ASUS UL80Vt-A1 14-Inch Thin and Light Black Laptop (11.5 Hours of Battery Life)

Customer Reviews

Average Customer Review:

Review 6 to 10 of total 82

Sleek, stylish, beautiful screen,
by A.P. Wilson, 2009-11-22

I bought ASUS UL80Vt-A1 to replace my four year old HP laptop. Reading a few negative reviews on the screen limited viewing angle, I was almost ready to ship it back, but was blown away a minute I opened it up. It is sleek, polished, and beautiful. Startup is lightening fast. The screen compare to my old HP, is fantastic, 500% better. Playing Sims 3 - fun, fast, smooth! The only laptop it could be compared is Apple, in my opinion. Far exceeded my expectations.

 

Five star notebook (with a few exceptions),
by Mark Youngren, 2009-12-27

Here are the problems with this laptop:
-Build quality isn't absolutely perfect. There's a little give to the case, and I've heard that's better in the UL30vt. It does feel like despite the give it is sturdy and will last.
-Contrast ratio is 200:1 in the average res/size glossy LED screen.
-No internal bluetooth.
-5400 RPM hard drive.
-Keyboard can make empty sounding noise on right side.
-Lowres webcam.
-Faster new CULV processors are coming.
-A few crappy preinstalled apps, but not a huge amount.

And now, the awesome:
-The processor can be put at 1.73GHz. Not overclocked but "turbo mode"'d; a separate BIOS setting allows for another 5% boost. Puts the performance into "Fast Enough for Anything C2D" range (4GB of DDR3 helps i'd guess). I define that based on my preferences; game and/or run tons of things at once.
-Switchable graphics from integrated to a lowgrade nVidia card. Doesn't seem like much compared to a desktop card but for the price range you cannot beat the 'actually having it' part, which is rare unless you get a chunky laptop.
-Great trackpad. Has pseudo-multitouch, which is basically everything but pinch motions. It works precisely, and glides without slipping or sticking.
-Sound is integrated realtek hd. It is clear with no inline noise and has slightly more than enough power for my HD595s. Good enough sound is great, considering the competition.
-Ridiculously long battery life. Set it up however you want - I could get more, but I'm happy with getting 5-6 hours of quality normal usage.

Final thoughts:
WiFi is N, there's HDMI and VGA, a button to change graphics modes or boot into the instant boot linux when laptop is off. That preOS linux(?) works surprisingly well but doesn't support widescreen. Lame. Otherwise it'd be useful.
It's light but not that light, and the screen is really bright with good color. The meh contrast ratio doesn't ruin it.

I feel really satisfied with this laptop for the price. I considered a MacBook. I like OSX but until I can run Steam natively I am with Win7. Which isn't bad, and a perfect laptop to go with win7 is this one. /recommend

 

AWESOME!,
by Karen L. Williams, 2010-02-10

This is my notebook to die for! Everything I've been looking for and never found before, finally. Super lightweight, battery lasts forever (8-plus hours on max performance, more on battery-sparing settings -- but who needs to do that, with this longevity?), the touchpad is amazing (only need one hand to do everything; I don't get the bad reviews on it at all!), beautiful to look at (also don't get the bad reviews re fingerprints...not a problem), stays super COOL no matter what I'm doing! I've had it just about 3 weeks and just keep lovin' it more and more, including Win 7. I could go on and on. Little things like the way the keys fit so snugly that no gunk will ever invade the KB, the feel of the keys, fast boot, fast everything, fab display - all for an AWESOME PRICE, too. This little sweetie delivers! I am so pleased.

 

Great computer!!,
by Tommy C, 2010-05-14

This computer really is unbelievable.

I am a professional and student this coming fall and this computer is everything I need. I also happen to be a computer geek. Even a long time ago, I use to overclock my pc and video cards when I was a kid. I have also owned a macbook pro.

PRACTICALITY:
Battery: Even in the overclocked mode I still get 7+ hours of actual computer usage. Performance still maintains!

Weight: The computer is very light and thin. Because of its 16:9 viewing area, I think in as far as movies, the screen is bigger.

Keyboard: This computer goes with the trend of having the chic let island keyboards. Honestly I'm not a big fan of them but you can't get a computer these days without one. I'd rate it 9/10. I think the lenovo and mac keys are a bit better. I'd give them a 10/10 to give you a frame of reference. I wished these keys were grooved.

Chassis: The frame is made of plastic. Remember this is a 700 dollar computer. It won't feel as sturdy as a unibody macbook but its not bad.

PERFORMANCE/GAMING:
CPU/Graphics: This computer really holds its ground. The CPU does not feel laggy at all. I like to game on occasion to relieve stress. Left for Dead 2 shows no sign of lag. Heroes of Newerth in full settings lags on occasion when a lot is happening. I also hear that this computer can run Modern Warfare 2 on full settings on native res. There are demos I've seen online.

Harddrive: This is really my only complaint. There is adequate space for all your mp3, movies and whatever you have. However, I can't help but feel that its a bit slow. As a result, this is really the bottleneck of the performance I feel. I really want a SSD harddrive but whats the point? that costs half the amount of this laptop.

