Let’s face facts. Not everyone can pull off carrying a leather notebook. But if you want to stand out in the crowd without sacrificing performance, the Centrino 2–powered ASUS U6V is certainly a temptation. This 3.8-pound ultraportable offers very good productivity punch for people on the move, along with above-average graphics performance, and it boots in less than 50 seconds. The $1,649 price is also quite reasonable given that ASUS includes a whopping 320GB hard drive and a generous two-year warranty. However, you’ll need to spend more for the nine-cell battery option if you want to do a lot of work away from an outlet.
Design
It would be ignoring the obvious to start anywhere else than the U6V’s excellent design. Measuring 11.7 x 8.6 x 1.2 inches and weighing 3.8 pounds, the U6V has a hair more girth than the 11.1-inch U2E , which measures 10.9 x 7.6 x 1.0 inches and wieghs 3.4 pounds (with a nine-cell battery). With the larger body, however, comes a bigger 12.1-inch display, which will satisfy those who prefer more on-screen real estate in their ultraportables.
The outside of the machine features a rich, mocha brown Shimmering Fiber paint job, and sturdy hinges that are neither too stiff nor too loose. Upon lifting the lid, your eye is immediately drawn to the palmrest, which is overlaid with premium brown leather. Not only does it have classy appeal, but it feels good to the touch.
Keyboard and Dedicated Controls
The spacious flex-free keyboard has very nice tactile feedback; touch typists should be right at home on this machine. A decent-size touchpad and two small (but responsive) mouse buttons let us navigate the desktop with ease. Nestled between the mouse buttons is a biometric fingerprint reader for keeping sensitive data away from prying eyes.
Above the keyboard are a number of status indicator icons and three buttons: Lifeframe 3 (a multimedia application that lets you shoot photos or video with the murky 0.3-megapixel webcam and add effects), Power4Gear (which let us cycle through various power profiles), and the power button. The perimeter of the machine is packed with ports: three USB 2.0, HDMI, VGA, eSATA, Ethernet, headphone, and microphone, and an 8-in-1 memory card reader and ExpressCard slot.
Dell Laptops Starting at $449
