ASUS U24E Review and Owners Lounge

[Kearu]

I just purchased the U24E yesterday after 6 months in search of a laptop and I am happy with my purchase. Although it is yet (if it ever will) to be SATA-III compatible, but for me SATA-III SSDs are more of a luxury than a necessity.

What I like about this ultraportable is it has a good balance between mobility, performance, quality and battery life given its price in the region that I purchased in. Not to mention that it is user upgradable as shown by fellow U24E owners in this thread.

[Apache1983]

I installed the samsung 470, the U24E can recognize it, but I was unable to make a new partition on the ssd, can anyone help me, thanks a lot.

[davidricardo86]

I installed the samsung 470, the U24E can recognize it, but I was unable to make a new partition on the ssd, can anyone help me, thanks a lot.

1. What OS are you trying to install?

2. How are you installing it (DVD, USB)?

3. Is this a new SSD?

4. Have you gone into the BIOS and set the storage drive to AHCI mode prior to installing the OS?



When I installed Windows 7 Professional 64-Bit onto my old U24E, I used the USB installer method since this laptop does not have an optical drive. I never encountered any issues installing the OS.

a. Go here for Windows 7 Service Pack 1 ISOs.

b. Use the Windows 7 USB/DVD download tool. In my opinion, it is the most reliable tool when it comes to making a Windows 7 USB installation.


I hope this helps generate ideas and a solution.

[Cableman]

I am on the market for an ultraportable and I basically stumbled upon the U24E by accident. I am not sure why it isn't advertised and reviewed anywhere, but after reading the whole thread here I found a ton of useful information.

I was originally going to get the HP dm1, but this seems like a way better fit for my needs. I have a few questions for all the U24E owners:

1) Is there any particular reason why this laptop is under the radar? Are there any shortcoming besides the problems with the SSDs that are outlined here? From what I read, everything else seems perfect. Please let me know if you noticed any shortcomings.

2) The build quality seems excellent on the pictures and in the first review here. Is that the impression that everyone has?

3) I read a few impressions regarding the battery life. It seems on par with the HP dm1 (5-6 hours of "normal use"). The dm1 has an i3 ULV processor and the US version of the U24E has an i7. Is the i7 really that efficient? I everyone happy with the battery life?

4) Is there any information out there whether this will be discontinued or refreshed with Ivy Bridge?

I would appreciate any feedback. I need a well built small laptop with a fast CPU and this seems almost too good to be true. Please share any reviews and opinions. Thanks a lot.

[Apache1983]

Hi thanks a lot, David.

1. I was trying installing windows 7 professional;
2. I was trying installing it from a external DVD burner;
3. This is a brand new Samsung 470 128G;
4. The BIOS default mode is AHCI, I did confirm that before installing it.

So I think might be something wrong with my Win 7 DVD, for now I used Ghost and clone the image from the old HDD to the ssd and it worked. I will try the way you taught me to install a fresh version of Win 7. Should I input the product key from the original one at the bottom print of the U24E?

Other questions:
1. How can I make a new partition on the SSD besides the single OS partition. Because I wanna make another partition for personal data storage, but disk management in windows won't let me do it.
2. Do you have the Asus OEM certificate to insert to the OS?
3. I installed the samsung magician, and it automaticlly disabled the Instant On feature, do you think that feature is useful? Is this normal?
4. After I put it into sleep moade for a while it went to hibernate automatically, is this normal, too?

By the way, it was a little hard to remove the sticky sponge on the old HDD, hehe...

Again, thanks a lot and I truly appreciate your help!

[davidricardo86]

I am on the market for an ultraportable and I basically stumbled upon the U24E by accident. I am not sure why it isn't advertised and reviewed anywhere, but after reading the whole thread here I found a ton of useful information.

I was originally going to get the HP dm1, but this seems like a way better fit for my needs. I have a few questions for all the U24E owners:

1) Is there any particular reason why this laptop is under the radar? Are there any shortcoming besides the problems with the SSDs that are outlined here? From what I read, everything else seems perfect. Please let me know if you noticed any shortcomings.

