From the series "not a month without an article about Eee", we present you today the ASUS Eee PC 1000HE netbook. Unlike the last tested model (Eee PC S121), this one comes with a display of only 10 inch (against 12.2 inch), mounted into a case without Swarovski crystals. On the bright side we mention the powerful processor, the MacBook / Sony VAIO keyboard and theoretical autonomy of 9.5 hours.



Mainly solid and compact (with the exception of the plastic which fits the keys which seems to be pretty fragile), ASUS Eee PC 1000HE is distinguished by the shiny black case on which the fingerprints remain even at the softest touch. The biggest credit of the Taiwanese is the keyboard on which you can type almost as comfortable as on a premium notebook keyboard. Its size represents 92% of a standard laptop.

The implementation of the multi touch technology on the navigating trackpad is also welcome. Anyone who frequently uses a portable computer would love that, in the absence of the mouse, through the pad to easily realize different actions, and the multi touch helps you with exactly this problem.

Specifications
- Intel Atom N280 1.66 GHz processor
- 1 GB of DDR2 RAM memory
- Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 500 graphics card
- 10 inch display 1024 x 600 and LED backlight
- 160 GB SATA II hard drive
- LAN / WiFi / Bluetooth / 3 x USB 2.0 connectivity
- Windows XP Home Edition operating system
- trackpad multi touch
- 1.3 mega pixels web camera
- card reader MMC / SD / MS
- Kensington security
- 1.45 weight
- 26,6 x 19,1 x 2,85 - 3,8 cm size



The Intel Atom N280 processor is not too much performing than Z530. I tried running High Definition movies both with VLC Player and with SMPlayer - in both cases I didn't receive a fluent framerate. Anyway, on a netbook with a 10 inch display, well coded DVD movies and even DivX movies are seen great. About Office and photo environment, it would be necessary at least 1 GB extra of memory, especially while editing photos. I'm talking about simple editing, not 3D rendering or other operations specific to editing at professional level.

On the screen the images are seen very well in any lighting condition. Unlike the most of the notebooks today, equipped with glossy displays, ASUS Eee PC 1000HE is presenting with a matte LCD which even if it does not benefit from ultra intense colors and contrast, in powerful light it doest not transform into a mirror like the shiny ones.



Processor loading level
- HD rendering - 60%
- DivX rendering - 5%
- HDD Index reading (Sandra 2009) - 50.1 MB/s
- folder archiving i386 (6000 files, 572 MB) - 12 minutes and 5 seconds

The autonomy still remains the strong part of the netbook, even if the 9.5 theoretical hours remain only on the paper. In practice, Eee PC 1000 HE has managed as following:

- Office - 7 hours and 12 minutes (activated WiFi, Portable / Laptop mode)
- DivX - 6 hours and 20 minutes (deactivated WiFi, Max Battery mode)

ASUS Eee PC 1000HE is a great friend when you are on the road, when you have no power outlet near your. Compact and easy, with a comfortable keyboard, practically we can't say anything bad about it - maybe just that it does not delight us with High Definition movies. We are waiting for the price which certainly will have an important share in the final evaluation.

Presented on 5 of January 2010 in Las Vegas (at the CES 2010), the ASUS Eee PC 1008P Seashell netbook did not stay too much under the spot lights and has left fast towards other destinations, less famous but certainly filled with people anxious to see and feel everything which moves in the IT area.



We really wanted to begin the year with a special product and it seems that our wishes have been listened. It was not Nexus One, but the new ASUS netbook from the Seashell range has many of reasons to be proud of itself: it is carrying the signature of the famous designer Karim Rashid and this thing can be clearly seen, from high quality fabrics and with a special pattern like soft waves which don't let the fingerprints to remain noticed.



The interior is sheltering a 10.1 inch screen with LED backlight and a special keyboard, spaced in VAIO / MacBook style. On the side parts the connecting interfaces are not as clear sight but covered with some caps. This aspect contributes to the general aesthetics but it makes it harder to access the USB access and even the Ethernet port. Without affecting us in practice but with a big plus in aesthetics is the positioning of the VGA out port into a secret slot, hidden behind the netbook. When you need it, the slot can be removed and connected through an extension cable on an elegant miniUSB interface.

