Customer Reviews

ASUS UL30A-X3 Thin and Light 13.3-Inch Silver Laptop - Over 11 Hours of Battery Life

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Pretty cool so far -- popped Windows 7/64 on it, it was a pain to download all the 7/64 drivers individually from their site, though at least they were there.

Problem is -- no bluetooth! I chose this based on the Asus page for the product and then amazon gives like 5 bullet points of specs. I never thought a dual core, 4 gig, high end ulv would come without bluetooth! It took me a good 2 hours troubleshooting why my device won't connect to figure it out!

Also, I didn't receive the mouse and case that was advertised. Not sure what the story is with that, it says only 1 package to be delivered...

Oh, i ordered at 6pm and got the next day and it was in my hands 18 hours later. Gotta love that.

I bought this laptop as a second computer for work and I am not disappointed.

Pros:
Great battery life
Good viewing angles
Solid construction
Nice design
Fast Core 2 Duo processor

Cons:
Keyboard could be better (but comfortable for typing)

I've had this laptop for about a week now and overall I'm very satisfied. I was considering this one, the ACER 3810 and the ASUS UL30A-A1. For about $170 less than the ACER and $100 less than the ASUS UL30A-A1, you get the same level of CPU performance and sacrifice on the drive size and Bluetooth (if you do your homework, you'll see that on the ASUS website, the X3 model does not have Bluetooth whilet the A1 one does). I bought a Cirago USB adapter off of Amazon for about $25 for the bluetooth functionality. I also bought the Samsung external USB optical drive, Microsoft Bluetooth mouse and a Case Logic Neoprene sleeve (13 inch in black). All work very well togther and the sleeve fits perfectly.

Relative to the keyboard, it's fine - not the best and not the worst. The trackpad issues was noted on some on-line magazine reviews and altogether it shouldn't be an issue after usng it for a while. As for other reviews identifying a "con" for a lack of an optical drive, my comment is - if you were buying this laptop for it's price, wright and thickness, isn't the lack of an optical drive a "Pro"?

Relative to the battery performance, if you leave it in high performance, the battery life will be abount half the advertised life which is still fantastic (as I type, the battery is 66% charged with 4 hours, 58 minutes remaining). Again, I rely on on-line magazine's review of a product and many view the battey life as extremely good testing at over 8 hours and certainly better than the ACER.

I am dissappointed with Amazon over the missing case and mouse but I am overlooking that in my rating of the product. Also, I did use 2 day shipping with Amazon Prime and the computer was delivered the next day.

I used to have Toshiba Qosmio which is high end version of Toshiba
It had great feature and I loved its great performance overall
but it was just too heavy to carry around and gets pretty hot in the bottom
and battery life got very short at the end. So I didn't want to carry around very much

I needed something fast because I don't want my laptop skipping or lagging while I watching high resolution movies or doing multitasking. So, net book was got out of my choice at first.
I started comparing and benchmarking laptops that are small and light without DVD-ROM because I never used it and really don't want it on my laptop. This time I am pretty sure what I really want.
Among these three laptops Lenovo Idea Pad U350, Acer 3810T, and Asus UL30a. Finally, I made up my on Asus ul30a-X3 because I think it has the best value in many categories out of these three laptops.

"Lenovo IdeaPad U350 and the MSI X340, we liked the overall performance on the UL30A-A1 better. And as far as its closest competitor goes, the Acer Aspire Timeline 3810T, the Asus UL30A-A1 had equal or better performance, better battery life, and costs $100 less than the 3810T did at launch. This is a thin-and-light that does everything we had hoped thin-and-lights would do, and it costs nowhere near what a MacBook Air or a Dell Adamo does."
from cnet review

It has a big enough screen for watching movies and spacious keyboard area for typing work. Battery life is very long up to 11hr or even longer because I am not only using this all day along. So when I am not using this, it automatically goes to sleep mode. In this way it saves batter life and can use this pretty much all day without the cord. Temperature and noise both are very low. I can hardly hear or feel noise and warmness. One last good thing I want to mention is its solid and elegance looking with aluminum brushed lid
There are some minor down sides, screen is bit glossy and has short view of angle when watching movies but there are not big problems to me since it has all the great features