2) The build quality seems excellent on the pictures and in the first review here. Is that the impression that everyone has?

3) I read a few impressions regarding the battery life. It seems on par with the HP dm1 (5-6 hours of "normal use"). The dm1 has an i3 ULV processor and the US version of the U24E has an i7. Is the i7 really that efficient? I everyone happy with the battery life?

4) Is there any information out there whether this will be discontinued or refreshed with Ivy Bridge?

I would appreciate any feedback. I need a well built small laptop with a fast CPU and this seems almost too good to be true. Please share any reviews and opinions. Thanks a lot.

I'm surprised that no one's answered you guys but I'll give you my take from when I did have the u24e. I'll try and be as honest and open.

1. Like anything else, it's never perfect. It is however faster than the DM1. Most people don't like/want small laptops probably. And Asus didn't really do a whole lot of advertising to get the word out. Some will complain the keyboards/displays are too small and the igpu HD3000 is not very powerful for some games but sufficient for the average uses. Personally, I wanted stronger graphics performance so i had to ditch my u24e. Also it lacks a backlit keyboard, the webcam is pretty crap in quality, and one thing i also didnt like was the fact that the VGA port was so close to the HDMI port that you wouldn't be able to drive two displays unless you hacked up the VGA connector. I did a bit of searching but couldnt find a slim VGA cable so you'd have to cut the VGA connector (the fat end with the two screws) off. The SATAII cap sucks, but even with an SSD you'll be flying compared to an hdd. One thing that I do like about this computer, you can swap wifi cards without worry of manufacturer restrictions. In my case, I swapped the oem Atheros card for an Intel card. With the correct drivers everything worked, even the keyboard shortcuts. IMO, do not bother with quad core cpus, the HD3000 is the 99.9% the same, and the extra cores will generate more heat than you'll like and consume more energy draining the battery that much quicker. The dual core I7s are awesome and never really feel lacking. If you need more power, then go for it, but I didn't and ended up going back because the dual core ran so cool and the battery life was good. Some guys in the thread mention how much hotter it ran and one dude modded the cooling system. That's a lot of extra work but if you don't mind all these factors, be my guest. The glossy display can be annoying in direct sunlight making it very hard to use outdoors. Luckily the display does get very bright but i like having my displays somewhat dimmed as that light hurts my eyes after hours of use. I'm now using a matte display and i enjoy it a lot (personal preference). The touchpad is by Elan Tech, I prefer Synaptics touchpads as i find them to be more sensitive and responsive. I guess you do get use to it but its rather small in size. At least there's Bluetooth on-board and a BT mouse can easily be attained from Amazon or Ebay. The speakers are rather small and worst of all, by design, they face downward so the sound can easily get muffled (forget about bass, bust out the headphones or a speaker system). Things I really liked about the u24e, size, weight, keyboard, dual USB 3.0 ports, separate mic/headphone ports, and HDMI output clarity was better than my current E425 (I've tried adjust this but HDMI output is not at clear or vivid AMD vs Intel graphics, don't know?).

2. It fairly sturdy but there is going to be a bit of flex since most of the case is made of plastic if given enough force. The display/lid is pretty solid as that it made from aluminium. The hdd/ram/wifi access panel has some flex because it covers a fairly large area but its not lose fitting or anything to worry about. If the case were made entirely of aluminium then everything would be solid as a rock.

3. Yes the I7 is that efficient and the battery life is excellent. Maybe playing around with the power settings can yield a little more.

4. None that I know or have heard of.

Hi thanks a lot, David.

1. I was trying installing windows 7 professional;
2. I was trying installing it from a external DVD burner;
3. This is a brand new Samsung 470 128G;
4. The BIOS default mode is AHCI, I did confirm that before installing it.

So I think might be something wrong with my Win 7 DVD, for now I used Ghost and clone the image from the old HDD to the ssd and it worked. I will try the way you taught me to install a fresh version of Win 7. Should I input the product key from the original one at the bottom print of the U24E?