Using the touchpad does not rise problems because, although it has small sizes, is offering a good response and it is not surrounded with an edge which to limit your moves. In plus, it supports multi touch gestures. With these being said, let's see what is under the hood.



Specifications

- Intel NM10 Express chipset
- Intel Atom N450 processor 1.66 GHz
- 2 GH of DDR2 RAM memory
- 250 GB Seagate 5400 rpm SATA II hard drive
- LAN / Bluetooth / WiFi 802.11 b / g / n
- 1.3 mega pixels web camera
- card reader
- Windows 7 Started edition operating system
- 1.13 kg weight
- 3 cells battery

The new Pineview processor disappoints at performance chapter. Rendering High Definition (HD 720p) movies is made jerky and the only way to make them run fluent is minimizing the player's window. About Full High Definition we can not talk.

Many would say that you don't buy a netbook for movies, but if you insist you can use the classic DivX. True, only that High Definition format is spreading more and more and I believe that no one wants to waste time with conversions. In plus, let's remind ourselves that there are launched telephones capable on rendering High Definition content.



In rest, like the rest of the netbooks, ASUS Eee PC 1008P is behaving satisfying in Office and Internet applications. the autonomy is decent for a 3 cells battery, but insufficient for more demanding users from this point of view: almost 3 hours of DivX rendering (with WiFi off) and over 5 hours in the economic mode Power Saver. In Balanced mode, with WiFi on and the following application opened: browser with a loaded webpage with Flash + a text processing software, the battery is empty in maximum three hours.

Goods and bads

Goods
- special design, excellent manufacturing
- comfortable keyboard and touchpad
- small and light
- screen with LED backlight

Bads
- it runs jerky High Definition content
- quite low autonomy

ASUS Eee PC 1008P Seashell is recommended to the ones who pay price on the design and don't have too many claims when it's about multimedia performance.

ASUS Eee PC S121 Netbook

In the fall of 2008, we received a fabulous ASUS portable computer, named Eee PC S101. Thanks to the perfect design, very good performance in its class and the Swarovski crystals which were offering an additional distinction, we named it at that time "The king of netbooks". The same as no one lives or leads forever, its glory time has gone and another netbook has been shown in front of the crowd who wanted to know which is the new ultra portable. Well, it comes also from the Eee family and it is the follower of S101. We proudly present you the royal model Asus Eee PC S121.

More fine and luxurious than the S101. The design is practically unmatched and from this point of view I can compare it to Apple Macbook. Also, the multi touch pad and keyboard are irreproachable, and as a bonus you are provided with a restpad covered with natural leather on which to rest your palms with style. The Swarovski crystals are present in the well known places, on the joint extremes towards the display and the netbook's body.



Immediately after the first row of keys, on the extremities, are found two important keys. The right one - the Power button and the left one for powering the netbook in Express Gate mode which is offering you access in just 4 seconds to Web, E-mail, chat and multimedia content. Practically we are speaking about a mini operating system manufactured by ASUS for the ones who wish to fast access the most usual applications and in the same time to save power.

The general appearance is a very nice one, and here the credit goes to the designers who have chosen to dress the case into a deep shiny black framed into silver metallic lines. The sizes are as attractive as can be and are making out of S121 a real portable computer. Imagine if the netbook is perfectly covering an A4 paper (29.7 cm), and its weight is approximately 1.3 kg. In the thickest side of the case is measured only 2.5 cm.



Differences from S101 and performance. The Intel Atom Z520 processor, although it is working at a lower frequency than the N27 (1.33 GHz against 1.6 GHz) it has the advantage of a reduced power consumption and from here is resulting a bigger autonomy. As performance, in synthetic tests made with Sisoft Sandra 2009, the Z520 processor was capable of 4202 kPixels/s and N270 5222 kPixels/s.

