ASUS UL80Vt First Look: Mobility Redefined
by Jarred Walton on October 24, 2009 8:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
ASUS UL80Vt Benchmarked - Battery and LCD
Finally, we have perhaps the most interesting aspect of the UL80Vt. Decent performance and a reasonable size are nice, but there are plenty of laptops to offer those amenities. What truly sets the UL80Vt apart from most other Windows-based laptops is the battery life. ASUS claims "up to 12 hours", and we decided to check their claim.
Idle battery life reached nearly 13 hours… and that's what Turbo mode (overclocking) enabled. Granted, the system was sitting idle -- hardly a realistic usage scenario for most users. However, light office use isn't going to be much more taxing than our idle battery life test, and if you decide to disable Turbo mode battery life can only improve. In the far more pertinent Internet battery life, ASUS still achieves record-setting performance. Our initial test (we haven't had time for multiple test runs) came just shy of nine hours of continuous Web surfing. That's with several flash ads on be active website page, which again should be a bit more taxing than what many users view.
Looking at battery capacity and relative battery life, we finally have a true laptop that can actually trade blows with Apple's MacBook line. We never have been able to determine exactly what Apple does in order to achieve their high battery life, but clearly part of it has to be using lower voltage CPUs. ASUS follow suit by using the Core 2 Duo SU7300, which actually surpasses Apple by going with a 10W TDP CPU. Apple currently uses the 25W TDP SP9300, while some previous models used the 17W Core 2 Duo SL9000 series.
Even overclocked the SU7300 practically sips power in comparison to many other CPUs. We measured average power use of 9.5W for the UL80Vt in our internet test compared to 21.1W for the Gateway NV52 and 15.6W for the Gateway NV58. 10.1" and 11.6" netbooks only get down to 8.0-8.5W in the same test, and performance is obviously substantially higher with Core 2 Duo. What's truly impressive is that laptops like the UL80Vt previously sold for nearly $2000 -- sometimes more. With the boom in netbooks sales, manufacturers have apparently realized there's a real market for smaller laptops that get extremely good battery life.
About the only fly in the ointment with the UL80Vt is the LCD panel. Here you can see our contrast ratio test results, and the results are down in the dumps with many other laptops. Sometimes I feel like a lone voice crying in the wilderness telling manufacturers that laptop LCD quality is a serious concern. I know from responses to previous articles that many of you agree, but unfortunately it's something that's difficult to quantify because many reviews don't ever look at LCD quality with quantitative results. ASUS has used very nice LCD panels on lesser offerings (i.e. the Eee 1005HA has an excellent LCD), and we have seen decent displays on other laptops and notebooks as well. If the system cost $25-$50 more but it had a 1000:1 contrast ratio (with an LCD that could still run at 250 nits), I wouldn't hesitate to give the UL80Vt an unequivocal recommendation. As it stands, it's a great laptop but it isn't quite perfect.
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JarredWalton - Friday, November 20, 2009 - link
The quick summary is:1) Excellent battery life
2) Good performance (i.e. CPU and discrete GPU are fast enough for most users)
3) Construction seems a bit weak (flex and such), but I don't think it's horrible.
For the overall package, I'm giving it a Bronze award - a better LCD and more rigid construction would be needed for Gold. For $800, though, I don't think you can find a better laptop right now.
juhaz - Wednesday, November 11, 2009 - link
I used to have Asus M6Ne, loved the thing, I was still happy with it despite the age. I originally bought it because it was one of the few laptops that had a decent SXGA+ display with reasonable price tag.That got stolen a while ago, so, I'm in a market for a new laptop. Asus, if you think I'm going to buy a new device that has 40% less resolution than the one I got from you FIVE YEARS ago, you better think again. Not going to happen. So, I'm going to get Stinkpad or Elitebook instead. If you would've had this with a nice WSXGA+ or WUXGA panel it'd been an instant sale, IPS would be nice but I can tolerate TN if it shows in the price.
I really hate it that display market only caters for the half-blind these days, on both desktop and laptop segments...
ippikiokami - Tuesday, November 10, 2009 - link
I would 100% pay more for a better screen! and a whole world of photographers would!Hrel - Sunday, November 8, 2009 - link
It had the SU9600 CPU instead and it had a decent screen.Resolution of at least 1600x900 and a contrast ratio of at least 500:1. I really don't understand why they don't just use the same screen as in the netbook.
I couldn't possibly agree more with your frustrations about crappy notebook monitors; I swear I'm not buying a new notebook till I can get one with over 5 hours battery life, a dedicated GPU, a resolution of at least 1600x900 and a decent color gamut and contrast ratio screen for less than a thousand bucks.
Gooberlx2 - Friday, November 6, 2009 - link
I'd like to see comments about the build quality. Notebookreview.com basically blasted the UL80vt for very poor build quality.I don't abuse my laptops but I don't treat them with kid gloves either. I'm interested in the UL series laptops, but can't really consider them if I don't think they'll keep together for longer than a couple years.
wfarid - Wednesday, November 4, 2009 - link
yea there are a LOT of people clamoring for just that. Switchable graphics, a high quality IPS MATTE lcd screen, and 10 hour battery life around 4.5lbs and you got me sold!Basically just take this laptop, pop a nice Matte Screen on there, change all that damn plastic gloss and replace it with aluminum or magnesium alloy (like that have in high end dslr's)
I think the HP Probook 5310 (I think) is a great and simple design. Just wish it had the guts of the Asus, with a better panel.
mobutu - Wednesday, October 28, 2009 - link
This laptop it's a step in the right direction-on the fly switchable graphics (i could go with even better that g210m);
-good battery life (especially for integrat chipset graphics);
-very good quality MATTE LCD screen (i would like to see IPS here and NO glossy) - at least make it optional for the people willing to go quality.
Hear that Asus? You better be.
I would buy such a machine, for sure.
Lukeh - Tuesday, November 3, 2009 - link
Well, actually I've been the proud owner of of Acer Travelmate 8371-G (business version of the Timeline) for a little less than 2 months now. And it does have discrete (switchable) 4330 graphics (though they could be stronger, but that's what my desktop is for), and i've had battery life last as long as 9 hours. Also, screen is matte. But, if this were out when I bought it, really it would all be about price.enki - Tuesday, October 27, 2009 - link
Now if only they had a multitouch tablet version of this. I really hope with the new multitouch support in 7 more laptops come out to take advantage of it.And an option for a better screen would be great, even if it was just a better TN screen that wasn't glossy
ProDigit - Tuesday, October 27, 2009 - link
I buy a netbook first and foremost because it's cheap.The majority of the people act like this.
When they see the $800 pricetag, to them it's nothing more than an underpowered laptop, and for that pricetag I can get myself a core2duo notebook that's a lot faster, with 2 extention batteries that will last me about as long!
Extension batteries are made very cheap these days!
Second, I buy a laptop because it is small in size, and light in weight.
Only third, because it has long battery life!
The good thing about this laptop is, that you can equip it with an SSD, and remove the ext. graphics card.
This will hopefully boost the battery even more!
I have an old core2duo 1,66Ghz laptop, with a GMA945Se graphics card or chipset or something, and can run most DX9 games (like WOW, Phantasy Star Unlimited, Prince of Persia, etc... at 1024x600 or 1024x768 resolution, 16 or 32 bit just fine.
Most sims I can play fullscreen at 1280x800.
I'm sure the faster processor, and better graphics card will make me be able to play WOW even better on this laptop.