Pros
- Thin and light, hence the portability
- It doesn't heat up like other laptops
- So far, it's feels like a fast computer to me
- I personally like the keyboard
- At least 8 hours battery life with normal usage

Cons
- No optical drive (but you should be aware of this before purchasing)
- the touch pad does annoy me because it doesn't have borders and I do end up clicking on things with my wrist without knowing (I plan on using a mouse and locking the touch pad, so it's not a big deal)
- The package is missing a mouse and carry bag (Amazon did a great job compensating for this! 20% off!)

If you don't get the Asus get something with the Ultra low Voltage Intel processor like the UL series has. It has the power of a full laptop and the portability and battery life of a net book. NOT A NET BOOK. Since it isn't published any where else the battery it ships with is a low profile battery and doesn't add to the thickness at all.

I love this laptop, it has a lot of new software developed by Asus that I find helpful, along with a 8 sec internet, picture, pdf, music portal quick start up (more like 15 sec). Battery life CAN BE 10+ HRS espaesially if you use the quick start feature a lot because you can avoid hibernating and resuming a lot.

The mouse pad however I don't love because it seems to be a little too glossy for you finger to glide on it and not as responsive as I would like. The mouse pad has a cool software feature by Asus. They made an easy to use scroll, pop-up menu, zoom, open programs (or what-ever you want to set it as) built in to the mouse pad. I think that is why the sensitivity is kind of low.

I gave it five stars because I feel like for the price it cant be beat. ~200 dollars less than a student offer Mac-book, ~400 less than a reg Mac-book, and less than half the price of a Mac-book pro. Also i think it's better than any other quality windows laptop (dell, hp are all i can speak for) Ive seen in price range.

The laptop is fine it runs cooler then my HP and battery life is not quite 11 hours but long enough for my use. My complaint is I've mailed the warrenty card as directed and had it returned, the address that was printed on the warrenty card is not correct and there is no phone number in the US you can reach. My upgrade to window 7 required me to mail,fax or e-mail to a chinese address.I have faxed then e-mail with no response from ASUS.

Great laptop so far. Excellent battery life. This was a migration from the ASUS 1000H, so small size was not an issue. In fact the screen and keyboard seem huge in comparison.

Three small complaints / notes about the system, however. One, the screen has a somewhat narrow view angle. (Not necessarily a problem, but very noticeable when sitting on a desk and you walk up to it.) Two, the facial recognition software works great sometimes and not so great at others. And three the battery / back side of the laptop feels a little soft/squeezable. (It doesn't affect the machine at all, but is noticeable when you carry the closed unit and it feels like there is play in the back hinge area.)

Other than that, it is a great unit, with a very generous standard warranty that includes 1 year of accidental damage coverage. I would buy again.

I got this computer as a 2nd computer to obtain extra long battery life. However, its performance despond me.

ASUS claimed 12+ hr battery life. I kept the computer under the condition where consumer can set to: battery saving mode, dime the display, turn off the wireless, do not run any application. The estimated battery from computer shown exact 10 hr, regarding the charging percentage in 100%, 95%, 90%, and 85%. Basically, when the computer is idle, the estimated hour is always 10hr, less than 12 hr, also not accurate in different charging %. So, I believe ASUS has lied to consumer about the battery life.

The keyboard can be better. Very often, the mouse cursor jumps around while I am typing. No any other computer keyboard will do this type poor job.

In addition, the computer does not come with Bluetooth and miss the carrying case and mouse as advertised by Amazon.

Recommend wait for better model.

I do not own this product but do own an Asus netbook. The only flaw is the too small shift key on the right. In the picture of this product, there is also an undersized shift key which is odd for a notebook of this size.
Just a thought.