Other questions:
1. How can I make a new partition on the SSD besides the single OS partition. Because I wanna make another partition for personal data storage, but disk management in windows won't let me do it.
2. Do you have the Asus OEM certificate to insert to the OS?
3. I installed the samsung magician, and it automaticlly disabled the Instant On feature, do you think that feature is useful? Is this normal?
4. After I put it into sleep moade for a while it went to hibernate automatically, is this normal, too?

By the way, it was a little hard to remove the sticky sponge on the old HDD, hehe...

Again, thanks a lot and I truly appreciate your help!

Yes, use the product key on the sticker on the laptop when installing a fresh copy of the OS.

1. Not sure man, Windows Disk Management is what I've used in the past. You could try using a third party app if you search for partitioning software.

2. I'm not sure what you mean?

3. Instant-On works best with HDDs. It's suppose to speed up resume from Sleep by saving some data to RAM making it resume that much faster but consume less energy or something like this. You might want to look it up though as I forgot exactly how it does this. Although you can leave it "on" with the SSD, it won't hurt anything. I used to leave it on and I did notice that its a slightly different version of Sleep, and the LED indicator has a different blinking pattern. Otherwise, the SSD is fast enough that resume from Sleep will be just as fast.

4. Going to hibernate from being left in Sleep is normal. This is done to save energy. In Sleep mode, the computer is still technically ON because where you left off is saved to RAM (RAM is volatile). As soon as you press the ON button or open the lid, its back at the log in screen. Hibernate on the other hand writes information where you last left off to the HDD/SSD (non-volatile), creating a more permanent-like state and shutting off the computer altogether, saving even more energy than Sleep mode. In hibernate, you could even remove the battery and connect it back and you will still be ok. Although i have read that hibernate does consume a very small amount of energy but nothing like Sleep mode. How i can remove the battery and still consume a little energy but be ok is beyond my knowledge?

[Cableman]

I'm surprised that no one's answered you guys but I'll give you my take from when I did have the u24e. I'll try and be as honest and open.

1. Like anything else, it's never perfect. It is however faster than the DM1. Most people don't like/want small laptops probably. And Asus didn't really do a whole lot of advertising to get the word out. Some will complain the keyboards/displays are too small and the igpu HD3000 is not very powerful for some games but sufficient for the average uses. Personally, I wanted stronger graphics performance so i had to ditch my u24e. Also it lacks a backlit keyboard, the webcam is pretty crap in quality, and one thing i also didnt like was the fact that the VGA port was so close to the HDMI port that you wouldn't be able to drive two displays unless you hacked up the VGA connector. I did a bit of searching but couldnt find a slim VGA cable so you'd have to cut the VGA connector (the fat end with the two screws) off. The SATAII cap sucks, but even with an SSD you'll be flying compared to an hdd. One thing that I do like about this computer, you can swap wifi cards without worry of manufacturer restrictions. In my case, I swapped the oem Atheros card for an Intel card. With the correct drivers everything worked, even the keyboard shortcuts. IMO, do not bother with quad core cpus, the HD3000 is the 99.9% the same, and the extra cores will generate more heat than you'll like and consume more energy draining the battery that much quicker. The dual core I7s are awesome and never really feel lacking. If you need more power, then go for it, but I didn't and ended up going back because the dual core ran so cool and the battery life was good. Some guys in the thread mention how much hotter it ran and one dude modded the cooling system. That's a lot of extra work but if you don't mind all these factors, be my guest. The glossy display can be annoying in direct sunlight making it very hard to use outdoors. Luckily the display does get very bright but i like having my displays somewhat dimmed as that light hurts my eyes after hours of use. I'm now using a matte display and i enjoy it a lot (personal preference). The touchpad is by Elan Tech, I prefer Synaptics touchpads as i find them to be more sensitive and responsive. I guess you do get use to it but its rather small in size. At least there's Bluetooth on-board and a BT mouse can easily be attained from Amazon or Ebay. The speakers are rather small and worst of all, by design, they face downward so the sound can easily get muffled (forget about bass, bust out the headphones or a speaker system). Things I really liked about the u24e, size, weight, keyboard, dual USB 3.0 ports, separate mic/headphone ports, and HDMI output clarity was better than my current E425 (I've tried adjust this but HDMI output is not at clear or vivid AMD vs Intel graphics, don't know?).

