ASUS UL80Vt First Look: Mobility Redefined
by Jarred Walton on October 24, 2009 8:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
ASUS UL80Vt Thoughts
At this point, you should probably already have a good idea of whether the ASUS UL80Vt is going to be the sort of laptop you want to purchase. Provided that raw computational or graphics performance are not your primary concern, the UL80Vt is one of the best laptops we've looked at in a long time. If you've ever considered buying a netbook simply because they're small and get good battery life, the UL80Vt is like a netbook on steroids. It will easily provide twice the performance of your typical Intel Atom-based netbook, and it can do that while still going toe to toe in terms of battery life. The only catch is that it weighs slightly more… and it costs about twice as much as most netbooks.
What you get is a laptop that can run all day on a single charge, it won't weigh you down, and it comes with pretty much every feature you would actually need. Many 14" and smaller laptops (like the Dell Studio 14z for example) omit optical drives in order to keep size down. ASUS keeps the optical drive, adds a discrete graphics card with the ability to switch to integrated graphics, gives you an overclocked ULV processor, and a large 84Wh battery. The result is a package that's extremely easy to like.
Whether you need a lightweight laptop, something you can use on a business trip without constantly worrying about plugging in, or even a system that can run most games (albeit at lower detail settings), the ASUS UL80Vt has you covered. It's possible to equal the battery life of the UL80Vt, but it's very difficult to do while still matching the performance and features ASUS offers. We've seen ULV processors before, but we've never seen one overclocked 33% -- and it's not likely to be something Sony or other large OEMs even consider.
Has the MacBook finally met its match? That depends on whether or not you love/hate OS X. Windows 7 addresses many of the concerns users have with Windows Vista, and it does appear to improve battery life. ASUS has gone one step further and offered utilities (Power4Gear) that allow users to tweak performance and battery life settings even further. It's the combination of the right hardware with the right software that enables the UL80Vt to truly deliver on the long battery life promise.
The latest MacBook still has a faster CPU (the SP9300 is clocked at 2.26GHz -- 30% higher than the overclocked SU7300). However, it only has a 60Wh battery, and while the GeForce 9400M G integrated graphics are better than any other current IGP, the G210M appears to be at least 50% faster. When you don't need graphics performance, you can also shut off the G210M and used the GMA 4500MHD. It's a design that simply works. The MacBook also costs $1000 -- about $180 more. People that love all things Apple aren't likely to make a switch, but if you're a Windows user that has been looking for a decent alternative, it has finally arrived.
We'll have additional test results in the near future, including battery life tests with the G210M enabled, performance results with overclocking disabled, gaming, and anything else we can think of. If there's anything in particular you'd like to see in the follow up article, let us know. In the meantime, we've seen enough to give the ASUS UL80Vt a very strong recommendation. We'd love to see them ditch the glossy plastic bezel, LCD, and palm rest, and we'd like a higher contrast LCD panel as well. Those are the only complaints we have with an extremely well designed laptop. Kudos, ASUS: you've just raised the bar for what we expect from laptops.
Update: ASUS has informed us that the Best Buy model of the UL80Vt will have a rubberized palm rest. That's one complaint down. They also said that they don't have any data to support the assertion that people would be willing to pay more for a laptop with a better LCD; let them know if you disagree in the comments section. Unfortunately, I would guess they're probably right when it comes to most users: they may not actually pay attention to the LCD. If you were to put a good laptop LCD next to a poor LCD and explain the difference and show users what it looks like, they would be much more likely to opt for a better display, but that's probably not something most retail outlets bother explaining.
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The0ne - Monday, October 26, 2009 - link
This would be nice as my 2nd business laptop. My Vostro 17 is very nice, especially with the UW screen but it's heavy on busy days :) The weight, performance and battery life are amazing. Going to have to convince the Boss to get one hahahvectorm12 - Monday, October 26, 2009 - link
Unlike most people who commented thus far I'm willing to live with the sub-par display at this point. I'm in dire need to replacing my old Vaio VGN-FZ19VN and this looks to be even better value than the Acer 3810T series.Something I am desperate to find out though is if VT-x is enabled in this machine(it's for unknown reasons disabled in my Vaio) or not since I need to run a virtual linux machine for work.