The autonomy is the cherry on the cake on this computer. I believe it was for the first time I quit standing afraid looking at the battery indicator, watching how the power percentage is decreasing. ASUS Eee PC S121 has managed to continuously render, for 4 and 30 minutes DivX movies. For power saving I chose Max Saving mode, the greatest from this point of view - it reduces the frequency to 800 MHz and it keeps it constant at this value.

For Office and Internet applications, you do not need more computing power. The Maximum Performance mode brings an additional speed, but even so, the Taiwan netbook was not able on rendering High Definition movies. This seems to be the only disadvantage, in rest S121 is doing great on the tasks for which it was designed - applications oriented towards Internet and Office.

When talking about visual experience, I noticed the differences between S101 and S121. The display has a 12.2 inch diagonal, a bigger resolution - 1280 x 800 and LED backlight. The viewing angle is better than on S101.

ASUS Eee PC Seashell NetBook

Although it has not been officially launched, our insider placed deep inside the company has managed to bring us an ASUS Eee PC Seashell NetBook. When the crisis is biting more from the economy and our nerves, the netbooks are taking percentage after percentage from the laptop sales and are attracting the users with the reduced prices and sizes. Eee PC Seashell is attracting us with other qualities too, as you will see during this article.



With so many netbooks from the Eee PC series launched lately and other which are announced for the future, ASUS made life difficult for us, the ones who must identify them. There will be two Eee PC Seashell netbooks, 1005HA-M and 1005HA-H, with some differences between them. As he did not take the risk to get out with both of the netbooks from the company, our insider has brought us the 1005HA-M model.

High tech shell. Seashell is an inspired name chosen for this netbook. The design looks like a seashell, a seashell with which an internet addict would rather spend a day on the beach with wireless internet. With the autonomy which is offering us, it is not just a fantasy. Plus, Seashell is a good sounding name, easy to memorize by the users. Instead of searching in the stores for a 1005HA-M netbook, I feel a little less geek if I ask about Eee PC Seashell.

I believe that seashell is a reference which can explain better the design of the netbook than my words. Eee PC Seashell is one of the sexiest netbooks which I touched. The base of it does not have the same thickness on the whole area. The battery area is the thickest, gradually losing mm to the other side, the side where the LEDs are. The upper side, with the screen has the same line, just that it is significantly thinner.



The netbook's design does not leave space for interpretations. Eee PC Seashell is compact and solid. It weighs only 1.4 kg having a 6 cell battery. The screen is on LEDs, is measuring 10 inches and has 1024 x 600 pixels resolution. The image quality is good but not sensational. Seashell has preinstalled a set of ASUS utilities, among which is found Splendid - a mini application with preset color profiles.

In proportion of 95% I got along perfect with the Eee PC Seashell's keyboard. Maybe it mattered that I already have a netbook and I did not need time to get used to it. The keyboard is, I believe, as good as a 10 inch netbook keyboard can be.

The 5 percent which I did not like are coming from the arrow design. The four arrows are placed on the space of only three, and sacrificed are the vertical arrows. These are only half of a horizontal arrow.



The touchpad is original. Looks to be designed more for appearance than for functionality. I'm saying this because the Seashell's touchpad is not clearly delimited from the rest of the netbook, it merges into the netbook piece it belongs to. With the exception of the metallic bar used to emulate the mouse clicks, the touchpad area used for moving the cursor is made out from the same plastic, with the same color as the rest of the area under the keyboard. Only the fact that it is covered with many dots which can be felt as little crampons, are indicating from where and to where the touchpad lies.

ASUS Eee PC 1101HA Seashell - the 11.6 inch seashell. The story of the netbooks started in 2007 with a 7 inch Eee PC and a resolution limited to the use. Now, after two years, ASUS is launching the third generation with the Eee PC 1101HA Seashell model. Taken by its dimensions of 8.9 inch and 10.1 inch, the next on which the portable manufacturers stopped was 11.6 inch and once with it has been introduced the High Definition resolution 1366 x 768. It can not be said that the current model is offering all that is fresh and good in the netbook area, but it is representative for the direction on which the ultra portable cheap devices are going.



