Laptop - Notebook Reviews

The Asus Z63a is not an ultra-portable Notebook PC , but definitely falls into the “thin and light” category. At 5.5lbs, the Asus Z63a is light enough to carry around, and also has an unique features: Concealed Bamboo Battery Hinge Design for Modern Sophistication.
• High brightness LCD display with ASUS Color Shine and Crystal Shine Technology
• Hot swappable 2nd Battery provides extendable battery life
• Hot swappable 2nd HDD provides the flexibility of data access
• Asus Wireless Optical Mouse
• Power4 Gear+: all new intelligent battery conservation management.

Asus Z63a Screen:
One of the key factors when you are looking for a laptop is the screen, especially after I had witnessed the beauty of the latest crop of True/X/Clear-Brite glossy screens that are quite ubiquitous at your local CompUSA or Office Depot. While some passionately claim that the matte screen is better due to fewer issues with glare, I wholeheartedly feel that the glossy screen is the way to go. The colors are amazingly vibrant, and staring at this Word document with a white background and full brightness is almost painful because the screen can get so bright. I have yet to have any issues with glare, and I feel that any I may have in the future is a small price to pay for the vivid colors. Watching Quicktime HD movie trailers is nothing short of stunning, and it really has to be seen to be believed. Additionally, there are no dead pixels, and there does not seem to be any backlighting issues, although I won’t pretend to be an expert on this.

Asus Z63a Processor and Performance:
The only two real systems I have used a lot of prior to buying this laptop was Inspiron 1100 (Celeron 2GHz, 512MB Ram) and our desktop (AMD 2400+, 768MB Ram). The Z63A feels faster than the desktop, without a doubt. While the harddrive is only 5400RPM compared to 7200RPM on the desktop (thus making some tasks like unzipping large files a little slower), the processor is blazing fast when running at 1.8GHz. Also, the 1GB of RAM makes loading programs nearly instantaneous, and altogether it feels like I have a faster computer than the desktop I was replacing; something which I hadn’t really expected. Even though I usually run the processor at 800mhz to save on battery life and keep the heat low, it is more than enough horsepower for my day-to-day iTunes/Firefox/Email/Word use.

Asus Z63a Battery Life:
I will admit that I was pretty apprehensive about the battery life on the Z63A after hearing that it could barely go over 3 hours. While this may not seem too shabby, I was hoping for a bit more. However, with sensible management of the processor speed (I recommend downloading Centrino Hardware Control instead of Asus’ PowerGear software as it is much more robust), and a little less brightness in the screen, one can easily surpass 3 hours and even get about 4.5 hours or more.

Asus Z63a Features:

• 14.1″ Widescreen WXGA (1280×768), Enhanced LCD/TFT with Asus Color Shine (gloss-type glare suppressor) and Crystal Shine (high brightness) technologies
• Intel “Centrino” certified: Intel® Pentium® M Processor at 1.6Ghz-2.13Ghz (Dothan), 400 & 533Mhz FSB, or Mobile Celeron M Processor
• Intel Sonoma ( 915GM & ICH6-M) chipset with Integrated graphics, up to 128mb  
• DDR-2 400/533 Memory , up to 2GB
• Parallel ATA Hard Drive, up to 100GB
• DVD-rom/CD-RW or (option) DVD ± RW Combo Drive
• Hot-swap module bay (option) for 2nd Hard Drive or for 2nd Battery (up to 8 hours of honest battery life)
• Integrated Fax/Modem and 10/100/1000 Mbps Fast Ethernet controller
• Integrated Intel/PRO Centrino wireless 802.11a/b/g
• 3 x USB 2.0 ports, VGA port for external monitor, IEEE 1394 (Firewire) port, Card Reader, 32-bit CardBus/Type II PCMCIA slot, Audio out (SPDIF), TV-out (S-Video)
• Li-Ion 8 cell battery: 4400mAh, 4S2P, 65W/Hrs (with capability for 2nd battery)
• 13” x 9.7” x 1.18”, 4.8Lbs with single battery and optical drive

Tags:

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 20th, 2006 at 10:08 am and is filed under ASUS. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.