Not mentioning finding someone who retails it in Stockholm,Sweden ofc.
aapocketz - Monday, October 26, 2009 - link
[quote]ASUS has informed us that the Best Buy model of the UL80Vt will have a rubberized palm rest. [/quote]That helps, I hate the glossy plastic feel. I will have to check it out at best buy, I am skeptical about the bumpy touchpad too (I am not crazy about the new apple touchpads either, I prefer tap to click).
If this thing had the same panel as the 1005HA, I would snap this up in a second. Seriously the LCD panel is the most important component on your laptop, and they want to skimp on it. Seriously if this is to compete with the macbook, they will need a better screen, my brother's new macbook pro has an incredible looking screen for a laptop.
I am looking to upgrade my old 701 eeepc to something that can run windows 7, handle 1080 video streaming on my wireless network, and have much improved battery life.
JarredWalton - Monday, October 26, 2009 - link
Keep in mind that the standard MacBook (historically) doesn't have a good screen; that's only on MacBook Pro, which costs significantly more. I wouldn't be surprised if the MacBook LCD is very similar in terms of contrast ratio -- mostly because that's the type of panel I see on 95% of notebooks/laptops costing under $1500.6cef - Monday, October 26, 2009 - link
I had heard about the ul80vt months ago, and I was excited with everything about it: disk drive, dedicated graphics, ulv cpu, great battery life, chiclet keyboard... but I held off because of the screen.
Instead, I went with an HP HDX16T, which I got on sale for $800 with a 1920x1080 screen, 1GB GT 130M, and a Bluray drive... it's nice enough, but it's a whole lot bulkier than a UL80, and battry life sucks.
If ASUS continues improving the UL line though, I absolutely would pay a premium for one. Once they're on 32nm cpus... if they can kick up the resolution and lcd quality... these would be such a value.
DukeN - Monday, October 26, 2009 - link
Just really wish there would be a nice light, well built, relatively small and light notebook without a glossy screen and a decent panel.I'll keep waiting I guess.
strikeback03 - Monday, October 26, 2009 - link
I know ASUS and others are limited by what the companies that make the panels offer, but please push to make better quality screens at least an option. An extra $100-200 (even on an $800 laptop) would be worth it to me for a display I would be looking at for the next 3-4 years.BikeDude - Monday, October 26, 2009 - link
The quality of the LCD matters to me.I hate many of these big LCDs with ridiculous low (TV) resolution. Last time I bought a laptop, I went with a MacBook Pro since I assumed it had a decent panel.
I see little point in having the exact same sloppy product line as all the other notebook manufacturers out there.
Another annoyance is the utilities that comes bundled with many of these machines. I had to return a Asus because of the ridiculous setup it was boggled with. Removing the anti-virus package gave me a serious bump in performance. Clean install please!
Visual - Monday, October 26, 2009 - link
Now all that I want from ASUS is to replace the screen with hybrid multi-touch/stylus sensitive one, and preferably higher-resolution, maybe 1680x1050 so that it can work well in portrait mode and fit the many 1024 pixel wide websites.I'd probably pay almost double the current price for such a thing, but if they can surprise me and get the price lower, that's even better.
Pirks - Monday, October 26, 2009 - link
Given that this is unusually ultra long battery life Windows notebook based on C2D, not on Atom, could you make one exception and include comparison with MacBook's legendary battery efficiency metric? I mean that cool graph that you used to put in your recent laptop reviews that said "Internet usage minutes per WHr" (you don't do this anymore, too bad :( I posted about it already)It's one uber crucial metric for truly portable laptops, could you PLEASE make this comparison graph for Asus vs latest MacBook just one more time, just for this great Asus one, please?