Decoding the name. The ones who watched the netbooks market know that the most prolific manufacturer is far from ASUS, the one who really launched the first representative. Unfortunately, most of the users, including the one which is written about in this article, have been drowned by the huge number of distinct models. The 7 inch ones were 6, the ones of 8.9 are 10, and numbering the 10.1 inch ones, ASUS has 13. The first two numbers of this laptop's name are indicating the screen's diagonal. The H letter was used for the models which were equipped with hard drive. The Seashell series are representing a design update for Eee PCs, distinguishing itself especially from the thin profile of the portables.



Acer Aspire 751 was the first 11.6 inch netbook which we had in hand, and at the performance chapter, with the Eee PC 1101HA I had a deja vu feeling. The portable was offered to us for testing, not with the Windows XP operating system with which it is delivered, but with the RC version of the fresh Windows 7. And with Aero interface activated, although the video performances are not so great, the system ran decent, and making it sometimes feel that it would need an extra GB of RAM memory. The performance differences were not huge while deactivating the Aero interface.

In Windows 7 we ran a Blu-ray movie, but the drivers were hard on us. The main problem while running Windows 7 on ASUS Eee PC1101HA were strictly related to the drivers. On the official website are found only the ones for Windows XP, incompatible with Windows 7. The operating system detected all the components, including the web camera and the Bluetooth mode, and they behaved pretty well. But we got hit by the problems while running movies because not all the renders were working along with the FREE video drivers. Strangely, we managed to run fluent video clips at 720p resolutions and 1080p, and even a Blu-ray movie with the help of the Media Player Classic Home Cinema. We did not expect this from 1101HA's configuration. Although, the video drivers are cranky and there were moments when the only solution to stop the jammed video player was resetting the portable.



Another reason for which why we need Windows XP related to the autonomy. ASUS is using its own Super Hybrid Engine in order to optimize the performance profiles of the system and to offer an autonomy which will go up to the 9.5 specified hours. In our case, we had to thank with the default profiles of Windows 7. We did not make any illusions that we would get any close to the specified autonomy.

ASUS Eee PC 901 with Intel Atom monitoring. After we presented you in premiere the Asus Eee PC700 and 900, we have the possibility to show you the newest model from the range, ASUS Eee PC901. Despite the fact that in actually still is an Eee PC 900, the newest version has something special: the long talked Intel Atom processor. The version received for the test was equipped with the same Linux distribution previously presented. In fact, most of the things written about Eee PC 900 are available in this case also. We won't repeat the details about the equipment and design, the ones interested in this can view the previous article about the Asus Eee PC 900.



Intel Atom N270. This is the processor which gives life to the new ASUS Eee PC 901. With the code name Diamondville and built with 45 nm technology, it normally works at 1.6 GHz. I must admit the fact that we had great hopes related to this new processor from Intel, but I had to temper them when I saw that this was equipped with only 512 KB of L2 cache. Also, N270 is a processor with a single core. The dual core version of the Intel Atom is programmed for the end of this year or the beginning of the next year.



The processor fro Eee PC 901's case is a mobile one and has default variable frequency. For controlling this facility, ASUS is offering Super Hybrid Engine, a huge name for an application with only four options. In the Auto Power Saving mode, the processor's frequency will vary depending on its load, but probably will not go over 1.6 GHz. The ones who wish to work in the office environment and need a higher autonomy, they can select the Power Saving mode in which Intel Atom N270 is reducing its frequency down to 1.2 GHz. The High Performance mode keeps the fixed frequency of 1.6 GHz. Interesting is the fact that we are provided with a Super Performance mode. Here, the Core architecture of the processor is showing its potential, this being overclocked at 1.8 GHz. Obviously, choosing this mode of working will seriously damage the autonomy.

