ASUS UL80Vt-A1 14" Notebook Computer (Black)

Comments about ASUS UL80Vt-A1 14" Notebook Computer:

I purchased a new laptop online. In a week it started to have blue screen, freezes, sudden restarts, WIFI card would turn off and the only way to bring it back was to restart the laptop. I sent it in to asus for repair. In about a week I got it back, but it was scratched up. I called asus and complained that they scratched up my laptop. The requested the images to be sent to them. I emailed the pictures and sent the laptop in for a repair again. To make it short when I got the laptop back second time it was still scratched up (only 1 part was replaced) the rest I guess they didn't think was too bad. In addition they forgot to send me back my charger. But it wasn't all. My wifi problem came back in about 15 minutes of use. I call asus support back and they advise me to send the laptop back in for repair and promise me that they will send me a new charger. So this is the third time i send my laptop back. In a few days their support calls me and tells me that they found no problem with my

Comments about ASUS UL80Vt-A1 14" Notebook Computer:

I love my asus. It's fast, reliable, and has a great battery life. I bring it everywhere with me and as long as I charged it the night before, it can more than last the entire day like a netbook could.

The screen is a bit flimsy -- doesn't feel terribly sturdy but the graphics are good. The button (clicker) is hard to use as you have to press pretty hard. This is much of a trouble though if you're more of a tapper or use a wireless mouse, etc.

Comments about ASUS UL80Vt-A1 14" Notebook Computer:

I love this notebook overall. except, there is no external volume control which I am used to in TOSHIBAs; Speakers are not loud enough; and power management is complicated [they could have done it better.

Comments about ASUS UL80Vt-A1 14" Notebook Computer:

The UL80VT-A1 is out of a series of Ultra Low Voltage Processors. Their purpose is to light-weight, long-life battery laptops.The 8-Cell Battery do last for about one working day but for the price of [$]you can probably save 100-200$ by buying stronger laptop with shorter battery time with the same weight.

Comments about ASUS UL80Vt-A1 14" Notebook Computer:

This is actually the second Asus UL80Vt I've purchased. I love mine so much, I bought this one for my wife. The 8 cell battery was enough to convice me to purchase this pc. Be forewarned that this pc does not come with Outlook or Office. That's not a problem if you load OpenOffice and Thunderbird. Both work well on this pc.

Comments about ASUS UL80Vt-A1 14" Notebook Computer:

It's not the most powerful machine I've ever had, but it gets the job done and can last a full day on a single battery charge. For me, being able to take it with me and not have to bring my cables is a pretty big deal, does it like a champ.

The switchable CPU and GPU is genius, you can choose at any given point to optimize for performance/video or battery life.

Comments about ASUS UL80Vt-A1 14" Notebook Computer:

I have become a fan of asus over the past few years because of their great warranty, the quality/price of their products. Previously I owned a Asus Ul30A which was amazing but had no optical drive or dedicated gpu card in it.This computer is pretty much identical except for those facts and i am loving it! it has great battery life(almost as good as the UL30A) but actually can play games quite well, nothing amazing but hey its a thin and light.I would suggest this computer over and over again.only two things i do not like is the the hand rest area creeks a little and the whole comp is a finger print magnet but those are so little they cannot take away from how great this little computer is! [...]

Comments about ASUS UL80Vt-A1 14" Notebook Computer:

My favorite thing about this computer is the Splashtop Browser which allows you to surf the internet, listen to music, view pictures, chat, etc. without ever opening the Windows OS. Keyboard is also great and the screen is very clear and sharp.

Comments about ASUS UL80Vt-A1 14" Notebook Computer:

As a college student, I was looking for two things in particular:
-Long battery life; I didn't want to have to drag the power brick (even if it is small) around.
-Thin and light: While it isn't extremely light, it is a lot less cumbersome than a laptop with a regular thickness (think Toshiba Satellite series).
-Durability:It's quite hard to find a combination of qualities like these, and stay under the 1000$ mark. Fortunately, this laptop is actually quite sturdy. Prior to my purchase, I had read about heavily flexing keyboards, creaking palmrests,etc. I have not seen any of these flaws, except for the flexing keyboard. The flex isn't that big a deal anyways. It only flexes when you intentional push on it, which you wont be doing when you're typing regularly. Even if you decide to push hard, it doesn't flex far. It seems Asus has listened to previous complaints and tried to fix all the issues.

I was also looking for bonus features. Having a decent powerhouse desktop computer, I figured I didn't need a very powerful processor and/or GPU. I wanted to sacrifice those for battery life. That's when I found out about switcheable graphics. Asus applied this amazingly. The Geforce G210m, while not extremely powerful, will play some older games on full settings, and most modern games on low/med settings. With a few Cuda cores, you will get GPU accelerated Photoshop and video encoding from specific software.

All of that, and you still can achieve 12 or more hours of battery life (with Asus, it seems you don't count less hours than what is actually rated, the rated hours are actually accurate, and you may get MORE than what is rated) if you choose NOT to use the dedicated GPU.

For instance, I can sit down and play Half Life 2 on maximum settings at native resolution at a nice FPS for about 1 and 1/2 hours to 2 hours, draining the battery to about 55%, and still manage to pull off another 6-7 hours if I switch to integrated graphics and use the Battery Saving setting on the included power consumption software (Power4Gear Hybrid).

If you are worried about the Core2Duo clocked at 1.3ghz, then don't. You can overclock it to 1.7 without knowing a thing about computers, and still pull off the battery life rating or more. I've never underclocked it since I've bought this product, and at 1.7ghz, it runs Windows 7, web browsing, word processing, and graphically intense programs beautifully.

Onto the cons:

-The touchpad: I'm used to the matte, textured touchpads of the IBM Thinkpads. The glossy touchpad may be annoying, but you get used to it. It gets better as you use it. However I do carry around a USB wireless mouse with me. The payoff is the multitouch features, which are actually quite nice. I barely even touch the chrome left and right click buttons.

-While using the dedicated card, it does get hot, however nowhere near wherever you will actually touch the laptop. If you put your hand on the left vent after using the GPU intensively, you will notice quite the heat. This is not really much of a con, the palmrests stay cool, at most mildly warm.

Gloss,gloss,and more gloss: Sure, it looks great in pictures, but your fingerprints will be all over this thing, each one feeling like it's being branded on when in fact you lightly touched it. It's not that big a deal, you can wipe it off.

The last con: The display looks slightly washed out when you first open up the computer. All you have to do is use the Windows Display Color Calibration tool, and lower the gamma down quite a bit, and you'll have a nice contrast.

Comments about ASUS UL80Vt-A1 14" Notebook Computer:

My husband and I just bought this computer and have had a bit of trouble getting used to Windows 7, but besides the changing of operating systems, the UL80 is a peach. It's incredibly fast, has beautiful HD graphics, and is relatively light and easy to transport. We travel a lot and this Notebook won't be a burden to carry from country to country. As an artist, I really appreciate the option to adjust all the color settings on the main screen; as well as the video player/output. We previously owned 2 IBM Think-pads from the the 90's and although they lasted us years and years, it was time to upgrade and get up to speed - the Asus is a great dependable option for the future, and it's so quiet!! The only con to this new purchase was the Asus Customer Service line that we accessed more than once when we were having possible problems with compatibility (later we figured out OURSELVES that it had nothing to do with the UL80 or even Windows 7). The Asus Customer Service was less than helpful with their advice; I do hope they will improve their service knowledge in the future. My husband seemed to be walking THEM through the issues...not the other way around. Minus the CS, the UL80 is nothing but sweet. I do wish it was a little less pricey, but for what it is; the price is not to complain about...