Anyways I'm not going to revise and edit. I hope this helps!


AUGUST 8th Follow-up review:
The keyboard seemed unbearable after long term use. I was constantly making mistakes. I am a fast typer. I type over 100 WPM. The keyboard flex prevented me from typing fast. As a result, after a few months use, I sold it. Yes, I sold because the keyboard was that unbearable for me.

 

Awesome machine for the price point,
by Barrett Campbell, 2010-07-09

This machine was a little more than I had intended to spend on a school machine, but when I started looking around, my five hundred dollar price point just wasn't enough. So I bumped my budget up to seven hundred and this one fit right in. I will say that I looked at all the machines I could find at that price...quite a few. And this one looked pretty amazing from a hardware standpoint...again, considering the price. It has performed better than expected.

I've been using it for a few weeks now pretty heavily and I just don't really have many complaints. Okay, there's the screen, but I knew it had shortcomings going in. Again, I'm using this for papers, research, spreadsheets, etc in well-lit environments. For that the screen is fantastic. But it does have a sweet spot as many have mentioned. And it's a pretty small sweet spot up and down. Side to side gives alot more latitude. And it's not really an issue since I already have my hands on the machine...pretty easy to tilt the screen if I change positions. Movies look alot better than I thought they would. But this monitor doesn't do deep blacks. Even though I'm used to good, matte monitors I still don't find it ghastly as some have reported. Yeah, a matte screen would be nice, but it's not an option. I still haven't had any issues in several different lighting situations. So yeah, this isn't the best screen you're gonna see out there. But I don't need a full-gamut monitor for school. I have one at home. But again, the screen isn't that bad.

That said, how about some pros and cons:

Likes:

This machine's pretty fast. I build my own gaming desktop rigs every few years and this one installs/runs applications just as fast. Now, I haven't tried to play any games on this rig yet, but if the way it runs Google Earth is any indication, I think I'll probably be impressed. It runs GE flawlessly on the card and still pretty well on the integrated graphics with all the settings maxed out. Photoshop installed quickly. And this machine runs it quite nicely. I haven't benchmarked anything, but did a couple of quick renderings to get a feel for the speed. What can I say? I'm impressed. It chomps up big raw files like a champ. This stuff, however, brings out the monitor's deficiencies. I won't be doing much photo editing as color/exposure is concerned without an external monitor. But it doesn't lack the speed to crunch big files.

4 gigs of DDR3.

Love the touchpad. It's a little sensitive, but I'm getting used to it.

Battery life. This is what really sold me on this machine. And it really does run for 10+ hours in power save mode. And power save mode is enough for all the work I'm doing. You can browse the web for about that long on a charge as well. The battery life alone makes up for the screen. And the screen really isn't that bad unless you're spoiled. Then again if you're spoiled, why are you looking at a machine this cheap? Takes 2 1/2 hours to fully recharge from full discharge.

Tiny footprint. It's not much bigger than a netbook yet has the power of a decent desktop!

Optical drive. Okay, I'll fess up...I watch movies now and again. And this machine is pretty good for that. And most of my movies are on DVD. It's nice to be able to drag 'em along or play something a friend has. Just keep it still... it doesn't like being moved around much with a disc spinning. Other than that, most of my software is on CD/DVD. The drive just makes life so much easier. This was also another selling point for me.

Nice collection of ports. Really like the HDMI. Would have preferred DVI as opposed to a VGA. Err, you know, I might take that back. The VGA will work with much older monitors where HDMI works with some new ones and most modern TVs. Okay, so maybe VGA was the right choice.

Card reader is a nice touch.

Great keyboard. I haven't experienced any sort of flex in the chassis as some have reported. Then again, I don't typically put much pressure there.

Stays pretty cool for hours on end in your lap.

Warranty! 1 year almost anything goes out of the box. Then another year of just regular warranty after that. I've dealt with Asus in the past with a burned motherboard on a gamer. It was by the far one of the most pleasant RMAs ever. LOVE Asus support. That experience was a big reason I bought an Asus machine.



Dislikes?

Webcam. I hate webcams on laptops. Always feel like I'm being watched. It got painted over. But this is just picky...I'm sure someone appreciates them.

Bloatware. Some won't come off and I don't have the time to reinstall everything. It doesn't seem like it's slowing anything down, but I'd prefer to just have it given to me on a disk to install at my will...not shoved down my throat. And it made the initial setup kinda long.

Too many stickers. But the flipside is that you have the stuff to cover up your webcam right out of the box ;).

I feel like I have to be careful with the screen.

You'll only do this once, but I had the machine on my lap in the bed with my legs kicked out in front of me. Then I opened it. The hinges double as little crab claws when you do this. It was unpleasant. But again, you'll probably only do this once ;)

Overall, I couldn't be happier with the machine. J&R got it here in 3 business days with standard shipping! Yeah, there are little niggles with every machine. They're all a compromise. But there are so many positives to this machine, it's hard to dwell on any of its shortcomings...particularly in this price range. It's simply an amazing value with a great warranty and company to back it. All that said, this machine has earned itself a solid five stars. It'd get seven with a better screen.