2. It fairly sturdy but there is going to be a bit of flex since most of the case is made of plastic if given enough force. The display/lid is pretty solid as that it made from aluminium. The hdd/ram/wifi access panel has some flex because it covers a fairly large area but its not lose fitting or anything to worry about. If the case were made entirely of aluminium then everything would be solid as a rock.

3. Yes the I7 is that efficient and the battery life is excellent. Maybe playing around with the power settings can yield a little more.

4. None that I know or have heard of.

Thanks so much for the reply. That was really helpful.

Your opinion (even the problems that you listed) makes me want the u24e even more. I need a small laptop so I can work on it when travelling so I don't really need anything faster than the HD3000. The only thing that I might play is Diablo 3, which might actually run on medium without a problem (judging by Starcraft 2). I care a lot more about the CPU side of things because in my work I use CPU-intensive software and the dual-core i7 will be more than sufficient for that. This is will be my computer to take for meetings, conferences etc. Mind you, this will be a huge upgrade from my current 7 pound Core 2 Duo all-plastic HP.

I don't really care about stellar webcam performance as long as it's usable and even the problem with the VGA/HDMI that you listed won't be a problem for me because I will be using just one of the connectors when doing presentations. The SATA II limit is also not a problem because an SSD upgrade won't be imminent. In terms of the quad-core processors, I'd rather have a dual core for the reasons that you listed - that needs to be a portable laptop which runs cool and runs for as long as possible on battery. The touchpad won't bother me that much because I am thinking of getting the Microsoft Arc Touch mouse, which gets really small when travelling.

The only 2 things that I wish were better (from what you described) are the screen and the speakers. If this had a matte screen and decent speakers it would have been perfect for me despite the other issues.

My biggest concerns were the build quality, any heat problems and battery life. 5-6 hours of battery life and minimal flex especially of the screen sound good to me. From your response, I gather that the heat is minimal (I was researching the ASUS u36, which has heat problems). Does it stay cool even when running CPU intensive tasks?

I think I am on the way to becoming an u24e owner

[Apache1983]

I'm surprised that no one's answered you guys but I'll give you my take from when I did have the u24e. I'll try and be as honest and open.

1. Like anything else, it's never perfect. It is however faster than the DM1. Most people don't like/want small laptops probably. And Asus didn't really do a whole lot of advertising to get the word out. Some will complain the keyboards/displays are too small and the igpu HD3000 is not very powerful for some games but sufficient for the average uses. Personally, I wanted stronger graphics performance so i had to ditch my u24e. Also it lacks a backlit keyboard, the webcam is pretty crap in quality, and one thing i also didnt like was the fact that the VGA port was so close to the HDMI port that you wouldn't be able to drive two displays unless you hacked up the VGA connector. I did a bit of searching but couldnt find a slim VGA cable so you'd have to cut the VGA connector (the fat end with the two screws) off. The SATAII cap sucks, but even with an SSD you'll be flying compared to an hdd. One thing that I do like about this computer, you can swap wifi cards without worry of manufacturer restrictions. In my case, I swapped the oem Atheros card for an Intel card. With the correct drivers everything worked, even the keyboard shortcuts. IMO, do not bother with quad core cpus, the HD3000 is the 99.9% the same, and the extra cores will generate more heat than you'll like and consume more energy draining the battery that much quicker. The dual core I7s are awesome and never really feel lacking. If you need more power, then go for it, but I didn't and ended up going back because the dual core ran so cool and the battery life was good. Some guys in the thread mention how much hotter it ran and one dude modded the cooling system. That's a lot of extra work but if you don't mind all these factors, be my guest. The glossy display can be annoying in direct sunlight making it very hard to use outdoors. Luckily the display does get very bright but i like having my displays somewhat dimmed as that light hurts my eyes after hours of use. I'm now using a matte display and i enjoy it a lot (personal preference). The touchpad is by Elan Tech, I prefer Synaptics touchpads as i find them to be more sensitive and responsive. I guess you do get use to it but its rather small in size. At least there's Bluetooth on-board and a BT mouse can easily be attained from Amazon or Ebay. The speakers are rather small and worst of all, by design, they face downward so the sound can easily get muffled (forget about bass, bust out the headphones or a speaker system). Things I really liked about the u24e, size, weight, keyboard, dual USB 3.0 ports, separate mic/headphone ports, and HDMI output clarity was better than my current E425 (I've tried adjust this but HDMI output is not at clear or vivid AMD vs Intel graphics, don't know?).