Achieving some relevant performance tests would have been possible under Windows XP, but its elegant installation would have beep possible with the help of an external optical drive which we weren't provided with. We quit on that idea and we focused over the applications which are provided by the manufacturer. The web browser is Mozilla Firefox 2.0 and we focused our attention over the processor's loading when opening a web page with a lot of flash animations. Four commercials of different sizes were enough to keep the processor at 15 - 20%. The best present you could do to yourself if you would use Eee PC 901 for Internet surfing is a Firefox extension which to block the pop-ups.

On the multimedia part, the preinstalled audio player loads the processor with about 7 - 8%, no matter if the played files are MP3 or FLAC. Running the movies was a test which the ultra portable from ASUS did not graduate easy. The installed application is Mplayer and it contains the necessary codecs for almost any kind of known video format. A compressed movie with DivX or XviD was framing from time to time if it was running another major application in the background. Only in the Super Performance mode we have enjoyed a fluent running of the movie, the only working application was the video player.

ASUS G51J 3D - far from the expected 3D experience.

After updating the drivers to the last version, the ASUS G51J 3D laptop has given better results regarding the 3D experience. We want to mention that only in certain circumstances you can see well. First, the screen's brightness must be increased to maximum. Each inferior level amplifies the unpleasant flickering effects. Second, good results are obtained in darker spaces or in weak light, natural. The neon light has a devastating effect over the 3D Vision experience - in resonates with the glasses (they have a 50 Hz frequency, close to the ones of the lenses) and again the flickering effect is appearing. Whatever, it is preferred that the 3D area depth to be adjustable somewhere at the minimum, because its increase does not contribute to the improving of the 3D effect, it actually doubles the image. In conclusion, we still believe that there is a long way until we will really enjoy these technologies borrowed from cinemas and brought to our homes.

We long waited, especially that the madness with the 3D movies and televisions is spreading as it goes. ASUS G51J is one of the path openers on the 3D laptops market. It comes with NVIDIA 3D Vision support (graphics card compatible, 120 Hz refresh rate screen, 3D glasses and wireless transmitter), meant to offer us an experience close to the ones in the cinema rooms where 3D movies are rolled.



In this moment, only three games are certified NVIDIA 3D Vision: "Batman: Arkham Asylum", "Biohazard 5" and "Resident Evil 5". The rest of the compatible games are placed on categories, depending on the rating, from not recommended to excellent in 3D Vision mode.

A boring and far from realism 3D. We tried to obtain the best experience offered by the stereoscopic technology and we played Batman: Arkham Asylum. The fire test was proving that is more to work at the 3D laptops. The image does not have a good depth, and the most disturbing is the shaking of the image because of the refresh rate (60 Hz on each lens). After 30 minutes of gaming, the tiring feeling can be associated with the one which you feel when you stay for hours in front of the monitor. All of my colleagues, who tested the 3D glasses, have noticed the discomfort during the tests.

NVIDIA 3D Vision is not limited to games only. You can view images and watch movies. A good impression was left by a viewed concert, it's like it has brought a plus of immersion compared to the ordinary rendering. To small to change my opinion.



The conclusion is that, in this moment, it does not worth the investment into a 3D laptop. It costs with over $300 more than a laptop with the same configuration (less the 3D kit and the 120 Hz refresh rate screen), and the experience is far from being satisfying. With these being said, let's go to its configuration and performances.

- Intel Core i7 720QM processor 1.6 GHz - up to 2.8 GHz in Turbo
- 4 GB DDR3 RAM memory
- 15.6 inch High Definition screen with LED backlight 1366 x 768
- NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260M graphics card with 1 GB DDR3 memory
- 2 x 320 GB 7200 rpm Seagate hard drives
- DVD-RW optical drive
- connectivity: LAN, WiFi 802.11 b / g / n, Bluetooth
- 4 x USB 2.0, HDMI, VGA, E-SATA, Firewire interfaces
- Windows 7 Home Premium operating system
- 3.3 Kg weight

ASUS M60J - so you don't need a desktop at home.

