july 30 2010 review by engadget
Look and Feel:
The Bamboo Series is covered in one of the most durable and recyclable materials on earth. The 1.2-inch thick and 4.5-pound chassis is a lot like the ASUS U30Jc in terms of
size, but doesn't have an optical drive, the reviewer expected it becauseof the thicker base.
Touchpad:
The touchpad gets premium treatment, and ASUS has used a special in-mold decoration process along with a new integrated circuit with proper sensor capabilities to cover it in
bamboo to match the rest of the palmrest.
Conclusion:
This notebook is much more than a bamboo laptop. The wood makes you feel you're buying a unique device, but its superior blend of graphics, performance and battery life are
great. There's no optical drive, the keyboard quality feels cheap, and it has a thicker chassis than other 13.3 inch laptops.
Optimus:
The 310M card remained powered down when the reviewer ran the standard definition video rundown test, because of this the U33Jc's 84Wh eight-cell battery lasted for 310
minutes with brightness set to 65%. That's an hour longer than the Toshiba's Portege R705 and the U30Jc, the predicted eight hours was not reached. With the discrete GPU it
lasted for 3.5 hours @full load.
Bloatware:
When you boot the U33Jc for the first time your desktop is filled with icons.ASUS utilities and other software is preloaded on the U33Jc. Some of it is totally useless and
should be deleted ASAP.
Benchmarks:
PC Mark Vantage, 3D Mark 2006, Battery Life.
Compared to:
- ASUS U30Jc -- i3-350M
- Toshiba Portege R705 -- i3-350M
- Acer TimelineX 4820T -- i3-350M
- Dell Vostro V13 -- Core 2 Duo SU7300
- ASUS UL50Vf -- Core 2 Duo SU7300
Tested model: U33Jc-A1
- CPU: 2.4GHz Core i3-370M
- Memory: 4GB
- HDD: 500GB
