum unibody design, it feels quite sturdy. I’ve only had this a few days though, so we’ll see how it holds up, but it feels alot better than most Sony laptops I’ve used in the past if that gives any indication. Also the aluminum lid feels fantastic and sturdy when opening / closing the laptop.

   Value (5/5)
   
   There is no reason to pay over $1000 for an ultra portable anymore. Get this, and spend the money you saved on an SSD hard drive to really make this computer scream. The power / performance / price ratio for this machine is rediculous. All other ultra portable manufacturers need to step it up bigtime, because Asus came to play with this laptop!

5. 

   J. Park on December 7, 2009 at 5:29 am

   This is just a quickie review since I’ve only had the machine for 6 hours.

   Out of the box there’s manuals, warranty card, AC adapter, back-up DVD’s and the laptop.

   The machine comes with a 1 year ADH (accidental damage & handling) warranty which you must activate within 60 days by sending in a warranty card. Other models come with 2 year parts and labor warranties, but this model comes with 1 to cut costs. Speaking of which, another area where they cut costs is the battery. It’s a 4400mah battery that is stated to achieve a 12 hr run time. I’m seeing about 10 hours of battery life in power saver mode, still a great amount. The last thing I that bugs me is the wireless card. It’s Intel, but it’s only a 2.4Ghz card. I have a dual band router and would have liked to take advantage of 5Ghz. But at least it works fine and doesn’t seem to have any issues like others seem to have experienced on other models (UL30A).
   
   That’s the end of the negative stuff. Everything else is to be great so far.

   Build Quality (9/10)
   
   I’m comparing this machine to a Sony Z750D which my fiancé uses. The materials on the Sony are better but actual build quality is very similar. No squeaking or sharp edges anywhere. The machine feels very solid and sturdy. The keyboard has very minor flex and is very comfortable to type on. One thing some may find awkward is the placement of the “home” button which is right next the “backspace” key. Those of you concerned with this aspect need not worry.

   Graphics Performance/CPU performance (8/10)
   
   With the CPU overclocked to 1.73GHz paired with a NVIDIA G210M video card, the laptop has no problems handling everyday tasks such as word processing, email and internet. The machine also has no problems handling HD content. Games such as L4D2 and Counterstrike Source run great as well. More in depth benchmarking can be found elsewhere on the net.
   
   *edit* Let me add that I’m comparing this machine to the Sony Z which has a much faster processor. That being said, this machine is still fast and can hold its own. The addition of the Intel SSD makes this a 9/10 but since not many will add an extra HD like this, I took the 500GB into consideration.

   Heat Management/Acoustics (9/10)
   
   The laptop never got hot to the touch even during stressful games. You can go for hours on end with this machine in your lap without discomfort. The noise of the fan never became an issue. It is even quieter than the Z750D in that aspect. However, I must add that I am using an Intel G2 SSD. I switched out HD right when I received the machine. So take that into consideration as the traditional drive is a bit noisier.

   Hope this helps.
   

6. 

   T. Lee on December 19, 2009 at 5:55 pm

   The UL30Vt-X1 is temporarily sold out on Amazon. I’m using the free service http://www.aznotify.com/ to watch inventory and notify me the moment it’s back in Amazon stock at the regular list price so I can grab one quickly before they sell out again.