ASUS S1300: Notebook that turns heads
Zatni Arbi, Columnist, Jakarta, zatni@cbn.net.id
Some time ago I gave you the highlights of new notebooks from ASUS, a Taiwanese company that we know more for their motherboards and CD-ROM drives. Sooner than I thought, I got the opportunity to play around with a demo unit of their slim and capable notebook -- courtesy of Astrindo Senayasa.
ASUS S1300, which belongs to the S1 family, is a lightweight notebook. It weighs 1.9 kilograms. Its polished magnesium alloy cover will certainly attract people's attention. The rest of the notebook is black. Its performance is as good as its looks, which is not a surprise from a company known for its collection of technical awards.
The first thing that struck me was that there was no floppy diskette drive in the box. I thought it was missing, but when I read the manual it turned out that the diskette drive was an option. It is a USB-based external drive, so actually it does not have to be an ASUS product.
There are already other USB floppy diskette drives out there. Because most notebooks and even PDAs now have infrared ports or Bluetooth, ASUS may have thought that people would no longer need this drive. However, as we here in Indonesia still use the floppy to exchange files, my first suggestion to ASUS would be to make the drive a standard accessory for our market. Those who decide to buy this notebook should perhaps add the cost of the external floppy drive into their list of investments.
Except for the floppy diskette drive, the notebook is very well equipped. It has three USB ports, one IEEE 1394 for transferring video directly from your digital video camera, a wireless LAN, a fast infrared port, an external monitor port, a 32-bit Card Bus slot, a RJ-45 LAN port, plus the microphone and headphone jacks. It even has a built-in modem, but it did not have the S-Video port.
My demo unit came with a whopping 384 MB of RAM and an AiBox. Actually an external drive bay, the AiBox can accommodate a variety of drives, including CD-ROM, CD-RW, DVD-ROM drives or even a second-hard disk. The external hard disk will make transferring large video files a snap. For the test drive, Astrindo lent me a DVD-CD/RW combo drive.
On the software side, the unit came with Windows XP professional installed. It had a lot of applets built by ASUS, including the ASUS DVD player, ASUS Probe to monitor the temperatures of the system components, Nero applets for copying and creating CD-ROMs, and many others.
What I like
When it comes to notebook keyboards, I always use IBM ThinkPads as the benchmark. I was a bit skeptical when I first saw ASUS' notebooks during their exhibition last month. But when I used this notebook, I was quite happy with its keyboard. Despite the thinness of the notebook, the key travel was long enough to let me touch type with confidence.
The keys are made of transparent plastic, which makes them look quite fashionable. The keyboard layout is quite good, except that the function keys are too small and too close to each other. I would suggest that the Home and End keys be placed closer to the arrow keys. I use these keys more often than the PgUp and PgDn keys.
There is ample support for the palm, which makes typing quite comfortable. Unfortunately, there are no legs at the rear of the notebook that would raise the back of the keyboards to make typing even more comfortable.
The touchpad is very good, too. It is placed slightly deeper than the palm support, so users cannot easily touch it unintentionally and make the mouse cursor jump on the screen. ASUS supplied a Logitech-made, optical mouse that connected to the notebook via the USB port.
ASUS also did a truly great job in designing its notebook so that heat would not be a problem. The notebook only became slightly warm after hours of use.
My wish list
The 13.3 inch screen tended to be bluish and its color saturation was not as good as on the screen of my old Siemens Nixdorf SCENIC Mobile 300, which you can also see in the accompanying picture. However, if you work with Word documents or even PowerPoint presentations, this would not matter so much.
This notebook supports Windows' extended display for dual applications. DVD movie playback is smooth and can be viewed slightly off-center without any distortion.
Like in many other notebooks today, turning the audio volume up and down requires the use of Fn and two of the Function keys. I would prefer a mechanical dial on the side of the notebook so that we would not have to scramble for the key combination if the sound is too loud. However, I understand that this would not only take some space inside the notebook, it would also add circuitry that could affect sound quality.
The notebook had only one speaker, which faces downward. The result was weak and less than impressive sound reproduction, which might be a problem especially if you use the notebook to give video presentations. If you use a pair of external powered speakers, this will not be a problem. The audio system features 3-D effects as well.
Perhaps because it is not really designed for true power users, it did not come with built-in Bluetooth or 802.11b Wi-Fi transmitter. The Bluetooth can be added in the PC-Card slot, and ASUS already provides the necessary utility. However, today's high-end notebooks should have these devices already built-in.
Apart from these wishes, there is not much else about this notebook to criticize. The power of its Pentium III Mobile processor running at 1.2 GHz is far more than enough for regular tasks on the road. Power management should be set carefully, though, otherwise the battery lasts only for about one hour. Fortunately, in addition to the built-in Intel SpeedStep technology, ASUS has its own Power Gear power management utility that helps conserve the battery. ASUS claims that the battery of this notebook can last up to 3.5 hours.
If you happen to be searching for a slim and stylish notebook that has close to everything -- most of all power, this notebook definitely deserves close consideration as you make your final purchasing decision.