~U3S Owners Lounge~

[eugenes]

Here's a preview for the U3S-A1

Spec:

Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo T7500 (2.2GHz, 800FSB, 4MB Cache)
Memory: 1.5GB (512MB + 1GB)
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce 8400M G 128MB VRAM
Display: 13.3" 1280x800 WXGA Color Shine LCD
Hard Drive: 160GB 5400RPM SATA (Hitachi 5K160)
External Optical Drive: Super Multi DVD Burner with Lightscribe
Wireless: Intel PRO Wireless 4965AGN
Operating System: Windows Vista Business
Ports: 3x USB 2.0, 1x FireWire, Headphone, Microphone in, VGA out, Modem, Ethernet, HDMI, eSATA, GPS
Slots: 1x ExpressCard 54, 8 in 1 card reader
Switches: enable/disable for bluetooth/wireless, speed/power saving for vga.

Reason for buying:

After lugging around my G2S around for a few month, I decided that I needed something much more portable. However, I was not willing to give up functionality for portability. Initially, I looked at the Sony SZ series and Dell M1330, but the combination of price, functionality, and my experiences with the G2S led me to buy the U3S instead. My unit was purchased from ExcaliberPC.com along with the matching external optical drive.

The notebook package included the following:

Notebook bag and sleeve (Asus branded, probably made by Targus)
Bluetooth mouse and batteries
Power adapter with cable tie
6-cell battery
Recover and driver CD
S-video to combosit cable
HDMI to DVI cable
GPS antenna
Telephone cable
Dust cloth
Manuals

Photos:


Notice the reflection of the window off the cover.


6-cell battery. Not quite flush with the rest of the notebook.


Indicator lights and power switch.


Splendid video, Power4Gear switch and build-in mic.


Touchpad with fingerprint reader.


Keyboard.


HDD slot. Notice the 3G/sim icon. The slot doesn't exist on the A1 model.


Internals. Clockwise starting from upper left: ram, heatsink fan, cpu, wireless, gps.


Closeup of leather palm rest and U3 logo.


External ODD.


External ODD connected to U3S.


Left to right: firewire, wireless/bt switch, memory card reader, mic and headphone plug.


Left to right: usb x2, gps, hdmi, esata, power, kingston lock.


Expresscard 54 and integrated/discrete graphics switch.


Battery life:

I've ran test for the following cases:
[1] ~4:30, CPU at 800Mhz, LCD off, Wireless/BT off, Integrated graphics (not usable, only good for marketing purposes)
[2] ~3:00, CPU at 800Mhz, LCD at 40%, Wireless/BT on, Integrated graphics
[3] ~2:30, CPU at 800Mhz, LCD at lowest, Wireless/BT off, Integrated graphics, External ODD connected and playing dvd
[4] ~1:45, CPU at 2.2Ghz, LCD at max, Wireless/BT on, Discrete graphics
[5] ~1:30, CPU at 2.2Ghz, LCD at max, Wireless/BT on, Discrete graphics, External ODD connected but not playing dvd
[6] ~1:20, CPU at 2.2Ghz, LCD at max, Wireless/BT on, Discrete graphics, External ODD connected and playing dvd

The following numbers are captured using TweakVista:

The 6-cell battery has a maximum capacity of 51095 mWh

Power drain:
[1] from above uses about 11000 mW of power
[2] from above uses about 16000 mW of power
[3] from above uses about 20000 mW of power
[4] from above uses about 30000 mW of power
[5] from above uses about 34000 mW of power
[6] from above uses about 39000 mW of power

Turning on Wireless/BT adds about 1500 mW
Going from lowest brightness to max brightness adds about 5000 mW
Going from 40% brightness to max brightness adds about 3000 mW
Going from 40% brightness to lowest brightness saves about 2000 mW (adds about 30 minutes to [2])
Increasing CPU from 800Mhz to 2200Mhz adds about 4500 mW

Based on the power consumption numbers above, you can get up to 4 hours with everything turned off and LCD at lowest brightness.

To calculate the battery life run time, divide 51000 by power drain number to get number of hours.

Recharging the 6-cell battery takes less than 2 hours.

I've also noticed while running the power tests that the U3S is extremely good at turning things off. For example, if you plug in the ODD and don't use it, the system will suspend the USB power draw!

