Asus UX50V-RX05: Good looks can be Deceptive
August 7 2009 Categorized Under: Laptops Tags; 4 Commented
The Asus UX50V-RX05 looks pretty good and it is surely pretty sleek. It has a slim profile, a great design and it takes its cues in design from the all right places. However, if you are looking for performance you are going to be disappointed. You are going to be very disappointed indeed. That’s because this laptop has barely enough processing power to beat a netbook. Even though it has 512 Megs dedicated to graphics.
That’s right, we are talking about a GeForce G195M equipped 15.6-inch laptop that can barely beat a netbook. How did that happen? Read on or ask Asus (or read on and then ask Asus).
The Asus UX50V-RX05 has a design that will be an instant hit with most people. With its tapered edges, flat keys and glossy finish, the black model looks stunning. Thus Asus had everything going for this laptop. The GeForce G195M was just the perfect thing for a mid-range laptop that could handle gaming.
The carriage was all shiny and ready to go. Then Asus went ahead and threw it all away by making this machine run on a tiny little pony instead of a strapping young stallion. I am talking about the Intel Core 2 Solo that the Asus UX50V-RX05 runs. Seriously, what gives?
The Core 2 Solo chip is supposed to give the entire system an extended batter life. It is a low-power consuming chip that is expected to show its presence in the battery life. But according to various testers, this laptop barely makes it to having a halfway decent battery life. This is indeed a huge let down.
Paying over $740 is not worth having a laptop that has potential but no true performance. Sure it can run some 3D games with modest settings. But it will definitely fall short when it comes to running modern applications.
However, this laptop from Asus does have a lot of positive things about it that just might cause a lot of people to pick it up.
For starters, there is the design. The laptop is really glossy and the black surface makes it look classier. However, you all know why I dislike glossy surfaces. They are fine things to look at till you go and touch them. Much like some really beautiful glassware, you are going to spoil it with your fingerprints all over the thing. No wonder a cleaning cloth is getting more and more common in gadget packages.
The chassis runs from 1.3 to 1.1 inches in thickness and according to testers it feels really sturdy. One interesting design aspect of this laptop is that all the ports are located at the back of the laptop. Hence you have the front and the sides all very smooth and clean. This is going to be an inconvenience though. Having regularly accessed ports at the back can be really frustrating sometimes. Also, you could end up damaging the ports when you place on the laptop on your lap while there are things plugged in.
Thankfully, the left side does have an ExpressCard slot with a hidden USB port and a small and unobtrusive wireless on/off switch. The right side houses the slot loading optical drive (DVD) and that is it. On the front edge there is a thin speaker grill that covers almost the full width of the laptop. Asus has gone to great lengths to keep the machine clean and the efforts show in these obvious design decisions.
The keyboard of the Asus UX50V-RX05 is made up of flat and individually placed keys that are getting more common in high-end laptops these days. MacBooks have had them for quite some time and now Acer, Lenovo, Sony and others are also using them on their laptops. These keys look good and have better usability because they are so neatly spaced out. However, some find the ergonomics of the traditional keyboards to be much better. For them, the short travel and the absent click take away from the typing experience on these keyboards.
Asus has omitted the usual multimedia keys on this laptop. The whole effect thus reminds me of the keyboard of a MacBook. This omission might be unappreciated by some people but I find it adding to the sophisticated appeal of the machine.
The 15.6-inch screen has a 16:9 widescreen aspect ration and thus it makes for great movie watching. It has a native resolution of 1366×768 and has a glossy layer on it. The upper protective layer runs from edge to edge and adds to the looks. However, glossy screens are always hateful things because of the glares that they can produce. Thankfully, not all glossy screens are as bad as the worst offenders.
The touchpad is glossy and has only one button. This button has been reported to be too stiff and the touchpad’s glossy surface creates problems with navigation.
The Asus UX50V-RX05 comes with a fast-booting embedded Linux OS called the Express Gate that you can use to surf the web, browse photos and listen to music without booting in to Windows. This kind of a secondary OS is getting really common these days.
The webcam on the laptop comes with Asus Smartlogon that has facial recognition technology. Given its reputation, I would suggest you use your password instead.
The single core 1.4 GHz processor on this laptop is just not enough for a demanding 64bit Vista installation. Using XP might give you a better performance on this machine. But with Vista on, it performs worse than some of the Atom based netbooks. Multi-tasking won’t be great and you will experience frequent slowdowns when running demanding processes.
The GeForce G195M offers the best gaming opportunity for laptops in this range. This GPU is capable of crunching some mid-level 3D games and you will get good performance on lower resolutions.
The RAM is standard at 4GB DDR2 SDRAM (800MHz). It runs on an Intel GS45 Express chipset and comes with a 500GB 5400rpm SATA hard drive.
The Asus UX50V-RX05 has 1 HDMI out, 1 VGA out, 1 headphone and microphone port each, 3 USB 2.0 ports, 1 multi-card-reader, 1 Ethernet, WiFi (802.11a/b/gn) and a DVD burner.
[...] new Vaio VGN-NW125J/T has similar features as the Asus UX50V-RX05, which is also a recent release. However, the UX50V is run by a single core processor while the [...]
I just bought this laptop from best buy. I can tell you that the only reason that I really bought it was for the build quality.
Of all the cons that I am about to mention, the build quality is so good that it actually trumps most of them. This laptop was bought for work (with the intention of swapping out the completely impotent processor) and I needed something that would hold up for some time to come.
so okay: One pro. The build quality – easily rivals the apple notebooks – its just that good.
The cons:
1. The screen – c o m p l e t e garbage. I like that it has LED backlighting but there are visible distortions when moving windows around in vista. This is not just my screen – but if you move the window at the right speed – you will physically see each edge pixel attempting as hard as it can to get out of its own way – it creates a checkerboard like effect around the window – which is even more evident when using backgrounds with high contrast. You can also see the grids of pixels from two feet away, which makes solid colors look grainy (like the light blue used for the background of this website.)
2. The biggest con – I do not see it mentioned here: The keyboard. This is one of the reasons why I bought the machine: in the store, the keyboard was backlit, and if you stay and just stare at it – it exudes quality. That’s great. But it drops keys. Yes… It is one of the few keyboards on the market which can be “out typed” that is – you can type faster than the keyboard can register certain letters – especially if you do not depress the key for long enough (as it happens when you are typing a long document there wil <HA! be moments when your finger only presses a key for a few milliseconds.) For each of those moments that you have, you will have to go back and repress that key. Unacceptable – I will give this laptop one week while I work on it. And if I cannot get used to this style of keyboard (i.e. If it keeps dropping my key presses) it will be taken back and replaced with something more functional and less flashy.
3. Battery life is pretty average. Now for me personally, this is not too huge of con… But for someone who travels and relies on their laptop to keep them entertained though long connection delays at the airport (without too many power jacks around) I would definitely recommend looking elsewhere. The advertised battery life at the store read 5 hours+ << total garbage – maybe two and a half hours tops… and I charged it to full and completely discharged it when I got the machine.
To sum it all up – I just wanted to add some input to an already accurate review of this machine. The keyboard thing is really annoying. And hopefully only a windows driver issue that will be resolved with future software (as in device manager the keyboard comes up as 'keyboard device filter' which makes me think that it is only a hokey service gone angry). But if not, then I just can't see myself keeping this beautiful mess of a laptop.
Thank you so much for posting about the wireless on/off switch. It came in really handy when assisting a with this new laptop.
Fantastic post, many amusing points. I believe 8 of days ago, I have saw a similar post.