In the spirit of the predictions made by Google, such as the Personal Computer desktops will be "dead" in three years, we present the ASUS M60 laptop. The manufacturer fits it in the multimedia portables category, its main advantages being the top configuration, performing graphics card, Blu-ray optical drive and multimedia keys. The 16 inch screen diagonal places it at the limit of portability, and the weight and autonomy are not very good for those who frequently go on the road. On the other side, such a combination of features makes it certainly attractive for those who want to give up their voluminous desktop from home.

Shiny and bright. Most of the ASUS portables are built with shiny plastic and M60J respects it. This does not only mean that the laptop has a cheap design. On the contrary, the joints look very good, and the design seams very solid. The resistance tests in various cases is up to you to try. We would like to see a chiclet keyboard, with the same qualities as on the Asus G73. But we have a keyboard which is pretty spread through the portables of the Taiwan manufacturer. It flexes very little the interior of the case, but the Del key is tiny, and the cursors must be visual identified most of the times before being used.

The area between the keyboard, screen and Altec Lansing speakers is filled with touch sensitive buttons. We wish we could say that there are all multimedia keys you need on a computer, but this is not the case. If you frequently use Windows Media Center in order to access multimedia content from your memory, then those buttons are excellent. Otherwise, they are totally useless. Not even Winamp can be controlled with their help. The only useful area is the one for adjusting the volume. This action requires a little practice thanks to the increased sensitivity of the area. Only the volume indicator is on all the time. The other buttons are turning off after a while and most of you will appreciate this. The touchpad is relatively small and a little drowned inside the case. We did not feel the need to deactivate it while writing the article because I never touched it by mistake.



The most powerful mobile processor. The ones interested in the actual offer from Intel will find listed Core i7 820QM as being the most powerful processor. With these being said, the giant IT is asking no more than $546 on it and you can not buy it if you don't order another 999 besides it. For your general culture, only the i7 800 and i7 700 series are Quad Core, and the first of them is the only one which is offering 8 MB of L2 cache. In the synthetically tests made by SiSoft Sandra, the processor was located a little over a Core 2 Quad Q8200, and a Core i7 920 for desktops will offer a performing progress with approximately 40% more than it.

ASUS N61 - NVIDIA Optimus and USB 3.0 premiere.

NVIDIA has official announced the Optimus technology, which will allow the users of portables with two graphics cards to make the switch from one to another without interrupting anything. The Taiwan designer has created this model so the users can enjoy a great quality of multimedia experience. We will se if the first laptop with NVIDIA Optimus and USB 3.0 managed to rise at our level of expectations.



A classic design recipe. There are no exceptions from the rules. Asus is making laptops with shiny plastic and glare screens. This time, the Taiwan designer made a matte restpad, which is pleasant to the touch. Under the silver grill from the base of the screen, are found a pair of Altec Lansing speakers with a decent audio quality. The ON button has been surrounded with a bright circle which thank God it is not annoying when using the portable. When you open ASUS N61 you can't skip over a sticker on which is written "USB 3.0". It is placed in the right of the single USB port on the left side. In order to make the difference between the ports, USB 3.0 has a blue interior connector.



The chiclet keyboard is decent and its flexibility, from the past, now it is almost absent. Typing is now a pleasure, but you will still zoom while looking at the superior row where the Delete button is. The touch pad with multi touch support from ELAN can be deactivated. Its precision is not so great, the two fingers scroll could be sometimes interpreted as zoom. The warm air inside the case is coming out through the fans on the left side and you have to be careful on the object in their way because they can seriously get hot while a gaming session.