2. It fairly sturdy but there is going to be a bit of flex since most of the case is made of plastic if given enough force. The display/lid is pretty solid as that it made from aluminium. The hdd/ram/wifi access panel has some flex because it covers a fairly large area but its not lose fitting or anything to worry about. If the case were made entirely of aluminium then everything would be solid as a rock.

3. Yes the I7 is that efficient and the battery life is excellent. Maybe playing around with the power settings can yield a little more.

4. None that I know or have heard of.



Yes, use the product key on the sticker on the laptop when installing a fresh copy of the OS.

1. Not sure man, Windows Disk Management is what I've used in the past. You could try using a third party app if you search for partitioning software.

2. I'm not sure what you mean?

3. Instant-On works best with HDDs. It's suppose to speed up resume from Sleep by saving some data to RAM making it resume that much faster but consume less energy or something like this. You might want to look it up though as I forgot exactly how it does this. Although you can leave it "on" with the SSD, it won't hurt anything. I used to leave it on and I did notice that its a slightly different version of Sleep, and the LED indicator has a different blinking pattern. Otherwise, the SSD is fast enough that resume from Sleep will be just as fast.

4. Going to hibernate from being left in Sleep is normal. This is done to save energy. In Sleep mode, the computer is still technically ON because where you left off is saved to RAM (RAM is volatile). As soon as you press the ON button or open the lid, its back at the log in screen. Hibernate on the other hand writes information where you last left off to the HDD/SSD (non-volatile), creating a more permanent-like state and shutting off the computer altogether, saving even more energy than Sleep mode. In hibernate, you could even remove the battery and connect it back and you will still be ok. Although i have read that hibernate does consume a very small amount of energy but nothing like Sleep mode. How i can remove the battery and still consume a little energy but be ok is beyond my knowledge?

Your comments and analysis are very accurate and helpful. We all benefit from it.

1. I don't know how to describe the "Asus OEM Certifiicate". When you right click "Computer" and select "Property" (I'm still having the OEM OS), you will see the Asus logo under the windows logo, I guess it's called "certificate". If we install a fresh OS by ourselves, the Asus logo won't show up, don't know if it really matter? (sorry for my long and confusing description);

2. I purchased the Samsung 470 because you have it and other reviews give it reliable comment. And the price for 470 series is still very high even the product is discontinued, around $300 for 128G (retail version), much high then those SATA3 SSD, don't know why? I'm wondering if you have installed the Samsung SSD Magician, is it a necessary and helpful sofeware, is running "Performance Benchmark" reducing the life of SSD? I'm thinking getting a SATA3 SSD for my desktop. Do you recommond the Samsung 830 or any other brand?

3. Is it gonna affect the performance of the SSD if I have two partitions on the SSD?

Like you said "If the case were made entirely of aluminium then everything would be solid as a rock". Thanks again.

[dasaki]

In case anyone wants to upgrade, I've just spotted this good deal:

CPU INTEL CORE i7-2720qm 4x 2,2GHz 6M Cache, SR014 OEM VERSION | eBay

I paid twice as much for my new 2720qm processor...

By the way, I just upgraded to a samsung 470 256gb ssd. I confirm it works perfectly (dual os: W7 and Ubuntu 10.04).

[joseph_lin]

In case anyone wants to upgrade, I've just spotted this good deal:

CPU INTEL CORE i7-2720qm 4x 2,2GHz 6M Cache, SR014 OEM VERSION | eBay

I paid twice as much for my new 2720qm processor...

By the way, I just upgraded to a samsung 470 256gb ssd. I confirm it works perfectly (dual os: W7 and Ubuntu 10.04).

How's the battery life of your setup? And the heat?