Performance:

Super Pi to 2M: 57 seconds

Vista Assessment:
-CPU 5.1
-Compression and encryptions 4.9
-Video encoding 5.3
-Memory speed and size 4.5
-Desktop graphics 3.2
-Gaming graphics 3.9
-Hard disk 4.9

GPS:

I will not be doing any testing of the GPS until November (when I have a car again). However, you can download the manual here.

Initial impressions:

I've had the U3S for a little over a week now. It is definitely a joy to use and I cannot tell the difference in performance from my G2S for day to day stuff.

The screen is more than bright enough for indoor use. View angles are average. The speakers are actually not too bad. At maximum volumn, it's loud enough to hear across a 20' room. I would still recommend using headphones if you really want to listen to music or watch a dvd. The touchpad is flush with the palm rest and do take some getting use to. I'm having the hardest time scrolling with the touchpad, since there's no edge to limit where you place your finger.

One of the nicer touches I've noticed, is that the included software and TPM chip allows for multifactor authentication and also hardware based encryption of the HDD. As a business notebook, I think these are fantastic feature.

I'll update this post with more information as I spend more time using the U3S. Feel free to ask questions or leave suggestions on what you want me to test.


Cheers,

-Eugene

[tajoh111]

Nice pics.

How is the build of the laptop. Is the lcd cover metallic or plastic.

Is aero enabled with that battery life.

Have you tried to install a dual boot with windows xp, from some reports it might be able to gain you an hour of battery life.

Another Asus on this forum gained a huge amount of battery life from this.

[eugenes]

The build quality is quite good, but not quite at the level of Sony. I can still find minor imperfections here and there.

The LCD cover is metal (at least it feels like it to me), but coated with the piano black/white substance. There is some flex if you push the center of the cover, but it doesn't affect the actual screen.

Aero was enabled when I wrote my post above. I'm not sure if it's possible to automatically disable it using the asus power management software. If you disable Aero, wifi/bluetooth, and lower the LCD brightness to below 40%, I'm sure you can squeeze more battery life out of this notebook. My personal perference is to bring a 2nd battery and have more comfortable settings.

I'm probably not going to try installing XP on this notebook. Too much hassle to create a boot cd and find all the drivers.

[E.B.E.]

Just a note about TPM-based HDD encryption: I do not know the details of the implementation, but it is possible that the harddrive will become unreadable in case the motherboard becomes faulty and it has to be changed.

Just a word of caution if you're planning to use it. I repeat, this may not be true so do your own research, but be sure of what you're doing before enabling TPM HDD encryption.

[eugenes]

Actually, I believe you can store the decryption key on flash media, so the case of a faulty motherboard is covered =) I don't have TPM HDD encryption enabled, simply because I don't need that much security.

[E.B.E.]

Ok. But that seems to be a sort of a security gap... but I suppose you have to have it in order to cover for faulty motherboards and other situations where you might lose the key. Well, I don't really understand the principles of TPM anyway.

[kennyy]

Wow eugenes thanks for the pics. The white palm reset easy to get dirty i reckon, just need to take care of it. Anyone know how much does it cost to buy an extra 6 cells battery?

[Evil_Sheep]

What a beautiful notebook...one of the few truly desirable notebooks out there that is so different from the others it screams look at me! In comparison, the Dell XPS M1330 looks as dull as, well, a Dell. To find such a well designed notebook at this price point is frankly astonishing...I did not believe the quoted price was anything more than internet rumours until I actually saw this in retailers for $1600.

Unfortunately the 2.5-3hr battery life is highly disappointing for a notebook of this caliber. The NV8400 isn't exactly a gaming fiend yet it still seems to suck the life out of the batteries. What I'm curious about is a comparison of battery life with the graphics card activated vs deactivated. I'm really hoping the next iteration of this notebook is offered with integrated graphics and, really, 95% of the target market for this notebook will never take advantage of the weak graphics card anyway. It's just dead weight sucking up precious battery juice. And while making my v.2 wishlist maybe adding an LED-backlit display? Im not in the market at the moment so I can afford to wait, however, this is already 90% the perfect notebook for me.

[tajoh111]

I hope it is relatively scratch resistant. The body I mean, but usually shiny things scratch easily.

[khanhfat]

this quick? hmm GPS function please does it work well? i'd like to see some screen shot of the software running.