Specifications
- 16 inch glare screen with LED backlight, 1366 x 768
- Intel Core i5-540M 2.53 GHz (Turbo - 3.06 GHz) processor
- Intel PM55 chipset
- 4 GB of DDR3 1066 MHz memory
- built-in Intel Graphics Media Accelerator HD
- NVIDIA GeForce GT325M with 1 GB of RAM graphics card
- 640 GB 5400 rpm hard drive
- Blu-Ray 4x optical drive
- 802.11 b / g / n, LAN network
- connectors: 1 x USB 3.0, 2 x USB 2.0, eSATA, HDMI, VGA, 2 x audio
- 6 cell battery
- 2.8 Kg weight
- Bluetooth
- hybrid TV tuner
- Altec Lansing speakers
- ExpressCard
- card reader



Nvidia Optimus - the wonder ingredient. This technology from NVIDIA could be one of the most important ones in the last years. The graphics cards designer wanted to offer an easier way to switch of the used adaptor. With Optimus, switching from the integrated graphics card to the separate one is done instantaneous, without the users notice something. When it is not detected a game or when it is ran a program which is using the processing power of the graphics card, the switch is automatically. The control interface of the NVIDIA card allows adding applications or games which are not already included in the preset profile. NVIDIA sustains that the games list will be frequently updated with internet updating.

The main advantage of the Optimus technology is that a laptop equipped with a separate performing graphics card can have the same autonomy of one with an on-board card. The separate card is almost totally disconnected from power when it is not used and it will not have any impact over the battery.

ASUS K70 - multimedia and games in a 17.3 inch package.

When ASUS first got out on the market with a laptop with 17.3 inch screen and 16:9 aspect ratio, certainly did not think about the programmers or illustrators. These are the sizes associated with the multimedia environment. The screen's aspect was designed to leave even thinner black lines over and under the Hollywood movies, and the size of the screen suggests the fact that the notebook will leave less the desk from home or work. These are features with which ASUS K70 presents itself, a portable which will be framed in the Multimedia Entertainment category, near its predecessor, the F70.



Design. The shiny plastic is specific for ASUS and K70 of course is using it. The keys are bigger and the fast typing is not stopped. The touch pad makes part of the rest pad where is indicated by a network of small concavities. Like in the case of ASUS U50, the touch pad is offering multi touch support through the ELAN Smart Pad application. ASUS forgot to put on the keyboard a button for touchpad deactivation, useful when it is used as a mouse. Although its surface it is not so big, the touch pad can be touched while typing.

The screen has a narrower frame than the one from the first 17.3 inch portable. We did not escape from the glare filter yet, the light sources from the back are annoying while using. The web camera is at its place over the screen, and the microphone is found on the inferior side of it. The new Altec Lansing logo has been placed over the keyboard, but the speakers are not in the same area. They have beep placed behind some frontal slots under the laptop. The sound is so reflected in the surface of the desk before it reaches to the user's ears. The connectors are placed in the side areas, with the exception of the HDMI port which we find in the back.



Specifications
- 17.3 inch glare screen 1600 x 900
- Intel Core 2 Duo T6400 2 GHz processor
- NVIDIA MCP79 chipset
- NVIDIA GeForce GT 120M graphics card
- 2 GB of DDR2 memory
- 320 GB Seagate 5400 rpm hard drive
- DVD writer optical drive
- LAN, 802.11 b / g / n network
- connectors: 4 x USB, HDMI, VGA, 2 x audio
- 6 cell battery
- 3.5 Kg weight
- web camera
- card reader
- Altec Lansing speakers



Created for multimedia. The screen of the ASUS K70 has LED backlight and that is obviously observable. It can be disturbingly light at the maximum setting for some users. The response time is really good for games. The movies should be the main source of entertainment for the potential clients of ASUS K70, but the viewing angles are narrow, especially on vertical. The screen's format, as we said at the beginning, is excellent for Hollywood movies. The speakers are not bad either. If the laptop is help on your feet or in bed, the sound will be partially attenuated because of the textile. The volume of the two speakers is great for their size.

Games? Why not? ASUS K70 is equipped with GeForce GT120M graphics card which is part of the penultimate generation from NVIDIA. When running the well known 3D Mark 2006 on default settings we got an excellent score with 5071 points. This performance is similar to one of a desktop graphics card GeForce 8600GT.